You are operating under the assumption of guilty until proven innocent. Mitnick stole source code, which I most certainly do not condone, but he by no means attempted to commit acts of terrorism, death, or destruction, nor did he provide any probable cause to suspect him of such intentions. This is the entire basis of (pre-neo-con) American law. Law enforcement must always take a back seat to innate rights, or freedom loses, not criminals. When law enforcement supersedes innate rights, you have, by definition, a police state. If you don't believe me, take a look at what the Shrub is doing as president.
Having left high school in the past few years, I'd say you have no chance whatsoever of gaining the interest of those who would not already be interrested in the idea of any geekfest. A programming competition, robitics fest, whatever. The geeks will show up, the others will not. Simple as that. If a kid has reached high school with no ambition towards technology (or intellectual advancment of any kind), they will not be swayed by any advertising you might try. If they have developed for 15 years or more with no interest in the way the world around them works, they are lost to intelligencia everywhere. Only those with a previous interest in learning and self-betterment will attend. For those, set up any geeky event, and they will be there in force, whether it's robitics, programming, or physical sciences, they'll be there.
This problem is easily solved by common law homesteading principles. Basically, it's a combination of temporal and functional arguements. Who was there first? If the airstrip was installed and operational when you started launching missiles or rockets, then you are liable. If you were there first, they are liable. This applies to almost any situation. If someone owned and used property for a particular purpose, and you later buy adjoining property and your use interferes with their use (i.e. launching missiles into Boeing 747s), then you are liable and can be taken to court for damages. At least if we still lived in a nation where common law was allowed to form, and not one where government jumps in to regulate an as-yet non-existent industry. This is how zoning laws originate. If you're involved in high-polution industrial work, and someone sets up a house next door after you've already started producing polution, they can't really complain about it, as they've chosen to build in what has become, via commmon law, an industrial zone. Likewise, if someone has a house built, and someone else builds a dirty industrial complex next door, they must either compensate the house owner for dealing with the polution, or, if no agreement can be reached, cease and decist operations that infringe on the house owner's use of his property for residential purposes, such as polution, noise, etc. However, if the house is abandoned and left unowned (not necessarily unoccupied, as summer homes are much of the year), then it would be no problem for an industrial firm to begin operating on the adjoining property, or even demolish the house and use that property, if they could secure rights to it. This is, of course, all contingent on a lack of other neighboring houses with a temporal precedent. As I stated, this applies to virtually any property use dispute, and would solve many legal issues simply.
I agree completely. This is the one truly devestating aspect of DMCA, and the one most damaging to fair use. If I own a copy of (or licence to) any media, digital or otherwise, fair use dictates that I can do whatever I want with it FOR PERSONAL PURPOSES. That means, I can make a backup copy. If we're talking about a CD, I can copy it to a tape to listen to in my truck. If it's an NES game, I can copy the cart to my PC as a backup, or an alternate method of using media I already own. I can also have someone else provide the backup if I am unable to make it. Fair use does NOT mean that I can: copy a game to give to a friend, use it for any public presentation, commercial or otherwise. Note that the prohibition of public performances doesn't mean you're prohibited from watching a movie with a group of friends, but you can't simply say "I'm showing copyrighted movies, anyone who wants to come see it is free to do so!" Watching with a group of friends constitutes a private showing, whereas letting anyone who wants to to show up is considered a public showing, and therefore illegal. Note: IANAL. If an actual lawyer believes my statements to be incorrect, feel free to contradict me. I always welcome correction.
