They are admitting that WINE exists and they are actively looking at/targetting it. It has nothing to do with guilt. It's about Microsoft really not saying anything about WINE at all until now. Just think of it as the US government 'admitting' that Cuba exists. Since the US government doesn't recognize Cuba's government it's like there is 'nothing there' from a political stand-point.
One your first point, I guess we are already in a totalitarian state then, because this application of the law has been used before. This isn't about the right of the press to protect sources. This is about the LACK of the right to protect their sources in certain instances. I say that it would be akin to a murderer directly contacting a journalist and giving that journalist the details of his crimes. Should the journalist be able to hide behind confidentiality and protect the identity of the murderer? He definitely has something to gain. If the murderer is on a rampage, each time there is a killing that journalist can profit off of the details of the crime as obtained through the perpetrator. Should he be able to protect the criminal in order to 'inform the public'. Is that really in the 'interest of the public' to keep a known murderer at large?
This is the same deal. The journalist was PART of the act of breaking the NDA. In this example the journalist isn't even removed from the act of breaking the law. The journalist was PART of the act of breaking the law. Breaking of the NDA requires another party other than the person bound by the NDA. And as stated in the article in some places the trade secrets laws prohibit a 3rd party from disclosing information obtained from the person under the NDA. Because this in essence allows someone to skirt the NDA by just telling someone the information who can then tell that information to the world. Unless of course you think that releasing information that a company is profiting from is something that should be legal. If that is the case, then I should be able to get all the information about all the internal design documents, etc from Intel's R&D department. Most people would disagree with this. Because then Intel has no motivation to have a R&D department. If the information will just be stolen and used by someone else, what point is there to investing money in the venture? Now, in this case whether or not pictures of an upcoming product and/or knowledge of a product's existence is really a trade secret is debatable though.
On your second point, people should break laws that they deem are unnecessary as long as they are prepared to fight the legal battles to get those laws over-turned. The court system isn't just there to determine if someone broke a law or not. They are there to 'interpret the law' which also includes deciding on whether or not a law is valid and how exactly the law should be applied in practice.
On your third point, most of this is up to the court to decide and for the lawyers to argue about.
On your fourth point, as I said before, this is not about forcing journalists to release the names of sources all the time. Protection of a source's name is not an absolute, nor should it be. There are instances where it should not be a consideration, much like another post suggested with the lawyer-client and doctor-patient privileges. These privileges only extend so far. There are exceptions where they lose their validity. An example, is that a lawyer can't have privilege with his client if he is part of his client's crime.
When did anything say that someone is immediately assumed guilty? This is entirely up to the courts to decide. On the other hand, I don't think that you should assume that he's innocent just because you disagree with Apple's tactics.
There real question is how many of these files are needed by programs such as BSPlayer that use the Windows multimedia framework stuff to get their codecs? When you install the DivX/XviD/OGM/MKV/etc.DLLs, they are part of that framework. It's the interface that those players use, IIRC, to communicate with the codecs.
Just like there are some media players for OS X that use Apple's Quicktime framework, so they can only play stuff that you have installed Quicktime codecs for. The notable exceptions will be things like mplayer-win32 and VLC for Windows. I'm not sure about WinAMP and iTunes, but I think that WinAMP uses the framework too. If this is the case, then the 'Reduced Media Edition' is gutted to the point that WMP isn't the only thing that won't work on it.
Recently, Bill Gates has stated that Open Source Software has poor interoperability, and that Microsoft would be a better choice. Does this mean that Microsoft is willing to work towards interoperability such as documenting common Windows protocols like SMB or popular formats like.doc?
What benefits do you feel there are to leaving such popular file formats closed to the rest of the world except through MS software? Wouldn't it make more sense to work towards universal file formats for things suchs as word processing files and spreadsheets? With said open formats, people would be free to choose the software that they prefer, and the market would decide which software packages sink or swim. How would such a scenario not be better for the consumer than being locked into a certain software package to access their data?
And I saw that Target has a bunch of "Player's Choice/Greatest Hits" games for Xbox/GC/PS2 on sale this week for $14.77. Metroid Prime might be on that list too. (the paper didn't specifically say 'all', so they might just be crap games.)
Um, the field of view was limited for a reason. How do you think that Samus sees out of that suit? Notice how when you tilt your head up and down it gets slower the further you tilt from the 'neutral' position? That's what it would be like in that suit to move around. They were adding an element of realism to the first person perspective.
And before I get 'back to side-scrollers! other metroids didnt have realism!' replies, Metroid Fusion was the only metroid game where you could hang on the edge of cliffs. Why? Because Samus is without her bulky suit in that game.
Firefly is going to be a motion picture now. Called "Serenity" with possible sequels depending on how well it does.
Re:All they did was change over to the new site.
on
Paypal Grinds To A Halt
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've been trying to pay my tri-monthly hosting bill through PayPal since last night. Whenever it isn't timing out it gives me errors all the way through the process. Only once was I able to get all the way through the process, just to get an error message saying something about their credit card checking ability being down and that I could only pay through a PayPal credit card or something similar that didn't need to run the credit card number. It's far from a 'hiccup'. They have been having problems that I've been dealing with for the last 24 hours at least. I don't know how bad it was before that.
