The danish minister of culture also considers taxing CD recorders. The decision will be made after she finds out how much money the blank CD tax will give when it starts in april 2001.
I just made an inquiry to the danish organization, that distributes the CD tax money, http://www.copydan.dk/, to hear if I could get my part of the money.
The money only goes to artists, not to software producers, because copying software is illegal, whereas copying music and films is legal for private purposes (!!!!).
I also asked if I could get some money if I had publicised some art on the internet (which I have - photographs - see http://www.cat-photo.com/), and the answer was no again (!). This time, the answer was, that the law that regulates this is from 1992, and does not cover materials published on the internet.
I own a company that publishes software inside the European Union. Who do I contact to get my share of the revenue generated from this tax? Do I have to speak french?;-)
Now the big question is: Do you have to be certified by the authorities if you want to import CDs from a neighboring EU country? Or will it be like wine and beer: You may only take the amount of CDs over the border, that you are going to use yourself. And when your sailship goes from Amsterdam to Paris, your ship might be stopped by a boat patrol, asking if you bring any wine, cigarettes, beer or blank CDs.
I know an ISP that asked took an employees company car, and sent him home at once. His workplace was 200km from the main office where he was left without his car, so he had to take public transportation home.
The only problem with that is, that it is illegal acc. to danish law. We need at least 90 days written warning, or we can sue their a.o. And since the car was part of his contract (very usual over here - cars are $25.000 and up), they cannot take his car with less than 90 days notice either...
The whole industry works towards less hardware to do the same job all the time. Solving a software problem by adding hardware is not the way to go, especially not when ReiserFS etc. are already present.
I still hear people in the industry saying "We don't believe in Linux, because one man cannot replace Microsoft". They are so Microsoft focused that they have no clue what Linux is all about.
In fact, the word "Linux" is very much used to describe open-source software, outside the open-source community. Therefore, a GPL'ed BeOS system would be a "Linux" system...
It will take a couple of years before end-users find out how things work, and we can name it GNU instead of Linux. My grandmother will probably never find out. She knows too well, that Linux is Windows without her favorite bridge game.
EULAs in games are in english, and since english cannot be used for an EULA in Denmark, and because EULAs that are only visible after you left the store aren't valid here anyway, I simply don't care.
The danish government websites are very restricted in how they may be designed. Generally, there are two important requirements often overlooked by commercial websites:
1) Must be accessible by browsers for handicapped users.
2) Documents must use a subset of HTML with specific meta tags in order to be compatible, searchable etc.
Languages have always been influenced by other languages. Before the danes invaded England, the language was celtic. Then the danes came with some new words. The following list gives a hint - the left word is english, the right word is the danish one.
sister - søster
brother - broder (d is pronunciated like th)
mother - moder
father - fader
house - hus
tree - trae
grass - gras
church - kirke (pronounced a little like church in some parts of Denmark)
yule - jul
take - tage
go - gaa
root - rod
stone - sten
I could go on... but I can tell you that it is easy for Danes to learn English. What would the U.S. be without the danish language?
But there are also examples of other recent influence of languages on danish. Examples:
I'm from Denmark and have lived in several european countries. I would like to describe the following:
Germany: Works pretty much like USA - lots of lawyers, federal government, high technology, but german language knowledge is a must, if you want to be someone at the workplace.
Netherlands: Very U.S. centric. Probably one of the easiest places for an american to settle down and make good business.
Denmark: High taxes (>60%) - beware!:-) Most americans I know that settled down here, stayed for more than 10 years or are still staying. As a dane, I'm not able to judge Denmark, but I can give phone numbers to americans living here.
Sweden, Norway: Many people believe that scandinavians are just scandinavians. But I cannot tell you anything useful about those two countries, except that the Swedes have extremely good food at their workplaces...
In scandinavia, though, it is important to understand the working culture here. We are very non-competitive - we don't compete with each other in the work place, only with other companies. The boss doesn't want to hear what you do, unless you got problems, and official ways of command are mostly non-existent. You can read much of this in american teaching books on organizational behaviour - scandinavia is often mentioned specifically.
