Why, thank you, Captain Obvious. We'd hoped nobody would actually notice the quiet little elections we have going on behind the scenes.
Investigating this kind of deals doesn't seem like too bad a thing; I think there should be more of them, too.
If, however, this deal got sanctioned, while Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour didn't, then we would have a problem. Please do not create a problem where there is none. Yet.
... but the Google-Yahoo deal is non-exclusive, so I guess that'll get them off the hook.
I do find it quite ominous that Microsoft has been put on the defensive, and they can only try to defend by making the government stop their competitors.
They are influential, but it is growing ever more obvious they cannot compete with their own tech, no matter how much money they may have.
it.slashdot.org has brown as its colour, not green:-)
So it is not the colour blind, but rather, poor design that makes the it section look crappy brown.
Red-green, but not too badly. I get along just fine, but fuck those test patterns. There was some kind of a jumbo poster ad with that pattern, and the only time I was able to read it was at night, from a sufficient distance.
Certain shades of red, green, purple, brown and grey simply blend into each other. When I see something colored like that, I can't even name the color.
Kind of like someone tone-deaf guessing whether he heard a C or an E note. He can hear whether it was high or low, just like I see whether it is light or dark, but other than that, I simply cannot name it.
For instance, most of this/. page is green. Though it may be light brown.
The frame around the text field I'm typing my answer in is a different shade of green, but it might also be grey.
I'm leaning towards green, but I don't really see it.
Since the GPL was considered to be incompatible with patents, I'd say this was more than simple sharing.
Several companies have shared their patents with the Open Source community -- or at least promised never to sue for infringement (yes, I know there is a difference), but nobody has ever done that with someone else's patent.
This alone makes it a gift; showing that it is possible is another gift, as now we can expect more of the same.
Plus, you wouldn't like English names spelled elsewhere according to local spelling, would you?
The Serbs actually do that, regardless of the script they use (Cyrillic or Latin). Thus Shakespeare becomes [Scaron]ekspir, Churchill becomes [Ccaron]er[ccaron]il, and Huxley becomes Haksli.
They do it with other languages as well, so Kirkegaard becomes Kjerkjegor or something like that.
They say a bunch of things, and most of it is crap.
They call it "adaptation, not evolution", because the change did not create a new species.
Of course, the fact that the division into species is quite an arbitrary one, kind of like the division of languages, escapes them.
Then they argue that this 'adaptation' is the result of loss of genetic information, which is nonsensical. Dawkins argues, quite convincingly IMO, that mutations increase the uncertainty in the system; since natural selection picks one solution over the other, it increases the information content of the system by removing said uncertainty.
In His infinite Noodliness, the FSM touched the Microsoft midgit while he was composing the OOXML standard draft and put in all the spaghetti code and specifications, and is now laughing His Hallowed Noodles off.
Probably not. It would create an inconsistency. Plus, you wouldn't like English names spelled elsewhere according to local spelling, would you? Budapest is written Budapest in English as well, not Budawpasht as the Hungarian pronunciation would imply.
After all, it's all Latin script, it is not as if you have to transcribe it to/from Cyrillic or Greek.
Oh, yes, it's all Latin script. But Latin script is not very well suited to Slavic languages, which have introduced a variety of new letters which I cannot repeat here. Instead of transcribing those, most times English speakers simply strip the diacritics and mangle the pronunciation.
Budapest is spelled just like that in Hungarian; English speakers just mangle the pronunciation.
Any Slavic name containing a ccaron, cacute, zcaron, scaron (type them up between &;s somewhere other than/.) is first stripped, then mangled up in pronunciation. Many a last name in former Yugoslavia ends in -i[cacute], which is most closely pronounced as -itch (no point in trying to make English speakers distinguish between ccaron and cacute anyway), but when stripped to -ic is pronounced as [ik].
