We are talking about cell phone video. Webcams. Camcorders.
Well, you are. It's irrelevant, but be my guest.
We are talking about hardware accelerated H.264 video in Flash and Silverlight.
Ah and now you're back to web video again.
Yeah, that'll be widely adopted. In Adobe and Microsoft's dreams.
No one wants commercial codec lock-in - except those guys. There's no value in it for anyone else but them. The difference is that, even unlike vector animation systems like Flash (vs. HTML5's alternative), the video encoding situation with these proprietary codecs has been particularly painful for content producers. And they are pissed, and heading for the exits.
Objectively, this FUD campaign is a waste of time and money. I don't really think patent extortion is going to prevent it either (though the lawyers with fees on the line will tell you otherwise, of course). Apple has a prison platform in the iphone and ipad, so they can lock out VP8 and Theora, but on MacOS and Windows and Android and every other device they can't keep the open codec off the client. Multiple encodings have been the state of affairs for a while, so no one needs to choose... just gradually even Apple could find themselves out in the cold, with many places on a budget opting to do the single cheapest transcode for the biggest audience - to the open standard codec. You know, the same one youtube uses.
Right, but the point is that Mac and Windows users can't choose. They get it bundled. And even those users probably would opt to save the pennies versus paying just to lock out a perfectly good open alternative. And the content producers really suffer - if they had their way they'd be all over a platform neutral, open standard codec where they could take back control over their tools and infrastructure, and that would let them reach their entire audience without having to transcode for different little splinter groups.
Who said it was MPEG-LA specifically? I think Microsoft and Apple have well established policies in this area. Or were you just born yesterday and haven't heard?
Not that the MPEG-LA has very clean hands either.
The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time that it is impossible to build any video codec without infringing on at least some of their patents. That is, they assert they have a monopoly on all digital video compression technology, period, and it is illegal to even attempt to compete with them. Of course, they've been careful not to say quite exactly that.
If Jobs's email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe ('All video codecs are covered by patents.') He'd be confirming MPEG's assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple's increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs."
OK. easily 100x as many devices support earlier MPEG as h264. Is MPEG the double-super-special-winner?
Bluray and broadcast are not the issue here.
We are talking about the internet. The web. And marketshare. Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 are the winners, and h264 is tiny, almost vanishing by comparison.
Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have their work cut out for them trying to force people off of free alternatives to h264. The folks behind this proprietary codec are kind of their own worst enemy - it would be very expensive and cumbersome for the world to switch to it. This is why a free codec is likely to win in the end, if any significant percentage of the users with a stake in it (such as youtube, and its viewers) get to choose.
The only thing that's "clear" is that h.264 has hardly won anything yet. The round has not yet begun. Google controls youtube, and if they like VP8, and it happens to be free, look out world.
Just because Shuttleworth is buying some licenses for its OEM hardware partners does not mean you get proprietary codecs for free with your ubuntu download, unless you steal them. But this is like stealing a plastic bag. Why steal what someone else will give you for free?
He's willing to compromise on doctrinaire software freedom issues in order to grow his marketshare. I'm impressed he can afford to buy it and give it away even to their OEM vendors. One wonders what terms this was made on, and how sustainable it is. But to be clear - this does not come free with each download of Ubuntu. It's part of a deal where money is getting made through the sale of hardware.
You can look to Android for similar policy, I'm sure.
It might also have the effect of embarrassing some of the folks who had aspirations of hurting Linux adoption by trying to lock the world into a proprietary video codec. It will hurt, but the effect will not be as black and white as it was in the past.
The real endgame here is still getting an open codec in an open standard for web video. I think the commercial interests have finally woken up to how much the proprietary codec world has hurt them, and how much they have to gain by escaping. It's not just a problem for Linux and the FSF - proprietary codecs are a big problem for everyone who produces and consumes video.
In a perfect world, where users could unbundle and pay ala carte for commercial vs. free codecs, they would not buy them (they're not worth much vs. what we can do for free), and producers would not be saddled with encoding for them, and everyone would be quite a lot happier.
Oh yes, H264 is well loved by many. Bluray does use it, and that claim about broadcasters is true; beyond original MPEG streams, I have seen several preparing their "digital archives" with high-bitrate h264 - by which I mean 8, 12 or even higher Mb/sec - far beyond what is used on the internet. This is the corporate equivalent of a 1024Kb/sec mp3.:) It's also approved as part of the new HDTV broadcast standards, though not actually used in practice - and this too would be at far lower bitrates.
