The internet is, by its nature, a disruptive technology. By this I mean that it allows every connected person to be her/his own publisher, which up to this point has not been possible.
Thus, any premises that include "choice of content" are flawed because there is an implied comparison to broadcast technologies. Certainly broadcasters can be part of the 'net, but they are only a subset of it.
Look around. There are family snapshots, source code, opinions, recipes, audio, video, and more: every form of human expression that can be digitized and copied is available on the internet.
There is no one, true source of content, nor is there a means to effectively control the materials available. There are billions of possible users, each with his/her own unique method of communicating. Censorship becomes extremely difficult, and copyright law is (as has been pointed out) fatally flawed.
Attempts at control face problems with scale (those zillions of publishers...er, users), with form (cf DeCSS as a GIF, and cryptography in general), with language, and with mixed content (a page that has useful information along with objectionable content).
Copyright law faces its own problems, but the fundamental problem is that copyright is based on social contract: any "intellectual property" is valuable only if it is shared in some way, and can be profitable only if there is a virtual meter on that means of sharing. When everyone can potentially share, how do you regulate the balance between an artist's right to make a living vs. the always-understated right of the public to incorporate the art into culture?
All in all, no attempt at control will be successful -- either useful material will be eliminated, or "objectionable" material will proliferate.
The answer probably lies in trying to form a more reasonable social view, or even society -- people will naturally avoid that which they're not interested in, or which they find distasteful.
Looks like a trip to various museums to try to get a peek at some of the original manuscripts by John Dowland (written around 1615, give or take a few years).
Of course, there's some stuff by these composers around, but very seldom do you see a scan of one of the original copies (i.e., purely public domain content).
The problem is that the public's rights have been infringed.
The idea here is relatively simple: check out Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
To promote progress, writers must be given incentives to write. That not only means a way to make a living, but an incentive to continue creating new works. If, after a reasonable time, the profit stops coming from old work, that's a pretty powerful incentive to create something to restore the income!
BTW, you need not wait for 50 years after an author's death: it's up to 70 years now! Or, for corporate works, over 95 years from publication or 120 years from inception, whichever comes first. Oh, and there's no guarantee that you can obtain a legitimate copy at any point during the term of the copyright, either. No responsibility at all comes with that copy "right"...
How's that for being completely unreasonable?
The Library of Congress has a great FAQ on copyright issues. See Question 46 for length of copyright, for example.
I recall reading an article about this in the Boston Globe. Check their archives if you can (you may need to be a subscriber). The article may have come by way of the NY Times, but I really don't recall.
I'd go for a search, but I'm feeling lazy. The interesting news will be what the Supremes decide to do about it.
Wow, this is a textbook example of how to write FUD!
First, make some claim to credibility by making a vague description of something you've done with the product quite some time ago, making it sound as if you've been on top of the subject for aeons. Now you're an "expert."
Next, establish your "talking points." These aren't what you're going to say directly, just the general things you want the reader to be thinking as s/he makes his/her way through the piece. For example, get the reader to wonder about the viability of the product: will it survive, is it just a fad, what will happen to my computing environment if it goes away? Divert attention away from such basic things as the GNU GPL by making it seem that only rocket scientists can type "make install" for all that perpetually free
source code.
Talking points shouldn't include cutting-edge information in FUD pieces; they should work on historical points, reputations, and perceptions only. For example, early Linux distros may have been tricky to install, so talk about that.
Change. Most people hate change. They hate bugs, and betas are full of bugs. Talk about being in "endless beta," yeah, that's the ticket.
Documentation. Let's continue on the path we started down with Installation, and ignore such things as the past few SuSE offerings that come with voluminous documentation. And ignore HOWTOs and such while we're at it.
Then, after going after perceived historical flaws, a good FUD piece slips in a fatal misdesign of the competition and makes it into a feature. For example, the "Unified User Experience." Just try to get multiple desktops on Windows right out of the box, or to configure it to work the way you want it to work. Only an MIS Nazi could love having exactly one choice. Dear Emily, may all your dresses be short, red, tight, and low-cut; this, too, will provide a Unified User Experience. (Probably horrific, but hey, what do I know?)
Conclude your FUD by saying that all the perceived flaws cannot be fixed; there are and can never be standards (oooh, go see FreeStandards.org and contribute). Nothing like piling a lie on top of it all.
