This in particular is a clear case of Unjust Enrichment.
I don't think it is. Unjust Enrichment would be if the customer agreed to pay $50, but Amazon only charged them $5. Then the customer would be obligated to pay the remaining $45 because both parties agreed on the price of $50.
In this case however, Amazon meant to charge $50, but only charged the customers $0.01. The customers didn't agree to $50, they agreed to $0.01. Since, at the time, both parties agreed to the price of $0.01, it doesn't matter if Amazon changes their mind after the fact, the deal's done.
Amazon's pissed they lost a lot of money, but they're not allowed to retroactively charge people extra. I think their only option is to treat it as a sunk cost and make sure it doesn't happen again.
Or, you can do that. Though, I am confused, why does that work. They are trying to block by referral link. Does wget not send that?
When you navigate directly to a URL, in a browser or with wget, there is no referrer. And even if there was, it's unimportant because most web browsers let you turn off that "feature".
Wow, you conveniently snipped out my entire question and selectively quoted me to sound like a moron. Probably what I get for expecting a reasonable argument from a Microsoft employee. And here I was, actually expecting you to justify your position with logic or evidence. Just for shits and giggles, I'll give it another shot:
People don't have time to learn Debian? But they have time to learn Windows? They have time to waste on all the inconveniences that go along with using Windows? If people are as busy as you say, wouldn't it make sense for them to use the OS that's easier to maintain, is more stable, has a larger pool of conveniently available software all in the same place, and has fewer virus and malware problems? Cause those sound like big time savers to me.
What they want isn't the issue. Most people don't have TIME to learn new things. They work eight hours of the day, commute for two, and spend about an hour each morning and night getting ready for work or bed respectively. Add in an hour for sitting down to dinner with their family, and they have three waking hours to spend on learning anything their job doesn't cover. Unfortunately, it's the SAME three waking hours they have for everything else. If they choose to learn Debian, that's time they don't get to spend on something else, like - in my case - working out and playing with my kids. Do you honestly consider Debian more important than my health and my children? Fuck you too.
I'm confused. People don't have time to learn Debian? But they have time to learn Windows? They have time to waste on all the inconveniences that go along with using Windows? If people are as busy as you say, wouldn't it make sense for them to use the OS that's easier to maintain, is more stable, has a larger pool of conveniently available software all in the same place, and has fewer virus and malware problems? Cause those sound like big time savers to me.
I love this attitude. Every time I see it, there may as well be a big Windows flag flying over it. Say what you want about our products, nobody at Microsoft tech support will EVER call you stupid.
Most people who call MS tech support already know they're stupid in regard to computers. It's good business not to point it out, but there's a reason they're calling tech support. And don't get me wrong, I don't want everyone using Linux on their desktops. I'd prefer not to have my operating system dumbed down for the common denominator. I was just pointing out that ease of use and convenience are available for those who are smart enough to use it.
again you people seem to not understand google offers a service to the public, obligations come with that. they for example cannot turn away users based on their religion anymore then they can remove video's based on that same reasoning. the fact that it's owned by a company makes zero difference. this has nothing to do with property law either, your confusing the issue. the free expression of all religious beliefs is protected in most countries, hence they cannot censor his video's because of his views on islam.
No, Google and YouTube are not public services. National defense, roads, fire protection, Medicare, etc. are public services. A public service, is, by definition, provided by the government. If Google gets taken over by the government, then it'll be a public service and have to all anybody to say whatever they want. Until then, Google's servers are their own private property. I have no more right to post on YouTube then I do to walk into your house and use your phone.
Do the C standard and the C++ standard go into detail as to the semantics of this locking? No, they don't even specify what a thread is. This makes it less likely that students learn proper locking in college.
I don't think that's relevant. The ISO standard for Ada completely specifies the semantics of threads and thread locking, but that doesn't necessarily make the problem any easier. Of course Ada usually isn't taught in schools, but (unfortunately) C and C++ aren't usually taught in schools either, except for an occassional "C++ Programming" class.
Which "current ones"? Do POSIX threads work on Microsoft Windows?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean. There are several languages that have parralelism built into the language itself. In most of them, the underlying OS and computer architecture are irrelevant. Ada and Erlang come to mind, but there are others.
I'm a little confused about how you came to that conclusion.