It's just not used much for distributing video on the web. By volume this job is done by Flash, and as you know, Flash has historically used Sorenson Spark and then an On2 protocol called VP6. H264 support was added to flash several years ago (2007 I believe?) but bulk transcoding video is resource intensive, expensive, and difficult. And of course, tool development and pricing has a lag time. So, most video on the web remains in the two predecessor codecs.
Amusingly, the same proprietary, patented codec hell that Microsoft and Apple love so much makes it far more difficult than it already should be to switch to h264. The marketplace for workable transcoding solutions is highly limited as a result of the IP thicket, and (historically, if not still today) you basically have no alternative other than buying Anystream and building a cranky army of Windows servers to do it, while by the way paying a stunning fortune in license fees.
Compare to what happens when you target an open codec, and all the world's developers then collaborate and compete on tight implementations across a variety of hardware architectures. That's when you have wicked time to market on things that run in CUDA, or eke out every last operation in every clock cycle of your highly-core-dense blade racks. And work without leaking memory and crashing. And cost nothing. Nice little luxuries like that.
Just to reiterate, It really doesn't matter what codec broadcasters use internally, or on Blurays, or anywhere else. To target the web, they must transcode regardless, to get a delivery format that balances bandwidth (and costs) with quality. If there is a good free codec available, it starts to look very attractive - lower costs and far fewer headaches. The only reason this hasn't already happened is "codec blackmail:" you have to support the proprietary mess, because vendor X or Y has your audience hostage and you have no alternative. With HTML5 and a free codec, we can finally end this disaster, but not if Apple and MS and Adobe can help it...
So, the dominant players want to force a patented technology into an open standard such as the web, when perfectly good free alternatives are available.
And you think the problem is... Mozilla? Xiph? The FSF?? Those nice people who gave you a free web browser and a free compiler and oh yeah half of the infrastructure that runs the internet, including probably over 50% of the code that powers your ability to post here... Who merely have the temerity to suggest lowly users have any control over the computers they use??
They are the problem?
If MS had managed to patent a vital part of HTML, and it was illegal for a US-based free software developer to write a standards-compliant web browser at all, that would be OK with you too?? And the problem in that case would be... the people trying to give the world wonderful things for free???
How much do you get per word? I'm just curious.
I ask because, I think it's less insulting to assume you're with of one of the paid astroturfing firms (that MS, at least, is widely known to employ) than that you actually believe the nonsense you've just written.
I have an answer, though who knows if this is true.
Microsoft loathes Linux and will do anything in their power to destroy it. In the long term, they may even believe it is as big as or a bigger threat than Apple. They have long loved that the problems around proprietary codecs created a barrier to entry for free software platforms. Eventually Ubuntu and others institutionalized workarounds for these (binary codecs and separate distribution), but there are legal problems associated with this. Flash was really annoying for them - because it ate WMV's dinner, AND Adobe supported Linux, yuck. At least they had the good grace to do it badly. But that was nothing. Now HTML5 will allow Linux to support itself, and be a first-tier web multimedia client. Unacceptable! They will do almost anything to stop it. Patent threats are rule #1 in their anti-competition playbook. So understanding that bit's easy.
What's interesting is that now Apple is in the same boat as Microsoft. This is a bit of a conceptual challenge for many of us who grew up with them as the hapless underdog, but those days are over. And Apple now loathes Linux even more than Microsoft. Or to put it another way, they loathe Android, Ubuntu on PC's and netbooks and you name it. Steve Jobs considers the smartphone and portable space his personal playground, but really anything that creates an alternative for Windows and RIM switchers other than Apple has a giant target painted on it, as far as he's concerned. And look at the numbers. Linux is his only serious competitor in mobile (going forward), and could be in other segments before long...
Steve's dream is to out-Bill Bill. He sees the day coming when he will have hundreds of millions of users locked in his proprietary platform, and he means to get them and keep them, by any means necessary.
The two giants fear and hate the idea of competition from free software (and google's vision of open standards) so much that they are willing to abandon some of their own failing codec ambitions (major corporate ego hit and major dollars written off) and team up on h264 rather than fail individually and let an open codec win.
