For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling.
Where do people come up with this crap from? The WTO and the WIPO have member states as their members. For the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.
The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.
Nonsense. These are international organizations just like the UN. Countries are members - they send people who represent their interests to the forums for discussion. Ultimately it is the government of the country that is responsible for the decisions they agree to and in a democracy the government is accountable to the people - in other forms of government whatever checks or balances (or lack thereof) is who the respective governments are acountable to.
I really wish some idiots would read what they are protesting before protesting it. The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots like the parent poster who have no idea what the WTO was about.
Do you stay up at night worrying about the contradictions inside your little mind?
today there is better coverage with copper lines than there is with mobile phones. Cell phones aren't a solution at all in most parts
aussie Tourist in the US finds the mobile phone system there so appalling when compared to home.
So what is it? Do your cellphones kick ass or do they suck? Or are you saying that your cellphones suck but are still better than those in the US?
I've traveled around in Australia - and I'm not talking 1980s, I'm talking 2000s and your local telephone system sucks. I was pretty much stuck with a cellphone if I wanted to make any phone calls.
Idiot. I live in the US, but I'm not American. Don't assume I am.
And yes, my opinions are based on fact - as observed by me as well as by my acquaintances. The marginal utility of a cellphone over a regular phone is minimal in the US - the marginal cost (i.e. per minute charges, etc.) is high. The same is not true in the countries I mention. Australia's problem is because of the size of the country and the low population density, it is hard to deploy land lines all over the country. Cellphones are a much better solution.
The US has a very developed highway and air travel system - and that is because the rail network mostly sucks.
Grow up and try to observe things objectively instead of as one great penis-waving contest.
Geez. The reason the internet is about eCommerce and business and stuff like that is because that is what is paying for it. It's companies like Sprint and Teleglobe which have invested in creating the backbones and the pipes which keep the internet running.
These are not like the rivers and valleys which create themselves. The internet needs to be created and needs to be paid for. Yes, the government did get involved in it in the beginning but the large percentage of capital investment on the internet is by private interests.
The fact that Norway has a high percentage of cellphone users is not because of any technological advancement but rather the lack thereof.
The reason Norway and some other countries like Australia, etc have such high cellphone usages is because the land-based telephone systems in those countries SUCK. Here in the US, you're pretty much guaranteed a good connection wherever you live without having to wait in some queue to get it. Also, local calls are free. Calls to your ISP are free. You don't pay per minute just to use the internet via dialup.
There was no great compelling need for cellphones and high-speed internet in the US and that's why it's not there yet.
Also, the US had some of the earliest cellphone networks - which explains why we are stuck with older technology protocols on them.
If you're not convinced of its ridiculousness yet, just substitute Microsoft for Apple and Windows XP for Mac OS X.
Apple is perfectly entitled to want to ship certain things for Mac OS X, of course and they are perfectly entitled to make sure they get the revenue from their software, etc. and of course they are perfectly entitled to put stuff on their CD to prevent it being used any way they don't want it to be.
However, what they are not entitled to do is force a website to stop pointing out blatant and obvious holes in their prevention mechanisms.
Yes, and there's no additional cost to them whatsoever if ANYONE installs a copy of Windows (repeat or not). Ditto for Oracle's database.
The marginal cost of software is virtually zero. That doesn't mean it should be sold free of cost - it means that the economic models you learned in Econ 101 are flawed and unable to address the situation.
*sigh* It's really sad to hear so many comments from people who have no clue what the article is about.
This article has nothing to do with the governments case. This article is from private citizens who allege that because Microsoft had a monopoly, they charged more for Windows than the fair price. The original suit asked Microsoft to pay back to the consumers the difference between the fair price and the price the consumers paid.
This case had nothing to do with Microsoft being a monopoly. It had to do simply with the price gouging allegation - an untested and unproven one.
In the event, the lawyers reasoned that even if they did win, consumers would get about $10 each and decided to settle instead with schools getting some software, etc.
I don't think the parent post deserves a response but I'll oblige it with one nevertheless because it got modded up to +4.
Microsoft does not prohibit people from reselling a retail copy of the OS. What it does prohibit people from reselling are the OEM versions of the OS. The OEM versions are sold for a fraction of the cost of the retail version and have a license which prohibits them being used on any computer but the one it was sold on.
There are no OEM versions of XBox games being sold for a fraction of the cost of retail and hence there will be no restriction.
Now that won't stop the conspiracy theories on Slashdot but nothing will stop those...
How does this get modded up as insightful? Microsoft is either lying about IE being part of Windows or this is a Windows bug. They can't possibly be wrong on both counts. Pick ONE count on which you'd like to hang them and stick with that.
