Well since I didn't post the original comment I'll say that I'm neutral on the idea of a "no-confidence" voting option for Andover (read: Slashdot) management. It did intrigue me enough to post my thoughts on it.
Pros:
Back when I started reading slashdot (back in the pre-100,000 hit days... yes that long ago) I was intrigued by Malda's no-nonsense no-holds-barred style of political activism. It appealed to me because this site was small and growing and I did feel at the time it represented my viewpoints more or less *and* even if it didn't I could always post and offer my dissent.
These days are over. Slashdot *is* the establishment now, since it's backed by big money (VA Linux) and has a huge editorial staff with a huge following on the net. Malda's (and others') viewpoints aren't nearly as innocent now because, like it or not, Slashdot is as much a part of politicking in the internet age as, say, Microsoft (probably more so). So, with power comes responsibility. A no-confidence voting option would make sure you guys would stay honest.
Concrete examples: Lately I find that some of the articles published here are written for the sole purpose of raising a ruckus. That's fine, but look at recent happenings at Apogee. People jumped to conclusions and insults were hurled at the company for what they thought as a normal business transaction with their fan sites (such a transaction would have been normal before the DMCA or UCITA or whatever). Fact-checking is a lost art here it seems.
Why am I so critical of this? Because I feel it's abuse of power to simply spout off one's mouth without first thinking "Hey maybe this is due to something other than malice". That brings me back to point one.
Cons:
Voting-style politics opens up potential avenues for abuse. There are posts here that bring up this point more eloquently than I can here, but essentially autocratic rule of the masses is still autocratic rule, and the fact people are just as easily swayed by misleading propaganda as they are rational discourse (even more so in many cases) opens up a can of worms no one wants opened.
As someone else said, the democracy of Slashdot lies in the fact that if people think it sucks, they'll leave. Period. Advertising will dry up, and even VA Linux won't be able to hold it aloft forever.
Finally, if you think Malda sucks, you can still post here, and most of the time if you provide some really good reasons *why* Malda et al sucks, you'll get moderated up, making your opinion that much more effective than possible if you simply voted.
Those are my thoughts. Have fun with them!
Re:DeCSS will be good for DVD
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Does "rather have a large piece of a small pie than a small piece of a large pie" come to mind?
Yup. It's a commonly used business strategy when market share is the goal rather than actual dollar figures. Amazon does it with their patents. MS does it with Java (and is trying to do it with every other tech on the planet, too). The list goes on.
This could be a good argument to make in front of the judge. "Your honor, according to the plaintiff's own business practices they are more interested in maintaining their monopoly than in innovation..." Of course that would be more a antitrust issue but I think the point can be made in this case. After all, if it can be effectively argued that certain provisions of the DMCA harm consumers, it's all the more likely the law will be watered down or certain parts of it ruled unconstitutional.
Personally, I feel that the Linux stocks have definitely "cooled", but I don't view that as a bad thing. Consider:
Unrealistic Expectations: Red Hat and VA have definitely gone down, but look at their market caps. Wow! Both are still over a billion dollors (I think RH is somewhere over 3 billion). Granted, I have every confidence they will some day make that mark in revenues or even profits, I don't see it happening for a looooong time.
Price range: the stocks were too expensive for me to buy. They still might be. When I see a slowing in the downward trend or an upswing, I may go for the buy.
Now lets be facing it, Bob Metcalfe is not a stupid man.
An alternative way of putting all this into perspective is that Bob here has done a great service to Open Source and Linux by making its detractors look like a bunch of stark-raving lunatics, primarily because Bob writes like one.
Bob fails to see the point of course, obviated by his constant references to "Open Sores". The guy has gone down to being nothing more than the equivalent of a USENET troll. He still has a slightly better reputation than your average/. troll, but barely. I expect this to change soon, and not necessarily for the better.
Bob, if you're listening, give up the journalism gig. You're no good at it. Your ideas might be considered good points if you didn't write like such an idiot. However, you are a smart guy and all. There's gotta be something more worthwhile for you to do!
At least slashdot allows you to retain copyright for the words your write - most commercial magazines don't!
This has to do with the fact that Slashdot wants to avoid the issues with retaining copyright to submitted posts; namely accountability. Most online magazines wouldn't *dream* of letting the rabble keep their own copyrights because that means they wouldn't be able to censor at a whim!
Thank god for "common carrier" status... otherwise public discussion forum like this would not exist. Imagine what it would be like if all public forum had to be monitored for "content abuses". Private censorship is as bad if not worse than public censorship.
I think you hit the nail on the head though - copyright serves a purpose when it encourages people to be creative (and who would bother if they felt anyone could 'steal' the result of their effort and claim it as their own), but it should prevent the work being used. If a publisher refsues to reissue a book, surely they should not be allowed to retain the copyright - after all copyright is the right to make copies, if the publisher is not exercising that right, why should they be able to withold it from others.
Absolutely.