It looks like Google was rooting for Ogg Theora to be the one defacto HTML5 codec "that works on everything." They see an advantage in conclusively ending MS, Apple, and Adobe's grip on the client. Why, is a whole question in itself. But they apparently do, and with control of Youtube, they are in a position to really move the needle in terms of codec marketshare.
Apple and MS were furious, but what could they do? Well, fucking with the HTML5 standards process for one, but that was just a delay tactic. Google can get cooperation from FF, and ActiveX makes IE* vulnerable to HTML5 support via plugin. So they will eventually get what they want in the browser space.
But the patent threats are another story. I'm guessing Google has done their homework and determined that the patent challenges against Theora could succeed, or at least would be so ugly and expensive and prolonged that it might be cheaper to buy a good commercial codec (VP8) and release it free to the world. Of course in the magical and nebulous world of software patents, they can still get sued regardless - because every single non-trivial piece of software violates thousands of software patents, but they must feel their legal position will be much stronger there. So, legal bean counting?
That, and I imagine considerations such as whether VP8 is actually a better codec than Theora might occasionally come into play.:)
If there was merely an outage or a mistake, what I'm reading says they could never have convicted. They had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was knowingly denying access to someone he knew should have it.
There was lots of evidence that he was acting really egregiously. If anything the city looks spineless and timid, once you see all the things he was doing and for how many months he was doing it - lying, giving them fake passwords, telling them he forgot the passwords (while working on the system the same day)... culminating in getting ready to skip town to avoid prosecution - which, it was made clear - was the thing that made this a criminal matter.
I'm not the least bit worried. In fact, I'm reassured. What would be scary is, can anyone you hire decide they don't like you and hold your equipment hostage, and you have no recourse. It doesn't matter whether you're a CEO or just an IT ops department head, if Childs can't be found guilty, it's a nightmare scenario.
To me, it's hair splitting and willful misinterpretation.
I can give my opinion - that he belongs in jail. I can also state that he's guilty and a criminal. These are statements of fact in the parlance of our time. It's not rocket science and there's no reason to argue with it - unless you just feel like you can't let the argument go, even if you can't think of anything better to take issue with than that.
If you were duped by the Terry Childs scam, it can be tough to admit it. One of the reasons it works so well is that it touches that moment we've all had where some ignorant jackass was in charge of us, and they were doing something really stupid, and it was making our lives miserable and ruining our hard work, and we couldn't stand it. We want to project ourselves onto him. Find excuses. Justify.
It is a scam, though. That connection is based on lies. Now it's just - I hope - a process of understanding that and being smarter as people for when the next guy comes around who tries the same thing.
it's a denial of service even if those using said systems can still use them?
Yes. Because some of the users, in this case the administrators, had their access ("service") removed ("denied").
if things keep working, no service has been denied.
Nope. It did not keep working. Unless your definition of working includes a state where the system can no longer be administered.
Are you really arguing otherwise? Really?
How Orwellian.:(
That analogy is, in a word, ridiculous.
He's a scam artist. If you believed him, he scammed you. He helped his incompetent asshole bosses by turning out to be a far bigger liar and asshole than they were.
He could have quit like a professional and spent his energy being a whistleblower and exposing their stupidity. Then he would have been a hero. If he was willing to work at it, he could have probably gotten quite a rich, just and well deserved revenge on them. Instead, by being a criminal and trying to justify it the way he did, he makes every IT worker everywhere look bad.
No, I think that your point was that we should not have expressed an opinion which differed from yours
vs.
I think this is a good moment for all of us to reflect on how rallying around this lying criminal stained our profession, and how we should practice the same objectivity with ourselves and those "in the downtrodden world of IT" that we expect in others.
Reading comprehension, not good.
discussion about the possibility that he might not be a lying criminal has somehow "stained our profession".
Nope, the discussion is obviously not what stained it. It's people's behavior in the discussion. Their way of conducting it.
What struck me was the way so many of us in the industry instinctively acted out our prejudices, made assumptions, hunted out any shred of fact that supported him (selective and misleading quotes from the CA rulebook, for instance), and even assiduously avoided rational counterarguments and conflicting evidence.
It sounds like your response is: "You're telling me to shut up." "You don't think there should be a discussion." All I said was my own opinion about the discussion that already happened. I'm trying to help people - in fact, our whole profession - not to be made a fool of by the next Terry Childs. I'm giving you a constructive bit of criticism.