At the risk of getting torched, I feel I should point out what seems to be a very common misconception regarding copyright and patent law./.ers seem to think that patents are designed to allow the great owner of all that is, society, to oh-so-generously allow someone to make a profit of a commodity owned by society collectively, namely the product of someone's productive ability and rational mind. In reality, it is intended to protect an inventor's ownership of their creations for a period of time, which ensures their ability to make a good profit from a good product, thereby encouraging people and companies to patent them, which in turn ensures that the patent will eventually expire and they will eventually be considered public domain, rather than have the inventor simply keep their trade secrets to themselves. Patent law is basically a way of ensuring that IP eventually works its way into the public domain. Without patents and copyrights, many trade secrets would remain such forever, and would never enter the public domain. Sure, you can reverse engineer the functionality of a processor, but can you duplicate the production process? If a company didn't patent its production process, it would simply remain their trade secret, and would never enter public domain (unless an unscrupulous employee stole it).
Actually, many stores do mod-chip installations, but don't sell pirated games. In fact, I was at my local Game Force about a year ago, and some stupid kid was in there asking about getting his PS2 modded, and he asked the clerk some question about playing pirated games. Didn't even have the sense to say "backup". He was booted out, banned, and quick! I'm guessing this is a pretty isolated incident because, as others have mentioned, you would have to be an idiot to do this in a game store, and even more of an idiot to advertise the fact.
Now that we don't hear any more about the INDUCE act (by everyone's favorite fascist geriatric), we don't have to worry about ALL mod chip installs being illegal, as they do have very significant applications aside from piracy. The Betamax decision essentially ruled that a device must lack any significant application other than piracy to be considered an illegal tool of infringement.
Of course someone should be prosecuted for putting a larger harddrive into their X-Box! If we let people get away with stuff like that, next thing you know they'll be trying to do crazy stuff like put a turbocharger in their cars, or even (god forbid) start adding lights and fans to their computer cases. Who knows, they might even try to install an OS of their own choosing!
What I would like to see studied and addressed is an issue that I haven't seen anyone touch as of yet. Namely, that we know the global climate has changed dramatically and rapidly in the past, and how do we know that that is not what is occuring now. We've had ice ages where the glaciers extended down into what is now the continental US. We've also had extemely warm periods, such as when a good portion of the US was under a sea. How do we know that we're not simply entering another hotter period in our planet's history? If anyone knows of a study that has addressed this, please post information about it, as I would be very interrested to read it.
Here's a 'novel' idea: give your awful little urchins a book. Then give them some instruction as to the meaining of the squiggly symbols contained therein. Then grow jealous as they grow up with grossly superior intellects.
Has anyone else delved very deep into the website for this psychotic group? They're even bitching about shows on premium networks like HBO. Granted, I think "Sex and the City" sucks, but you know what I do about it? I don't watch it! These guys rant about how American families are "forced" to pay for what they consider smut, because the cable companies put it in programming packages whether they like it or not (as justification for the FCC forcing a la carte on the companies). Again, a suggestion: if you really find cable to be that offensive, don't subscribe. If you find broadcast TV to be offensive (other than the obvious fact that it belittles the intelligence of even the family dog to watch most of it. Fox, I'm looking at you), then you have a bright future in your local convent/monastery (unless you find the habit a bit too sexy)...
This is why patents expire. Gradually, all trade secrets become part of the sum total of human knowledge. If scientists want to publish all their findings freely, that is their choice. Let's not forget that those same scientists are the ones that have to basically go begging for reasearch funding. The age of trade secrets has accelerated the development of technology and new ideas by ensuring a profit for those who develop marketable technology, and since all that will eventually become public domain, it is advantageous in all respects.
It seems that many people keep pointing to the inherent superiority of OSS by citing the failings of Microsoft products. In fact, MS products are the only ones I have seen cited to make this point. Microsoft is not, and never has been, a company that wrote stable, efficient code. Microsoft is a skilled marketing company with semi-skilled programmers. Of course their products are lackluster. They're not trying to produce the most stable products, they're trying to produce products that are easy to use, as most users are clueless, and they're trying to maintain brand recognition. They do this very well. Writing stable code is another matter.
