IANAL. Compact disks are supposed to conform to standards. When you buy a CD you should be able to expect that it conforms to those standards. If not you aren't getting the fidelity, and the functionality that you paid for. There are consumer protection laws in the United States which I think should cover this. If the recording industry shipps CDs in the US which use these copy protection schemes, then they should have to label the CD's apropriately. If not, they should be sued or fined, or whatever the laws call for.
Sony has secretly tested Cactus by treating several thousand CDs sold recently in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but the system was not set to cause damage on this occasion.
The shipping CDs aren't set to produce coppies which will damage equipment. The copy protection system would allow them to create such CDs, but it wasn't done on the ones they shipped.
This is pure briliance. Seriously, tax amnisty or at least seriously deep cuts for related profits for 18 years!!!
Someone invents something, but doesn't have the money to produce it. There's no way they can protect their invention, so either they keep it secret, it's stolen by someone who can manufacture it. In either case they make no money on the invention. A tax break on $0 amounts to a $0 benefit. Guess that inventor will be too busy flipping burgers to invent something else.
This could fix the copyright system too.
A songwriter writes a song. That song is performed by some great artists. Recording companies record and sell the music. Media outlets (MTV and radio stations) play the music.
The songwriter gets nothing. Tax break on $0 is still nothing.
The artist/performer gets some money from performing, however if they aren't interested in touring all over the place, or aren't good performers as well as musicians, then they get very little. Tax break on very little, doesn't amount to much. Guess they'll be flipping burgers too, which limits their ability to tour. Maybe McDonalds can work something out where they can work in the closest store to where their concert is.
Recording companies get to sell the media on which they distribute the songs. Of course anyone could make their own media, and sell it as well. Professionally producing music can be very expensive. It's hard to believe that they could offset these costs by tax breaks on their sales of media. Especially when there are no significant media costs when it's distributed over the internet.
Media outlets would have to pay significantly less for their programming. Of course they would probably have to directly contract with artists in order to get quality programming, and as soon as they broadcast it, anyone else could just rebroadcast it, so it's hard to think that they can raise the money to pay for quality programming by advertising. After all why not just advertise with one of the rebroadcasters.
One of the purposes of IP laws is to make it possible for creative people to profit from their creations. A tax break only provides a benefit, if you're already making money from the creation, but doesn't provide a way to make that money.
This is a horrible idea. So much for the little guy being able to make money on inventions. This would destroy the garage inventor. Right now if someone invents something on their own, and can't raise the initial capital to produce the product themselves, they can license the patent to other people who can use it. Without a patent they have to try and raise the money to do this themselves, and their invention itself may be the only thing they have that is valuable enough to use as credit. Besides, what god is a tax credit if you ren't making any money. If other companies aren't paying any development costs, then in many cases they will still be able to undersell you. Technology companies are also a very large part of the US economy. If you give them tax credits on all their inventions, then where do the taxes that run our government come from? If you think the government is just going to spend less, then you're delusional. If you give me the "companies don't pay taxes anyway argument", then what's the purpose of a tax credit in the first place. I don't think this idea was thought through very well.
Do you really think that most of the investors will sell their stock becuse of this? Their stock price would probably go up. After all, breast cancer treatment is a huge business, and if this company has patents in that area, they are likely to make a fortune from them. The holders of the patents will say that the researchers should license their patents. The researchers didn't get their equipment for free. Their workers don't work for free. They'll ask why they should get the results of their research for free.
Even before the patenting of genes (which I strongly oppose), this moral issue exhisted with the patenting of drugs. In order to research cures to disease, researchers need to use many drugs which they have to buy at extremely high prices from the companies that own the patents on them. This increases the costs of discovering cures to many diseases. This has been drug through the press many times, but those companies stock prices are far from hurting.
Don't think that any publicity is good publicity. Think "RAMBUS".
Rambus' stok price was soaring dispite the bad press. The thing that caused Rambus' stock to go down is when they were found to have committed fraud, and it became likely that they wouldn't be able to collect all the royalties they had claimed they were due.
After rethinking things, I would think that if MSN makes agreements with OEMs that are in no way tied to Windows licensing, then MS shouldn't get in trouble for antitrust issues. The trouble they go into was from tying the two products together, which in a way is what they are doing now. Unlike many of the products that MS has integrated into Windows, I can't see how requiring a MSN icon really helps consumers, and you've convinced me that it can harm them.
I still don't like the kind of exclusive marketing contract that Compaq and AOL are talking about. It seems anticompetitive to me, and I don't like the reasoning that it's ok as long as you're not a monopoly. Some monopolies are natural, and I don't feel the government should artificially try to restore competition my making the monopoly play by one set of rules, while their competitors play by another. But that really isn't the issue at hand. The issue is Microsoft tying the advertising of MSN to Windows XP, which should be prevented.
but their not playing fairly if they use their monopoly to force OEMs to level the playing field, are they?
Is it fair for AOL to be entering into exclusive marketing agreements when their largest competitor, Microsoft, cannot? The real place I think we disagree is that you seem to be concerned that Microsoft is not treating the OEMs "fairly" in your opinion. I'm more concerned that consumers are treated fairly. The actions of a Monopoly are only illegal if they harm consumers.
