I am an American and I hope the EU changes how MS treats it's customers (that includes Americans).
I don't know it will come to this. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems as though the US is running the EU and not the other way around. I'm referring to software patents, DMCA-like legislation and secret services spying on civilians without warrants (to fit in the War on Terrorism).
Oh and the current President of the EU is a gangster who has thus far prevented the Italian courts from sending him to prison by getting parliament to pass a law giving him immunity from prosecution.
Jup, Silvio Berlusconi he's called. He gets off on attacking people personally in parliament.
I can't help but wonder though if MS is going to get another slap on the wrist or if the EU will actually apply some meaningful rulings and ENFORCE THEM.
I for one hope MS will be charged 10^50 Euros.
(1? = 1.17$);)
Maybe socialism like they have in europe IS the better way to go.
For the people, absolutely. For companies and their representatives in Congress, the White House and the Senate, definitely not. Little or no change is to be expected in the US in the coming century, I'm afraid.
Before you move to Europe, do some looking around first. They're just as capitalistic as the US.
Well, I'm from Belgium (obviously), and I have the impression our government watches big corporations VERY closely as such matters are concerned. Sure, we are capitalistic too, because we support the free market and open up government businesses for denationalisation.
But our government is not turning fascist on us, it doesn't restrict civil liberties because the Corporation asks them. They have no reason to, because political parties can't accept money from companies without creatin an extensively-covered scandal.
How is copying commercial jingles considered copyright infringment? I mean, we get advertisement messages pumped into our brain every second of our miserable life: spam, sms commercials, banners on webpages, billboards, stickers, flyers, tv ads,...
Why would anyone involved in making advertisement want to stop people copying commercial jingles?
Waauw. You're a real economic expert. Let me explain to you how this works.
Suppose you invent some new kind of AA battery that lasts twice as long as the average alkaline AA battery. Don't you think people will be willing to pay more for your battery? If a normal AA battery costs 2$, you could easily charge 3$ and people would still buy it. 50% higher price but 100% more capacity, a moron can do the math (even an anonymous one). And if you deliver a good product, people will be happy with it and continue to buy it. So what if they'll buy it less often? You will be the most succesful battery producer, because you deliver the best product. That's the free market for you. Now, the real problems occur when big companies work together to rip off the consumer. For example, if all battery companies around the globe would make a pact to stop research and keep selling the same batteries to keep squeezing money out of the customer at going rate. But to my knowledge, there is no such agreement. (Conspiracy theorists of Slashdot, unite to prove me wrong !)
80 motherfucking dollars for a stupid dynamo hub ??? That makes me really angry...
Seems like your country is obsessed with making rich companies richer, at the cost of the environment. (From the US, are you? Interesting)
Anywayz, we have dynamo hubs on almost every bike here, and they work quite well too, giving bright light without requiring much extra labour. I can understand you want to use reliable flashing battery-powered light if you have to go through rush hour, though. Point taken.
Whatever happened to those bike lights that would pull power from the rotating wheels?
You don't have those where you live? They are on every new bike you purchase here (except terrain bikes)... They don't have any LED's, they work quite well with a normal lightbulb. When the roads are too wet they can fail though, due to reduced friction.
Yes, like with so many other applications Microsoft introduced in their OS, which were a great stimulant for other companies' software.
1) Internet Explorer stimulated the use of other browsers.
2) Outlook Express stimulated the use of other mail clients.
3) The integration of zip-unpacking in the shell, which stimulated the use of third-party packing applications.
4) The integration of cd-burning in the shell, which stimulates the use of third-party cd-burning applications.
5) The integration of WMA-encoding in Windows Media Player, which stimulates the use of other codecs as mp3, ogg vorbis,...
6) The integration of DVD-playing in Windows Media Player, which stimulates the use of third-party dvd-playing applications. .........
There's more, but that's all I could think of so far.
My prediction for the future:
1) Once MS Paint gets improved a little, nobody will need Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or anything else.
2) PDF-support in Windows.
3) ???
4) Profit!
I for one welcome our new Microsoft Overlords. Wait... Scrap that.
What happens exactly when Microsoft gives a million in free software to schools ?
