According to this page, all you have to do is send an e-mail to optout@247media.com containing your name, complete street address, city, state, ZIP code, and, would you believe, your e-mail address. When 24/7 media stops being slashdotted, you might look at their privacy page to see if they've made it any easier since the CDT put its "Opt out" site up.
When you rushed a product out, you lose money because you then have to support customers and make patches (aka service packs). If you dont do that, you "just" lose your reputation.
And if you don't rush your software, it is obsolete a year before it's released.
I haven't looked at these sites too closely, but how many of them will play any music from any CD that happens to have mp3 files scattered around it (instead of requiring a special file or distribution of music files)? How many play normal audio CDs in addition to mp3 CDs?
I find it very annoying when people says "you should have used a 32-bit compiler," because that's just not the solution. You will still hit a limit for int / unsigned int, just later. Much better to program with a 16-bit compiler and quickly learn that you need to always be careful about your data types than to start on a 32-bit compiler and not start noticing the problem until your programs have become very complicated. Not to mention the fact that programs that assume int >= 32 bits are not backwards compatible with old compilers.
In addition, Borland 3.0 (a 16-bit compiler) is the fastest C/C++ compiler I've used. For many of the projects I work on, I try to get my program to compile with both Borland 3.0 and DJGPP. One project I even try to keep working in Borland 3.0, DJGPP, and Microsoft 5.0, and this really keeps me on my toes ("killproj"; removes.dsp files and other temporary files left by the Microsoft compiler when you just can't escape using MS; GPL 1.1).
(Note that I'm not acusing you of actually saying "you should have used a 32-bit compiler", because you were being humorous.)
Once a consumer has passed over money in order to receive something, they should be able to expect that it works. I can't think of a single other field that this doesn't apply to - they all have some form of consumer watchdog/ombudsman/etc that regulates the quality of output.
Making commercial software manufacturers liable for all problems resulting from the use of their software would destroy the stock market and result in widespread chaos lasting several years. May I suggest an more constructive alternative?
Educate users that unless they have specifically purchased a warrantee for software, chances are the author of the software isn't going to be liable.
Remind them how buggy most software is.
Breifly explain how open source works: basically, all users are allowed to see the inner workings of a program, and are free to distribute modified versions of the software as long as they also distribute the source code.
Say that open source programs are easier to find bugs in, and, as a result, established open-source programs tend to be quite stable and secure. Also mention that open-source projects tend to be more responsive to all types of bug reports (code-level and user-level).
Tell them that even though open-source programs almost never come with liabilty agreements, maintanance/liability packages that are available for the popular open-source programs are likely to be cheaper than liability packages that the manufacturer of similar commercial software might sell.
If the question comes up, "Aren't there more commercial software vendors who sell liability agreements than there are firmly established open-source projects?", tell them that these established open-source programs are often more extensible, allowing them to cover almost as much ground.
What if mp3.com sent out corrections as its users ripped the CD themselves? The client would do something like checksum the music every 10 kilobytes and ask mp3.com what blocks it got wrong. For each corrupted block, it would either re-rip the segment, download the correct version from mp3.com, or upload the corrupted block and then download a diff.
Can you use Wrapster to make this thing double as a backup device? Or will it choke on the bogus mp3s and prevent you from listening to the actual music you, umm, ripped from your cd collection?
The player itself isn't being open-sourced; just the drivers to upload songs to the player. Not that it makes sense to expect the company to "open-source" its hardware and the software that does simple things like "play" and "pause"; it looks like they open-sourced the right parts.
Quoting the linked href="http://bboard.mp3.com/mp3/ubb/Forum5/HTML/00 1491.html">article:
There isn't anything in there for hacking firmware. The firmware will remain proprietary, since much of it is under license from other people.
In addition, it also sounds like they didn't open-source the whole thing:
In the true spirit of the Open Source world, this kit doesn't contain a Linux Jukebox Manager, but it does contain what you'll need to get started and write your own.
But that's probably good, because it means an interface can be written between existing jukebox managers (are those the same as playlists?) and this program, allowing the same programs to be used with competing mp3 players.
What if Area 51 is a big hoax with DoD-class special effects to keep us mesmerized while the real secret research is going on somewhere totally different?
Exactly! The research is probably going on under Area 51!
I don't use napster because I've been worrying that something like this might happen, but instead of me getting sued, my cable modem service would be terminated. There's only one cable modem service in my area, and I might even be stuck with a useless modem that I would have to pay for.
This lawsuit seems to support my fear. If this story makes the front page of newspapers tomorrow, will high-bandwidth users and others with limited choice of internet providers (college students?) stop using napster?
Slashdot Mirror
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You say that like it's a bad thing. What are you doing using free sites if you refuse to look at any advertising?
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And if you don't rush your software, it is obsolete a year before it's released.
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http://www.csh.rit.edu/~jerry/arcade/tro n/
http://vidiot.freeservers.com/Tron/
http://www.3gcs.com/tron/arcade/tron/
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http://www.empeg.com/
http://www.carplayer.com/
http://www.mp3-player.org/hardware.htm
http://www.mp3carplayer.com/
Descriptions of personal projects
http://utter.chaos.org.uk/~altman/mp3m obile/
http://www.jarcom.com/inmotion/
http://www.ryanspc.com/carmp3/mp3playe r.html
http://www.capybara.org/~dfraser/car- mp3.html
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In addition, Borland 3.0 (a 16-bit compiler) is the fastest C/C++ compiler I've used. For many of the projects I work on, I try to get my program to compile with both Borland 3.0 and DJGPP. One project I even try to keep working in Borland 3.0, DJGPP, and Microsoft 5.0, and this really keeps me on my toes ("killproj"; removes
(Note that I'm not acusing you of actually saying "you should have used a 32-bit compiler", because you were being humorous.)
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So, is software a good? A tool? Speech? Art? Toy?
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Once a consumer has passed over money in order to receive something, they should be able to expect that it works. I can't think of a single other field that this doesn't apply to - they all have some form of consumer watchdog/ombudsman/etc that regulates the quality of output.
Making commercial software manufacturers liable for all problems resulting from the use of their software would destroy the stock market and result in widespread chaos lasting several years. May I suggest an more constructive alternative?
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Quoting the linked href="http://bboard.mp3.com/mp3/ubb/Forum5/HTML/0
In addition, it also sounds like they didn't open-source the whole thing:
In the true spirit of the Open Source world, this kit doesn't contain a Linux Jukebox Manager, but it does contain what you'll need to get started and write your own.
But that's probably good, because it means an interface can be written between existing jukebox managers (are those the same as playlists?) and this program, allowing the same programs to be used with competing mp3 players.
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Exactly! The research is probably going on under Area 51!
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www.alldomains.com lists information on registrars for various country domains.
*.com.my is www.mynic.net.
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This lawsuit seems to support my fear. If this story makes the front page of newspapers tomorrow, will high-bandwidth users and others with limited choice of internet providers (college students?) stop using napster?
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