College students will always have a dangerous amount of two things, at least to folks like the RIAA and the MPAA:
1. Lack of spending money 2. Time
These two compounding factors are why students "pirate". Not that I'm advocating it, but if you could spend the afternoon downloading 3 albums (instead of watching TV) and then you're able to go out and drink that night because of the 50 bucks you just "saved" not buying those CDs, the fomer option looks pretty attractive to you compared to the latter.
You are NOT being sold a license when you buy a CD. You are being sold a CD. And the material on it is covered by copyright law. Period.
I guess this guy has never heard of "fair use". I can legally make any sort of copy of my music CDs that I want - I paid for that right - even digital copies.
Copyright Schmopyright. Fair use rules when it comes to music.
Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really, wants to protect its future interests?
It is just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really wants to buy its future customers?
Sure, on the surface it's a "nice thing to do", but doesn't it make you wonder where all of that money comes from? If MS wasn't interested in "world domination", how much cheaper would their software be for everyone, and not just students? It makes me a little sick to think about that.
Predictable, I know - but does this mean that Slashdot will actually be able to afford a spell-checker for CmdrTaco? Oh, and throw in a grammar-checker while you're at it. Probably a two-for-one going on somewhere...
If I sells doors and a burglar breaks down the door and robs someone's home, who is legally liable?
A poor analogy. You sell doors saying they are "the most secure door we've ever made!" and go on and on about the locking mechanism. Then when the door is properly locked (at least according to the installation manual you received at the time of purchase) someone breaks in. YOU are liable.
Stupid people tend to have higher mortality rates so it would appear that while birth rates may be higher amoungst stupid people, success rate is far greater upon intellegent people.
While people may disagree with your tone here (and flame accordingly:) ) I'm disagreeing with the statement a bit. As long as "stupid people" survive past sexual maturity and have children, it doesn't matter when they die. In fact, you could argue that uneducated people tend to have children earlier in life (like in their teens) and therefore spread their genes FASTER.
But I digress. I'm not denying that humans are not bound by nature. However, humans are playing on a more level playing field where natural selection seems to matter less than factors that we have no control over. Smart people can get run over by a careless driver just as easily as a "stupid person" can win the lottery.
Always test on every target web browser under every client platform.
If you think that testing all of those platforms and browsers is 10 to 20% more work, then you've never worked on a web project before. Testing is a huge proposition, only exaserbated by adding platforms that add little to no market share. I'm talking about the guy running Solaris on his home computer - corporate sites don't worry about that small market... it's not worth the expense.
Cut down your testing platforms to a managable level, otherwise all you'll be doing is testing and fielding feedback from people like "this page doesn't work on this rare platform-browser combo".
One browser version back is fair on Windows, but remember that the same browser sometimes performs differently on different platforms (not to mention LOOKS much different sometimes, depending on your use of form widgets, etc). There is a lot more to think about for cross-platform and cross-browser than 10-20%. You have to keep those considerations in mind for the entire length of the project. Cutting your project down to three or four combinations can simply your project dramatically.
This is not to say you can't write completely browser-agnostic code. Go ahead and write HTML 1.0 if you want to... but most of the time people need JavaScript and other things to get work done right. Don't consider old browsers unless you absolutely have to, especially if your site will depend on client-side JavaScript - where there are many many inconsistencies between browser versions!
I have a hard time believing that browser compatibility is much of an issue any more. Here are my reasons:
1. Most browsers (IE, mozilla (netscape), Opera) follow (most of) the standards now thankfully: XHTML, CSS, DOM. The world is a better place thanks to the W3C.
2. Browsers are free. The only cost is the time it takes to upgrade. If people have no motivation to upgrade, guess what - they won't. If you make your site compatible with Netscape 4 until 2004, people will keep using it until then. Only when the stuff they want requires an upgrade do they actually do it - so force your users. It's a small price to pay.
This is pretty simplified, I know - but it'll get you started. If you are going to offer back-compatibility, GET IT IN WRITING exactly what you are going to support and how.
I've seen backwards compatibility blow up in people's faces. But I've also seen companies pay a pretty penny to have it, so they must REALLY want it. Make it worth your time to do the extra code and charge more. And sometimes charging an obscene amount for it can help the customer determine if they really need it.
It doesn't sound like it, but backwards compatibility is a LOT OF WORK, especially testing! My advice is to support the latest version of IE and mozilla and nothing more - you'll cover over 95% of the market that way.
