And judging from my own experience of both proprietary and FLOSS development, I can say that I hit back doors of all kinds in proprietary software much more often. Normally they are disable for the releases, but it happens sometimes to release piece of software with backdoor enabled.
Story about "Netscape Engineers Are Weenies" backdoor of M$' FrontPage got quite much publicity.
As to add to FLOSS fame, the first computer worm ever used sendmail backdoor normally provisioned for debugging purposes solely.
IOW, lawyers can complain. Thanks to grow of FLOSS software, (re)licensing finally becomes something normal human being can understand. So lawyers start losing jobs. Bad for them. Good for us.
It's something like that. It's just people do not put words "standard" and "MicroSoft" in the same sentence for sake of principle.
M$ provides the specs, the hw reference design and does all the testing (a-la WHQL).
"I think the problem with PlaysForSure is simply that the devices are unappealing compared to the iPod,"
That's the first problem. Second one is iTunes: I yet to see any other player which reaches the golden ratio of features and simplicity. E.g. Sony failed in part because SonyConnect of theirs sucked big way.
"...it looks like most people don't want to rent their music..."
In reality renting model isn't that bad. The problem is that Apple in fact has least restrictive DRM on market. You can burn iTMS tracks to CDs. And you can't do that with M$ DRM. Over here in Europe, people pay fees for public TV and radio - and I'd say hefty fees - so adding $10/month subscription for your kids is no brainer. It's just if you buy music from friends of M$ - you are bound to PC and music player. With Apple's DRM you can burn CD and put it in your hi-fi.
And do not forget, once company signed up with M$' PlayForSure, it can't add support to another file format (e.g. Apples FairPlay). That the answer I got from one company when I asked for Vorbis support: "we sighed up with M$. we can't add Vorbis since it violates the PlayForSure license." Go figure.
Conclusion: both Apple and M$ behave in their usual way. Apple doesn't want to deal with anyone since nobody can give them fair deal. They have invested heavily to make iTMS working - and they want to profit off it as long as they can. M$ just doesn't care. It makes no product for the market. It only provide the lego cubes: DRM, Wind0ze, PlayForSure, DirectX, etc. No products, only technologies - so it's not responsible for failures of other companies like Napster to make something out the legos.
Standard operation of replacing standard cheap frequency splitter and internal cables. (*) Since the speakers are really low-end, I only replaced cables and haven't bothered with splitter. Also I have put speakers on spikes. And of course the proper sound cables to connect speakers to applifier. (2*$25 spikes, 2*$50 cables.) That helped *very* *much*.
None of the cheap systems (regardless of potential) come with proper cables. Actually I was surpised how good the low-end Yamaha can sound. My older more expensive stereo speakers sounded much poorer, especially in high fruequency ranges.
Again: cables are very important, both external and internal. Internal in some constructions can be hard to reach/replace. But replacing external cables with proper ones is must.
(*) The guys I knew long time ago also used to replace twitter (high frequency speaker) with more expencive one (e.g. from JBL). Helps with classical music.
[Rants On Unjustified=SoTrue] First companies put their own engineers to ass feeding them with shit work. Then they hire "cool consultant" to do the job, claiming that it's own engineers are "incapabable". When own engineer tells management "We need X, Y & Z to make the product rock", management tells them to "Too expensive, you know shit, sod off, file an issue with our issue tracking system, etc." When expensive consultant tells management "You need X, Y & Z to make the product rock" - they listen, after all they have cashed so much into him. Pathetic.
Steven Jobs (as much as unpleasant the person he is to work for) is well known to give people's ideas room to grow, *not* to flush them to toilet and then complain that engineers can shit. [Rants Off]
I doubt we will ever know details of the deal, but it all sounds so familiar...
From what you are saying, one might think placing too is easy. But you are right: proper 5.1 system take quite much space. I would say the same amount as good stereo. And I yet to rent a flat which would allow me to put proper stereo inside. In U.S., in private houses it's quite possible. Over here in Europe, flats are terribly small and not quitable for any kind of proper stereo.
As to 2/2.1/5.1/7.1. My friend at one time bought "expensive" Altec Lancing 5.1 system (~$250). When we compared it to sound of my home stereo (~$1.5k), guess what my friend did? He sent the 5.1 back to shop. Next week-end he came over to me and said: "Lead me to a proper shop". He purchased on my recommendation Harman system (Harman/Kardon + JBL) and never looked back.
And even now, my cheap mini system from Yamaha (PianoCraft 400, upgraded cables and bit tuned speakers, $400 + upgrades $150) outperforms 5.1 system of any of my friends. At least that what _they_ say;-)
I can say that definitely there is progress in quality of 5.1 systems. But at the same time stereo goes on too. The main problem of most 5.1 systems (even if you managed to position it well) is poor stereo quality. Music is still stereo and music is what most often played on any system;-)
Sidenote. Many DVDs come with crapy stereo sound track. Most of my friends with stereos bought some kind of 5.1 systems just for sake of watching DVDs. IOW, popularity of 5.1 can be bit inflated.
...stop paying for production of the content that goes to make up the main core of all these torrent sites, what will the sites offer?
After that happen, you'd be surprised how much of artists you liked are in fact are indies and has no relation to the RI/MA Ass. of America. What's more they'd be happy to know that you have downloaded their song/movie - and thus learned about their existence. And if you liked them payed visit to concert or show.
MP/RI Ass. of America is in fact a show business cortel. They control (or own) production, promotion and resales channels of content. Indies exists in your U.S. only thanks to few remnants of common sense and new lobby for indies on capitol hill. Your beloved Ass'es of America tried not once to "stamp" on "rampant" "threat" to their "business model" coming from the hippies who do nothing useful but distract people with their money from "show business" of USA. Business as usual, one would say.
I always tried to explain (unsuccessfully) you Americans what really at stake and what is the true problem of the RI/MP Ass of America. But they have already won your minds over - and you hardly hear the words. Forst word you have to memorize is "CULTURE". Second is "SOCIETY". Think of them. Write them on a wall and look at them hour a day. Probably then you would understand that commercializing what actually makes the bone of society leads you nowhere. (*)
P.S. That's the explanation why USA has such high crime rate. That's explains why you Americans at large has no understanding what's going outside: since you have no culture (but show business) one can hardly expect you to understand way others are living. The way people are living is formed by the culture and society exists at large as a way to preserve the culture. From the global prospective, RI/MP Ass. of America has found a way to sell you what you owned to begin with. They are "free riders". They've made you beleive that "culture" can be property. And it seems you already lost it...