And finally, loop back to the difficulties you had ages ago, and make it sound as if the same problems will always be there for you to come back to.
What a horrible trap of logic for those without the brains to see through it!
Now, anyone want to do the same thing to a certain monopolist crashware company?:-)
Yep, I just turn off my monitor and bang the keyboard frenetically with some moody music on the stereo! The sound effects could stand a few improvements, but hey, it's not released yet, anyway.
(What good is a whiz-bang graphics engine when its output is so damned hard to see?)
I just got back from seeing it.
After sitting through some of Hollywood's more abysmal efforts over the years -- remember the Dark Crystal, anyone? Conan? -- I'd have to say that this movie isn't half as bad as the know-nothing butchers make it out to be.
The supporting cast is indeed questionable, but the construction of the movie is not. It plays exactly like a D&D roleplaying session, complete with bits of humor, a loose plot where things seem made up along the way, and so forth.
Not all of the supporting roles are badly done, though: Tom Baker was excellent as an elven healer. Others were underutilized, such as the dwarf that winds up in the party.
The ending was fairly awful, but more because of the timing (certain things ought to be done in a hurry in a real game) and what was shown onscreen than because of what happened. (Hopefully only those of you who've seen it will figure that out:)
I have to forgive that and the ripoffs of other movies; I'll bet there was a studio note to insert each and every one of them...
The effects were better than any live-action fantasy flick I've seen thus far, and I've probably seen most of 'em. Spells needed components and zapped around impressively. The dragons were done reasonably well, but still smacked a bit of artificiality. A minor spoiler paraphrase for those of you who actually read the credits: "No dragons or other animals were harmed during the making of this movie.":-)
All in all, if you've ever played D&D, go see the movie. If you want typical Hollywood plot, acting, etc., see something else.
The EULA/installer executable is typically separate from the software
I chose to buy. I click on whatever's necessary to examine the
software without prejudice, similar to the process of selecting the
software's box from the retailer's shelf.
This *crap* is non-binding as far as I'm concerned. I respect federal
law (especially the interoperability clause of the DMCA), but have
nothing but contempt for after-the-fact attempts at enforcing
contracts which violate FTC advertising rules. (It's advertised and
presented as a game, not a "only-if-you-do-X" game.)
Incidentally, if UCITA comes up in your state, or you have the
misfortune of living in a state run by morons, please take the time to
contact your reps and gut the sucker.
Hey, Bob, it's the marketing. Not the wonderful kernel/community support, not the refreshing open source policies and scads of GPL'd code. Just the marketing.
You'll never hear MS say "Computers don't necessarily mean Microsoft Windows."
And I've never heard Redhat say "Linux doesn't necessarily mean Red Hat."
There are companies out there who target products specifically for Redhat, and there are reviewers who use only Redhat for their tests/reviews, and so forth.
This does very, very little for the notion of choice which you so correctly trumpet.
In fact, it's one more bit of misinformation one must correct whenever talking to the masses: there is more than one form of Linux.
Thus, the marketing is causing two problems. First, technical and compatibility problems due to supporting and testing under only Redhat. Second, trouble preaching to the masses who think that Linux sucks because they ran into a Redhat-only bug and gave up.
So you're making Slashdotters' (and others') lives more difficult, and you wonder that there's some resentment?
Wake up and smell the (not necessarily Columbian) coffee...
The Ultimate Stupid Patent surfaced today in the most appropriate of places: rec.humor.funny. The posting is also available on the RHF website. Unless IBM's patent site is involved with a practical joke, this one's for real, I'm afraid.
Perhaps one of the candidates will pledge to shut down the USPTO until such time as they get a clue...
What about certifications of hardware or of software? Humans have a tendency to self-improve...
Never mind that this is one step closer to having a Driver's License for programming, potentially making 'open' systems less so. Why not have university courses labelled simply "Industry Studies" where topics such as certifiction on XYZ system may be covered? Why should an XYZ Certification be a possible requirement rather than a college degree? Why should employers be encouraged to be clueless and/or lazy by looking for this sort of certification?
Yeah, I know, go read the series. But somehow I'm not too interested in it for the above reasons.
[Merrimack, New Hampshire] 14 Sept 2000 -- Linux user friartux, never impressed by Fujitsu storage products, has announced a personal resolution to avoid buying any Fujitsu media.