Al Gore said "I took the initiative in inventing the internet". The common English interpretation of that statement is that he played a major development role in creating the internet. Yes, there is a weasly Clinton-esque interpretation - just like Clinton didn't "have sex" with Monica, but that is not the common interpretation. Therefore, Al Gore is a liar when he made that statement just like Clinton was.
Now let's get this post remotely back on topic: RMS's statement implies that he is taking credit for inventing/starting GNOME. Yes, there is a corporate-drone/politician interpretation of that statement so in a legal sense he has his ass covered but by any common-sense interpretation of that sentence, he is claiming responsibility for GNOME.
You're paying about 2-3 times as much for a cable/dsl line as for dialup. While such a price may be a little hard to justify for people already on a very tight budget, chances are you can spare the dollar a day required to keep your line.
And in reality it doesn't even cost that much more to have DSL. If you add up the lost time in waiting for a connection + slower downloads, an extra line to avoid tying up the phones or voicemail so people can reach you, it isn't even really cheaper to go with dial-up.
My girlfriend was paying $25/month for dialup plus $5 for voicemail. And her roommates had their own dialup ISPs too. Now, between them they pay $15 a month for always-on DSL access which they can all use together without tying up the phone lines.
Well, if you euros want to affect US public policy, how about you also pay us some of your tax dollars?
US laws affect how business work WITHIN the US. The EC has its own laws and regulatory practices which affect business within the EU.
The bottomline, however, is that regardless of whether or not you feel you have a right to affect the decision, if it is found that some of the letter writers were not americans or that the addresses were fake it will greatly undermine the value of other letters that share that opinion - not in my mind but in the mind of the legislators - and that's what matters!
Do you really want someone to be able to go up to the legislators and say "All these anti-Microsoft letters are from those damn europeans who hate anything american - they are not from your constituents!" or "Look! This letter doesn't even have a real address - Sun/Oracle are faking these to look like people don't like Microsoft"?
Umm.. the zip code for Beverly Hills is 90210 (not 902101) although I assume that was just a typo in your post here.
You are undermining your own cause when you do stuff like this. Even one case of a fake address or astroturfing will make all the other letters sharing an opinion seem suspicious and they will automatically lose some value in the reckoning of whoever is looking at them.
Ok, you're now officially a moron. Read this slowly and I will shout a little so that you understand:
Clinton did that - he was corrupt. It's not nitpicking to expect that criminals don't get away scot free because they pay off politicians. IT IS NOT A NITPICK, YOU MORON!
FYI, Nixon was pardoned at the beginning of LBJ's term, not the end. Also, there is a difference between pardoning a person because of a personal bias about the nature of the crime and doing it BECAUSE THEY CONTRIBUTED TO YOUR CAMPAIGN.
Presidents meet with executives from a variety of companies for a variety of reasons. You just show your lack of a brain when you speculate that every meeting involves a secret exchange of money.
Then there were the secret energy meetings which produced an energy plan that looks like it was written by Ken Lay from Enron.
Oh, it was so secret that only the people present and the liberal propoganda machine knew about the meetings and what was talked about. Something is either a secret or it is not. The rest is mere speculation. I don't expect a brainwashed moron to understand that.
the reason that Bush abandoned the case was MONEY IN HIS POCKETS. i.e. BRIBERY.
It is equally reasonable to presume that the reason this case was started in the first place was because of BRIBERY by the competitors.
The hilarious part of this is that I'm actually a Clinton supporter. You just seem too stupid to have an intelligent debate with. Let me know when you've stopped wearing those diapers and moved out of your moms house and then maybe we can talk.
Idiot. Why don't you come back when you have actually learned to read and apply logical thought? We're comparing Clinton's administration which started this case to Bush's which abandoned the case. Also, there was a mere observation that the Clinton government was known to be corrupt while any speculation about Bush being corrupt is just that.
This is not a democrats v/s republicans debate. This is not a Clinton v/s Reagan debate. If you actually had a brain and the ability to follow logical arguments you would have understood that.
Do you frequently mention that Florida State sucks when there's a discussion about whether Nebraska or Oklahoma has the better football team?
How the fuck is my post a flamebait? The Bush administration letting MS off in return for money is speculation at best.
It is fact, however, that the Clinton administration pardoned several criminals who had contributed to the democratic campaign funds. It's only flamebait if you're clueless and don't watch the news at all. Go read up about this on cnn.com or your favorite news site. This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did.
Slashdot Mirror
For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling.
Where do people come up with this crap from? The WTO and the WIPO have member states as their members. For the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.
The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.
Nonsense. These are international organizations just like the UN. Countries are members - they send people who represent their interests to the forums for discussion. Ultimately it is the government of the country that is responsible for the decisions they agree to and in a democracy the government is accountable to the people - in other forms of government whatever checks or balances (or lack thereof) is who the respective governments are acountable to.
