Making transient copies of software in the course of normal use is already explicitly mentioned in Section 117 of the Copyright Act as a non-infringing form of copying, since it is considered a necessary part of use. The "you need to make a copy to use it" loophole was closed years ago. Whatever talking around people may give this section of the law, it's intent is quite clear and the wording is quite clear - this hasn't been a real issue for quite a few years.
As crazy as it sounds, the way the EULA pushers in the software industry get around Section 117 is to say that it only applies to a _sale_ of a copy of a piece of software as described in the Uniform Commercial Code, and that you didn't buy a copy of the software at all, you just licensed it. So therefore Section 117 doesn't apply. They know this argument is intellectually dishonest, but they continue to insist on it out of fear that without EULAs all sorts of bad things might happen. Mostly I think this fear has been fed by lawyers. Anyway, despite caselaw as described here supporting the idea that you buying that copy of software, they don't want to admit that you actually bought that software because then it becomes clear the EULA is giving you no consideration and is thus not a valid contract. I should also note that the law is different for all other forms of copyrighted works, where the person buying a copy of the work is considered the owner of that copy, and permitted to do what they want with it within the restrictions of copyright law.
So anyway, they are trying to take something that looks, acts and quacks like a duck and say it's not a duck at all in order to circumvent the intention of the law. And in several instances, judges have played right into their hands, without in any way addressing the pink elephant in the room - namely that you did buy that software and you do have the right to make 'copies' that are required as part of its normal use, EULA bullshit aside.
The problem with the bnetd case was it wasn't a good case. The EFF should probably not have taken it on because it was bound to be a bad precedent setter for EULA issues. There were too many weak points on which bnetd seems to fail the relevant tests of the DMCA.
What ended up happening was the judges basically looked at it, decided it was a DMCA violation that was trying to get off on what they saw as a technicality and said well, while that may be true, it's irrelevant because even the DMCA is far more permissive than the arbitrary verbiage placed in the EULA.
We need clear cut precedent on a pure EULA case that will force this issue to be considered again as a purely contractual issue with none of the baggage of DMCA violations, contributory copyright infringement, or other nasty issues muddying the waters. I want some really smart lawyers to box the judges into a corner and force them to come out and either say any sale can have arbitrary license terms appended onto it after the fact, or no sale can. They need to be forced to look at this in the transactive and contractual context, and not get distracted by the red herring of copyright issues - the works in question are already copyrighted, and they have many avenues of recourse against copyright violators - the EULA is not a tool of copyright enforcement, it's a tool of consumer control and anti-competitive practices.
Then if the judges argue the first (irrational) position, we have reason to go to our legislators and demand an outright ban on the practice, and if it's the latter, we won't have to worry about EULAs any more.
I would pay good money for a truly non-allergic dog, to the tune of several grand. I mean, I wouldn't replace my current dog no matter what, but ya know, when it comes time to get the next dog.... I love this guy, but despite the fact that poodles shed less and supposedly have less dander than shorthaired dogs, I am still mildly allergic to him (and he's small, so he has less skin and less fur to begin with). Anyway, the reaction I have is much more mild than with most shorthair breeds, but the "hypoallergenic breed" claims about longhaired dogs seem to be a bit overstated. For the most part a daily Claritin suppresses any meaningful allergic response, but I a still more prone to asthma attacks with the dog around.
The real kicker is you're supposed to groom poodles regularly. The problem is the one time when I have a real allergic reaction is when I try to brush my dog.
As for cats, I simply have no use for them, hypoallergenic or otherwise (and I am severely allergic to the annoying little furballs).
No, I did read the announcement and skimmed the linked SecurityFocus article, but I appear to have been mistaken as I inferred that paFileDb was a PostNuke plugin of some sort.
Looking at the paFileDb site, it is now clear that it's a standalone program and not a plugin at all. And in fact now that I've looked at the paFireDb web page it doesn't even look like it's Open Source either. The Newsforge article is much clearer about this than the announcement itself was, but I admit I didn't read that (usually I just ignore the OSDN Newsforge whoring links on/.).
In any case, my point about the exploits of Open Source CMSes still stands, having been the victim of several when I failed to patch PHPNuke sufficiently promptly in the past.
Yes, but that's because you're looking straight at the trailing edge of the tech adoption curve there. These are the people broadly speaking most likely to use what came with their computer and not know how to install anything else, and unlikely to have a kid in the house who knows how to install anything else (strange as it is, it seems this is usually how middle aged folks get Mozilla/Firefox and other upgraded software on their PC).
So I'm not surprised that you see the least momentum (negligible) in those who are late adopters and the most momentum in the early adopter set. We sometimes forget that we are the insanely early adopter set here on Slashdot where many people have been using Mozilla/FF as their primary browser for several years already - the rest of the moderately tech saavy but not bleeding-edge crowd is just now seriously moving in this direction.