The only point I disagreed with in the article concerning "old" copyrights is that I have no problem with Disney wanting to retain the copyright on Mickey Mouse. Mickey is still used to promote the company and is important to their public image so for the sake of consistency in my personal opinion I say "more power to them". I have problems, however, in how "fair use" is being bullied into non-existance. If an artist or political cartoonist wanted to use Disney as an icon of overcorporatization by picturing Mickey holding an iron fist over Disneyland, that's something that goes beyond mere copyright issues and enters the realm of political commentary. The hypothetical artist wants to make a statement about corporate power abuses and the "Disneyfication" of the world, but chances are that artist will get contacted by lawyers reaaaally quick (after all they want to protect their corporate image).
Oops, I've strayed off-topic... well, on to the next point...
In general I must say I consider copyright to be a good thing, it allows limited control over your own work, but in general doesn't stop others from using your ideas for themselves.
Ah, and there's the really nasty part about copyright law: It sucks when it applies to major corporate powers, but it's nice when it applies to yourself. I imagine the corporate powers in question feel the same, just the other way around.
And of course, what exactly is "using the ideas for themselves" anyways? For example, just recently I played a couple of songs at an open mike event at a local cafe. One of those songs was my own, but the other was a cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Breaking the Girl". Now, I don't seriously expect anyone to get riled up about this; I didn't profit from it, and the venue was pretty small (about 40-50 people). In fact I see local bands do this sort of thing all the time at gigs they get paid for. No one bothers them about it.
But now let's say I recorded that event and release it on the internet. Now I've published a copyrighted work. I still don't profit from it, and the audience may or may not be bigger (the potential audience would be huge though). I'd think it much more likely the record companies would be down on my back almost instantly. What's really changed though? The medium, basicly. Instead of using direct communication through sound waves and the like, I'm using electrons and electronic equipment to broadcast my musical talent (nearly null, by the way:^).
Copyright is a nebulous creature. It applies here, but not there. It's okay to copy, but only if you critique or satirize it. And so on. The problems we tend to talk about here is that corporate powers have taken advantage of this nebulosity to their own ends. It's gotten to the point where I don't even know if I'm violating copyright law by playing the cover of a popular song by a well-known band!
But in the end, one thing won't change: human nature. We're all corrupt to some degree. It's just how much that corruption will trample on the rights of others. If I keep control over my copyrights, it's personal freedom in action. If a corporation does it, it's an outrage.
If we can't sit around and discuss the ethics of laws that will greatly affect our careers (think for a second how this affects software companies, independent programmers, and so forth), then what is the point of free speech? These discussions are exactly what are needed to figure out what the hell to do. It was these so-called "amatuer lawyers" that pointed out in the court room that the DeCSS code was meant for playing DVD's under Linux rather than for illegal copying. The EFF lawyers didn't even catch that one. So much for the professionals.
And exactly who the hell are you to decide what is worth serious discussion or not? Some anonymous coward replying to your message agreed with you, calling this discussion a "circle jerk"... oooo effective argument there. Without this discussion the MPAA lawyers would have a field day and make our lives miserable just because it suits their bottom line. The online community (and the Slashdot community specificly) have shown amazing coordination and organization considering the circumstances in fighting this and publicizing the ramifications of the new law going to effect soon.
Well, ok maybe you're right. Let's just sit back and let Congress legislate whatever it wants according to the convenience to the large few. I mean, what right do we have to sit around and actually talk about serious issues that seriously affect the future development of technology? We've got no imperative to do so, because if we do, it's tantamount to a great big circle jerk. Let's go home folks... nothing important going on here. We're just annoying the important folks and making their lives hard by questioning their reasoning.
i think it's about time all the amateur lawyers on sloth stop trying to tell us how the legal system works, and marking each other up a zillion points.
I don't see you doing anything constructive. All you've contributed is the putting down of those who are trying to do something constructive, namely discussing the legality of a blanket restriction that may put a number of us in the poorhouse (unless of course we want to work for giant media conglomerates, but hey doesn't everyone want to do so, deep down in their hearts of hearts?).
if the judge thought the DMCA is corrupt and unconstitutional (which it is) it is the duty of his position to kill it.
Glad to see you seem to think so. However these sort of things don't happen on their own. It takes effort on the part of the defendants here to prove a law is unconstitutional. A judge has to do nothing if no one thinks he must do otherwise. Law is law, but the reality is a lot murkier, with human nature and all that.
I'd rather be the fool fighting for something I believe in rather than be the fool telling me I'm a fool for doing so.
MPAA officials have confirmed Monday that they have effectively surrounded the area which the DVD hacker group known only as "Those @#$%! Bastards" have stationed themselves and have deployed ground troops to prepare for the final invasion contingency plan.
Despite massive cease-and-desist orders and an unrelenting air artillery campaign, the DVD hackers have vowed to fight back to maintain their sovereignty. Dave Finton, escapee from MPAA prison and propagandist for the hacker group, announced earlier today "The rivers will run red with the ink of hundreds of bankrupt mega-corporations. We shall prevail!"
Jack Valentii, president of the MPAA and commander-in-chief of the ground campaign against the hackers, stated in a press release "In no way shall we tolerate these terrorist attacks against our soil. These hackers with their strange ideologies, like free speech and freedom of choice, will not be able to withstand the onslaught of our superior firepower. How will we be able to continue to release creative and original movie scripts when these 'people' will be able to copy their legally purchaced copyrighted material for their own use?"
