A good portion of slashdotters didn't care for any of the candidates who could win. The one that made the most sense (Ron Paul) pretty much didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
So, forgive us if we don't have a lot of faith in the system as it stands. It has spent a great deal of time letting us down over the last 10 years.
I got really excited when I saw "Health Care for All" in the sidebar, thinking "perhaps someone is finally in office who understands that standardized social medicine (which many countries in the world currently enjoy) isn't the monster the republicans make it out to be". Unfortunately, it looks like more same.
...we speak of finding now inadmissible evidence that someone is collecting/distributing child porn, and you guys tag it as "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense". Really, people.
Use of torrenting (as seen in world of warcraft) can be a real pain for those who have limited bandwidth. It uses a lot of bandwidth to "share" patch data with other users. One of the biggest pains is when patch content preloads, and patch data is transferred when you exit the game. If you're like me, and you leave your PC on all day and go to work, it will quite happily sit there and chew up your bandwidth.
Companies like Blizzard really should offer different methods of acquiring patches. The most recent major patch was 1.2GB in size, with subsequent patches (which were required, since Blizzard won't do people the service of amalgamating all their patches during testing before public release) totaling over 500MB more.
Personally, I really hate this. They shouldn't be allowed to give my bandwidth away to other people.
Re:I got modded flame-bait last time I said this
on
Bad Signs For Blu-ray
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· Score: 1
My stereo has song seek built in to the cassette player. It worked by detecting the gaps between songs.
It's not that these features were unavailable, it's that most people didn't want to spend the money to have the equipment with the features.
Re:I got modded flame-bait last time I said this
on
Bad Signs For Blu-ray
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· Score: 1
Except Cannonical made the right choice! It's putting in what users want in a way users can get it. People would rather have a paid option than no options at all - and it's reall a small price to pay considering they get the whole operating system for free.
Ubuntu might still have some flaws, and maybe even some rough edges still, but I honestly believe they're going in the right direction. This is how we get Linux on the desktop - by giving people what they want to do what they want. Not through ideologies which limit choice.
So, they'd be free to take the massive amounts of data they've collected and use it for whatever purposes they see fit without fear of government repercussion? Shouldn't entities like Google who have the power to influence us all have to be accountable to a government?
Doesn't anyone else have a problem with this?
Not to mention, the data they have may be useful to a hostile force. Would you really want data like that to get hijacked and abused?
I mean, shouldn't we be looking at the ridiculous airtime charges? Roaming fees? Unreasonable cellphone plans?
Compared to all that, texting just seems minor.
And if you went to the actual company site, you'd see they offer what appears to be a choice of vista, xp, or linux (they don't specify the flavour). See: http://hvsco.com/sp_qx.asp?id=75
How about, instead of reading Microsoft's wishful thinking, you read the law
wow.. just... wow.
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
section 106 reads:
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
Oh, and more interestingly:
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. -- Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
You know the meaning of the word 'exclusive', right? This means not only is it illegal to make a copy and give it away (unless you have to give up your rights to use it by doing so), it's doubly illegal to in any way modify the program and make copies of it for distribution without permission. So anyone distributing a cracked copy of a program, or a crack which uses elements of the original program is subject to this.
I'll be the first to admit that IANAL, and maybe I'm way off in my analysis here. However it would seem that you aren't either. From where I'm sitting, you're not only wrong, you're really wrong.
No, they aren't. When you walk into a shop, pick up a box, bring it to the counter, and pay for it, does it say "Windows" on the box, or does it say "A License for Windows" on the box? When they put adverts in magazines, do they tell you to buy Windows, or do they tell you to buy a license for Windows?
You are buying a copy of Windows. Not a license. You don't need a license to use software in the USA. You don't need a license to copy software for the purpose of installing, using or backing up in the USA. The idea that you aren't really buying a copy of Windows is a myth.
You are wrong, I'm sorry. Read the EULA (End User License Agreement) that comes with nearly any piece of software. They are granting you license. They are not giving you sole ownership of the software. The fact that you get a box, and a CD is a convenience to the end user. After all, in order to use the license, you have to be able to access the software. Microsoft is hardly the only company to do this.