These big Open Source CMS packages (PHPNuke and PostNuke in particular) seem to be extremely common targets of exploits. I don't think this is a function of being Open Source, since it specifically seems to apply to this type of software.
I remember several SQL injection exploits for PHPNuke that seemed to be widely deployed in the script kiddie community. I am not sure if the underlying reason these packages are so vulnerable is pure sloppy programming (which seems to be present in a fair number of random PHP scripts out there - I won't comment on PostNuke in particular since I don't know it), the fact that they try to do so much functionality-wise leading to a lot of under-tested, under-reviewed code, or that they tend to be modular in nature, with lots of third party developers writing modules that end up getting widely deployed by users of the CMS, and thus being of more variable quality than you would expect if every checking was reviewed at least somewhat centrally by the core developers.
So in short, it's more likely a function of there being a lot of crappy code with obvious exploits in it AND that code being Open Source, however you explain that crappy code being there in the first place.
This "Silly left view" is the general world concensus on the reason for war. So it's not soo little or lefty as you might think it is.
The points I brought up are all fairly well documented points of fact. That oil is a key element in the middle east and a key part of Iraq's strategic importance goes without saying. That we invaded Iraq _because of_ oil is a difficult argument to make when the evidence we do have about the decision making process doesn't seem to show that as a source of primary motivation - there were plenty of conversations about "getting Saddam", papers written by neocon thinkers about democratizing the middle east, and so on. Since I'm assuming I'm arguing to a hostile audience, I'd prefer to stick to arguments that I can point to evidence on. If you can point me to evidence that shows that this was Bush's primary motivation, I'll gladly refer to that evidence in my future arguments.
As for your sources of statistics, I think they are wrong - the Persian Gulf as a whole supplies about 30% of the world's oil (and the amount of that coming from Iraq has varied greatly over the last few years, but a large portion of that is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. so Iraq can't be more than 5-10% - according to the DOD, it was around 3% shortly before we invaded). The most wildly optimistic estimates from a few years ago said about 11% of world oil reserves were believed to be in Iraq (as expressed by left wing sources - see here for example). And according to a conservative think tank a year ago, the number based on best current estimates is similar - between 10 and 12%, including estimated unexplored and untapped oil fields in Iraq. The people who threw around numbers like 25-30% of world oil reserves were apparently off their rocker, and no credible sources I have found claim that Iraq was pumping out 1/3 of the crude oil supply.
Undoubtedly problems with the oil supply in Iraq, though it's a much smaller total amount than you suggest, are in part responsible for oil prices. I never said otherwise. But the point still stands - invading Iraq was a terrible failure as a way to lower oil prices, and it increased the general feeling of instability in other Arab OPEC countries and of fear on oil markets. As for the invading Iraq _for_ the oil argument, we don't _have_ the oil, and we'll be incredibly lucky if the US government sees enough oil money to make up for the incredible cost of this war and ongoing troop presence. Halliburton and friends may see plenty of money, but at this point most of that money is coming from the US government and taxpayers. The Halliburton et. al. angle is certainly interesting to me, since the associations between the Bush administration and these businesses are very well documented, but I don't think it's a very effective argument with American conservatives, who see it as anti-business to attack Halliburton. And again, it's not provably causative.
Admirable act?, How is it any American's right to decide that your neo-conservative democracy(totalitarian?,Police state?) is the right way for the world? what made you god? Are you some supreme race? You know there was some other people in history who thought exactly the same way and their actions are remembered as anything but "Admirable".
I never used the words "admirable act", so this is a straw man argument. Work on your reading comprehension skills and come back later. As for the idea that democracy is superior to totalitarianism, you will pretty much not find a single American outside of the Chomskyites in academia who doesn't agree with this in some way. Thus making such arguments is entirely counterproductive, and brands you as part of the looney left (as you have probably just unknowingly done for yourself). I'm trying to win votes for Kerry from moderat
Humble analysis aside, does anybody have any real information on whether there are licensing changes? If not, this end-run-around attempt should be reacted to with extreme prejudice. Kill these fuckers. Seriously. Or at least killfile them. Blackhole email from AOL if they subscribe to and back Microsoft's standard. A large scale campaign for a few days, and they will change their mind again real fast.
If we have learned nothing from watching AOL feast on Netscape's corpse it's that there are LOTS of execs at AOL with radically different ideas about ways to do things, and they change their mind on a weekly basis. Exert a modest bit of pressure and they can be made to bend over like the fitty cent whores they are.
Some times, such as announcing to Saddam that he had to allow unfettered nuclear inspector access by a certain date or face military action, you have to follow through, even if you change your mind (which I doubt Bush did), just so people know you mean business.