This guy was using YouTube's servers, YouTube's website and YouTube's bandwidth, all of which are owned by YouTube. It's YouTube's private property and just like any other kind of private property, the owner gets to grant or deny access however they want.
The founders flat-out messed up because they had no idea that big business would have the power it has today. They had no idea that the internet would put the ability to curtain free speech in the hand of corporations rather than the government.
You mean the power for a person or business to use their private property the way they want to? Get a clue. YouTube isn't telling him to stop bad talking Islam. He can put up a website filled with videos critical of Islam, and YouTube won't give a shit. YouTube is just telling him that he can't use their property to do it.
Had they known that, I suspect rather strongly that they would have phrased the Bill of Rights differently.
I highly doubt it. The right to own private property is one of the most fundamental rights of any democracy and a necessity for a capitalist economy. Taking away the right to private property is a really bad idea.
You put DRM in your stuff, I don't buy it, that simple. There's no such thing as good DRM.
I'll second that.
If I can't buy a product without DRM, I'll download it from a torrent site, or I'll go without. If I crack the DRM to get a copy in a different format, I'll be a "criminal" anyway, so might as well go the path of least resistance.
The average person wants to open a box and pull out a disc that he shoves in his PC and it just fixes everything. He goes to watch a movie, and it works. He goes to listen to some music, and it works. He plugs in his digital media player, and it works. He opens a web site, and it works.
Eventually, he says "hey, I want to do this-and-that" and expects that whatever he needs to do this-and-that is either already on his PC, or someplace where he can click a button and put it on his PC.
No, we're not there yet. But I know what I think is closer.
Speak for yourself. With Debian I've been "there" for a while now. If the "average person" doesn't want to learn something better, they only have themselves to blame.
Sadly, this is true. I worked for a major clothing retailer for a while and one time a woman was caught by an associate shop lifting, another associate attempted to stop her at the entrance but she kept walking. Since a manager didn't see her put the item in her bag they let her go without calling the cops or anything for just this reason...
Sadly? Fuck that. Most people aren't criminals. They shouldn't be treated like they are.
It may have prevented a crime in your one example, but in almost every other situation, it would result in abuse of power, like the rent-a-cop at the hospital.
How many "average users" would need software outside of the 18,000+ packages in Debian's repository?
Thank you for reiterating my point. *IF* your application is in your distros package management system, then it's usually ok. It's when it isn't, that the nightmare starts.
You didn't answer my question...
It shouldn't matter whether or not it's software "the "average user" almost certainly wouldn't be installing" - the problem is that "package managers" are an ugly hack to work around definciencies in the platform.
Last I checked, each Windows program handles its own installation, its own updates (or not), and its own removal. There's often no consistency between software from the same company, much less in general.
On Linux, installation with a package manager is identical for all software. Upgrades are handled automatically with the rest of the system. And all software removal is handled identically, from the same place.
One of those is a hack, and it's not the package manager. I'd love to hear why you think package managers are a hack. What are the deficiencies they're supposedly working around?
"DLL hell" hasn't been a problem on Windows for pushing a decade now. It's equal parts tragedy and irony, that the Linux community spent years criticising Windows about it, then reinvented and "improved" that wheel as well.
Package managers haven't been "an ugly hack" in quite a while either. If you want to be taken seriously, you should probably try a "modern" distro other than LFS before making comments about Linux in general.
Linus Torvald's current position is that it will not, as he is unwilling to license his code under GPL V3.
That's exactly true. The Linux kernel itself is almost certainly going to stick with V2. But you can't do much with just a kernel, and a whole bunch of the userland tools are GNU projects. To name a few: bash, coreutils, shellutils, fileutils, tar, gzip, gawk, grep, sed, aspell, wget, which, emacs, gcc, gdb, make, autoconf, automake, libtool and hundreds more.
The GNU tools will almost certainly have their licenses changed to v3. I believe the FSF holds the copyrights specifically for that reason.
As much as people laugh at Stallman over "GNU/Linux", he has a pretty good point.
I'm glad they're doing this. Patent lawsuits could really undermine much of "the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space." Whatever that means.
'You' is a very confrontational word. When in doubt, refer to the item at hand (e.g. 'the data' not 'your data', 'the account' not 'your account').
To quote Fight Club:
Nine time out of ten, it's an electric razor. But, every once in a while... it's a dildo. It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. We use the indefinite aricle: "A dildo." Never "Your dildo."
