Even if it passes, it is not something that will be forced down anybody's throat as a requirement.
Get your head out of your ass and think about that statement. 90+ percent of the Office market is controlled by one monopoly. For years Office applications have had to bend to the defacto shifting standard set by that monopoly to remain in the market. It most assuredly will be forced down everybody's throat just to remain partially interoperative with that monopoly having the advantage over any competition. Hell, even that monopoly's offering isn't compliant with this "standard" so how the hell do you expect others to be able to implement it? Add to the fact that you would have two competing "standards", which do you think will be left standing when the dust settles? It sure as shit won't be the one ignored by the monopoly.
That Constitution says nothing about the WTO getting to change US laws they don't like. It says nothing about UN Resolutions.
You need to read your Constitution more often...Article IV:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
In case you missed it:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;"
The US participation in the WTO is by treaty. That makes it "the law of the land". The same goes for the UN resolutions. The UN exists by treaty that the US Congress signed into law.
Availability isn't the only place tread here. It is going into "low income" areas that the companies won't tread hence the "not profitable" comment from them. It has very little to do with accessability and everything to do with money.
Well, what's an advantage? How does a company that pays Joe Blow to write something, then give all of that code to competitors who did not have to pay Joe Blow, possibly benefit? It makes no business sense, whatsoever, other than PR.
There are several reasons to give that code away not the least of which is to keep from having to pay Joe Blow again when the system updates and breaks his spiffy in-house code.
Everyone here is missing the point. It isn't that a software house isn't giving code but that businesses whose business is unrelated to the software industry is modifying existing code and keeping those mods to themselves. That's legal by the GPL but doesn't make any sense.
Example; AutoZone is in the business of selling car parts. They have a huge inventory control system. Modifications to the underlying database could benefit other users of that database *IF* the code is released. If AutoZone keeps that code in-house, not only do other users of that database suffer but eventually AutoZone will suffer when they have to keep paying someone to continually update that code as the main codebase changes.
What happens when, just like the.com and housing ones, this bubble bursts? $3.5 million down the drain, that's what.
I don't think so. This is going into areas where the broadband providers don't tread. From TFS:
Houston is investing most of the $5 million Earthlink paid to get out of its muni Wi-Fi contract to build out 10 free wireless network "bubbles" in low-income parts of the city.
Houston is doing what all governments do. It is providing services it sees as necessary that the private sector can't or won't do. It's funny how when a community decides to provide a service the private sector may be in they scream foul but when that service becomes unprofitable they want out as fast as possible. The question is what other consessions did Earthlink get out of Houston? A company willing to pay $$$ to get out of a contract has done the bean counting before signing and you can bet your bottom dollar that those beans fall in Earthlink's favor.
Why wouldn't these people do their planning outside of the government network, using email with encryption (PGP)? All of them could easily create Yahoo or Google accounts, or they could even create their own little domain name with their own server and run it all with encryption. Then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
That's exactly why we are having this conversation because Cheney et. al. did exactly that. They used outside email servers against the law and got caught. They were using the RNC servers and when handed a subpoena for their email claimed it was all lost. It turns out they weren't all lost much to the chagrin of the administration.
Out of curiosity, what would they do if you slapped the silly thing into a microwave for about an hour to fry the RFID chip? Or if you were to somehow remove/disable the chip if that fails?
It's not a matter of media hysteria. It's a matter of too few protections in place on the collection of data. You may not have a problem with it but I sure do. I did notice that you never addressed the commercial aspect of my post. So I take it you don't have a problem with your kid being targeted by ads based on data from this device? "We see you are in Jubilee park. Go to this store for great things!" coming across the cell phone...Hmmm....
You are correct that DRM isn't a problem for unprotected media. It is a blow to fair use backup on protected media though. Try backing up that HD media you purchased and see how far you get using only Microsoft tools (no cheating and using those illegal pirate specials). Try playing back a backup you may have managed to make once the original goes tits up.