I have no problem with your opinion except this point. The reason being that by improving medicines and such, we are ALREADY going against natural selection. To put it bluntly, and it's hard not to make this sound completely immoral, we are weakening the human race as we speak. Let me take a chance to explain.
Let's take the simple example of sight. If I'm completely near-sighted I can get a pair of glasses. In the days when natural selection mattered for humans and sight, let's say 500 years ago, I might die before I can have offspring because of my poor sight. THAT is natural selection. My genes are now removed from the gene pool before I can "replicate" them into others - and because of natural selection, fewer and fewer people have poor sight.
Now let's take this to another level. Let's say a recessive gene that causes a disease is common among a population. If that population surives past sexual maturity and passes the gene along, natural selection fails and the disease's gene spreads. This is a decidedly bad thing.
I won't even get into the moral grounds of the issue, I just wanted to give another side of the coin. It's not necessarily my two cents - but probably someone's... and definitely something to consider when you bring up natural selection.
Respect is lacking on the internet now. Has been for a little over a decade (interestingly, about the same time that Spam and commercial intrests have been in here).
I don't think it's any co-incidence that commercial interest in the Internet sparked lack of respect. Like I said before, content makers were trying to make an insecure system secure, and only ended up alienating an audience that liked the "free exchange of information on the the Internet" idea.
So people disrespected companies who were new guys coming along and saying "ok, this is how the game is going to be played on the Internet now because we want to make money". No wonder people don't respect them - the companies haven't earned it if they act like that.
As the Internet flooded with more people, we (humanity) lost focus as to the purpose of the 'Net: an information source, not a commercial venue where you can buy ideal real estate in a domain name and sell books at close to cost price.
Of course, we have to justify the expense of all of this architecture. Governments and companies would not invest so heavily in the Internet if it was merely a free-for-all and had no commercial value. And we too take the good for the bad here: improvement in the network in exchange for pop-up, pop-under and pop-to-the-side ads and sites that require registration, more strict enforcement of copyrights (like, I can't copy you even if I do give credit).
But it would be nice if all of these commercial guys kept that in perspective when they use the Net to make money (or even to break even). There were always be a small population that will resist - if only because they can - to subtly spread freedom about the land. Robin Hoods of the Net, if you will.
I will not participate, but I agree with many of their points - and only wished there was a more constructive way to "fight back" against the commercialization of the Internet.
a quick "fuck you" to the author is more polite by simply being more concise, and states your position to all those around you.
I think you misread my post - go read it again. It was less of a "fuck you" and more like a "that's life on the Internet".
If you don't like the game, don't play it. I love the people and businesses that start using an open medium and then try to close it up and wonder why people won't accept it. *I'm* going to accept an author's wishes, but a heck of a lot of other people aren't simply because the Internet does not enforce such behaviour. I am not justifying their behaviour, I'm explaining WHY it exists.
OSNews.com could format their news in a dead-tree magazine and probably not have to worry as much about people stealing, because it's more time-consuming than just making a digital copy and it reaches less people, so it's not worth it. Web sites have to understand that while they have a legal right to their content, the morals of Internet users (and the rules of the sites people read, like Slashdot) aren't forced to coincide with legal rules. If they did, the Internet (and the sites it contains) would likely be less popular.
People like the Internet as a free medium. Don't be surprised when there's a backlash against anything that tries to take away that freedom.
The attention is the gift horse - free traffic. Without Slashdot there would be no traffic and half of us wouldn't have heard of OSNews.com.
It's like celebrities bitching about being famous and not having any privacy. You take the good attention with the bad attention.
I'm not justifying the copying, I'm saying that when attention comes, not everything is good and merry. Sometimes people take your article because they want to read it - especially those in the "everything on the 'Net is free" mindset. This happens to the big boys too and you hardly see them posting to Slashdot, discouraged.
Most people use the site link. I did. Big deal if the article is posted, who the heck browses at 0?? Am I the only one here who actually trusts moderators to do a good job?
This is the fine line. OSNews is *NOT* Slashdotted.
I used the link. It worked. I read the article on your site. I wouldn't even know OSNews.com existed if it weren't for Slashdot.
If a site is down, I *immediately* check the posts to see if there's a copy there, which I then read. This is probably what most people do.
If a site *IS* Slashdotted, only a few thousand people have it in their cache to post before its gone for 10-12 hours or more. He thought you wouldn't have the capacity, so he posted it WITH FULL CREDIT. Unlike most rubes who are probably just karma whoring, he actually had a reasonable reason - even though he was wrong.
