What is a "reasonable market rate?" In a capitalist society, the value of a thing is whetever someone is willing to pay for it. It's not a number that can be legislated.
Sure it can. Most books, CDs, movies, and video games have similar pricing across many different vendors. For commercial works it is easy since they have already offered them for sale. A reasonable market rate is say the original cost + inflation + maybe 10% for the additional cost of publishing in smaller batches. A formula can certainly be specified.
You had to renew your copyright after 28 years, or else it expired.
I think shorter copyright limits and having to actively renew them are very good ideas, but neither really addresses my main problem with copyright. As I mentioned above "vanishing works" is my main concern. 28 years is simply too long for many mediums. 28 years after a video game that plays on a console is released will there be any hardware that can read that game? What about DRM'd media that calls home. 28 years after a company goes out of business will anyone be able to dig up the encryption keys to unlock the media that has been useless for 27 years? It is very unlikely.
None of us can predict what forms media will take in the future or what technological restrictions will inhibit it, nor what kind of shelf-life it will have. That is why I believe that rather than trying to set a whole list of different expiration times for different types of media, it is best to simply require that they are available to the public either for sale, or for free. The point of copyright is supposed to be to promote the arts and sciences. The only way to do that is make the works available to the public, and if possible, encourage authors to create more.
The issue being, where do you draw the line? Sure there's nothing wrong with you not being able to find a copy of a TV show from the
The only legal grant of power that allows copyright to exist at all in the U.S. is "for limited times" to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." Now tell me how having works banned from duplication and unavailable to the public promotes those arts. Copyright was a two-sided deal. Authors got limited monopolies, the public got free access to the works in perpetuity thereafter and the works were preserved for them. Now it is a one-sided deal. Authors (actually often only publishers and authors get screwed) get a never-ending monopoly and the public gets squat. It does not seem like a fair deal to me and it sure as shit is not within congress's legal mandate.
Besides, if you really wanted, I'm sure if you found enough people in the world you could probably find a copy of just about anything you wanted
I have a huge list of books no dealer can find. Some of them now have many thousand dollar bounties on them. Why is that? Additionally there are plenty of books that only a few known copies exist, but it is still illegal for anyone to make a copy to allow the general public to read it. That is effectively destroyed, at least as far as 99.9999999% of the population is concerned. How about Mowtown records. They own more soul and blues music than anyone else and offer about 10% of their catalogue for sale. The rest is mostly impossible to get a copy of to even see if you like it. Books, music, film, TV, and video games are all vanishing from availability to the public and in some cases from existence. That is a tragedy and is to the detriment of all mankind. Publishers, authors, and other copyright holders monetary concerns should not trump the good of society and the existence of our artistic heritage.
We can't go around legislating that someone has to give up "ownership" of their idea just because if they don't it will die.
If you truly believe anyone can own an idea then you are drinking the kool-aid. The government is enforcing at taxpayers expense an artificial restriction on reproduction of art and literature. Don't you think the government should do things to benefit society rather than enrich those who bribe them? Several founding father's of the U.S. constitution were opposed to any copyright simply because they thought it would turn into what it now is. (As it was in England at the time.) The idea that an author has some sort of natural right to being the only one allowed to make or sell copies of something they write is a very new concept. It has never been regarded as a natural right in law in the U.S. and is only promoted as such in the last 50 years by industry advertising.
what about the artist who falls out of favor for a time and then has a comeback, or who finds lukewarm success and then is "discovered" later?
If they retain the copyright and continually offer the book for sale, then they have no problem and can continue to sell it as long as it is copyrighted. If they take it off the market, well then it should belong to the public. Anything else results in more works being effectively banned than provided to the public. I have no doubt many works would become public domain and then become immensely popular under this scheme and the former copyright holder would feel bad for not making all that money. They can, however, capitalize on their fame and produce more works (the only legal reason copyright exists). What is better that a great work vanishes into obscurity and no one can read it, or that it is free for everyone and the author does not benefit immediately?
but guess what-- if you want it bad enough, you can almost always find it.
That is complete bullshit. I have a list of books as long as my arm that no one can find. 70% of all blues music is unavailable for sale. How about video games more than 10 years old, now owned by no one? Even if someone finds old hardware and ports it they can't distribute it without risking being sued and those games and hardware are rapidly vanishing. Just wait five years till most content is DRM'd that will further accelerate the rapid disappearance older art. You obviously have very mainstream tastes or just have no been looking.
I'd say really, short of changing the mindset of the society in which we live, there's nothing that really "should" be changed about copyright.
Lets see the vast majority of books, music, movies, video games, and TV shows published from 1976-2000 are completely unavailable to anyone. So it is illegal for me to make a copy of a very rare book, and entirely possible no other copies exist. That means it is erased from the public consciousness. And you think there is nothing wrong with copyright? You're very, very, very wrong.