The problem isn't what you do with the technology but what others do with the technology after you have it. In this case, the state (or worse, a commercial entity like the manufacturer) can use that technology to track the movements of your kid and use the data from that to target them for purposes other than intended. Demographic data is one of the highest priced data sets one can obtain. The temptation for corporate abuse is too great for my tastes. Imagine the potential for commercial opportunities if they could know where you have been and where you are going. Imagine the damage that can be inflicted if a stalker could get that feed. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.:-)
Of the people I know that have mostly bad things to say about Vista, I'd say at least 90% have never actually used it. They "Read about it somewhere," or "Some guy they know told them," and so on. They have no experience with it, other than perhaps having seen it on a computer. They are simply repeating stories. Of those that have used it and dislike it, almost all of them actually have an issue with something else, that they are blaming on Vista. For example a coworker was pissed because his DJ hardware/software combo didn't work. Ok, well check compatibility first, and that isn't a Vista issue. It doesn't support Linux either.
I'll ignore the fact that you are doing exactly what you accuse others by repeating hearsay and address the "it doesn't work on Linux either" remark. That would be valid if it ever did in the first place which it didn't. Let's compare apples to apples here. Vista's main competition isn't Linux or OS X even. It is XP. In that context, the program does work in XP and not in vista. It sure is a Vista issue. Say what you like, but that sounds like a Vista sale lost if that is the driving factor for switching for that user.
Another problem is people who try to run it on insufficient hardware. This happens with basically every Windows release that I can remember. I remember all the complaints that Windows 95 didn't run well on 4MB of RAM, even though that was the minimum. The response was, of course, yes that's the MINIMUM, not the "gets good performance" amount. Same deal with Vista, people have old systems with insufficient hardware, particularly RAM (since not that long ago RAM was real pricey). They install Vista and find it doesn't perform well, and thus get angry.
Umm....No! They were SOLD on the fact that the NEW machine they bought was "Vista capable" from the get-go when it wasn't. Hence the class action lawsuit. Bait and switch is still illegal in the US at least until the Microsoft lobbyists pay off, er, "contribute to" Congress to change it. There is a big difference between buying a new machine based on the word of the supplier that it will work fine with the new OS and buying an upgrade where it is anybody's guess. That is the difference here.
You recon wrong then asshat. I simply vote with my conscience and only do sources that are legal and free. Not everyone is out to get your shit regardless of what you may believe. There are plenty of free resources out there that there really is no reason to violate the law even if the law is skewed towards greedy bastards like yourself.
Copyright exists for one reason and one reason only. That reason isn't to guarantee you and your relatives an income for all eternity. Copyright has been so distorted that the original goal of releasing into the public domain is unheard of these days.
Personally, I feel that if you value it so much, you can keep your precious crap. I want to see a bullet proof method of copyright enforcement implemented so that free sources can finally flourish. Do you honestly think the likes of Microsoft or Adobe would have half the "market share" (whatever that means) that they have today if all piracy came to an end? I don't. The same can be said for the pap that is peddled for music from the labels.
If you acknowledge the importance of free wireless do you help things or do you think "meh others can just pay for it, I need 5k more for bittorrent!"
More likely not getting the throughput you are paying for because some asshat leech is running a BT client off your hotspot. Not to say anything about the legal issue you run when the MAFIAA (or worse, another 3 letter agency) come knocking down your door.
I might lose mod points on this, but can you please explain how swearing and freedom of speech are tied together. I don't think they are limiting what opinions you are permitted to express, rather that you chose a more civil tongue to do it in.
It depends on your definition of "swear words". To use a George Carlin line, "You have bad intentions, bad emotions, and words." (in reference to the words you can't say on TV).
.. using the historical reasons for breaking up the FBI, Army, Police is a good starting point. But if they can address the abuse, then they get to proceed.
Ummm...No! All that will happen is they will abuse a part you didn't specifically address. Happens all the time. There is no way you can possibly address every abuse of a law. Take the DMCA (or any law designed to protect some "right") and look at the abuses never contemplated by Congress. They wrote the law with the intention of making it easier for a copyright holder to stop infringing content. They knew the take-down provisions would be abused. To say that situation was never contemplated is false since that was one of the warnings Congress was given before its passage. Yet they passed it anyway.