Microsoft loses a couple of silver discs which cost (almost) nothing to duplicate by giving them to schools. These (US) schools are too poor to pay for the licenses anyway, if what I heard about US public schools is true. So, in fact, they are
1) stopping schools to switch over to Open-Source Software and
2) continuing to make scholars accustomed to MS software. (learn when you're young, buy for the rest of your life)
If any other company gives away their products for free to schools, it would be called competition fraude (or something like that, I Am Not An Economist).
just another media circus set up by Microsoft to show the people they care about virus infections. They know they will never have to pay this money, because it' practically impossible to catch virus writers. These are people who take pleasure in knowing they brought down a few millions of Windows PC's around the world. They don't want to share that with anyone, so who'd know?
The man was talking about how we can make Linux more accessible to people who don't know much about how a pc works. He seems to be someone who likes the Open-Source Project as much as me, or you, or the next guy.
I don't fully agree with him either. Hey, if you like the idea of running Linux on everything around you, nothing stops you from trying it, right? (except for that evil DMCA mb) However, because you seem to see everything black-white ('us' vs. 'them'), you wrongfully classified him as an M$-lover, which he is clearly not.
Although most of your arguments perfectly make sense, let me just respond to some of them.
People make free drivers... Everyone wins when a device driver comes out.
This is very true, the more hardware is supported by Linux the better. However, we are not talking about device drivers here, we are talking about embedding Linux into various devices.
t intruder, you don't get paid enough to write such drivel but you are not worth what you are paid.
Didn't quite understand this, sorry. Looked offensive anyway. Can't we all just get along?
liberal adjective
1) generous
2) open-minded, free from prejudice
3) directed chiefly towards the broadening of the mind
So the right-wing politicians in the US are calling their adversaries generous and open-minded. If I were a member of the Democrat party, I'dd resent that!
1) 70 lines of code in the linux kernel belong to us. Let's sue IBM for this.
2) The GPL is unconstitutional. All developers which have released code under the GPL now lose their copyright and the code becomes public domain.
3) Taking the code from the public domain to be ours, we own ALL of GNU/Linux and everything ever released under the GPL.
4) Hooray.
Remember if it was any other news channel it wouldn't make slashdot, this is a lefty rant page nowadays.
Yes it would, for the simple reason that it's about the Simpsons, which is very loved and respected on Slashdot. But if you want me to remember that, sure. What are you, a commercial?
BS bullshit
Either you say BS or bullshit. Another option would be BS (bullshit), with the text between the parentheses as an explanation of the abbreviation "BS".
The only reason they did institute this rule is to save their image of being a serious network (surely some people must believe it). When people think the incident with the Simpsons was caused by Fox News because they don't want misleading news broadcast on the same network, they will say:"My, what a great network Fox must be not wanting to confuse us with fake news". Truth of the matter is, the executives at Fox News don't support criticism too well...
For example, if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war, I bet a very high percentage of NPR listeners would answer yes, while a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer yes. Does that mean that Fox watchers are better informed across the board than NPR listeners? No. It just means that each has its blind spots.
The entire reason for going to war with Iraq were the (supposed) WMDs and the threat to the US from Saddam because of the (supposed) link to Al Quaeda. At least, that's what the White House said. I hope you still remember that?
If a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer "yes, Bush claimed Iraqi WMDs were a huge threat before the war," it would prove two things:
1) Fox watchers have a very bad memory.
2) Fox knows this and they don't do enough to refresh it's viewers memory. Therefor, Fox News gives incomplete (=misleading) information.
Please give an example of a certain misperception that a left-wing viewer may have.
Slashdot Mirror
I am an American and I hope the EU changes how MS treats it's customers (that includes Americans).
I don't know it will come to this. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems as though the US is running the EU and not the other way around. I'm referring to software patents, DMCA-like legislation and secret services spying on civilians without warrants (to fit in the War on Terrorism).
Oh and the current President of the EU is a gangster who has thus far prevented the Italian courts from sending him to prison by getting parliament to pass a law giving him immunity from prosecution.
Jup, Silvio Berlusconi he's called. He gets off on attacking people personally in parliament.