However, we are still only talking about one company, a company who, as almost everyone here acknowledges, writes crappy code. So holding them up as the representative of the entire closed-source industry is somewhat misleading. Dell is one of the biggest producers of PCs, but they certainly don't represent the quality of the machines my company produces. So let's abandon the misleading collectivized closed-source arguments, and look at this objectively. MS is not representative of the quality of all closed-source products.
I'm rather new to the world of open source, but I have a couple of initial impressions, and this seems like the right time/place to see if they are right. Let me start off by saying I do favor open source, but I also believe that one should ALWAYS have the option of keeping their code proprietary. I've been reading the various Open Source licences, and if I understand them correctly, I much prefer the BSD-style licence to the GPL. If I am understanding it correctly, if code is GPL'd, and I want to use it even partially as the basis for a derivative work, no matter how trivial the GPL'd code, I would have to release all my code under the GPL, which would prevent me from having any proprietary code. With BSD (again, if I understand this correctly) licencing, I can keep my code proprietary, so long as I acknowledge the author of the open source code I used. Because of this, the GPL severely inhibits the ability to keep proprietary code, and I don't think a company can produce a long-term sustainable business model based soley on OSS.
I know that last sentence has some of you reaching for your flamethrowers and loading up the napalm, but wait! If a business model is based soley on OSS, then the only money they can really make is money from service and support. The product itself can always be obtained free of charge, so someone would only pay for it if they get things like printed manuals, tech support, or training. With Linux distributors, this is currently working well. But what happens if Linux becomes a very common OS? There would gradually be more and more people with a working knowledge of Linux, so its use would require less training and there would be less of a demand for tech support. Those businesses relying exclusively on profits from support, without having a proprietary codebase that brings them a profit, would start to see their business falter. Because of this, I believe that a sustainable business model needs to incorporate OSS into the proprietary model. This would enable companies to have the profit of their proprietary programs, while still supporting OSS (and gaining from its use, I don't believe in giving something for nothing). The circumstances where this presents problems are obvious: a little company called Microsoft. Why? Because the best candidate for an Open Source project is a complete operating system. And what brings most of MS's profit? Their operating system. For Microsoft to begin supporting OSS would destroy their existing business. The winners of the OSS/Proprietary integration would be those companies producing highly specialized software. As the parent poster pointed out, some code is far from trivial to produce. Such programs can be sold at substantial profit, and if it is unlikely that there are many people in the OSS community to produce an OSS equivalent, it only makes sense to keep such code proprietary to profit from it. At the same time, said company could continue to contribute to such Open Source projects as they find useful and would like to see developed further. In this situation, everyone wins: OSS is advanced, while proprietary code is maintained.
This raises another good point. I am a CS student, and am currently attending a local community college (limited funds, bad credit, no cosigner, out-of-state tuition, so don't laugh) to get the necessary credits and prerequisites to attend DigiPen. However, I'd like to get an entry-level programming job in the meantime, and, as has been pointed out, experience will be the big factor here. I was unfortunate enough to attend high school in a podunkt village in Nebraska, and had no CS classes to speak of (the most technical was AutoCAD), and so I had to teach myself Java, C, and currently assembler, but I've only worked on small personal projects, the most complicated of which is a single player version of the card game spades, with 3D OpenGL graphics. So I don't really have much in the way of experience to put down on my resume. The question then becomes, if experience is more important than a degree, how do you get your foot in the door? You need a job to get experience, and experience to get the job. Catch 22. How have slashdoters overcome this problem?
My big problem with CSI is that it continues to promote the gross misconception that a ballistics test can acertain whether or not a gun was used to fire a particular bullet. This is in fact not possible. You see, every time a bullet is fired through a gun, it passes through the barrel, and the rifling (the grooves in the barrel that make the bullet spin) leave striations on the bullet. However, at the same time, the bullet is producing tremendous friction on the barrel, altering the riflings slightly. Therefore, any subsequent rounds fired will have slightly different striations. So ballistics tests can determine that a gun did NOT fire a bullet (i.e., wrong number of striations (some guns have 4 riflings, some have 5, etc), or totally inconsistent paterns), or that a gun COULD have fired a bullet, but you can never say with certainty that it was THE gun.