The problem with this approach is it lowers the amount of bug reporting you are getting simply for pedantic reasons. Too much reactions like this and bug reporting will dry up real fast. Is that what Linus is looking for? Somehow I don't think so.
They have already gone this route by trying (and continuing to try) to introduce legislation mandating a "media tax" on all ISPs much like the Canadian blank CD tax. If they can't get their pound of flesh from the artists, they will try the other end of the supply chain...US!
What I can't understand is the media companies keep claiming a decline in sales yet also report record profits. This is more true of the movie industry than the music but still, it doesn't make any logical sense to me. It is like the oil industry claiming to need tax relief while showing record profits. I just don't get it...
However, as people like to say, even bad data is better than no data.
Whoever says that deserves the bad policy they get that was based on that bad data. You can never achieve 100% accuracy but it is a goal that still should be attempted. To accept otherwise is not only foolish but also dangerous. It leads to such stupidity as the US is currently experiencing with global warming and evolution. Screwing up the data bad enough gives the opposition to proper policy the ammunition to call "junk science" on that policy. So no, it isn't better to have bad data over no data.
Which sounds to me (I am not a pilot, etc) like a good argument against the hub system. Centralized airport hubs are the bottleneck in most cases. Just have bad weather over Atlanta or Chicago and watch the "Delayed" and "Cancelled" signs light up. Decentralized airports seem to be the answer to me to really speed things up.
With open standards, there are often no implementations at all.
If ever I saw an oxymoron it is the terms "open" and "patents" used in the same sentence. You tell me how a patent grant of monopoly can be open.
Go ahead and explain how H.264 or 802.11 can be covered by copyright.
Their implementations of course. It is fine to patent hardware that implements it as well. Or are you telling me that you can implement 802.11 without hardware...
Explain how those companies' dramatic investments are going to get repaid.
Oh please. Don't get melodramatic on me. You are assuming a "dramatic investment" was made and not simply an incremental advancement of other technologies. Think that one over. You wouldn't be typing a thing right now if patents existed for software in the 50's and 60's because nobody would be able to make those incremental advances without paying through the nose in licensing fees. The whole computer software industry would implode today if patent law were changed to force enforcement of patents that were being infringed. Maybe that's a way to fix the system. Enforce your patent or loose it. No more submarine patent shit but also no more industry and this nebulous "innovation" either. Then you will see "dramatic investment" as companies cross license left and right.
Everyone wants to abolish software patents, so they can use the research that went into them without paying, but NOBODY wants to propose ANY alternatives for financial compensation to those who develop such technology. I guess it's going to be up to the magical fairies to develop MPEG-5, 802.11z, et al. for us.
What utter drivel. Copyright (which lasts far longer than patents) are the domain of software. Why is it that software of all "innovations" (God I hate that term) is the only one privileged enough to be covered by both patents and copyrights? Either one or the other have to be relinquished.
Re:DELETE WHERE ToLower(body) LIKE '%on the intern
on
The U.S. Patent Backlog
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Far easier...
Deny any patent with the words, "A method to..."
Problem solved. I bet the backlog drops by at least 3/4 what it is today.
Slashdot Mirror
Get your head out of your ass and think about that statement. 90+ percent of the Office market is controlled by one monopoly. For years Office applications have had to bend to the defacto shifting standard set by that monopoly to remain in the market. It most assuredly will be forced down everybody's throat just to remain partially interoperative with that monopoly having the advantage over any competition. Hell, even that monopoly's offering isn't compliant with this "standard" so how the hell do you expect others to be able to implement it? Add to the fact that you would have two competing "standards", which do you think will be left standing when the dust settles? It sure as shit won't be the one ignored by the monopoly.
You forgot the last step....
3. Then you sell it on eBay...
4. ???
5. Profit!
You need to read your Constitution more often...Article IV:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
In case you missed it:
"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;"
The US participation in the WTO is by treaty. That makes it "the law of the land". The same goes for the UN resolutions. The UN exists by treaty that the US Congress signed into law.
Availability isn't the only place tread here. It is going into "low income" areas that the companies won't tread hence the "not profitable" comment from them. It has very little to do with accessability and everything to do with money.