I can't help but wonder though if MS is going to get another slap on the wrist or if the EU will actually apply some meaningful rulings and ENFORCE THEM.
;)
I for one hope MS will be charged 10^50 Euros.
(1? = 1.17$)
Maybe socialism like they have in europe IS the better way to go.
;)
For the people, absolutely. For companies and their representatives in Congress, the White House and the Senate, definitely not. Little or no change is to be expected in the US in the coming century, I'm afraid.
Actually I'm contemplating moving to europe.
And you're welcome to
Before you move to Europe, do some looking around first. They're just as capitalistic as the US.
Well, I'm from Belgium (obviously), and I have the impression our government watches big corporations VERY closely as such matters are concerned. Sure, we are capitalistic too, because we support the free market and open up government businesses for denationalisation.
But our government is not turning fascist on us, it doesn't restrict civil liberties because the Corporation asks them. They have no reason to, because political parties can't accept money from companies without creatin an extensively-covered scandal.
Actually, it's a pleonasm.
An oxymoron would be something like:
A version of Windows shipped with Windows Media Player is a superior operating system.
How do you know porn websites use the WMP plugin to play streaming video?
I didn't
How is copying commercial jingles considered copyright infringment?
I mean, we get advertisement messages pumped into our brain every second of our miserable life: spam, sms commercials, banners on webpages, billboards, stickers, flyers, tv ads,...
Why would anyone involved in making advertisement want to stop people copying commercial jingles?
At the same time, the current system is clearly better in some respects; a good example is the ability of racial minorities to get a fair trial.
They don't always get a fair trial!
Only when they are filthy rich and have little or no cause to sue or be sued...
Even though the U.S. has given up on M$ anti-trust actions I hope that Europe will continue to torture M$ for years to come.
Why, how do you know this? This is the only reason the EU was founded! It's supposed to be top-secret!
Waauw. You're a real economic expert. Let me explain to you how this works.
Suppose you invent some new kind of AA battery that lasts twice as long as the average alkaline AA battery. Don't you think people will be willing to pay more for your battery? If a normal AA battery costs 2$, you could easily charge 3$ and people would still buy it. 50% higher price but 100% more capacity, a moron can do the math (even an anonymous one).
And if you deliver a good product, people will be happy with it and continue to buy it. So what if they'll buy it less often? You will be the most succesful battery producer, because you deliver the best product. That's the free market for you.
Now, the real problems occur when big companies work together to rip off the consumer. For example, if all battery companies around the globe would make a pact to stop research and keep selling the same batteries to keep squeezing money out of the customer at going rate. But to my knowledge, there is no such agreement. (Conspiracy theorists of Slashdot, unite to prove me wrong !)
80 motherfucking dollars for a stupid dynamo hub ???
That makes me really angry...
Seems like your country is obsessed with making rich companies richer, at the cost of the environment. (From the US, are you? Interesting)
Anywayz, we have dynamo hubs on almost every bike here, and they work quite well too, giving bright light without requiring much extra labour. I can understand you want to use reliable flashing battery-powered light if you have to go through rush hour, though. Point taken.
Whatever happened to those bike lights that would pull power from the rotating wheels?
;)
You don't have those where you live? They are on every new bike you purchase here (except terrain bikes)... They don't have any LED's, they work quite well with a normal lightbulb.
When the roads are too wet they can fail though, due to reduced friction.
Is your country being run by battery companies?
while some parts of chemistry fall into physics, (ie physical chemistry) not everything does...
Some examples would be nice... You're not really proving your point here.
Yes, like with so many other applications Microsoft introduced in their OS, which were a great stimulant for other companies' software. ...
... ... ...
1) Internet Explorer stimulated the use of other browsers.
2) Outlook Express stimulated the use of other mail clients.
3) The integration of zip-unpacking in the shell, which stimulated the use of third-party packing applications.
4) The integration of cd-burning in the shell, which stimulates the use of third-party cd-burning applications.
5) The integration of WMA-encoding in Windows Media Player, which stimulates the use of other codecs as mp3, ogg vorbis,
6) The integration of DVD-playing in Windows Media Player, which stimulates the use of third-party dvd-playing applications.