One reporter asked in a press conference, "Um, isn't copying movies and audio media legal for personal use? And since when did Hollywood start releasing creative and original movies? Have I been hiding in a mile-deep hole for the past few decades?"
"GUARDS!" screamed the MPAA president. "Remove this agitator immediately!"
President Hillary Clinton was immediately unavailable for comment before publication of this Slashdot post.
profits of anything up to 500% more than the company is making now Remember, 5 x 0 = 0
Actually, their revenues are zero. They've already got expenses, so technically speaking their profits are in the negative (around $30,000 in the hole if I remember correctly) So:
B-K: How can it be proven that it is in fact your work?
G: How can it be proven that it's my work? I'll get, you know, any number of experts to testify that it's my work. It's quite simple. It's proof in a court of law.
I nearly snorted coffee outta my nose on that one. I wonder if that was the strategy used in the MS-DOJ case... looks like Gates was just as willing to interpret law for the rest of the world then as he did in the antitrust case. Not surprising *that* backfired on him...:^)
I should consider writing a humor article on this one... ah ripe ammunition... smells like victory!:^)
Who cares if you like it or not? They could still do it and help the other 99% of us out.
You forget the number of issues related with binary-only modules... namely Linus, Alan Cox, et. al would help you not one iota. The reasoning being that the Linux source code should not be held hostage by modules for which they can't see the code, even though the binary module owners have all the access they want to the kernel source.
You can make all the arguments you want till your blue in the face supporting binary-only... the negatives quite frankly far outway any positive effects that "you" may get.
BTW I myself have a x86 box... so yes it would "help" me too, but it's help I'd rather not have. As far as driver-level code goes in Linux, it's GPL or bust. End of argument.
Or.. in star trek talk.. non-baryonic == anti-matter.
That's a good example of star trek technobabble, since it makes no sense whatsoever. Anti-matter includes types of particles such as anti-protons, anti-neutrons, and positrons, which happen to be baryonic. Non-baryonic matter is simply a simple way of saying "non-proton, non-neutron, and non-electron, except for the antiparticles of the forementioned particles"
Of course I could be exhibiting star trek techno-babble myself, but I think memory serves me right. As it usually tries to do, but occasionally fails (insert humorous quantum physics reference here).:^)
There's a lot of polarity in technology today. One can almost summarize this as Mac's Ease of Use vs. Linux's Ability to Harness the Power of Technology in its (nearly) Pure Form. Where do you see this polarization heading. Can the two ever be wedded together (i.e. can Linux ever be made user-friendly enough for the masses or the can the Mac overcome its legacy architecture and step ahead of the pack technologically?)
In your experience, has this polarity always existed or is it a more recent phenomenon? As one of the founders of what was to become the premier company specializing in one end of this extreme, I'd like to hear your thought on this. Also, can this polarity ultimately help innovation or hurt it?
Was watch CNN the whole time...
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It was friggin hilarious. One of the reporters was taking about a glitch in the weather reporting stations somewhere on Ohio, and they were fixed in a couple of hours. He literally slammed his hands on the table in frustration after reporting this! Me and my friend were laughing about this for hours afterward.
I liked one comment: "Is there any Y2K news to report?" "Well, let me say that we should focus on the fireworks and forget about Y2K 'cause there's no news to report." I toasted to that one.:^)
Insightful my ass. These special purpose bacteria are no more likely to mutate into something that adversely affects humans than the trillions upon trillions of bacteria that are currently within 20 feet of you. I bet you'd freak if you knew how much bacteria is living in your mouth right now, all (theoretically) capable of mutating into "The Evil Toxic Death Disease."
Tell ya what... I do know what kind of bacteria live in my mouth. I also happen to know the kind of bacteria are living in all our underpants. Add this to the fact that half the guys I see walk out of the men's room do so without washing their hands first, and man! That's freaky!
But you missed a very important point. All those icky bacteria have been around for a long time. Most of them have evolved into sort of a "steady-state". Our immune systems know how to handle them. Our immune systems could most likely even handle a slight mutation (if they didn't, you'd likely be killed off by the next cold virus to come around).
But, oh, these new bacteria... where the hell did they come from? Did they co-evolve with human beings and other creatures of the planet? Can we even think of what will happen if a slight variance in the gene sequence of these modified bacteria caused them to, say, enjoy living in our intestines or in our lungs? Will their taste for petroleum-based wastes expand to other areas, such as some obscure chemical in the lining of our cell walls? If you can answer those questions, please tell me. I'd like to know.:^)
Good point. I also thought of another possibility after I hit "submit".:^)
What would happen if an extremely serious environmental catastrophy occurred? Like, for instance, several nuclear reactors in Russia blowing up at once, or a couple of massive oil spills in a single area (unlikely, but certainly possible). As a response, we dump tons of these bacteria on the affected area, and lo and behold! All life forms in the area die off, or something equivalently bad. And, bacteria being what they are and all, this devestation starts spreading as the bacteria population grows.
"Oops... sorry sir. These side-effects didn't show up in the testing phase."
