The crew have rejected it twice, so I'll burn more karma.
I hope they post it a little later today...anyway...thanks for the link. Very interesting interview. Rosen spent a lot of effort not answering the questions asked. I think her answers were calculated to reassure stockholders without pissing off the fans even worse. Jannelle asked her some pretty good questions that I would've loved to hear her try to answer more directly.
My favorite part of your retort is the part with the links. Especially the one you used as a response to her criticism of the Limp Bizkit free tour. That one was classic:) They do a great job of showing what hipocrites the RIAA are. And they call us pirates? They'd have nothing if it weren't for the fans and the musicians.
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PS: Regarding the free tour... Napster may be sponsoring it, but Limp Bizkit is not generating any revenue off of it either. Rosen's comment tries to imply that Napster bought Limp Bizkit's support. I'm sure they'll keep trying to spin it that way, but I believe Limp Bizkit's assertions that they're doing it for their fans.
One of the reasons these artists have record companies behind them is to shield them from all the money involved - so that they just get a paycheck going into their bank at the end of the year/quarter/month/whatever. I can't honestly see a major act thinking it's really cool that they get 10,000 snail mails a month with $5 in the envelope. That would just drive you insane. You'd need a secretary, and an accountant, and people to open all the mail, and... oh wait... all that infrastructure - might as well have a record label!
I can't speak for "major acts" but if it were me I'd rather hire a secretary to open my mail than sign a contract with a record company to accept my money for me. I think the appeal of the record labels has more to do with their marketing and distribution power. Without that I doubt anyone would want to deal with them.
Then you could potentially streamline it: build a web site that accepts payments... but wait, someone has to build the web site, pay for a Verisign certificate, market the site, pay for advertising, maintain the site, oh wait... all that infrastructure - might as well have some other company do all that, and they can take a percentage of the profits...
You see, the infrastructure thats in place is there for a reason. It appeared for a reason. It may not be perfect, but stealing copyrighted materials isn't going to change that infrastructure.
The reason is because it was the only way to distribute music. Now there are mechanisms for distributing music that are available to your average musician. Suing Napster is not going to stop the "problem" anymore than "stealing" music is going to change the infrastructure. It's already changed and that's what the RIAA is really worried about. If they can't control it, they'll kill it if they can. "Piracy" is just a convenient excuse.
As the press release says "Hold nothing back: this is Metallica, after all. They can take it."
It's worth a try. If Metallica actually were persuaded it would help a lot. I won't be home so I won't be able to join in. If I were able to I'd arrange my thoughts ahead of time so I could cut and paste them.
However, we all know this is going to be a moderated conversation. There will be a million questions submitted and they'll choose the questions that they've already got prepared answers for (probably.) It would be really cool if it were a real "chat" but I have a hard time believing it could possibly be anything like that.
I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it were $500-$600 cheaper than what they're asking for it. Hopefully the Nomad will compete and the price will drop quickly.
I have a couple boxes with the 200mhz MediaGX chips in them (bought them for $50/ea several months ago.) I did manage to get Linux running on them, but not reliably at all. Who knows, maybe this box will run it better, but just be aware that you might be wasting $50.
There's a little technical info about the problems available here. According to Kira:
"...the cache controller is totally, completely, and utterly fubar. It basically doesn't work. It has difficulty in maintaining coherency between the instruction and data caches and this causes gradually-increasing system instability."
This may not be the case with the 180mhz chip--anyone had any luck with the 180 & Linux?
t would be great if artists made music free or cheaply available via download. But, as it stands, they don't and I believe that whoever creates the music (or software) has the right to set the license associated with it. If someone says, "Distribute my music however you like." Great. Fine. If I like it I will. If someone decides that I have to buy a CD, if I like the music, I will. No matter how much you talk about revolutions, Napster is still all about distributing illegal music (by and large). Most people I know don't have illusions about being internet revolutionaires. They know they are breaking the law, they just say they are too cheap to by the CDs
As long as people are allowed to distribute music some will distribute music that they do not have permission to distribute. This is in effect stealing as you've pointed out. It's wrong for people do this against the artists' wishes. They should stop but we both know that they won't.
So the record companies either learn to deal with the new environment--by the way they've had record sales this past year--or they find a way to stop people from being able to distribute music for free. If they could stop people from distributing music for free, which is impossible technology-wise, they'd have the added benefit of less competition.
Killing Napster means killing a distribution channel for artists that can't have or don't want a record company to do it for them. That's definately the greater evil. It's not the only option the record companies have. They should try something more creative like:
Buy and download our cd quality music and get a free album on vinyl.
Sell something more than a cheap jewelbox and a piece of plastic and aluminum. Free distribution of music may hurt the record companies, but stopping free distribution hurts the music and the people that love it. How can it not hurt the record companies to have competition in a market they've pretty much controlled for years. Even if I had any pity for the record labels I still wouldn't be able to just allow them to interfere with free distribution channels.
The "Do not sue napster, sue the users, and the MP3 makers" argument is just so incredibly stupid (even if it is the right answer in the long run.) It is impossible to sue everyone, but as I have NEVER seen naptser used for anything other than trading illegal mp3s I feel the artists have the right to sue napster as opposed to the users. It may not be right, but it is the only possible thing they can do.
I think suing the people trading the MP3's would be stupid too. But it's within their rights to do so. As long as people are allowed to distribute music some will distribute music that they do not have permission to distribute. This is in effect stealing as you've pointed out. It's wrong for people do this against the artists' wishes. They should stop but we both know that they won't.
So the record companies either learn to deal with the new environment--by the way they've had record sales this past year--or they find a way to stop people from being able to distribute music for free. If they could stop people from distributing music for free, which is impossible technology-wise, they'd have the added benefit of less competition.
Killing Napster means killing a distribution channel for artists that can't have or don't want a record company to do it for them. That's definately the greater evil. It's not the only option the record companies have. They should try something more creative like:
"Buy and download our cd quality music and get a free album on vinyl."
