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User: iminplaya

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  1. Re:Yes! MAKE the world sage for capitalism... on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 1

    Many monopolies exist due to gov't protection of monopolistic companies. The oil and railroad indutries are pretty good examples. When someone would rise up against these companies the gov't would send in the troops to protect their interests. When a union would strike a major industry, you would never hear the gov't tell the company to give them(the union) what they want. They always order the employees back to work. Now they can protect these companies with IP.

  2. Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 1

    I'm confused...Do you disagree with Jefferson's statement? If you do, that's too bad. He seems to be saying what I'm saying, only much more eloquently.

    The intent of IP law is to promote the creation of new ideas.

    I guess if you hear that line often enough, you're going to believe it. I claim it has the opposite effect. It provides gov't(through its corporations) control of ideas, not the promotion. All these extensions and software patents are a natural result of what I consider the real intent. If a person requires economic incentive to create, I wouldn't consider him/her to be very creative. Creative people create because they like to.

  3. Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But non-existance of IP would hurt more than help.

    That's the going theory, but we'll never know until we try.

    Besides, copyrights have been around for a while but the world didn't blow up due to it.

    That's because IP was never so easy to "violate". It seems that some are willing to "blow up" the world(go to war) in order to protect their IP. It is sickening to think that we might actually kill people for this.(If we haven't already)

    What we need is a good protected IP rights such as GPL to keep certain ideas free while allowing others to gain from their IP.

    What we need is to quit acting like animals and actually work for the mutual benefit of everyone.

  4. Re:POSSIBLY important on Space Station Slowly Falling Apart? · · Score: 1

    possibly important components

    I hope they don't mean the soyuz capsule

  5. Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Without IP, Microsoft wouldn't have any more protection than GPL. We would all be on level ground. It is because of the existance of IP that we need GPL.

  6. Re:Funny World... on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 4, Informative

    It makes me sadder still that said people who say the U.S. is evil and makes things bad for its citizens and the rest of the world somehow never give any substantial evidence of that.

    Does this count??

  7. Re:Yes! MAKE the world sage for capitalism... on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Without the efficient, industrial base proided by capitalism there would be no computers or internet to create free software with/on/for.

    Oh, yeah? Prove it. :-)

  8. Re:Best Politicians Money Can Buy on U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit · · Score: 2, Troll

    Here AGAIN we see IP working as intended. It's shame that almost nobody realizes that the whole idea of IP is truly evil. But there's money to be made, so carry on.

  9. Re:Gates versus Europe - Round 1? on EU Rejects Microsoft Settlement Proposal · · Score: 1

    Not all companies have the same Desktop Theme, installed applications, Start Menu, etc.

    Please allow me to make some wild generalizations...Most companies have, on their windows machines, installed ms office and kaaza(before, it was napster) not much else. :-)

    I sometime have trouble finding an application shortcut, so I have picked up the habit of starting everything from the command line, as that stays pretty much the same for all company computers.

    Heh...I usually use the windows key+F and take a break while the machine is looking for the app. I just have to remember to look for "winword" not "microsoft word". but the same applies to the command line.

  10. Re:The only downside of Slashdot on Massachusetts' Big Brother Tech to Watch Taxpayers · · Score: 1

    I'm more optimistic than you. But let's say you're right... there is at least the chance that the increased governement spending will benefit me...

    Not to be trolling, but this is what I expect to hear from a person that's addicted to gambling(the chance, no matter how small, that you can win your money back) It is useless to discuss the morality of breaking the law considering some laws were literally designed to be broken in order to serve the prison industry and for the collection of fines(another good source of income) The most agregious being the drug laws(prison) and the more subtle being some tax laws(fines).

    Are you opposed to in-store video cameras?

    No, of course not. I'm on their property. They can film all they want. Im' not advocating shoplifting or insurance fraud, but don't use that smoke screen(my favorite cliche for today) to justify greedy monopolistic(for insurance at least) pricing practices.

    As for a grievance system,...

    Ok...I'll give you that. I suppose we could vote them out, but that's not likely. Or to be redundant, We're at that awkward stage in our history where it's too late to fix the system from within, but it's still too early to just shoot the bastards.

  11. Re:Good!!! on Massachusetts' Big Brother Tech to Watch Taxpayers · · Score: 1

    You may find this to be relevent...

  12. Re:The only downside of Slashdot on Massachusetts' Big Brother Tech to Watch Taxpayers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Personally, I like seeing tax cheats get caught, because it means I pay less.

    No it doesn't. It just means the gov't gets more. It is dilussional to think that if they caught all the tax "cheats" that they wil reduce your taxes. Same goes for retailers vs. shoplifters, insurance companies vs. fraud.

    As long as there a legitmate system for addressing grievances,...

    When they put one in, let me know...ok?

