I'm not sure MS' investment was the reason Corel dumped Linux. As I see it, it's more likely that both were caused by the same factor: Corel was in bad shape.
Dumping Linux was all about Corel "focusing on key areas", meaning as a business, they couldn't justify continuing development on it. I doubt Microsoft gave two shits about Corel doing development on Linux. I mean, they wanted them to do.NET for Linux! Check the old press releases!
And if anyone is curious about the (former) Corel distribution, check out Xandros
>The blob was found to be a cluster of stars 13.6 billion light years away, seen when the age of the universe was less than a billion years old.
How is this possible?
The quotation is misleading/unclear. I believe what they are trying to say is that the blob is 13.6 billion light years away from us right now. They estimate that what was seen of the blob is from when the universe was less than a billion years old. (This implies the universe of today is less than 14.6 billion years old)
This also wouldn't violate relativity as one poster was concerned about.
Well I've read through a fair bit of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues linked to from the above site. (Man that legalese is as hard to read as perl..)
The really relevant section is 4.2 Legal Protection of Technological Measures, which talks about circumvention of effective technological measures allowing for the infringement of copyright. This is a part the WIPO treaties, so it would to have to be in there if they are to ratified (at least as I understand it).
I would suggest that any update to the copyright law should include this, but only on the condition that "effective technological measures" is defined as a technology that allows for every conceivable non-infringing use. By this I mean the technology would have to allow for the expiration of copyright, reproduction for personal use, and all the rest currently allowed under copyright law. Of course I'm not aware of any such technologies (*cough*CSS*cough*), but that's someone elses problem.
I think that would be a great solution. They can have their pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood.
This now means that canadians now enjoy the best of both worlds.
Parents no longer have to feel that irrational guilt that the programs their children are watching might cause them to shoot up their school, or do something equally embarasing to the parents.
Children will discover the joy of learning, as they reprogram the chip (I doubt its much more difficult than getting past a "child-proof" cap, but its still positive reinforcement). They get all the sex and violence as before, only now they don't need to worry their parents might be checking up on them!
So everyone is happy! Until they discover that TV still sucks.
I was recently talking with someone working in the linux group at Corel. They actually are spinning off, and are in the process of coming up with a name, and trying to find a location (good luck, not a lot of open office space in Ottawa).
Corel isn't exactly the most financially stable company, so they need to focus on what they are doing, and linux isn't the main focus of the company. So it gets spun off, in the same Corel Computer (remember the netwinder?) was.
In the end, it means the new company will succeed or fail on its own, which should clear up any conspiracy theories regarding microsoft and corel in the future.
As I said yesterday, Hackersquest is copying a copyrighted world, actively in use by hundreds of thousands of people. How is this legal?
They are not copying the world. Think of the EverQuest client that a user runs as a glorified dumb terminal. Portions of the world are downloaded and displayed on their screen. Now connect the client to the emulated server. It is another world, not EverQuest at all. What is downloaded now is not anything created by Verant. This, to me, should be legal.
If they used any of the EverQuest content (models, textures, etc), that would probably not be legal, and would probably get them nailed with copyright infringment.
If Verant can't create an experience worth keeping people on their servers, thats their problem, but I don't see some guy running a server on his home computer as a threat to their revenue streams.
Its a gimmick. The idea of a "publisher's worst nightmare" is a nice geeky dream fit for a nice geeky media such as the net. It works great for generating interest. I'm sure everyone reading this article and the various links will agree.
I don't think there is any way he could make more money selling novels on the net (currently). That means you will continue to see Stephen King novel's on display at your local mega-bookstore.
Also, what the hell does this have to do with my rights online?
Actually the governement agency responsible for this is the CSE, not CSIS. They are responsible for (at least) SIGINT (signal interception) for the Canadian Government. I infer they are doing our part for Echelon.
The official URL is void of any useful information, however Google turned up an excellent page on the CSE
When you consider that the XBox is made of standard PC components, and will probably be sold at a loss (profits are made from the games), what is to stop someone from buying an xbox just to rip the guts out of it? Seems like a nice source for some cheap components.
When it comes out, the hardware won't be worth as much as it is today, and its possible bits of the hardware won't work in regular PCs, but I for one look forward to voiding my warranty and plundering the contents.
As I understand it, the GNU philosophy is to take away most of the control of the software from the creator, and give it to the user (without giving ownership). To have it any other way is to be controlled by those who make the software.
In copying mp3's, listeners (the users) are taking back some control, even if it is against the laws and licenses. Who are they taking control from? The artist, yes partly, but mostly the record companies. The record companies are controlling music listeners.
Besides, who said the artist really chose non-redistribution as a license? It was forced upon them by their contract with the record company. The record companies control the artists too.
I believe that most pro-GPL, pro-mp3-copiers have some sense of whats right. Obviously not paying for the music is not right, but is perpetuating the current music paradigm any better? As more and more artists stop trying to push water uphill, I suspect the moral dilemna will solve itself.
"If Quake had been designed to be open-source from the beginning..."
...it would have changed nothing.
To make Quake secure, you would not be able to trust the client. To make Quake playable over modems, you have to trust the client (lack of bandwidth and latency issues).
Adversary Open the source, close it, print it up and wallpaper your cubicle with it. Its still not feasable to have the server do all the work. So surprise, it won't be secure.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure MS' investment was the reason Corel dumped Linux. As I see it, it's more likely that both were caused by the same factor: Corel was in bad shape.
.NET for Linux! Check the old press releases!