Sell something more than a cheap jewelbox and a piece of plastic and aluminum. Free distribution of music may hurt the record companies, but stopping free distribution hurts the music and the people that love it. How can it not hurt the record companies to have competition in a market they've pretty much controlled for years. Even if I had any pity for the record labels I still wouldn't be able to just allow them to interfere with free distribution channels.
Regarding the "poor student" downloading MP3's you made an analogy to stealing a TV from the store. I pointed out that he was not going to buy the music either way--so there was no money to be made off him. I also pointed out that buy getting the music it increased his appreciation of the music which was passed on--we (people that enjoy music) usually tell our friends about it so they can get the same music. Anyway, how this equates to stealing a TV is beyond me.
Of course, I do get your point about it being stealing. Yeah, I've done it before and I did end up feeling guilty about those that I didn't buy. I've made a pact with myself since then. If the artist doesn't want me to download their music and check it out, I won't. Chances are that I won't buy their CD either, but it's their music, and I willingly respect their wishes.
Music is a luxury. If you want to hear the music and you have to pay to hear it, then that is how you have to hear the music, otherwise it is stealing. No matter how you try to justify it. People need to realise the differences between luxury and comodities.
For most of my life so far music has been a luxury. Now I hear as much as I want and contribute back willingly. Is that the difference between a luxury and a commodity? You're right that I should know the difference, but you can explain it if you'd like. Also I'll explain the difference between the past and the present if you'd like. Music was a luxury. Now it's not. As the Wah says, "The Internet makes control of digital media impossible. Deal with it."
Anyway, the gist of my comment is really contained at the end, not the beginning. Pay special attention to the part in caps. I'll repeat in case you didn't get that far:
Now, I do think that musicians should have the rights to the music they make. They should be able to sell it, make a profit off of it, lock it in a vault--whatever. It's their music they can do whatever they want with it. But don't come crying to me if you can't control what happens to it once it's released into the general public. And especially DO NOT FUCKING TELL ME WHAT SOFTWARE I CAN OR CAN NOT USE TO DISTRIBUTE MUSIC BECAUSE IT INTERFERES WITH YOUR SO-CALLED RIGHT TO MAKE A PROFIT.
There are bands that still manage to be successful and profitable without trying to control their product once it has been released to the masses. Bands like Offspring and Limp Bizkit have made it quite clear that they do not fear Napster. Just as the Grateful Dead did in the past, the Dave Matthews Band allows fans to record their concerts! Imagine that!
In fact, Limp Bizkit just announced that Napster is sponsoring their free tour. A whole month worth of gigs in major cities--all free. The mention Metallica's lame lawsuit in the press release as well as Fred Durst's view on the whole thing:
Durst himself addressed Napster's sponsorship in a statement announcing the tour, noting, "We could care less about the older generation's need to do business as usual. We care more about what our fans want, and our fans want music on the Internet."
If I didn't already have their latest album I'd go out and buy it. Too bad it's too late to return my Metallica CD's.
Slashdot and Jon Katz claim to be about people's rights then openly advocate that the rights of musicians to profit from their work be ignored and trodden upon. Slashdot and Slashdotters have proven themselves to be the biggest hypocrites alive with the way they can castigate companies for abusing the GPL (which exists solely because there are copyright laws) in one breathe then say it's OK to steal music that was expensive to create, produce, and market.
One of these days people will realize that trying to group all "Slashdotters" in to one set of beliefs is kind of silly. Anyway what really stands out here is your belief that musicians have a right to profit from their work. If it were a "right" then there would be a lot less starving musicians. The hipocrasy you point at looks more like consistency to me. They're standing up for the freedom of their software, not trying to keep it locked into a particular distibution pattern.
As far as the analogies go, I have to agree most of them (if not all) have had pretty serious flaws. Yours about breaking into a CD store was no winner either.
MP3.com is yet to produce any stars while most people I have met (as well as myself) who use Napster download music from established artists who have cost the record labels million$ of dollars to find, produce and market.
I doubt MP3.com will produce many stars in the immediate future. It's not like you can tune into MP3.com as easily as MTV and passively watch videos. When technology reaches that point you'll probably see more "stars" coming from the net. Also, I'd have to argue that good music does not cost millions of dollars to make. Making it popular sometimes costs that much, but how good it is isn't directly related to the money.
Concerts. Several people have commented that artists and record labels should give up on trying to make money from CD sales and should look to concerts as revenue earners. There are several flaws with this proposal. How are are small artistes supposed to pay for concerts? With this reasoning an artist can be massively popular but unable to afford to cover studio costs let alone put on shows.This of course will lead to a new ominous figure in the lives of artists: Concert sponsors : who will probably sign exclusive concerts et al until it's the entire record label fiasco again but limited to concerts. Secondly, how about forms of music that don't translate well to concerts. I have been to several rap concerts in the past few years and half of them sounded like shit even though the actual music when played at home/in the car/on a walkman sounded simply heavenly. Does this mean rap artists (the largest growing and second most lucrative music form in the U.S.) don't deserve to be paid but rock groups do?
You're putting the cart before the horse here. Small artists don't pay for concerts. I'm assuming that by concert you mean a performance at a very large venue. I've been to several stadium shows and had a good time, but the fact is that stadiums really suck for seeing a live performance. If you sign an exclusive contract with a "concert sponsor" or anyone else, it's your own fault if it doesn't work out. As far as rap/rock goes--if they have something to sell that people want to pay for then they get money for it. Whether it's a performance, CD, MP3, or other merchandise.
The I'm a poor student argument. I am a poor student but unlike most Americans don't believe I have a right to stuff simply because I am alive. The "everyone has this so must I" attitude is probably one of the most disgusting aspects of modern American life.