There are several reasons to give that code away not the least of which is to keep from having to pay Joe Blow again when the system updates and breaks his spiffy in-house code.
Everyone here is missing the point. It isn't that a software house isn't giving code but that businesses whose business is unrelated to the software industry is modifying existing code and keeping those mods to themselves. That's legal by the GPL but doesn't make any sense.
Example; AutoZone is in the business of selling car parts. They have a huge inventory control system. Modifications to the underlying database could benefit other users of that database *IF* the code is released. If AutoZone keeps that code in-house, not only do other users of that database suffer but eventually AutoZone will suffer when they have to keep paying someone to continually update that code as the main codebase changes.
I don't think so. This is going into areas where the broadband providers don't tread. From TFS:
Houston is doing what all governments do. It is providing services it sees as necessary that the private sector can't or won't do. It's funny how when a community decides to provide a service the private sector may be in they scream foul but when that service becomes unprofitable they want out as fast as possible. The question is what other consessions did Earthlink get out of Houston? A company willing to pay $$$ to get out of a contract has done the bean counting before signing and you can bet your bottom dollar that those beans fall in Earthlink's favor.
That's exactly why we are having this conversation because Cheney et. al. did exactly that. They used outside email servers against the law and got caught. They were using the RNC servers and when handed a subpoena for their email claimed it was all lost. It turns out they weren't all lost much to the chagrin of the administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402404.html
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1362
Of course, nobody will be punished in the least for violating The Presidential Records Act.
Out of curiosity, what would they do if you slapped the silly thing into a microwave for about an hour to fry the RFID chip? Or if you were to somehow remove/disable the chip if that fails?
It's not a matter of media hysteria. It's a matter of too few protections in place on the collection of data. You may not have a problem with it but I sure do. I did notice that you never addressed the commercial aspect of my post. So I take it you don't have a problem with your kid being targeted by ads based on data from this device? "We see you are in Jubilee park. Go to this store for great things!" coming across the cell phone...Hmmm....
You are correct that DRM isn't a problem for unprotected media. It is a blow to fair use backup on protected media though. Try backing up that HD media you purchased and see how far you get using only Microsoft tools (no cheating and using those illegal pirate specials). Try playing back a backup you may have managed to make once the original goes tits up.
The problem isn't what you do with the technology but what others do with the technology after you have it. In this case, the state (or worse, a commercial entity like the manufacturer) can use that technology to track the movements of your kid and use the data from that to target them for purposes other than intended. Demographic data is one of the highest priced data sets one can obtain. The temptation for corporate abuse is too great for my tastes. Imagine the potential for commercial opportunities if they could know where you have been and where you are going. Imagine the damage that can be inflicted if a stalker could get that feed. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me. :-)
I'll ignore the fact that you are doing exactly what you accuse others by repeating hearsay and address the "it doesn't work on Linux either" remark. That would be valid if it ever did in the first place which it didn't. Let's compare apples to apples here. Vista's main competition isn't Linux or OS X even. It is XP. In that context, the program does work in XP and not in vista. It sure is a Vista issue. Say what you like, but that sounds like a Vista sale lost if that is the driving factor for switching for that user.
Umm....No! They were SOLD on the fact that the NEW machine they bought was "Vista capable" from the get-go when it wasn't. Hence the class action lawsuit. Bait and switch is still illegal in the US at least until the Microsoft lobbyists pay off, er, "contribute to" Congress to change it. There is a big difference between buying a new machine based on the word of the supplier that it will work fine with the new OS and buying an upgrade where it is anybody's guess. That is the difference here.
You recon wrong then asshat. I simply vote with my conscience and only do sources that are legal and free. Not everyone is out to get your shit regardless of what you may believe. There are plenty of free resources out there that there really is no reason to violate the law even if the law is skewed towards greedy bastards like yourself.
Copyright exists for one reason and one reason only. That reason isn't to guarantee you and your relatives an income for all eternity. Copyright has been so distorted that the original goal of releasing into the public domain is unheard of these days.