Off-topic: Wind0zophobia? - do *not* trust any B.S. you happen to pick up on the net. Especially if it's for *nix. 'rm -rf/' jokes were around last 20 years. Have life (or Wind0ze for that matter) ever taught you any lesson???
On-topic. To grand parent. How many independent developers has any money to hire "half-competent defense attorney" for patent cases? Billg? Who else?
Self correction is insufficient. Patent application has to be held secret until patent is granted. Or idea might be copied and devalued before applicant can extract any money/compensation for invention from it.
IMHO, all that "innovation" crap is grossly exaggregated. People put all the shit into the patent and call it "innovation". And try to get law protection for it. Even if you are experienced patent examiner, how can you guess what kind of legal imlications the broad nature of patent can hold. E.g. the applicang might claim "innovation" for "eating shit for lunch". As examiner, and normal human being, you know that nobody ever did/does/will do that. How is that *not* innovation???
IMHO, what you Americans need, is the reform which will bring patents onto the level of other legal papers like authorizations and mandates. The papers are always very very narrow *and* can only authorize _one_ thing. Not like your patents - "the Earth, all the Living and the Kitchen Sink". Applied to software patents, if you like to patent Flash or AJAX - you are welcome, but you cannot patent broad range of technologies and kitchen sink, like on-topic patents tries to claim.
How long needed RedHat to act upon SCO accusations? There is a difference.
M$ whether likes it or not cannot risk aggravating vast user base. It will be one way or another on the case with its customer(s).
And RedHat waited almost year to launch its case against SCO. It was obvious from the beginning that SCO is fliring with legal system, yet RH waited, leaving many user open to anxiety. (*)
If you personally would ever have even a single customer, you would easily feel the heat coming from them on such issues.
It's not that I'm protecting M$. It's just you have to try once imaging size of M$' user base. And kind of measures they have to take against litigious subjects of US. And all that legalize you normally find in liceses and contracts has to clarified with lawyer anyway - there are always many local laws (e.g. consumer protection) which might override what license/contract in fact says and how situation if any would be resolved.
(*) Even German Linux community and SUSE reacted faster: SCO was ordered to shut up its PR campaign in Germany.
Apple was already criticized on both of this points.
First of your points was already disabled by most of the savvy users after the bug of Terminal.app with opening of telnet:// links from Safari and problems of parsing command line.
Second is, well, feature. I hardly see how Apple can safely work it around. (Situation of application called funny.jpg.app with icon of jpeg file.) As a rule of dumb I normally investigate files I download from net before opening them. Guess which OS have taught me the lesson.;-)
But well, if you look deep into the problem, it again boils down to user stupidity...
Re:Prior art is on the burden of the copyrighters
on
Source Code & Copyright
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· Score: 4, Informative
I haven't heard of any case where copyright was involving prior art defense.
Normally it's related to patents.
IOW. Person A written Program A to do the Task A. Person B written Program B to do the Task A. If task is the same there are very chances that the programs will be quite similar.
Now, from point of view of copyright law there are two absolutely different programmes - implementations of probably the same algorithm to solve the Task A. (Competition is good, isn't it?)
But, when patents get's involved, picture becomes more obscure. If Person A holds a patents for the algorithm of Program A (and since patents by definition "transcends it all" and disregards copyrights) implementation of Program B whilst having no relation to Program A nor to the Person A is in legal crux. (Here prior art starts playing role.)
Copyright protects person's work. Patent protects person's idea. Two people might have come to the same idea (first to come entitled for the protection). But how it could be that two people independently made the same work? (e.g. book, picture, poem, etc) It's lunatism or what???
Specifically, when applied to software, prior art make no sense whatsoever. Modern obfuscation tools allow people to mask the original code. Was it stolen or written from scratch - one would never guess. (Obfuscators are normally applied to commercial Java programmes to make reverse engineering harder).
P.S. In my experience, when two commercial programs have same peice of code, it usually means that it was lifted from BSD. I yet to encounter single example when one software company stolen something from another. Average quality of commercial code is quite low - it's not worth been stolen. And when you see clean, well made code, rest assured: people behind the code are connected to Open Source. Open Source has to have higher quality - just as in normal life you would try to *NOT* show anybody you dirty undies.
Stalin meets Roosevelt. Roosevelt:
- You have no freedom over there in USSR. In USA, anyone came come in front of White House in Washington and publicly say that he doesn't like me.
Stalin promptly replies:
- You are wrong. Anyone can come to Red Square in Moscow and publicly say that he doesn't like you!
IOW, if the people do not like the censorship of google.cn, why don't they to Tiananmen and protest to chinese gov't?
I will protest against censoring materials related to nazism & fashism. What about racism censorship? Poor kids on the block were killing others for no reason - why not to give them one???
What about for example lolicon? In Japan it's pretty normal, over here in Europe as well as in USA it's considered to be paedophilia. Strangely enough, "hentai" what's normal pr0n for us, in fact is "freaking" for them...
You can hardly expect people to have the same morality standards when their cultures are only several thousand years apart. And censorship is all about morality. That's in general. As to China in particular. Memorize one saying of old: people deserve their rulers. It's not that chinese did something new. It's not USA stopped supporting them. (And it's not that USA has no censorship of their own. Who doesn't?)
Quote:...they could be correct. I don't know the law well enough to say - if memory serves correct, it gives some examples of things which are fair use, none of which include anything like backing up or shifting from one media to another for personal use. So yeah, technically they could be correct.