You do have a right to some stuff, and you probably deserve more. I agree with you about the attitude that you refer to, but that was not the vibe I got from the poor student that you're refering to. The vibe I got was that he wasn't going to pay money for the music either way. The difference that Napster made was that he got to listen to it, he appreciates the music, and he passes on his appreciation of music to his friends.
The monetary success of Metallica and Dr. Dre is what gives them the ability to sue Napster. Do you think that struggling college bands whose music is being spread all across the net with no remuneration wouldn't sue if they could affors to and they were being ripped of as much as Dr. Dre and Metallica (every single one of their songs is on Napster).
If they have that whole sense of entitlement thing going on then I'm sure they would. The musicians that I know (about ten of them that I hang out with on a regular basis) are thrilled when their music is passed around. And yeah, they are struggling--every single one of them. But then again, they're doing it because they love music. If they loved money as much as they loved music they'd probably have better paying jobs.
After saying all this I should point out that I've only used Napster once. I really wanted to hear my Final Cut CD, but when I opened the case it was gone. Couldn't find it anywhere. So I downloaded it. I know it was illegal and all but f*ck it. That was already the second copy of that CD I'd bought--the other disappeared too. The MP3's I do distribute are all with the permission--gratitude in fact--of the artists.
I used to be a lot more supportive of laws to protect against "piracy." Now that free distribution of music is being threatened and facing hurdles due to these laws I'm getting sick of them. They're not worth the damage anymore. The RIAA and MPAA keep pushing the idea that free distribution and piracy are the same thing. And people are falling for it--hook, line, and sinker. Free distribution will not be the death of music. Free distribution is a boon to people that care about making and listening to music. It's the people that care about the money more than the music that are pissed off.
Now, I do think that musicians should have the rights to the music they make. They should be able to sell it, make a profit off of it, lock it in a vault--whatever. It's their music they can do whatever they want with it. But don't come crying to me if you can't control what happens to it once it's released into the general public. And especially DO NOT FUCKING TELL ME WHAT SOFTWARE I CAN OR CAN NOT USE TO DISTRIBUTE MUSIC BECAUSE IT INTERFERES WITH YOUR SO-CALLED RIGHT TO MAKE A PROFIT.
The joint state-federal plan calls for breaking Microsoft roughly in half. One-half would be the operating-system company; the other would hold everything else, including Microsoft's applications software, such as the word-processing program Word and the spreadsheet program Excel, and the Internet properties.
I have a feeling that Gates has known for a while that Windows was doomed--this is not a troll--I honestly believe Windows is beyond saving. Rather than completely dropping support for Windows he gets to have it artificially amputated instead.
So Microsoft can appeal the decision as long as Windows is still profitable, then "give up" when it turns into dead weight. The dying operating system that they no longer want to support becomes someone elses problem automatically. Gates can just shrug and say "Hey, it's not our fault the DOJ broke us up. It's a shame to see the operating system I created die at their hands."
As for now, his "go ahead and break us up, I dare you" attitude doesn't suprise me one bit.
What qualifies as hosting your own content? I.E. Say I run a web server on my DSL line (which is true), and I do something like host a mirror of controversial material. Who is the service provider in this case, me or my ISP? It would seem to me I am, and that my ISP wouldn't come into the picture, because my agreement with them says it's my line and I can do with it what I want, and anything that says 'lawyer' on it will be forwarded in my general direction.
I've been wondering about this for a while. In my case the server is co-located at an ISP. I pay for an ethernet connection to the network but still completely own the box.
If they can hold an ISP responsible for providing connectivity to someone then no one is safe. If someone can clarify this it would be appreciated.
I'm also curious about the "under penalty of perjury" thing. What is the penalty for perjury for a corporation, church, or government? Does someone get sent to jail? Or does the organization get fined into bankruptcy? What is the penalty for an individual? Do individuals get fined a percentage of their annual income? I just want to know what incentives large organizations have to avoid abusing the DMCA.
If you're interested in this type of thing, you might want to check out Worldforge They're working on some pretty ambitious stuff (from text clients up to 3d clients.) Open source of course.
Rouland said "X-force" researcher Wilson discovered the backdoor during a standard review of Red Hat's Linux source code, which is freely available. The user name and password were embedded in the code. "Anybody else who's viewed the source code could have found the vulnerability and been exploiting it all along," he said. "This one was so easy to find I would think people would have found it and exploited it.... I think people will figure it out very quickly."
I always thought of a backdoor as something that was intentionally left there by the developers to get in--as was the case with the "netscape engineers are weenies" backdoor that Microsoft developers put into their software.
It seems that there may have been a buffer overrun on piranha, but they make it sound like having a default password of 'Q' is Redhat's fault--It doesn't really matter what the default password is for something if the user doesn't set their own. That's pretty obvious.
And that last part sounds a bit like they are trying to make open source sound like an inherent flaw. Not like I'd expect them to compare and contrast with Microsoft's intentional backdoor that was there for months or years which no one except a few select Microsoft developers and friends knew about. That compared to a buffer overrun in a Redhat product discovered weeks later and quickly fixed doesn't make open source look like a security risk to me. Who'd be running an e-commerce site on a product that's only a couple weeks old anyway (earlier in the article the author alludes to the fact that the so-called backdoor would have allowed an intruder to "access customer databases.")
I wouldn't get too upset over this though. The spin gets more obvious everytime. Anyone with a clue about security won't be fooled. It'll just make Microsoft and the author of the article look more like idiots than they did last week.
Despite your naive beliefs, this is *not* a "public forum" and everything *written* on these pages is fully protected by copyright law. The key difference between slashdot and standing on a soapbox on the street corner is that *everything* you see has been reduced to tangible form. Copyright law can't apply to nontangible speech (since human memory is fallible and nobody can be absolutely sure what was said), but anything put down in tangible form (handwriting, books,... or little magnetic fields on a small disk) is born copyrighted.
