If you know where to look, it's easy to find "pirated" copies of any OS you like. Panther, Windows XP, RHEL,... it's all there.
But it doesn't stop people from buying software from Apple, or Microsoft, does it? So how is this hurting Apple, any more than free music downloads are hurting the RIAA?
These "free dialup" schemes were good value in the early days of internet access here (in the UK), when all dialup was expensive because of the telephone company's monopoly.
Actually I can call the Far East for less per minute than these things charge. They advertise that they cost a "local call", but no-one pays that much for normal phone calls any more.
If they can't get fixes for this, how are they going to get fixes for bugs in the programs? And don't try to tell me that the programs are 100% bug-free...
If someone has outsourced program development like that, and has got no way of maintaining their code, they deserve all the hurt in the world.
No it wouldn't, because people would have spotted the decision at an early stage and told the developers that it was stupid.
With a commercial product, it took someone with a network sniffer to discover this. So it's just a lucky fluke that someone other than the bad guys knows about it.
My understanding is that Red Hat threatened Centos with legal action, and that in the USA (unlike here in the UK) it is very expensive to defend yourself against being sued, even if you win.
Thus, in the USA, discussing the rights and wrongs of the "law" is irrelevant if one of the parties to the case is a corporation with a lot of money, and the other is not.
So you faxed them some documents and they sold you a certificate. That's all. It was a pain for you, because you obtained genuine documents. It doesn't sound like it was much work for them to check you out: if you were in the phone book, they call you back - if not, never mind.
One time I zipped across the Iron Curtain at the height of the cold war. The border guards on either side didn't ask me any questions at all. But then, we do things differently here in Europe.
The handwriting "experts" were told that the doodle was by Blair (the British prime minister). They thought they were describing him, not Gates.
Moreover, they were employed by an anti-Blair newspaper, so their comments are likely to reflect what their employers wanted to hear, rather than the results of any genuine analysis.
I looked at the site in the article, but it seems to have nothing on it but a flash movie.
If I download the flash file to play it, surely I'm copying the MPAA's copyrighted file onto my own machine. I'm worried that they'll sue me it I do that.
If the copy protection really works the way its manufacturers say it does, the library won't be able to crack it. So the "right" to crack it will be an empty right: a right to do something that is impossible.
If the Germans really wanted to have these things preserved for posterity, they would have to pass a law requiring the manufacturer to supply the library with a non-copy-protected version.
But then he would be incredibly rich. OK, he had one good idea a long time ago. Why should just a little effort guarantee him an enormous income for life? He was just doing what he was employed to do by Batelle. Why should "inventing" be any different from any other salaried occupation?
There's no reason that "nifty stock quotes" couldn't be delivered in plain HTML. If you need to use something insecure like ActiveX to view them, that is because MS has put so much effort into promoting "features" instead of "security".
If MS were serious about security and simply removed ActiveX from their browser and stopped supporting it, pretty soon the web sites that use it would get re-written to use something more sensible.
Here in the UK, my kids like to watch German MTV. It plays just the same crap American music, but the rude words don't get bleeped like they do on English MTV. I suppose the idea is that they are just gibberish anyway to the Germans.
Advertisers aren't stupid: they would very quickly stop believing that spam works if their income dried up.
And all the adverts are in English, so are obviously aimed at Americans, not Chinese people. So if Americans stopped buying the junk, the whole problem would go away in a few weeks at the most.
If it was really a sudden total failure, how do they know it was in the electrical system and not just a meteor strike or something? Sounds like someone was talking to the satellite's computer just when it decided to go wrong...
The Americans like the British government because it does what they say. That policy is very unpopular here in Britain, and will most likely change after the election next year.
Slashdot Mirror
But it doesn't stop people from buying software from Apple, or Microsoft, does it? So how is this hurting Apple, any more than free music downloads are hurting the RIAA?
Actually I can call the Far East for less per minute than these things charge. They advertise that they cost a "local call", but no-one pays that much for normal phone calls any more.
If someone has outsourced program development like that, and has got no way of maintaining their code, they deserve all the hurt in the world.
With a commercial product, it took someone with a network sniffer to discover this. So it's just a lucky fluke that someone other than the bad guys knows about it.
Thus, in the USA, discussing the rights and wrongs of the "law" is irrelevant if one of the parties to the case is a corporation with a lot of money, and the other is not.
Do you mean that being a Muslim or taking aspirin are illegal throughout the USA?
So you faxed them some documents and they sold you a certificate. That's all. It was a pain for you, because you obtained genuine documents. It doesn't sound like it was much work for them to check you out: if you were in the phone book, they call you back - if not, never mind.
It needs a microprocessor to "detect the presence of a DC voltage" ???
One time I zipped across the Iron Curtain at the height of the cold war. The border guards on either side didn't ask me any questions at all. But then, we do things differently here in Europe.
"http://search.msn.com"
into my browser bar, and it redirected to
"http://search.msn.nl:80/?geovar=150"
which is all in Dutch.
Do they think I'm near Holland because I live in the UK? Is this somehow related to the flying cars I've been reading about on the Register?
Moreover, they were employed by an anti-Blair newspaper, so their comments are likely to reflect what their employers wanted to hear, rather than the results of any genuine analysis.
If I download the flash file to play it, surely I'm copying the MPAA's copyrighted file onto my own machine. I'm worried that they'll sue me it I do that.
If the Germans really wanted to have these things preserved for posterity, they would have to pass a law requiring the manufacturer to supply the library with a non-copy-protected version.
The copying can be over the internet (that's just a big "home network", isn't it?). So I think that either
- This scheme isn't going to prevent copying over the internet (unlikely, because that's the whole point of it)
- The claim that I can copy to any other device that I own is going to turn out to be a lie.
My money would be on the second possibility.or
But then he would be incredibly rich. OK, he had one good idea a long time ago. Why should just a little effort guarantee him an enormous income for life? He was just doing what he was employed to do by Batelle. Why should "inventing" be any different from any other salaried occupation?
There's no reason that "nifty stock quotes" couldn't be delivered in plain HTML. If you need to use something insecure like ActiveX to view them, that is because MS has put so much effort into promoting "features" instead of "security".
If MS were serious about security and simply removed ActiveX from their browser and stopped supporting it, pretty soon the web sites that use it would get re-written to use something more sensible.
Here in the UK, my kids like to watch German MTV. It plays just the same crap American music, but the rude words don't get bleeped like they do on English MTV. I suppose the idea is that they are just gibberish anyway to the Germans.
Even if you need to move it?
How to pick up and carry your Mac
Does this mean the Canadian music industry will have to make a living by suing its customers, like the US industry does?
Probably just as long as it took for Sun to get their Java chip into every PC.
Advertisers aren't stupid: they would very quickly stop believing that spam works if their income dried up.
And all the adverts are in English, so are obviously aimed at Americans, not Chinese people. So if Americans stopped buying the junk, the whole problem would go away in a few weeks at the most.
If it was really a sudden total failure, how do they know it was in the electrical system and not just a meteor strike or something? Sounds like someone was talking to the satellite's computer just when it decided to go wrong...
Of course they do. Then people will get locked into Microsoft's proprietory software, file formats and so on.
The Americans like the British government because it does what they say. That policy is very unpopular here in Britain, and will most likely change after the election next year.