That's weird. Surely there are far more drivers, and far more support, available for Windows for all ages of device than there are for Linux?
All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes and stick them online and Windows is covered. For Linux, they've got to go out, find if someone has made them a driver, check it (cos no one wants to risk their brand on an untested driver or employ someone to write their own.
Why would they bother?
Because an odd handful of 5% of the desktop computer population might find some old hardware in a second hand store? And this helps them how?
and as we slip on our asbestos trousers and sail into the sunset...
I will bite. Why should TV be free for all? If the producers want to sell to a network who only want paying viewers, then shouldn't we respect their wishes? Why should anyone respect the GPL, say, if at the same time the open-everything crowd do not respect other people's choice of license?
Just because it is possible to pirate DirectTV does not give anyone a right to do so. Empowerment is not Entitlement. No arguments as to the price, quality or fairness of the incumbent system are valid whatsoever, if we want people to respect our own practices as much as we desire.
and lo, the asbestos pantaloons fluttered mightily in the seabreeze
It's early, and I'm not at optimum caffeine level yet, but it strikes me that this hits it right on the head. and so - please all repeat after me:
First.
The freelibre philosophy, which works very well for software, is not universally appropriate.
Second.
It does not follow that if someone/thing/company is non-freelibre, or non-freegratis that they are automatically evil/bad. Some people just prefer to be paid for their work/knowledge directly. People are different. Love the diversity. See rule the first.
Third.
Empowerment is not Entitlement. Just because you are able to, does not mean it is right or clever that you should. Exercising your freedom to will in many cases take away someone elses freedom from. See rule the second.
Fourth.
Freedom from is, in many cultures, more important than Freedom to. It is this fundamental difference in thinking that seperates Microsoft and the GNU/Linux community, Adobe and the Russians, the RIAA and Napster and so on and so on. See rules the first, second and third.
If half of the time spent on this non-sensical freelibre jihad was spent actually working on the product, whatever it is, all this ra-ra-ra we-are-great-you're-non-free-you-suck would be redundant.
and now, back to the coffee.
hmm.
why didn't they just confiscate his passport? He's going to have a hard time getting on a plane without one. Never mind getting back into the CIS.
You are a moron. Do you think we care about people like you? Of course you're going to download the JVM. Unfortunately, web designers have to write pages for *gasp* average people! Guess what.. they use *gasp* 56k modems! More than that, like others have already said, they're reluctant to install software.
Then *gasp* *don't* *use* *Java*. If average people can't use it, don't design with it. There is more than one way.
And people won't buy them. The point about "Thomson has sold 10 million DirecTV satellite receivers" is just stupid. Nobody buys satelite receivers. They rent them.
worse than that. They don't rent receivers at all: they pay a monthly fee to watch the shows.
That Thomson think the box is the most important thing is probably inevitable (given that they make the things) - but they're making the classic mistake. The consumer only cares about the content - and if they can get it easier/cheaper someplace else, then they will.
the BT phones are already in place, actually. There's a couple along Kensington High Street, for example. They offer web access and, v.usefully, SMS, for about 10p (14cents) a minute or so. The keyboard is small, and made of aluminium, so it's not exactly going to take over from the local branch of EasyEverything, but they are kind of useful if you need movie times or something.
Having said that, there is such an outbreak of cybercafes and proper, full sized, internet kiosks everywhere here that they really have no reason to exist. Pretty much anywhere where there are tourists, or backpackers, there is internet access going very cheaply.
You're right: this is terrible grammar. Ordinarily, a group / company / country should be taken as singular.
So, Microsoft is planning world domination, as opposed to Microsoft are etc.
The second should have a possesive apostrophe: blah blah at this year's Defcon.
However. In spoken UK English, at least in London, you are more likely to say "A group of hackers are developing" than "is developing" because it allows you to roll the "are" sound into the end of "hackers" to make a "hack-erz-a" sound. The grammar rules have yet to catch up with modern speech, and many journos try to write as it they were speaking. It tends to read better that way, y'know?
Still, if they dropped the "A group of" then the singular verb would be correct. As it stands, the to-be verb should correspond to the primary noun which is "A group", and not "hackers".
According to the agreement, and in addition to the time-based exclusivity, no other system, such as GameCube or PlayStation 2, can offer Matrix-based games that feature Internet play.
So, for the first six months I can't get internet-based Matrix games on my PS2 or GameCube? So what? that still gives me a year or two for the internet connectivity to become physically available for each of the consoles...