It really is a shame if this means that comments from an ongoing discussion can't be reproduced just because it occurred online and not in meatspace.
I understand that Taco and Hemos were trying to do something good, but they should have expected that people would jump all over any chance to cause a problem--you know, the "if I can't be part of the solution, then I'll be part of the problem" mentality.
It really doesn't suprise me that some of the same people that took comfort from the discussions that occurred here would be greedy little pricks (or just pricks in general) and stand in the way of others getting a chance to learn and take comfort. I suppose it's sad, but I've really come to expect this kind of thing.
I hope some of them finally realize that they're as bad or worse than the people they look down their noses at and kid themselves that they are superior. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but do yourselves a favor and look in the mirror and think about what you've said here today. It could be your first step on the road to recovery from prickdom.
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PS: The comments about IP and copyright issues are important and thanks to the people that wrote them. Those that would rather the book not be published should think twice.
Re:As if there are no other options...
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WinDSL Coming?
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And of course, I must say that I think that as long as the cable networks get opened to competition, cable is going to rule "broadband" anyway, so the point is moot. Why are people unable to understand that fatter pipes carry more water?
Keep in mind that with cable you're sharing that fatter pipe rather than having a smaller, yet dedicated pipe. The cable companies can make the number of people sharing the pipe smaller and smaller but that takes time and money. In the meantime both the phone and cable companies (and in some cases the electric companies) are hanging a lot of fiber-optic cable. Once I have three choices of fiber to my door I'll be lovin' it. For now I'm dumping my crappy one-way cablemodem in favor of ADSL.
According to the article, in 5.6.0 the warning pragma replaces the -w flag. (I'm sure they didn't actually remove the -w flag when they added the warnings pragma.) Apparently the new pragma allows you to be more specific about which warnings you'd like to receive.
use warnings;
$a = @a[1]; # This generates a warning.
{ no warnings; $a = @a[1]; # This does not. }
Anyway, I didn't see anyone specifically mention this in regard to the original post: With warnings turned on Perl informs you of variables that are only used once--which is greatly useful for finding capitalization errors in variables (or any mis-typed variable name.)
Also, people can say whatever they want about Perl, but I love it. I can sit down an jam out code in seconds that would take me all day to do in most other languages--not that I'm exactly a whiz when it comes to other languages. A friend of mine wanted to write a poker-bot in C--I told him he'd be able to learn Perl and write it in Perl in less time than it would take him to write it in C. After he took my advice he agreed.
Honestly I wish I were more proficient with C/C++, but the fact is I'm too lazy. So I'll stick with Perl since it does everything that I need it to do.
In general, this sounds very fishy. He may be backing down from Microsoft, but whatever he's doing it's not good for business.
It may sound fishy, but it smells worse.
My guess is that he has doubts that Caldera can compete in the Linux market as is. If they could close the code, they could make some cool changes that would set them apart from the rest, yet not have to share it with the rest of the community. The way things are now you can't lock users into your distribution because anyone can take it, sell it, and support it without paying you a cent. This means that Linux companies have to rely on things like their ability to SUPPORT their products. Poor guys...it's a tough world.
"The key is, we need open access for a level playing field, not an entirely new playing field," Love said.
This line sure stinks of bullshit. A level playing field is an entirely new playing field for the software industry. I'll be keeping an eye on this guy--I get the feeling he's trying to rally together some bullies to kick the kids off the field.
Many casinos are using them for their most important application--slot machine monitoring. Slots are the biggest revenue source for casinos so uptime is extremely important. I worked for the Sands in Atlantic City when ACSC was developing the OS/2 version of their slot monitoring software (ca. 1995) One reason for choosing OS/2 was to stick with the IBM-all-the-way solution (IBM AS/400, Token Ring, IBM Industrial PC's, IBM Artic Cards {multiport serial cards for interfacing with slot machines}) The AS/400 is big in the Hotel/Casino industry. And the idea of using Windows for a 24-hour high-availability application was (is) a joke. A casino using Windows for slot monitoring would have been like a hospital using it for life support systems.
About a year and a half ago I was working for the Bank of the Northern Hemisphere (aka F-U National Bank) and they were still using OS/2 for their customer service terminals. Again it was a situation where high-availability was a must. Can't have Windows crashing in the middle of a phone call. Of course, they're replacing those boxes with NT now and their Novell servers as well.
Which brings me to a slightly off-topic question. I've worked at three Fortune 100 companies in the last 2 years. At all three they plan (or were planning) to replace their Novell servers with Windows -- despite the fact that there was no one I could find in IT that actually thought it was a good idea. They all referred to a previous commitment to go with "NT 5.0" when it was available. Does anyone know anything about this?
I remember watching Star Blazers religiously after school when it first came on TV. I was about eight years old. Then we moved out to the sticks where cable wasn't available and I couldn't get the station in that it was on. For a couple days I sat there trying to make out what was going on through the static. I was actually pretty heart-broken.
I eventually forgot about it until I was about 21 and met a woman that had it on video. The only problem was that when I went over to her place to see it she kept pushing her hentai collection on me--which might not have been a problem if she wasn't a nasty ex-biker chick and about 15 years older than me.
Maybe at last I can finally see how it turned out--I'll have to remember to check it out when the site is no longer slashdotted.
Although Linux-branded beer would be an interesting idea.
I hate posting the same link twice in one day, but it's Friday so what the hell...
If they can sell Linux-branded underwear, then I'm sure there must be a market for Linux-branded beer. Oh what I wouldn't give to be in Tux's position right now...
Slashdot Mirror
The crew have rejected it twice, so I'll burn more karma.
:) They do a great job of showing what hipocrites the RIAA are. And they call us pirates? They'd have nothing if it weren't for the fans and the musicians.