Other companies (including Microsoft) can also pay for exclusive rights to an OEMs desktop configuration.
Actually, I don't think they can. Microsoft's exclusive agreements with OEMs regarding the distribution of IE is one of the things that got them into trouble. If Microsoft can enter into this same kind of exclusive agreement, then that would be a more "fair" way for them to handle this issue.
The idea of MSN getting free advertising, while AOL has to pay for it does make me consider that there could be some harm to consumers in the long run. But I really don't think AOL pays much for getting it's Icon on user's desktops. AOL was only paying larger sums as commisions for people actually signing up for AOL through the icon on Compaq computers. Microsoft's not allowing AOL exclusive desktop space also has another effect. It means that other ISPs that don't have AOL's heap of cash will be more likely able to get their icons on the desktop.
I agree that Microsoft isn't "playing nice". I'm just not sure that they aren't helping consumers more than they are hurting them with this action. If the only harm here is that AOL and Compaq don't get to gang up and reduce consumer choice in the interests of their own greed, then I don't see how this is anticompetitive.
MSN is AOL's main competitor. MSN is not allowed to have exclusive contracts with OEMs because of Microsoft's OS Monopoly. OEMs weren't agreeing to make AOL the "dominant" ISP in their distribution, they were agreeing to make them the only ISP in the distribution. Because AOL isn't a monopoly, this is perfectly legal. Microsoft is giveing OEMs the choice of placing no ISP icon's on the desktop. They are just leveling the playing field in the ISP market by requireing that no one else can have an exclusive OEM agreement, since they can't. I can see that the OEMs won't like this, because it limits their ability to sell advertising on the Windows desktop, but I don't see how consumers are being harmed by having a choice. If consumers aren't being harmed, then antitrust laws shouldn't prevent it. Sure, MS is forcing their will on OEMs. Since they're under the gun and have to compete fairly, they are forcing an even playing field. I don't understand how you can argue that an exclusive agreement promotes competition, while an non-exclusive agreement prohibits it.
I guess you can argue that MS is using their Monopoly to distribute MSN, but I have a hard time figuring out what's really wrong with it. It isn't an exclusive deal. OEMs can place other ISP's icon's on the desktop as well, they just have to include MSN as well. If an OEM doesn't want to include any icons they have that choice as well. MSN also has a seperate cost involved, so you don't have to purchase MSN when you buy Windows. The products aren't tied in that sense.
I would be fine if MS paid the OEM's to 'have this and this requirement', but they're not. MSN is a completely seperate service, and deserves to be treated that why.
You make a good point, but how is MS supposed to do this. If they offer discounts on Windows for people to include MSN, then they are tying the products together. They aren't supposed to do that. They aren't allowed to play by the same rules that AOL is. That's the nature of antitrust law. If they want to be able to compete fairly with AOL in the ISP market, then this seems like a reasonable way to do it. As long as consumers aren't being harmed, why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? The only thing they've really done is prevent other ISPs from limiting consumer's choices. It seems strange that Microsoft would be doing things to insure consumers have a choice, but it comes down to if they can't be anticompetitive, then they won't let anyone else either. Sounds like a good thing to me.
If they want to pay the OEMS more than AOL to buy that ad space out from under AOL's nose, that's one thing, but to use their market position to prevent AOL from being the only ones with an icon on the desktop seems like unfair competition.
They tried that. It's one of the main things they got in trouble for. They were offering discounts on the price of Windows to OEMs that would exclusively offer IE as the web browser. That was considered anti-competitive. AOL is allowed to enter into exclusive agreements with OEMs to push AOL, but Microsoft, because of their Monopoly in the OS market cannot. Since they can't have an exclusive agreement, they decided to prohibit AOL from having one either. OEMs have the choice of both or none. Seems fair and equitable to me. Consumers get a choice. No one is being excluded. I can't say I feel even a little bit sorry for AOL. They aren't looking out for consumers, they're looking out for themselves through exclusive marketing practices. Though I don't think they have a monoplly, they have by far the largets share of the ISP market. They don't need an unfair advantage over Microsoft to compete in the ISP market. Allowing them to have exclusive marketing agreements with OEMs whilc MS can't would be unfair. Microsoft just leveled the playing field.
I have to agree with this. Microsoft does a lot of bad things, but they don't scare me nearly as much as AOL Time Warner. Microsoft may be harming some innovation, but AOL Time Warner's control over a broad range of media outlets is really scarry, and they've shown themselves to be no friend of consumers many times in the past. It may be ironic that Microsoft is the one forcing "competition" on AOL, but I still think it's a good thing.
Just b/c someone told you to RTFM does not mean you should whine all over the place about it. Honestly, getting the mouse to work in X is covered in just about every document there is on the Internet. If you are too lazy to look first before you ask, then they are too lazy to help you.