There's actually a way to tell them all apart, but most people don't know about it. See, if you look really close at your disc, you should see some markings. Some will say "CD", some will say "DVD", and some will have a variant of this, like "CDRW" or "DVD-R". Hopefully, this information will be of service to you.
This story appeared recently here on slashdot about a protective CD coating that could withstand a wire scrubber. Assuming the protective coating doesn't absorb UV or anything like that, it sounds like the perfect solution.
I've got a nice setup for this sort of thing. I've got a Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder, and an audigy 2 Platinum. My PS2 goes into my vid card's RCA inputs, my SNES goes into my VCR's coax in, my VCR's coax out goes into the RF switch from my Saturn, and I use a combiner to get my cable and my Saturn's coax out into my AIW card. I then output everything to my TV via composite video out, and use my surround sound system for all audio from all devices. By setting the video card's TV out as a second desktop, I can output anything I want to the TV. If I can play it back on my computer, I can play it on the TV. I use this for watching videos, playing some games (anything with text looks terrible on the TV screen, unfortunately), etc.
And perhaps you should stop reading them selectively. Note the phrase "exclusive right". Regardless of how the timeframe is limited, while still protected by copyright or patent law, you have an EXCLUSIVE right to your work. Which means, by definition, that for that time you own it. Which means, by definition, that for that time makes it your property. Which means, again, by definition, that unauthorized copying is theft. How that is not obvious to you, I do not know. It's right there in black and white in your own quote from the constitution. Look up the word "Exclusive". It's called a dictionary. You should read it before you start voicing public opinions based on selective reading. You'll look smarter... 8-)
The point of COPYRIGHT is that WE ALL "OWN" IT, and we are letting the creators "borrow it back from the common pool of culture"
Wow, now THAT'S a warped sentiment. You must love the idea of socialism. There is no communal ownership of the contents of my brain. Said communal ownership does not come into being merely because I put those thoughts down on paper. The thoughts are still my own, I am not "borrowing" them from a wonderfully benevolent society. The fact that I record a manifestation of my thoughts does not make them any less mine. If I sell someone a liscence to use that manifestation for PRIVATE and PERSONAL use, I am doing just that. Personal use means that the original purchaser may use said product themselves, not that they can duplicate and distribute my INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (aka COPYRIGHTED, and yes, the term copyright means exactly what it sounds like, an exclusive right to copy) to whomsoever they choose. Further, private means that you may not exhibit it publicly. A very good case can be made that file "sharing" of copyrighted works constitutes an infringing, non-private exhibition of the copyrighted work. In order to do that, my work would have to be in the PUBLIC domain. It is not in the public domain by virtue of your decision to illegaly distribute it. This is the entire reason we have copyrights, to protect the author of a work from THEFT.
I think just about everyone here understands that it is illegal to "share" copyrighted movies, music, etc without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, the issue that needs to be addressed is the MORALITY of these actions. Morality does not necessarily define legality. There are lots of people going around saying "Well, these companies are rich, and they rip off artists, and they won't miss it." They do NOT rip off artists, because the artists sign contracts agreeing to the terms they get. As to the "they're rich, won't miss it" argument, well I'm sure there's a bum you drive past on your way to work who thinks the same thing about YOUR money and YOUR posessions. Compared to him, you are filthy stinking wealthy. Does that give him some kind of claim to your property? No? Then you have no claim to the property of these companies, so stop trying to justify your theft. At least a guy who robs a convenience store doesn't pretend he's not doing anything wrong. If you're going to rob these companies, at least have the balls to come right out and admit that you're a theif and a criminal, and stop hiding behind the excuse of being the little guy.
