Microsoft would be forced to either fully guarantee their software (exposing them to liability) or do the GNU thing and offer "NO Guarantee Whatsoever, releasing the software in the hope that it may be usefull". In the latter case, they will have to reduce their prices about %1000 in order to sell it!
The open source writter will have no liability since he makes no guarantees. In the case of the commerical linux distros, they will have to start testing their products. They need to sell the software with some kind of warantee. Maybe they will ONLY distribute linux itself and give away a second disk with untested apps?
Reminds me of something out of revelations or Nostrodomos about not being able to do any business without the mark of the beast (if I remember the quote correctly).
With AT&T selling it's cable biz to Comcast (who down here just sold their local franchise to AT&T!) it seems the hot potato just keeps getting passed. I've been told that if you can get DSL, your local cable company would offer cable modem (or visa versa, they seem to want to compete against each other) but NOT in my neighborhood. I'm lucky to finally get DSL.
The local bell (bellsouth) was no help. Try and order new phone service and DSL at the same time. No can do. The two services are differnent branches of the company and they don't communicate (except for billing purposes!). I asked when ordering my phone service for a dsl capable line. "no problem" (yeah right!). You have to wait 2-4 weeks after getting new phone service to order dsl (take's em that long to update their records). Then after waiting I find my line is NOT conditioned. So if I have to live with a dialup modem I'm going to need a second line. I ordered one. Guess what? IT WAS CONDITIONED FOR DSL! Oh well, with two daughters and a monitored alarm service I guess I'll keep the second line.
Anyway the self install kit worked fine, though I got an external splitter on EBAY and 86'd the micro filters. I also paid extra for an ethernet modem to work with my router.
As for ComCast, they never upgraded their shit to handle broadband cable modems (why bother, since they were going to sell it to AT&T anyway). And since AT&T wants to sell it back to them, they WONT upgrade the service for it either! Guess the neighborhood will have to wait for the final sale to go through.
I agree, this is typical CYA lawyer shit. It only protects them from YOUR actions, but does NOT protect them from themselves. If THEY violate the terms of the contract, OR if the contract isn't even legal (violates any terms of local legal codes governing contracts or bussiness licences allowing them to offer the service in your town) then those terms aren't worth the toilet paper they are written on.
That depends....
X does seem to take time to startup, and some apps
(such as netscape and mozilla) take a god awfull time to open, but in most cases once the desktop is open things move along. Actually it DOES take windows itself some time to come up, probably LONGER than X11+Gnome does, but we don't think about this since the OS and the window manager are merged with windows.
I've never thought of X on Linux as being slow compared to windows (but then my experience has been on 500mhz and 866mhz PIII computers.....)
If Best Buy refused to refund my money for a defective cd, I'd simply refuse to pay my credit card bill. I would write the credit card company and refuse payment, explaining the goods were defective and a refund was refused.
Best Buy will usually issue a store credit or replace the cd (for the same label). I had a similar problem with a defective computer cd at compusa. After two replacements were no good, I got the manager to refund my money.
I've been using abiword to write letters, and I don't have the latest version (what ever debian package is current for potato...). Anyway it does have some flaws but it gets the job done. It still can't compete with word for real fancy jobs (but word drives me NUTS when it comes to paragraph formating! Give me WP's reveal codes, PLEASE!!!)
I've also used WP on both windows and Linux. The Linux version is a little buggy, but at least it exchanges files with the windows version in both directions.
For the causual user Abi Word is more than usable right now. For the enterprise, Star Office might be a better choice. I like Abi Word's method of coding future features, they give the source file and line where to go to add the feature that is not yet there! (I bet they have received quite a few patches for new features!).
If more people would READ the text of the GPL license maybe they would stop flamming products like Abi Word. "This software is released in the hope that it may be usefull" or something like that. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Thank you Abi Word, keep up the good work.
Current DVD players are based on a short wavelength red laser (cd players used a longer wavelength IR laser) and this is part of the reason why the same size disk can store so much more data (the pits are smaller).