I make a living writing and selling software, and it doesn't make the slightest bit of different to me if copyright exists or not. Specifically, I work on web applications. The code I write is tailored to the businesses that hire me.
Here is the crux of the problem in your argument. You write web applications tailored to specific entities. What you do is very different than what desktop software developers do. Your industry and theirs are like comparing apples and oranges. Of course nobody is going to pirate that, because it's tailored to an individual. Desktop software on the other hand is trying to appeal to the masses.
Here's the thing: most people who write software are like me. The commercial software might be the most visible to you, the end user, but it's a minority in the software industry. So please, going on about "the poor developers" isn't very convincing.
You're right. Most developers are like you. Web development has the lowest barrier for entry for any of the programming fields. I know so many people without any education in the web development field that it's scary. You might not be one of these people, but it's why there are so many web developers. Piracy does hurt small and independent desktop developers. Don't kid yourself.
No, by my logic, these people should just bend over and like it because their business model is based around getting paid for giving up control of their product and then attempting to control it anyway.
This is bunk. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Any model for selling your product is giving up control, unless you start going the road of intrusive anti-copy protection schemes which keep the less tech-savvy honest. Or you annoy your users in to buying the product. Developers shouldn't have to do this. But they are doing it as a byproduct of mentalities like yours.
The term 'nerd' is just plain insulting. I can't see how anyone would want to be called this.
Nerd: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
Geek: an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity
See the difference?
You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want the money from the sale, but you don't want to give up ownership or control. Perhaps you should consider leasing your property out instead of selling it, it seems more in line with what you actually want.
Which is exactly what MS is doing. They're licensing it to you. They're not giving it to you with no strings. Piracy is illegal. Trying to quantify piracy as "nobody gets hurt" is wrong. Saying the model is flawed is an easy way out, because it's hard to replace the model with anything that adequately compensates the company.
Perhaps it doesn't hurt MS quite as bad as it does other people, but there are plenty of people who try to make a living writing and selling software who get put out of business by it, and don't have the resources to combat the problem. By your logic, these people should just bend over and like it. After all, they couldn't control their product.
Perhaps you don't make money by writing software, but other people do. While it's hard to feel sorry for a company like MS, it's really easy when it's a small team who come up with a good idea and get screwed by the vast majority of people who refuse to compensate them for their work.
So, here it is. I used to be a heavy pirate when I was a kid. Nearly every game in my rather large collection was a pirated copy. The reason behind this was that games just didn't last for me. At $40 - $60 a game, I just couldn't afford to shell out for the latest titles which only kept me occupied for a few weeks to a month. So, I copied them. I had other things going on in my life which also required money, and there was no way to get around paying for those things. So rather than sacrifice them, I chose not to pay for games.
Things are different for me now. Forking out $100 - $200 a month to feed my habit isn't a big deal. So now, a lot of my games get purchased. It avoids a lot of hassle in my opinion. Many games now register with a serial number online, and while you can crack them, they're often not usable for multiplayer.
In there here and now, for the indie game devs out there - a lot of the times I won't purchase your games because they just fail to impress. There may be some real gems out there, but I can't say I've seen them. It's also possible that you're just not getting the right kind of exposure. You're competing with big game makers, some of whom set very high standards. Ones I'm not sure small teams of 1 - 3 people can stay on par with, or outdo very easily. As gamers, we're used to having the bar constantly raised. I feel for you guys. As a programmer myself, I can appreciate how much time and effort goes in to these things. I can appreciate that it's a labor of love. However, you have to consider what it is you're going up against. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm saying you need to be sure that your game is of a quality level that can compete in today's saturated market.
Slashdot Mirror
Who the hell owns a computer, any computer, running any OS that takes 30 minutes to boot? Are these people working on 486s or something?
The point of the kindle, and devices like it is not to be price competitive with books. It's to offer people a convenient way to store and read books.
As usual, kdawson and the people he approves for articles miss the point entirely.
A good portion of slashdotters didn't care for any of the candidates who could win. The one that made the most sense (Ron Paul) pretty much didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
So, forgive us if we don't have a lot of faith in the system as it stands. It has spent a great deal of time letting us down over the last 10 years.