Slashdot Mirror
You are operating under the assumption of guilty until proven innocent. Mitnick stole source code, which I most certainly do not condone, but he by no means attempted to commit acts of terrorism, death, or destruction, nor did he provide any probable cause to suspect him of such intentions. This is the entire basis of (pre-neo-con) American law. Law enforcement must always take a back seat to innate rights, or freedom loses, not criminals. When law enforcement supersedes innate rights, you have, by definition, a police state. If you don't believe me, take a look at what the Shrub is doing as president.
Having left high school in the past few years, I'd say you have no chance whatsoever of gaining the interest of those who would not already be interrested in the idea of any geekfest. A programming competition, robitics fest, whatever. The geeks will show up, the others will not. Simple as that. If a kid has reached high school with no ambition towards technology (or intellectual advancment of any kind), they will not be swayed by any advertising you might try. If they have developed for 15 years or more with no interest in the way the world around them works, they are lost to intelligencia everywhere. Only those with a previous interest in learning and self-betterment will attend. For those, set up any geeky event, and they will be there in force, whether it's robitics, programming, or physical sciences, they'll be there.
Wow, looks like I've finally found someone on whom I can unload that beachfront property in Wyoming...
while(eggs != done) { fry(&eggs) }
This problem is easily solved by common law homesteading principles. Basically, it's a combination of temporal and functional arguements. Who was there first? If the airstrip was installed and operational when you started launching missiles or rockets, then you are liable. If you were there first, they are liable. This applies to almost any situation. If someone owned and used property for a particular purpose, and you later buy adjoining property and your use interferes with their use (i.e. launching missiles into Boeing 747s), then you are liable and can be taken to court for damages. At least if we still lived in a nation where common law was allowed to form, and not one where government jumps in to regulate an as-yet non-existent industry. This is how zoning laws originate. If you're involved in high-polution industrial work, and someone sets up a house next door after you've already started producing polution, they can't really complain about it, as they've chosen to build in what has become, via commmon law, an industrial zone. Likewise, if someone has a house built, and someone else builds a dirty industrial complex next door, they must either compensate the house owner for dealing with the polution, or, if no agreement can be reached, cease and decist operations that infringe on the house owner's use of his property for residential purposes, such as polution, noise, etc. However, if the house is abandoned and left unowned (not necessarily unoccupied, as summer homes are much of the year), then it would be no problem for an industrial firm to begin operating on the adjoining property, or even demolish the house and use that property, if they could secure rights to it. This is, of course, all contingent on a lack of other neighboring houses with a temporal precedent. As I stated, this applies to virtually any property use dispute, and would solve many legal issues simply.
I agree completely. This is the one truly devestating aspect of DMCA, and the one most damaging to fair use. If I own a copy of (or licence to) any media, digital or otherwise, fair use dictates that I can do whatever I want with it FOR PERSONAL PURPOSES. That means, I can make a backup copy. If we're talking about a CD, I can copy it to a tape to listen to in my truck. If it's an NES game, I can copy the cart to my PC as a backup, or an alternate method of using media I already own. I can also have someone else provide the backup if I am unable to make it. Fair use does NOT mean that I can: copy a game to give to a friend, use it for any public presentation, commercial or otherwise. Note that the prohibition of public performances doesn't mean you're prohibited from watching a movie with a group of friends, but you can't simply say "I'm showing copyrighted movies, anyone who wants to come see it is free to do so!" Watching with a group of friends constitutes a private showing, whereas letting anyone who wants to to show up is considered a public showing, and therefore illegal. Note: IANAL. If an actual lawyer believes my statements to be incorrect, feel free to contradict me. I always welcome correction.
