You obviously didn't read your own references, or you would see immediately that all versions of MS Windows up to including Windows 7 aren't microkernels. Miss the part where
Traditional operating system functions, such as device drivers, protocol stacks and file systems, are removed from the microkernel to run in user space
> Which one do you think has less code in the kernel and therefor less chance of bugs and vulnerabilities?
I wouldn't know, not having access to the source code for Windows. And you know what? Given how well you're batting with classifying OSs as microkernels or monolithic kernels, I'm pretty sure you don't have (legal) access to the source code for Windows either, and you're just spitting out recycled factoids you've heard from other sources.
Evil in my eyes is not necessarily evil in another's, and vice versa. I also admit to never having seen the actual game/propaganda/whatever, so my post is somewhat theoretical in nature.
Evil is relativistic. If you take that into consideration, Google's "Don't be evil" motto/guideline/whatever actually makes a bit of sense.
Face it, Apple deserves criticism when it messes up on its decided course to censor all executables for iOS. It is perfectly OK to criticize Apple for not having the balls to approve content which criticizes Apple --- and AFAIK this content wasn't even criticizing Apple directly (unlike the strawman examples you talk about), it was criticizing all smartphone production (and probably, by association, smartphone consumption).
If someone wants to worship censorship because it's Apple's censorship, he should at least be honest about it. In the case of the Apple App Store, Apple took the decision to censor all executables so that it could give a "walled garden" experience. I can understand how consumers benefit from having malware walled out; I can imagine some consumers enjoying the walling out of various content which offends them (e.g., naked breast images); but I find the submission of the executable in question here (be it classified as a game, an app, or propaganda) to be an interesting commentary on society --- it emphasizes the fact that consumers enjoy not having to deal with criticism of themselves (since they encouraged the production of the smartphone they use by buying it).
It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with your reasoning, I was finding your idea quite interesting.
However you state "they wouldn't be making you", while missing the whole point of my comment: they would have no power to "make you" accept the terms of their EULA if they didn't think that "using software" was a protected use under current copyright law. I can't see how typical usage of software causes distribution, which is what the post I replied to claimed was "the whole point of copyright".
> The whole point of copyright is to preserve the right to distribute for the owners
Unless you somehow believe that you have the super-human ability to know the motivations of many different governments who have passed various forms of copyright, I think that claiming that you understand the "point" of copyright is a bit over-the-top. The reality is that everyone has their own idea what copyright is and/or should be.
My personal idea is that the goal of copyright is/should be about remuneration, not control. Judging from the moderation on my comment the last time I talked about it, a lot of people disagree.
BTW, it seems to me that the existence of EULAs show that at least some lawyers believe that copyright isn't just about distribution.
And no one in their right mind would think that it was legitimate to demand $1M USD for a disc. If an artist chooses to relate to his audience in such a way, I don't find it unreasonable that his audience would return the favor and choose to listen to his music without paying him (even if illegal).
If by legitimate you meant "legal", you are correct, but many people might instead interpret "legitimate" differently.
The current E-Ink tech is useless for video because the refresh rate is very slow.
What fascinates me about the summary is the plastic encapsulation. I wonder if eventually we will have objects which resemble paper books, but the individual pages will be easily rewritable?
My guess is that before that happens, mainline culture will change enough that people will think of paper books similar to the way most relate now to phonograph records. OTOH, I don't really believe I have any great ability to predict the future that far out.
Actually, I was surprised to find out that crass use with no socially redeeming features, something which I considered was still parody, was often not considered such by the US judicial system. Check out:
Walt Disney Prods. v. Mature Pictures Corp., 389 F. Supp. 1397, 1398 (S.D.N.Y. 1975)
DC Comics Inc. v. Unlimited Monkey Bus., Inc., 598 F. Supp. 110, 118 (N.D. Ga. 1984)
MCA, Inc. v. Wilson, 677 F.2d 180, 185 (2d Cir. 1981)
This is eerily parallel to RMS with respect to copyright. Ideally, he would prefer that copyright not exist, but it is the basis for the GPL/copyleft model of enforced sharing.
Utilizing a resource which you would prefer not exist, but it does, to derive benefits in the meantime while you wait for it to be abolished, is not hypocrisy in my eyes --- providing that you do not claim that the resource is wholly bad, there is no problem with this. It only becomes hypocrisy if you add the additional logical error of "false dichotomy". Since I don't know anything about Assange's statement or its context, it's impossible for me to know whether it was absolute enough to warrant calling his position hypocritical.
OK, I start to understand a bit more. One would have to provide some way for the browser to add exceptions for when you want to explicitly trust a particular self-signed certificate (and therefore have the connection be indicated as secure).
But face it, the reason no one encrypts the vast majority of web traffic is because it is totally uninteresting, and such encryption carries a cost (higher energy bill, higher maintenance cost, higher probability that a viewer will fail to be able to view your data). Yes, I know that this makes encrypted transfers "stand out" more --- but I don't think it's going to change in the near future.