If you or they don't want to help newbies, fine, but I don't think you understand the true problem. If someone is asking questions like this, they probably have no idea where the manual or one of the "every document there is on the Internet" is. These are true newbies. They don't know what sites to go to, they figure they found a site and it even had a place to ask questions. They post their question and get a dozen flames in reply. If people don't want to wast their time with someone who isn't willing to spend time reaearching how to find help on their own, then don't. Just don't respond. I understand that these kind of posts can clutter up newsgroups and forums. If they don't want to deal with newbies, then they should go to a forum named Advanced X Topics, or something like that.
My knowledge of compilers is limited, but I don't think that just because you end up with more, shorter instructions, that the compiler should take longer. In my opinion it doesn't really matter. People using Linux often spend considerable time compiling things on their computers, a comparison of how long it will take you to compile the kernel on each machine is a useful benchmark.
I would thing that there is a lot of Linux software that has been optimized for x86, since it's the dominant platform, so using LAME isn't that unreasonable.
It would be good to include another benchmark, on which the app has been better optimized to use the PPC, but I don't think the choice of benchmarks was that bad.
The benchmarks for the MAC look even better when you take into account that the MAC is being limited by the 4200 rpm laptop hard drive. I'd like to see benchmarks on more similar configurations. Either way the MAC is still to expensive in my opinion, but I am impressed with the performance.
The tool was published on the internet, so you can hardly say he only published it outside the US. As long as he remained outside the US there's little the US govenment can do to enforce the DCMA against him, but he chose to come to the US.
The scary thing is that the Slashdot story says "Adobe was apparently responsible for the arrest".
The sensational tidbits presneted by the Slashdot editors along with the story are often not really factual. They seem to be more worded to generate controversy than to express facts. If you want facts, you'd better read the article, or even better several articles, so you can filter out much of the spin for yourself.
I doubt they arested him for making the presentation. The company he works for makes software that breaks the copy protection on Adobe's ebook software. I'm assuming they arrested him because he worked on that software, which they may have found out during his presentation. Adobe has been after his company for a little while now. Read the articles for the details. I'm no fan of the DMCA, but it wasn't very smart of him to come to this country if the software he wrote is in violation of it. I guess he'll be spending some time in jail while the courts decide if what he did was illegal.
Yes, but consider this: this SDI, or child of SDI, or whatever its official name is, is out of our reach for the time being.
You're right. We can't just throw something together with off the shelf equipment and get it to work right now.
When we have the technology, and the need, to develop this, I will favor it. For now, though, it's a complete waste.
You could work in the marketing department where I work. If you wait to develop something until you have an immediate need, you're too late.
If the government doesn't invest in producing the technology, where's it going to come from? Are extraterrestrials going to give us the technology? Is the commercial avation industry supposed to create the technology on their own? Investing billions of dollars on a future technology that is difficult to develop, is going to be low volume, and the government is going to strictly regulate, isn't a very good businees model.
The technologies that are going to advance comercially, have been advancing rapidly. Processors and DSPs are considerably faster every year. If we want to produce this technology, we need to keep developing prototypes, doing tests, and learning from those tests. If a test fails, it doesn't mean that the goal isn't reachable, it means that you need to learn why it wasn't reached that time, and build a better system. These things take time, and a lot of money, but if we don't do them Millions of people may die.
Point one:
A few other countries have NUKES.... Iraq if they work really hard for a decade.
If you haven't noticed, a working missle defense isn't that easy to implement. We will still be working on getting the basics working for several years. How long before we get it working well and deployed. If Iraq is a little faster than the 10 years you're guessing, they may beat us there, and if we keep putting it off, then there will be a number of rougue states with the ability to attack us with missles. Iraq calls the US the Great Satan, they don't like us very much, and we've proven in the past that when they provoke us we bite back, but not that hard, they always survive to bite us again.
Point Two: Why the hell would you launch it at the US even if you had one? A suicide bomber is one thing: you lose one guy and you blame it on a sect you can't control. But launching a missile? In 45 minutes, the US turns every city you have into a nuclear wasteland.
Do you really think the US would waste every major city of a foreign country? The radiation would likely kill millions in neighboring countries. We could never nuke anything near Jeresulem, the world would neve forgive us. Do you think we really want a radioactive Persian Gulf. The US can make threats, but can they back them up? A neclear counterstrike isn't a very practical thing, and that makes it questionable if we would do it. The US may just go after some of the leaders of that govenment or militant group, capture them if they can, and imprision them for life for crimes against humanity. Many of these people are zealots who would consider that an exceptable price for the holy war they are wageing agains the Great Setan (USA).
Point Three. If you want to nuke the US, you get or make a small bomb, like one of the infamous soviet suitcase nukes - dozens are unaccounted for. You send a single suicide bomber to carry it across the border from mexico or canada by hand. You lose one guy, there's nothing for the US to shoot down, and you don't have to develop any rocket technology. And a nuke leaves awfully little forensic evidence.