"This shouldn't be difficult," he said. "Compared to Maxtor and IBM hard drives, in my opinion, Fujitsu sucks anyway. Their capacities are low, and their buffers small in comparison. And who uses MO drives these days, anyway?"
Backup media such as CD-R have become more popular than MO in recent times, and DVD-style storage promises more than either.
Friartux looks forward to the first DVD-writable solution certified compatible with Linux -- without any corrupt tracking schemes,
and with large buffers and good speeds.
I note that there's a contact for source code, but apparently there's no downloadable code that one may run to diagnose any level of compliance.
Pardon me if the following questions are silly, but I'm not familiar with this area of testing (in part because I'm not a fan of mounds of paperwork:)...
Is this an open, public standard?
If so, is there an open compliance test?
If there is, where can it be downloaded?
If it can't be, why not?
Linux and other open source OS's tend to improve (here, read: "conform") better when the goals are open and easily referred to and researched against.
Further, the philosophy is (and always has been) "If you don't see something you want, you're free to add it yourself." This, of course, includes the government. Apart from the usual politics of budget constraints, what's stopping you (plural:) from developing (or contracting to have developed) a version of Linux or BSD which meets the spec and which can run on whatever hardware meets your needs?
So the best ways to get Linux into this environment might be:
Make the conformance suite immediately available for download, if possible;
Develop or contract to develop a variant which specifically meets your needs.
There are a variety of vendors who offer professional services for the latter. Linuxcare, BSDi, and others come to mind; I don't know their status on any Approved Vendor Lists you may need to follow.
Clearly, it's wrong to obtain a copy of a song without paying for it.
You'd best keep your radio in the OFF position, then.
I'm pretty sure that Lars isn't gonna kick my ass in either of these two scenarios.
Drummer Lars desperately needs a kick-pedal that hits him straight in the ass whenever he has a knee-jerk reaction.
we have Senator Hatch telling a private citizen, no, an entire industry how they must distribute their music!
As is his right as a senator. Especially when an industry of middlemen collude to set prices and policies in a classic anti-trust scenario, while ripping off the artists that the Constitution seeks to protect in Article I. Remember, *Congress* has the right to protect artists and inventors -- not middlemen!
I'm still waiting for one single, sensible argument that justifies trading MP3's on the scale that Napster allows.
If a radio station can do it, or fans can do it, why not? If it weren't for Napster or the Web, such trading would occur on FTP sites (the way it used to, in pre-www times). And -- as sales figures have shown -- people tend to buy albums by artists whose works they have discovered, whether it be by radio (hey, use of public airwaves to advertise music) or by internet.
[And the person who accuses me of piracy gets my legitimately purchased >2500-disc CD collection, or something of equal volume...up their orifice of my choice. So scratch that argument and try something better.]
Remember when the printing press came about, and copyright laws followed? The reason was that any idiot with a press could go ahead and profit from others' work. The "barrier of entry" was the price of the press, and the time, supplies, and content to operate it.
Now, with the computer and a connection to the 'net -- the very implements required to merely read electronic materials, it's possible to publish (or reproduce) more.
In other words, every e-book has become an e-press.
Copy protection is ineffective, just an impediment to all users (or have you forgotten the cracking programs of the 80's and 90's that doomed CP?). It's even easier to circumvent on any OS that lets you replace parts, or wedge into others: audio CP has already been defeated in this fashion.
So here are some issues that need to be legislatively solved:
How can artists continue to afford to produce their art?
How may it be appreciated, or fairly shared?
How can the art contribute to the human experience, or "the public domain" (in legalese)?
How can the profits and assigned rights of middlemen be scaled appropriately to the rights of the artist? Should middlemen be permitted any rights?
I, for one, have copies of albums on tape, vinyl, CD, and probably still 8-track. Some of it is the same music! Thus, I tend to get a bit offended [an understatement] when the RIAA talks piracy. They rip off artists; I'd rather contribute once and do with the music what I will, and skip the thieving record companies.
Given the fact that those companies have been using public airwaves as continual advertisements for their products, but refuse to view the internet the same way...well, what would you say?
I'll refrain from the stream of profanities that my response would have to contain...:)
Replace the audio device, and copy protection is toast. Furthermore, the compatibility issues CP raises -- with all the proprietary formats and such -- are horrific.