Paying that much cash for exclusive rights to a feature that won't exist during the exclusive period is a little weird, imho ianal etc etc etc.
But, when I'm abroad I've found it's usually better to refer to it as The Times of London, so as not to confuse people between us and the New York Times or the Times of India. There is also The Sunday Times, which is a seperate paper, but owned by the same company. As is the Times Literary Supplement, and the Times Education Supplement. Same, but seperate.
Either way, we were here first - the first issue was in 1788.
this really depends on what he means by "good reception".
Does he mean the press, or the developers? The press slamming it is not so bad a problem as all the developers going over to the Xbox. If they all defected, you can understand Nintendo sticking with what they've got, and not spending all their cash on marketing a dead product.
good point. I can't imagine the writers of the constitution were envisaging fully automatic weaponry when they enshined the right to bear arms. A muzzle-loading rifle, a sword, a pointy stick maybe...an uzi? doubt it...
Is it stealing if I would not have bought it if I couldn't get it without paying for it? If you wouldn't have bought it anyway, what is it that you have stolen?
Yes it is. Stealing is the taking of something without the owners' permission. I don't want to buy your car, so if I take it that's not stealing, right?
no, wrong.
As for who owns something: you own the physical media, and the license to use the data stored upon it (the music, for example) you don't own the IP. I copy the IP from you, I'm not stealing the IP from you, but I am stealing it from its owner: the record company. Whether I wanted to pay for it anyway is irrelevent, legally, morally and sensibly.
Piracy, too, may lead to purchase but this is the choice of the IP-owner - in your case Adobe, to decide whether this is ok. They currently say not. Your guy therefore broke the law. Adobe chose it so, as is their right/freedom.
sure, well, the license is obligatory for anyone who runs any TV. It's actually tied to the building/apartment/office, and, yes, you have to have one even if you promise to watch only Sky.
It is a government collected levy and goes entirely to pay for the BBC. Even if you only watch commercial channels this still counts.
This isn't odd: you must remember that the UK is actually quite small geographically: terrestrial broadcast covers the entire country, cable is pretty rare (at least in uptake) and satellite is commercial and subscription based. Everyone can get the BBC, so it's easier and cheaper to enforce it this way. Even cable carries BBC1 and 2 and the cable-only News24, Parliament, Knowledge and UKGold.
It must also be remembered that the LF pays for BBC radio (which is very extensive, with 5 national stations and hundreds of regional ones, the blessed World Service and (controversially) the BBC's websites.
It costs about £100, and you get £3 off if you are legally blind. (honestly) Don't pay and you get a £1000 fine.
IMHO, it's not so bad. The BBC is mostly good on tv - it's commercial free for a start. But it really makes the LF worthwhile with news.bbc.co.uk and the World Service. I'd pay for that alone if I had to.
Oh, and Test Match Special - but you'd never understand that, old chap.
They talked about it last week, and all they are going to do is not ship Windows Media Player 8 with an MP3 encoding codec. HOWEVER, it is entirely possible to both play MP3s and install someone else's codec.
Actually I have a copy of WMP8 and it rocks. Built in CD burning, nice interface, a link to a.NETish database that brings cover art and lyrics down for the CDs you rip (into wma, of course) and the new wma codec sounds v.good indeed at 56k.
Now, I have a nice mp3 player that supports wma, and by ripping with WMP8 at 56k I can get twice the music in my pocket and it sounds better.
I've got Office XP RC1 running right now and the bastard is still there.
having said that, I was at the european journo briefing in Seattle last week, and you have to pity the poor VP when the *only* reaction he got from the crowd was a massive cheer when he said that clippit was off by default. The special pauses they all had in their powerpoint presentations for applause were just awkward silences, but the clippet thing stopped the show.
MS also have a kill the clippit shockwave game somewhere on their site, allegedly.
...how this story is not actually, "EU make attempting to steal something illegal"?
I must be being stupid here - because apart from taking stuff that you haven't paid for, I can't think of any reason why you would want to break the encryption on copyrighted materials.
crikey. I didn't realise it was so bad whereever-you-are. The mindcontrol people, the armed mobs, the large men with sticks who must be standing around forcing you to use AIM. the massive policestate needed to ensure everyone uses AOL as an ISP.
We must stop the repression! How dare AOL stop people who aren't AOL subscribers from using their services? What Nazis! Not wanting you to use their servers because you refuse to use their client? What scum!