This argument is much harder to dispute. The United States' borders are not very well closed. The US govenment has caught people bringing bomb making materials into the country. I can't remember the name of the guy, but they caught someone right before the year 2000. I also heard that Osama Bin Ladden's people blew up our Embasies in other countries, rather than attack us on our native soil, because it was much easier. I don't pretend to understand the details of international terrorism, but there's some reason we don't have many terrorist attacks on US soil. I don't know if this would be different if these terrorists or rougue states had missles. I'm willing to bet though that the govenment has other plans to try and thwart domestic attacks. I think the need for a missle defense is likely not immediate, but we're going to need one, and it's going to take a long time to build. Better get started.
I don't get moderators here. The above post expresses an opinion, and even attempts to justify the opinion. I disagree with the opinion. I think our government must invest in our defence. I also believe that the designers of the missle defence will take counter measures into account when they design the missle defense. As an example of this the test did include distingushing the warhead from a dummy. This is far from a test against serious countermeasures, but it's a start.
The other problem with this kind of treaty and most arms treaties is that it doesn't take into effect other non signing countries. Was China part of that treaty? They are definately a world power now. The United States is a superpower, because we have the ability to defend ourselves as well as a powerful economy.
I had to pay for Windows on my machine whether I wanted it or not
In my honest opinion this is either untrue, or the computer vendor's fault, not Microsoft's. Microsoft has had serious problems with vendors loading Windows on PCs and not paying Microsoft for all the licenses. In order to simplify the auditing process of these vendors Microsoft offers discounts on their OS to large vendors which pay for Windows licenses for all the systems made of a certain model. Auditing is simplified by counting up the number of systems of that model that were shipped, and making sure the licenses were paid for. The vendor can choose to offer models without Windows, but there just isn't a lot of demand for those models, so the expenses of having a seperate model line just aren't worth it. Therefore, the models you can buy all have Windows on them.
Now you as a consumer want to buy a computer. As a Linux user, you have no use for Windows. The vendor could offer you a computer that doesn't have Windows on it, but it doesn't make finacial sense for them to do so. This isn't just because MS offers them Windows discounts, but because offering a system in a different configuration simply costs them money, and there isn't that large of a demand for Linux systems from these vendors. You still have the option of trying to get the vendor to refund the price of Windows to you. Insert IANAL disclaimer here. Microsoft's EULA, which the vendors know about and have a responsability to conform with as OEMs of Microsoft's products, states that you can return the software if unused. The vendor will likely nog get reimbursed for the refund by Microsoft. The vendor has chosen to take the discount on the price of window, so returns are now their problem. That's the price they pay for the discounted price.
What this does is create a niche market for smaller vendors who aren't elligable for these large volume discount programs. They have to pay higher prices for each copy of Windows that they buy, but the aren't required to ship Windows on all the systems of a specific model. This also makes a market where companies like Penguin Computing can hopefully make money.
The big problem I heard about was getting laptops without Windows installed. It sounds like some vendors now have these available. If there's a profitable market, someone will sell it.
It's just my opinion, but the Windows Rebate Day thing was running high on a lot of I hate Microsoft FUD, rather than facts.
No they weren't perfect, but at least the client mostly worked once the inevitable network congestion problems were overcome.
I haven't palyed UO in over a year, but it still had some network congestion problems, and server crashes were at least a weekly occurrence when I played (not long after the Renaissance expansion came out).
I currently play AC. In highly populated areas of the game world LAG (to which I'm assuming network congestion is a contributing factor) is still a problem.
No online game is going to be perfect. There are always tradeoffs between performance and features. In it's current state AO doesn't seem to be really playable yet. They have what could be considered a beta system in opperation, but aren't ready for prime time. It also sounds like they've run into cash flow problems, and in the economy's current state they likly couldn't raise more cash without shipping the product as-is and trying to fix the bugs live. I hope they wake up and realize they can't charge people the monthly fee for the product they have right now, and let those who purchased the game play for free untill they get it going. Maybe the cash they get from the game sales will keep them going long enough to finish the product, and maybe they'll survive the well deserved black eye they get for releasing early. I'd like them to succeed, because I like the game concept, and would hate to see the efforts of the game developers that have poured their lives into this product go to waste. On the other hand, maybe the failure of AO would teach game producers a needed lesson about shipping a product this far before it's ready.
You have a good point, but a traditional console isn't very well suited to this kind of game. Patches in online games can provide more than bug fixes. They can provide new content, as well as new features. It also allows the developers to rebalance the game as it becomes necessary, and in a robust evolving environment, rebalancing is necessary.
Don't take this post as an endorsement of AO's actions. They were horribly unprepared to release their product. If what I read was correct, they didn't even have a secure web page set-up when they started to collect their customer's credit card info. A lot of their problems they have also blamed on network configuration issues. This points out that this type of game has a lot of issues to deal with that your typical console game doesn't, however it's the business they chose to get into, and they should be better prepared to deliver the product they have both promised and charged for. I personally considered buying AO and trying it out, but I became suspicious when I saw that they were charging around $50 or so for the game. Other games of this type retail for around $30. When a unproven company is promising the world, and is trying to get more cash up front, you're better off waiting until they start proving themselves.
Slashdotters all agreed on this on the previous article.