I hope they post it a little later today...anyway...thanks for the link. Very interesting interview. Rosen spent a lot of effort not answering the questions asked. I think her answers were calculated to reassure stockholders without pissing off the fans even worse. Jannelle asked her some pretty good questions that I would've loved to hear her try to answer more directly.
My favorite part of your retort is the part with the links. Especially the one you used as a response to her criticism of the Limp Bizkit free tour. That one was classic
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PS: Regarding the free tour... Napster may be sponsoring it, but Limp Bizkit is not generating any revenue off of it either. Rosen's comment tries to imply that Napster bought Limp Bizkit's support. I'm sure they'll keep trying to spin it that way, but I believe Limp Bizkit's assertions that they're doing it for their fans.
One of the reasons these artists have record companies behind them is to shield them from all the money involved - so that they just get a paycheck going into their bank at the end of the year/quarter/month/whatever. I can't honestly see a major act thinking it's really cool that they get 10,000 snail mails a month with $5 in the envelope. That would just drive you insane. You'd need a secretary, and an accountant, and people to open all the mail, and
I can't speak for "major acts" but if it were me I'd rather hire a secretary to open my mail than sign a contract with a record company to accept my money for me. I think the appeal of the record labels has more to do with their marketing and distribution power. Without that I doubt anyone would want to deal with them.
Then you could potentially streamline it: build a web site that accepts payments... but wait, someone has to build the web site, pay for a Verisign certificate, market the site, pay for advertising, maintain the site, oh wait... all that infrastructure - might as well have some other company do all that, and they can take a percentage of the profits...
http://paylars.com
You see, the infrastructure thats in place is there for a reason. It appeared for a reason. It may not be perfect, but stealing copyrighted materials isn't going to change that infrastructure.
The reason is because it was the only way to distribute music. Now there are mechanisms for distributing music that are available to your average musician. Suing Napster is not going to stop the "problem" anymore than "stealing" music is going to change the infrastructure. It's already changed and that's what the RIAA is really worried about. If they can't control it, they'll kill it if they can. "Piracy" is just a convenient excuse.
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As the press release says "Hold nothing back: this is Metallica, after all. They can take it."
It's worth a try. If Metallica actually were persuaded it would help a lot. I won't be home so I won't be able to join in. If I were able to I'd arrange my thoughts ahead of time so I could cut and paste them.
However, we all know this is going to be a moderated conversation. There will be a million questions submitted and they'll choose the questions that they've already got prepared answers for (probably.) It would be really cool if it were a real "chat" but I have a hard time believing it could possibly be anything like that.
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How clever, never thought they'd post an April Fools article on the 30th of the month instead of the 1st.
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I'm with you on that, but he (as well as you and I) deserve a markdown for being OT. As far as marking it up as funny, don't be ashamed.
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I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it were $500-$600 cheaper than what they're asking for it. Hopefully the Nomad will compete and the price will drop quickly.
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I have a couple boxes with the 200mhz MediaGX chips in them (bought them for $50/ea several months ago.) I did manage to get Linux running on them, but not reliably at all. Who knows, maybe this box will run it better, but just be aware that you might be wasting $50.
There's a little technical info about the problems available here. According to Kira:
"...the cache controller is totally, completely, and utterly fubar. It basically doesn't work. It has difficulty in maintaining coherency between the instruction and data caches and this causes gradually-increasing system instability."
This may not be the case with the 180mhz chip--anyone had any luck with the 180 & Linux?
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t would be great if artists made music free or cheaply available via download. But, as it stands, they don't and I believe that whoever creates the music (or software) has the right to set the license associated with it. If someone says, "Distribute my music however you like." Great. Fine. If I like it I will. If someone decides that I have to buy a CD, if I like the music, I will. No matter how much you talk about revolutions, Napster is still all about distributing illegal music (by and large). Most people I know don't have illusions about being internet revolutionaires. They know they are breaking the law, they just say they are too cheap to by the CDs
As long as people are allowed to distribute music some will distribute music that they do not have permission to distribute. This is in effect stealing as you've pointed out. It's wrong for people do this against the artists' wishes. They should stop but we both know that they won't.
So the record companies either learn to deal with the new environment--by the way they've had record sales this past year--or they find a way to stop people from being able to distribute music for free. If they could stop people from distributing music for free, which is impossible technology-wise, they'd have the added benefit of less competition.
Killing Napster means killing a distribution channel for artists that can't have or don't want a record company to do it for them. That's definately the greater evil. It's not the only option the record companies have. They should try something more creative like:
Buy and download our cd quality music and get a free album on vinyl.
Sell something more than a cheap jewelbox and a piece of plastic and aluminum. Free distribution of music may hurt the record companies, but stopping free distribution hurts the music and the people that love it. How can it not hurt the record companies to have competition in a market they've pretty much controlled for years. Even if I had any pity for the record labels I still wouldn't be able to just allow them to interfere with free distribution channels.
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I think suing the people trading the MP3's would be stupid too.
Just to clarify, I believe red king's point was that it was stupid but if the record companies could do it, they would.
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The "Do not sue napster, sue the users, and the MP3 makers" argument is just so incredibly stupid (even if it is the right answer in the long run.) It is impossible to sue everyone, but as I have NEVER seen naptser used for anything other than trading illegal mp3s I feel the artists have the right to sue napster as opposed to the users. It may not be right, but it is the only possible thing they can do.
I think suing the people trading the MP3's would be stupid too. But it's within their rights to do so. As long as people are allowed to distribute music some will distribute music that they do not have permission to distribute. This is in effect stealing as you've pointed out. It's wrong for people do this against the artists' wishes. They should stop but we both know that they won't.
So the record companies either learn to deal with the new environment--by the way they've had record sales this past year--or they find a way to stop people from being able to distribute music for free. If they could stop people from distributing music for free, which is impossible technology-wise, they'd have the added benefit of less competition.