Personally, I feel that if you value it so much, you can keep your precious crap. I want to see a bullet proof method of copyright enforcement implemented so that free sources can finally flourish. Do you honestly think the likes of Microsoft or Adobe would have half the "market share" (whatever that means) that they have today if all piracy came to an end? I don't. The same can be said for the pap that is peddled for music from the labels.
More likely not getting the throughput you are paying for because some asshat leech is running a BT client off your hotspot. Not to say anything about the legal issue you run when the MAFIAA (or worse, another 3 letter agency) come knocking down your door.
It depends on your definition of "swear words". To use a George Carlin line, "You have bad intentions, bad emotions, and words." (in reference to the words you can't say on TV).
Ummm...No! All that will happen is they will abuse a part you didn't specifically address. Happens all the time. There is no way you can possibly address every abuse of a law. Take the DMCA (or any law designed to protect some "right") and look at the abuses never contemplated by Congress. They wrote the law with the intention of making it easier for a copyright holder to stop infringing content. They knew the take-down provisions would be abused. To say that situation was never contemplated is false since that was one of the warnings Congress was given before its passage. Yet they passed it anyway.
Let me re-word that then...What is perceived as pendantic reasons from the users point of view.
The problem with this approach is it lowers the amount of bug reporting you are getting simply for pedantic reasons. Too much reactions like this and bug reporting will dry up real fast. Is that what Linus is looking for? Somehow I don't think so.
They have already gone this route by trying (and continuing to try) to introduce legislation mandating a "media tax" on all ISPs much like the Canadian blank CD tax. If they can't get their pound of flesh from the artists, they will try the other end of the supply chain...US!
What I can't understand is the media companies keep claiming a decline in sales yet also report record profits. This is more true of the movie industry than the music but still, it doesn't make any logical sense to me. It is like the oil industry claiming to need tax relief while showing record profits. I just don't get it...
Whoever says that deserves the bad policy they get that was based on that bad data. You can never achieve 100% accuracy but it is a goal that still should be attempted. To accept otherwise is not only foolish but also dangerous. It leads to such stupidity as the US is currently experiencing with global warming and evolution. Screwing up the data bad enough gives the opposition to proper policy the ammunition to call "junk science" on that policy. So no, it isn't better to have bad data over no data.
You want to know why you were marked troll? Could it be because of the utter crap you are spreading? Here, let me help clear that up for you:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/05/1234217
*nix boxes aren't being used as a drone in a botnet but they are being used to control them. Far worse if you ask me.
Maybe a little less smugness and a little more research and you wouldn't get marked troll.
DISCLAIMER: I run Gentoo Linux SOLELY. No Dual Boot, no virtualization.
Which sounds to me (I am not a pilot, etc) like a good argument against the hub system. Centralized airport hubs are the bottleneck in most cases. Just have bad weather over Atlanta or Chicago and watch the "Delayed" and "Cancelled" signs light up. Decentralized airports seem to be the answer to me to really speed things up.
Exactly.
If ever I saw an oxymoron it is the terms "open" and "patents" used in the same sentence. You tell me how a patent grant of monopoly can be open.
Their implementations of course. It is fine to patent hardware that implements it as well. Or are you telling me that you can implement 802.11 without hardware...
Oh please. Don't get melodramatic on me. You are assuming a "dramatic investment" was made and not simply an incremental advancement of other technologies. Think that one over. You wouldn't be typing a thing right now if patents existed for software in the 50's and 60's because nobody would be able to make those incremental advances without paying through the nose in licensing fees. The whole computer software industry would implode today if patent law were changed to force enforcement of patents that were being infringed. Maybe that's a way to fix the system. Enforce your patent or loose it. No more submarine patent shit but also no more industry and this nebulous "innovation" either. Then you will see "dramatic investment" as companies cross license left and right.
What utter drivel. Copyright (which lasts far longer than patents) are the domain of software. Why is it that software of all "innovations" (God I hate that term) is the only one privileged enough to be covered by both patents and copyrights? Either one or the other have to be relinquished.
Far easier...
Deny any patent with the words, "A method to..."
Problem solved. I bet the backlog drops by at least 3/4 what it is today.