While the short term benefits of this are indeed amazing, many slashdotters know that many times these sort of "magic bullets" can backfire on you. For instance, many Europeans are boycotting American foods that come from geneticly engineered plants and animals, and for good reason: We have absolutely no idea what the long term effects are going to be. In fact, some long-term effects are already coming into light (the presence of corn-generated insecticide in the surrounding envoronment, for example).
These bacteria look like exactly what we need to solve industrial pollution caused by accidents. But now I will apply my meager sci-fi skills to extrapolate what will happen in the future if these things become widespread in use.
Bacteria are used to clean up a toxic spill, but a slight mutation causes the bacteria to start an epidemic in humans or other animals (if it affects other animals, it would still be harmful to us if that animal was, say, a cow or a dog).
Corporations, upon realizing that there's a cheap and easy way to clean up after their environmental accidents, become lazy and sloppy. A benzene chemical leak doesn't seem so bad if all it takes is the biological equivalent of a napkin to clean it up. However, not only does this raise the possibility of likelihood #1 above happening, but we could see more environmental catastrophies happening on a more frequent basis. (Never attribute something to malice what could be more satisfactorly attributed to incompetence; we have no shortage of incompetence in this world of ours).
Research that should go into making factories and industrial zones safer and more environmentally friendly instead goes to making "superbacteria". It's sort of like someone buying 2 liters of oil a week for your car when what's really needed is an engine overhaul to fix the leaky engine.
These bacteria don't solve the problem, and have the potential of causing worse problems (the classic 'cure worse than the disease'). I'd rather not see this as a cure-all for our environmental ills.
It's not that I disagree with your point... it's just that I think you forgot the Linux and the BSD communities (which there is heavy overlap between the two) are fighting on the same side here. DVD support for both OS's are lacking, thanks to the short-sightedness of some "industry leaders". Complaining that BSD isn't mentioned here says that the complainer is more concerned about getting air-time for [insert favorite OS here] than the actual issue involved.
Instead of venting here, why not channel that energy to a positive direction? E-mail the DVD CCA and let them know what you think. If you want the voice of BSD heard, then speak up and let them know that you don't like their policies. Write the message from the perspective of a potential customer. Money does talk, you know. There are probably quite a few Linux "bigots" screaming bloody murder over this. Good for them. The great news is that The BSD folks can do the same. This has the side benefit of helping tip the scales of justice towards good (open hardware specifications) rather than evil (copyright laws that hinder rather than spur innovation) by providing a united front between the different OS's.
Go out there! Do something! Being bitter helps no one.
why doesn't the slashdot community BOYCOTT microsoft, i mean gee, we should, we shouldn't use there products! That'll show em. -1 Sarcasm
Some of us already are. I don't buy their stuff. I try to dissuade others from "following the bandwagon" by buying MS products like candy as well (with limited, yet progressing, success). And last I checked, they already have noticed.
I'm currently writing an e-mail to Yahoo right now... I'll post it when it's finished.
Proprietary (show me the open standards body in charge of the Win32 API not under MS's employ and then I'll concede your argument that it's not proprietary)
Proprietary
Since when did having a common GUI have anything to do with proprietarship? CDE for Unix has a common GUI too but that's still proprietary.
On the other hand, what other PDA uses any features that *are not* proprietary
Personally, I'd like to see what Cygnus's offering (Eros I believe its called) is doing... I heard they made a couple of deals. Open Source embedded OS's are definitely on the way. Till then I'll stick to Palm (hopefully I'll actually get one later this year).
No way man, we would just pirate the hell outta it. If I can't buy it anymore... would it really be stealing to copy?
Under copyright law, yes. Copyrights usually get sold off before they die out (sometimes by companies that need the money badly), so most likely it'd still be "live" even in the case of corporate shutdown.
It leaves the mind to wonder if they still bother to enforce copyrights for old software (like AmigoOS:^). I can't see MS hunting down someone distributing a few copies of Windows 3.1...would it even be worth it? (Amittedly, MS does have a tendency to periodicly make an "example" out of someone, complete with news coverage and the works.)
Re:Why Linux Supporters Should Be Excited About X-
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So, um... why? Why is VS ill-suited, as you say, to game development? What IDE is better suited for game development anyway? CodeWarrior? Emacs???
I happen to like Emacs... Emacs is well-suited for everything (hence its bloatedness). Yet Emacs is minimal. It doesn't assume anything (well actually assumes a lot but you can redefine the assumptions in your.emacs file (what's that I hear? you don't want to learn E-LISP? neither do I, but I manage okay anyways setting up my own colors and funkified emacsisms. so there's no excuse for not learning a language that you can put in your resume and impress employers with (hey I know a heavily parenthisized scripting language (hmmm it appears that I have gratuitously nested too many parentheses (this is a joke only we E-LISP'ers know... get used to it))))).
Certainly you can't create texture-maps in VS, but that's not a function of the IDE, and I wouldn't want it in mine.
I would definitely choose GIMP. Yeah yeah I hear everyone crying "Photoshop is so much better!!!" Other than support for hardware, I believe GIMP has some really funky features that blow photoshop away (can I use photoshop to write my own perl scripts to automagicly process images?). Now all GIMP needs is support for printers and scanning devices, but from what I hear from time to time things like this are coming along.