I agree with you that Bush didn't want to change his mind on this subject, but this is a dishonest description of what his decision was according to every account I've read by both Republicans and Democrats in the know. He made the decision when he came into office to take Saddam out. I'm not going to give you any of this left wing baloney about invading Iraq for oil - this has always been a pretty silly argument, and just look at the price of oil now. His motivators were probably something like A) Saddam is bad - this point I can agree with him on B) Saddam tried to kill his father C) Saddam is the thorn in the legacy of his father's Presidency, D) his advisors support a strongly neoconservative agenda and told him this was an opportunity to create a "domino effect" and restructure the Middle East in a more democratic fashion (again, this motivator I think is an admirable one, but it's a bit of exitus acta probat, or the ends justify the means).
September 11th provided a convenient way to make this invasion plan actually happen. And the nuclear inspection stuff, well, that was the icing on the cake. But we were effectively mobilizing for war behind the scenes before the whole nuclear inspection access issue was was even there.
Saddam had to know an invasion was coming. I will admit that I am as mystified as the next guy as to why he didn't just let the inspectors back in at that point, so he'd have the rest of the world on his side when it did. I think in part it was radical overconfidence in his military that years of purging anybody who wasn't a yes-man from his upper echelons had given him. But this was never about inspections - how many inspectors are in Iran and North Korea, and how unfettered is their access again? And are we even discussing invasion over that?
I too wish that our candididates would be more straightforward about things they change their minds on. Unfortunately, there is an election going on, and the two leading candidates are playing to win, and thus neither can be fully honest about their mistakes or changes of heart in the past. Sure, the Naders and Badnariks of the campaign can speak their mind till the cows come home, because it doesn't matter, they are running to make a statement, not to win.
The substantive "flip-flop" that people keep bringing up is the Iraq war issue. You can see what Kerry said on the Senate floor before the vote on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. He seemed to strongly back the idea of forcing UN inspections back, and if that failed, to use force together with the international community. He emphasized throughout that speech how important it was to act with the support of other countries in the Middle East and throughout the world, because if we went to war, it would be a long and hard process to rebuild Iraq.
This isn't really that different from what he has said recently. The only issue he has changed his mind on was that he thought at the time, based on the intelligence reports he had been given, that the thread of Saddam developing WMDs was much more imminent than it was. But I think everybody, including Bush, admits this mistake now.
I don't think Kerry has "flip-flopped" in the sense of saying that knowing what we knew then, going to war was a fundamentally bad idea, though perhaps he might not make the same vote knowing what he knows now (I'm not sure if he ever answered that hypothetical question explicitly). He has said that we rushed to war by failing to obtain the backing of a real coalition including strong commitments of troops and pledges for reconstruction aid from neighbors in the Middle East and the rest of the world (not a "Don't forget Poland" coalition). I think this is pretty consistent with his position from 2 years ago as expressed in the above speech.
When idiots like you fail to RTFA, you make asses out of yourselves. MIT's original launch of this service before didn't rely on "fair use" either - you think a school with many thousands of students is going to buy one CD, let as many people listen to it as possible, then claim "fair use" as their defense in court? Jeeeesus man.
I think the question was always the extent of coverage their existing broadcast licenses gave them and how those licenses were to be interpreted in the light of digital vs. analog and wired vs. wireless transmissions.
Fair use is most often brought up with respect to my rights to do what I want with stuff that I buy within the boundaries of my own home, like format shift to use my favorite devices. No, "fair use" is not a cast-in-stone definition, and it's very weakly protected. We all know that perfectly well be now. But some of us believe that all "use" of copyrighted materials that does not involve redistribution should not fall under copyright legislation at all, and thus should be "unregulated" use. Do we always have to agree with current legislative or jurisprudential standards? And are we idiots if we think the courts and lawyers have mucked things up over the last few years over pure FUD spread by parts of the content industry?
No, I realize that - the Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird are all XUL-based apps. And XUL can be used to build a fairly broad variety of standard packaged applications. However, I was talking about it in comparison to ActiveX in the context of delivering rich web UIs, which it also has a (mostly unrealized) potential to do.
Re:A few really good Apps could make the differenc
on
Firefox - The Platform
·
· Score: 1
It would be a good start to rename all those files ".es" instead of ".js" then.;)
Re:no, the cat HASN'T got my tongue.
on
Firefox - The Platform
·
· Score: 4, Informative
No, they are fundamentally different in intention and use. XPI entensions are installed into your browser to give you extra functionality. In that sense they are much more like browser plugins than ActiveX objects - plugins that have access to browser structures, DOM tree, menus, etc. Since many of these things are by definition browser specific structures, it doesn't really make sense to talk about cross-browser browser extensions.
You will never go to a random company's web page and see an XPI object on the page. And FF won't even let you install or use an XPI object from a random page as a security measure - by default you can only download them from the officially maintained archive. You have to override this if you want to download XPI files from some other source.