I'm defending him because I often use posted articles - because I don't have some "Slashdot was just updated with an article!" indicator. I can't beat those people - by the time I check out a site sometimes, it's down. But I only check the posted version of an article if the original is down. If the site doesn't go down, the post is usually modded down and disappears.
The truth of the matter is that Slashdot is a forum where anything goes for as long as Slashdot exists. The DeCSS code is here, along with other copyrighted materials. If you don't want to be linked on Slashdot (and most likely have your article copied by anyone, even though it is illegal), then tell the maintainers and I'm sure they won't link you.... but I don't think it has come to that.
There's always going to be someone that will post your story to Slashdot. People can post anything to Slashdot. It's a crime and it sucks, but it's the truth - and it's permanent.
Please edit out our article from the Slashdot forum. It is a violation of our copyright. You should have asked us first..
I'm sorry, but there's just a fine line here. If half the people out there can't read the article because it's Slashdotted, how can you benefit? Would you rather Slashdot not link you at all?
I don't know how many times I've had to read an article from a post because the site gets railed. Frankly, I'm glad there are people like Mr. Quick out there - otherwise I'd miss half the articles on this site.
Most people are scared that if GNOME adopts the.NET framework, Microsoft will change and break things and general anarchy will ensue. I ask you this: how does this differ from the WINE project? Why do people seem to care so much about the.NET Framework?
And it's been said a million times, but GNOME has not decided to incorporate Mono. Mono could very well stand on its own legs in any "desktop environment". It could fail miserably (doubtful). Why do people care about it suceeding? Because the Open Source and Free Software communities will be pawns to big business? But I thought we couldn't be controlled or coerced....? Can someone set the extreme-pessimistic record straight, because I can't see any other reason to hate the.NET framework besides the fact that Microsoft is behind it. But even that reason seems a little petty to me - if you don't like the technology, just ignore it.
contrary to the knee-jerk "big companies are out to get me" reflex, they are NOT trying to give you a fragile format to take your money.
Actually, big companies aren't out to get ME, they're out to get EVERYONE.:)
Seriously though, it's obvious that the CD/CD-ROM would have been rejected for mainstream use had it been bulkier AND more expensive due to more manufacturing for a cartridge. According to comments made on my original post, cartridges did exist, and it was probably comsumer feedback that eliminated them.
However, now that CDs and DVDs are mainstream and excepted, people can expect more from them. It doesn't matter how much error control these companies invest it, you're still screwed if you accidentally carve a big scratch in the disc - plain and simple. All I'm saying is that having the option to put the disc in a protective cartridge and NEVER EVER touch it would be a very Good Thing (TM). People would probably spend a little extra money to guarantee the safety and longevity of their data/music/movies (since this applies to DVDs as well).
As for the media companies out to get us - I think they know they screwed up releasing digital media. They did have one savior though - discs can scratch and then become unusable. If there ever existed a fully protected (from damage) digital format, no media company in their right mind would elect to use it. One major reason would be that a used product would be just as good as a new version, and the "used" media industry would grow dramatically (like the increase in used CD stores). Every time a used disc changes hands, the original media company loses money on that sale (you could argue that used CDs/DVDs are sometimes fringe purchases that a person would never buy new, but I digress).
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if media companies went back to analog methods (like that new VHS format that was on Slashdot recently) that wear out over time. Digital is just too quick and easy to losslessly "steal" and "unlawfully share", especially with high-bandwidth Internet connections. It's a real pickle of a jar these media companies are in.
The physical problems with DVDs are scratches. The more capacity there is on the disc the more problems you get.
I always wondered why CDs/DVDs didn't come in a cartridge form. You slap the cartridge into the reader and the CD pops out (kind of like how VHS tapes/cartridges work). That way you never touch the disc and introduce scratches.
Of course if discs stayed in perfect condition, people wouldn't REBUY their old CDs and DVDs, which means the media companies lose money. They are better off giving you a fragile format.
I think your view of.NET is a little clouded by the fact that Microsoft is involved. Sure Microsoft has demonstrated monopolistic practises, but when is the last time they released a standard to ECMA and then purposely broke it?
You cannot do this if you are chasing standards Microsoft sets.
The standards are now in ECMA's hands to maintain. Sure, Microsoft can change libraries they don't release to standards organizations, but I believe that the benefit of the.NET runtime will be seen in the open source community without those libraries anyway.