I don't think that you can make the general comment that all "slashdotters" agree on anything. There are a lot of people with some very strong and different opinions here, that's part of what makes this forum interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL. Compact disks are supposed to conform to standards. When you buy a CD you should be able to expect that it conforms to those standards. If not you aren't getting the fidelity, and the functionality that you paid for. There are consumer protection laws in the United States which I think should cover this. If the recording industry shipps CDs in the US which use these copy protection schemes, then they should have to label the CD's apropriately. If not, they should be sued or fined, or whatever the laws call for.
Sony has secretly tested Cactus by treating several thousand CDs sold recently in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but the system was not set to cause damage on this occasion.
The shipping CDs aren't set to produce coppies which will damage equipment. The copy protection system would allow them to create such CDs, but it wasn't done on the ones they shipped.
This is pure briliance. Seriously, tax amnisty or at least seriously deep cuts for related profits for 18 years!!!
Someone invents something, but doesn't have the money to produce it. There's no way they can protect their invention, so either they keep it secret, it's stolen by someone who can manufacture it. In either case they make no money on the invention. A tax break on $0 amounts to a $0 benefit. Guess that inventor will be too busy flipping burgers to invent something else.
This could fix the copyright system too.
A songwriter writes a song. That song is performed by some great artists. Recording companies record and sell the music. Media outlets (MTV and radio stations) play the music.
The songwriter gets nothing. Tax break on $0 is still nothing.
The artist/performer gets some money from performing, however if they aren't interested in touring all over the place, or aren't good performers as well as musicians, then they get very little. Tax break on very little, doesn't amount to much. Guess they'll be flipping burgers too, which limits their ability to tour. Maybe McDonalds can work something out where they can work in the closest store to where their concert is.
Recording companies get to sell the media on which they distribute the songs. Of course anyone could make their own media, and sell it as well. Professionally producing music can be very expensive. It's hard to believe that they could offset these costs by tax breaks on their sales of media. Especially when there are no significant media costs when it's distributed over the internet.
Media outlets would have to pay significantly less for their programming. Of course they would probably have to directly contract with artists in order to get quality programming, and as soon as they broadcast it, anyone else could just rebroadcast it, so it's hard to think that they can raise the money to pay for quality programming by advertising. After all why not just advertise with one of the rebroadcasters.
One of the purposes of IP laws is to make it possible for creative people to profit from their creations. A tax break only provides a benefit, if you're already making money from the creation, but doesn't provide a way to make that money.
This is a horrible idea. So much for the little guy being able to make money on inventions. This would destroy the garage inventor. Right now if someone invents something on their own, and can't raise the initial capital to produce the product themselves, they can license the patent to other people who can use it. Without a patent they have to try and raise the money to do this themselves, and their invention itself may be the only thing they have that is valuable enough to use as credit. Besides, what god is a tax credit if you ren't making any money. If other companies aren't paying any development costs, then in many cases they will still be able to undersell you. Technology companies are also a very large part of the US economy. If you give them tax credits on all their inventions, then where do the taxes that run our government come from? If you think the government is just going to spend less, then you're delusional. If you give me the "companies don't pay taxes anyway argument", then what's the purpose of a tax credit in the first place. I don't think this idea was thought through very well.
Do you really think that most of the investors will sell their stock becuse of this? Their stock price would probably go up. After all, breast cancer treatment is a huge business, and if this company has patents in that area, they are likely to make a fortune from them. The holders of the patents will say that the researchers should license their patents. The researchers didn't get their equipment for free. Their workers don't work for free. They'll ask why they should get the results of their research for free.
Even before the patenting of genes (which I strongly oppose), this moral issue exhisted with the patenting of drugs. In order to research cures to disease, researchers need to use many drugs which they have to buy at extremely high prices from the companies that own the patents on them. This increases the costs of discovering cures to many diseases. This has been drug through the press many times, but those companies stock prices are far from hurting.
Don't think that any publicity is good publicity. Think "RAMBUS".
Rambus' stok price was soaring dispite the bad press. The thing that caused Rambus' stock to go down is when they were found to have committed fraud, and it became likely that they wouldn't be able to collect all the royalties they had claimed they were due.
After rethinking things, I would think that if MSN makes agreements with OEMs that are in no way tied to Windows licensing, then MS shouldn't get in trouble for antitrust issues. The trouble they go into was from tying the two products together, which in a way is what they are doing now. Unlike many of the products that MS has integrated into Windows, I can't see how requiring a MSN icon really helps consumers, and you've convinced me that it can harm them.
I still don't like the kind of exclusive marketing contract that Compaq and AOL are talking about. It seems anticompetitive to me, and I don't like the reasoning that it's ok as long as you're not a monopoly. Some monopolies are natural, and I don't feel the government should artificially try to restore competition my making the monopoly play by one set of rules, while their competitors play by another. But that really isn't the issue at hand. The issue is Microsoft tying the advertising of MSN to Windows XP, which should be prevented.
but their not playing fairly if they use their monopoly to force OEMs to level the playing field, are they?
Is it fair for AOL to be entering into exclusive marketing agreements when their largest competitor, Microsoft, cannot? The real place I think we disagree is that you seem to be concerned that Microsoft is not treating the OEMs "fairly" in your opinion. I'm more concerned that consumers are treated fairly. The actions of a Monopoly are only illegal if they harm consumers.