You are *ABSOLUTELY* wrong. Making a backup copy is not "fair use". It's your right as a consumer. "Fair use" covers only cases when you make a copies for sale. (General rule: if you made a profit from a copy, RI/MP Ass's of America can claim damages. (*))
You bought music - not a CD. CD is just medium. Medium is tangible. Tangible can break. Why shall you pay twice for the music due to broken medium? RI/MP/AA try hard to obscure what it sell. Last time copyright laws in U.S. were under revision, RI/MP/AA have implicitely refused to put into law separation of content from medium. Your U.S. law makers proposed that to them not once: that would have broken current impasse on digital copying issue and RI/MP/AA would only need to start selling licenses for content not bound to any medium. But they don't want that: if pople would see what fraction of CD price goes to their beloved artists - people would just boycott CD sales altogether. (FYI: normal artists get about $0.15-0.25, most popular often can get a deal for $1-1.5 of the CD price.)
(*) RI/MP Ass's of America had won the informational war. (Jokes about americans electing Bush are intentionally removed). Actually RI/MP/AA had you twice. First they have lobbied successfully for a law which doesn't require them to stipulate damages in cases of illegal copies (aka bootlegs). Have you noticed that none of the RIAA cases involved damages? - they were talking only about copyright infrigement fines. Second time they have had you - DMCA. Before DMCA, you had to make a profit from a copy for it to be considered illegal copying (again bootlegs). After DMCA, you just have to break protection or make a plain digital copy - and anything you would do later anyway will be considered copyright infrigement. And they don't even have to stipulate damages. How convient to them. Have they had to stipulate damages, none of the cases would made any noise: a case for 5-10 copied tracks (most of the RIAA v. P2P user cases had about that many tracks) what amounts for $5-10 damages in iTMS prices is just laughable.
I found it. Yeah. Actually I have seen it before - it's just this is top dumb keyboard configurator I have ever seen. That's probably why I have forgotten about it - it's of no use anyway (unless you are Opera's long time user, I suppose). Compare to Ff's keyconfig extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?id=1537
The point: what I'm supposed to type in the keyboard configuration? Opera's help is no help at all. Huh? How me a casual end-user may to guess what to put in there instead of standrd "Close Page,1"? And what that ",1" means???
Again and over again. Opera has to stop that practice of closed community. At moment Opera's community looks just as bad as Mac-fanatic community. Proper easy-to-find documentation might be the good first step.
E.g. Googling for "opera keyboard", bring lots of useless articles on how great Opera to use from keyboard. Without *ANY* hint on how to chage the default settings. And how to discover available possibilities.
I think in its striving to be slim browser Opera dropped its user frindlieness...
P.S.
Just for the balance the view. I've tried on numerous occasions installing Opera to people with slow/old computers. (Long time ago. In times of Netscape 4.0x) I most of the cases next week I was coming to check the PC for virii/etc - I was discovering that people ditched Opera in favour of IE 4.x. They were saying IE is easier to use. In one case I found people have downloaded beta of Netscape 6 - and said that it was more robust to them. Go figure. I have tried to use Opera on modem line just to find that Opera 3.x (thou it was loading pages ultra quickly) was failing to render them properly in every second case... Go figure.
I'd love to have fast slim browser I can tune to my needs 100%. But it happened that no such browser yet appeared. What people say about Opera is something like people say about Emacs - you can have everything in Emacs, kitchen sink included. But in most cases people would choose what's suited for them from the start - not something they need a very big hammer to iron out from. Once I have spent two weeks tuning Emacs. Now I have spent two hours googling for "proper" Opera documentation. Both times I have failed. Nor have I managed to make emacs doing thinkgs the way I like, nor have I found (blantly missing) Opera keyboard configuration documentation. The hint from another post - is just it - hint, not a proper documentation. We are *not* going to start Opera discussions for every keyboard shortcut I might happen to need.
Apple's decision to/open-source/ WebKit was quite controversal. Apple as a big company with lots of customers has to follow some security lines. That was the culprit why WebKit became so distant to its ancesor kHTML.
The problem was that KDE and Apple has very different targets on how to release patches and etc. Some of the changes Apple did to WebKit would never be accepted by kHTML team. That in fact forked development of WebKit and kHTML.
After Slashdot bashing (it was in times of release Acid2 test), when kHTML people said that Acid2/kHTML is a very distant (low-pro) target, Apple promised to come-up with solution to the problem. The solution was to clean-up internal repository and open it up the FLOSS community. kHTML people wanted to bring standardatization work done by Apple to kHTML on one side. And on another side Apple wanted to move to newer improved version of kHTML.
Fork the it was going benefited no-one. The way things everyone wants is to have kHTML clean and strandard compliant and WebKit with some hacks and quirks to deliver top notch performance and compatibility for Apple's Safari. Hacks/quirks has always a potential to evolve into a proper solution.
So I think your guess is right: most contributors would be the kHTML team. Thou I expect some other caring souls would wander the repositories too.
I have oversimplified. IANAL, first. Second it's Slashdot;-)
You wrote: "To be precise: you aren't allowed to make copys of DRMed stuff if you have to circumvent the DRM somehow, so the "analog hole" is still open. That's why you can get programs that make copys by playing a CD and simultaneously recording it using the soundcard."
You are not living in Europe. In Europe you own what you have paid money for. If I have bought CD/DVD/etc - I own it. And I can do with it what ever I like. I can make a copy and give it to my friend. Private copy, private exchange. If I would try to profit directly off the copied CD/DVD - then it's definitely illegal.
But compare with: If I have bought game console - I can mod it. It's Okay. If I have setup mod chip shop - I try to profit off other people work and most likely that would be ruled illegal.
All rulings in Europe (and some other places in the World) to date were judged from that prospective. Common pattern: new technology erode old music recording and distribution model. But as I have put it in great parent post, gov'ts (especially in Europe) are already over-protectionists - to argue that particular industry needs protection you would need a stronger case. In case of the recording industry is easy and clear: new technology erodes old business model. And since when we are against progress?!?:-/
FYI, CD-R/DVD+/-R/RWs are taxed in Europe, as insisted by artists. IOW, if you have downloaded MP3s or movies and burned them on CD/DVD - you are clear, since you are already compensated artists thru recordable medium tax. (And every CD/DVD burner is taxed too.)
And to cool off your hot (in legal sense) American heads, I have to remind that European legal system is NOT precedent-based. IOW, one case over here means nothing. Judge decides the case after looking into the circumstances of the case before him, not by searching prehistoric records of how Gutenberg/etc were judged.