Learn from it or throw it away. By all means, keep expressing your opinions, whatever they are. If what you see in me is a paranoid fantasy about me wanting to shut you up... maybe that's easier than hearing what I'm actually saying... hey, your choice.
Or is it possible that you were just looking for an excuse to believe that Terry Childs was a lying criminal instead of being objective?
I said it very clearly: He's a criminal - it was my opinion, and then the jury agreed, and convicted him. He deserves to be in jail. Again, I say that because it's my opinion, based on the evidence. I'm guessing you'll find in sentencing I'm not the only one who thinks that about him either.
That can't turn that into "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not." Trying to turn it into that is just a desperate attempt to keep arguing after there is no leg left to stand on.
But some people lack that little built-in sensor that says when to stop, so they make bigger and bigger fools of themselves instead.
LOL. You can't read, apparently. Or you have no grasp of logic. He's a criminal - we convicted him. He deserves to be in jail. I say that because it's my opinion, based on the evidence. I'm guessing you'll find in sentencing I'm not the only one who thinks that about him either.
You turn that into "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not."
LMFAO. A child could spot the error in logic here. It's impressive that it's this easy to get you to make a fool of yourself.
And you picked this guy as your cause. Good luck with that.
So you believe that anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail...
Nope.
But if you want me to believe that in your imagination, fantasize away.
Terry belongs in jail. He is also guilty. Elementary logic does not give you to connect the two statements to an assertion that "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not."
Word of advice; on slashdot, and in other forums, people generally have to read through what I really said before they get to your "alternative version of events." So you could save yourself the effort of lamely trying to put words in my mouth.
Personally, I would say, know when to let go of an argument, an idea, a person. It's the unwillingness to do that that makes fresh dupes for scammers like Childs, year after year.
In the English language in the US of A, when someone loses in criminal court, and is declared guilty by a jury, we consider that person to be a criminal. We sentence them. We declare justice to have been served. The system does not need to work perfectly, nor do convictions need to be permanent, for this to be how our language, and our society, works.
I can't believe I'm actually explaining this.
Will it make you happy if, in the utterly ludicrous case that new facts come to light and he is later exonerated, I promise to come back here and to apologize and admit my mistake? Because I actually would.
Until that time, what I've said stands quite well.
Funny, we actually completely agree on everything you just said.
I had my opinion, I had my reasons for it. I just happen to think it was worth looking at the reasons so many people formed the wrong opinion - despite the balance of evidence we did have looking so bad for the guy.
I never claimed to know the truth, either. Let's not dabble in epistemology and conflate facts with the way we normally express opinions. I just think we all have the opportunity to learn something important here. In the future, not getting taken in by other liars and wackos like Terry Childs is beneficial, and even something some might ultimately appreciate. But as you say, it's just my opinion.
It was pretty simple to spot that his story doesn't make sense, actually, since it involves things that obviously don't fit with the facts that you can verify.
I want to add something here. Obviously his bosses were ignorant dickwads who ran a terrible shop and made all kinds of mistakes - not least, hiring Childs. Everyone also agrees on that. Unfortunately, Terry Childs made it all beside the point. The guy was an even bigger douchebag. He single-handedly helped and protected his shitty bosses through his dumbass actions.
You know what would have been the classiest, slickest thing in the world? If he just gave up the passwords, quit, and started writing and speaking about his experiences with the city. He could have told stories, campaigned, embarrassed the administration, and gotten his ass up and working to affect positive political change, just the way citizens in America have been doing for hundreds of years. He would be my fucking hero.
When your asshole boss is shitting on you, and destroying years of your blood-sweat-and-tears work, there are so many smart ways to see him off. Childs did none of them. He doesn't deserve to be anyone's hero. He deserves to be a little noted jailhouse occupant.
Slashdot Mirror
We are talking about cell phone video. Webcams. Camcorders.
Well, you are. It's irrelevant, but be my guest.
We are talking about hardware accelerated H.264 video in Flash and Silverlight.
Ah and now you're back to web video again.
Yeah, that'll be widely adopted. In Adobe and Microsoft's dreams.
No one wants commercial codec lock-in - except those guys. There's no value in it for anyone else but them. The difference is that, even unlike vector animation systems like Flash (vs. HTML5's alternative), the video encoding situation with these proprietary codecs has been particularly painful for content producers. And they are pissed, and heading for the exits.