Fight back people! We shall have a revolution! (someone call Katz)
As I don my asbestos trousers...listen people, AIM is not some fundamental human right. You are not going to die if you can't use it. Your freedoms aren't endangered, your rights are not transgressed. AOL is a business, AIM is one of their products, and if they don't want other companies to connect to it then that is their right.
Ok, so perhaps it's a little silly on their part, but they have a right to make their own mistakes. Forcing AOL to allow access is on a par, legally, with Microsoft forcing a rejection of the GPL because they whine hard enough about "needing" to do so.
Use AOL's own software, or stop whinging about it. I mean jeez, if it's that important, dual boot or use the PalmOS version. OR JUST USE AOL'S SOFTWARE.
I'm beginning to wonder if JK is the ubertroll. I mean, I used to be able handle the highfalutin pop psych, but this is just silly. The concept of Open Source is as old as copying your mate's homework. The fact the internet allows it to happen quicker, and more effectively, is significant but it is NOT a new paradigm. It is even less a revolution.
I think we all need to get out a bit more. The net has changed many things - but only in that it amplifies and speeds up just basic expressions of human nature. It turns your personal volume up - a programmer can influence more people, good can do more good, evil can be more evil, Open Source can be more Open and More Sourcey. But this doesn't change anything fundamental about society, in the way a real revolution does. The sexual revolution, the communist revolutions, the American and French revolutions all changed their societies for ever...the internet hasn't. Probably never will.
Anyway...whilst I'm here, can we suggest a copy-editor is employed at Slashdot. Let's take this paragraph for example:
This revolution -- a convergence of programming, computing, and coding with the Net and the Web -- isn't over, so much as it's reeling from the harsh realities of contemporary life. Everybody likely has his own nominees for the most enduring ideas and movements of the unfinished Net Revolution. My two are the hacker and the Open Source movement, the two most inherently political, idealistic and powerful ideas, the two most likely to leave marks on the world. Open source software, whose explosive growth grew directly out of the Net, has turned out to be a viral transmitter of openness. It is hard to imagine how it could ever be shut down.
This is just weird Jon, old chap. In the same par, you have the revolution both reeling from harsh reality, and then being hard-to-imagine-how-it-can-be-shut-down. Which is a bit of a contradiction.
Then you have Open source being a viral transmitter of openness. Which is kinda like saying Cheese is the perfect conduit for dairy products. Well, yes. By definition.
I live in the UK, in central London, and between now and the end of the day will probably be on a good forty cameras. This is in no way a limit on my rights or freedoms. In fact it increases them:
I don't have a right to steal, or break the law in any way, so I'm not losing any rights if I'm filming doing so. But I do have a right to Freedom From other people breaking the law with me as the victim. The CCTVs around here have certainly cut down on street crime, and petty violence, and for that increase in my own personal freedom I am thankful.
Actually, the concept of positive and negative freedoms is one most slashdotters should know. Life isn't just made of Freedom To. Many people - the RIAA for one (uh oh, asbestos trousers on) - also quite like Freedom From.
Slashdot Mirror
Why can't Microsoft survive in this model?
That's weird. Surely there are far more drivers, and far more support, available for Windows for all ages of device than there are for Linux?
All manufacturer x needs to do is dust off some old driver diskettes and stick them online and Windows is covered. For Linux, they've got to go out, find if someone has made them a driver, check it (cos no one wants to risk their brand on an untested driver or employ someone to write their own.
Why would they bother?
Because an odd handful of 5% of the desktop computer population might find some old hardware in a second hand store? And this helps them how?
and as we slip on our asbestos trousers and sail into the sunset...
I will bite. Why should TV be free for all? If the producers want to sell to a network who only want paying viewers, then shouldn't we respect their wishes? Why should anyone respect the GPL, say, if at the same time the open-everything crowd do not respect other people's choice of license?
Just because it is possible to pirate DirectTV does not give anyone a right to do so. Empowerment is not Entitlement. No arguments as to the price, quality or fairness of the incumbent system are valid whatsoever, if we want people to respect our own practices as much as we desire.
and lo, the asbestos pantaloons fluttered mightily in the seabreeze
First.
The freelibre philosophy, which works very well for software, is not universally appropriate.
Second.
It does not follow that if someone/thing/company is non-freelibre, or non-freegratis that they are automatically evil/bad. Some people just prefer to be paid for their work/knowledge directly. People are different. Love the diversity. See rule the first.