Killing Napster means killing a distribution channel for artists that can't have or don't want a record company to do it for them. That's definately the greater evil. It's not the only option the record companies have. They should try something more creative like:
"Buy and download our cd quality music and get a free album on vinyl."
Sell something more than a cheap jewelbox and a piece of plastic and aluminum. Free distribution of music may hurt the record companies, but stopping free distribution hurts the music and the people that love it. How can it not hurt the record companies to have competition in a market they've pretty much controlled for years. Even if I had any pity for the record labels I still wouldn't be able to just allow them to interfere with free distribution channels.
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Regarding the "poor student" downloading MP3's you made an analogy to stealing a TV from the store. I pointed out that he was not going to buy the music either way--so there was no money to be made off him. I also pointed out that buy getting the music it increased his appreciation of the music which was passed on--we (people that enjoy music) usually tell our friends about it so they can get the same music. Anyway, how this equates to stealing a TV is beyond me.
Of course, I do get your point about it being stealing. Yeah, I've done it before and I did end up feeling guilty about those that I didn't buy. I've made a pact with myself since then. If the artist doesn't want me to download their music and check it out, I won't. Chances are that I won't buy their CD either, but it's their music, and I willingly respect their wishes.
Music is a luxury. If you want to hear the music and you have to pay to hear it, then that is how you have to hear the music, otherwise it is stealing. No matter how you try to justify it. People need to realise the differences between luxury and comodities.
For most of my life so far music has been a luxury. Now I hear as much as I want and contribute back willingly. Is that the difference between a luxury and a commodity? You're right that I should know the difference, but you can explain it if you'd like. Also I'll explain the difference between the past and the present if you'd like. Music was a luxury. Now it's not. As the Wah says, "The Internet makes control of digital media impossible. Deal with it."
Anyway, the gist of my comment is really contained at the end, not the beginning. Pay special attention to the part in caps. I'll repeat in case you didn't get that far:
Now, I do think that musicians should have the rights to the music they make. They should be able to sell it, make a profit off of it, lock it in a vault--whatever. It's their music they can do whatever they want with it. But don't come crying to me if you can't control what happens to it once it's released into the general public. And especially DO NOT FUCKING TELL ME WHAT SOFTWARE I CAN OR CAN NOT USE TO DISTRIBUTE MUSIC BECAUSE IT INTERFERES WITH YOUR SO-CALLED RIGHT TO MAKE A PROFIT.
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There are bands that still manage to be successful and profitable without trying to control their product once it has been released to the masses. Bands like Offspring and Limp Bizkit have made it quite clear that they do not fear Napster. Just as the Grateful Dead did in the past, the Dave Matthews Band allows fans to record their concerts! Imagine that!
In fact, Limp Bizkit just announced that Napster is sponsoring their free tour. A whole month worth of gigs in major cities--all free. The mention Metallica's lame lawsuit in the press release as well as Fred Durst's view on the whole thing:
Durst himself addressed Napster's sponsorship in a statement announcing the tour, noting, "We could care less about the older generation's need to do business as usual. We care more about what our fans want, and our fans want music on the Internet."
If I didn't already have their latest album I'd go out and buy it. Too bad it's too late to return my Metallica CD's.
By the way, here's the link where I read it:
http://www.limp-bizkit.com/press/press. html
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Slashdot and Jon Katz claim to be about people's rights then openly advocate that the rights of musicians to profit from their work be ignored and trodden upon. Slashdot and Slashdotters have proven themselves to be the biggest hypocrites alive with the way they can castigate companies for abusing the GPL (which exists solely because there are copyright laws) in one breathe then say it's OK to steal music that was expensive to create, produce, and market.
One of these days people will realize that trying to group all "Slashdotters" in to one set of beliefs is kind of silly. Anyway what really stands out here is your belief that musicians have a right to profit from their work. If it were a "right" then there would be a lot less starving musicians. The hipocrasy you point at looks more like consistency to me. They're standing up for the freedom of their software, not trying to keep it locked into a particular distibution pattern.
As far as the analogies go, I have to agree most of them (if not all) have had pretty serious flaws. Yours about breaking into a CD store was no winner either.
MP3.com is yet to produce any stars while most people I have met (as well as myself) who use Napster download music from established artists who have cost the record labels million$ of dollars to find, produce and market.
I doubt MP3.com will produce many stars in the immediate future. It's not like you can tune into MP3.com as easily as MTV and passively watch videos. When technology reaches that point you'll probably see more "stars" coming from the net. Also, I'd have to argue that good music does not cost millions of dollars to make. Making it popular sometimes costs that much, but how good it is isn't directly related to the money.
Concerts. Several people have commented that artists and record labels should give up on trying to make money from CD sales and should look to concerts as revenue earners. There are several flaws with this proposal. How are are small artistes supposed to pay for concerts? With this reasoning an artist can be massively popular but unable to afford to cover studio costs let alone put on shows.This of course will lead to a new ominous figure in the lives of artists: Concert sponsors : who will probably sign exclusive concerts et al until it's the entire record label fiasco again but limited to concerts. Secondly, how about forms of music that don't translate well to concerts. I have been to several rap concerts in the past few years and half of them sounded like shit even though the actual music when played at home/in the car/on a walkman sounded simply heavenly. Does this mean rap artists (the largest growing and second most lucrative music form in the U.S.) don't deserve to be paid but rock groups do?
You're putting the cart before the horse here. Small artists don't pay for concerts. I'm assuming that by concert you mean a performance at a very large venue. I've been to several stadium shows and had a good time, but the fact is that stadiums really suck for seeing a live performance. If you sign an exclusive contract with a "concert sponsor" or anyone else, it's your own fault if it doesn't work out. As far as rap/rock goes--if they have something to sell that people want to pay for then they get money for it. Whether it's a performance, CD, MP3, or other merchandise.
The I'm a poor student argument. I am a poor student but unlike most Americans don't believe I have a right to stuff simply because I am alive. The "everyone has this so must I" attitude is probably one of the most disgusting aspects of modern American life.