My main problem with copyright in the U.S. is that it is used to basically remove works from the populace. The vast majority of works are tossed in storage after they don't become hugely successful and are never seen again and often become completely unavailable. If I were rewriting copyright laws I'd require that all copyrighted works must be available for sale at a reasonable market rate or the copyright on them expires immediately (with an exception for works still in progress or about to released) and cannot be reinstated. I'd also require that two copies of every work to be copyrighted be provided free of charge to a national archive, thus ensuring that they will not disappear. (This used to be law in the U.S. but was repealed at the same time most of the rest of our copyright laws were rewritten by lobbyists.)
This still allows artists and publishers to make money on works, but also preserves them for the public when those companies stop offering them.
...the tasks these projects are hoping to accomplish are nasty and complex, and require a major measure of both genious and experience.
What can I say to someone who misspells the word "genius?" Some of these projects are difficult, but many are just not cool or high profile enough to attract coders. Some of these projects will doubtless provide beer money for college students who otherwise may or may not have contributed to a project. They are a nice bonus for people who contribute to areas that really need help.
Professional? I figured this was aiming to get some work out of high school or college students who could use it as a way to earn cash on the side and possibly credit.
1. If something as simple as this needs support, then it's really not a very good product.
Even very easy to use programs need support for installation, upgrades, troubleshooting when Windows dies, and disaster recovery. Also, they mentioned development and support. If a company wants a new feature added, they can pay a reasonable amount and the coders will add it and everyone can then use it. Alternately, if all the copyrights are owned the program can be customized for individual companies and licensed separately.
2. How do you know that there's no competititve advantage in this industry to using your own, specialized software, which you'd be giving up by using something open source?
That is possible, but highly unlikely. This is used by venues and theaters, not by an industry with a lot of differences in needs from company to company.
Are you saying that this person should hire themselves out as a programmer, but insist that they will only write open source software?
If they want to work on this software, they may have no choice. What is wrong with that though? Lots of open source programmers are paid to work on their projects by people that use them. Tons of code is added/fixed because some company needs it and pays for someone to do it. The advantage is that you only pay for some of the programming and others pay for the rest of it. You get the fixes and improvements you pay for plus the fixes and improvements all the other users pay for. The only really hard part is explaining the model to businessmen in a field that is not already using the open source model.
Interestingly enough, the top the results for "tiger" are a page about tigers, tiger direct, and the Apple page. These seem pretty reasonable to me. The OS is obviously something a lot of people are going to be looking for, but I'd still find it weird if real tigers were not the first link. For "panther" the results are Apple's page, then some pages on real panthers. For "jaguar" you get the car manufacturer, Apple, then real panthers. I wonder what will happen if you do a search on "tiger" a year from now.
Most recording companies only license the songs to iTunes or other resellers on a per-country basis. If Apple opens a Japan store and offers songs and you buy them, it is still probably illegal for you to download them to the U.S. since the license to make a copy in the U.S. is quite probably owned by a completely different company. P.S. the intellectual property business is a mess.
I don't grudge Apple their success. They are playing the game by the rules and doing very well. I have a problem with the rules in general though. Those rules were established by the RIAA and the politicians they bought. They are introducing technological restrictions on music, backed with legal restrictions on removing those restrictions all because they can't quite manage the votes to implement legal restrictions directly and because people would be pissed off about it. They're also spinning the whole thing as "stopping pirates" when it is really about selling the same thing to the same person several times.
Imagine if in 50 years all the major car manufacturers struck a deal with Walmart that made their cars go into autopilot mode and drive to Walmart whenever a person tried to go into a K-mart etc. parking lot. (Yes, I know the example is ridiculous.) Then they passed a law that said removing or modifying the autopilot was illegal since it is needed to stop criminals from escaping from the police. That is how I see the current DRM situation. Laws and technology are being used to take more money for the same old thing and disguised as stopping crime. I should not risk jail time for playing a song I bought in Linux and I should not risk jail time for driving my car to K-mart. Apple is not a monopoly, but the RIAA sure as hell is an illegal cartel.
This isn't about Apple's lockin with the iPod and the iTMS, this is about Apple's lockin vs. everybody else's lockin on Windows machines.
This is sort of correct. Except Apple lets Windows users join in on their lock-in and you're forgetting Real who would be happy to lock-in windows and mac users, but has not managed either.
Actually, I do agree with Miss Rosen in that I think if we have to have DRM, it should be an open standard DRM that is not owned by MS or Apple. Of course it should be legally mandated an so MS can't break the law and embrace and alter it. On the other hand, I just buy all my music without DRM in the first place and I really wish the media would stop portraying DRM as having something to do with pirating. Anyone can pirate DRM'd music. If you can hear it, you can record it. This is about controlling what people who legitimately bought music do with it. And I think the RIAA has some very hard questions to answer regarding that. If only the media was not owned maybe someone would have the balls to ask them on camera.