We now have BLUE laser diodes available (though long life versions are still a few years away) so by the time a format switch is really viewed as a good thing, dvd size disks storing a hundred GB may be possible using the blue lasers. This would be a good time to introduce a new DVD format, (Imagine putting an HDTV 8 hour epic on a single disk).
Any future player would have to be backward compatible with older DVD's and CD's. The players will wear out before the disks and customers will want to be able to keep their old disks.
The upgrade from LD to DVD was painfull because I have to keep the old LD player running or replace the disk collection. If DVD formats change and I only have to replace the player. I won't mind this (they drop in price within 2 years after introduction to a reasonable level).
If your service contract does NOT allow home networking your internet access then they have a bone to pick here. If the service agreement does allow it (and mine DOES, they just refuse to support more than one PC, after that I'm on my own) then implementing this would be breach of contract.
Boy I pitty the PC game developers having to make sure their games work on all the different video cards out there, having to pick a common feature set or having the game not look too good on the older cards. With the Xbox they can milk the display for all it's worth. (Wonder what chipset MS chose for this and how good it is). Ditto for the sound system.
Which VM code will you keep in the kernel? Will you use what Alan has been using in his AC kernels or keep the new VM touted by Linus? Will EXT3 be built in or do you prefer a different journaling file system?
Any lawyer that got from his client infomation of pending terrorist attacts and DIDN'T turn such infomation over to the FBI should be DISBARED AT ONCE!!!! Lawyer/client privilage goes about as far as the right to free speech, and not disclosing information like this is about on par with shouting fire in a theatre. If lawyers weren't such assholes this wouldn't be necessary.
"Instead of a $50,000 antenna system, the group used a metal tape measure."
Not an original idea. In 1961 radio amateurs put their first satellite into orbit. OSCAR-I (that's "orbital satellite carrying amateur radio") used four pieces of steel tape measure blades as an antenna. The blades were wrapped around the satellite and sprung out into place when the satellite was ejected from the booster it was riding piggy back on.
Where does this guy live (Canada maybe?) and who is his provider?
45$ is the rock bottom norm from the phone company and $50 is the norm from guys like Telocity / Earthlink etc. NO business DSL is as cheap as $50/month. That starts at about $75 and goes as high as $400/m.
Want to know something?
In order to get 56K you need a line capable of digital connection. If you CAN'T get dsl at your location because you are too far from the HO, or they have fiber or loading coils in the way, YOU WON'T SEE 56K either! I NEVER got 56K with my modem. Finally I went IDSL before Flashcom went belly up. Now I have DSL. Maybe now I COULD get 56K over my modem, but who cares?
I'd say the average price for unlimited dial up is between $20-25 in most areas. The cost of a second phone line PLUS the added TAXES on the service will DOUBLE that. Which puts the cost of the DSL EQUAL to that of the dialup. If you really needed a second line you COULD use one of those internet phone services via your computer and some extra hardware.
Of course if you don't surf much and only want email then the modem access is fine, you don't need a second line or even unlimited access. The the kmart bluelight special of $9.99/month is all you need.
When broadband is trully intergrated with video/audio on demand, internet access, phone service all out of one pipe (and priced less than the combo from separate providers) it will really take off.
Ah, but what's to prevent a US court from ordering that all US ISP's MUST block those sites? Any why doesn't France just order all the isp's in France to block yahoo?
Actually Edison WAS a geek Rockefeller. And so is Gates. Edison put out lots of FUD against his competition. He even went after people who violated his patents with guns! (OK Edision didn't do the shooting, he hired bounty hunters). In the early days of motion pictures, anyone who tried to put out their own movies without paying Edison royalites on his patents was hunted down with the full extent of the law by hired guns and had their movie making equipment smashed.
Like Microsoft, Edison mostly improved the work of others and didn't invent anything truly original. The phonograph was his only true original work, and was discovered by accident. Edison also made some blunders. He invented (well discovered) thermionic emission but failed to make use of it. So he missed inventing the vacuum tube by about 20 years. Radio didn't exist then but the telephone DID.He COULD have used the vacuum tube as a telephone relay and invented long distance telephone service 30 years earlier than it really happened. His bias against AC prevented him from seeing this.