I have worked with americans over here, and know many people who have worked with americans, and there is a culture clash, that has to be resolved. It usually works out fine.
The Palm handheld device is extremely popular, but when you look at how the calendar works, it seems very simple. Maybe that's what people want: A calendar system they can understand.
The way Palm compresses a day view when the Windows is little is very good.
Personally, when I have added some recurring appointments in Outlook, removed some of them again etc., then I would very much like to have an overview of which appointments that were removed...
If you categorize the calendar entries, it would be nice if one could print a calendar with only specific categories on it.
A common calendar for the company, that you can blend directly into your own calendar would be extremely good. I hate to switch to multi-user view to find out, that there is a company wide meeting the same day I made an appointment.
It should be easy to add one or more unattended accounts for resource allocation, like meeting rooms, and there should be a log for that account, showing who adds and who deletes which allocations.
I have asked Yahoo, if I could pay them some money in order to get rid of the advertisements in all the e-mails I send and in order to get my correct e-mail address as sender e-mail address instead of the Yahoo! e-mail address.
I am willing to pay $1000 a year for that. I really mean it. Yahoo! does my attachment virus scanning, receives all my faxes via a free U.S. fax number, stores my e-mail so I can access it worldwide, manages spam e-mail and I have never been without e-mail since I started to use Yahoo! e-mail.
I cannot get the same service level anywhere else, but because I use it for business, the advertisements are a real problem.
The obvious alternative for Yahoo! mail is:
- Set up a Microsoft Exchange server
- Get a fixed internet access
- Set up a web-interface for the Exchange server
- Set up a firewall
- Hire somebody to administer the Exchange server
- Hire somebody to keep the firewall up-to-date
- Set up virus scanning software and keep it up-to-date
- Get some fax software, that can put the faxes into Exchange server.
Gaming consoles deliver what Windows doesn't: It works... You insert a DVD, turn in on and it runs.
We should expect gaming consoles to become thin clients too, with browsers, Java etc. Needs more memory, of course, but that's where we are going. The PC is dead.
The TV will surf, the fridge will have a screen, the watch on the wall will display information, your phone will surf, your palm computer will rule your world, and maybe you will also have an archaic PC.
This is a danish bank, so it is probably not as useful for you in the U.S., but the URL is:
http://www.jyskenetbank.dk/
They have stated the client software requirements as:
SSL 3.0
Java 1.0.2
Cookies
Frames
There are no requirements for OS or browser. Netscape/Linux works fine. I haven't tried any newer version of Konqueror or Opera, but if the above conditions are met, it should work.
Actually, I switched to this bank because of their homebanking solution...
In Europe, a law prohibits a TV channel to own the rights to send a sport event that has national interest, if it doesn't send the event to most of the nation for free.
The Olympic games is a place, where every nation sends its best athletes. Nobody else than the nations themselves should be able to decide about information flow from the Olympics.
I don't thing that the Olympic games should be a big commercial event. It should be a free and peaceful event, protected by law against intellectual property misuse, where the nations put the money into it they can, and where there are no money prizes. There are lots of commercial events around - the Olympic Games will end up as "just a commercial event" if they don't change to the better.
Microsoft's strategy is not to make a faulty Windows installation work by fixing it, you just reinstall everything and get your data back from the backup. It's the same way with Windows ME - and since most DOS games run within a DOS session under Windows, nobody needs this DOS mode except nerds at home...
By the way: Has anyone examined the Windows ME CD? Maybe Microsoft included a bootdisk as supplement, just as Microsoft Fax was a supplement to Windows 98...
There are lots of problems with IP law, which is well known, so the interesting part is the list of alternatives. Most alternatives are public funded (scientists on universities etc.). I hope we all want free competition, and since a company does not exist without some kind of ownership and something to own, a company based on IP wouldn't exist in the world described by the article.