So write of GNOME (Ximian's Mono Project, to be more specific, GNOME hasn't decided to incorporate Mono yet) and.NET if you want to, but you're doing it at your own peril.
I know you're kidding, but Corel is still doing interesting things in the Unix community that the Slashdot crowd will probably be very interested in, particularly the port of.NET to FreeBSD, which is a very big deal. Don't write Corel off just yet.;)
DISCLAIMER: I work for Corel, but I do not speak on their behalf. My opinions are my own.
Remember that $150 million in non-voting Apple stock purchased by Microsoft, and patent cross-licensing deal? Anyone? Here's the Apple Press Release [apple.com] in case you forgot. Apple was in bad shape, and Microsoft was up for monopolistic practices.
Getting a bit off-topic, but I just found it interesting that Microsoft did the same thing with Corel in Oct. 2000. It's no coincidence that Corel sells WordPerfect.
Microsoft is effectively helping competition stay alive, which is probably cheaper than buying a verdict via expensive lawyers. I don't know how a judge can look at that and not realise a conflict of interest.
It may be non-voting stock, but don't you think Microsoft will continually hold that over the company's heads like an older brother? "Remember that loan I gave you a while back? That was really nice of me, wasn't it?". So now all of these companies are expected to play nice with Microsoft even though they are really competition? Common sense sees right through that, and hopefully so will a judge.
DISCLAIMER: I work for Corel, but I do not speak on their behalf. My opinions are my own.
Oh, and don't forget that kernel update icon everyone's been bitching about. I wouldn't mind be able to ignore those either without missing Linux posts.
In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.
To create complex things, chances are you're going to either need:
1) A simple set of tools too basic for your needs, which requires a lot of work on your part to customize
OR
2) A complex set of tools made specifically for your needs, which requires knowledge of the appropriate tool to do the job effectively.
True the standards that are out there may be complex but who is going to use ALL of them, honestly? People will learn as much as they need to know about a standard and use that. They don't need to know the entire scope of every technology they use.
I'm sure you know that Microsoft.NET extensively uses SOAP for web services. Does that mean that someone using VS.NET needs to know SOAP? No, the tool they are using encapsulates that knowledge. Maybe they have to customize it in some way, but most of the dirty work is done by the IDE. Beautiful.
And better yet since the standard is open, anyone or any program can read the SOAP data transferred by that server or client, and knowledgable people can use it to create a complimentary client or server on another platform. Wonderful.
So John Q. Developer won't give a flying patootie about all of those standards if the tools that exist that USE those standards are easy to use. The standards are there so the programmers can interoperably hack with them between platforms. And this level of hacking will be at a level most developers won't see once the tools are out there, kind of like how most people don't have to hack the kernel of an OS to get their software running.
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He's a VB developer who's writing.NET books. Of course he's going to gush about it.
A very good point - I did neglect to check his credentials. We all know though that ultimately it's Salon's editors who need to screen these articles to present a consistent version of what they consider 'newsworthy' in order to keep their image, especially in the high tech community.
Slashdot regularly links Salon articles, no doubt generating significant traffic (and thus revenues) for Salon (via their annoying pop-up advertising, which is worth it for great articles). If geeks think that Salon is just another high tech site spewing garbage, negative feedback will grow and stories will stop being linked, that's just the way it is. I liked Salon the way it was in my mind before I read this article... and maybe I'm secretly hoping Salon's editors are reading this thread.:)
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Articles are part fact part opinion, and they're bound to have some kind of slant.
FYI, articles with opinion are called editorials. They usually have a picture of the person writing the article (in Salon's case it's a sketch). As was said in the post, I don't think this is tongue-in-cheek... this is honest-to-goodness gushing.
I have nothing against.NET itself - in fact, I'm buying a copy of VS.NET tonight.
The point I'm making is that gushing like this is usually reserved for lesser publications. If I want to read a guy's opinion, I'll go read Dvorak on ZDNET. Salon had a pretty high standing in my books as a reputable news source, not some place that kissed the feet of new technologies - the downsides of.NET were merely brushed over as an afterthought. This is not Salon's style, IMO, and its editors never should have allowed this very slanted editorial to go online.