Re:Why Linux Supporters Should Be Excited About X-
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Direct3D, as far as I can tell, is just much, much easier to write drivers for--more stuff is left to the game developer to implement. Are there any experts out there who can verify?
John Carmack hates Direct3D. While his original rant seems to have disappeared from ID's page there is a news article here. John's arguments basicly centered around that A) Direct3D requires you to write more lines of code and B) The lines of code are significantly harder to read.
The point was that Direct3D was mush lower-level than OpenGL, and was a bad choice because of software manageability issues. So it would appear that you have your argument mixed up.:^)
It should also be noted that MS is trying to "fix" this by either funding or actually working on getting OpenGL to work on top of Direct3D with some sort of abstraction layer. I haven't been tracking this, so I could be wrong (or the effort may have been abandoned).
Slashdot Mirror
Um.... why? Convince me
Well since I didn't post the original comment I'll say that I'm neutral on the idea of a "no-confidence" voting option for Andover (read: Slashdot) management. It did intrigue me enough to post my thoughts on it.
Pros:
These days are over. Slashdot *is* the establishment now, since it's backed by big money (VA Linux) and has a huge editorial staff with a huge following on the net. Malda's (and others') viewpoints aren't nearly as innocent now because, like it or not, Slashdot is as much a part of politicking in the internet age as, say, Microsoft (probably more so). So, with power comes responsibility. A no-confidence voting option would make sure you guys would stay honest.
Why am I so critical of this? Because I feel it's abuse of power to simply spout off one's mouth without first thinking "Hey maybe this is due to something other than malice". That brings me back to point one.
Cons:
Those are my thoughts. Have fun with them!
Does "rather have a large piece of a small pie than a small piece of a large pie" come to mind?
Yup. It's a commonly used business strategy when market share is the goal rather than actual dollar figures. Amazon does it with their patents. MS does it with Java (and is trying to do it with every other tech on the planet, too). The list goes on.
This could be a good argument to make in front of the judge. "Your honor, according to the plaintiff's own business practices they are more interested in maintaining their monopoly than in innovation..." Of course that would be more a antitrust issue but I think the point can be made in this case. After all, if it can be effectively argued that certain provisions of the DMCA harm consumers, it's all the more likely the law will be watered down or certain parts of it ruled unconstitutional.
What else could be said about this?
Personally, I feel that the Linux stocks have definitely "cooled", but I don't view that as a bad thing. Consider:
- Unrealistic Expectations: Red Hat and VA have definitely gone down, but look at their market caps. Wow! Both are still over a billion dollors (I think RH is somewhere over 3 billion). Granted, I have every confidence they will some day make that mark in revenues or even profits, I don't see it happening for a looooong time.
- Price range: the stocks were too expensive for me to buy. They still might be. When I see a slowing in the downward trend or an upswing, I may go for the buy.
- Day Traders: We need to weed them out. Period.
Can anyone offer any other ideas, couterpoints?Now lets be facing it, Bob Metcalfe is not a stupid man.
An alternative way of putting all this into perspective is that Bob here has done a great service to Open Source and Linux by making its detractors look like a bunch of stark-raving lunatics, primarily because Bob writes like one.
Bob fails to see the point of course, obviated by his constant references to "Open Sores". The guy has gone down to being nothing more than the equivalent of a USENET troll. He still has a slightly better reputation than your average /. troll, but barely. I expect this to change soon, and not necessarily for the better.
Bob, if you're listening, give up the journalism gig. You're no good at it. Your ideas might be considered good points if you didn't write like such an idiot. However, you are a smart guy and all. There's gotta be something more worthwhile for you to do!
People are always getting "Copyright" and "Trademark" mixed up. Characters (such as Mickey Mouse) cannot be copyrighted. They can be trademarked.
This must be why I was moderated up as "Interesting" as opposed to "Informative". :^)
I don't know the details either... can someone clarify this a little better. IANAL as well. :^)
At least slashdot allows you to retain copyright for the words your write - most commercial magazines don't!
This has to do with the fact that Slashdot wants to avoid the issues with retaining copyright to submitted posts; namely accountability. Most online magazines wouldn't *dream* of letting the rabble keep their own copyrights because that means they wouldn't be able to censor at a whim!
Thank god for "common carrier" status... otherwise public discussion forum like this would not exist. Imagine what it would be like if all public forum had to be monitored for "content abuses". Private censorship is as bad if not worse than public censorship.
I think you hit the nail on the head though - copyright serves a purpose when it encourages people to be creative (and who would bother if they felt anyone could 'steal' the result of their effort and claim it as their own), but it should prevent the work being used. If a publisher refsues to reissue a book, surely they should not be allowed to retain the copyright - after all copyright is the right to make copies, if the publisher is not exercising that right, why should they be able to withold it from others.
Absolutely.