No but it DOES affect their ability to get government services paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
And you think a national ID card system will save money? Put the crack pipe down now.
I would rather be FREE from paying taxes to support illegal aliens than be FREE from a National ID card.
Drivers licenses are state issued. They can give them to whomever they want and check for illegal immigrants if they want. A national ID system is implemented on the federal level, just moving more power from the hands of the states to the federal government, particularly the executive branch. Now don't I remember a few of our founding fathers saying something about how this was a bad thing?
So those people on the 9/11 flights should have shot the terrorists?
Yes they should have. They should also be allowed and encouraged to carry firearms on planes. Just FYI, stopping another 9/11 is easy as pie. The Israelis already perfected the system. You just design planes so that the cockpit and cabin both have exterior entrances and don't connect. Of course that would cost the airlines money so it won't happen. If you really think this will make you either safer or spend less of your tax dollars I think you are a damned fool.
I opened the bill to get some details... I have no problem with that. I also have no plans to become a terrorist or commit a crime that would result in warrants being issued.
I'm sorry, reading the bill is very questionable activity. I mean if you were really patriotic you would not bother to read it, you'd just assume it was good. We're going to have to label you as a terrorist.
Currently most states do not even require proof of U.S. citizenship to obtain a Driver's License.
You don't even need a SSN.
Sigh. SSNs are for getting social security benefits, they do not uniquely identify you. And why should someone need to tell you where they live to get a driver's license? Does it somehow effect their ability to drive?
We don't have ID cards because we're supposed to be a free people that don't have to register with the government just to live. I guess such outdated ideals were thrown away because the TV scared all the little cowards into being afraid of the big, bad terrorists. You're a a stinking coward if you're willing to give up your freedom to let the government try to protect you and an idiot if you think they can or will. How about trying out a little personal responsibility? If a terrorist tries to blow you up, shoot them. This is America, right?
RealID is specifically crafted to address those specific issues.
Those specific issues are easily worked around. This does nothing to stop the problem or terrorism in general. It is a power grab by the executive branch and a placebo for the ignorant masses.
And maybe it's easier on his bandwidth for "salesguy bob" to send you a URL, not a zip...
That is not acceptable in many, many cases. For security reasons usually only one or two people in a client company will have access to the login/password to get manuals on many products. They are usually not the people using it. The internet is not always accessible. People use manuals on their laptops on the plane and in locations where they are working on setting up a network or their is a networking problem.
Differences between browsers? Hey, if someone's thinking of going to Kinko's, they can download a 5 meg browser (Firefox). I'm pretty sure you can do SVG on that, so there are your diagrams and figures right there, probably very printable.
Have you ever tried to actually print web pages? It sucks. They don't fit well to a page. Also loading proprietary information onto a browser at Kinkos is a big no-no in many cases.
I prefer an LCD under an umbrella to white paper, reflecting so much sun I have to wear shades just to read a book.
LCDs and pretty much all monitors emit light. That makes it impossible to reduce the eyestrain as much as paper under normal lighting.
Page numbers hyperlinks and searches
Usable index? I prefer my indices to have said hyperlinks.
PDF indexes and TOCs have hyperlinks for most people. If you use a good PDF viewer (read not Adobe) then they usually have very nice auxilliary contents as well. They are also easier to search than a series of web pages.
On top of that PDFs are exact for diagrams and text relation, not approximate, like HTML. They are contained in a single file. They print very well. They are easily searchable.
When I write a document I make sure to provide it as HTML and PDF. Both are better for particular use cases. Many people don't like PDF, but this is mostly the result of using Windows in combination with the God-awful Adobe PDF reader. The lack of multitasking in Windows combined with the snail-slow reader makes the whole experience awful. Also, many users view PDFs within a browser which further slows the process. The PDF format itself, however, is very nice. Try ditching Windows and Adobe PDF reader and giving PDF another try. I know every time I use windows and have to open one I curse as the whole machine grinds to a halt. Luckily, I hardly ever use Windows these days.
Can somebody explain to me what ZeroConf has got over UPnP?
UPnP is patent encumbered. It does not do auto discovery over a network. UPnP works like a piece of crap. On my mac I have a usb printer plugged into another machine or hub. Within seconds of turning it on it is available to every mac on my network with no configuration. I have to manually add it to each windows machine. I can automatically see other users running ichat, itunes, etc. and connect to the services they offer, just by being on the same subnet. Taking a mac to a conference became an amazing thing a few years ago. Imagine being able to chat with everyone else there, automatically, with no configuration or trading of info. imagine being able to listen to a steam from their mp3 player. imagine being able to collaboratively edit a document with no configuration. I do all these things redularly. It it so much more useful than UPnP that the comparison is ludicrous.