You do have a right to some stuff, and you probably deserve more. I agree with you about the attitude that you refer to, but that was not the vibe I got from the poor student that you're refering to. The vibe I got was that he wasn't going to pay money for the music either way. The difference that Napster made was that he got to listen to it, he appreciates the music, and he passes on his appreciation of music to his friends.
The monetary success of Metallica and Dr. Dre is what gives them the ability to sue Napster. Do you think that struggling college bands whose music is being spread all across the net with no remuneration wouldn't sue if they could affors to and they were being ripped of as much as Dr. Dre and Metallica (every single one of their songs is on Napster).
If they have that whole sense of entitlement thing going on then I'm sure they would. The musicians that I know (about ten of them that I hang out with on a regular basis) are thrilled when their music is passed around. And yeah, they are struggling--every single one of them. But then again, they're doing it because they love music. If they loved money as much as they loved music they'd probably have better paying jobs.
After saying all this I should point out that I've only used Napster once. I really wanted to hear my Final Cut CD, but when I opened the case it was gone. Couldn't find it anywhere. So I downloaded it. I know it was illegal and all but f*ck it. That was already the second copy of that CD I'd bought--the other disappeared too. The MP3's I do distribute are all with the permission--gratitude in fact--of the artists.
I used to be a lot more supportive of laws to protect against "piracy." Now that free distribution of music is being threatened and facing hurdles due to these laws I'm getting sick of them. They're not worth the damage anymore. The RIAA and MPAA keep pushing the idea that free distribution and piracy are the same thing. And people are falling for it--hook, line, and sinker. Free distribution will not be the death of music. Free distribution is a boon to people that care about making and listening to music. It's the people that care about the money more than the music that are pissed off.
Now, I do think that musicians should have the rights to the music they make. They should be able to sell it, make a profit off of it, lock it in a vault--whatever. It's their music they can do whatever they want with it. But don't come crying to me if you can't control what happens to it once it's released into the general public. And especially DO NOT FUCKING TELL ME WHAT SOFTWARE I CAN OR CAN NOT USE TO DISTRIBUTE MUSIC BECAUSE IT INTERFERES WITH YOUR SO-CALLED RIGHT TO MAKE A PROFIT.
PS: Looks like this former local act gets it -- they're sponsored by Napster. Their press release even mentions Metallica's suit.
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The joint state-federal plan calls for breaking Microsoft roughly in half. One-half would be the operating-system company; the other would hold everything else, including Microsoft's applications software, such as the word-processing program Word and the spreadsheet program Excel, and the Internet properties.
I have a feeling that Gates has known for a while that Windows was doomed--this is not a troll--I honestly believe Windows is beyond saving. Rather than completely dropping support for Windows he gets to have it artificially amputated instead.
So Microsoft can appeal the decision as long as Windows is still profitable, then "give up" when it turns into dead weight. The dying operating system that they no longer want to support becomes someone elses problem automatically. Gates can just shrug and say "Hey, it's not our fault the DOJ broke us up. It's a shame to see the operating system I created die at their hands."
As for now, his "go ahead and break us up, I dare you" attitude doesn't suprise me one bit.
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What qualifies as hosting your own content? I.E. Say I run a web server on my DSL line (which is true), and I do something like host a mirror of controversial material. Who is the service provider in this case, me or my ISP? It would seem to me I am, and that my ISP wouldn't come into the picture, because my agreement with them says it's my line and I can do with it what I want, and anything that says 'lawyer' on it will be forwarded in my general direction.
I've been wondering about this for a while. In my case the server is co-located at an ISP. I pay for an ethernet connection to the network but still completely own the box.
If they can hold an ISP responsible for providing connectivity to someone then no one is safe. If someone can clarify this it would be appreciated.
I'm also curious about the "under penalty of perjury" thing. What is the penalty for perjury for a corporation, church, or government? Does someone get sent to jail? Or does the organization get fined into bankruptcy? What is the penalty for an individual? Do individuals get fined a percentage of their annual income? I just want to know what incentives large organizations have to avoid abusing the DMCA.
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If you're interested in this type of thing, you might want to check out Worldforge They're working on some pretty ambitious stuff (from text clients up to 3d clients.) Open source of course.
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Rouland said "X-force" researcher Wilson discovered the backdoor during a standard review of Red Hat's Linux source code, which is freely available. The user name and password were embedded in the code. "Anybody else who's viewed the source code could have found the vulnerability and been exploiting it all along," he said. "This one was so easy to find I would think people would have found it and exploited it.... I think people will figure it out very quickly."
I always thought of a backdoor as something that was intentionally left there by the developers to get in--as was the case with the "netscape engineers are weenies" backdoor that Microsoft developers put into their software.
It seems that there may have been a buffer overrun on piranha, but they make it sound like having a default password of 'Q' is Redhat's fault--It doesn't really matter what the default password is for something if the user doesn't set their own. That's pretty obvious.
And that last part sounds a bit like they are trying to make open source sound like an inherent flaw. Not like I'd expect them to compare and contrast with Microsoft's intentional backdoor that was there for months or years which no one except a few select Microsoft developers and friends knew about. That compared to a buffer overrun in a Redhat product discovered weeks later and quickly fixed doesn't make open source look like a security risk to me. Who'd be running an e-commerce site on a product that's only a couple weeks old anyway (earlier in the article the author alludes to the fact that the so-called backdoor would have allowed an intruder to "access customer databases.")
I wouldn't get too upset over this though. The spin gets more obvious everytime. Anyone with a clue about security won't be fooled. It'll just make Microsoft and the author of the article look more like idiots than they did last week.