Other companies (including Microsoft) can also pay for exclusive rights to an OEMs desktop configuration.
Actually, I don't think they can. Microsoft's exclusive agreements with OEMs regarding the distribution of IE is one of the things that got them into trouble. If Microsoft can enter into this same kind of exclusive agreement, then that would be a more "fair" way for them to handle this issue.
The idea of MSN getting free advertising, while AOL has to pay for it does make me consider that there could be some harm to consumers in the long run. But I really don't think AOL pays much for getting it's Icon on user's desktops. AOL was only paying larger sums as commisions for people actually signing up for AOL through the icon on Compaq computers. Microsoft's not allowing AOL exclusive desktop space also has another effect. It means that other ISPs that don't have AOL's heap of cash will be more likely able to get their icons on the desktop.
I agree that Microsoft isn't "playing nice". I'm just not sure that they aren't helping consumers more than they are hurting them with this action. If the only harm here is that AOL and Compaq don't get to gang up and reduce consumer choice in the interests of their own greed, then I don't see how this is anticompetitive.
MSN is AOL's main competitor. MSN is not allowed to have exclusive contracts with OEMs because of Microsoft's OS Monopoly. OEMs weren't agreeing to make AOL the "dominant" ISP in their distribution, they were agreeing to make them the only ISP in the distribution. Because AOL isn't a monopoly, this is perfectly legal. Microsoft is giveing OEMs the choice of placing no ISP icon's on the desktop. They are just leveling the playing field in the ISP market by requireing that no one else can have an exclusive OEM agreement, since they can't. I can see that the OEMs won't like this, because it limits their ability to sell advertising on the Windows desktop, but I don't see how consumers are being harmed by having a choice. If consumers aren't being harmed, then antitrust laws shouldn't prevent it. Sure, MS is forcing their will on OEMs. Since they're under the gun and have to compete fairly, they are forcing an even playing field. I don't understand how you can argue that an exclusive agreement promotes competition, while an non-exclusive agreement prohibits it.
I guess you can argue that MS is using their Monopoly to distribute MSN, but I have a hard time figuring out what's really wrong with it. It isn't an exclusive deal. OEMs can place other ISP's icon's on the desktop as well, they just have to include MSN as well. If an OEM doesn't want to include any icons they have that choice as well. MSN also has a seperate cost involved, so you don't have to purchase MSN when you buy Windows. The products aren't tied in that sense.
I would be fine if MS paid the OEM's to 'have this and this requirement', but they're not. MSN is a completely seperate service, and deserves to be treated that why.
You make a good point, but how is MS supposed to do this. If they offer discounts on Windows for people to include MSN, then they are tying the products together. They aren't supposed to do that. They aren't allowed to play by the same rules that AOL is. That's the nature of antitrust law. If they want to be able to compete fairly with AOL in the ISP market, then this seems like a reasonable way to do it. As long as consumers aren't being harmed, why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? The only thing they've really done is prevent other ISPs from limiting consumer's choices. It seems strange that Microsoft would be doing things to insure consumers have a choice, but it comes down to if they can't be anticompetitive, then they won't let anyone else either. Sounds like a good thing to me.
If they want to pay the OEMS more than AOL to buy that ad space out from under AOL's nose, that's one thing, but to use their market position to prevent AOL from being the only ones with an icon on the desktop seems like unfair competition.
They tried that. It's one of the main things they got in trouble for. They were offering discounts on the price of Windows to OEMs that would exclusively offer IE as the web browser. That was considered anti-competitive. AOL is allowed to enter into exclusive agreements with OEMs to push AOL, but Microsoft, because of their Monopoly in the OS market cannot. Since they can't have an exclusive agreement, they decided to prohibit AOL from having one either. OEMs have the choice of both or none. Seems fair and equitable to me. Consumers get a choice. No one is being excluded. I can't say I feel even a little bit sorry for AOL. They aren't looking out for consumers, they're looking out for themselves through exclusive marketing practices. Though I don't think they have a monoplly, they have by far the largets share of the ISP market. They don't need an unfair advantage over Microsoft to compete in the ISP market. Allowing them to have exclusive marketing agreements with OEMs whilc MS can't would be unfair. Microsoft just leveled the playing field.
I have to agree with this. Microsoft does a lot of bad things, but they don't scare me nearly as much as AOL Time Warner. Microsoft may be harming some innovation, but AOL Time Warner's control over a broad range of media outlets is really scarry, and they've shown themselves to be no friend of consumers many times in the past. It may be ironic that Microsoft is the one forcing "competition" on AOL, but I still think it's a good thing.
Just b/c someone told you to RTFM does not mean you should whine all over the place about it. Honestly, getting the mouse to work in X is covered in just about every document there is on the Internet. If you are too lazy to look first before you ask, then they are too lazy to help you.