I got really excited when I saw "Health Care for All" in the sidebar, thinking "perhaps someone is finally in office who understands that standardized social medicine (which many countries in the world currently enjoy) isn't the monster the republicans make it out to be". Unfortunately, it looks like more same.
:q! - every other command is secondary.
....
Anonymous Coward for president in 2012!
Why does it have to be opensource? Do you intend to develop code/patches for it?
...we speak of finding now inadmissible evidence that someone is collecting/distributing child porn, and you guys tag it as "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense". Really, people.
Available, but blizzard is not providing them. They're letting other people foot the bill.
Use of torrenting (as seen in world of warcraft) can be a real pain for those who have limited bandwidth. It uses a lot of bandwidth to "share" patch data with other users. One of the biggest pains is when patch content preloads, and patch data is transferred when you exit the game. If you're like me, and you leave your PC on all day and go to work, it will quite happily sit there and chew up your bandwidth.
Companies like Blizzard really should offer different methods of acquiring patches. The most recent major patch was 1.2GB in size, with subsequent patches (which were required, since Blizzard won't do people the service of amalgamating all their patches during testing before public release) totaling over 500MB more.
Personally, I really hate this. They shouldn't be allowed to give my bandwidth away to other people.
My stereo has song seek built in to the cassette player. It worked by detecting the gaps between songs. It's not that these features were unavailable, it's that most people didn't want to spend the money to have the equipment with the features.
Obviously you never used DAT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Tape
Sweet Zombie Jesus, that's some bad English on my part :x
36 hour uptime is bad for typing skills :(
Except Cannonical made the right choice! It's putting in what users want in a way users can get it. People would rather have a paid option than no options at all - and it's reall a small price to pay considering they get the whole operating system for free.
Ubuntu might still have some flaws, and maybe even some rough edges still, but I honestly believe they're going in the right direction. This is how we get Linux on the desktop - by giving people what they want to do what they want. Not through ideologies which limit choice.
So, they'd be free to take the massive amounts of data they've collected and use it for whatever purposes they see fit without fear of government repercussion? Shouldn't entities like Google who have the power to influence us all have to be accountable to a government? Doesn't anyone else have a problem with this? Not to mention, the data they have may be useful to a hostile force. Would you really want data like that to get hijacked and abused?
...for not calling this the year of the linux desktop.
I mean, shouldn't we be looking at the ridiculous airtime charges? Roaming fees? Unreasonable cellphone plans? Compared to all that, texting just seems minor.
And if you went to the actual company site, you'd see they offer what appears to be a choice of vista, xp, or linux (they don't specify the flavour). See: http://hvsco.com/sp_qx.asp?id=75
http://techvideoblog.com/ifa/98-linux-laptop-the-hivision-mininote
It's even the first *line* in this article. So the person submitting the article got it wrong, and you happily ate it up.
HiVision makes the worlds cheapest Linux laptop at $98 using a new cheaper MIPS based processor (perhaps the Longsoon or the Ingenic)[...]
How about, instead of reading Microsoft's wishful thinking, you read the law
wow .. just ... wow.
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
section 106 reads:
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38 Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
Oh, and more interestingly:
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. -- Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
You know the meaning of the word 'exclusive', right? This means not only is it illegal to make a copy and give it away (unless you have to give up your rights to use it by doing so), it's doubly illegal to in any way modify the program and make copies of it for distribution without permission. So anyone distributing a cracked copy of a program, or a crack which uses elements of the original program is subject to this.
I'll be the first to admit that IANAL, and maybe I'm way off in my analysis here. However it would seem that you aren't either. From where I'm sitting, you're not only wrong, you're really wrong.
Yes, the difference is I chose the definitions which suit the context of the discussion. You chose the definitions which suited your flame.
No, they aren't. When you walk into a shop, pick up a box, bring it to the counter, and pay for it, does it say "Windows" on the box, or does it say "A License for Windows" on the box? When they put adverts in magazines, do they tell you to buy Windows, or do they tell you to buy a license for Windows? You are buying a copy of Windows. Not a license. You don't need a license to use software in the USA. You don't need a license to copy software for the purpose of installing, using or backing up in the USA. The idea that you aren't really buying a copy of Windows is a myth.