Objectively, this FUD campaign is a waste of time and money. I don't really think patent extortion is going to prevent it either (though the lawyers with fees on the line will tell you otherwise, of course). Apple has a prison platform in the iphone and ipad, so they can lock out VP8 and Theora, but on MacOS and Windows and Android and every other device they can't keep the open codec off the client. Multiple encodings have been the state of affairs for a while, so no one needs to choose... just gradually even Apple could find themselves out in the cold, with many places on a budget opting to do the single cheapest transcode for the biggest audience - to the open standard codec. You know, the same one youtube uses.
I don't see how you'll stop it, frankly.
Ah. That explains it. Wow, this story is truly creating something from nothing, no?
Right, but the point is that Mac and Windows users can't choose. They get it bundled. And even those users probably would opt to save the pennies versus paying just to lock out a perfectly good open alternative. And the content producers really suffer - if they had their way they'd be all over a platform neutral, open standard codec where they could take back control over their tools and infrastructure, and that would let them reach their entire audience without having to transcode for different little splinter groups.
Who said it was MPEG-LA specifically? I think Microsoft and Apple have well established policies in this area. Or were you just born yesterday and haven't heard?
Not that the MPEG-LA has very clean hands either.
The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time that it is impossible to build any video codec without infringing on at least some of their patents. That is, they assert they have a monopoly on all digital video compression technology, period, and it is illegal to even attempt to compete with them. Of course, they've been careful not to say quite exactly that.
If Jobs's email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe ('All video codecs are covered by patents.') He'd be confirming MPEG's assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple's increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs."
-Monty, on a recent story
OK. easily 100x as many devices support earlier MPEG as h264. Is MPEG the double-super-special-winner?
Bluray and broadcast are not the issue here.
We are talking about the internet. The web. And marketshare. Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 are the winners, and h264 is tiny, almost vanishing by comparison.
Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have their work cut out for them trying to force people off of free alternatives to h264. The folks behind this proprietary codec are kind of their own worst enemy - it would be very expensive and cumbersome for the world to switch to it. This is why a free codec is likely to win in the end, if any significant percentage of the users with a stake in it (such as youtube, and its viewers) get to choose.
Nice pre-written bit of astroturf.
The only thing that's "clear" is that h.264 has hardly won anything yet. The round has not yet begun. Google controls youtube, and if they like VP8, and it happens to be free, look out world.
Just because Shuttleworth is buying some licenses for its OEM hardware partners does not mean you get proprietary codecs for free with your ubuntu download, unless you steal them. But this is like stealing a plastic bag. Why steal what someone else will give you for free?
He's willing to compromise on doctrinaire software freedom issues in order to grow his marketshare. I'm impressed he can afford to buy it and give it away even to their OEM vendors. One wonders what terms this was made on, and how sustainable it is. But to be clear - this does not come free with each download of Ubuntu. It's part of a deal where money is getting made through the sale of hardware.
You can look to Android for similar policy, I'm sure.
It might also have the effect of embarrassing some of the folks who had aspirations of hurting Linux adoption by trying to lock the world into a proprietary video codec. It will hurt, but the effect will not be as black and white as it was in the past.
The real endgame here is still getting an open codec in an open standard for web video. I think the commercial interests have finally woken up to how much the proprietary codec world has hurt them, and how much they have to gain by escaping. It's not just a problem for Linux and the FSF - proprietary codecs are a big problem for everyone who produces and consumes video.
In a perfect world, where users could unbundle and pay ala carte for commercial vs. free codecs, they would not buy them (they're not worth much vs. what we can do for free), and producers would not be saddled with encoding for them, and everyone would be quite a lot happier.
No one should be running Mono. It's a well-proven, extensively documented part of Microsoft's PR, FUD, and patent attack on Linux.
The real problem is that it was included to begin with. It needs to be removed at the source.
No good free alternative exists
Code signed-over to the FSF most certainly doesn't make up a significant portion of the internet
H.264 is an open standard. There are no controls attached to it.
Whenever you sober up, feel free to post again. :)
Oh yes, H264 is well loved by many. Bluray does use it, and that claim about broadcasters is true; beyond original MPEG streams, I have seen several preparing their "digital archives" with high-bitrate h264 - by which I mean 8, 12 or even higher Mb/sec - far beyond what is used on the internet. This is the corporate equivalent of a 1024Kb/sec mp3. :) It's also approved as part of the new HDTV broadcast standards, though not actually used in practice - and this too would be at far lower bitrates.