What can you tell from the case, is overall mood over here. People in Europe are sick of taxes. And another association asking for another compensation and protection against competition is just what it is - another association asking for another compensation and another protection against competition. And artist associations here are far from being first in the queue of the beggars, looking for gov't help.
What is illegal here putting such CD-R pile for a sale. But I think it's illegal everywhere. As long as you give it away for free - you are Okay.
"""This isn't true, they're just harder to find. Opera has quite a tradition of INI editing and subtlety when it comes to options and functionality."""
That doesn't cut in. I wish to see proper opera.1 & opera.ini.5;-) Not some hideous pages with mysterious links with proprietary 'opera:' protocol.
Anyway, your buttons have worked. Thou I'm still at guessing how to make 'Cmd-W'/'Ctrl-W' to invoke that action - but not default 'Close Tab^WPage and Go Somewhere Nobody Knows Where'. You see, I'm not using mouse all that much. Another web page with another funny looking links I guess?;-)
Rest assured, I checked official documentation. It mentions nowhere.ini files nor.ini configuration options. And no way to customize keyboard. From my end-user pov Mozilla does better better job advertising Firefox extensions. I mean, how to me, end-user it is different: with Opera visiting page with funny looking links, or with FireFox visiting addons.mozilla.org? Later option is of course better: I do not need to guess where to look for things I need. With Opera I need to guess what to google for. It's bit like five people for half of hour were looking for way in Emacs to close a window. You just had to guess that window is really 'buffer' and close is really 'delete'. Rest was easy. Here one has to guess that in Opera tab is called 'page'.
Another minor annoyance, is that Opera doesn't support native widgets - it's almost Okay on Wind0ze and Linux. But on Mac OS X it's just terrible. It's not only doesn't look like Mac OS applciation, it's in fact works just like if it was under Windoze. With all other downsides Opera loses its edge over quite average Safari.
As one guy have put it, if default configuration doesn't fit you, one can guess that application as a whole would not fit you too. Probably that's why I do not use Opera.
To conclude: Opera has to stop being centered around its own closed comunity - but to try to talk to normal people too. To casual end-user it looks too wierd. Opera can innovate - but fails miserably brinning this innovations to average users. How long it took for FireFox to gain ground? And how long Opera was in the market?? Opera needs urgently to fix its comunity.
In the end, tab it is tab (as in "tabbed browsing"), not page.
But in fact I heard that most FLOSS developers are turned down by the size and overall (low) quality of OOo code.
As one developer said on blog (I failed to find that remark again) the thing is only paid Sun developers would work on it. And only because they are paid to do so. Compilation take ages and level of requirements for development is high - that all creates entry barrier to FLOSS developers, most of whome work in their own spare time.
To put in prospective: what would you want to spend you time on: hacking Linux kernel and then in 10 minutes seeing your changes or waiting N hours when OOo compilation finishes?
I never looked into OOo sources. But the pace of progress project makes - and the kind of progress it makes - tell quite much about how project is organized. I truly hope that KOffice would be able to run on Wind0ze - in office unfortunately I'm completely confined to the M$ Wind0ze. At the moment only OOo can read the SXW files OOo produces upon import from M$O... AbiWord fails completely to pick up styles in such documents. KOffice 1.4 is quite close to render the files the way as OOo does.
But you can't make tabs behave like in Ff/Camino/Safari. Or can you?
Say you have three tabs open. You have first tab active. You switch to third tab. You close it. Opera goes to... yes, it goes back to first tab. Unlike in all/normal/ browsers to second one - but to least recently used first.
That behaviour irritates me. It completely breaks my morning news reading traditions.:-/ Or reading bug lists. My manager sends me often list of bugs. In Ff I open all bug reports in tabs next to initial report. And then go over all of them. In the situation, Opera constantly tries to jump to (first tab with) my manager's report. That's very irritating.
Since every one said that Opera is completely customizable, I have tried to find a way around. And I was *absolutely* disappointed. In fact Opera 8/9 has *much* *much* fewer settings compared to Firefox. Try about:config in Firefox for once. That what I call "complete customization".
The only thing I found in Opera nice/useful - it's IRC client. Simple and streamlined. Mozilla's ChatZilla uses separate window - while Opera's IRC uses the same tabs as browser. IOW, you can have the IRC chatroom tab along with Web page in the same window. (Of course with aforementioned annoyance.)
P.S. And yes, just like Ff, Opera can't active FTP. My corporate firewall for some reason breaks passive FTP - active FTP is the only option. Ff has bug in retry code (iow, theoretically Ff can). Opera just can't. Or can it?
I'm not sure about DirectX, but in case of OpenGL it's quite clear: you can very easily pass OGL calls from guest OS to host OS. State of OpenGL is held completely out of application. Probably the same is possible with DirectX.
I just wonder why it wasn't ever done.
P.S. I heard rumors that such functionality was poised to make appearance in VirtualPC 7. Before it was bought by M$. But to my knowledge there is nothing like that in VPC7...
Have *ever* tried to use/compile ImageMagik? - I did it twice with two different versions. It took about 6-8 hours and failed in the end with obscure messages. Before putting something into comaprision you have to have first hand experience with it. (Proper alternative would be "netpbm". Check it out.)
Unix phylosopy, as much I love it, does apply here quite differently. Photoshop is really a platform. Photoshop *is* Unix. Photoshop is a platform for small easy-to-develop application (a.k.a. plug-ins). As there are much small applications for Unix, there is plenty of plug-ins for Photoshop.
In the end, I'm confused equally with both. Thou on couple of occasions had better luck with Photoshop. On Linux I use normaly netpbm - fits me right.
Slashdot Mirror
And judging from my own experience of both proprietary and FLOSS development, I can say that I hit back doors of all kinds in proprietary software much more often. Normally they are disable for the releases, but it happens sometimes to release piece of software with backdoor enabled.
Story about "Netscape Engineers Are Weenies" backdoor of M$' FrontPage got quite much publicity.
As to add to FLOSS fame, the first computer worm ever used sendmail backdoor normally provisioned for debugging purposes solely.
IOW, lawyers can complain. Thanks to grow of FLOSS software, (re)licensing finally becomes something normal human being can understand. So lawyers start losing jobs. Bad for them. Good for us.