There should be a compromise middle ground. A Linux player could be build that would comply with the 'handcuffs' imposed by the license agreement, though the open source nature of the beast means users would have to voluntarly live by the agreement since they could just modify the code. The only point where fair use was violated was there NOT being a linux player. Is it fair use to be able to make copies of a DVD disk? (perhaps to be able to view it on a VHS machine as well).
But there are hidden costs to Linux, Microsoft argues.....
With Linux, customers "end up being in the operating systems business," managing software updates and security patches while making sure the multitude of software packages don't conflict with each other," Miller said. "That's the job of a software vendor like Microsoft."
Yeah, like Microsoft does a good job of that. Like how many times do I see "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"?
The new Pioneer DVD-RW drive sounds like a perfect match for this. Only 4.7gb per disk though so it can only hold 1/2 hour!
I don't think HDTV is really dead. I have seen some 16:9 aspect ratio demos going on in the department stores with over the air pictures. Not every program will go this way (thank god! who wants 'soaps' in hi-def!) but the football games are being broadcast that way! (Then again is it worth it to see the Miami Dolphins loose in high def? Maybe....if you are a Jet's fan).
Why, I thought they thought this was their best shot at outlawing Linux?
Re:Users who refuse to buy DVD ware?
on
Debian On DVD
·
· Score: 1
I don't yet have a DVD rom drive on my computer,but as soon as the new DVD-RW drives drop in price by half an order of magnitude I will get one. DVD is more than just movies, it is also one HUGH digital container! Get used to the idea, DVD-rom will soon become the way linux distros are shipped, CD-ROM is just toooo small!
BTW I have no desire to watch DVD movies on my computer. The screen is too small and the wrong aspect ratio, the sound sucks, and the office is not that confortable. I prefer my family room with it's 40" TV, surround sound system, and comfy chair.
Yes by the time you get the DVD it will be old news. HOWEVER, not everyone has DSL, Cable modems, or even 56K. For the poor guy stuck with 28K dialup, that CD or DVD is a good way to get started. He can upgrade packages over the slow pipe piecemeal later.
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Microsoft would be forced to either fully guarantee their software (exposing them to liability) or do the GNU thing and offer "NO Guarantee Whatsoever, releasing the software in the hope that it may be usefull". In the latter case, they will have to reduce their prices about %1000 in order to sell it!
The open source writter will have no liability since he makes no guarantees. In the case of the commerical linux distros, they will have to start testing their products. They need to sell the software with some kind of warantee. Maybe they will ONLY distribute linux itself and give away a second disk with untested apps?
No, Bill is not the Borg, he is the ANTICHRIST.
Reminds me of something out of revelations or Nostrodomos about not being able to do any business without the mark of the beast (if I remember the quote correctly).
With AT&T selling it's cable biz to Comcast (who down here just sold their local franchise to AT&T!) it seems the hot potato just keeps getting passed. I've been told that if you can get DSL, your local cable company would offer cable modem (or visa versa, they seem to want to compete against each other) but NOT in my neighborhood. I'm lucky to finally get DSL.
The local bell (bellsouth) was no help. Try and order new phone service and DSL at the same time. No can do. The two services are differnent branches of the company and they don't communicate (except for billing purposes!). I asked when ordering my phone service for a dsl capable line. "no problem" (yeah right!). You have to wait 2-4 weeks after getting new phone service to order dsl (take's em that long to update their records). Then after waiting I find my line is NOT conditioned. So if I have to live with a dialup modem I'm going to need a second line. I ordered one. Guess what? IT WAS CONDITIONED FOR DSL! Oh well, with two daughters and a monitored alarm service I guess I'll keep the second line.
Anyway the self install kit worked fine, though I got an external splitter on EBAY and 86'd the micro filters. I also paid extra for an ethernet modem to work with my router.
As for ComCast, they never upgraded their shit to handle broadband cable modems (why bother, since they were going to sell it to AT&T anyway). And since AT&T wants to sell it back to them, they WONT upgrade the service for it either! Guess the neighborhood will have to wait for the final sale to go through.
Thats life in south fla!