Slashdot Mirror
They are admitting that WINE exists and they are actively looking at/targetting it. It has nothing to do with guilt. It's about Microsoft really not saying anything about WINE at all until now. Just think of it as the US government 'admitting' that Cuba exists. Since the US government doesn't recognize Cuba's government it's like there is 'nothing there' from a political stand-point.
One your first point, I guess we are already in a totalitarian state then, because this application of the law has been used before. This isn't about the right of the press to protect sources. This is about the LACK of the right to protect their sources in certain instances. I say that it would be akin to a murderer directly contacting a journalist and giving that journalist the details of his crimes. Should the journalist be able to hide behind confidentiality and protect the identity of the murderer? He definitely has something to gain. If the murderer is on a rampage, each time there is a killing that journalist can profit off of the details of the crime as obtained through the perpetrator. Should he be able to protect the criminal in order to 'inform the public'. Is that really in the 'interest of the public' to keep a known murderer at large?
This is the same deal. The journalist was PART of the act of breaking the NDA. In this example the journalist isn't even removed from the act of breaking the law. The journalist was PART of the act of breaking the law. Breaking of the NDA requires another party other than the person bound by the NDA. And as stated in the article in some places the trade secrets laws prohibit a 3rd party from disclosing information obtained from the person under the NDA. Because this in essence allows someone to skirt the NDA by just telling someone the information who can then tell that information to the world. Unless of course you think that releasing information that a company is profiting from is something that should be legal. If that is the case, then I should be able to get all the information about all the internal design documents, etc from Intel's R&D department. Most people would disagree with this. Because then Intel has no motivation to have a R&D department. If the information will just be stolen and used by someone else, what point is there to investing money in the venture? Now, in this case whether or not pictures of an upcoming product and/or knowledge of a product's existence is really a trade secret is debatable though.
On your second point, people should break laws that they deem are unnecessary as long as they are prepared to fight the legal battles to get those laws over-turned. The court system isn't just there to determine if someone broke a law or not. They are there to 'interpret the law' which also includes deciding on whether or not a law is valid and how exactly the law should be applied in practice.
On your third point, most of this is up to the court to decide and for the lawyers to argue about.
On your fourth point, as I said before, this is not about forcing journalists to release the names of sources all the time. Protection of a source's name is not an absolute, nor should it be. There are instances where it should not be a consideration, much like another post suggested with the lawyer-client and doctor-patient privileges. These privileges only extend so far. There are exceptions where they lose their validity. An example, is that a lawyer can't have privilege with his client if he is part of his client's crime.
When did anything say that someone is immediately assumed guilty? This is entirely up to the courts to decide. On the other hand, I don't think that you should assume that he's innocent just because you disagree with Apple's tactics.
There real question is how many of these files are needed by programs such as BSPlayer that use the Windows multimedia framework stuff to get their codecs? When you install the DivX/XviD/OGM/MKV/etc .DLLs, they are part of that framework. It's the interface that those players use, IIRC, to communicate with the codecs.
Just like there are some media players for OS X that use Apple's Quicktime framework, so they can only play stuff that you have installed Quicktime codecs for. The notable exceptions will be things like mplayer-win32 and VLC for Windows. I'm not sure about WinAMP and iTunes, but I think that WinAMP uses the framework too. If this is the case, then the 'Reduced Media Edition' is gutted to the point that WMP isn't the only thing that won't work on it.
Anyone care to correct me?
Recently, Bill Gates has stated that Open Source Software has poor interoperability, and that Microsoft would be a better choice. Does this mean that Microsoft is willing to work towards interoperability such as documenting common Windows protocols like SMB or popular formats like .doc?
What benefits do you feel there are to leaving such popular file formats closed to the rest of the world except through MS software? Wouldn't it make more sense to work towards universal file formats for things suchs as word processing files and spreadsheets? With said open formats, people would be free to choose the software that they prefer, and the market would decide which software packages sink or swim. How would such a scenario not be better for the consumer than being locked into a certain software package to access their data?
And I saw that Target has a bunch of "Player's Choice/Greatest Hits" games for Xbox/GC/PS2 on sale this week for $14.77. Metroid Prime might be on that list too. (the paper didn't specifically say 'all', so they might just be crap games.)
Um, the field of view was limited for a reason. How do you think that Samus sees out of that suit? Notice how when you tilt your head up and down it gets slower the further you tilt from the 'neutral' position? That's what it would be like in that suit to move around. They were adding an element of realism to the first person perspective.
And before I get 'back to side-scrollers! other metroids didnt have realism!' replies, Metroid Fusion was the only metroid game where you could hang on the edge of cliffs. Why? Because Samus is without her bulky suit in that game.
Firefly is going to be a motion picture now. Called "Serenity" with possible sequels depending on how well it does.
I've been trying to pay my tri-monthly hosting bill through PayPal since last night. Whenever it isn't timing out it gives me errors all the way through the process. Only once was I able to get all the way through the process, just to get an error message saying something about their credit card checking ability being down and that I could only pay through a PayPal credit card or something similar that didn't need to run the credit card number. It's far from a 'hiccup'. They have been having problems that I've been dealing with for the last 24 hours at least. I don't know how bad it was before that.