You may some day go to a random company's page and see a XUL application as part of their interface in the same way that ActiveX is used sometimes today. But A) XUL is a standard (I don't know if it's de facto or de jure at this point) that others can implement if they choose and B) doesn't suffer from the kinds of broken-by-design security model that ActiveX has, C) will in practice probably never be used as the only way to do something, just a way to enrich existing web UIs, whereas ActiveX is used as a crutch for things like delivering 'secure' video and audio content.
Re:A few really good Apps could make the differenc
on
Firefox - The Platform
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
XUL is cool. Javascript is nicht so cool. I can't really imagine having to build or debug a complicated GUI application with Javascript as your primarily language for doing everything.
I realize that part of the problem with Javascript has been different browsers with slightly different interpretations of DHTML and DOM stuff, and that has given Javascript a worse rap than it deserves.
But that rap isn't completely undeserved. And trying to convince programmers that they should be building the key functional blocks of their applications in Javascript just isn't going to fly any time soon. At least call it something else. Like "XULscript", fix the marketing problem that Javascript has.
Many of these bugs have been very minor, like the tabbed browsing vulnerabilities mentioned here the other day. There have been 2 or 3 doozies, sure, but FF is far more secure in theory and practice than IE. No ActiveX exploits, zone vulnerability exploits, a non-broken security model, complete control over extension installation and permissions, and those are just for starters.
In practice, I've seen IE install all sorts of spyware when you visit certain sites, without permission of any sort. With FF, it just doesn't happen. I will take the theoretical focus spoof or javascript popup window timer 'vulnerabilities' any day.
People are all commenting about strap-on Peltier "coolers" or TECs that overclockers use. They have failure modes that include condensation leading to oxidation and power failure, leaving an insulating brick on top of your processor. An integrated peltier junction layer in a Silicon On Insulator processor could not fail separately from the processor itself, it's just a solid state layer of semiconducting materials deposited as part of the fab process. So the power is always on when the processor is being powered, and since the cooling side of the junction is apparently internal to the device and not exposed to the outside air, there is no way for condensation to build up.
So it should be just as reliable as the underlying processor, or any other piece of solid state electronics. This isn't really a cooling solution for a processor, you will still need those in the form of heatsinks, fans, heatpipes, etc. This is just a way to make sure heat can actually get to the processor surface and not get trapped in the middle. Comparing this use of the Peltier effect and traditional overclocking Peltier devices makes no sense - the only thing they share in common is their use of the same underlying physical phenomenon for heat transfer.
The real question in my mind is whether the fundamental efficiency limitations of Peltier junctions will make these processors even worse power-eating, heat dispersing beasts. But it sounds like there must be real heat buildup issues with Silicon On Insulator technology preventing them from ramping speeds up to the point where it would be competitive and ready for the mass market. And this sounds like a clever solution.
This is a college town phenomenon. I live in Cambridge, MA and we have tons of 15-25 year old semi-homeless kids. Sure, there are the 50 year old, Vietnam vet, burned out folks (many with serious mental health issues), and the older guys who are career panhandler Spare Change selling types - these are usually the loudest, slickest panhandlers, but they are numerically fairly small, whereas you see tons of the panhandling kids.
Most of them seem to be disaffected teenagers who have temporarily run away from home or something along those lines. And sometimes they aren't actually homeless at all, they just panhandle because they think it's cool (no, I'm not kidding).
Ah well, the nice things about Cambridge more than make up for some of its eccentricities. College towns with rampant communist subcultures are magnets for this sort of thing (makes you realize what would happen if an entire society decided to depend on other peoples handouts and decided to stop doing productive work).
Why are you still posting AC? Are these 'compelling' posts as 'compelling' as this article? This article may have seemed compelling at first glance, but is in fact a troll.
If you have compelling pro-SCO arguments, I would encourage you to log on to Slashdot and post them in one of the relevant stories here. Your posts won't be deleted. They will surely be corrected however.
Is the SYS-CON management/editorial staff looking for yellow journalism as it sells hits?
Look at some of the stuff she's written in the past. It's clear that she and her editors are thriving on the advertising impressions that trolling gets. Slashdot is just encouraging them by giving them attention - they have no concept of negative press or feedback.
Several people have pointed out that Bruce Perens is on the SYS-CON Media "International Board of Advisors". Bruce, I don't know if this gives you the ear of anybody significant at SYS-CON (this could just be an honorific with no meaning whatsoever), but if it does, we would all seriously appreciate you using that ear to express your disgust over this practice.
Yes, but most importantly, the article you linked to makes it perfectly clear how she feels about the troll articles she's written. They get tons of editorial complaints, but the bosses love them because they get tons of ad impressions.
Giving her articles front page placement on Slashdot is exactly what she intends. It get tens of thousands of ad impressions, her bosses think she's writing controversial, hard hitting opinion pieces, and everybody is happy except a bunch of fuming Slashdotters. This is EXACTLY like Rob Enderle - these people desperately want attention, and they don't care if it's negative.