If you or they don't want to help newbies, fine, but I don't think you understand the true problem. If someone is asking questions like this, they probably have no idea where the manual or one of the "every document there is on the Internet" is. These are true newbies. They don't know what sites to go to, they figure they found a site and it even had a place to ask questions. They post their question and get a dozen flames in reply. If people don't want to wast their time with someone who isn't willing to spend time reaearching how to find help on their own, then don't. Just don't respond. I understand that these kind of posts can clutter up newsgroups and forums. If they don't want to deal with newbies, then they should go to a forum named Advanced X Topics, or something like that.
My knowledge of compilers is limited, but I don't think that just because you end up with more, shorter instructions, that the compiler should take longer. In my opinion it doesn't really matter. People using Linux often spend considerable time compiling things on their computers, a comparison of how long it will take you to compile the kernel on each machine is a useful benchmark.
I would thing that there is a lot of Linux software that has been optimized for x86, since it's the dominant platform, so using LAME isn't that unreasonable.
It would be good to include another benchmark, on which the app has been better optimized to use the PPC, but I don't think the choice of benchmarks was that bad.
The benchmarks for the MAC look even better when you take into account that the MAC is being limited by the 4200 rpm laptop hard drive. I'd like to see benchmarks on more similar configurations. Either way the MAC is still to expensive in my opinion, but I am impressed with the performance.
The tool was published on the internet, so you can hardly say he only published it outside the US. As long as he remained outside the US there's little the US govenment can do to enforce the DCMA against him, but he chose to come to the US.
The scary thing is that the Slashdot story says "Adobe was apparently responsible for the arrest".
The sensational tidbits presneted by the Slashdot editors along with the story are often not really factual. They seem to be more worded to generate controversy than to express facts. If you want facts, you'd better read the article, or even better several articles, so you can filter out much of the spin for yourself.
I doubt they arested him for making the presentation. The company he works for makes software that breaks the copy protection on Adobe's ebook software. I'm assuming they arrested him because he worked on that software, which they may have found out during his presentation. Adobe has been after his company for a little while now. Read the articles for the details. I'm no fan of the DMCA, but it wasn't very smart of him to come to this country if the software he wrote is in violation of it. I guess he'll be spending some time in jail while the courts decide if what he did was illegal.
Yes, but consider this: this SDI, or child of SDI, or whatever its official name is, is out of our reach for the time being.
You're right. We can't just throw something together with off the shelf equipment and get it to work right now.
When we have the technology, and the need, to develop this, I will favor it. For now, though, it's a complete waste.
You could work in the marketing department where I work. If you wait to develop something until you have an immediate need, you're too late.
If the government doesn't invest in producing the technology, where's it going to come from? Are extraterrestrials going to give us the technology? Is the commercial avation industry supposed to create the technology on their own? Investing billions of dollars on a future technology that is difficult to develop, is going to be low volume, and the government is going to strictly regulate, isn't a very good businees model.
The technologies that are going to advance comercially, have been advancing rapidly. Processors and DSPs are considerably faster every year. If we want to produce this technology, we need to keep developing prototypes, doing tests, and learning from those tests. If a test fails, it doesn't mean that the goal isn't reachable, it means that you need to learn why it wasn't reached that time, and build a better system. These things take time, and a lot of money, but if we don't do them Millions of people may die.
Point one: ... Iraq if they work really hard for a decade.
A few other countries have NUKES.
If you haven't noticed, a working missle defense isn't that easy to implement. We will still be working on getting the basics working for several years. How long before we get it working well and deployed. If Iraq is a little faster than the 10 years you're guessing, they may beat us there, and if we keep putting it off, then there will be a number of rougue states with the ability to attack us with missles. Iraq calls the US the Great Satan, they don't like us very much, and we've proven in the past that when they provoke us we bite back, but not that hard, they always survive to bite us again.
Point Two: Why the hell would you launch it at the US even if you had one? A suicide bomber is one thing: you lose one guy and you blame it on a sect you can't control. But launching a missile? In 45 minutes, the US turns every city you have into a nuclear wasteland.
Do you really think the US would waste every major city of a foreign country? The radiation would likely kill millions in neighboring countries. We could never nuke anything near Jeresulem, the world would neve forgive us. Do you think we really want a radioactive Persian Gulf. The US can make threats, but can they back them up? A neclear counterstrike isn't a very practical thing, and that makes it questionable if we would do it. The US may just go after some of the leaders of that govenment or militant group, capture them if they can, and imprision them for life for crimes against humanity. Many of these people are zealots who would consider that an exceptable price for the holy war they are wageing agains the Great Setan (USA).
Point Three. If you want to nuke the US, you get or make a small bomb, like one of the infamous soviet suitcase nukes - dozens are unaccounted for. You send a single suicide bomber to carry it across the border from mexico or canada by hand. You lose one guy, there's nothing for the US to shoot down, and you don't have to develop any rocket technology. And a nuke leaves awfully little forensic evidence.