Dumping Linux was all about Corel "focusing on key areas", meaning as a business, they couldn't justify continuing development on it. I doubt Microsoft gave two shits about Corel doing development on Linux. I mean, they wanted them to do
And if anyone is curious about the (former) Corel distribution, check out Xandros
>The blob was found to be a cluster of stars 13.6 billion light years away, seen when the age of the universe was less than a billion years old.
How is this possible?
The quotation is misleading/unclear. I believe what they are trying to say is that the blob is 13.6 billion light years away from us right now. They estimate that what was seen of the blob is from when the universe was less than a billion years old. (This implies the universe of today is less than 14.6 billion years old)
This also wouldn't violate relativity as one poster was concerned about.
Well I've read through a fair bit of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues linked to from the above site. (Man that legalese is as hard to read as perl..)
The really relevant section is 4.2 Legal Protection of Technological Measures, which talks about circumvention of effective technological measures allowing for the infringement of copyright. This is a part the WIPO treaties, so it would to have to be in there if they are to ratified (at least as I understand it).
I would suggest that any update to the copyright law should include this, but only on the condition that "effective technological measures" is defined as a technology that allows for every conceivable non-infringing use. By this I mean the technology would have to allow for the expiration of copyright, reproduction for personal use, and all the rest currently allowed under copyright law. Of course I'm not aware of any such technologies (*cough*CSS*cough*), but that's someone elses problem.
I think that would be a great solution. They can have their pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood.
An interesting point, except that its wrong.
If you're going to bitch about the quality of slashdot, at least try and read the main page articles.
This now means that canadians now enjoy the best of both worlds.
Parents no longer have to feel that irrational guilt that the programs their children are watching might cause them to shoot up their school, or do something equally embarasing to the parents.
Children will discover the joy of learning, as they reprogram the chip (I doubt its much more difficult than getting past a "child-proof" cap, but its still positive reinforcement). They get all the sex and violence as before, only now they don't need to worry their parents might be checking up on them!
So everyone is happy! Until they discover that TV still sucks.
I was recently talking with someone working in the linux group at Corel. They actually are spinning off, and are in the process of coming up with a name, and trying to find a location (good luck, not a lot of open office space in Ottawa).
Corel isn't exactly the most financially stable company, so they need to focus on what they are doing, and linux isn't the main focus of the company. So it gets spun off, in the same Corel Computer (remember the netwinder?) was.
In the end, it means the new company will succeed or fail on its own, which should clear up any conspiracy theories regarding microsoft and corel in the future.
As I said yesterday, Hackersquest is copying a copyrighted world, actively in use by hundreds of thousands of people. How is this legal?
They are not copying the world. Think of the EverQuest client that a user runs as a glorified dumb terminal. Portions of the world are downloaded and displayed on their screen. Now connect the client to the emulated server. It is another world, not EverQuest at all. What is downloaded now is not anything created by Verant. This, to me, should be legal.
If they used any of the EverQuest content (models, textures, etc), that would probably not be legal, and would probably get them nailed with copyright infringment.
If Verant can't create an experience worth keeping people on their servers, thats their problem, but I don't see some guy running a server on his home computer as a threat to their revenue streams.
They are very secret.
Most people know about CSIS, but few have heard for the CSE, who have similar responsibilities to the NSA (sigint, comsec, echelon, all that jazz).
Its a gimmick. The idea of a "publisher's worst nightmare" is a nice geeky dream fit for a nice geeky media such as the net. It works great for generating interest. I'm sure everyone reading this article and the various links will agree.
I don't think there is any way he could make more money selling novels on the net (currently). That means you will continue to see Stephen King novel's on display at your local mega-bookstore.
Also, what the hell does this have to do with my rights online?
Actually the governement agency responsible for this is the CSE, not CSIS. They are responsible for (at least) SIGINT (signal interception) for the Canadian Government. I infer they are doing our part for Echelon.
The official URL is void of any useful information, however Google turned up an excellent page on the CSE
When you consider that the XBox is made of standard PC components, and will probably be sold at a loss (profits are made from the games), what is to stop someone from buying an xbox just to rip the guts out of it? Seems like a nice source for some cheap components.
When it comes out, the hardware won't be worth as much as it is today, and its possible bits of the hardware won't work in regular PCs, but I for one look forward to voiding my warranty and plundering the contents.
Is it so hypocritical?
As I understand it, the GNU philosophy is to take away most of the control of the software from the creator, and give it to the user (without giving ownership). To have it any other way is to be controlled by those who make the software.
In copying mp3's, listeners (the users) are taking back some control, even if it is against the laws and licenses. Who are they taking control from? The artist, yes partly, but mostly the record companies. The record companies are controlling music listeners.
Besides, who said the artist really chose non-redistribution as a license? It was forced upon them by their contract with the record company. The record companies control the artists too.
I believe that most pro-GPL, pro-mp3-copiers have some sense of whats right. Obviously not paying for the music is not right, but is perpetuating the current music paradigm any better? As more and more artists stop trying to push water uphill, I suspect the moral dilemna will solve itself.
The National Post, not William Gibson, is the mainstream source that was refered to. The post is a (go figure) national newspaper here in Canada.
You could always use login, password: cypherpunk / cypherpunk.
"...NAI programmers created a custom server that..."
It is actually the firewall guys that screwed up, not the censorware. So censorware is just a bad idea for the other 101 reasons, not security.
On a side note, does anyone actually read the stories before they are posted?
"If Quake had been designed to be open-source from the beginning..."
...it would have changed nothing.
To make Quake secure, you would not be able to trust the client. To make Quake playable over modems, you have to trust the client (lack of bandwidth and latency issues).
Adversary
Open the source, close it, print it up and wallpaper your cubicle with it. Its still not feasable to have the server do all the work. So surprise, it won't be secure.