I really wish some idiots would read what they are protesting before protesting it. The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots like the parent poster who have no idea what the WTO was about.
Do you stay up at night worrying about the contradictions inside your little mind?
today there is better coverage with copper lines than there is with mobile phones. Cell phones aren't a solution at all in most parts
aussie Tourist in the US finds the mobile phone system there so appalling when compared to home.
So what is it? Do your cellphones kick ass or do they suck? Or are you saying that your cellphones suck but are still better than those in the US?
I've traveled around in Australia - and I'm not talking 1980s, I'm talking 2000s and your local telephone system sucks. I was pretty much stuck with a cellphone if I wanted to make any phone calls.
Idiot. I live in the US, but I'm not American. Don't assume I am.
And yes, my opinions are based on fact - as observed by me as well as by my acquaintances. The marginal utility of a cellphone over a regular phone is minimal in the US - the marginal cost (i.e. per minute charges, etc.) is high. The same is not true in the countries I mention. Australia's problem is because of the size of the country and the low population density, it is hard to deploy land lines all over the country. Cellphones are a much better solution.
The US has a very developed highway and air travel system - and that is because the rail network mostly sucks.
Grow up and try to observe things objectively instead of as one great penis-waving contest.
Geez. The reason the internet is about eCommerce and business and stuff like that is because that is what is paying for it. It's companies like Sprint and Teleglobe which have invested in creating the backbones and the pipes which keep the internet running.
These are not like the rivers and valleys which create themselves. The internet needs to be created and needs to be paid for. Yes, the government did get involved in it in the beginning but the large percentage of capital investment on the internet is by private interests.
Good troll.
The fact that Norway has a high percentage of cellphone users is not because of any technological advancement but rather the lack thereof.
The reason Norway and some other countries like Australia, etc have such high cellphone usages is because the land-based telephone systems in those countries SUCK. Here in the US, you're pretty much guaranteed a good connection wherever you live without having to wait in some queue to get it. Also, local calls are free. Calls to your ISP are free. You don't pay per minute just to use the internet via dialup.
There was no great compelling need for cellphones and high-speed internet in the US and that's why it's not there yet.
Also, the US had some of the earliest cellphone networks - which explains why we are stuck with older technology protocols on them.
If you're not convinced of its ridiculousness yet, just substitute Microsoft for Apple and Windows XP for Mac OS X.
Apple is perfectly entitled to want to ship certain things for Mac OS X, of course and they are perfectly entitled to make sure they get the revenue from their software, etc. and of course they are perfectly entitled to put stuff on their CD to prevent it being used any way they don't want it to be.
However, what they are not entitled to do is force a website to stop pointing out blatant and obvious holes in their prevention mechanisms.
What part of the phrase "up to" do you have trouble understanding?
Yes, and there's no additional cost to them whatsoever if ANYONE installs a copy of Windows (repeat or not). Ditto for Oracle's database.
The marginal cost of software is virtually zero. That doesn't mean it should be sold free of cost - it means that the economic models you learned in Econ 101 are flawed and unable to address the situation.
Obviously there are enough people that don't think $10 off is too little that they have run out of licenses. So who exactly looks like a fool now?
*sigh* It's really sad to hear so many comments from people who have no clue what the article is about.
This article has nothing to do with the governments case. This article is from private citizens who allege that because Microsoft had a monopoly, they charged more for Windows than the fair price. The original suit asked Microsoft to pay back to the consumers the difference between the fair price and the price the consumers paid.
This case had nothing to do with Microsoft being a monopoly. It had to do simply with the price gouging allegation - an untested and unproven one.
In the event, the lawyers reasoned that even if they did win, consumers would get about $10 each and decided to settle instead with schools getting some software, etc.
This is a settlement to the private lawsuits against Microsoft. This has nothing to do with the governments case.
Slashdot posted yet another story on the XBOX. The levels of irony in this amuse me greatly.
I don't think the parent post deserves a response but I'll oblige it with one nevertheless because it got modded up to +4.
Microsoft does not prohibit people from reselling a retail copy of the OS. What it does prohibit people from reselling are the OEM versions of the OS. The OEM versions are sold for a fraction of the cost of the retail version and have a license which prohibits them being used on any computer but the one it was sold on.
There are no OEM versions of XBox games being sold for a fraction of the cost of retail and hence there will be no restriction.
Now that won't stop the conspiracy theories on Slashdot but nothing will stop those...
What do you mean ET has no concept of numbers? How will we upload Macintosh viruses to their computers if he doesn't even understand numbers?
How does this get modded up as insightful? Microsoft is either lying about IE being part of Windows or this is a Windows bug. They can't possibly be wrong on both counts. Pick ONE count on which you'd like to hang them and stick with that.