This argument is much harder to dispute. The United States' borders are not very well closed. The US govenment has caught people bringing bomb making materials into the country. I can't remember the name of the guy, but they caught someone right before the year 2000. I also heard that Osama Bin Ladden's people blew up our Embasies in other countries, rather than attack us on our native soil, because it was much easier. I don't pretend to understand the details of international terrorism, but there's some reason we don't have many terrorist attacks on US soil. I don't know if this would be different if these terrorists or rougue states had missles. I'm willing to bet though that the govenment has other plans to try and thwart domestic attacks. I think the need for a missle defense is likely not immediate, but we're going to need one, and it's going to take a long time to build. Better get started.
I don't get moderators here. The above post expresses an opinion, and even attempts to justify the opinion. I disagree with the opinion. I think our government must invest in our defence. I also believe that the designers of the missle defence will take counter measures into account when they design the missle defense. As an example of this the test did include distingushing the warhead from a dummy. This is far from a test against serious countermeasures, but it's a start.
The other problem with this kind of treaty and most arms treaties is that it doesn't take into effect other non signing countries. Was China part of that treaty? They are definately a world power now. The United States is a superpower, because we have the ability to defend ourselves as well as a powerful economy.
I had to pay for Windows on my machine whether I wanted it or not
In my honest opinion this is either untrue, or the computer vendor's fault, not Microsoft's. Microsoft has had serious problems with vendors loading Windows on PCs and not paying Microsoft for all the licenses. In order to simplify the auditing process of these vendors Microsoft offers discounts on their OS to large vendors which pay for Windows licenses for all the systems made of a certain model. Auditing is simplified by counting up the number of systems of that model that were shipped, and making sure the licenses were paid for. The vendor can choose to offer models without Windows, but there just isn't a lot of demand for those models, so the expenses of having a seperate model line just aren't worth it. Therefore, the models you can buy all have Windows on them.
Now you as a consumer want to buy a computer. As a Linux user, you have no use for Windows. The vendor could offer you a computer that doesn't have Windows on it, but it doesn't make finacial sense for them to do so. This isn't just because MS offers them Windows discounts, but because offering a system in a different configuration simply costs them money, and there isn't that large of a demand for Linux systems from these vendors. You still have the option of trying to get the vendor to refund the price of Windows to you. Insert IANAL disclaimer here. Microsoft's EULA, which the vendors know about and have a responsability to conform with as OEMs of Microsoft's products, states that you can return the software if unused. The vendor will likely nog get reimbursed for the refund by Microsoft. The vendor has chosen to take the discount on the price of window, so returns are now their problem. That's the price they pay for the discounted price.
What this does is create a niche market for smaller vendors who aren't elligable for these large volume discount programs. They have to pay higher prices for each copy of Windows that they buy, but the aren't required to ship Windows on all the systems of a specific model. This also makes a market where companies like Penguin Computing can hopefully make money.
The big problem I heard about was getting laptops without Windows installed. It sounds like some vendors now have these available. If there's a profitable market, someone will sell it.
It's just my opinion, but the Windows Rebate Day thing was running high on a lot of I hate Microsoft FUD, rather than facts.
No they weren't perfect, but at least the client mostly worked once the inevitable network congestion problems were overcome.
I haven't palyed UO in over a year, but it still had some network congestion problems, and server crashes were at least a weekly occurrence when I played (not long after the Renaissance expansion came out).
I currently play AC. In highly populated areas of the game world LAG (to which I'm assuming network congestion is a contributing factor) is still a problem.
No online game is going to be perfect. There are always tradeoffs between performance and features. In it's current state AO doesn't seem to be really playable yet. They have what could be considered a beta system in opperation, but aren't ready for prime time. It also sounds like they've run into cash flow problems, and in the economy's current state they likly couldn't raise more cash without shipping the product as-is and trying to fix the bugs live. I hope they wake up and realize they can't charge people the monthly fee for the product they have right now, and let those who purchased the game play for free untill they get it going. Maybe the cash they get from the game sales will keep them going long enough to finish the product, and maybe they'll survive the well deserved black eye they get for releasing early. I'd like them to succeed, because I like the game concept, and would hate to see the efforts of the game developers that have poured their lives into this product go to waste. On the other hand, maybe the failure of AO would teach game producers a needed lesson about shipping a product this far before it's ready.
You have a good point, but a traditional console isn't very well suited to this kind of game. Patches in online games can provide more than bug fixes. They can provide new content, as well as new features. It also allows the developers to rebalance the game as it becomes necessary, and in a robust evolving environment, rebalancing is necessary.
Don't take this post as an endorsement of AO's actions. They were horribly unprepared to release their product. If what I read was correct, they didn't even have a secure web page set-up when they started to collect their customer's credit card info. A lot of their problems they have also blamed on network configuration issues. This points out that this type of game has a lot of issues to deal with that your typical console game doesn't, however it's the business they chose to get into, and they should be better prepared to deliver the product they have both promised and charged for. I personally considered buying AO and trying it out, but I became suspicious when I saw that they were charging around $50 or so for the game. Other games of this type retail for around $30. When a unproven company is promising the world, and is trying to get more cash up front, you're better off waiting until they start proving themselves.
Slashdotters all agreed on this on the previous article.
I don't think that you can make the general comment that all "slashdotters" agree on anything. There are a lot of people with some very strong and different opinions here, that's part of what makes this forum interesting.