It's just not used much for distributing video on the web. By volume this job is done by Flash, and as you know, Flash has historically used Sorenson Spark and then an On2 protocol called VP6. H264 support was added to flash several years ago (2007 I believe?) but bulk transcoding video is resource intensive, expensive, and difficult. And of course, tool development and pricing has a lag time. So, most video on the web remains in the two predecessor codecs.
Amusingly, the same proprietary, patented codec hell that Microsoft and Apple love so much makes it far more difficult than it already should be to switch to h264. The marketplace for workable transcoding solutions is highly limited as a result of the IP thicket, and (historically, if not still today) you basically have no alternative other than buying Anystream and building a cranky army of Windows servers to do it, while by the way paying a stunning fortune in license fees.
Compare to what happens when you target an open codec, and all the world's developers then collaborate and compete on tight implementations across a variety of hardware architectures. That's when you have wicked time to market on things that run in CUDA, or eke out every last operation in every clock cycle of your highly-core-dense blade racks. And work without leaking memory and crashing. And cost nothing. Nice little luxuries like that.
Just to reiterate, It really doesn't matter what codec broadcasters use internally, or on Blurays, or anywhere else. To target the web, they must transcode regardless, to get a delivery format that balances bandwidth (and costs) with quality. If there is a good free codec available, it starts to look very attractive - lower costs and far fewer headaches. The only reason this hasn't already happened is "codec blackmail:" you have to support the proprietary mess, because vendor X or Y has your audience hostage and you have no alternative. With HTML5 and a free codec, we can finally end this disaster, but not if Apple and MS and Adobe can help it...
So, the dominant players want to force a patented technology into an open standard such as the web, when perfectly good free alternatives are available.
And you think the problem is... Mozilla? Xiph? The FSF?? Those nice people who gave you a free web browser and a free compiler and oh yeah half of the infrastructure that runs the internet, including probably over 50% of the code that powers your ability to post here... Who merely have the temerity to suggest lowly users have any control over the computers they use??
They are the problem?
If MS had managed to patent a vital part of HTML, and it was illegal for a US-based free software developer to write a standards-compliant web browser at all, that would be OK with you too?? And the problem in that case would be... the people trying to give the world wonderful things for free???
How much do you get per word? I'm just curious.
I ask because, I think it's less insulting to assume you're with of one of the paid astroturfing firms (that MS, at least, is widely known to employ) than that you actually believe the nonsense you've just written.
I have an answer, though who knows if this is true.
Microsoft loathes Linux and will do anything in their power to destroy it. In the long term, they may even believe it is as big as or a bigger threat than Apple. They have long loved that the problems around proprietary codecs created a barrier to entry for free software platforms. Eventually Ubuntu and others institutionalized workarounds for these (binary codecs and separate distribution), but there are legal problems associated with this. Flash was really annoying for them - because it ate WMV's dinner, AND Adobe supported Linux, yuck. At least they had the good grace to do it badly. But that was nothing. Now HTML5 will allow Linux to support itself, and be a first-tier web multimedia client. Unacceptable! They will do almost anything to stop it. Patent threats are rule #1 in their anti-competition playbook. So understanding that bit's easy.
What's interesting is that now Apple is in the same boat as Microsoft. This is a bit of a conceptual challenge for many of us who grew up with them as the hapless underdog, but those days are over. And Apple now loathes Linux even more than Microsoft. Or to put it another way, they loathe Android, Ubuntu on PC's and netbooks and you name it. Steve Jobs considers the smartphone and portable space his personal playground, but really anything that creates an alternative for Windows and RIM switchers other than Apple has a giant target painted on it, as far as he's concerned. And look at the numbers. Linux is his only serious competitor in mobile (going forward), and could be in other segments before long...
Steve's dream is to out-Bill Bill. He sees the day coming when he will have hundreds of millions of users locked in his proprietary platform, and he means to get them and keep them, by any means necessary.
The two giants fear and hate the idea of competition from free software (and google's vision of open standards) so much that they are willing to abandon some of their own failing codec ambitions (major corporate ego hit and major dollars written off) and team up on h264 rather than fail individually and let an open codec win.
It looks like Google was rooting for Ogg Theora to be the one defacto HTML5 codec "that works on everything." They see an advantage in conclusively ending MS, Apple, and Adobe's grip on the client. Why, is a whole question in itself. But they apparently do, and with control of Youtube, they are in a position to really move the needle in terms of codec marketshare.