Al Gore said "I took the initiative in inventing the internet". The common English interpretation of that statement is that he played a major development role in creating the internet. Yes, there is a weasly Clinton-esque interpretation - just like Clinton didn't "have sex" with Monica, but that is not the common interpretation. Therefore, Al Gore is a liar when he made that statement just like Clinton was.
Now let's get this post remotely back on topic: RMS's statement implies that he is taking credit for inventing/starting GNOME. Yes, there is a corporate-drone/politician interpretation of that statement so in a legal sense he has his ass covered but by any common-sense interpretation of that sentence, he is claiming responsibility for GNOME.
"News for sheep, stuff that stinks"
We've already got that. It's called Slashdot. </flamebait>
You're paying about 2-3 times as much for a cable/dsl line as for dialup. While such a price may be a little hard to justify for people already on a very tight budget, chances are you can spare the dollar a day required to keep your line.
And in reality it doesn't even cost that much more to have DSL. If you add up the lost time in waiting for a connection + slower downloads, an extra line to avoid tying up the phones or voicemail so people can reach you, it isn't even really cheaper to go with dial-up.
My girlfriend was paying $25/month for dialup plus $5 for voicemail. And her roommates had their own dialup ISPs too. Now, between them they pay $15 a month for always-on DSL access which they can all use together without tying up the phone lines.
Well, if you euros want to affect US public policy, how about you also pay us some of your tax dollars?
US laws affect how business work WITHIN the US. The EC has its own laws and regulatory practices which affect business within the EU.
The bottomline, however, is that regardless of whether or not you feel you have a right to affect the decision, if it is found that some of the letter writers were not americans or that the addresses were fake it will greatly undermine the value of other letters that share that opinion - not in my mind but in the mind of the legislators - and that's what matters!
Do you really want someone to be able to go up to the legislators and say "All these anti-Microsoft letters are from those damn europeans who hate anything american - they are not from your constituents!" or "Look! This letter doesn't even have a real address - Sun/Oracle are faking these to look like people don't like Microsoft"?
Umm.. the zip code for Beverly Hills is 90210 (not 902101) although I assume that was just a typo in your post here.
You are undermining your own cause when you do stuff like this. Even one case of a fake address or astroturfing will make all the other letters sharing an opinion seem suspicious and they will automatically lose some value in the reckoning of whoever is looking at them.
Ok, you're now officially a moron. Read this slowly and I will shout a little so that you understand:
Clinton did that - he was corrupt. It's not nitpicking to expect that criminals don't get away scot free because they pay off politicians. IT IS NOT A NITPICK, YOU MORON!
FYI, Nixon was pardoned at the beginning of LBJ's term, not the end. Also, there is a difference between pardoning a person because of a personal bias about the nature of the crime and doing it BECAUSE THEY CONTRIBUTED TO YOUR CAMPAIGN.
Presidents meet with executives from a variety of companies for a variety of reasons. You just show your lack of a brain when you speculate that every meeting involves a secret exchange of money.
Then there were the secret energy meetings which produced an energy plan that looks like it was written by Ken Lay from Enron.
Oh, it was so secret that only the people present and the liberal propoganda machine knew about the meetings and what was talked about. Something is either a secret or it is not. The rest is mere speculation. I don't expect a brainwashed moron to understand that.
the reason that Bush abandoned the case was MONEY IN HIS POCKETS. i.e. BRIBERY.
It is equally reasonable to presume that the reason this case was started in the first place was because of BRIBERY by the competitors.
The hilarious part of this is that I'm actually a Clinton supporter. You just seem too stupid to have an intelligent debate with. Let me know when you've stopped wearing those diapers and moved out of your moms house and then maybe we can talk.
Idiot. Why don't you come back when you have actually learned to read and apply logical thought? We're comparing Clinton's administration which started this case to Bush's which abandoned the case. Also, there was a mere observation that the Clinton government was known to be corrupt while any speculation about Bush being corrupt is just that.
This is not a democrats v/s republicans debate. This is not a Clinton v/s Reagan debate. If you actually had a brain and the ability to follow logical arguments you would have understood that.
Do you frequently mention that Florida State sucks when there's a discussion about whether Nebraska or Oklahoma has the better football team?
How the fuck is my post a flamebait? The Bush administration letting MS off in return for money is speculation at best.
It is fact, however, that the Clinton administration pardoned several criminals who had contributed to the democratic campaign funds. It's only flamebait if you're clueless and don't watch the news at all. Go read up about this on cnn.com or your favorite news site. This was one of the last acts that the Clinton government did.
It's interesting that Slashdot focuses on the six states that decided to continue litigation.
How about a headline saying "Six States agree to settlement"? or how about one about the other six states "Six states want to continue negotiation"?
It's a 3-way split.
As opposed to the Clinton administration which brought this case and is known to have pardoned criminals who made campaign contributions?