At the risk of getting torched, I feel I should point out what seems to be a very common misconception regarding copyright and patent law. /.ers seem to think that patents are designed to allow the great owner of all that is, society, to oh-so-generously allow someone to make a profit of a commodity owned by society collectively, namely the product of someone's productive ability and rational mind. In reality, it is intended to protect an inventor's ownership of their creations for a period of time, which ensures their ability to make a good profit from a good product, thereby encouraging people and companies to patent them, which in turn ensures that the patent will eventually expire and they will eventually be considered public domain, rather than have the inventor simply keep their trade secrets to themselves. Patent law is basically a way of ensuring that IP eventually works its way into the public domain. Without patents and copyrights, many trade secrets would remain such forever, and would never enter the public domain. Sure, you can reverse engineer the functionality of a processor, but can you duplicate the production process? If a company didn't patent its production process, it would simply remain their trade secret, and would never enter public domain (unless an unscrupulous employee stole it).
Actually, many stores do mod-chip installations, but don't sell pirated games. In fact, I was at my local Game Force about a year ago, and some stupid kid was in there asking about getting his PS2 modded, and he asked the clerk some question about playing pirated games. Didn't even have the sense to say "backup". He was booted out, banned, and quick! I'm guessing this is a pretty isolated incident because, as others have mentioned, you would have to be an idiot to do this in a game store, and even more of an idiot to advertise the fact.
Now that we don't hear any more about the INDUCE act (by everyone's favorite fascist geriatric), we don't have to worry about ALL mod chip installs being illegal, as they do have very significant applications aside from piracy. The Betamax decision essentially ruled that a device must lack any significant application other than piracy to be considered an illegal tool of infringement.
Of course someone should be prosecuted for putting a larger harddrive into their X-Box! If we let people get away with stuff like that, next thing you know they'll be trying to do crazy stuff like put a turbocharger in their cars, or even (god forbid) start adding lights and fans to their computer cases. Who knows, they might even try to install an OS of their own choosing!
What I would like to see studied and addressed is an issue that I haven't seen anyone touch as of yet. Namely, that we know the global climate has changed dramatically and rapidly in the past, and how do we know that that is not what is occuring now. We've had ice ages where the glaciers extended down into what is now the continental US. We've also had extemely warm periods, such as when a good portion of the US was under a sea. How do we know that we're not simply entering another hotter period in our planet's history? If anyone knows of a study that has addressed this, please post information about it, as I would be very interrested to read it.
What color marble do we use for "No One for President"?
Here's a 'novel' idea: give your awful little urchins a book. Then give them some instruction as to the meaining of the squiggly symbols contained therein. Then grow jealous as they grow up with grossly superior intellects.
Has anyone else delved very deep into the website for this psychotic group? They're even bitching about shows on premium networks like HBO. Granted, I think "Sex and the City" sucks, but you know what I do about it? I don't watch it! These guys rant about how American families are "forced" to pay for what they consider smut, because the cable companies put it in programming packages whether they like it or not (as justification for the FCC forcing a la carte on the companies). Again, a suggestion: if you really find cable to be that offensive, don't subscribe. If you find broadcast TV to be offensive (other than the obvious fact that it belittles the intelligence of even the family dog to watch most of it. Fox, I'm looking at you), then you have a bright future in your local convent/monastery (unless you find the habit a bit too sexy)...
This is why patents expire. Gradually, all trade secrets become part of the sum total of human knowledge. If scientists want to publish all their findings freely, that is their choice. Let's not forget that those same scientists are the ones that have to basically go begging for reasearch funding. The age of trade secrets has accelerated the development of technology and new ideas by ensuring a profit for those who develop marketable technology, and since all that will eventually become public domain, it is advantageous in all respects.
It seems that many people keep pointing to the inherent superiority of OSS by citing the failings of Microsoft products. In fact, MS products are the only ones I have seen cited to make this point. Microsoft is not, and never has been, a company that wrote stable, efficient code. Microsoft is a skilled marketing company with semi-skilled programmers. Of course their products are lackluster. They're not trying to produce the most stable products, they're trying to produce products that are easy to use, as most users are clueless, and they're trying to maintain brand recognition. They do this very well. Writing stable code is another matter.