Apple and MS were furious, but what could they do? Well, fucking with the HTML5 standards process for one, but that was just a delay tactic. Google can get cooperation from FF, and ActiveX makes IE* vulnerable to HTML5 support via plugin. So they will eventually get what they want in the browser space.
But the patent threats are another story. I'm guessing Google has done their homework and determined that the patent challenges against Theora could succeed, or at least would be so ugly and expensive and prolonged that it might be cheaper to buy a good commercial codec (VP8) and release it free to the world. Of course in the magical and nebulous world of software patents, they can still get sued regardless - because every single non-trivial piece of software violates thousands of software patents, but they must feel their legal position will be much stronger there. So, legal bean counting?
That, and I imagine considerations such as whether VP8 is actually a better codec than Theora might occasionally come into play. :)
I would say, do look at the facts of the case.
If there was merely an outage or a mistake, what I'm reading says they could never have convicted. They had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was knowingly denying access to someone he knew should have it.
There was lots of evidence that he was acting really egregiously. If anything the city looks spineless and timid, once you see all the things he was doing and for how many months he was doing it - lying, giving them fake passwords, telling them he forgot the passwords (while working on the system the same day)... culminating in getting ready to skip town to avoid prosecution - which, it was made clear - was the thing that made this a criminal matter.
I'm not the least bit worried. In fact, I'm reassured. What would be scary is, can anyone you hire decide they don't like you and hold your equipment hostage, and you have no recourse. It doesn't matter whether you're a CEO or just an IT ops department head, if Childs can't be found guilty, it's a nightmare scenario.
Yes, I see your point.
To me, it's hair splitting and willful misinterpretation.
I can give my opinion - that he belongs in jail. I can also state that he's guilty and a criminal. These are statements of fact in the parlance of our time. It's not rocket science and there's no reason to argue with it - unless you just feel like you can't let the argument go, even if you can't think of anything better to take issue with than that.
If you were duped by the Terry Childs scam, it can be tough to admit it. One of the reasons it works so well is that it touches that moment we've all had where some ignorant jackass was in charge of us, and they were doing something really stupid, and it was making our lives miserable and ruining our hard work, and we couldn't stand it. We want to project ourselves onto him. Find excuses. Justify.
It is a scam, though. That connection is based on lies. Now it's just - I hope - a process of understanding that and being smarter as people for when the next guy comes around who tries the same thing.
it's a denial of service even if those using said systems can still use them?
Yes. Because some of the users, in this case the administrators, had their access ("service") removed ("denied").
if things keep working, no service has been denied.
Nope. It did not keep working. Unless your definition of working includes a state where the system can no longer be administered.
Are you really arguing otherwise? Really?
How Orwellian. :(
That analogy is, in a word, ridiculous.
He's a scam artist. If you believed him, he scammed you. He helped his incompetent asshole bosses by turning out to be a far bigger liar and asshole than they were.
He could have quit like a professional and spent his energy being a whistleblower and exposing their stupidity. Then he would have been a hero. If he was willing to work at it, he could have probably gotten quite a rich, just and well deserved revenge on them. Instead, by being a criminal and trying to justify it the way he did, he makes every IT worker everywhere look bad.
No, I think that your point was that we should not have expressed an opinion which differed from yours
vs.
I think this is a good moment for all of us to reflect on how rallying around this lying criminal stained our profession, and how we should practice the same objectivity with ourselves and those "in the downtrodden world of IT" that we expect in others.
Reading comprehension, not good.
discussion about the possibility that he might not be a lying criminal has somehow "stained our profession".
Nope, the discussion is obviously not what stained it. It's people's behavior in the discussion. Their way of conducting it.
What struck me was the way so many of us in the industry instinctively acted out our prejudices, made assumptions, hunted out any shred of fact that supported him (selective and misleading quotes from the CA rulebook, for instance), and even assiduously avoided rational counterarguments and conflicting evidence.
It sounds like your response is: "You're telling me to shut up." "You don't think there should be a discussion." All I said was my own opinion about the discussion that already happened. I'm trying to help people - in fact, our whole profession - not to be made a fool of by the next Terry Childs. I'm giving you a constructive bit of criticism.
Learn from it or throw it away. By all means, keep expressing your opinions, whatever they are. If what you see in me is a paranoid fantasy about me wanting to shut you up... maybe that's easier than hearing what I'm actually saying... hey, your choice.