It's something like that. It's just people do not put words "standard" and "MicroSoft" in the same sentence for sake of principle. M$ provides the specs, the hw reference design and does all the testing (a-la WHQL).
"I think the problem with PlaysForSure is simply that the devices are unappealing compared to the iPod,"
That's the first problem. Second one is iTunes: I yet to see any other player which reaches the golden ratio of features and simplicity. E.g. Sony failed in part because SonyConnect of theirs sucked big way.
"...it looks like most people don't want to rent their music..."
In reality renting model isn't that bad. The problem is that Apple in fact has least restrictive DRM on market. You can burn iTMS tracks to CDs. And you can't do that with M$ DRM. Over here in Europe, people pay fees for public TV and radio - and I'd say hefty fees - so adding $10/month subscription for your kids is no brainer. It's just if you buy music from friends of M$ - you are bound to PC and music player. With Apple's DRM you can burn CD and put it in your hi-fi.
And do not forget, once company signed up with M$' PlayForSure, it can't add support to another file format (e.g. Apples FairPlay). That the answer I got from one company when I asked for Vorbis support: "we sighed up with M$. we can't add Vorbis since it violates the PlayForSure license." Go figure.
Conclusion: both Apple and M$ behave in their usual way. Apple doesn't want to deal with anyone since nobody can give them fair deal. They have invested heavily to make iTMS working - and they want to profit off it as long as they can. M$ just doesn't care. It makes no product for the market. It only provide the lego cubes: DRM, Wind0ze, PlayForSure, DirectX, etc. No products, only technologies - so it's not responsible for failures of other companies like Napster to make something out the legos.
Standard operation of replacing standard cheap frequency splitter and internal cables. (*) Since the speakers are really low-end, I only replaced cables and haven't bothered with splitter. Also I have put speakers on spikes. And of course the proper sound cables to connect speakers to applifier. (2*$25 spikes, 2*$50 cables.) That helped *very* *much*.
None of the cheap systems (regardless of potential) come with proper cables. Actually I was surpised how good the low-end Yamaha can sound. My older more expensive stereo speakers sounded much poorer, especially in high fruequency ranges.
Again: cables are very important, both external and internal. Internal in some constructions can be hard to reach/replace. But replacing external cables with proper ones is must.
(*) The guys I knew long time ago also used to replace twitter (high frequency speaker) with more expencive one (e.g. from JBL). Helps with classical music.
That sounds so pathetic.
[Rants On Unjustified=SoTrue]
First companies put their own engineers to ass feeding them with shit work. Then they hire "cool consultant" to do the job, claiming that it's own engineers are "incapabable". When own engineer tells management "We need X, Y & Z to make the product rock", management tells them to "Too expensive, you know shit, sod off, file an issue with our issue tracking system, etc." When expensive consultant tells management "You need X, Y & Z to make the product rock" - they listen, after all they have cashed so much into him. Pathetic.
Steven Jobs (as much as unpleasant the person he is to work for) is well known to give people's ideas room to grow, *not* to flush them to toilet and then complain that engineers can shit.
[Rants Off]
I doubt we will ever know details of the deal, but it all sounds so familiar...
Grrrr. Monday morning.
s/placing too/placing stereo/
s/quitable/suitable/
From what you are saying, one might think placing too is easy. But you are right: proper 5.1 system take quite much space. I would say the same amount as good stereo. And I yet to rent a flat which would allow me to put proper stereo inside. In U.S., in private houses it's quite possible. Over here in Europe, flats are terribly small and not quitable for any kind of proper stereo.
;-)
;-)
As to 2/2.1/5.1/7.1. My friend at one time bought "expensive" Altec Lancing 5.1 system (~$250). When we compared it to sound of my home stereo (~$1.5k), guess what my friend did? He sent the 5.1 back to shop. Next week-end he came over to me and said: "Lead me to a proper shop". He purchased on my recommendation Harman system (Harman/Kardon + JBL) and never looked back.
And even now, my cheap mini system from Yamaha (PianoCraft 400, upgraded cables and bit tuned speakers, $400 + upgrades $150) outperforms 5.1 system of any of my friends. At least that what _they_ say
I can say that definitely there is progress in quality of 5.1 systems. But at the same time stereo goes on too. The main problem of most 5.1 systems (even if you managed to position it well) is poor stereo quality. Music is still stereo and music is what most often played on any system
Sidenote. Many DVDs come with crapy stereo sound track. Most of my friends with stereos bought some kind of 5.1 systems just for sake of watching DVDs. IOW, popularity of 5.1 can be bit inflated.
After that happen, you'd be surprised how much of artists you liked are in fact are indies and has no relation to the RI/MA Ass. of America. What's more they'd be happy to know that you have downloaded their song/movie - and thus learned about their existence. And if you liked them payed visit to concert or show.
MP/RI Ass. of America is in fact a show business cortel. They control (or own) production, promotion and resales channels of content. Indies exists in your U.S. only thanks to few remnants of common sense and new lobby for indies on capitol hill. Your beloved Ass'es of America tried not once to "stamp" on "rampant" "threat" to their "business model" coming from the hippies who do nothing useful but distract people with their money from "show business" of USA. Business as usual, one would say.
I always tried to explain (unsuccessfully) you Americans what really at stake and what is the true problem of the RI/MP Ass of America. But they have already won your minds over - and you hardly hear the words. Forst word you have to memorize is "CULTURE". Second is "SOCIETY". Think of them. Write them on a wall and look at them hour a day. Probably then you would understand that commercializing what actually makes the bone of society leads you nowhere. (*)
P.S. That's the explanation why USA has such high crime rate. That's explains why you Americans at large has no understanding what's going outside: since you have no culture (but show business) one can hardly expect you to understand way others are living. The way people are living is formed by the culture and society exists at large as a way to preserve the culture. From the global prospective, RI/MP Ass. of America has found a way to sell you what you owned to begin with. They are "free riders". They've made you beleive that "culture" can be property. And it seems you already lost it...
Off-topic: Wind0zophobia? - do *not* trust any B.S. you happen to pick up on the net. Especially if it's for *nix. 'rm -rf /' jokes were around last 20 years. Have life (or Wind0ze for that matter) ever taught you any lesson???