Please dear Slashdot editors, once it's been established that a particular writer is trolling for page views (i.e. they brag about how hated their articles are and exerpt Slashdot hate mail their publication has received) STOP giving them the front page placement they want, or you'll just encourage more of the same.
The problem is that, as I hypothesized the other day, O'Gara may just be trolling for ad impressions. If Slashdot dumps every trollish article printed by a marginal trade publication on their front page, it just rewards them for adopting the most confrontational approach and printing the most outlandish, non-fact based pieces imaginable. As often as not, the bosses seem to just look at the massive number of ad impressions these stories get and don't give a rat's ass that the attention is negative, not positive, in nature.
Remember all the attention heaped on Rob Enderle by Slashdot? He brags about it. He thrives on it. Will it ultimately be good for his career? I don't know, but I prefer to take the "don't feed the trolls" approach.
PJ (sure, she's a bit strange sometimes, but she seems like a smart woman) is right that the best way to punish people for writing this kind of fiction is to ignore it, not to give it maximal Slashvertizing.
Maureen, is that you? Darl, you there buddy? I can clearly tell you are the same AC that went around trolling (unsuccessfully) in all the threads in the last Maureen O'Gara story the other night ranting irrelevantly about how Slashdot editors have no journalistic integrity either.
You already lost the argument once, and now you have the gall to come back for more?
Well, I guess it depends on what you think "biased" means. I think the entries on the topics you mention represent a reasonable consensus of the Wikipedia community. Apparently they seem biased to you, perhaps because you don't share their viewpoint. Within the Wiki community there are specific rules and definitions to deal with the issue of bias.
If there is a genuine lack of information that you feel would accurately represent facts (facts I'm talking about here, not opinions) that would be seen as favorable to the Palestian POV, then feel free to add those facts into the discussion in an appropriate NPOV manner - this is the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. If your facts are documented, and your writing is in the proper NPOV format, then you shouldn't have too much trouble convincing the active participants on those topics from throwing it out whole hog.
Are there problems with articles on contentious issues? Yes, sure, but there's also a long term consensus building that goes on.
I find a more likely explanation here that you consider facts and information that doesn't present a guilt-free picture of an oppressed Palestinian people to be "Israeli propaganda" (whatever that means - the very word propaganda is entirely loaded and intended to undermine the factuality of real information by suggesting that it is mere fluff). If that's the case, I'm sorry to say that Wikipedia isn't going to make you happy, and probably neither would a traditional encyclopedia.
Just for clarity's sake, I don't literally mean "I don't understand". That was hyperbole - having had some contact with the technology press, I do understand. However, it still disgusts me.
Slashdot Mirror
As crazy as it sounds, the way the EULA pushers in the software industry get around Section 117 is to say that it only applies to a _sale_ of a copy of a piece of software as described in the Uniform Commercial Code, and that you didn't buy a copy of the software at all, you just licensed it. So therefore Section 117 doesn't apply. They know this argument is intellectually dishonest, but they continue to insist on it out of fear that without EULAs all sorts of bad things might happen. Mostly I think this fear has been fed by lawyers. Anyway, despite caselaw as described here supporting the idea that you buying that copy of software, they don't want to admit that you actually bought that software because then it becomes clear the EULA is giving you no consideration and is thus not a valid contract. I should also note that the law is different for all other forms of copyrighted works, where the person buying a copy of the work is considered the owner of that copy, and permitted to do what they want with it within the restrictions of copyright law.
So anyway, they are trying to take something that looks, acts and quacks like a duck and say it's not a duck at all in order to circumvent the intention of the law. And in several instances, judges have played right into their hands, without in any way addressing the pink elephant in the room - namely that you did buy that software and you do have the right to make 'copies' that are required as part of its normal use, EULA bullshit aside.
The problem with the bnetd case was it wasn't a good case. The EFF should probably not have taken it on because it was bound to be a bad precedent setter for EULA issues. There were too many weak points on which bnetd seems to fail the relevant tests of the DMCA.
What ended up happening was the judges basically looked at it, decided it was a DMCA violation that was trying to get off on what they saw as a technicality and said well, while that may be true, it's irrelevant because even the DMCA is far more permissive than the arbitrary verbiage placed in the EULA.
We need clear cut precedent on a pure EULA case that will force this issue to be considered again as a purely contractual issue with none of the baggage of DMCA violations, contributory copyright infringement, or other nasty issues muddying the waters. I want some really smart lawyers to box the judges into a corner and force them to come out and either say any sale can have arbitrary license terms appended onto it after the fact, or no sale can. They need to be forced to look at this in the transactive and contractual context, and not get distracted by the red herring of copyright issues - the works in question are already copyrighted, and they have many avenues of recourse against copyright violators - the EULA is not a tool of copyright enforcement, it's a tool of consumer control and anti-competitive practices.