Slashdot Mirror
College students will always have a dangerous amount of two things, at least to folks like the RIAA and the MPAA:
1. Lack of spending money
2. Time
These two compounding factors are why students "pirate". Not that I'm advocating it, but if you could spend the afternoon downloading 3 albums (instead of watching TV) and then you're able to go out and drink that night because of the 50 bucks you just "saved" not buying those CDs, the fomer option looks pretty attractive to you compared to the latter.
You are NOT being sold a license when you buy a CD. You are being sold a CD. And the material on it is covered by copyright law. Period.
I guess this guy has never heard of "fair use". I can legally make any sort of copy of my music CDs that I want - I paid for that right - even digital copies.
Copyright Schmopyright. Fair use rules when it comes to music.
Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really, wants to protect its future interests?
It is just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really wants to buy its future customers?
Sure, on the surface it's a "nice thing to do", but doesn't it make you wonder where all of that money comes from? If MS wasn't interested in "world domination", how much cheaper would their software be for everyone, and not just students? It makes me a little sick to think about that.
Predictable, I know - but does this mean that Slashdot will actually be able to afford a spell-checker for CmdrTaco? Oh, and throw in a grammar-checker while you're at it. Probably a two-for-one going on somewhere ...
If I sells doors and a burglar breaks down the door and robs someone's home, who is legally liable?
A poor analogy. You sell doors saying they are "the most secure door we've ever made!" and go on and on about the locking mechanism. Then when the door is properly locked (at least according to the installation manual you received at the time of purchase) someone breaks in. YOU are liable.
Stupid people tend to have higher mortality rates so it would appear that while birth rates may be higher amoungst stupid people, success rate is far greater upon intellegent people.
:) ) I'm disagreeing with the statement a bit. As long as "stupid people" survive past sexual maturity and have children, it doesn't matter when they die. In fact, you could argue that uneducated people tend to have children earlier in life (like in their teens) and therefore spread their genes FASTER.
:)
While people may disagree with your tone here (and flame accordingly
But I digress. I'm not denying that humans are not bound by nature. However, humans are playing on a more level playing field where natural selection seems to matter less than factors that we have no control over. Smart people can get run over by a careless driver just as easily as a "stupid person" can win the lottery.
Here's to good luck! *clink*
Always test on every target web browser under every client platform.
... it's not worth the expense.
... but most of the time people need JavaScript and other things to get work done right. Don't consider old browsers unless you absolutely have to, especially if your site will depend on client-side JavaScript - where there are many many inconsistencies between browser versions!
If you think that testing all of those platforms and browsers is 10 to 20% more work, then you've never worked on a web project before. Testing is a huge proposition, only exaserbated by adding platforms that add little to no market share. I'm talking about the guy running Solaris on his home computer - corporate sites don't worry about that small market
Cut down your testing platforms to a managable level, otherwise all you'll be doing is testing and fielding feedback from people like "this page doesn't work on this rare platform-browser combo".
One browser version back is fair on Windows, but remember that the same browser sometimes performs differently on different platforms (not to mention LOOKS much different sometimes, depending on your use of form widgets, etc). There is a lot more to think about for cross-platform and cross-browser than 10-20%. You have to keep those considerations in mind for the entire length of the project. Cutting your project down to three or four combinations can simply your project dramatically.
This is not to say you can't write completely browser-agnostic code. Go ahead and write HTML 1.0 if you want to
I have a hard time believing that browser compatibility is much of an issue any more. Here are my reasons:
1. Most browsers (IE, mozilla (netscape), Opera) follow (most of) the standards now thankfully: XHTML, CSS, DOM. The world is a better place thanks to the W3C.
2. Browsers are free. The only cost is the time it takes to upgrade. If people have no motivation to upgrade, guess what - they won't. If you make your site compatible with Netscape 4 until 2004, people will keep using it until then. Only when the stuff they want requires an upgrade do they actually do it - so force your users. It's a small price to pay.
This is pretty simplified, I know - but it'll get you started. If you are going to offer back-compatibility, GET IT IN WRITING exactly what you are going to support and how.
I've seen backwards compatibility blow up in people's faces. But I've also seen companies pay a pretty penny to have it, so they must REALLY want it. Make it worth your time to do the extra code and charge more. And sometimes charging an obscene amount for it can help the customer determine if they really need it.
It doesn't sound like it, but backwards compatibility is a LOT OF WORK, especially testing! My advice is to support the latest version of IE and mozilla and nothing more - you'll cover over 95% of the market that way.
Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection.
... and definitely something to consider when you bring up natural selection.