Since the economic growth is right now in companies focusing on IP value, we would lose a lot of wealth in short term. In longer term, this real IP value requires organizations to make it work - the question is, whether these organisations would exist without some private companies showing the path...
Maybe it would work in software, because investments are pretty low, but how about more expensive technologies like IBM's harddisk technology? How would that be with no IP rights? OK - with Linux you don't need that big harddisks, but I am happy that I have a bigger harddisk than my original 30MB Seagate ST238R...
I believe that it would be a giant failure to make a such extreme experiment as to remove IP. The communists had nice thoughts about a land called utopia, and their experients has cost so many million people their lives - I guess removing IP could do the same.
C++ is a standard, and that is the main reason why it is used to widely. The fact, that C++ means high development costs often don't matter, because development costs are often just a small part of the total expenses in a company.
One of the big differences between Delphi's Object-Pascal today and C++, is that Delphi's pascal language has evolved over time, becoming better and better. Delphi (and Free Pascal) is to old Pascal what Microsofts new C# is to C++.
C# and Borland Pascal were even designed by the same guy - Anders Hejlsberg. But Inprise is independant - Microsoft is not. That's why Delphi is still better than C#.
I use a tool named DBISAM, which compiles into the.exe file, so my database software is only one.exe file, they often even create the database structure themself.
I made an open-source calendar system for small companies. It's not GPL (Delphi programs cannot be, yet), but you can look at the source, how it is possible to make this database program stay within just one.exe file:
http://giga.dybdahl.dk/download/kalender/
Just download kalender.exe, store it in a new, empty directory on a network drive, give everybody in the company a Windows shortcut to the.exe fil and you are up and running.
If Free Pascal could compile this, I would release it under the GPL.
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HP in Germany has paid tax for each CD writer they have sold in Germany since 1998...
The danish minister of culture also considers taxing CD recorders. The decision will be made after she finds out how much money the blank CD tax will give when it starts in april 2001.
Danish newspaper article:
http://www.berlingske.dk/artikel:aid=82084
I just made an inquiry to the danish organization, that distributes the CD tax money, http://www.copydan.dk/, to hear if I could get my part of the money.
The money only goes to artists, not to software producers, because copying software is illegal, whereas copying music and films is legal for private purposes (!!!!).
I also asked if I could get some money if I had publicised some art on the internet (which I have - photographs - see http://www.cat-photo.com/), and the answer was no again (!). This time, the answer was, that the law that regulates this is from 1992, and does not cover materials published on the internet.
I would like to see that one in a trial!!!
I own a company that publishes software inside the European Union. Who do I contact to get my share of the revenue generated from this tax? Do I have to speak french? ;-)
Now the big question is: Do you have to be certified by the authorities if you want to import CDs from a neighboring EU country? Or will it be like wine and beer: You may only take the amount of CDs over the border, that you are going to use yourself. And when your sailship goes from Amsterdam to Paris, your ship might be stopped by a boat patrol, asking if you bring any wine, cigarettes, beer or blank CDs.
France is not the only country. Denmark started to do the same in january, but then stopped again, in order to delay it until april 2001.
IT is the book version of the Blair Witch Project - how difficult can that be?
I know an ISP that asked took an employees company car, and sent him home at once. His workplace was 200km from the main office where he was left without his car, so he had to take public transportation home.
The only problem with that is, that it is illegal acc. to danish law. We need at least 90 days written warning, or we can sue their a.o. And since the car was part of his contract (very usual over here - cars are $25.000 and up), they cannot take his car with less than 90 days notice either...
The whole industry works towards less hardware to do the same job all the time. Solving a software problem by adding hardware is not the way to go, especially not when ReiserFS etc. are already present.
I still hear people in the industry saying "We don't believe in Linux, because one man cannot replace Microsoft". They are so Microsoft focused that they have no clue what Linux is all about.
In fact, the word "Linux" is very much used to describe open-source software, outside the open-source community. Therefore, a GPL'ed BeOS system would be a "Linux" system...