We're just seeing the same crap that we saw with productivity applications: copy protection gets in the way of legitimate use, and negatively affects usage (and thus sales).
This just emphasizes that people who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
And that's the problem about letting them own anything. The net effect is that corporations have more power -- and effectively, far expanded rights and privileges -- than any individual could ever achieve.
Should corporations, then, have limits on their effective lifespans? Disband after, say, 10 years more than the average lifetime expectancy at the time of incorporation?
Or should intellectual property rights be based on the lifespans of the individual creator(s) working for the corporation which holds the copyrights?
There's certainly something out-of-whack with the current system. How soon will we see Rent-A-Life, the way things are going?:)
To those who would point out that bankruptcy is a corporation's death -- yeah, it is, currently. But that's the equivalent of a fatal accident. The point remains that barring mishaps, corporations never go away. That may be good for things like incorporated town governments, but we're seeing the effects of granting immortality to for-profit entities...
The music companies seem to think it's okay to sell something with the following properties:
Contents of the box are unknown;
Opening the box makes it unreturnable;
Trying to examine the box's contents prior to purchase is *not* legal, unless you access it through approved channels (eg, radio).
Copyright is an interesting beast, and as the RIAA would have it practised, it breaks the legal assumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If you buy a disc, don't like it, and want to return it...generally, you can't. If there are 3 good songs out of 20, you're out of luck. If the disc was only 25 minutes long (Hello, Beatles), you're out of luck.
And they're complaining about being ripped off?
How about using the technology to stop ripping off consumers, instead?
Bzzzzt. That was RedHat's Bob Young in that interview, and he was talking about Compaq's Intel hardware. I'm sure he annoyed some folks at Compaq over that one.
Last I looked, DEC's Intel hardware was pretty Linux-friendly (HiNotes, etc.); Compaq's could be problematic, depending on what you got.
Compaq's Alpha stuff tends to be able to run Linux, but getting it pre-installed isn't a bad idea at all. (Try installing it and see -- last I looked, an Alpha install was far trickier than an Intel install; hopefully SuSE, RedHat, and the others will improve this.)
I think what you're quoting is patent law, not copyright law. The two are quite different.
No, I clearly indicated what I was quoting: the Constitution. As far as I can tell, this one little snippet is the part that authorizes Congress to write both patent and copyright laws. Note that the text refers to both 'authors' (hey, those are writers...y'know, the meaning of the word before some moron started using it as a verb) and 'inventors' (fortunately, not 'innovators':-).
Further, I'd conclude that copyright is for the authors, and patents are for the inventors.
It would be interesting to see a late-18th century definition of the term "useful arts." I suspect they meant plays, novels, music, and the like; or any form of secondhand speech which can be held to add value to some aspect of life.
The point, then, is that Microsoft's subversion of an open standard subtracts value...
[The Congress shall have power] To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; -- United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8.
Think long and hard. Does the Microsoft "extension" to Kerberos merit such coverage?
Does a change to an open, public standard which benefits only its pervertor, merit any protection whatsoever by this clause? If not, does any power which Congress has under the Constitution enable such protection? Do the laws even apply?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd love to see an answer from one:-)
Breakup is not enough for them; Microsoft's punishment should be quite similar to that which was dumped upon Kevin Mitnick. They should be barred in engaging in any computer-related activity whatsoever for a period of years.
The EULA they refer to is part of their effort to embrace/extend/extinguish the open Kerberos standard, an activity that should not -- and must not -- be protected by any form of legislation.
If any legislation needs to be written to cover this sort of thing, the only thing that would be appropriate would be a law stating that only open protocols may be used on the public internet; anything else contributes to a lack of interoperability. If interoperability is compromised, that's akin to seizing a public venue for private profit...
By the way, when will MS be sued over the ILoveYou virus? The zillions of dollars of damage, after all, was due to their misdesign. It even slowed down the net and limited services for people who have taken the effort to avoid using MS products!
Mr. King put a story out on the web, and by reported estimates, made about $450,000 from it. He probably would have made about $10,000 selling it to a well-paying magazine.
The report went on to say that the encryption on the story was cracked, and pirated versions are probably available. I'm sure Mr. King is crying all the way to the bank. Enough honest users are out there that he did okay, no?