However, we are still only talking about one company, a company who, as almost everyone here acknowledges, writes crappy code. So holding them up as the representative of the entire closed-source industry is somewhat misleading. Dell is one of the biggest producers of PCs, but they certainly don't represent the quality of the machines my company produces. So let's abandon the misleading collectivized closed-source arguments, and look at this objectively. MS is not representative of the quality of all closed-source products.
I'm rather new to the world of open source, but I have a couple of initial impressions, and this seems like the right time/place to see if they are right. Let me start off by saying I do favor open source, but I also believe that one should ALWAYS have the option of keeping their code proprietary. I've been reading the various Open Source licences, and if I understand them correctly, I much prefer the BSD-style licence to the GPL. If I am understanding it correctly, if code is GPL'd, and I want to use it even partially as the basis for a derivative work, no matter how trivial the GPL'd code, I would have to release all my code under the GPL, which would prevent me from having any proprietary code. With BSD (again, if I understand this correctly) licencing, I can keep my code proprietary, so long as I acknowledge the author of the open source code I used. Because of this, the GPL severely inhibits the ability to keep proprietary code, and I don't think a company can produce a long-term sustainable business model based soley on OSS.
I know that last sentence has some of you reaching for your flamethrowers and loading up the napalm, but wait! If a business model is based soley on OSS, then the only money they can really make is money from service and support. The product itself can always be obtained free of charge, so someone would only pay for it if they get things like printed manuals, tech support, or training. With Linux distributors, this is currently working well. But what happens if Linux becomes a very common OS? There would gradually be more and more people with a working knowledge of Linux, so its use would require less training and there would be less of a demand for tech support. Those businesses relying exclusively on profits from support, without having a proprietary codebase that brings them a profit, would start to see their business falter. Because of this, I believe that a sustainable business model needs to incorporate OSS into the proprietary model. This would enable companies to have the profit of their proprietary programs, while still supporting OSS (and gaining from its use, I don't believe in giving something for nothing). The circumstances where this presents problems are obvious: a little company called Microsoft. Why? Because the best candidate for an Open Source project is a complete operating system. And what brings most of MS's profit? Their operating system. For Microsoft to begin supporting OSS would destroy their existing business. The winners of the OSS/Proprietary integration would be those companies producing highly specialized software. As the parent poster pointed out, some code is far from trivial to produce. Such programs can be sold at substantial profit, and if it is unlikely that there are many people in the OSS community to produce an OSS equivalent, it only makes sense to keep such code proprietary to profit from it. At the same time, said company could continue to contribute to such Open Source projects as they find useful and would like to see developed further. In this situation, everyone wins: OSS is advanced, while proprietary code is maintained.
This raises another good point. I am a CS student, and am currently attending a local community college (limited funds, bad credit, no cosigner, out-of-state tuition, so don't laugh) to get the necessary credits and prerequisites to attend DigiPen. However, I'd like to get an entry-level programming job in the meantime, and, as has been pointed out, experience will be the big factor here. I was unfortunate enough to attend high school in a podunkt village in Nebraska, and had no CS classes to speak of (the most technical was AutoCAD), and so I had to teach myself Java, C, and currently assembler, but I've only worked on small personal projects, the most complicated of which is a single player version of the card game spades, with 3D OpenGL graphics. So I don't really have much in the way of experience to put down on my resume. The question then becomes, if experience is more important than a degree, how do you get your foot in the door? You need a job to get experience, and experience to get the job. Catch 22. How have slashdoters overcome this problem?
My big problem with CSI is that it continues to promote the gross misconception that a ballistics test can acertain whether or not a gun was used to fire a particular bullet. This is in fact not possible. You see, every time a bullet is fired through a gun, it passes through the barrel, and the rifling (the grooves in the barrel that make the bullet spin) leave striations on the bullet. However, at the same time, the bullet is producing tremendous friction on the barrel, altering the riflings slightly. Therefore, any subsequent rounds fired will have slightly different striations. So ballistics tests can determine that a gun did NOT fire a bullet (i.e., wrong number of striations (some guns have 4 riflings, some have 5, etc), or totally inconsistent paterns), or that a gun COULD have fired a bullet, but you can never say with certainty that it was THE gun.