It will take a couple of years before end-users find out how things work, and we can name it GNU instead of Linux. My grandmother will probably never find out. She knows too well, that Linux is Windows without her favorite bridge game.
EULAs in games are in english, and since english cannot be used for an EULA in Denmark, and because EULAs that are only visible after you left the store aren't valid here anyway, I simply don't care.
The danish government websites are very restricted in how they may be designed. Generally, there are two important requirements often overlooked by commercial websites:
1) Must be accessible by browsers for handicapped users.
2) Documents must use a subset of HTML with specific meta tags in order to be compatible, searchable etc.
Angles from Denmark? No way. English today came with the Vikings.
Languages have always been influenced by other languages. Before the danes invaded England, the language was celtic. Then the danes came with some new words. The following list gives a hint - the left word is english, the right word is the danish one.
sister - søster
brother - broder (d is pronunciated like th)
mother - moder
father - fader
house - hus
tree - trae
grass - gras
church - kirke (pronounced a little like church in some parts of Denmark)
yule - jul
take - tage
go - gaa
root - rod
stone - sten
I could go on... but I can tell you that it is easy for Danes to learn English. What would the U.S. be without the danish language?
But there are also examples of other recent influence of languages on danish. Examples:
toilet (from french)
alarm (from italian)
kiosk (from turkish)
jogurt (from turkish or bulgarian?)
And approx. every third word we have from german...
We have no problem with that, and Spanish doesn't have a problem, either.
I'm from Denmark and have lived in several european countries. I would like to describe the following:
:-) Most americans I know that settled down here, stayed for more than 10 years or are still staying. As a dane, I'm not able to judge Denmark, but I can give phone numbers to americans living here.
Germany: Works pretty much like USA - lots of lawyers, federal government, high technology, but german language knowledge is a must, if you want to be someone at the workplace.
Netherlands: Very U.S. centric. Probably one of the easiest places for an american to settle down and make good business.
Denmark: High taxes (>60%) - beware!
Sweden, Norway: Many people believe that scandinavians are just scandinavians. But I cannot tell you anything useful about those two countries, except that the Swedes have extremely good food at their workplaces...
In scandinavia, though, it is important to understand the working culture here. We are very non-competitive - we don't compete with each other in the work place, only with other companies. The boss doesn't want to hear what you do, unless you got problems, and official ways of command are mostly non-existent. You can read much of this in american teaching books on organizational behaviour - scandinavia is often mentioned specifically.
I have worked with americans over here, and know many people who have worked with americans, and there is a culture clash, that has to be resolved. It usually works out fine.
The Palm handheld device is extremely popular, but when you look at how the calendar works, it seems very simple. Maybe that's what people want: A calendar system they can understand.
The way Palm compresses a day view when the Windows is little is very good.
Personally, when I have added some recurring appointments in Outlook, removed some of them again etc., then I would very much like to have an overview of which appointments that were removed...
If you categorize the calendar entries, it would be nice if one could print a calendar with only specific categories on it.
A common calendar for the company, that you can blend directly into your own calendar would be extremely good. I hate to switch to multi-user view to find out, that there is a company wide meeting the same day I made an appointment.
It should be easy to add one or more unattended accounts for resource allocation, like meeting rooms, and there should be a log for that account, showing who adds and who deletes which allocations.
I have asked Yahoo, if I could pay them some money in order to get rid of the advertisements in all the e-mails I send and in order to get my correct e-mail address as sender e-mail address instead of the Yahoo! e-mail address.
I am willing to pay $1000 a year for that. I really mean it. Yahoo! does my attachment virus scanning, receives all my faxes via a free U.S. fax number, stores my e-mail so I can access it worldwide, manages spam e-mail and I have never been without e-mail since I started to use Yahoo! e-mail.
I cannot get the same service level anywhere else, but because I use it for business, the advertisements are a real problem.