Re:Hmm, why doesn't this company get yelled at
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Hack IIS6 Contest
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Viruses and worms propagate across a network by infecting machines and using them to spread. Infecting any machines other than the 2 in question is illegal, but required by the proposed contest. Hence, they were soliciting an illegal act. Welcome to federal prison boys.
How often does Apple release patches and the like?
Security patches are about one a month. They also issue other bugfixes every couple of months.
Do they have some sort of web-interface like Windows-update...
They have a Web page that lists all the updates as they are released and provides downloads. It works in every browser I have tried.
or is it a self-contained program
OS X also has an application that automatically checks for updates on whatever schedule you set and will download them automatically or just download critical fixes automatically. It also handles the install process.
Are there lots of little patches all the time, or just big lumps of patches like this one?
They come in lumps as Apple aggregates fixes from various locations and open source software projects that ship as part of OS X. They do testing in batches an release them as needed. So far they have been very timely. When someone made a demo exploit the turnaround on the update was about 48 hours. Most (like this last one) are just potential exploits that have not been seen in the wild, but could theoretically be exploited. They usually don't rush those and lump them into a monthly security update.
Re:Hmm, why doesn't this company get yelled at
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Hack IIS6 Contest
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So some mac company (I forget who offhand) offered the same type of contest, and they got screamed at. So why isn't this company getting yelled at for doing this?
Are you talking about they guys who wanted you to release a virus into the wild that would infect both of their test machines?!? It was truly stupid and illegal idea. This, on the other hand, is probably not illegal assuming the people who published this contest actually own the box in question and is unlikely to damage thousands of other boxes in the process.
Re:Too many fronts for Microsoft
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Gates on Google
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Apple isn't trying to write search engines.
That is pretty funny comment given the emphasis Apple has been placing on spotlight, in Tiger.
If Microsoft had a business model that involved providing useful tools to their customers they could have included the same functionality, with the same $0 in licensing costs to them.
They may not listen to their customers, but they do pay attention to the competition. MS has announced they are building a (probably completely proprietary) competitor to PDF into longhorn. I'm sure Word will output to that and PDF will be destroyed in the consumer and business space.
Open Standards makes a weak jab with a standard doc format. MS telegraphs an uppercut with their PDF-killer, with OS block in time?
What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to pay entertainers for their work haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to free movies and music, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so.
You can't "rip-off" a dead person by making a copy of their book. If anything I think most authors would prefer that their work was available forever, instead of deleted from history. In any case the author's wishes do not trump the rights of all mankind. Copyright is supposed to be a two-way deal. Author gets a limited term monopoly on publishing, the world gets as many copies as they want in perpetuity. Unfortunately, limited term has become "forever" and works or art, literature, music, film, and even video games are vanishing daily. Gone and destroyed never to be seen or read again, because it is illegal for anyone but one person/group/company to make new copies and they won't or can't or don't even exist anymore.
Have you ever heard of the book "Solomon's Crown" written by a notorious but anonymous 1950's pulp author? Niether has anyone else. That is because although the book is wonderful it is impossible to get a copy and illegal to make a copy if someone can find it. That applies to about 70% of all blues music in existence. It also applies to the vast majority of video games more than 10 years old.
How about "It's a Wonderful Life," have you heard of that movie. Well you wouldn't have if the copyright had not expired. It bombed at the box office and was tossed into storage. When the copyright expired PBS aired it and it was instantly a hit. Then through some legal voodoo it became copyrighted again, and PBS has to pay if they want to play it. Now if you haven't noticed nothing has come out of copyright for the last 29 years. All those great works like "It's a Wonderful Life" are just rotting, or thrown out, or in storage, or abandoned all so they don't compete with whatever media companies are pushing today.
If anyone is being ripped off it is the populace in general who has been robbed of all those works, all that heritage erased and destroyed by greed and corrupt politicians. I've spent years trying to find particular books. They aren't for sale, most can't be found in any library. It used to be any work that was to copyrighted had to have a copy sent to the Library of Congress. That was repealed too. Now there are no copies. And even if their were, most people could not read them, because it would be illegal to make more.
It's completely unambiguous
I agree, but I don't think I agree that copyright is moral or ethical right now. In it's current state it is killing our literary and cultural heritage. It is sickening.
Too bad this has nothing to do with theft then, eh? This is about government enforced monopolies on printing/publishing. Some people believe that these monopolies are in the best interests of the people and promote the arts and strengthen the economy. Others believe they are unjust and stifle progress and criminalize our rightful artistic heritage. One thing, however, is certain... copyright has nothing to do with stealing.