Wouldn't the band prefer to get more money and goodwill from its fans, rather than terminally piss them off?
You won't be getting any sales from me, though... I think your music is a fine example of Sturgeon's Law. But I think you'll be losing sales from those who actually like the stuff, too. Why, when you could make a LOT more by cutting out the real thieves -- the "good" folks who charge $17.99 list for an album and pay the artist far less?
With apologies to the folks at Magnavox, here's a new slogan for your consideration: Metallica: Stupid. Very Stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
The internet is, by its nature, a disruptive technology. By this I mean that it allows every connected person to be her/his own publisher, which up to this point has not been possible.
Thus, any premises that include "choice of content" are flawed because there is an implied comparison to broadcast technologies. Certainly broadcasters can be part of the 'net, but they are only a subset of it.
Look around. There are family snapshots, source code, opinions, recipes, audio, video, and more: every form of human expression that can be digitized and copied is available on the internet.
There is no one, true source of content, nor is there a means to effectively control the materials available. There are billions of possible users, each with his/her own unique method of communicating. Censorship becomes extremely difficult, and copyright law is (as has been pointed out) fatally flawed.
Attempts at control face problems with scale (those zillions of publishers...er, users), with form (cf DeCSS as a GIF, and cryptography in general), with language, and with mixed content (a page that has useful information along with objectionable content).
Copyright law faces its own problems, but the fundamental problem is that copyright is based on social contract: any "intellectual property" is valuable only if it is shared in some way, and can be profitable only if there is a virtual meter on that means of sharing. When everyone can potentially share, how do you regulate the balance between an artist's right to make a living vs. the always-understated right of the public to incorporate the art into culture?
All in all, no attempt at control will be successful -- either useful material will be eliminated, or "objectionable" material will proliferate.
The answer probably lies in trying to form a more reasonable social view, or even society -- people will naturally avoid that which they're not interested in, or which they find distasteful.
Of course, there's some stuff by these composers around, but very seldom do you see a scan of one of the original copies (i.e., purely public domain content).
The idea here is relatively simple: check out Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
To promote progress, writers must be given incentives to write. That not only means a way to make a living, but an incentive to continue creating new works. If, after a reasonable time, the profit stops coming from old work, that's a pretty powerful incentive to create something to restore the income!
BTW, you need not wait for 50 years after an author's death: it's up to 70 years now! Or, for corporate works, over 95 years from publication or 120 years from inception, whichever comes first. Oh, and there's no guarantee that you can obtain a legitimate copy at any point during the term of the copyright, either. No responsibility at all comes with that copy "right"...
How's that for being completely unreasonable?
The Library of Congress has a great FAQ on copyright issues. See Question 46 for length of copyright, for example.
I'd go for a search, but I'm feeling lazy. The interesting news will be what the Supremes decide to do about it.
Wow, this is a textbook example of how to write FUD!
First, make some claim to credibility by making a vague description of something you've done with the product quite some time ago, making it sound as if you've been on top of the subject for aeons. Now you're an "expert."
Next, establish your "talking points." These aren't what you're going to say directly, just the general things you want the reader to be thinking as s/he makes his/her way through the piece. For example, get the reader to wonder about the viability of the product: will it survive, is it just a fad, what will happen to my computing environment if it goes away? Divert attention away from such basic things as the GNU GPL by making it seem that only rocket scientists can type "make install" for all that perpetually free source code.
Talking points shouldn't include cutting-edge information in FUD pieces; they should work on historical points, reputations, and perceptions only. For example, early Linux distros may have been tricky to install, so talk about that.
Change. Most people hate change. They hate bugs, and betas are full of bugs. Talk about being in "endless beta," yeah, that's the ticket.
Documentation. Let's continue on the path we started down with Installation, and ignore such things as the past few SuSE offerings that come with voluminous documentation. And ignore HOWTOs and such while we're at it.
Then, after going after perceived historical flaws, a good FUD piece slips in a fatal misdesign of the competition and makes it into a feature. For example, the "Unified User Experience." Just try to get multiple desktops on Windows right out of the box, or to configure it to work the way you want it to work. Only an MIS Nazi could love having exactly one choice. Dear Emily, may all your dresses be short, red, tight, and low-cut; this, too, will provide a Unified User Experience. (Probably horrific, but hey, what do I know?)