I agree, this is typical CYA lawyer shit. It only protects them from YOUR actions, but does NOT protect them from themselves. If THEY violate the terms of the contract, OR if the contract isn't even legal (violates any terms of local legal codes governing contracts or bussiness licences allowing them to offer the service in your town) then those terms aren't worth the toilet paper they are written on.
That depends....
X does seem to take time to startup, and some apps
(such as netscape and mozilla) take a god awfull time to open, but in most cases once the desktop is open things move along. Actually it DOES take windows itself some time to come up, probably LONGER than X11+Gnome does, but we don't think about this since the OS and the window manager are merged with windows.
I've never thought of X on Linux as being slow compared to windows (but then my experience has been on 500mhz and 866mhz PIII computers.....)
If Best Buy refused to refund my money for a defective cd, I'd simply refuse to pay my credit card bill. I would write the credit card company and refuse payment, explaining the goods were defective and a refund was refused.
Best Buy will usually issue a store credit or replace the cd (for the same label). I had a similar problem with a defective computer cd at compusa. After two replacements were no good, I got the manager to refund my money.
I've been using abiword to write letters, and I don't have the latest version (what ever debian package is current for potato...). Anyway it does have some flaws but it gets the job done. It still can't compete with word for real fancy jobs (but word drives me NUTS when it comes to paragraph formating! Give me WP's reveal codes, PLEASE!!!)
I've also used WP on both windows and Linux. The Linux version is a little buggy, but at least it exchanges files with the windows version in both directions.
For the causual user Abi Word is more than usable right now. For the enterprise, Star Office might be a better choice. I like Abi Word's method of coding future features, they give the source file and line where to go to add the feature that is not yet there! (I bet they have received quite a few patches for new features!).
If more people would READ the text of the GPL license maybe they would stop flamming products like Abi Word. "This software is released in the hope that it may be usefull" or something like that. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Thank you Abi Word, keep up the good work.
Current DVD players are based on a short wavelength red laser (cd players used a longer wavelength IR laser) and this is part of the reason why the same size disk can store so much more data (the pits are smaller).
We now have BLUE laser diodes available (though long life versions are still a few years away) so by the time a format switch is really viewed as a good thing, dvd size disks storing a hundred GB may be possible using the blue lasers. This would be a good time to introduce a new DVD format, (Imagine putting an HDTV 8 hour epic on a single disk).
Any future player would have to be backward compatible with older DVD's and CD's. The players will wear out before the disks and customers will want to be able to keep their old disks.
The upgrade from LD to DVD was painfull because I have to keep the old LD player running or replace the disk collection. If DVD formats change and I only have to replace the player. I won't mind this (they drop in price within 2 years after introduction to a reasonable level).
If your service contract does NOT allow home networking your internet access then they have a bone to pick here. If the service agreement does allow it (and mine DOES, they just refuse to support more than one PC, after that I'm on my own) then implementing this would be breach of contract.
Yeah, but it's a PC with a fixed set of hardware.
Boy I pitty the PC game developers having to make sure their games work on all the different video cards out there, having to pick a common feature set or having the game not look too good on the older cards. With the Xbox they can milk the display for all it's worth. (Wonder what chipset MS chose for this and how good it is). Ditto for the sound system.
Which VM code will you keep in the kernel? Will you use what Alan has been using in his AC kernels or keep the new VM touted by Linus? Will EXT3 be built in or do you prefer a different journaling file system?
Any lawyer that got from his client infomation of pending terrorist attacts and DIDN'T turn such infomation over to the FBI should be DISBARED AT ONCE!!!! Lawyer/client privilage goes about as far as the right to free speech, and not disclosing information like this is about on par with shouting fire in a theatre. If lawyers weren't such assholes this wouldn't be necessary.
"Instead of a $50,000 antenna system, the group used a metal tape measure."
Not an original idea. In 1961 radio amateurs put their first satellite into orbit. OSCAR-I (that's "orbital satellite carrying amateur radio") used four pieces of steel tape measure blades as an antenna. The blades were wrapped around the satellite and sprung out into place when the satellite was ejected from the booster it was riding piggy back on.
Where does this guy live (Canada maybe?) and who is his provider?