On-topic. To grand parent. How many independent developers has any money to hire "half-competent defense attorney" for patent cases? Billg? Who else?
Self correction is insufficient. Patent application has to be held secret until patent is granted. Or idea might be copied and devalued before applicant can extract any money/compensation for invention from it.
IMHO, all that "innovation" crap is grossly exaggregated. People put all the shit into the patent and call it "innovation". And try to get law protection for it. Even if you are experienced patent examiner, how can you guess what kind of legal imlications the broad nature of patent can hold. E.g. the applicang might claim "innovation" for "eating shit for lunch". As examiner, and normal human being, you know that nobody ever did/does/will do that. How is that *not* innovation???
IMHO, what you Americans need, is the reform which will bring patents onto the level of other legal papers like authorizations and mandates. The papers are always very very narrow *and* can only authorize _one_ thing. Not like your patents - "the Earth, all the Living and the Kitchen Sink". Applied to software patents, if you like to patent Flash or AJAX - you are welcome, but you cannot patent broad range of technologies and kitchen sink, like on-topic patents tries to claim.
How long needed RedHat to act upon SCO accusations? There is a difference.
M$ whether likes it or not cannot risk aggravating vast user base. It will be one way or another on the case with its customer(s).
And RedHat waited almost year to launch its case against SCO. It was obvious from the beginning that SCO is fliring with legal system, yet RH waited, leaving many user open to anxiety. (*)
If you personally would ever have even a single customer, you would easily feel the heat coming from them on such issues.
It's not that I'm protecting M$. It's just you have to try once imaging size of M$' user base. And kind of measures they have to take against litigious subjects of US. And all that legalize you normally find in liceses and contracts has to clarified with lawyer anyway - there are always many local laws (e.g. consumer protection) which might override what license/contract in fact says and how situation if any would be resolved.
(*) Even German Linux community and SUSE reacted faster: SCO was ordered to shut up its PR campaign in Germany.
P.S. IANAL. even on /.
Apple was already criticized on both of this points.
;-)
First of your points was already disabled by most of the savvy users after the bug of Terminal.app with opening of telnet:// links from Safari and problems of parsing command line.
Second is, well, feature. I hardly see how Apple can safely work it around. (Situation of application called funny.jpg.app with icon of jpeg file.) As a rule of dumb I normally investigate files I download from net before opening them. Guess which OS have taught me the lesson.
But well, if you look deep into the problem, it again boils down to user stupidity...
I haven't heard of any case where copyright was involving prior art defense.
Normally it's related to patents.
IOW. Person A written Program A to do the Task A. Person B written Program B to do the Task A. If task is the same there are very chances that the programs will be quite similar.
Now, from point of view of copyright law there are two absolutely different programmes - implementations of probably the same algorithm to solve the Task A. (Competition is good, isn't it?)
But, when patents get's involved, picture becomes more obscure. If Person A holds a patents for the algorithm of Program A (and since patents by definition "transcends it all" and disregards copyrights) implementation of Program B whilst having no relation to Program A nor to the Person A is in legal crux. (Here prior art starts playing role.)
Copyright protects person's work. Patent protects person's idea.
Two people might have come to the same idea (first to come entitled for the protection). But how it could be that two people independently made the same work? (e.g. book, picture, poem, etc) It's lunatism or what???
Specifically, when applied to software, prior art make no sense whatsoever. Modern obfuscation tools allow people to mask the original code. Was it stolen or written from scratch - one would never guess. (Obfuscators are normally applied to commercial Java programmes to make reverse engineering harder).
P.S. In my experience, when two commercial programs have same peice of code, it usually means that it was lifted from BSD. I yet to encounter single example when one software company stolen something from another. Average quality of commercial code is quite low - it's not worth been stolen. And when you see clean, well made code, rest assured: people behind the code are connected to Open Source. Open Source has to have higher quality - just as in normal life you would try to *NOT* show anybody you dirty undies.
Recalled joke from USSR.
Stalin meets Roosevelt. Roosevelt:
- You have no freedom over there in USSR. In USA, anyone came come in front of White House in Washington and publicly say that he doesn't like me.
Stalin promptly replies:
- You are wrong. Anyone can come to Red Square in Moscow and publicly say that he doesn't like you!
IOW, if the people do not like the censorship of google.cn, why don't they to Tiananmen and protest to chinese gov't?
Yohooo!!! I will protest then too.
. html or even http://horizon.nmsu.edu/101/pornography.html here. And I want to have no problems when searching for old Hindu symbol commonly known as swastika.
I will protest against censoring materials related to nazism & fashism. What about racism censorship? Poor kids on the block were killing others for no reason - why not to give them one???
And why U.S. ban so much books? http://www.banned-books.com/bblist.html here and here http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books
What about for example lolicon? In Japan it's pretty normal, over here in Europe as well as in USA it's considered to be paedophilia. Strangely enough, "hentai" what's normal pr0n for us, in fact is "freaking" for them...
You can hardly expect people to have the same morality standards when their cultures are only several thousand years apart. And censorship is all about morality. That's in general. As to China in particular. Memorize one saying of old: people deserve their rulers. It's not that chinese did something new. It's not USA stopped supporting them. (And it's not that USA has no censorship of their own. Who doesn't?)
Wasn't that delivery service Ace Ventura worked for?
Quote: ...they could be correct. I don't know the law well enough to say - if memory serves correct, it gives some examples of things which are fair use, none of which include anything like backing up or shifting from one media to another for personal use. So yeah, technically they could be correct.
n t
You are *ABSOLUTELY* wrong. Making a backup copy is not "fair use". It's your right as a consumer. "Fair use" covers only cases when you make a copies for sale. (General rule: if you made a profit from a copy, RI/MP Ass's of America can claim damages. (*))
You bought music - not a CD. CD is just medium. Medium is tangible. Tangible can break. Why shall you pay twice for the music due to broken medium? RI/MP/AA try hard to obscure what it sell. Last time copyright laws in U.S. were under revision, RI/MP/AA have implicitely refused to put into law separation of content from medium. Your U.S. law makers proposed that to them not once: that would have broken current impasse on digital copying issue and RI/MP/AA would only need to start selling licenses for content not bound to any medium. But they don't want that: if pople would see what fraction of CD price goes to their beloved artists - people would just boycott CD sales altogether. (FYI: normal artists get about $0.15-0.25, most popular often can get a deal for $1-1.5 of the CD price.)