Conclude your FUD by saying that all the perceived flaws cannot be fixed; there are and can never be standards (oooh, go see FreeStandards.org and contribute). Nothing like piling a lie on top of it all.
And finally, loop back to the difficulties you had ages ago, and make it sound as if the same problems will always be there for you to come back to.
What a horrible trap of logic for those without the brains to see through it!
Now, anyone want to do the same thing to a certain monopolist crashware company? :-)
(What good is a whiz-bang graphics engine when its output is so damned hard to see?)
Open-hardware.org provides, among other things, an open source test suite for various system hardware.
I just got back from seeing it. After sitting through some of Hollywood's more abysmal efforts over the years -- remember the Dark Crystal, anyone? Conan? -- I'd have to say that this movie isn't half as bad as the know-nothing butchers make it out to be. The supporting cast is indeed questionable, but the construction of the movie is not. It plays exactly like a D&D roleplaying session, complete with bits of humor, a loose plot where things seem made up along the way, and so forth. Not all of the supporting roles are badly done, though: Tom Baker was excellent as an elven healer. Others were underutilized, such as the dwarf that winds up in the party. The ending was fairly awful, but more because of the timing (certain things ought to be done in a hurry in a real game) and what was shown onscreen than because of what happened. (Hopefully only those of you who've seen it will figure that out :)
I have to forgive that and the ripoffs of other movies; I'll bet there was a studio note to insert each and every one of them...
The effects were better than any live-action fantasy flick I've seen thus far, and I've probably seen most of 'em. Spells needed components and zapped around impressively. The dragons were done reasonably well, but still smacked a bit of artificiality. A minor spoiler paraphrase for those of you who actually read the credits: "No dragons or other animals were harmed during the making of this movie." :-)
All in all, if you've ever played D&D, go see the movie. If you want typical Hollywood plot, acting, etc., see something else.
The EULA/installer executable is typically separate from the software I chose to buy. I click on whatever's necessary to examine the software without prejudice, similar to the process of selecting the software's box from the retailer's shelf. This *crap* is non-binding as far as I'm concerned. I respect federal law (especially the interoperability clause of the DMCA), but have nothing but contempt for after-the-fact attempts at enforcing contracts which violate FTC advertising rules. (It's advertised and presented as a game, not a "only-if-you-do-X" game.) Incidentally, if UCITA comes up in your state, or you have the misfortune of living in a state run by morons, please take the time to contact your reps and gut the sucker.
Hey, Bob, it's the marketing. Not the wonderful kernel/community support, not the refreshing open source policies and scads of GPL'd code. Just the marketing.
You'll never hear MS say "Computers don't necessarily mean Microsoft Windows."
And I've never heard Redhat say "Linux doesn't necessarily mean Red Hat."
There are companies out there who target products specifically for Redhat, and there are reviewers who use only Redhat for their tests/reviews, and so forth.
This does very, very little for the notion of choice which you so correctly trumpet.
In fact, it's one more bit of misinformation one must correct whenever talking to the masses: there is more than one form of Linux.
Thus, the marketing is causing two problems. First, technical and compatibility problems due to supporting and testing under only Redhat. Second, trouble preaching to the masses who think that Linux sucks because they ran into a Redhat-only bug and gave up.
So you're making Slashdotters' (and others') lives more difficult, and you wonder that there's some resentment?
Wake up and smell the (not necessarily Columbian) coffee...
Perhaps one of the candidates will pledge to shut down the USPTO until such time as they get a clue...
What about certifications of hardware or of software? Humans have a tendency to self-improve...
Never mind that this is one step closer to having a Driver's License for programming, potentially making 'open' systems less so. Why not have university courses labelled simply "Industry Studies" where topics such as certifiction on XYZ system may be covered? Why should an XYZ Certification be a possible requirement rather than a college degree? Why should employers be encouraged to be clueless and/or lazy by looking for this sort of certification?
Yeah, I know, go read the series. But somehow I'm not too interested in it for the above reasons.
Athlon, Duron,
better look, the heat's on,
Simmer up now.
Alpha's beta,
it's a hot po-tata,
Heat sinks up to the stove.
So Intel, oh well,
might make your case a burnin' hell,
But you know they can do better.
If data is food,
don't glom an' be rude,
but the second it's done
marks the winner.