This is the rough equivalent of me pronouncing your name John as [Yochn], just because it is spelled like that, and Slavic languages are rather phonetically spelled. This is why the Cyrillic alphabet was invented in the first place.
For instance, if Croatian still used the Cyrillic alphabet, most of our problems with sorting would disappear: our digraphs lj, nj, and d[zcaron] would always be represented as single characters (which has become possible with Unicode, but nobody ever uses those, as they would require complicated find/replace rules).
Well, I decline their license.
Then I accept a freebie from someone who doesn't mind sharing what he has.
Unlicensed it may be, but the one thing going for the culture I grew up in is the fact that we don't let trivialities such as these stop us.
Piracy is an evolutionary force. The MAFIAA and their ilk will learn to adapt.
The only question is whether they will adapt themselves or the laws. And if they adapt the laws to serve them, how long it will take the Americans to organize another revolution.
Or do you still think nation-wide elections really make a difference?
If you do not agree with their policy, do do not be a hypocrite and still use their product.
Well, what if it is not their product?
For instance, what if you cannot buy the songs in question in the format you want?
Besides, what choice do I have? I live in Croatia, and I cannot access the iTunes store, though I would very much like to purchase some music in a high-quality format. My time is more worth than the meager sum I save by hunting it through various torrents, where I may or may not find acceptable quality both in sound and in tags.
And, of course, if there is something available free of charge, many people will take it. It may be illegal (though not in the way you imply), but there is more than one way of putting one's money where their mouth is. One of those ways is copyright infringement.
Slashdot Mirror
So? Who was it? What did they want?
...
He's not coming back, is he?
Ad Wikipediam?
I'd have revoked his geek card, but Anonymous Cowards don't have them anyway.
No.
As everyone may well know, 42 is a very meaningful number.
Six times nine, and all.
The current administration's time is up.
Why, thank you, Captain Obvious. We'd hoped nobody would actually notice the quiet little elections we have going on behind the scenes.
Investigating this kind of deals doesn't seem like too bad a thing; I think there should be more of them, too.
If, however, this deal got sanctioned, while Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour didn't, then we would have a problem. Please do not create a problem where there is none. Yet.
to say exactly what Microsoft wants him to say. We might not believe regulators will do the same.
Oh, right.
As if Google and Yahoo! didn't have their own legal departments. And no lobbying power whatsoever.
Stop your karma-whoring fear-mongering, twitter. Your panicking is exaggerated, and completely unnecessary.
... because more likely than not, the atmospheric conditions would have changed enough to make the sky bright green.
... but the Google-Yahoo deal is non-exclusive, so I guess that'll get them off the hook.
I do find it quite ominous that Microsoft has been put on the defensive, and they can only try to defend by making the government stop their competitors.
They are influential, but it is growing ever more obvious they cannot compete with their own tech, no matter how much money they may have.
It's sad, really.
Yay. You just proved me colorblind.
/mope
I'm colorblind.
Red-green, but not too badly. I get along just fine, but fuck those test patterns. There was some kind of a jumbo poster ad with that pattern, and the only time I was able to read it was at night, from a sufficient distance.
Certain shades of red, green, purple, brown and grey simply blend into each other. When I see something colored like that, I can't even name the color.
Kind of like someone tone-deaf guessing whether he heard a C or an E note. He can hear whether it was high or low, just like I see whether it is light or dark, but other than that, I simply cannot name it.
For instance, most of this /. page is green. Though it may be light brown.
The frame around the text field I'm typing my answer in is a different shade of green, but it might also be grey.
I'm leaning towards green, but I don't really see it.
Free market?
Splendid! I'll have two!
As far as I can see, msnbot has no restrictions, while Googlebot has several.
I wouldn't know how exactly Google indexes comments, but looking at robots.txt, it seems msnbot has all the advantages.
Since the GPL was considered to be incompatible with patents, I'd say this was more than simple sharing.