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Despite your naive beliefs, this is *not* a "public forum" and everything *written* on these pages is fully protected by copyright law. The key difference between slashdot and standing on a soapbox on the street corner is that *everything* you see has been reduced to tangible form. Copyright law can't apply to nontangible speech (since human memory is fallible and nobody can be absolutely sure what was said), but anything put down in tangible form (handwriting, books,... or little magnetic fields on a small disk) is born copyrighted.
It really is a shame if this means that comments from an ongoing discussion can't be reproduced just because it occurred online and not in meatspace.
I understand that Taco and Hemos were trying to do something good, but they should have expected that people would jump all over any chance to cause a problem--you know, the "if I can't be part of the solution, then I'll be part of the problem" mentality.
It really doesn't suprise me that some of the same people that took comfort from the discussions that occurred here would be greedy little pricks (or just pricks in general) and stand in the way of others getting a chance to learn and take comfort. I suppose it's sad, but I've really come to expect this kind of thing.
I hope some of them finally realize that they're as bad or worse than the people they look down their noses at and kid themselves that they are superior. This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but do yourselves a favor and look in the mirror and think about what you've said here today. It could be your first step on the road to recovery from prickdom.
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PS: The comments about IP and copyright issues are important and thanks to the people that wrote them. Those that would rather the book not be published should think twice.
And of course, I must say that I think that as long as the cable networks get opened to competition, cable is going to rule "broadband" anyway, so the point is moot. Why are people unable to understand that fatter pipes carry more water?
Keep in mind that with cable you're sharing that fatter pipe rather than having a smaller, yet dedicated pipe. The cable companies can make the number of people sharing the pipe smaller and smaller but that takes time and money. In the meantime both the phone and cable companies (and in some cases the electric companies) are hanging a lot of fiber-optic cable. Once I have three choices of fiber to my door I'll be lovin' it. For now I'm dumping my crappy one-way cablemodem in favor of ADSL.
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According to the article, in 5.6.0 the warning pragma replaces the -w flag. (I'm sure they didn't actually remove the -w flag when they added the warnings pragma.) Apparently the new pragma allows you to be more specific about which warnings you'd like to receive.
use warnings;
$a = @a[1]; # This generates a warning.
{
no warnings;
$a = @a[1]; # This does not.
}
Anyway, I didn't see anyone specifically mention this in regard to the original post: With warnings turned on Perl informs you of variables that are only used once--which is greatly useful for finding capitalization errors in variables (or any mis-typed variable name.)
Also, people can say whatever they want about Perl, but I love it. I can sit down an jam out code in seconds that would take me all day to do in most other languages--not that I'm exactly a whiz when it comes to other languages. A friend of mine wanted to write a poker-bot in C--I told him he'd be able to learn Perl and write it in Perl in less time than it would take him to write it in C. After he took my advice he agreed.
Honestly I wish I were more proficient with C/C++, but the fact is I'm too lazy. So I'll stick with Perl since it does everything that I need it to do.
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In general, this sounds very fishy. He may be backing down from Microsoft, but whatever he's doing it's not good for business.
It may sound fishy, but it smells worse.
My guess is that he has doubts that Caldera can compete in the Linux market as is. If they could close the code, they could make some cool changes that would set them apart from the rest, yet not have to share it with the rest of the community. The way things are now you can't lock users into your distribution because anyone can take it, sell it, and support it without paying you a cent. This means that Linux companies have to rely on things like their ability to SUPPORT their products. Poor guys...it's a tough world.
"The key is, we need open access for a level playing field, not an entirely new playing field," Love said.
This line sure stinks of bullshit. A level playing field is an entirely new playing field for the software industry. I'll be keeping an eye on this guy--I get the feeling he's trying to rally together some bullies to kick the kids off the field.
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Many casinos are using them for their most important application--slot machine monitoring. Slots are the biggest revenue source for casinos so uptime is extremely important. I worked for the Sands in Atlantic City when ACSC was developing the OS/2 version of their slot monitoring software (ca. 1995) One reason for choosing OS/2 was to stick with the IBM-all-the-way solution (IBM AS/400, Token Ring, IBM Industrial PC's, IBM Artic Cards {multiport serial cards for interfacing with slot machines}) The AS/400 is big in the Hotel/Casino industry. And the idea of using Windows for a 24-hour high-availability application was (is) a joke. A casino using Windows for slot monitoring would have been like a hospital using it for life support systems.
About a year and a half ago I was working for the Bank of the Northern Hemisphere (aka F-U National Bank) and they were still using OS/2 for their customer service terminals. Again it was a situation where high-availability was a must. Can't have Windows crashing in the middle of a phone call. Of course, they're replacing those boxes with NT now and their Novell servers as well.
Which brings me to a slightly off-topic question. I've worked at three Fortune 100 companies in the last 2 years. At all three they plan (or were planning) to replace their Novell servers with Windows -- despite the fact that there was no one I could find in IT that actually thought it was a good idea. They all referred to a previous commitment to go with "NT 5.0" when it was available. Does anyone know anything about this?
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I remember watching Star Blazers religiously after school when it first came on TV. I was about eight years old. Then we moved out to the sticks where cable wasn't available and I couldn't get the station in that it was on. For a couple days I sat there trying to make out what was going on through the static. I was actually pretty heart-broken.
I eventually forgot about it until I was about 21 and met a woman that had it on video. The only problem was that when I went over to her place to see it she kept pushing her hentai collection on me--which might not have been a problem if she wasn't a nasty ex-biker chick and about 15 years older than me.
Maybe at last I can finally see how it turned out--I'll have to remember to check it out when the site is no longer slashdotted.
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Although Linux-branded beer would be an interesting idea.
I hate posting the same link twice in one day, but it's Friday so what the hell...
If they can sell Linux-branded underwear, then I'm sure there must be a market for Linux-branded beer. Oh what I wouldn't give to be in Tux's position right now...
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Way to burn some mod points OOG...
Moderation Totals:Troll=4, Funny=4, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=10.
Truly impressive.
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