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What is a "reasonable market rate?" In a capitalist society, the value of a thing is whetever someone is willing to pay for it. It's not a number that can be legislated.
Sure it can. Most books, CDs, movies, and video games have similar pricing across many different vendors. For commercial works it is easy since they have already offered them for sale. A reasonable market rate is say the original cost + inflation + maybe 10% for the additional cost of publishing in smaller batches. A formula can certainly be specified.
You had to renew your copyright after 28 years, or else it expired.
I think shorter copyright limits and having to actively renew them are very good ideas, but neither really addresses my main problem with copyright. As I mentioned above "vanishing works" is my main concern. 28 years is simply too long for many mediums. 28 years after a video game that plays on a console is released will there be any hardware that can read that game? What about DRM'd media that calls home. 28 years after a company goes out of business will anyone be able to dig up the encryption keys to unlock the media that has been useless for 27 years? It is very unlikely.
None of us can predict what forms media will take in the future or what technological restrictions will inhibit it, nor what kind of shelf-life it will have. That is why I believe that rather than trying to set a whole list of different expiration times for different types of media, it is best to simply require that they are available to the public either for sale, or for free. The point of copyright is supposed to be to promote the arts and sciences. The only way to do that is make the works available to the public, and if possible, encourage authors to create more.
The issue being, where do you draw the line? Sure there's nothing wrong with you not being able to find a copy of a TV show from the
The only legal grant of power that allows copyright to exist at all in the U.S. is "for limited times" to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." Now tell me how having works banned from duplication and unavailable to the public promotes those arts. Copyright was a two-sided deal. Authors got limited monopolies, the public got free access to the works in perpetuity thereafter and the works were preserved for them. Now it is a one-sided deal. Authors (actually often only publishers and authors get screwed) get a never-ending monopoly and the public gets squat. It does not seem like a fair deal to me and it sure as shit is not within congress's legal mandate.
Besides, if you really wanted, I'm sure if you found enough people in the world you could probably find a copy of just about anything you wanted
I have a huge list of books no dealer can find. Some of them now have many thousand dollar bounties on them. Why is that? Additionally there are plenty of books that only a few known copies exist, but it is still illegal for anyone to make a copy to allow the general public to read it. That is effectively destroyed, at least as far as 99.9999999% of the population is concerned. How about Mowtown records. They own more soul and blues music than anyone else and offer about 10% of their catalogue for sale. The rest is mostly impossible to get a copy of to even see if you like it. Books, music, film, TV, and video games are all vanishing from availability to the public and in some cases from existence. That is a tragedy and is to the detriment of all mankind. Publishers, authors, and other copyright holders monetary concerns should not trump the good of society and the existence of our artistic heritage.
We can't go around legislating that someone has to give up "ownership" of their idea just because if they don't it will die.
If you truly believe anyone can own an idea then you are drinking the kool-aid. The government is enforcing at taxpayers expense an artificial restriction on reproduction of art and literature. Don't you think the government should do things to benefit society rather than enrich those who bribe them? Several founding father's of the U.S. constitution were opposed to any copyright simply because they thought it would turn into what it now is. (As it was in England at the time.) The idea that an author has some sort of natural right to being the only one allowed to make or sell copies of something they write is a very new concept. It has never been regarded as a natural right in law in the U.S. and is only promoted as such in the last 50 years by industry advertising.
what about the artist who falls out of favor for a time and then has a comeback, or who finds lukewarm success and then is "discovered" later?
If they retain the copyright and continually offer the book for sale, then they have no problem and can continue to sell it as long as it is copyrighted. If they take it off the market, well then it should belong to the public. Anything else results in more works being effectively banned than provided to the public. I have no doubt many works would become public domain and then become immensely popular under this scheme and the former copyright holder would feel bad for not making all that money. They can, however, capitalize on their fame and produce more works (the only legal reason copyright exists). What is better that a great work vanishes into obscurity and no one can read it, or that it is free for everyone and the author does not benefit immediately?
but guess what-- if you want it bad enough, you can almost always find it.
That is complete bullshit. I have a list of books as long as my arm that no one can find. 70% of all blues music is unavailable for sale. How about video games more than 10 years old, now owned by no one? Even if someone finds old hardware and ports it they can't distribute it without risking being sued and those games and hardware are rapidly vanishing. Just wait five years till most content is DRM'd that will further accelerate the rapid disappearance older art. You obviously have very mainstream tastes or just have no been looking.
I'd say really, short of changing the mindset of the society in which we live, there's nothing that really "should" be changed about copyright.