:)
I have no problem with your opinion except this point. The reason being that by improving medicines and such, we are ALREADY going against natural selection. To put it bluntly, and it's hard not to make this sound completely immoral, we are weakening the human race as we speak. Let me take a chance to explain.
Let's take the simple example of sight. If I'm completely near-sighted I can get a pair of glasses. In the days when natural selection mattered for humans and sight, let's say 500 years ago, I might die before I can have offspring because of my poor sight. THAT is natural selection. My genes are now removed from the gene pool before I can "replicate" them into others - and because of natural selection, fewer and fewer people have poor sight.
Now let's take this to another level. Let's say a recessive gene that causes a disease is common among a population. If that population surives past sexual maturity and passes the gene along, natural selection fails and the disease's gene spreads. This is a decidedly bad thing.
I won't even get into the moral grounds of the issue, I just wanted to give another side of the coin. It's not necessarily my two cents - but probably someone's
I too, expect to be flamed.
Respect is lacking on the internet now. Has been for a little over a decade (interestingly, about the same time that Spam and commercial intrests have been in here).
I don't think it's any co-incidence that commercial interest in the Internet sparked lack of respect. Like I said before, content makers were trying to make an insecure system secure, and only ended up alienating an audience that liked the "free exchange of information on the the Internet" idea.
So people disrespected companies who were new guys coming along and saying "ok, this is how the game is going to be played on the Internet now because we want to make money". No wonder people don't respect them - the companies haven't earned it if they act like that.
As the Internet flooded with more people, we (humanity) lost focus as to the purpose of the 'Net: an information source, not a commercial venue where you can buy ideal real estate in a domain name and sell books at close to cost price.
Of course, we have to justify the expense of all of this architecture. Governments and companies would not invest so heavily in the Internet if it was merely a free-for-all and had no commercial value. And we too take the good for the bad here: improvement in the network in exchange for pop-up, pop-under and pop-to-the-side ads and sites that require registration, more strict enforcement of copyrights (like, I can't copy you even if I do give credit).
But it would be nice if all of these commercial guys kept that in perspective when they use the Net to make money (or even to break even). There were always be a small population that will resist - if only because they can - to subtly spread freedom about the land. Robin Hoods of the Net, if you will.
I will not participate, but I agree with many of their points - and only wished there was a more constructive way to "fight back" against the commercialization of the Internet.
The link is wrong in the post...but somehow it still works??
... whatever floats your boat. :)
Indeed. http://www.com.com" is owned by CNET. A pretty dumb way to name your site, but
It doesn't look like it's used directly though, I get 'connection refused'.
a quick "fuck you" to the author is more polite by simply being more concise, and states your position to all those around you.
I think you misread my post - go read it again. It was less of a "fuck you" and more like a "that's life on the Internet".
If you don't like the game, don't play it. I love the people and businesses that start using an open medium and then try to close it up and wonder why people won't accept it. *I'm* going to accept an author's wishes, but a heck of a lot of other people aren't simply because the Internet does not enforce such behaviour. I am not justifying their behaviour, I'm explaining WHY it exists.
OSNews.com could format their news in a dead-tree magazine and probably not have to worry as much about people stealing, because it's more time-consuming than just making a digital copy and it reaches less people, so it's not worth it. Web sites have to understand that while they have a legal right to their content, the morals of Internet users (and the rules of the sites people read, like Slashdot) aren't forced to coincide with legal rules. If they did, the Internet (and the sites it contains) would likely be less popular.
People like the Internet as a free medium. Don't be surprised when there's a backlash against anything that tries to take away that freedom.
The attention is the gift horse - free traffic. Without Slashdot there would be no traffic and half of us wouldn't have heard of OSNews.com.
It's like celebrities bitching about being famous and not having any privacy. You take the good attention with the bad attention.
I'm not justifying the copying, I'm saying that when attention comes, not everything is good and merry. Sometimes people take your article because they want to read it - especially those in the "everything on the 'Net is free" mindset. This happens to the big boys too and you hardly see them posting to Slashdot, discouraged.
Most people use the site link. I did. Big deal if the article is posted, who the heck browses at 0?? Am I the only one here who actually trusts moderators to do a good job?
This is the fine line. OSNews is *NOT* Slashdotted.
I used the link. It worked. I read the article on your site. I wouldn't even know OSNews.com existed if it weren't for Slashdot.
If a site is down, I *immediately* check the posts to see if there's a copy there, which I then read. This is probably what most people do.