The only point I disagreed with in the article concerning "old" copyrights is that I have no problem with Disney wanting to retain the copyright on Mickey Mouse. Mickey is still used to promote the company and is important to their public image so for the sake of consistency in my personal opinion I say "more power to them". I have problems, however, in how "fair use" is being bullied into non-existance. If an artist or political cartoonist wanted to use Disney as an icon of overcorporatization by picturing Mickey holding an iron fist over Disneyland, that's something that goes beyond mere copyright issues and enters the realm of political commentary. The hypothetical artist wants to make a statement about corporate power abuses and the "Disneyfication" of the world, but chances are that artist will get contacted by lawyers reaaaally quick (after all they want to protect their corporate image).
Oops, I've strayed off-topic... well, on to the next point...
In general I must say I consider copyright to be a good thing, it allows limited control over your own work, but in general doesn't stop others from using your ideas for themselves.
Ah, and there's the really nasty part about copyright law: It sucks when it applies to major corporate powers, but it's nice when it applies to yourself. I imagine the corporate powers in question feel the same, just the other way around.
And of course, what exactly is "using the ideas for themselves" anyways? For example, just recently I played a couple of songs at an open mike event at a local cafe. One of those songs was my own, but the other was a cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Breaking the Girl". Now, I don't seriously expect anyone to get riled up about this; I didn't profit from it, and the venue was pretty small (about 40-50 people). In fact I see local bands do this sort of thing all the time at gigs they get paid for. No one bothers them about it.
But now let's say I recorded that event and release it on the internet. Now I've published a copyrighted work. I still don't profit from it, and the audience may or may not be bigger (the potential audience would be huge though). I'd think it much more likely the record companies would be down on my back almost instantly. What's really changed though? The medium, basicly. Instead of using direct communication through sound waves and the like, I'm using electrons and electronic equipment to broadcast my musical talent (nearly null, by the way :^).
Copyright is a nebulous creature. It applies here, but not there. It's okay to copy, but only if you critique or satirize it. And so on. The problems we tend to talk about here is that corporate powers have taken advantage of this nebulosity to their own ends. It's gotten to the point where I don't even know if I'm violating copyright law by playing the cover of a popular song by a well-known band!
But in the end, one thing won't change: human nature. We're all corrupt to some degree. It's just how much that corruption will trample on the rights of others. If I keep control over my copyrights, it's personal freedom in action. If a corporation does it, it's an outrage.
If we can't sit around and discuss the ethics of laws that will greatly affect our careers (think for a second how this affects software companies, independent programmers, and so forth), then what is the point of free speech? These discussions are exactly what are needed to figure out what the hell to do. It was these so-called "amatuer lawyers" that pointed out in the court room that the DeCSS code was meant for playing DVD's under Linux rather than for illegal copying. The EFF lawyers didn't even catch that one. So much for the professionals.
And exactly who the hell are you to decide what is worth serious discussion or not? Some anonymous coward replying to your message agreed with you, calling this discussion a "circle jerk"... oooo effective argument there. Without this discussion the MPAA lawyers would have a field day and make our lives miserable just because it suits their bottom line. The online community (and the Slashdot community specificly) have shown amazing coordination and organization considering the circumstances in fighting this and publicizing the ramifications of the new law going to effect soon.
Well, ok maybe you're right. Let's just sit back and let Congress legislate whatever it wants according to the convenience to the large few. I mean, what right do we have to sit around and actually talk about serious issues that seriously affect the future development of technology? We've got no imperative to do so, because if we do, it's tantamount to a great big circle jerk. Let's go home folks... nothing important going on here. We're just annoying the important folks and making their lives hard by questioning their reasoning.
i think it's about time all the amateur lawyers on sloth stop trying to tell us how the legal system works, and marking each other up a zillion points.
I don't see you doing anything constructive. All you've contributed is the putting down of those who are trying to do something constructive, namely discussing the legality of a blanket restriction that may put a number of us in the poorhouse (unless of course we want to work for giant media conglomerates, but hey doesn't everyone want to do so, deep down in their hearts of hearts?).
if the judge thought the DMCA is corrupt and unconstitutional (which it is) it is the duty of his position to kill it.
Glad to see you seem to think so. However these sort of things don't happen on their own. It takes effort on the part of the defendants here to prove a law is unconstitutional. A judge has to do nothing if no one thinks he must do otherwise. Law is law, but the reality is a lot murkier, with human nature and all that.
I'd rather be the fool fighting for something I believe in rather than be the fool telling me I'm a fool for doing so.
NEWS FLASH: MPAA Attacks DVD Hacker Group
MPAA officials have confirmed Monday that they have effectively surrounded the area which the DVD hacker group known only as "Those @#$%! Bastards" have stationed themselves and have deployed ground troops to prepare for the final invasion contingency plan.
Despite massive cease-and-desist orders and an unrelenting air artillery campaign, the DVD hackers have vowed to fight back to maintain their sovereignty. Dave Finton, escapee from MPAA prison and propagandist for the hacker group, announced earlier today "The rivers will run red with the ink of hundreds of bankrupt mega-corporations. We shall prevail!"
Jack Valentii, president of the MPAA and commander-in-chief of the ground campaign against the hackers, stated in a press release "In no way shall we tolerate these terrorist attacks against our soil. These hackers with their strange ideologies, like free speech and freedom of choice, will not be able to withstand the onslaught of our superior firepower. How will we be able to continue to release creative and original movie scripts when these 'people' will be able to copy their legally purchaced copyrighted material for their own use?"