You are wrong, I'm sorry. Read the EULA (End User License Agreement) that comes with nearly any piece of software. They are granting you license. They are not giving you sole ownership of the software. The fact that you get a box, and a CD is a convenience to the end user. After all, in order to use the license, you have to be able to access the software. Microsoft is hardly the only company to do this.
I make a living writing and selling software, and it doesn't make the slightest bit of different to me if copyright exists or not. Specifically, I work on web applications. The code I write is tailored to the businesses that hire me.
Here is the crux of the problem in your argument. You write web applications tailored to specific entities. What you do is very different than what desktop software developers do. Your industry and theirs are like comparing apples and oranges. Of course nobody is going to pirate that, because it's tailored to an individual. Desktop software on the other hand is trying to appeal to the masses.
Here's the thing: most people who write software are like me. The commercial software might be the most visible to you, the end user, but it's a minority in the software industry. So please, going on about "the poor developers" isn't very convincing.
You're right. Most developers are like you. Web development has the lowest barrier for entry for any of the programming fields. I know so many people without any education in the web development field that it's scary. You might not be one of these people, but it's why there are so many web developers. Piracy does hurt small and independent desktop developers. Don't kid yourself.
No, by my logic, these people should just bend over and like it because their business model is based around getting paid for giving up control of their product and then attempting to control it anyway.
This is bunk. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Any model for selling your product is giving up control, unless you start going the road of intrusive anti-copy protection schemes which keep the less tech-savvy honest. Or you annoy your users in to buying the product. Developers shouldn't have to do this. But they are doing it as a byproduct of mentalities like yours.
The term 'nerd' is just plain insulting. I can't see how anyone would want to be called this. Nerd: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits Geek: an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity See the difference?
You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want the money from the sale, but you don't want to give up ownership or control. Perhaps you should consider leasing your property out instead of selling it, it seems more in line with what you actually want.
Which is exactly what MS is doing. They're licensing it to you. They're not giving it to you with no strings. Piracy is illegal. Trying to quantify piracy as "nobody gets hurt" is wrong. Saying the model is flawed is an easy way out, because it's hard to replace the model with anything that adequately compensates the company.
Perhaps it doesn't hurt MS quite as bad as it does other people, but there are plenty of people who try to make a living writing and selling software who get put out of business by it, and don't have the resources to combat the problem. By your logic, these people should just bend over and like it. After all, they couldn't control their product.
Perhaps you don't make money by writing software, but other people do. While it's hard to feel sorry for a company like MS, it's really easy when it's a small team who come up with a good idea and get screwed by the vast majority of people who refuse to compensate them for their work.
So, here it is. I used to be a heavy pirate when I was a kid. Nearly every game in my rather large collection was a pirated copy. The reason behind this was that games just didn't last for me. At $40 - $60 a game, I just couldn't afford to shell out for the latest titles which only kept me occupied for a few weeks to a month. So, I copied them. I had other things going on in my life which also required money, and there was no way to get around paying for those things. So rather than sacrifice them, I chose not to pay for games. Things are different for me now. Forking out $100 - $200 a month to feed my habit isn't a big deal. So now, a lot of my games get purchased. It avoids a lot of hassle in my opinion. Many games now register with a serial number online, and while you can crack them, they're often not usable for multiplayer. In there here and now, for the indie game devs out there - a lot of the times I won't purchase your games because they just fail to impress. There may be some real gems out there, but I can't say I've seen them. It's also possible that you're just not getting the right kind of exposure. You're competing with big game makers, some of whom set very high standards. Ones I'm not sure small teams of 1 - 3 people can stay on par with, or outdo very easily. As gamers, we're used to having the bar constantly raised. I feel for you guys. As a programmer myself, I can appreciate how much time and effort goes in to these things. I can appreciate that it's a labor of love. However, you have to consider what it is you're going up against. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm saying you need to be sure that your game is of a quality level that can compete in today's saturated market.
congrats slashdot for picking a topic everyone feels entitled to comment on and absolutely no one actually says anything useful on
Yourself for example...