45$ is the rock bottom norm from the phone company and $50 is the norm from guys like Telocity / Earthlink etc. NO business DSL is as cheap as $50/month. That starts at about $75 and goes as high as $400/m.
Want to know something?
In order to get 56K you need a line capable of digital connection. If you CAN'T get dsl at your location because you are too far from the HO, or they have fiber or loading coils in the way, YOU WON'T SEE 56K either! I NEVER got 56K with my modem. Finally I went IDSL before Flashcom went belly up. Now I have DSL. Maybe now I COULD get 56K over my modem, but who cares?
I'd say the average price for unlimited dial up is between $20-25 in most areas. The cost of a second phone line PLUS the added TAXES on the service will DOUBLE that. Which puts the cost of the DSL EQUAL to that of the dialup. If you really needed a second line you COULD use one of those internet phone services via your computer and some extra hardware.
Of course if you don't surf much and only want email then the modem access is fine, you don't need a second line or even unlimited access. The the kmart bluelight special of $9.99/month is all you need.
When broadband is trully intergrated with video/audio on demand, internet access, phone service all out of one pipe (and priced less than the combo from separate providers) it will really take off.
Ah, but what's to prevent a US court from ordering that all US ISP's MUST block those sites? Any why doesn't France just order all the isp's in France to block yahoo?
Actually Edison WAS a geek Rockefeller. And so is Gates. Edison put out lots of FUD against his competition. He even went after people who violated his patents with guns! (OK Edision didn't do the shooting, he hired bounty hunters). In the early days of motion pictures, anyone who tried to put out their own movies without paying Edison royalites on his patents was hunted down with the full extent of the law by hired guns and had their movie making equipment smashed.
Like Microsoft, Edison mostly improved the work of others and didn't invent anything truly original. The phonograph was his only true original work, and was discovered by accident. Edison also made some blunders. He invented (well discovered) thermionic emission but failed to make use of it. So he missed inventing the vacuum tube by about 20 years. Radio didn't exist then but the telephone DID.He COULD have used the vacuum tube as a telephone relay and invented long distance telephone service 30 years earlier than it really happened. His bias against AC prevented him from seeing this.
Michael Criten (jurasic park) Clancy (hunt for red october), Jose Farmer (river world sf series),
There should be a compromise middle ground. A Linux player could be build that would comply with the 'handcuffs' imposed by the license agreement, though the open source nature of the beast means users would have to voluntarly live by the agreement since they could just modify the code. The only point where fair use was violated was there NOT being a linux player. Is it fair use to be able to make copies of a DVD disk? (perhaps to be able to view it on a VHS machine as well).
But there are hidden costs to Linux, Microsoft argues. ....
With Linux, customers "end up being in the operating systems business," managing software updates and security patches while making sure the multitude of software packages don't conflict with each other," Miller said. "That's the job of a software vendor like Microsoft."
Yeah, like Microsoft does a good job of that. Like how many times do I see "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"?
The new Pioneer DVD-RW drive sounds like a perfect match for this. Only 4.7gb per disk though so it can only hold 1/2 hour!
I don't think HDTV is really dead. I have seen some 16:9 aspect ratio demos going on in the department stores with over the air pictures. Not every program will go this way (thank god! who wants 'soaps' in hi-def!) but the football games are being broadcast that way! (Then again is it worth it to see the Miami Dolphins loose in high def? Maybe....if you are a Jet's fan).
Why, I thought they thought this was their best shot at outlawing Linux?
I don't yet have a DVD rom drive on my computer,but as soon as the new DVD-RW drives drop in price by half an order of magnitude I will get one. DVD is more than just movies, it is also one HUGH digital container! Get used to the idea, DVD-rom will soon become the way linux distros are shipped, CD-ROM is just toooo small!
BTW I have no desire to watch DVD movies on my computer. The screen is too small and the wrong aspect ratio, the sound sucks, and the office is not that confortable. I prefer my family room with it's 40" TV, surround sound system, and comfy chair.
Yes by the time you get the DVD it will be old news. HOWEVER, not everyone has DSL, Cable modems, or even 56K. For the poor guy stuck with 28K dialup, that CD or DVD is a good way to get started. He can upgrade packages over the slow pipe piecemeal later.