Then if the judges argue the first (irrational) position, we have reason to go to our legislators and demand an outright ban on the practice, and if it's the latter, we won't have to worry about EULAs any more.
The real kicker is you're supposed to groom poodles regularly. The problem is the one time when I have a real allergic reaction is when I try to brush my dog.
As for cats, I simply have no use for them, hypoallergenic or otherwise (and I am severely allergic to the annoying little furballs).
Looking at the paFileDb site, it is now clear that it's a standalone program and not a plugin at all. And in fact now that I've looked at the paFireDb web page it doesn't even look like it's Open Source either. The Newsforge article is much clearer about this than the announcement itself was, but I admit I didn't read that (usually I just ignore the OSDN Newsforge whoring links on
In any case, my point about the exploits of Open Source CMSes still stands, having been the victim of several when I failed to patch PHPNuke sufficiently promptly in the past.
So I'm not surprised that you see the least momentum (negligible) in those who are late adopters and the most momentum in the early adopter set. We sometimes forget that we are the insanely early adopter set here on Slashdot where many people have been using Mozilla/FF as their primary browser for several years already - the rest of the moderately tech saavy but not bleeding-edge crowd is just now seriously moving in this direction.
I remember several SQL injection exploits for PHPNuke that seemed to be widely deployed in the script kiddie community. I am not sure if the underlying reason these packages are so vulnerable is pure sloppy programming (which seems to be present in a fair number of random PHP scripts out there - I won't comment on PostNuke in particular since I don't know it), the fact that they try to do so much functionality-wise leading to a lot of under-tested, under-reviewed code, or that they tend to be modular in nature, with lots of third party developers writing modules that end up getting widely deployed by users of the CMS, and thus being of more variable quality than you would expect if every checking was reviewed at least somewhat centrally by the core developers.
So in short, it's more likely a function of there being a lot of crappy code with obvious exploits in it AND that code being Open Source, however you explain that crappy code being there in the first place.
This "Silly left view" is the general world concensus on the reason for war. So it's not soo little or lefty as you might think it is.
The points I brought up are all fairly well documented points of fact. That oil is a key element in the middle east and a key part of Iraq's strategic importance goes without saying. That we invaded Iraq _because of_ oil is a difficult argument to make when the evidence we do have about the decision making process doesn't seem to show that as a source of primary motivation - there were plenty of conversations about "getting Saddam", papers written by neocon thinkers about democratizing the middle east, and so on. Since I'm assuming I'm arguing to a hostile audience, I'd prefer to stick to arguments that I can point to evidence on. If you can point me to evidence that shows that this was Bush's primary motivation, I'll gladly refer to that evidence in my future arguments.
As for your sources of statistics, I think they are wrong - the Persian Gulf as a whole supplies about 30% of the world's oil (and the amount of that coming from Iraq has varied greatly over the last few years, but a large portion of that is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. so Iraq can't be more than 5-10% - according to the DOD, it was around 3% shortly before we invaded). The most wildly optimistic estimates from a few years ago said about 11% of world oil reserves were believed to be in Iraq (as expressed by left wing sources - see here for example). And according to a conservative think tank a year ago, the number based on best current estimates is similar - between 10 and 12%, including estimated unexplored and untapped oil fields in Iraq. The people who threw around numbers like 25-30% of world oil reserves were apparently off their rocker, and no credible sources I have found claim that Iraq was pumping out 1/3 of the crude oil supply.
Undoubtedly problems with the oil supply in Iraq, though it's a much smaller total amount than you suggest, are in part responsible for oil prices. I never said otherwise. But the point still stands - invading Iraq was a terrible failure as a way to lower oil prices, and it increased the general feeling of instability in other Arab OPEC countries and of fear on oil markets. As for the invading Iraq _for_ the oil argument, we don't _have_ the oil, and we'll be incredibly lucky if the US government sees enough oil money to make up for the incredible cost of this war and ongoing troop presence. Halliburton and friends may see plenty of money, but at this point most of that money is coming from the US government and taxpayers. The Halliburton et. al. angle is certainly interesting to me, since the associations between the Bush administration and these businesses are very well documented, but I don't think it's a very effective argument with American conservatives, who see it as anti-business to attack Halliburton. And again, it's not provably causative.
Admirable act?, How is it any American's right to decide that your neo-conservative democracy(totalitarian?,Police state?) is the right way for the world? what made you god? Are you some supreme race? You know there was some other people in history who thought exactly the same way and their actions are remembered as anything but "Admirable".
I never used the words "admirable act", so this is a straw man argument. Work on your reading comprehension skills and come back later. As for the idea that democracy is superior to totalitarianism, you will pretty much not find a single American outside of the Chomskyites in academia who doesn't agree with this in some way. Thus making such arguments is entirely counterproductive, and brands you as part of the looney left (as you have probably just unknowingly done for yourself). I'm trying to win votes for Kerry from moderat
If we have learned nothing from watching AOL feast on Netscape's corpse it's that there are LOTS of execs at AOL with radically different ideas about ways to do things, and they change their mind on a weekly basis. Exert a modest bit of pressure and they can be made to bend over like the fitty cent whores they are.
