The fact that the source is available makes the publisher far less inclined to place "nastiness" in the code. For any moderately popular piece of software, some pesky kid will point out that it contains hidden routines to reprogram your VCR, drink all your beer, etc.
if the source and binaries do not match up, the same pesky kid will gleefully point it out to the world.
Now the compiler itself is a different matter - what a great place it would be to hide malware...
I don't use Amazon any more either. Partly due to the distasteful business practices, and partly because of a nightmare experience with their customer services. (one order, apparently in stock, arrived 3 months later - in triplicate! and the customer non-services people's attitude towards the urgency of providing a refund.)
Can I add to the list of alternatives for those Brits amongst us - WHSmith.co.uk who now get my business. Particularly as they let you order online, and collect in your local store.
I had the Tungsten MAD digitiser drift problem - it turns out that it's a hardware problem that can be fixed fairly easily, if you're happy with opening the device up.
To summarise, it looks like the screen digitiser cable connection gets a bit wonky, due to the pcb behind the buttons being loose.
Open it up, and wedge the pcb in place with something - I used a couple of bits of broken matchstick, and put a piece of gaffa tape over the cable connection.
I use my tungsten every day now, and it now needs recalibrating every 6 months or so, rather than every time I open it. I can't imagine that I'll ever buy another Palm though, even when they do start using Linux.
This is one of the more sensible suggestions I've heard - unquestionable Prior Art.
I was looking around for some kind of public repository for Open Source Prior Art to be registered (kind of like registering a patent for the light-side), but the nearest thing I could find was IP.com - which doesn't quite fit the bill.
Does anyone know of something more appropriate to our situation? I guess the idea needs to be something that proves the idea/algorithm was in existence, and in the public domain, on a certain date. Similar to the idea of sending a sealed envelope containing a manuscript through the post as proof of copyright. It would be great if it could be nice and centralised, possibly under control of the FSF or somesuch.
What can be done now?
If this is going to be forced upon us, can we do anything to take some of the bite out of it?
For example, we know that it is prohibitively expensive for the man in the street to register patents for the kind of trivia that Megacorp Inc. are inclined to do. So does anyone know if there is any kind of facility for proactively declaring prior art? In other words, if I produce something and release it as GPL - is there somewhere where I could also declare that anything patentable within it should be considered to be in the public domain?
Becoming dependent up MS is like being addicted to cigarettes - you don't notice it happening, it's a wrench to quit, and we try to discourage those that haven't started.
It'll be interesting to see how MS goes about trying to get China hooked.
"Go on, the first shipments are free, and all the cool countries are using it"
Nothing should be considered to be completely authoritative. Wikipedia, like anything else is compiled by people who have their own agendas and prejudices.
Whilst I accept that there is more room for error in Wikipedia than conventional texts, I can easily imagine a situation where I could be found pointing out at great length to anyone who will listen that Britannica has got it wrong, and what do these idiots know anyway... (probably late at night)
Sure, as long as we are making the assumption that there is no option but to be a part of the communist society - I guess it only works when you can count on the buy-in of all those involved, at which point it ceases to be a matter of force, and becomes a question of choice.
Not having the freedom to leave is a different matter.
Here in the UK, the UKIP (UK Independence Party) seem to have picked up a lot of of support over this issue. See this open letter from Alan Cox http://www.linux.org.uk/open.l.html
Slashdot Mirror
It's a very long time since I heard that! - thank you!
In Soviet Russia, Xerox copies you.
Not quite.
The fact that the source is available makes the publisher far less inclined to place "nastiness" in the code. For any moderately popular piece of software, some pesky kid will point out that it contains hidden routines to reprogram your VCR, drink all your beer, etc.
if the source and binaries do not match up, the same pesky kid will gleefully point it out to the world.
Now the compiler itself is a different matter - what a great place it would be to hide malware...
There are a few Roland Piquepaille filters available - they take the form of Greasemonkey scripts running in Firefox
I use this one: http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/5735/ it's called NoRoland - if userscripts.org is down (again), the author (Dave?) hosts it on his own site too - http://davephp.net/
It's very effective - all I see of Roland's pollution now is a greyed out article box with the words "This is a slashvertisement. Please ignore!"