If a site *IS* Slashdotted, only a few thousand people have it in their cache to post before its gone for 10-12 hours or more. He thought you wouldn't have the capacity, so he posted it WITH FULL CREDIT. Unlike most rubes who are probably just karma whoring, he actually had a reasonable reason - even though he was wrong.
I'm defending him because I often use posted articles - because I don't have some "Slashdot was just updated with an article!" indicator. I can't beat those people - by the time I check out a site sometimes, it's down. But I only check the posted version of an article if the original is down. If the site doesn't go down, the post is usually modded down and disappears.
The truth of the matter is that Slashdot is a forum where anything goes for as long as Slashdot exists. The DeCSS code is here, along with other copyrighted materials. If you don't want to be linked on Slashdot (and most likely have your article copied by anyone, even though it is illegal), then tell the maintainers and I'm sure they won't link you
There's always going to be someone that will post your story to Slashdot. People can post anything to Slashdot. It's a crime and it sucks, but it's the truth - and it's permanent.
Please edit out our article from the Slashdot forum. It is a violation of our copyright. You should have asked us first..
I'm sorry, but there's just a fine line here. If half the people out there can't read the article because it's Slashdotted, how can you benefit? Would you rather Slashdot not link you at all?
I don't know how many times I've had to read an article from a post because the site gets railed. Frankly, I'm glad there are people like Mr. Quick out there - otherwise I'd miss half the articles on this site.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Most people are scared that if GNOME adopts the .NET framework, Microsoft will change and break things and general anarchy will ensue. I ask you this: how does this differ from the WINE project? Why do people seem to care so much about the .NET Framework?
....? Can someone set the extreme-pessimistic record straight, because I can't see any other reason to hate the .NET framework besides the fact that Microsoft is behind it. But even that reason seems a little petty to me - if you don't like the technology, just ignore it.
And it's been said a million times, but GNOME has not decided to incorporate Mono. Mono could very well stand on its own legs in any "desktop environment". It could fail miserably (doubtful). Why do people care about it suceeding? Because the Open Source and Free Software communities will be pawns to big business? But I thought we couldn't be controlled or coerced
contrary to the knee-jerk "big companies are out to get me" reflex, they are NOT trying to give you a fragile format to take your money.
:)
Actually, big companies aren't out to get ME, they're out to get EVERYONE.
Seriously though, it's obvious that the CD/CD-ROM would have been rejected for mainstream use had it been bulkier AND more expensive due to more manufacturing for a cartridge. According to comments made on my original post, cartridges did exist, and it was probably comsumer feedback that eliminated them.
However, now that CDs and DVDs are mainstream and excepted, people can expect more from them. It doesn't matter how much error control these companies invest it, you're still screwed if you accidentally carve a big scratch in the disc - plain and simple. All I'm saying is that having the option to put the disc in a protective cartridge and NEVER EVER touch it would be a very Good Thing (TM). People would probably spend a little extra money to guarantee the safety and longevity of their data/music/movies (since this applies to DVDs as well).
As for the media companies out to get us - I think they know they screwed up releasing digital media. They did have one savior though - discs can scratch and then become unusable. If there ever existed a fully protected (from damage) digital format, no media company in their right mind would elect to use it. One major reason would be that a used product would be just as good as a new version, and the "used" media industry would grow dramatically (like the increase in used CD stores). Every time a used disc changes hands, the original media company loses money on that sale (you could argue that used CDs/DVDs are sometimes fringe purchases that a person would never buy new, but I digress).
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if media companies went back to analog methods (like that new VHS format that was on Slashdot recently) that wear out over time. Digital is just too quick and easy to losslessly "steal" and "unlawfully share", especially with high-bandwidth Internet connections. It's a real pickle of a jar these media companies are in.
The physical problems with DVDs are scratches. The more capacity there is on the disc the more problems you get.
I always wondered why CDs/DVDs didn't come in a cartridge form. You slap the cartridge into the reader and the CD pops out (kind of like how VHS tapes/cartridges work). That way you never touch the disc and introduce scratches.
Of course if discs stayed in perfect condition, people wouldn't REBUY their old CDs and DVDs, which means the media companies lose money. They are better off giving you a fragile format.
I think your view of .NET is a little clouded by the fact that Microsoft is involved. Sure Microsoft has demonstrated monopolistic practises, but when is the last time they released a standard to ECMA and then purposely broke it?
.NET runtime will be seen in the open source community without those libraries anyway.