One reporter asked in a press conference, "Um, isn't copying movies and audio media legal for personal use? And since when did Hollywood start releasing creative and original movies? Have I been hiding in a mile-deep hole for the past few decades?"
"GUARDS!" screamed the MPAA president. "Remove this agitator immediately!"
President Hillary Clinton was immediately unavailable for comment before publication of this Slashdot post.
- Dave Finton
There's an old saying, "A picture's worth a thousand words". Isn't interesting that a TV commercial can be summarized in three sentences or less?
Food for thought. :^)
profits of anything up to 500% more than the company is making now
Remember, 5 x 0 = 0
Actually, their revenues are zero. They've already got expenses, so technically speaking their profits are in the negative (around $30,000 in the hole if I remember correctly) So:
-30,000 * 5 = -150,000
Now, those are profits to weep about.
B-K: How can it be proven that it is in fact your work?
G: How can it be proven that it's my work? I'll get, you know, any number of experts to testify that it's my work. It's quite simple. It's proof in a court of law.
I nearly snorted coffee outta my nose on that one. I wonder if that was the strategy used in the MS-DOJ case... looks like Gates was just as willing to interpret law for the rest of the world then as he did in the antitrust case. Not surprising *that* backfired on him... :^)
I should consider writing a humor article on this one... ah ripe ammunition... smells like victory! :^)
Who cares if you like it or not? They could still do it and help the other 99% of us out.
You forget the number of issues related with binary-only modules... namely Linus, Alan Cox, et. al would help you not one iota. The reasoning being that the Linux source code should not be held hostage by modules for which they can't see the code, even though the binary module owners have all the access they want to the kernel source.
You can make all the arguments you want till your blue in the face supporting binary-only... the negatives quite frankly far outway any positive effects that "you" may get.
BTW I myself have a x86 box... so yes it would "help" me too, but it's help I'd rather not have. As far as driver-level code goes in Linux, it's GPL or bust. End of argument.
Or.. in star trek talk.. non-baryonic == anti-matter.
That's a good example of star trek technobabble, since it makes no sense whatsoever. Anti-matter includes types of particles such as anti-protons, anti-neutrons, and positrons, which happen to be baryonic. Non-baryonic matter is simply a simple way of saying "non-proton, non-neutron, and non-electron, except for the antiparticles of the forementioned particles"
Of course I could be exhibiting star trek techno-babble myself, but I think memory serves me right. As it usually tries to do, but occasionally fails (insert humorous quantum physics reference here). :^)
There's a lot of polarity in technology today. One can almost summarize this as Mac's Ease of Use vs. Linux's Ability to Harness the Power of Technology in its (nearly) Pure Form. Where do you see this polarization heading. Can the two ever be wedded together (i.e. can Linux ever be made user-friendly enough for the masses or the can the Mac overcome its legacy architecture and step ahead of the pack technologically?)
In your experience, has this polarity always existed or is it a more recent phenomenon? As one of the founders of what was to become the premier company specializing in one end of this extreme, I'd like to hear your thought on this. Also, can this polarity ultimately help innovation or hurt it?
It was friggin hilarious. One of the reporters was taking about a glitch in the weather reporting stations somewhere on Ohio, and they were fixed in a couple of hours. He literally slammed his hands on the table in frustration after reporting this! Me and my friend were laughing about this for hours afterward.
I liked one comment: "Is there any Y2K news to report?" "Well, let me say that we should focus on the fireworks and forget about Y2K 'cause there's no news to report." I toasted to that one. :^)
Insightful my ass. These special purpose bacteria are no more likely to mutate into something that adversely affects humans than the trillions upon trillions of bacteria that are currently within 20 feet of you. I bet you'd freak if you knew how much bacteria is living in your mouth right now, all (theoretically) capable of mutating into "The Evil Toxic Death Disease."
Tell ya what... I do know what kind of bacteria live in my mouth. I also happen to know the kind of bacteria are living in all our underpants. Add this to the fact that half the guys I see walk out of the men's room do so without washing their hands first, and man! That's freaky!
But you missed a very important point. All those icky bacteria have been around for a long time. Most of them have evolved into sort of a "steady-state". Our immune systems know how to handle them. Our immune systems could most likely even handle a slight mutation (if they didn't, you'd likely be killed off by the next cold virus to come around).
But, oh, these new bacteria... where the hell did they come from? Did they co-evolve with human beings and other creatures of the planet? Can we even think of what will happen if a slight variance in the gene sequence of these modified bacteria caused them to, say, enjoy living in our intestines or in our lungs? Will their taste for petroleum-based wastes expand to other areas, such as some obscure chemical in the lining of our cell walls? If you can answer those questions, please tell me. I'd like to know. :^)
Good point. I also thought of another possibility after I hit "submit". :^)
What would happen if an extremely serious environmental catastrophy occurred? Like, for instance, several nuclear reactors in Russia blowing up at once, or a couple of massive oil spills in a single area (unlikely, but certainly possible). As a response, we dump tons of these bacteria on the affected area, and lo and behold! All life forms in the area die off, or something equivalently bad. And, bacteria being what they are and all, this devestation starts spreading as the bacteria population grows.