Most of the time I choose to "ignore"
Apparently it only works properly on Windows... http://www.pandasoftware.com/com/virus_info/encycl opedia/overview.aspx?lst=det&idvirus=122900&sitepa nda=particulares
Funny how Roland's comments are usually modded -1, whereas he gets all his submissions accepted. See http://slashdot.org/~Roland+Piquepaille/
Perhaps Slashdot's editors like his, um, "writing style" better than the rest of us.
Anyone up to writing a Firefox plugin to filter the Piquepaillespam out of Slashdot?every story he submits
I don't use Amazon any more either. Partly due to the distasteful business practices, and partly because of a nightmare experience with their customer services. (one order, apparently in stock, arrived 3 months later - in triplicate! and the customer non-services people's attitude towards the urgency of providing a refund.)
Can I add to the list of alternatives for those Brits amongst us - WHSmith.co.uk who now get my business. Particularly as they let you order online, and collect in your local store.
Amazon's new patented "one-click" birthday celebration concert streaming technology...
I had the Tungsten MAD digitiser drift problem - it turns out that it's a hardware problem that can be fixed fairly easily, if you're happy with opening the device up.
S creen=CTGY&Store_Code=GHT&Category_Code=_tungsten_ takeapart
and a discussion at http://www.palminfocenter.com/forum/viewtopic.php? t=15458&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=48
To summarise, it looks like the screen digitiser cable connection gets a bit wonky, due to the pcb behind the buttons being loose.
Open it up, and wedge the pcb in place with something - I used a couple of bits of broken matchstick, and put a piece of gaffa tape over the cable connection.
There are detailed instructions at http://www.gethightech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?
I use my tungsten every day now, and it now needs recalibrating every 6 months or so, rather than every time I open it. I can't imagine that I'll ever buy another Palm though, even when they do start using Linux.
This is one of the more sensible suggestions I've heard - unquestionable Prior Art.
I was looking around for some kind of public repository for Open Source Prior Art to be registered (kind of like registering a patent for the light-side), but the nearest thing I could find was IP.com - which doesn't quite fit the bill.
Does anyone know of something more appropriate to our situation?
I guess the idea needs to be something that proves the idea/algorithm was in existence, and in the public domain, on a certain date. Similar to the idea of sending a sealed envelope containing a manuscript through the post as proof of copyright.
It would be great if it could be nice and centralised, possibly under control of the FSF or somesuch.
What can be done now?
If this is going to be forced upon us, can we do anything to take some of the bite out of it?
For example, we know that it is prohibitively expensive for the man in the street to register patents for the kind of trivia that Megacorp Inc. are inclined to do. So does anyone know if there is any kind of facility for proactively declaring prior art?
In other words, if I produce something and release it as GPL - is there somewhere where I could also declare that anything patentable within it should be considered to be in the public domain?
Then, congratulations & well done - it looks like you guys achieved something today!
Ummm - It looks like it's dated "Fri Mar 04, 2005 " to me. Although the title refers to the Proposal Text of May 2004 - correctly.
Apparently, the Danes have stepped up to kill this one! http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=428
So this is it, we're going to die.
Becoming dependent up MS is like being addicted to cigarettes - you don't notice it happening, it's a wrench to quit, and we try to discourage those that haven't started.
It'll be interesting to see how MS goes about trying to get China hooked.
"Go on, the first shipments are free, and all the cool countries are using it"
Nothing should be considered to be completely authoritative. Wikipedia, like anything else is compiled by people who have their own agendas and prejudices. Whilst I accept that there is more room for error in Wikipedia than conventional texts, I can easily imagine a situation where I could be found pointing out at great length to anyone who will listen that Britannica has got it wrong, and what do these idiots know anyway... (probably late at night)
Sure, as long as we are making the assumption that there is no option but to be a part of the communist society - I guess it only works when you can count on the buy-in of all those involved, at which point it ceases to be a matter of force, and becomes a question of choice. Not having the freedom to leave is a different matter.
I can't see how communism equates to people being forced to perform work. Surely that's fascism.
Here in the UK, the UKIP (UK Independence Party) seem to have picked up a lot of of support over this issue. See this open letter from Alan Cox http://www.linux.org.uk/open.l.html