Dinner.
So with the yields, the shields,
got radiation fields,
Gonna nuke that box 'til it glows.
A chip that fries, well
my oh my, your data's all done
in a flash.
So work hard, yo,
gotta save yourself some dough,
For the heat, on the street,
they all want your cold hard cash.
(Anyone for SMP-on-a-chip?)
[Merrimack, New Hampshire] 14 Sept 2000 -- Linux user friartux, never impressed by Fujitsu storage products, has announced a personal resolution to avoid buying any Fujitsu media.
"This shouldn't be difficult," he said. "Compared to Maxtor and IBM hard drives, in my opinion, Fujitsu sucks anyway. Their capacities are low, and their buffers small in comparison. And who uses MO drives these days, anyway?"
Backup media such as CD-R have become more popular than MO in recent times, and DVD-style storage promises more than either.
Friartux looks forward to the first DVD-writable solution certified compatible with Linux -- without any corrupt tracking schemes, and with large buffers and good speeds.
I note that there's a contact for source code, but apparently there's no downloadable code that one may run to diagnose any level of compliance.
Pardon me if the following questions are silly, but I'm not familiar with this area of testing (in part because I'm not a fan of mounds of paperwork :)...
Linux and other open source OS's tend to improve (here, read: "conform") better when the goals are open and easily referred to and researched against.
Further, the philosophy is (and always has been) "If you don't see something you want, you're free to add it yourself." This, of course, includes the government. Apart from the usual politics of budget constraints, what's stopping you (plural :) from developing (or contracting to have developed) a version of Linux or BSD which meets the spec and which can run on whatever hardware meets your needs?
So the best ways to get Linux into this environment might be:
There are a variety of vendors who offer professional services for the latter. Linuxcare, BSDi, and others come to mind; I don't know their status on any Approved Vendor Lists you may need to follow.
You'd best keep your radio in the OFF position, then.
Drummer Lars desperately needs a kick-pedal that hits him straight in the ass whenever he has a knee-jerk reaction.
As is his right as a senator. Especially when an industry of middlemen collude to set prices and policies in a classic anti-trust scenario, while ripping off the artists that the Constitution seeks to protect in Article I. Remember, *Congress* has the right to protect artists and inventors -- not middlemen!
If a radio station can do it, or fans can do it, why not? If it weren't for Napster or the Web, such trading would occur on FTP sites (the way it used to, in pre-www times). And -- as sales figures have shown -- people tend to buy albums by artists whose works they have discovered, whether it be by radio (hey, use of public airwaves to advertise music) or by internet.
[And the person who accuses me of piracy gets my legitimately purchased >2500-disc CD collection, or something of equal volume...up their orifice of my choice. So scratch that argument and try something better.]
Remember when the printing press came about, and copyright laws followed? The reason was that any idiot with a press could go ahead and profit from others' work. The "barrier of entry" was the price of the press, and the time, supplies, and content to operate it.
Now, with the computer and a connection to the 'net -- the very implements required to merely read electronic materials, it's possible to publish (or reproduce) more.
In other words, every e-book has become an e-press.
Copy protection is ineffective, just an impediment to all users (or have you forgotten the cracking programs of the 80's and 90's that doomed CP?). It's even easier to circumvent on any OS that lets you replace parts, or wedge into others: audio CP has already been defeated in this fashion.
So here are some issues that need to be legislatively solved:
I, for one, have copies of albums on tape, vinyl, CD, and probably still 8-track. Some of it is the same music! Thus, I tend to get a bit offended [an understatement] when the RIAA talks piracy. They rip off artists; I'd rather contribute once and do with the music what I will, and skip the thieving record companies.
Given the fact that those companies have been using public airwaves as continual advertisements for their products, but refuse to view the internet the same way...well, what would you say?
I'll refrain from the stream of profanities that my response would have to contain... :)
Because copy protection Doesn't Work.
Replace the audio device, and copy protection is toast. Furthermore, the compatibility issues CP raises -- with all the proprietary formats and such -- are horrific.
We're just seeing the same crap that we saw with productivity applications: copy protection gets in the way of legitimate use, and negatively affects usage (and thus sales).
This just emphasizes that people who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
So go learn your history, okay? :-)
And that's the problem about letting them own anything. The net effect is that corporations have more power -- and effectively, far expanded rights and privileges -- than any individual could ever achieve.