"Oops... sorry sir. These side-effects didn't show up in the testing phase."
Food for thought.
While the short term benefits of this are indeed amazing, many slashdotters know that many times these sort of "magic bullets" can backfire on you. For instance, many Europeans are boycotting American foods that come from geneticly engineered plants and animals, and for good reason: We have absolutely no idea what the long term effects are going to be. In fact, some long-term effects are already coming into light (the presence of corn-generated insecticide in the surrounding envoronment, for example).
These bacteria look like exactly what we need to solve industrial pollution caused by accidents. But now I will apply my meager sci-fi skills to extrapolate what will happen in the future if these things become widespread in use.
These bacteria don't solve the problem, and have the potential of causing worse problems (the classic 'cure worse than the disease'). I'd rather not see this as a cure-all for our environmental ills.
It's not that I disagree with your point... it's just that I think you forgot the Linux and the BSD communities (which there is heavy overlap between the two) are fighting on the same side here. DVD support for both OS's are lacking, thanks to the short-sightedness of some "industry leaders". Complaining that BSD isn't mentioned here says that the complainer is more concerned about getting air-time for [insert favorite OS here] than the actual issue involved.
Instead of venting here, why not channel that energy to a positive direction? E-mail the DVD CCA and let them know what you think. If you want the voice of BSD heard, then speak up and let them know that you don't like their policies. Write the message from the perspective of a potential customer. Money does talk, you know. There are probably quite a few Linux "bigots" screaming bloody murder over this. Good for them. The great news is that The BSD folks can do the same. This has the side benefit of helping tip the scales of justice towards good (open hardware specifications) rather than evil (copyright laws that hinder rather than spur innovation) by providing a united front between the different OS's.
Go out there! Do something! Being bitter helps no one.
why doesn't the slashdot community BOYCOTT microsoft, i mean gee, we should, we shouldn't use there products! That'll show em. -1 Sarcasm
Some of us already are. I don't buy their stuff. I try to dissuade others from "following the bandwagon" by buying MS products like candy as well (with limited, yet progressing, success). And last I checked, they already have noticed.
I'm currently writing an e-mail to Yahoo right now... I'll post it when it's finished.
*Ahem*
Windows CE is not proprietary
*Cough* *Hack*
Yes it is. :^)
On the other hand, what other PDA uses any features that *are not* proprietary
Personally, I'd like to see what Cygnus's offering (Eros I believe its called) is doing... I heard they made a couple of deals. Open Source embedded OS's are definitely on the way. Till then I'll stick to Palm (hopefully I'll actually get one later this year).
ta-ta
No way man, we would just pirate the hell outta it. If I can't buy it anymore... would it really be stealing to copy?
Under copyright law, yes. Copyrights usually get sold off before they die out (sometimes by companies that need the money badly), so most likely it'd still be "live" even in the case of corporate shutdown.
It leaves the mind to wonder if they still bother to enforce copyrights for old software (like AmigoOS :^). I can't see MS hunting down someone distributing a few copies of Windows 3.1...would it even be worth it? (Amittedly, MS does have a tendency to periodicly make an "example" out of someone, complete with news coverage and the works.)
So, um... why? Why is VS ill-suited, as you say, to game development? What IDE is better suited for game development anyway? CodeWarrior? Emacs???
I happen to like Emacs... Emacs is well-suited for everything (hence its bloatedness). Yet Emacs is minimal. It doesn't assume anything (well actually assumes a lot but you can redefine the assumptions in your .emacs file (what's that I hear? you don't want to learn E-LISP? neither do I, but I manage okay anyways setting up my own colors and funkified emacsisms. so there's no excuse for not learning a language that you can put in your resume and impress employers with (hey I know a heavily parenthisized scripting language (hmmm it appears that I have gratuitously nested too many parentheses (this is a joke only we E-LISP'ers know... get used to it))))).
Certainly you can't create texture-maps in VS, but that's not a function of the IDE, and I wouldn't want it in mine.
I would definitely choose GIMP. Yeah yeah I hear everyone crying "Photoshop is so much better!!!" Other than support for hardware, I believe GIMP has some really funky features that blow photoshop away (can I use photoshop to write my own perl scripts to automagicly process images?). Now all GIMP needs is support for printers and scanning devices, but from what I hear from time to time things like this are coming along.
Direct3D, as far as I can tell, is just much, much easier to write drivers for--more stuff is left to the game developer to implement. Are there any experts out there who can verify?
John Carmack hates Direct3D. While his original rant seems to have disappeared from ID's page there is a news article here. John's arguments basicly centered around that A) Direct3D requires you to write more lines of code and B) The lines of code are significantly harder to read.
The point was that Direct3D was mush lower-level than OpenGL, and was a bad choice because of software manageability issues. So it would appear that you have your argument mixed up. :^)
It should also be noted that MS is trying to "fix" this by either funding or actually working on getting OpenGL to work on top of Direct3D with some sort of abstraction layer. I haven't been tracking this, so I could be wrong (or the effort may have been abandoned).
Take yer nameless faceless corporation addiction somewhere else, kid. Yer frightening me. :^)