(*) RI/MP Ass's of America had won the informational war. (Jokes about americans electing Bush are intentionally removed). Actually RI/MP/AA had you twice. First they have lobbied successfully for a law which doesn't require them to stipulate damages in cases of illegal copies (aka bootlegs). Have you noticed that none of the RIAA cases involved damages? - they were talking only about copyright infrigement fines. Second time they have had you - DMCA. Before DMCA, you had to make a profit from a copy for it to be considered illegal copying (again bootlegs). After DMCA, you just have to break protection or make a plain digital copy - and anything you would do later anyway will be considered copyright infrigement. And they don't even have to stipulate damages. How convient to them. Have they had to stipulate damages, none of the cases would made any noise: a case for 5-10 copied tracks (most of the RIAA v. P2P user cases had about that many tracks) what amounts for $5-10 damages in iTMS prices is just laughable.
Check the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringeme
I found it. Yeah. Actually I have seen it before - it's just this is top dumb keyboard configurator I have ever seen. That's probably why I have forgotten about it - it's of no use anyway (unless you are Opera's long time user, I suppose). Compare to Ff's keyconfig extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?id=1537
The point: what I'm supposed to type in the keyboard configuration? Opera's help is no help at all. Huh? How me a casual end-user may to guess what to put in there instead of standrd "Close Page,1"? And what that ",1" means???
Again and over again. Opera has to stop that practice of closed community. At moment Opera's community looks just as bad as Mac-fanatic community. Proper easy-to-find documentation might be the good first step.
E.g. Googling for "opera keyboard", bring lots of useless articles on how great Opera to use from keyboard. Without *ANY* hint on how to chage the default settings. And how to discover available possibilities.
I think in its striving to be slim browser Opera dropped its user frindlieness...
P.S.
Just for the balance the view. I've tried on numerous occasions installing Opera to people with slow/old computers. (Long time ago. In times of Netscape 4.0x) I most of the cases next week I was coming to check the PC for virii/etc - I was discovering that people ditched Opera in favour of IE 4.x. They were saying IE is easier to use. In one case I found people have downloaded beta of Netscape 6 - and said that it was more robust to them. Go figure. I have tried to use Opera on modem line just to find that Opera 3.x (thou it was loading pages ultra quickly) was failing to render them properly in every second case... Go figure.
I'd love to have fast slim browser I can tune to my needs 100%. But it happened that no such browser yet appeared. What people say about Opera is something like people say about Emacs - you can have everything in Emacs, kitchen sink included. But in most cases people would choose what's suited for them from the start - not something they need a very big hammer to iron out from. Once I have spent two weeks tuning Emacs. Now I have spent two hours googling for "proper" Opera documentation. Both times I have failed. Nor have I managed to make emacs doing thinkgs the way I like, nor have I found (blantly missing) Opera keyboard configuration documentation. The hint from another post - is just it - hint, not a proper documentation. We are *not* going to start Opera discussions for every keyboard shortcut I might happen to need.
I think that to be the case.
/open-source/ WebKit was quite controversal. Apple as a big company with lots of customers has to follow some security lines. That was the culprit why WebKit became so distant to its ancesor kHTML.
1 5227 - and the solution http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/04/144021 3
Apple's decision to
The problem was that KDE and Apple has very different targets on how to release patches and etc. Some of the changes Apple did to WebKit would never be accepted by kHTML team. That in fact forked development of WebKit and kHTML.
After Slashdot bashing (it was in times of release Acid2 test), when kHTML people said that Acid2/kHTML is a very distant (low-pro) target, Apple promised to come-up with solution to the problem. The solution was to clean-up internal repository and open it up the FLOSS community. kHTML people wanted to bring standardatization work done by Apple to kHTML on one side. And on another side Apple wanted to move to newer improved version of kHTML.
Fork the it was going benefited no-one. The way things everyone wants is to have kHTML clean and strandard compliant and WebKit with some hacks and quirks to deliver top notch performance and compatibility for Apple's Safari. Hacks/quirks has always a potential to evolve into a proper solution.
So I think your guess is right: most contributors would be the kHTML team. Thou I expect some other caring souls would wander the repositories too.
P.S. Story about Apple's WebKit v. kHTML. the problem: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/28/12
I have oversimplified. IANAL, first. Second it's Slashdot ;-)
:-/
You wrote: "To be precise: you aren't allowed to make copys of DRMed stuff if you have to circumvent the DRM somehow, so the "analog hole" is still open. That's why you can get programs that make copys by playing a CD and simultaneously recording it using the soundcard."
You are not living in Europe. In Europe you own what you have paid money for. If I have bought CD/DVD/etc - I own it. And I can do with it what ever I like. I can make a copy and give it to my friend. Private copy, private exchange. If I would try to profit directly off the copied CD/DVD - then it's definitely illegal.
But compare with:
If I have bought game console - I can mod it. It's Okay.
If I have setup mod chip shop - I try to profit off other people work and most likely that would be ruled illegal.
All rulings in Europe (and some other places in the World) to date were judged from that prospective. Common pattern: new technology erode old music recording and distribution model. But as I have put it in great parent post, gov'ts (especially in Europe) are already over-protectionists - to argue that particular industry needs protection you would need a stronger case. In case of the recording industry is easy and clear: new technology erodes old business model. And since when we are against progress?!?
FYI, CD-R/DVD+/-R/RWs are taxed in Europe, as insisted by artists. IOW, if you have downloaded MP3s or movies and burned them on CD/DVD - you are clear, since you are already compensated artists thru recordable medium tax. (And every CD/DVD burner is taxed too.)
And to cool off your hot (in legal sense) American heads, I have to remind that European legal system is NOT precedent-based. IOW, one case over here means nothing. Judge decides the case after looking into the circumstances of the case before him, not by searching prehistoric records of how Gutenberg/etc were judged.