The issue is not that they are "too stupid" to do that, it is that they neither want to, nor should have to.
And Windows is any better? I can think of at least two times in the past when Windows systems were hit *hard* by trojans, not because of average users, but because a large number of system admins didn't feel like updating. If paid system admins don't want to do it, the average home user is screwed.
If you're the poor end user who has to try and resolve the dependency hell that "third party library" usually produces, it *is* a "big fucking deal". Combined with the typical Linux developer's disinterest in maintaining any sort of decent binary compatibility or API stability ("because they can just grab the latest code from CVS and recompile") and you have one of the primary reasons Linux is having such difficulties penetrating past the tech-savvy userbase. Companies like Red Hat and SuSe have made heroic efforts to try and mitigate the problem, but most of the community simply isn't interested.
How many "average users" would need software outside of the 18,000+ packages in Debian's repository? I install a stunning amount of software, and I've only needed to go outside Debian's package system two or three times, and it was for software the "average user" almost certainly wouldn't be installing.
Hell, even when I compiled everything myself, the dependencies were nowhere near as bad as you make it out. Are you sure you're not confused with "DLL Hell" from Windows?
That being said, you'll hear no complaining from me that Linux is a geek only OS. I'll defend it when people like you spread obviously wrong information, but in general I'd prefer the average idiot stick with Windows.
Having just wasted an entire day trying to configure a new RT server, this massive problem Linux has is fresh in my mind, since dealing with the typical clusterfuck of cascading dependencies inherent to any non-trivial perl program is something I've only just recently finished doing. However, I don't expect another idiotic "developer" like yourself[0] to understand why an entire day of lost productivity wasted on something that should be completely fucking trivial, without kludges like "package managers" isn't a "big deal".
If your boss wants to hire somebody with a clue, who won't shit-can an entire day installing Linux and isn't baffled by Perl, can you have him call me? I've got a job, but I might be willing to $witch.
Heck, *I* have zero interest in doing that sort of thing these days, and it wasn't that long ago I did the whole Linux-from-scratch thing, just for the hell of it. I'm more than happy to sacrifice some (dirt cheap) disk space and processor time, to save myself the effort of putting the whole thing together myself and subsequently having to keep it maintained. This is precisely the same reason I don't use Linux on my desktop - because it's more work to get everything going and keep it that way.
No shit? Linux From Scratch is hard to maintain? I'm shocked! Shocked! Did you really just say that Linux From Scatch was hard to maintain, so you stopped using Linux? Linux From Scratch is meant to teach the deep inner workings of Linux, it's not supposed to be easy to maintain. There are dozens of Linux distros meant to be "easy to use", but you went ahead and picked the one that's purposely difficult? I don't think Linux From Scratch is your problem here.
Debian's testing branch is more stable than your LFS, it's current within a week of new software releases, and you can get daily automatic updates with a click of a button. I'm sure you'll point out some reason the average user is too stupid to do that, but it's a hell of a lot easier than LFS.
Close. More important than the "set of GUI tools" is a standard, stable, "set of libraries" (I use the term "libraries", but I basically mean a stable, defined set of basic functionalities that will _always_ be present in a known form). This is a _huge_ feature than OS X (and Windows) has over Linux.
Why should I, as a user, have to worry about libraries? I shouldn't. And with a distro like Debian or SuSe, I don't. I open Synaptic, click on the application I want, click "Apply", and the application is installed along with any necessary libraries. Oh, and it'll automatically get updated along with the rest of the system. Try doing that on Mac or Windows.
As a developer, I still don't see your point. It makes very little difference to me if I'm using the API built into the OS, or a third party library. In one case I'll have to add a line to the build scripts. Big fuckin' deal.
Maybe I'm just not "with it", but the idea of reading more than a few paragraphs on a PDA makes me want to shoot myself in the head. Not to mention all the other disadvantages of a PDA when compared to a book.
There is no such danger indeed. Basically, that Giersch guy is just someone who smells money in the opportunity to kick a large company up the arse. A plain nuisance, nothing else. Ridiculously enough, he is said to be right by German justice. Completely not understandable.
I completely agree that it's ridiculous. But after seeing a whole bunch of huge companies win BS lawsuits like this one, it's nice to see one of them get shafted for a change. It's petty and childish, but that doesn't make it any less amusing.
In some countries it is considered wrong for women to lift their veils so other men can see their faces, and in some women walk around with no shits on like men.