Some times, such as announcing to Saddam that he had to allow unfettered nuclear inspector access by a certain date or face military action, you have to follow through, even if you change your mind (which I doubt Bush did), just so people know you mean business.
I agree with you that Bush didn't want to change his mind on this subject, but this is a dishonest description of what his decision was according to every account I've read by both Republicans and Democrats in the know. He made the decision when he came into office to take Saddam out. I'm not going to give you any of this left wing baloney about invading Iraq for oil - this has always been a pretty silly argument, and just look at the price of oil now. His motivators were probably something like A) Saddam is bad - this point I can agree with him on B) Saddam tried to kill his father C) Saddam is the thorn in the legacy of his father's Presidency, D) his advisors support a strongly neoconservative agenda and told him this was an opportunity to create a "domino effect" and restructure the Middle East in a more democratic fashion (again, this motivator I think is an admirable one, but it's a bit of exitus acta probat, or the ends justify the means).
September 11th provided a convenient way to make this invasion plan actually happen. And the nuclear inspection stuff, well, that was the icing on the cake. But we were effectively mobilizing for war behind the scenes before the whole nuclear inspection access issue was was even there.
Saddam had to know an invasion was coming. I will admit that I am as mystified as the next guy as to why he didn't just let the inspectors back in at that point, so he'd have the rest of the world on his side when it did. I think in part it was radical overconfidence in his military that years of purging anybody who wasn't a yes-man from his upper echelons had given him. But this was never about inspections - how many inspectors are in Iran and North Korea, and how unfettered is their access again? And are we even discussing invasion over that?
I too wish that our candididates would be more straightforward about things they change their minds on. Unfortunately, there is an election going on, and the two leading candidates are playing to win, and thus neither can be fully honest about their mistakes or changes of heart in the past. Sure, the Naders and Badnariks of the campaign can speak their mind till the cows come home, because it doesn't matter, they are running to make a statement, not to win.
The substantive "flip-flop" that people keep bringing up is the Iraq war issue. You can see what Kerry said on the Senate floor before the vote on the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. He seemed to strongly back the idea of forcing UN inspections back, and if that failed, to use force together with the international community. He emphasized throughout that speech how important it was to act with the support of other countries in the Middle East and throughout the world, because if we went to war, it would be a long and hard process to rebuild Iraq.
This isn't really that different from what he has said recently. The only issue he has changed his mind on was that he thought at the time, based on the intelligence reports he had been given, that the thread of Saddam developing WMDs was much more imminent than it was. But I think everybody, including Bush, admits this mistake now.
I don't think Kerry has "flip-flopped" in the sense of saying that knowing what we knew then, going to war was a fundamentally bad idea, though perhaps he might not make the same vote knowing what he knows now (I'm not sure if he ever answered that hypothetical question explicitly). He has said that we rushed to war by failing to obtain the backing of a real coalition including strong commitments of troops and pledges for reconstruction aid from neighbors in the Middle East and the rest of the world (not a "Don't forget Poland" coalition). I think this is pretty consistent with his position from 2 years ago as expressed in the above speech.
I think the question was always the extent of coverage their existing broadcast licenses gave them and how those licenses were to be interpreted in the light of digital vs. analog and wired vs. wireless transmissions.
Fair use is most often brought up with respect to my rights to do what I want with stuff that I buy within the boundaries of my own home, like format shift to use my favorite devices. No, "fair use" is not a cast-in-stone definition, and it's very weakly protected. We all know that perfectly well be now. But some of us believe that all "use" of copyrighted materials that does not involve redistribution should not fall under copyright legislation at all, and thus should be "unregulated" use. Do we always have to agree with current legislative or jurisprudential standards? And are we idiots if we think the courts and lawyers have mucked things up over the last few years over pure FUD spread by parts of the content industry?
No, I realize that - the Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird are all XUL-based apps. And XUL can be used to build a fairly broad variety of standard packaged applications. However, I was talking about it in comparison to ActiveX in the context of delivering rich web UIs, which it also has a (mostly unrealized) potential to do.
It would be a good start to rename all those files ".es" instead of ".js" then. ;)
You will never go to a random company's web page and see an XPI object on the page. And FF won't even let you install or use an XPI object from a random page as a security measure - by default you can only download them from the officially maintained archive. You have to override this if you want to download XPI files from some other source.
You may some day go to a random company's page and see a XUL application as part of their interface in the same way that ActiveX is used sometimes today. But A) XUL is a standard (I don't know if it's de facto or de jure at this point) that others can implement if they choose and B) doesn't suffer from the kinds of broken-by-design security model that ActiveX has, C) will in practice probably never be used as the only way to do something, just a way to enrich existing web UIs, whereas ActiveX is used as a crutch for things like delivering 'secure' video and audio content.