Third.
Empowerment is not Entitlement. Just because you are able to, does not mean it is right or clever that you should. Exercising your freedom to will in many cases take away someone elses freedom from. See rule the second.
Fourth.
Freedom from is, in many cultures, more important than Freedom to. It is this fundamental difference in thinking that seperates Microsoft and the GNU/Linux community, Adobe and the Russians, the RIAA and Napster and so on and so on. See rules the first, second and third.
If half of the time spent on this non-sensical freelibre jihad was spent actually working on the product, whatever it is, all this ra-ra-ra we-are-great-you're-non-free-you-suck would be redundant.
and now, back to the coffee.
hmm.
why didn't they just confiscate his passport? He's going to have a hard time getting on a plane without one. Never mind getting back into the CIS.
Then *gasp* *don't* *use* *Java*. If average people can't use it, don't design with it. There is more than one way.
And people won't buy them. The point about "Thomson has sold 10 million DirecTV satellite receivers" is just stupid. Nobody buys satelite receivers. They rent them.
worse than that. They don't rent receivers at all: they pay a monthly fee to watch the shows.
That Thomson think the box is the most important thing is probably inevitable (given that they make the things) - but they're making the classic mistake. The consumer only cares about the content - and if they can get it easier/cheaper someplace else, then they will.
The technology is just a barrier for most people.
the BT phones are already in place, actually. There's a couple along Kensington High Street, for example. They offer web access and, v.usefully, SMS, for about 10p (14cents) a minute or so. The keyboard is small, and made of aluminium, so it's not exactly going to take over from the local branch of EasyEverything, but they are kind of useful if you need movie times or something.
Having said that, there is such an outbreak of cybercafes and proper, full sized, internet kiosks everywhere here that they really have no reason to exist. Pretty much anywhere where there are tourists, or backpackers, there is internet access going very cheaply.
pedant:on
You're right: this is terrible grammar. Ordinarily, a group / company / country should be taken as singular.
So, Microsoft is planning world domination, as opposed to Microsoft are etc.
The second should have a possesive apostrophe: blah blah at this year's Defcon.
However. In spoken UK English, at least in London, you are more likely to say "A group of hackers are developing" than "is developing" because it allows you to roll the "are" sound into the end of "hackers" to make a "hack-erz-a" sound. The grammar rules have yet to catch up with modern speech, and many journos try to write as it they were speaking. It tends to read better that way, y'know?
Still, if they dropped the "A group of" then the singular verb would be correct. As it stands, the to-be verb should correspond to the primary noun which is "A group", and not "hackers".
/pedant
So, for the first six months I can't get internet-based Matrix games on my PS2 or GameCube? So what? that still gives me a year or two for the internet connectivity to become physically available for each of the consoles...
Paying that much cash for exclusive rights to a feature that won't exist during the exclusive period is a little weird, imho ianal etc etc etc.
ah, well, it's The Times.
But, when I'm abroad I've found it's usually better to refer to it as The Times of London, so as not to confuse people between us and the New York Times or the Times of India. There is also The Sunday Times, which is a seperate paper, but owned by the same company. As is the Times Literary Supplement, and the Times Education Supplement. Same, but seperate.
Either way, we were here first - the first issue was in 1788.
this really depends on what he means by "good reception".
Does he mean the press, or the developers? The press slamming it is not so bad a problem as all the developers going over to the Xbox. If they all defected, you can understand Nintendo sticking with what they've got, and not spending all their cash on marketing a dead product.
good point. I can't imagine the writers of the constitution were envisaging fully automatic weaponry when they enshined the right to bear arms. A muzzle-loading rifle, a sword, a pointy stick maybe...an uzi? doubt it...
Yes it is. Stealing is the taking of something without the owners' permission. I don't want to buy your car, so if I take it that's not stealing, right?
no, wrong.
As for who owns something: you own the physical media, and the license to use the data stored upon it (the music, for example) you don't own the IP. I copy the IP from you, I'm not stealing the IP from you, but I am stealing it from its owner: the record company. Whether I wanted to pay for it anyway is irrelevent, legally, morally and sensibly.
Piracy, too, may lead to purchase but this is the choice of the IP-owner - in your case Adobe, to decide whether this is ok. They currently say not. Your guy therefore broke the law. Adobe chose it so, as is their right/freedom.
the liberty to *not*get*caught*
:-)
sure, well, the license is obligatory for anyone who runs any TV. It's actually tied to the building/apartment/office, and, yes, you have to have one even if you promise to watch only Sky.