Assuming you meant "shirts," which country would that be? I think I may be going there soon for, um, business *cough*, and uh, I was just wondering if, um, coincidently, it may be the same country?
I guess in my experience, the license is totally irrelevant as I am providing services, and not distributables. I suppose it would be much better for end-user programs... but I find the idea of using Java for end-user programs generally unappealing, not to mention that Sun always provided a freely distributable JRE....
You're a little confused. The license that javac and the jvm are to be released under has nothing to do with the JRE.
The checklist on the lower right is probably the best part of the article. It's all pretty obvious stuff when you think about it, but nice to have it all listed.
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I don't think it is. Unjust Enrichment would be if the customer agreed to pay $50, but Amazon only charged them $5. Then the customer would be obligated to pay the remaining $45 because both parties agreed on the price of $50.
In this case however, Amazon meant to charge $50, but only charged the customers $0.01. The customers didn't agree to $50, they agreed to $0.01. Since, at the time, both parties agreed to the price of $0.01, it doesn't matter if Amazon changes their mind after the fact, the deal's done.
Amazon's pissed they lost a lot of money, but they're not allowed to retroactively charge people extra. I think their only option is to treat it as a sunk cost and make sure it doesn't happen again.
When you navigate directly to a URL, in a browser or with wget, there is no referrer. And even if there was, it's unimportant because most web browsers let you turn off that "feature".
Wow, you conveniently snipped out my entire question and selectively quoted me to sound like a moron. Probably what I get for expecting a reasonable argument from a Microsoft employee. And here I was, actually expecting you to justify your position with logic or evidence. Just for shits and giggles, I'll give it another shot:
I'm confused. People don't have time to learn Debian? But they have time to learn Windows? They have time to waste on all the inconveniences that go along with using Windows? If people are as busy as you say, wouldn't it make sense for them to use the OS that's easier to maintain, is more stable, has a larger pool of conveniently available software all in the same place, and has fewer virus and malware problems? Cause those sound like big time savers to me.
Most people who call MS tech support already know they're stupid in regard to computers. It's good business not to point it out, but there's a reason they're calling tech support. And don't get me wrong, I don't want everyone using Linux on their desktops. I'd prefer not to have my operating system dumbed down for the common denominator. I was just pointing out that ease of use and convenience are available for those who are smart enough to use it.
No, Google and YouTube are not public services. National defense, roads, fire protection, Medicare, etc. are public services. A public service, is, by definition, provided by the government. If Google gets taken over by the government, then it'll be a public service and have to all anybody to say whatever they want. Until then, Google's servers are their own private property. I have no more right to post on YouTube then I do to walk into your house and use your phone.
I don't think that's relevant. The ISO standard for Ada completely specifies the semantics of threads and thread locking, but that doesn't necessarily make the problem any easier. Of course Ada usually isn't taught in schools, but (unfortunately) C and C++ aren't usually taught in schools either, except for an occassional "C++ Programming" class.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean. There are several languages that have parralelism built into the language itself. In most of them, the underlying OS and computer architecture are irrelevant. Ada and Erlang come to mind, but there are others.
I'm a little confused about how you came to that conclusion.
This guy was using YouTube's servers, YouTube's website and YouTube's bandwidth, all of which are owned by YouTube. It's YouTube's private property and just like any other kind of private property, the owner gets to grant or deny access however they want.
You mean the power for a person or business to use their private property the way they want to? Get a clue. YouTube isn't telling him to stop bad talking Islam. He can put up a website filled with videos critical of Islam, and YouTube won't give a shit. YouTube is just telling him that he can't use their property to do it.
I highly doubt it. The right to own private property is one of the most fundamental rights of any democracy and a necessity for a capitalist economy. Taking away the right to private property is a really bad idea.
I'll second that.
If I can't buy a product without DRM, I'll download it from a torrent site, or I'll go without. If I crack the DRM to get a copy in a different format, I'll be a "criminal" anyway, so might as well go the path of least resistance.
Speak for yourself. With Debian I've been "there" for a while now. If the "average person" doesn't want to learn something better, they only have themselves to blame.
There's no difference at all. They're just offering the judge more money.
Sadly? Fuck that. Most people aren't criminals. They shouldn't be treated like they are.
It may have prevented a crime in your one example, but in almost every other situation, it would result in abuse of power, like the rent-a-cop at the hospital.