.NET if you want to, but you're doing it at your own peril.
You cannot do this if you are chasing standards Microsoft sets.
The standards are now in ECMA's hands to maintain. Sure, Microsoft can change libraries they don't release to standards organizations, but I believe that the benefit of the
So write of GNOME (Ximian's Mono Project, to be more specific, GNOME hasn't decided to incorporate Mono yet) and
Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)
.NET to FreeBSD, which is a very big deal. Don't write Corel off just yet. ;)
I know you're kidding, but Corel is still doing interesting things in the Unix community that the Slashdot crowd will probably be very interested in, particularly the port of
DISCLAIMER: I work for Corel, but I do not speak on their behalf. My opinions are my own.
Remember that $150 million in non-voting Apple stock purchased by Microsoft, and patent cross-licensing deal? Anyone? Here's the Apple Press Release [apple.com] in case you forgot. Apple was in bad shape, and Microsoft was up for monopolistic practices.
Getting a bit off-topic, but I just found it interesting that Microsoft did the same thing with Corel in Oct. 2000. It's no coincidence that Corel sells WordPerfect.
Microsoft is effectively helping competition stay alive, which is probably cheaper than buying a verdict via expensive lawyers. I don't know how a judge can look at that and not realise a conflict of interest.
It may be non-voting stock, but don't you think Microsoft will continually hold that over the company's heads like an older brother? "Remember that loan I gave you a while back? That was really nice of me, wasn't it?". So now all of these companies are expected to play nice with Microsoft even though they are really competition? Common sense sees right through that, and hopefully so will a judge.
DISCLAIMER: I work for Corel, but I do not speak on their behalf. My opinions are my own.
... you might as well add a Salon icon too. ;)
Oh, and don't forget that kernel update icon everyone's been bitching about. I wouldn't mind be able to ignore those either without missing Linux posts.
In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.
.NET extensively uses SOAP for web services. Does that mean that someone using VS.NET needs to know SOAP? No, the tool they are using encapsulates that knowledge. Maybe they have to customize it in some way, but most of the dirty work is done by the IDE. Beautiful.
To create complex things, chances are you're going to either need:
1) A simple set of tools too basic for your needs, which requires a lot of work on your part to customize
OR
2) A complex set of tools made specifically for your needs, which requires knowledge of the appropriate tool to do the job effectively.
True the standards that are out there may be complex but who is going to use ALL of them, honestly? People will learn as much as they need to know about a standard and use that. They don't need to know the entire scope of every technology they use.
I'm sure you know that Microsoft
And better yet since the standard is open, anyone or any program can read the SOAP data transferred by that server or client, and knowledgable people can use it to create a complimentary client or server on another platform. Wonderful.
So John Q. Developer won't give a flying patootie about all of those standards if the tools that exist that USE those standards are easy to use. The standards are there so the programmers can interoperably hack with them between platforms. And this level of hacking will be at a level most developers won't see once the tools are out there, kind of like how most people don't have to hack the kernel of an OS to get their software running.
He's a VB developer who's writing .NET books. Of course he's going to gush about it.
... and maybe I'm secretly hoping Salon's editors are reading this thread. :)
A very good point - I did neglect to check his credentials. We all know though that ultimately it's Salon's editors who need to screen these articles to present a consistent version of what they consider 'newsworthy' in order to keep their image, especially in the high tech community.
Slashdot regularly links Salon articles, no doubt generating significant traffic (and thus revenues) for Salon (via their annoying pop-up advertising, which is worth it for great articles). If geeks think that Salon is just another high tech site spewing garbage, negative feedback will grow and stories will stop being linked, that's just the way it is. I liked Salon the way it was in my mind before I read this article
Articles are part fact part opinion, and they're bound to have some kind of slant.
... this is honest-to-goodness gushing.
.NET itself - in fact, I'm buying a copy of VS.NET tonight.
.NET were merely brushed over as an afterthought. This is not Salon's style, IMO, and its editors never should have allowed this very slanted editorial to go online.
FYI, articles with opinion are called editorials. They usually have a picture of the person writing the article (in Salon's case it's a sketch). As was said in the post, I don't think this is tongue-in-cheek
I have nothing against
The point I'm making is that gushing like this is usually reserved for lesser publications. If I want to read a guy's opinion, I'll go read Dvorak on ZDNET. Salon had a pretty high standing in my books as a reputable news source, not some place that kissed the feet of new technologies - the downsides of