It is a government collected levy and goes entirely to pay for the BBC. Even if you only watch commercial channels this still counts.
This isn't odd: you must remember that the UK is actually quite small geographically: terrestrial broadcast covers the entire country, cable is pretty rare (at least in uptake) and satellite is commercial and subscription based. Everyone can get the BBC, so it's easier and cheaper to enforce it this way. Even cable carries BBC1 and 2 and the cable-only News24, Parliament, Knowledge and UKGold.
It must also be remembered that the LF pays for BBC radio (which is very extensive, with 5 national stations and hundreds of regional ones, the blessed World Service and (controversially) the BBC's websites.
It costs about £100, and you get £3 off if you are legally blind. (honestly) Don't pay and you get a £1000 fine.
IMHO, it's not so bad. The BBC is mostly good on tv - it's commercial free for a start. But it really makes the LF worthwhile with news.bbc.co.uk and the World Service. I'd pay for that alone if I had to.
Oh, and Test Match Special - but you'd never understand that, old chap.
They talked about it last week, and all they are going to do is not ship Windows Media Player 8 with an MP3 encoding codec. HOWEVER, it is entirely possible to both play MP3s and install someone else's codec.
.NETish database that brings cover art and lyrics down for the CDs you rip (into wma, of course) and the new wma codec sounds v.good indeed at 56k.
Actually I have a copy of WMP8 and it rocks. Built in CD burning, nice interface, a link to a
Now, I have a nice mp3 player that supports wma, and by ripping with WMP8 at 56k I can get twice the music in my pocket and it sounds better.
that's such an evil ploy.
I've got Office XP RC1 running right now and the bastard is still there.
having said that, I was at the european journo briefing in Seattle last week, and you have to pity the poor VP when the *only* reaction he got from the crowd was a massive cheer when he said that clippit was off by default. The special pauses they all had in their powerpoint presentations for applause were just awkward silences, but the clippet thing stopped the show.
MS also have a kill the clippit shockwave game somewhere on their site, allegedly.
...how this story is not actually, "EU make attempting to steal something illegal"?
I must be being stupid here - because apart from taking stuff that you haven't paid for, I can't think of any reason why you would want to break the encryption on copyrighted materials.
Can anyone tell me otherwise?
too right. though we'll forget about England v Sri Lanka.
anyway, www.cricinfo.org is a masterclass in how to do sport on the web - live, text commentaries..
crikey. I didn't realise it was so bad whereever-you-are. The mindcontrol people, the armed mobs, the large men with sticks who must be standing around forcing you to use AIM. the massive policestate needed to ensure everyone uses AOL as an ISP.
We must stop the repression! How dare AOL stop people who aren't AOL subscribers from using their services? What Nazis! Not wanting you to use their servers because you refuse to use their client? What scum!
Fight back people! We shall have a revolution! (someone call Katz)
As I don my asbestos trousers...listen people, AIM is not some fundamental human right. You are not going to die if you can't use it. Your freedoms aren't endangered, your rights are not transgressed. AOL is a business, AIM is one of their products, and if they don't want other companies to connect to it then that is their right.
Ok, so perhaps it's a little silly on their part, but they have a right to make their own mistakes. Forcing AOL to allow access is on a par, legally, with Microsoft forcing a rejection of the GPL because they whine hard enough about "needing" to do so.
Use AOL's own software, or stop whinging about it. I mean jeez, if it's that important, dual boot or use the PalmOS version. OR JUST USE AOL'S SOFTWARE.
I live in the UK, in central London, and between now and the end of the day will probably be on a good forty cameras. This is in no way a limit on my rights or freedoms. In fact it increases them:
I don't have a right to steal, or break the law in any way, so I'm not losing any rights if I'm filming doing so. But I do have a right to Freedom From other people breaking the law with me as the victim. The CCTVs around here have certainly cut down on street crime, and petty violence, and for that increase in my own personal freedom I am thankful.
Actually, the concept of positive and negative freedoms is one most slashdotters should know. Life isn't just made of Freedom To. Many people - the RIAA for one (uh oh, asbestos trousers on) - also quite like Freedom From.
hmmm...
Wasn't T'Pau Spock's mother or something?
(and a 80's rock band, iirc)