Several companies have shared their patents with the Open Source community -- or at least promised never to sue for infringement (yes, I know there is a difference), but nobody has ever done that with someone else's patent.
This alone makes it a gift; showing that it is possible is another gift, as now we can expect more of the same.
If I understand this rightly, this is a veritable gift to the Open Source community. Kudos.
Good job, mods.
This was a good counter-example, and not at all offtopic.
The Serbs actually do that, regardless of the script they use (Cyrillic or Latin). Thus Shakespeare becomes [Scaron]ekspir, Churchill becomes [Ccaron]er[ccaron]il, and Huxley becomes Haksli.
They do it with other languages as well, so Kirkegaard becomes Kjerkjegor or something like that.
Phonetic ortography FTW.
They say a bunch of things, and most of it is crap.
They call it "adaptation, not evolution", because the change did not create a new species.
Of course, the fact that the division into species is quite an arbitrary one, kind of like the division of languages, escapes them.
Then they argue that this 'adaptation' is the result of loss of genetic information, which is nonsensical. Dawkins argues, quite convincingly IMO, that mutations increase the uncertainty in the system; since natural selection picks one solution over the other, it increases the information content of the system by removing said uncertainty.
It's all just creationist drivel.
In His infinite Noodliness, the FSM touched the Microsoft midgit while he was composing the OOXML standard draft and put in all the spaghetti code and specifications, and is now laughing His Hallowed Noodles off.
Nonsense.
Unfortunately, anything Microsoft spews out becomes a de facto standard in a few years' time anyway. No they're just making it formal.
Oh, yes, it's all Latin script. But Latin script is not very well suited to Slavic languages, which have introduced a variety of new letters which I cannot repeat here. Instead of transcribing those, most times English speakers simply strip the diacritics and mangle the pronunciation.
Budapest is spelled just like that in Hungarian; English speakers just mangle the pronunciation. /.) is first stripped, then mangled up in pronunciation. Many a last name in former Yugoslavia ends in -i[cacute], which is most closely pronounced as -itch (no point in trying to make English speakers distinguish between ccaron and cacute anyway), but when stripped to -ic is pronounced as [ik].
Any Slavic name containing a ccaron, cacute, zcaron, scaron (type them up between &;s somewhere other than
This is the rough equivalent of me pronouncing your name John as [Yochn], just because it is spelled like that, and Slavic languages are rather phonetically spelled. This is why the Cyrillic alphabet was invented in the first place.
For instance, if Croatian still used the Cyrillic alphabet, most of our problems with sorting would disappear: our digraphs lj, nj, and d[zcaron] would always be represented as single characters (which has become possible with Unicode, but nobody ever uses those, as they would require complicated find/replace rules).
So no, it's not "all Latin script".
No, but many Slavic speakers of English do.
I'd prefer SolarGroundhog.
The Rs are actually vocallic.
That, though, should be mitigated by the fact that the C should probably be transcribed as CH.
</nitpick>
Well, I decline their license.
Then I accept a freebie from someone who doesn't mind sharing what he has.
Unlicensed it may be, but the one thing going for the culture I grew up in is the fact that we don't let trivialities such as these stop us.
Piracy is an evolutionary force. The MAFIAA and their ilk will learn to adapt.
The only question is whether they will adapt themselves or the laws. And if they adapt the laws to serve them, how long it will take the Americans to organize another revolution. Or do you still think nation-wide elections really make a difference?
Well, what if it is not their product?
For instance, what if you cannot buy the songs in question in the format you want?
Besides, what choice do I have? I live in Croatia, and I cannot access the iTunes store, though I would very much like to purchase some music in a high-quality format. My time is more worth than the meager sum I save by hunting it through various torrents, where I may or may not find acceptable quality both in sound and in tags.
And, of course, if there is something available free of charge, many people will take it. It may be illegal (though not in the way you imply), but there is more than one way of putting one's money where their mouth is. One of those ways is copyright infringement.