Lets see the vast majority of books, music, movies, video games, and TV shows published from 1976-2000 are completely unavailable to anyone. So it is illegal for me to make a copy of a very rare book, and entirely possible no other copies exist. That means it is erased from the public consciousness. And you think there is nothing wrong with copyright? You're very, very, very wrong.
My main problem with copyright in the U.S. is that it is used to basically remove works from the populace. The vast majority of works are tossed in storage after they don't become hugely successful and are never seen again and often become completely unavailable. If I were rewriting copyright laws I'd require that all copyrighted works must be available for sale at a reasonable market rate or the copyright on them expires immediately (with an exception for works still in progress or about to released) and cannot be reinstated. I'd also require that two copies of every work to be copyrighted be provided free of charge to a national archive, thus ensuring that they will not disappear. (This used to be law in the U.S. but was repealed at the same time most of the rest of our copyright laws were rewritten by lobbyists.)
This still allows artists and publishers to make money on works, but also preserves them for the public when those companies stop offering them.
What can I say to someone who misspells the word "genius?" Some of these projects are difficult, but many are just not cool or high profile enough to attract coders. Some of these projects will doubtless provide beer money for college students who otherwise may or may not have contributed to a project. They are a nice bonus for people who contribute to areas that really need help.
Professional? I figured this was aiming to get some work out of high school or college students who could use it as a way to earn cash on the side and possibly credit.
1. If something as simple as this needs support, then it's really not a very good product.
Even very easy to use programs need support for installation, upgrades, troubleshooting when Windows dies, and disaster recovery. Also, they mentioned development and support. If a company wants a new feature added, they can pay a reasonable amount and the coders will add it and everyone can then use it. Alternately, if all the copyrights are owned the program can be customized for individual companies and licensed separately.
2. How do you know that there's no competititve advantage in this industry to using your own, specialized software, which you'd be giving up by using something open source?
That is possible, but highly unlikely. This is used by venues and theaters, not by an industry with a lot of differences in needs from company to company.
Are you saying that this person should hire themselves out as a programmer, but insist that they will only write open source software?
If they want to work on this software, they may have no choice. What is wrong with that though? Lots of open source programmers are paid to work on their projects by people that use them. Tons of code is added/fixed because some company needs it and pays for someone to do it. The advantage is that you only pay for some of the programming and others pay for the rest of it. You get the fixes and improvements you pay for plus the fixes and improvements all the other users pay for. The only really hard part is explaining the model to businessmen in a field that is not already using the open source model.
Interestingly enough, the top the results for "tiger" are a page about tigers, tiger direct, and the Apple page. These seem pretty reasonable to me. The OS is obviously something a lot of people are going to be looking for, but I'd still find it weird if real tigers were not the first link. For "panther" the results are Apple's page, then some pages on real panthers. For "jaguar" you get the car manufacturer, Apple, then real panthers. I wonder what will happen if you do a search on "tiger" a year from now.
Most recording companies only license the songs to iTunes or other resellers on a per-country basis. If Apple opens a Japan store and offers songs and you buy them, it is still probably illegal for you to download them to the U.S. since the license to make a copy in the U.S. is quite probably owned by a completely different company. P.S. the intellectual property business is a mess.
I don't grudge Apple their success. They are playing the game by the rules and doing very well. I have a problem with the rules in general though. Those rules were established by the RIAA and the politicians they bought. They are introducing technological restrictions on music, backed with legal restrictions on removing those restrictions all because they can't quite manage the votes to implement legal restrictions directly and because people would be pissed off about it. They're also spinning the whole thing as "stopping pirates" when it is really about selling the same thing to the same person several times.
Imagine if in 50 years all the major car manufacturers struck a deal with Walmart that made their cars go into autopilot mode and drive to Walmart whenever a person tried to go into a K-mart etc. parking lot. (Yes, I know the example is ridiculous.) Then they passed a law that said removing or modifying the autopilot was illegal since it is needed to stop criminals from escaping from the police. That is how I see the current DRM situation. Laws and technology are being used to take more money for the same old thing and disguised as stopping crime. I should not risk jail time for playing a song I bought in Linux and I should not risk jail time for driving my car to K-mart. Apple is not a monopoly, but the RIAA sure as hell is an illegal cartel.
This isn't about Apple's lockin with the iPod and the iTMS, this is about Apple's lockin vs. everybody else's lockin on Windows machines.
This is sort of correct. Except Apple lets Windows users join in on their lock-in and you're forgetting Real who would be happy to lock-in windows and mac users, but has not managed either.
Actually, I do agree with Miss Rosen in that I think if we have to have DRM, it should be an open standard DRM that is not owned by MS or Apple. Of course it should be legally mandated an so MS can't break the law and embrace and alter it. On the other hand, I just buy all my music without DRM in the first place and I really wish the media would stop portraying DRM as having something to do with pirating. Anyone can pirate DRM'd music. If you can hear it, you can record it. This is about controlling what people who legitimately bought music do with it. And I think the RIAA has some very hard questions to answer regarding that. If only the media was not owned maybe someone would have the balls to ask them on camera.