  13. Re:Gates versus Europe - Round 1? on EU Rejects Microsoft Settlement Proposal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    because Bill wants every desktop to be the same

    I would suspect that many users(especially office people, like secretaries, temps, etc.) want the same thing. It can be a real pain if every machine were configured differently. Imagine if you had to spend time relearning where everything is every time you change jobs or even departments within your company. I thought(though I'm probably wrong) that Microsoft made their software for businesses originally, not the home user, and thus wanted to create a similar configuration on all machines. Call me naive or whatever(just don't call me late for dinner), but I think that concept is a good thing under those circumstances.

  14. Re:What happens to open source image software? on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 1

    Yep, and it was always enforced with dollars from congress, not laws.

    Your right. Washington told the states to implement it or lose federal highway funds. Washington did not pass a law. I thought Nevada was the only one with enough guts to tell them to "go screw" and was going to keep its gas tax money from going to the feds, but they backed down(cowards). Now, the feds are doing the same thing with helmet and seat belt laws. By the way, many laws are enforced with dollars, but always backed up with a gun.

  15. Re:Expand on that, please on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 1

    Will this require every computer with a net connection to allow certain outside agents to read their every file? What business would allow this?

    Many companies(especially the phone companies) today are being told to put "back doors" into their systems to allow snooping by the gov't. Most of them are not fighting that. They might be concerned about company data, but they could care less about the customer's. There are a few exceptions of course, but most of the ones fighting it are doing it for "show"(see? We're concerned about your privacy...) It's only a small step further to require all connected equipment to do the same. Most people will accept it "for the children" or the "war on terror".

    As for hardware manufacturers, they don't produce a lot of hardware drivers right now.

    The key words in that statement are - "right now".

  16. Re:Oh, get real on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 1

    Any computer that is connected can be analyzed for "unauthorized" software and hardware. Most businesses aren't going to try to "spoof" the system. So you might see open source relegated to hacker/hobbyist underground, never to be conncted to the 'net again. Hardware manufacturers will stop producing open source drivers(it would be illegal, like radio scanners are prohibited from recieving the cel phone freqs). It would prevent any widespread adoption of open source.

  17. Re:What happens to open source image software? on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This could be the first step in the criminalization(sp) of open source software. What starts out as voluntary usually ends up becoming mandatory(Anyone remember the "double-nickel" on the american interstates?)

  18. Re:What's the problem? on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a nice smoke screen to get people to accept gov't mandated tech. After this kind of thing gets through, the next thing will mandated DRM. Old equipment will be banned fron the 'net. "Upgrade" now or go to jail.

  19. History shows on Candidate Ads, Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You · · Score: 1

    that no matter how abusive a candidate becomes, he/she still gets plenty of votes. Certainly explains the...what? 95-98 percent re-election rate. And since 1960 at least(candidates discover tv) the election is little more than a "miss america" show. People are now just voting for the best looking...qualifications be dammed. This is why Dennis won't get elected. Even though he's by FAR the best person running.

  20. Re:if they spam me on Candidate Ads, Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looks like you might not be voting this year. :-)

    -Vote for Nobody, because Nobody cares.

  21. Re:XFree86 is a licensing mess. on Mandrake Blocked By XFree86 4.4 License · · Score: 1

    Looks like debian-legal is going to see a lot more traffic than "debian-developement" or any other part of debian-...
    All this is going to keep us in the computer "stone age" for some time to come. The coming steel cage match between copyright and GPL is going to be fun to watch.

  22. Re:GPL compatibility on Mandrake Blocked By XFree86 4.4 License · · Score: 1

    Cross-license XF86 under its own liberal license,...

    Soon you will have so many criss-crossed licenses, the whole thing would become undecypherable(?). Oooo...I just thought of a new encryption scheme. Nevermind...the lawyers beat me to it.

  23. Re:Why does Mandrake have a problem with this? on Mandrake Blocked By XFree86 4.4 License · · Score: 1

    Maybe it would mean another whole bunch of CD's just for licenses.

    CD's 1 & 2 - Install
    CD's 3 & 4 - Apps
    CD's 5 & 6 - Source
    CD's 7,8,9,10,11... - Licenses

  24. The way things are going on Mandrake Blocked By XFree86 4.4 License · · Score: 1

    the license is giung to take up more hard drive space than the program code. Well I have a new license for you. It's called the "Playa Utopia License" (PUL) It goes like this:

    Be nice.

    See how easy it can be? Regardless what all you mystics say, life CAN be that simple. I hope you all live long enough to see the error of your ways. It sounds like a curse, and it could be, depending on your POV.

    -There are people on this planet who don't love their fellow man, and I HATE people like that. -TL(?)

  25. Re:What is "the Progress"? on Backlash as EMI Hunts Down the Grey Album · · Score: 1

    What's the constitutional goal of U.S. copyright law again?

    I think it's spelled out in the sanity clause. But we all know there is no sanity clause.