XUL is cool. Javascript is nicht so cool. I can't really imagine having to build or debug a complicated GUI application with Javascript as your primarily language for doing everything.
I realize that part of the problem with Javascript has been different browsers with slightly different interpretations of DHTML and DOM stuff, and that has given Javascript a worse rap than it deserves.
But that rap isn't completely undeserved. And trying to convince programmers that they should be building the key functional blocks of their applications in Javascript just isn't going to fly any time soon. At least call it something else. Like "XULscript", fix the marketing problem that Javascript has.
In practice, I've seen IE install all sorts of spyware when you visit certain sites, without permission of any sort. With FF, it just doesn't happen. I will take the theoretical focus spoof or javascript popup window timer 'vulnerabilities' any day.
So it should be just as reliable as the underlying processor, or any other piece of solid state electronics. This isn't really a cooling solution for a processor, you will still need those in the form of heatsinks, fans, heatpipes, etc. This is just a way to make sure heat can actually get to the processor surface and not get trapped in the middle. Comparing this use of the Peltier effect and traditional overclocking Peltier devices makes no sense - the only thing they share in common is their use of the same underlying physical phenomenon for heat transfer.
The real question in my mind is whether the fundamental efficiency limitations of Peltier junctions will make these processors even worse power-eating, heat dispersing beasts. But it sounds like there must be real heat buildup issues with Silicon On Insulator technology preventing them from ramping speeds up to the point where it would be competitive and ready for the mass market. And this sounds like a clever solution.
Most of them seem to be disaffected teenagers who have temporarily run away from home or something along those lines. And sometimes they aren't actually homeless at all, they just panhandle because they think it's cool (no, I'm not kidding).
Ah well, the nice things about Cambridge more than make up for some of its eccentricities. College towns with rampant communist subcultures are magnets for this sort of thing (makes you realize what would happen if an entire society decided to depend on other peoples handouts and decided to stop doing productive work).
If you have compelling pro-SCO arguments, I would encourage you to log on to Slashdot and post them in one of the relevant stories here. Your posts won't be deleted. They will surely be corrected however.
Look at some of the stuff she's written in the past. It's clear that she and her editors are thriving on the advertising impressions that trolling gets. Slashdot is just encouraging them by giving them attention - they have no concept of negative press or feedback.
Several people have pointed out that Bruce Perens is on the SYS-CON Media "International Board of Advisors". Bruce, I don't know if this gives you the ear of anybody significant at SYS-CON (this could just be an honorific with no meaning whatsoever), but if it does, we would all seriously appreciate you using that ear to express your disgust over this practice.
Giving her articles front page placement on Slashdot is exactly what she intends. It get tens of thousands of ad impressions, her bosses think she's writing controversial, hard hitting opinion pieces, and everybody is happy except a bunch of fuming Slashdotters. This is EXACTLY like Rob Enderle - these people desperately want attention, and they don't care if it's negative.
Please dear Slashdot editors, once it's been established that a particular writer is trolling for page views (i.e. they brag about how hated their articles are and exerpt Slashdot hate mail their publication has received) STOP giving them the front page placement they want, or you'll just encourage more of the same.
Remember all the attention heaped on Rob Enderle by Slashdot? He brags about it. He thrives on it. Will it ultimately be good for his career? I don't know, but I prefer to take the "don't feed the trolls" approach.
PJ (sure, she's a bit strange sometimes, but she seems like a smart woman) is right that the best way to punish people for writing this kind of fiction is to ignore it, not to give it maximal Slashvertizing.
You already lost the argument once, and now you have the gall to come back for more?
If there is a genuine lack of information that you feel would accurately represent facts (facts I'm talking about here, not opinions) that would be seen as favorable to the Palestian POV, then feel free to add those facts into the discussion in an appropriate NPOV manner - this is the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. If your facts are documented, and your writing is in the proper NPOV format, then you shouldn't have too much trouble convincing the active participants on those topics from throwing it out whole hog.
Are there problems with articles on contentious issues? Yes, sure, but there's also a long term consensus building that goes on.
I find a more likely explanation here that you consider facts and information that doesn't present a guilt-free picture of an oppressed Palestinian people to be "Israeli propaganda" (whatever that means - the very word propaganda is entirely loaded and intended to undermine the factuality of real information by suggesting that it is mere fluff). If that's the case, I'm sorry to say that Wikipedia isn't going to make you happy, and probably neither would a traditional encyclopedia.
I am not going to discuss anything with someone who posts anonymously and makes straw man arguments - you know damned well I never said that.
Just for clarity's sake, I don't literally mean "I don't understand". That was hyperbole - having had some contact with the technology press, I do understand. However, it still disgusts me.