No but it DOES affect their ability to get government services paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
And you think a national ID card system will save money? Put the crack pipe down now.
I would rather be FREE from paying taxes to support illegal aliens than be FREE from a National ID card.
Drivers licenses are state issued. They can give them to whomever they want and check for illegal immigrants if they want. A national ID system is implemented on the federal level, just moving more power from the hands of the states to the federal government, particularly the executive branch. Now don't I remember a few of our founding fathers saying something about how this was a bad thing?
So those people on the 9/11 flights should have shot the terrorists?
Yes they should have. They should also be allowed and encouraged to carry firearms on planes. Just FYI, stopping another 9/11 is easy as pie. The Israelis already perfected the system. You just design planes so that the cockpit and cabin both have exterior entrances and don't connect. Of course that would cost the airlines money so it won't happen. If you really think this will make you either safer or spend less of your tax dollars I think you are a damned fool.
I opened the bill to get some details... I have no problem with that. I also have no plans to become a terrorist or commit a crime that would result in warrants being issued.
I'm sorry, reading the bill is very questionable activity. I mean if you were really patriotic you would not bother to read it, you'd just assume it was good. We're going to have to label you as a terrorist.
Currently most states do not even require proof of U.S. citizenship to obtain a Driver's License. You don't even need a SSN.
Sigh. SSNs are for getting social security benefits, they do not uniquely identify you. And why should someone need to tell you where they live to get a driver's license? Does it somehow effect their ability to drive?
We don't have ID cards because we're supposed to be a free people that don't have to register with the government just to live. I guess such outdated ideals were thrown away because the TV scared all the little cowards into being afraid of the big, bad terrorists. You're a a stinking coward if you're willing to give up your freedom to let the government try to protect you and an idiot if you think they can or will. How about trying out a little personal responsibility? If a terrorist tries to blow you up, shoot them. This is America, right?
RealID is specifically crafted to address those specific issues.
Those specific issues are easily worked around. This does nothing to stop the problem or terrorism in general. It is a power grab by the executive branch and a placebo for the ignorant masses.
And maybe it's easier on his bandwidth for "salesguy bob" to send you a URL, not a zip...
That is not acceptable in many, many cases. For security reasons usually only one or two people in a client company will have access to the login/password to get manuals on many products. They are usually not the people using it. The internet is not always accessible. People use manuals on their laptops on the plane and in locations where they are working on setting up a network or their is a networking problem.
Differences between browsers? Hey, if someone's thinking of going to Kinko's, they can download a 5 meg browser (Firefox). I'm pretty sure you can do SVG on that, so there are your diagrams and figures right there, probably very printable.
Have you ever tried to actually print web pages? It sucks. They don't fit well to a page. Also loading proprietary information onto a browser at Kinkos is a big no-no in many cases.
I prefer an LCD under an umbrella to white paper, reflecting so much sun I have to wear shades just to read a book.
LCDs and pretty much all monitors emit light. That makes it impossible to reduce the eyestrain as much as paper under normal lighting.
Page numbers hyperlinks and searches Usable index? I prefer my indices to have said hyperlinks.
PDF indexes and TOCs have hyperlinks for most people. If you use a good PDF viewer (read not Adobe) then they usually have very nice auxilliary contents as well. They are also easier to search than a series of web pages.
On top of that PDFs are exact for diagrams and text relation, not approximate, like HTML. They are contained in a single file. They print very well. They are easily searchable.
When I write a document I make sure to provide it as HTML and PDF. Both are better for particular use cases. Many people don't like PDF, but this is mostly the result of using Windows in combination with the God-awful Adobe PDF reader. The lack of multitasking in Windows combined with the snail-slow reader makes the whole experience awful. Also, many users view PDFs within a browser which further slows the process. The PDF format itself, however, is very nice. Try ditching Windows and Adobe PDF reader and giving PDF another try. I know every time I use windows and have to open one I curse as the whole machine grinds to a halt. Luckily, I hardly ever use Windows these days.
Can somebody explain to me what ZeroConf has got over UPnP?
UPnP is patent encumbered. It does not do auto discovery over a network. UPnP works like a piece of crap. On my mac I have a usb printer plugged into another machine or hub. Within seconds of turning it on it is available to every mac on my network with no configuration. I have to manually add it to each windows machine. I can automatically see other users running ichat, itunes, etc. and connect to the services they offer, just by being on the same subnet. Taking a mac to a conference became an amazing thing a few years ago. Imagine being able to chat with everyone else there, automatically, with no configuration or trading of info. imagine being able to listen to a steam from their mp3 player. imagine being able to collaboratively edit a document with no configuration. I do all these things redularly. It it so much more useful than UPnP that the comparison is ludicrous.