There's more, but that's all I could think of so far.
My prediction for the future:
1) Once MS Paint gets improved a little, nobody will need Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or anything else.
2) PDF-support in Windows.
3) ???
4) Profit!
I for one welcome our new Microsoft Overlords. Wait... Scrap that.
What happens exactly when Microsoft gives a million in free software to schools ?
Microsoft loses a couple of silver discs which cost (almost) nothing to duplicate by giving them to schools.
These (US) schools are too poor to pay for the licenses anyway, if what I heard about US public schools is true.
So, in fact, they are
1) stopping schools to switch over to Open-Source Software and
2) continuing to make scholars accustomed to MS software. (learn when you're young, buy for the rest of your life)
If any other company gives away their products for free to schools, it would be called competition fraude (or something like that, I Am Not An Economist).
just another media circus set up by Microsoft to show the people they care about virus infections.
They know they will never have to pay this money, because it' practically impossible to catch virus writers. These are people who take pleasure in knowing they brought down a few millions of Windows PC's around the world. They don't want to share that with anyone, so who'd know?
Go back to Redmond, troll
... Everyone wins when a device driver comes out.
The man was talking about how we can make Linux more accessible to people who don't know much about how a pc works. He seems to be someone who likes the Open-Source Project as much as me, or you, or the next guy.
I don't fully agree with him either. Hey, if you like the idea of running Linux on everything around you, nothing stops you from trying it, right? (except for that evil DMCA mb) However, because you seem to see everything black-white ('us' vs. 'them'), you wrongfully classified him as an M$-lover, which he is clearly not.
Although most of your arguments perfectly make sense, let me just respond to some of them.
People make free drivers
This is very true, the more hardware is supported by Linux the better. However, we are not talking about device drivers here, we are talking about embedding Linux into various devices.
t intruder, you don't get paid enough to write such drivel but you are not worth what you are paid.
Didn't quite understand this, sorry. Looked offensive anyway. Can't we all just get along?
kind of makes me proud to be Belgian ;)
you're right. I consulted the dictionnary.
liberal adjective
1) generous
2) open-minded, free from prejudice
3) directed chiefly towards the broadening of the mind
So the right-wing politicians in the US are calling their adversaries generous and open-minded. If I were a member of the Democrat party, I'dd resent that!
Very useful indeed, unlike your link...
Here's another one: RedHat
1) 70 lines of code in the linux kernel belong to us. Let's sue IBM for this.
2) The GPL is unconstitutional. All developers which have released code under the GPL now lose their copyright and the code becomes public domain.
3) Taking the code from the public domain to be ours, we own ALL of GNU/Linux and everything ever released under the GPL.
4) Hooray.
Remember if it was any other news channel it wouldn't make slashdot, this is a lefty rant page nowadays.
Yes it would, for the simple reason that it's about the Simpsons, which is very loved and respected on Slashdot.
But if you want me to remember that, sure. What are you, a commercial?
BS bullshit
Either you say BS or bullshit. Another option would be BS (bullshit), with the text between the parentheses as an explanation of the abbreviation "BS".
The only reason they did institute this rule is to save their image of being a serious network (surely some people must believe it).
When people think the incident with the Simpsons was caused by Fox News because they don't want misleading news broadcast on the same network, they will say:"My, what a great network Fox must be not wanting to confuse us with fake news".
Truth of the matter is, the executives at Fox News don't support criticism too well...
For example, if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war, I bet a very high percentage of NPR listeners would answer yes, while a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer yes. Does that mean that Fox watchers are better informed across the board than NPR listeners? No. It just means that each has its blind spots.
The entire reason for going to war with Iraq were the (supposed) WMDs and the threat to the US from Saddam because of the (supposed) link to Al Quaeda. At least, that's what the White House said. I hope you still remember that?
If a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer "yes, Bush claimed Iraqi WMDs were a huge threat before the war," it would prove two things:
1) Fox watchers have a very bad memory.
2) Fox knows this and they don't do enough to refresh it's viewers memory. Therefor, Fox News gives incomplete (=misleading) information.
Please give an example of a certain misperception that a left-wing viewer may have.