Should corporations, then, have limits on their effective lifespans? Disband after, say, 10 years more than the average lifetime expectancy at the time of incorporation?
Or should intellectual property rights be based on the lifespans of the individual creator(s) working for the corporation which holds the copyrights?
There's certainly something out-of-whack with the current system. How soon will we see Rent-A-Life, the way things are going? :)
To those who would point out that bankruptcy is a corporation's death -- yeah, it is, currently. But that's the equivalent of a fatal accident. The point remains that barring mishaps, corporations never go away. That may be good for things like incorporated town governments, but we're seeing the effects of granting immortality to for-profit entities...
The music companies seem to think it's okay to sell something with the following properties:
Copyright is an interesting beast, and as the RIAA would have it practised, it breaks the legal assumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty. If you buy a disc, don't like it, and want to return it...generally, you can't. If there are 3 good songs out of 20, you're out of luck. If the disc was only 25 minutes long (Hello, Beatles), you're out of luck.
And they're complaining about being ripped off?
How about using the technology to stop ripping off consumers, instead?
Bzzzzt. That was RedHat's Bob Young in that interview, and he was talking about Compaq's Intel hardware. I'm sure he annoyed some folks at Compaq over that one.
Last I looked, DEC's Intel hardware was pretty Linux-friendly (HiNotes, etc.); Compaq's could be problematic, depending on what you got.
Compaq's Alpha stuff tends to be able to run Linux, but getting it pre-installed isn't a bad idea at all. (Try installing it and see -- last I looked, an Alpha install was far trickier than an Intel install; hopefully SuSE, RedHat, and the others will improve this.)
No, I clearly indicated what I was quoting: the Constitution. As far as I can tell, this one little snippet is the part that authorizes Congress to write both patent and copyright laws. Note that the text refers to both 'authors' (hey, those are writers...y'know, the meaning of the word before some moron started using it as a verb) and 'inventors' (fortunately, not 'innovators' :-).
Further, I'd conclude that copyright is for the authors, and patents are for the inventors.
It would be interesting to see a late-18th century definition of the term "useful arts." I suspect they meant plays, novels, music, and the like; or any form of secondhand speech which can be held to add value to some aspect of life.
The point, then, is that Microsoft's subversion of an open standard subtracts value...
Think long and hard. Does the Microsoft "extension" to Kerberos merit such coverage?
Does a change to an open, public standard which benefits only its pervertor, merit any protection whatsoever by this clause? If not, does any power which Congress has under the Constitution enable such protection? Do the laws even apply?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd love to see an answer from one :-)
Pardon the rant, but I just gotta...
Breakup is not enough for them; Microsoft's punishment should be quite similar to that which was dumped upon Kevin Mitnick. They should be barred in engaging in any computer-related activity whatsoever for a period of years.
The EULA they refer to is part of their effort to embrace/extend/extinguish the open Kerberos standard, an activity that should not -- and must not -- be protected by any form of legislation.
If any legislation needs to be written to cover this sort of thing, the only thing that would be appropriate would be a law stating that only open protocols may be used on the public internet; anything else contributes to a lack of interoperability. If interoperability is compromised, that's akin to seizing a public venue for private profit...
By the way, when will MS be sued over the ILoveYou virus? The zillions of dollars of damage, after all, was due to their misdesign. It even slowed down the net and limited services for people who have taken the effort to avoid using MS products!
Okay, I think I'm done ranting. For now.
Mr. King put a story out on the web, and by reported estimates, made about $450,000 from it. He probably would have made about $10,000 selling it to a well-paying magazine.
The report went on to say that the encryption on the story was cracked, and pirated versions are probably available. I'm sure Mr. King is crying all the way to the bank. Enough honest users are out there that he did okay, no?
Wouldn't the band prefer to get more money and goodwill from its fans, rather than terminally piss them off?
You won't be getting any sales from me, though... I think your music is a fine example of Sturgeon's Law. But I think you'll be losing sales from those who actually like the stuff, too. Why, when you could make a LOT more by cutting out the real thieves -- the "good" folks who charge $17.99 list for an album and pay the artist far less?
With apologies to the folks at Magnavox, here's a new slogan for your consideration: Metallica: Stupid. Very Stupid.