You didn't answer my question...
Last I checked, each Windows program handles its own installation, its own updates (or not), and its own removal. There's often no consistency between software from the same company, much less in general.
On Linux, installation with a package manager is identical for all software. Upgrades are handled automatically with the rest of the system. And all software removal is handled identically, from the same place.
One of those is a hack, and it's not the package manager. I'd love to hear why you think package managers are a hack. What are the deficiencies they're supposedly working around?
Package managers haven't been "an ugly hack" in quite a while either. If you want to be taken seriously, you should probably try a "modern" distro other than LFS before making comments about Linux in general.
How do you mean?
That's exactly true. The Linux kernel itself is almost certainly going to stick with V2. But you can't do much with just a kernel, and a whole bunch of the userland tools are GNU projects. To name a few: bash, coreutils, shellutils, fileutils, tar, gzip, gawk, grep, sed, aspell, wget, which, emacs, gcc, gdb, make, autoconf, automake, libtool and hundreds more.
The GNU tools will almost certainly have their licenses changed to v3. I believe the FSF holds the copyrights specifically for that reason.
As much as people laugh at Stallman over "GNU/Linux", he has a pretty good point.
You don't see it because he only runs while in a brilliant disguise.
I'm glad they're doing this. Patent lawsuits could really undermine much of "the pioneering work being done by educators in the e-learning 2.0 space." Whatever that means.
Don't feel too bad for Apple. We're about to see 5 years of daily Windows bugs. I'm sure Apple will find something to throw back at MS.
To quote Fight Club:
And Windows is any better? I can think of at least two times in the past when Windows systems were hit *hard* by trojans, not because of average users, but because a large number of system admins didn't feel like updating. If paid system admins don't want to do it, the average home user is screwed.
How many "average users" would need software outside of the 18,000+ packages in Debian's repository? I install a stunning amount of software, and I've only needed to go outside Debian's package system two or three times, and it was for software the "average user" almost certainly wouldn't be installing.
Hell, even when I compiled everything myself, the dependencies were nowhere near as bad as you make it out. Are you sure you're not confused with "DLL Hell" from Windows?
That being said, you'll hear no complaining from me that Linux is a geek only OS. I'll defend it when people like you spread obviously wrong information, but in general I'd prefer the average idiot stick with Windows.
If your boss wants to hire somebody with a clue, who won't shit-can an entire day installing Linux and isn't baffled by Perl, can you have him call me? I've got a job, but I might be willing to $witch.
No shit? Linux From Scratch is hard to maintain? I'm shocked! Shocked! Did you really just say that Linux From Scatch was hard to maintain, so you stopped using Linux? Linux From Scratch is meant to teach the deep inner workings of Linux, it's not supposed to be easy to maintain. There are dozens of Linux distros meant to be "easy to use", but you went ahead and picked the one that's purposely difficult? I don't think Linux From Scratch is your problem here.
Debian's testing branch is more stable than your LFS, it's current within a week of new software releases, and you can get daily automatic updates with a click of a button. I'm sure you'll point out some reason the average user is too stupid to do that, but it's a hell of a lot easier than LFS.
Why should I, as a user, have to worry about libraries? I shouldn't. And with a distro like Debian or SuSe, I don't. I open Synaptic, click on the application I want, click "Apply", and the application is installed along with any necessary libraries. Oh, and it'll automatically get updated along with the rest of the system. Try doing that on Mac or Windows.
As a developer, I still don't see your point. It makes very little difference to me if I'm using the API built into the OS, or a third party library. In one case I'll have to add a line to the build scripts. Big fuckin' deal.
Maybe I'm just not "with it", but the idea of reading more than a few paragraphs on a PDA makes me want to shoot myself in the head. Not to mention all the other disadvantages of a PDA when compared to a book.
I completely agree that it's ridiculous. But after seeing a whole bunch of huge companies win BS lawsuits like this one, it's nice to see one of them get shafted for a change. It's petty and childish, but that doesn't make it any less amusing.
Assuming you meant "shirts," which country would that be? I think I may be going there soon for, um, business *cough*, and uh, I was just wondering if, um, coincidently, it may be the same country?
You're a little confused. The license that javac and the jvm are to be released under has nothing to do with the JRE.
The checklist on the lower right is probably the best part of the article. It's all pretty obvious stuff when you think about it, but nice to have it all listed.