Viruses and worms propagate across a network by infecting machines and using them to spread. Infecting any machines other than the 2 in question is illegal, but required by the proposed contest. Hence, they were soliciting an illegal act. Welcome to federal prison boys.
How often does Apple release patches and the like?
Security patches are about one a month. They also issue other bugfixes every couple of months.
Do they have some sort of web-interface like Windows-update...
They have a Web page that lists all the updates as they are released and provides downloads. It works in every browser I have tried.
or is it a self-contained program
OS X also has an application that automatically checks for updates on whatever schedule you set and will download them automatically or just download critical fixes automatically. It also handles the install process.
Are there lots of little patches all the time, or just big lumps of patches like this one?
They come in lumps as Apple aggregates fixes from various locations and open source software projects that ship as part of OS X. They do testing in batches an release them as needed. So far they have been very timely. When someone made a demo exploit the turnaround on the update was about 48 hours. Most (like this last one) are just potential exploits that have not been seen in the wild, but could theoretically be exploited. They usually don't rush those and lump them into a monthly security update.
So some mac company (I forget who offhand) offered the same type of contest, and they got screamed at. So why isn't this company getting yelled at for doing this?
Are you talking about they guys who wanted you to release a virus into the wild that would infect both of their test machines?!? It was truly stupid and illegal idea. This, on the other hand, is probably not illegal assuming the people who published this contest actually own the box in question and is unlikely to damage thousands of other boxes in the process.
Apple isn't trying to write search engines.
That is pretty funny comment given the emphasis Apple has been placing on spotlight, in Tiger.
If Microsoft had a business model that involved providing useful tools to their customers they could have included the same functionality, with the same $0 in licensing costs to them.
They may not listen to their customers, but they do pay attention to the competition. MS has announced they are building a (probably completely proprietary) competitor to PDF into longhorn. I'm sure Word will output to that and PDF will be destroyed in the consumer and business space.
Open Standards makes a weak jab with a standard doc format. MS telegraphs an uppercut with their PDF-killer, with OS block in time?
What you probably mean to say is that the part of the population that doesn't like to pay entertainers for their work haven't yet brainwashed enough eventual voters into thinking that they have an entitlement to free movies and music, and thus we haven't yet changed the laws to make it so.
You can't "rip-off" a dead person by making a copy of their book. If anything I think most authors would prefer that their work was available forever, instead of deleted from history. In any case the author's wishes do not trump the rights of all mankind. Copyright is supposed to be a two-way deal. Author gets a limited term monopoly on publishing, the world gets as many copies as they want in perpetuity. Unfortunately, limited term has become "forever" and works or art, literature, music, film, and even video games are vanishing daily. Gone and destroyed never to be seen or read again, because it is illegal for anyone but one person/group/company to make new copies and they won't or can't or don't even exist anymore.
Have you ever heard of the book "Solomon's Crown" written by a notorious but anonymous 1950's pulp author? Niether has anyone else. That is because although the book is wonderful it is impossible to get a copy and illegal to make a copy if someone can find it. That applies to about 70% of all blues music in existence. It also applies to the vast majority of video games more than 10 years old.
How about "It's a Wonderful Life," have you heard of that movie. Well you wouldn't have if the copyright had not expired. It bombed at the box office and was tossed into storage. When the copyright expired PBS aired it and it was instantly a hit. Then through some legal voodoo it became copyrighted again, and PBS has to pay if they want to play it. Now if you haven't noticed nothing has come out of copyright for the last 29 years. All those great works like "It's a Wonderful Life" are just rotting, or thrown out, or in storage, or abandoned all so they don't compete with whatever media companies are pushing today.
If anyone is being ripped off it is the populace in general who has been robbed of all those works, all that heritage erased and destroyed by greed and corrupt politicians. I've spent years trying to find particular books. They aren't for sale, most can't be found in any library. It used to be any work that was to copyrighted had to have a copy sent to the Library of Congress. That was repealed too. Now there are no copies. And even if their were, most people could not read them, because it would be illegal to make more.
It's completely unambiguous
I agree, but I don't think I agree that copyright is moral or ethical right now. In it's current state it is killing our literary and cultural heritage. It is sickening.
Too bad this has nothing to do with theft then, eh? This is about government enforced monopolies on printing/publishing. Some people believe that these monopolies are in the best interests of the people and promote the arts and strengthen the economy. Others believe they are unjust and stifle progress and criminalize our rightful artistic heritage. One thing, however, is certain... copyright has nothing to do with stealing.