Thank god for pot!
There's actually a way to tell them all apart, but most people don't know about it. See, if you look really close at your disc, you should see some markings. Some will say "CD", some will say "DVD", and some will have a variant of this, like "CDRW" or "DVD-R". Hopefully, this information will be of service to you.
This story appeared recently here on slashdot about a protective CD coating that could withstand a wire scrubber. Assuming the protective coating doesn't absorb UV or anything like that, it sounds like the perfect solution.
I've got a nice setup for this sort of thing. I've got a Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder, and an audigy 2 Platinum. My PS2 goes into my vid card's RCA inputs, my SNES goes into my VCR's coax in, my VCR's coax out goes into the RF switch from my Saturn, and I use a combiner to get my cable and my Saturn's coax out into my AIW card. I then output everything to my TV via composite video out, and use my surround sound system for all audio from all devices. By setting the video card's TV out as a second desktop, I can output anything I want to the TV. If I can play it back on my computer, I can play it on the TV. I use this for watching videos, playing some games (anything with text looks terrible on the TV screen, unfortunately), etc.
And perhaps you should stop reading them selectively. Note the phrase "exclusive right". Regardless of how the timeframe is limited, while still protected by copyright or patent law, you have an EXCLUSIVE right to your work. Which means, by definition, that for that time you own it. Which means, by definition, that for that time makes it your property. Which means, again, by definition, that unauthorized copying is theft. How that is not obvious to you, I do not know. It's right there in black and white in your own quote from the constitution. Look up the word "Exclusive". It's called a dictionary. You should read it before you start voicing public opinions based on selective reading. You'll look smarter... 8-)
The point of COPYRIGHT is that WE ALL "OWN" IT, and we are letting the creators "borrow it back from the common pool of culture"
Wow, now THAT'S a warped sentiment. You must love the idea of socialism. There is no communal ownership of the contents of my brain. Said communal ownership does not come into being merely because I put those thoughts down on paper. The thoughts are still my own, I am not "borrowing" them from a wonderfully benevolent society. The fact that I record a manifestation of my thoughts does not make them any less mine. If I sell someone a liscence to use that manifestation for PRIVATE and PERSONAL use, I am doing just that. Personal use means that the original purchaser may use said product themselves, not that they can duplicate and distribute my INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (aka COPYRIGHTED, and yes, the term copyright means exactly what it sounds like, an exclusive right to copy) to whomsoever they choose. Further, private means that you may not exhibit it publicly. A very good case can be made that file "sharing" of copyrighted works constitutes an infringing, non-private exhibition of the copyrighted work. In order to do that, my work would have to be in the PUBLIC domain. It is not in the public domain by virtue of your decision to illegaly distribute it. This is the entire reason we have copyrights, to protect the author of a work from THEFT.
I think just about everyone here understands that it is illegal to "share" copyrighted movies, music, etc without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, the issue that needs to be addressed is the MORALITY of these actions. Morality does not necessarily define legality. There are lots of people going around saying "Well, these companies are rich, and they rip off artists, and they won't miss it." They do NOT rip off artists, because the artists sign contracts agreeing to the terms they get. As to the "they're rich, won't miss it" argument, well I'm sure there's a bum you drive past on your way to work who thinks the same thing about YOUR money and YOUR posessions. Compared to him, you are filthy stinking wealthy. Does that give him some kind of claim to your property? No? Then you have no claim to the property of these companies, so stop trying to justify your theft. At least a guy who robs a convenience store doesn't pretend he's not doing anything wrong. If you're going to rob these companies, at least have the balls to come right out and admit that you're a theif and a criminal, and stop hiding behind the excuse of being the little guy.