Or is it possible that you were just looking for an excuse to believe that Terry Childs was a lying criminal instead of being objective?
Nope. And I made that pretty clear.
It's hair splitting nonsense.
I said it very clearly: He's a criminal - it was my opinion, and then the jury agreed, and convicted him. He deserves to be in jail. Again, I say that because it's my opinion, based on the evidence. I'm guessing you'll find in sentencing I'm not the only one who thinks that about him either.
That can't turn that into "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail ... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not." Trying to turn it into that is just a desperate attempt to keep arguing after there is no leg left to stand on.
But some people lack that little built-in sensor that says when to stop, so they make bigger and bigger fools of themselves instead.
LOL. You can't read, apparently. Or you have no grasp of logic. He's a criminal - we convicted him. He deserves to be in jail. I say that because it's my opinion, based on the evidence. I'm guessing you'll find in sentencing I'm not the only one who thinks that about him either.
You turn that into "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail ... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not."
LMFAO. A child could spot the error in logic here. It's impressive that it's this easy to get you to make a fool of yourself.
And you picked this guy as your cause. Good luck with that.
OK. Point taken. Thank you, by the way.
So you believe that anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail ...
Nope.
But if you want me to believe that in your imagination, fantasize away.
Terry belongs in jail. He is also guilty. Elementary logic does not give you to connect the two statements to an assertion that "anyone found guilty in a court of law belongs in jail ... regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not."
Word of advice; on slashdot, and in other forums, people generally have to read through what I really said before they get to your "alternative version of events." So you could save yourself the effort of lamely trying to put words in my mouth.
Personally, I would say, know when to let go of an argument, an idea, a person. It's the unwillingness to do that that makes fresh dupes for scammers like Childs, year after year.
No.
Your line of argument is ridiculous.
In the English language in the US of A, when someone loses in criminal court, and is declared guilty by a jury, we consider that person to be a criminal. We sentence them. We declare justice to have been served. The system does not need to work perfectly, nor do convictions need to be permanent, for this to be how our language, and our society, works.
I can't believe I'm actually explaining this.
Will it make you happy if, in the utterly ludicrous case that new facts come to light and he is later exonerated, I promise to come back here and to apologize and admit my mistake? Because I actually would.
Until that time, what I've said stands quite well.
Funny, we actually completely agree on everything you just said.
I had my opinion, I had my reasons for it. I just happen to think it was worth looking at the reasons so many people formed the wrong opinion - despite the balance of evidence we did have looking so bad for the guy.
I never claimed to know the truth, either. Let's not dabble in epistemology and conflate facts with the way we normally express opinions. I just think we all have the opportunity to learn something important here. In the future, not getting taken in by other liars and wackos like Terry Childs is beneficial, and even something some might ultimately appreciate. But as you say, it's just my opinion.
His story was nonsense. Anyone could see it, if they were looking to be objective, rather than looking to find a reason to believe him.
And I guess your point is... I should not have expressed that opinion?
This is a discussion. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't mean, don't have a discussion. It means don't lock him up without proving him guilty.
I can't believe I'm explaining this.
Thank you.
Wow, what on earth will it take for some people to just admit they made a mistake, rethink a little, and move on a smarter, better person?
It was pretty simple to spot that his story doesn't make sense, actually, since it involves things that obviously don't fit with the facts that you can verify.
Here's a prior post of mine - you can judge for yourself if you think I was right to make the call.
I want to add something here. Obviously his bosses were ignorant dickwads who ran a terrible shop and made all kinds of mistakes - not least, hiring Childs. Everyone also agrees on that. Unfortunately, Terry Childs made it all beside the point. The guy was an even bigger douchebag. He single-handedly helped and protected his shitty bosses through his dumbass actions.
You know what would have been the classiest, slickest thing in the world? If he just gave up the passwords, quit, and started writing and speaking about his experiences with the city. He could have told stories, campaigned, embarrassed the administration, and gotten his ass up and working to affect positive political change, just the way citizens in America have been doing for hundreds of years. He would be my fucking hero.
When your asshole boss is shitting on you, and destroying years of your blood-sweat-and-tears work, there are so many smart ways to see him off. Childs did none of them. He doesn't deserve to be anyone's hero. He deserves to be a little noted jailhouse occupant.