What can you tell from the case, is overall mood over here. People in Europe are sick of taxes. And another association asking for another compensation and protection against competition is just what it is - another association asking for another compensation and another protection against competition. And artist associations here are far from being first in the queue of the beggars, looking for gov't help.
What is illegal here putting such CD-R pile for a sale. But I think it's illegal everywhere. As long as you give it away for free - you are Okay.
"""This isn't true, they're just harder to find. Opera has quite a tradition of INI editing and subtlety when it comes to options and functionality."""
;-) Not some hideous pages with mysterious links with proprietary 'opera:' protocol.
;-)
.ini files nor .ini configuration options. And no way to customize keyboard. From my end-user pov Mozilla does better better job advertising Firefox extensions. I mean, how to me, end-user it is different: with Opera visiting page with funny looking links, or with FireFox visiting addons.mozilla.org? Later option is of course better: I do not need to guess where to look for things I need. With Opera I need to guess what to google for. It's bit like five people for half of hour were looking for way in Emacs to close a window. You just had to guess that window is really 'buffer' and close is really 'delete'. Rest was easy. Here one has to guess that in Opera tab is called 'page'.
That doesn't cut in. I wish to see proper opera.1 & opera.ini.5
Anyway, your buttons have worked. Thou I'm still at guessing how to make 'Cmd-W'/'Ctrl-W' to invoke that action - but not default 'Close Tab^WPage and Go Somewhere Nobody Knows Where'. You see, I'm not using mouse all that much. Another web page with another funny looking links I guess?
Rest assured, I checked official documentation. It mentions nowhere
Another minor annoyance, is that Opera doesn't support native widgets - it's almost Okay on Wind0ze and Linux. But on Mac OS X it's just terrible. It's not only doesn't look like Mac OS applciation, it's in fact works just like if it was under Windoze. With all other downsides Opera loses its edge over quite average Safari.
As one guy have put it, if default configuration doesn't fit you, one can guess that application as a whole would not fit you too. Probably that's why I do not use Opera.
To conclude: Opera has to stop being centered around its own closed comunity - but to try to talk to normal people too. To casual end-user it looks too wierd. Opera can innovate - but fails miserably brinning this innovations to average users. How long it took for FireFox to gain ground? And how long Opera was in the market?? Opera needs urgently to fix its comunity.
In the end, tab it is tab (as in "tabbed browsing"), not page.
That's strange. We do hear that request from IBM.
But in fact I heard that most FLOSS developers are turned down by the size and overall (low) quality of OOo code.
As one developer said on blog (I failed to find that remark again) the thing is only paid Sun developers would work on it. And only because they are paid to do so. Compilation take ages and level of requirements for development is high - that all creates entry barrier to FLOSS developers, most of whome work in their own spare time.
To put in prospective: what would you want to spend you time on: hacking Linux kernel and then in 10 minutes seeing your changes or waiting N hours when OOo compilation finishes?
I never looked into OOo sources. But the pace of progress project makes - and the kind of progress it makes - tell quite much about how project is organized. I truly hope that KOffice would be able to run on Wind0ze - in office unfortunately I'm completely confined to the M$ Wind0ze. At the moment only OOo can read the SXW files OOo produces upon import from M$O... AbiWord fails completely to pick up styles in such documents. KOffice 1.4 is quite close to render the files the way as OOo does.
But you can't make tabs behave like in Ff/Camino/Safari. Or can you?
/normal/ browsers to second one - but to least recently used first.
:-/ Or reading bug lists. My manager sends me often list of bugs. In Ff I open all bug reports in tabs next to initial report. And then go over all of them. In the situation, Opera constantly tries to jump to (first tab with) my manager's report. That's very irritating.
Say you have three tabs open. You have first tab active. You switch to third tab. You close it. Opera goes to... yes, it goes back to first tab. Unlike in all
That behaviour irritates me. It completely breaks my morning news reading traditions.
Since every one said that Opera is completely customizable, I have tried to find a way around. And I was *absolutely* disappointed. In fact Opera 8/9 has *much* *much* fewer settings compared to Firefox. Try about:config in Firefox for once. That what I call "complete customization".
The only thing I found in Opera nice/useful - it's IRC client. Simple and streamlined. Mozilla's ChatZilla uses separate window - while Opera's IRC uses the same tabs as browser. IOW, you can have the IRC chatroom tab along with Web page in the same window. (Of course with aforementioned annoyance.)
P.S. And yes, just like Ff, Opera can't active FTP. My corporate firewall for some reason breaks passive FTP - active FTP is the only option. Ff has bug in retry code (iow, theoretically Ff can). Opera just can't. Or can it?
Wokrs fine for me. WinXP/sp2, Ff 1.5.0.1, AdBlock 0.5.3.42
p ?id=1136
0 7
There are several addon filtersets for AdBlock. I wonder could they be the problem. e.g. "AdBlock Filterset.G Updater" - https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
P.S. Thou I recall spotting report on Bugzilla report about Ff crash related to AdBlock. I thought it was fixed in 1.5 - it seems not. Bug like that: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3165
"...such as 3D desktop rendering..."
That actually puzzled me for some time.
I'm not sure about DirectX, but in case of OpenGL it's quite clear: you can very easily pass OGL calls from guest OS to host OS. State of OpenGL is held completely out of application. Probably the same is possible with DirectX.
I just wonder why it wasn't ever done.
P.S. I heard rumors that such functionality was poised to make appearance in VirtualPC 7. Before it was bought by M$. But to my knowledge there is nothing like that in VPC7...
WHAT?????
Have *ever* tried to use/compile ImageMagik? - I did it twice with two different versions. It took about 6-8 hours and failed in the end with obscure messages. Before putting something into comaprision you have to have first hand experience with it. (Proper alternative would be "netpbm". Check it out.)
Unix phylosopy, as much I love it, does apply here quite differently. Photoshop is really a platform. Photoshop *is* Unix. Photoshop is a platform for small easy-to-develop application (a.k.a. plug-ins). As there are much small applications for Unix, there is plenty of plug-ins for Photoshop.
In the end, I'm confused equally with both. Thou on couple of occasions had better luck with Photoshop. On Linux I use normaly netpbm - fits me right.