The obvious alternative for Yahoo! mail is:
- Set up a Microsoft Exchange server
- Get a fixed internet access
- Set up a web-interface for the Exchange server
- Set up a firewall
- Hire somebody to administer the Exchange server
- Hire somebody to keep the firewall up-to-date
- Set up virus scanning software and keep it up-to-date
- Get some fax software, that can put the faxes into Exchange server.
I cannot do that for $1000 a year.
Gaming consoles deliver what Windows doesn't: It works... You insert a DVD, turn in on and it runs.
We should expect gaming consoles to become thin clients too, with browsers, Java etc. Needs more memory, of course, but that's where we are going. The PC is dead.
The TV will surf, the fridge will have a screen, the watch on the wall will display information, your phone will surf, your palm computer will rule your world, and maybe you will also have an archaic PC.
This is a danish bank, so it is probably not as useful for you in the U.S., but the URL is:
http://www.jyskenetbank.dk/
They have stated the client software requirements as:
SSL 3.0
Java 1.0.2
Cookies
Frames
There are no requirements for OS or browser. Netscape/Linux works fine. I haven't tried any newer version of Konqueror or Opera, but if the above conditions are met, it should work.
Actually, I switched to this bank because of their homebanking solution...
In Europe, a law prohibits a TV channel to own the rights to send a sport event that has national interest, if it doesn't send the event to most of the nation for free.
The Olympic games is a place, where every nation sends its best athletes. Nobody else than the nations themselves should be able to decide about information flow from the Olympics.
I don't thing that the Olympic games should be a big commercial event. It should be a free and peaceful event, protected by law against intellectual property misuse, where the nations put the money into it they can, and where there are no money prizes. There are lots of commercial events around - the Olympic Games will end up as "just a commercial event" if they don't change to the better.
Microsoft's strategy is not to make a faulty Windows installation work by fixing it, you just reinstall everything and get your data back from the backup. It's the same way with Windows ME - and since most DOS games run within a DOS session under Windows, nobody needs this DOS mode except nerds at home...
By the way: Has anyone examined the Windows ME CD? Maybe Microsoft included a bootdisk as supplement, just as Microsoft Fax was a supplement to Windows 98...
There are lots of problems with IP law, which is well known, so the interesting part is the list of alternatives. Most alternatives are public funded (scientists on universities etc.). I hope we all want free competition, and since a company does not exist without some kind of ownership and something to own, a company based on IP wouldn't exist in the world described by the article.
Since the economic growth is right now in companies focusing on IP value, we would lose a lot of wealth in short term. In longer term, this real IP value requires organizations to make it work - the question is, whether these organisations would exist without some private companies showing the path...
Maybe it would work in software, because investments are pretty low, but how about more expensive technologies like IBM's harddisk technology? How would that be with no IP rights?
OK - with Linux you don't need that big harddisks, but I am happy that I have a bigger harddisk than my original 30MB Seagate ST238R...
I believe that it would be a giant failure to make a such extreme experiment as to remove IP. The communists had nice thoughts about a land called utopia, and their experients has cost so many million people their lives - I guess removing IP could do the same.
C++ is a standard, and that is the main reason why it is used to widely. The fact, that C++ means high development costs often don't matter, because development costs are often just a small part of the total expenses in a company.
One of the big differences between Delphi's Object-Pascal today and C++, is that Delphi's pascal language has evolved over time, becoming better and better. Delphi (and Free Pascal) is to old Pascal what Microsofts new C# is to C++.
C# and Borland Pascal were even designed by the same guy - Anders Hejlsberg. But Inprise is independant - Microsoft is not. That's why Delphi is still better than C#.
I use a tool named DBISAM, which compiles into the .exe file, so my database software is only one .exe file, they often even create the database structure themself.
.exe file:
.exe fil and you are up and running.
I made an open-source calendar system for small companies. It's not GPL (Delphi programs cannot be, yet), but you can look at the source, how it is possible to make this database program stay within just one
http://giga.dybdahl.dk/download/kalender/
Just download kalender.exe, store it in a new, empty directory on a network drive, give everybody in the company a Windows shortcut to the
If Free Pascal could compile this, I would release it under the GPL.