It also includes a hidden feature that we love, Open command prompt, and a really useful new command, Open command prompt as administrator, both of which launch a command prompt with the path set to the currently selected folder.
This should have been a headline all for itself: Microsoft UI specialists "come out" about CLI preference.
Everyone accepting self-signed certificates without checking who created them is going to make us all more secure against governments?
The problem is with the current trust model itself, as others have noted here. Changing it to blindly trusting everything isn't going to improve the situation (and that is what you are proposing, for Joe Sixpack, anyway).
The linked article quotes a Google spokesperson that the services impacted are, all told:
Google+, Buzz, and some social features of Reader and Picasa Web Albums. For example, on Buzz, you can't create content, on Reader you can't share items with other users or follow other users, and on Picasa Web Albums you can't comment on photos.
In both scenarios, downgrading from Google+ will have no effect on other Google services like Gmail, Docs, etc.[emphasis mine]
Am I the only one around here who wouldn't be impacted by that? I did play around with Buzz but frankly, I didn't use it much and wouldn't miss it.
You obviously don't have grandchildren, or nephews, etc.
Actually, that you think this is creepy, is itself, in my eyes, creepy. You actually believe that 17-year olds should only be able to speak with their parents, each other, or other adults for whom some lawmaker has been gracious enough to create an exception?
Or did you just not think about it before opening your keyboard?
Thanks for the thoughtful question. It all depends on how I would view the DRM. If the author would make it clear to me that the point of the DRM is that his business model is "ten cents per read" (kind of like a rental model), unlike dead tree books for which it is clear the business model is "you can read it as many times as you like", then I probably wouldn't download a copy for my use under the second business model, or at least until I'd already paid him (via repetitive payments for the "per read" edition) as much he himself charged for that second business model, or if he didn't offer the second model, I'd probably make a personal judgment comparing the book to other books which were sold with that model and guess at a "fair price".
If he didn't make it clear, then I probably would be confused. Quite a lot of people seem to be going for the "low price, high volume" model of marketing nowadays...
Your question actually highlights something I hadn't thought of, before. If breaking the DRM were actually trivial, and I could easily do it myself, it would be legal for me to do so and convert his ten cent eBook into an unprotected one --- but I wouldn't feel OK with that morally (unless, as I stated above, I somehow paid the author more). On the other hand, if I had to scan / OCR every page myself from my eBook reader in order to get the unprotected version, I admit it would probably piss me off enough that I might actually end up paying the author less.
> Later they even offered pay-what-you-want model, but still the piracy rate is the same.
This statement makes no sense to me. I can understand how this statement could make sense to someone who views copyright as a right to control, but I view copyright as a temporary usufruct granted the creator, with a goal which is to enable him to generate income from his creations. Once the creator has made his work available for free, I personally wouldn't view it as piracy if I somehow obtain his work via an alternative method rather than taking his direct offer to give it to me for free.
Of course, I also don't view it as piracy if I download a digital version of music I've bought in the past. Or if I download a cracked ebook to lend to a friend after buying a DRM protected one. My guess is that more and more consumers will look at things this way, no matter what the **AAs and their ilk think about it.
US, UK. Both common-law countries, yet they seem have such different legal/judicial "cultures".
I suspect that someone accused of filesharing 24 songs over dialup wouldn't get a multimillion-dollar decision of damages against them in the UK. But, of course I could be wrong. Are there any barristers / solicitors lurking on/. to chime in and give us first hand opinion about the differences in the practice of IP law between the two countries?
> The only thing that protects linux from this is its tiny market share
Nope. Most distros also patch kernel vulnerabilities somewhat faster than Microsoft, because they think it's more important to push out the patches than to risk pissing off their users, since their users are currently (mainly) not paying.
Most Windows botnets are kernel botnets. In XP, moving from a user-space botnet to a kernel-level one was trivial for most user installations.
Your point that Linux is still quite vulnerable to user-space botnets is correct, but if/when the time comes it will be possible to try to catch such botnets from the kernel level. My guess is that people using Linux will "roll-over" their user installations periodically, just like people used to reinstall Windows periodically. Some of these "roll-overs" will work for getting rid of infections, and others will be circumvented by the botnets.
Another advantage of Linux over Windows is that it is possible to legally run it in a VM without having to pay for a second license. Easy VM usage will help against (but not eliminate) the threat of malware/botnets.
Of course, by that time, I'll probably be running Haiku, Syllable, Hurd, or Plan 9, myself. Hope to see the day!
Slashdot Mirror
> OK, let's learn
Learn what? To read?
You obviously didn't read your own references, or you would see immediately that all versions of MS Windows up to including Windows 7 aren't microkernels. Miss the part where
> Which one do you think has less code in the kernel and therefor less chance of bugs and vulnerabilities?
I wouldn't know, not having access to the source code for Windows. And you know what? Given how well you're batting with classifying OSs as microkernels or monolithic kernels, I'm pretty sure you don't have (legal) access to the source code for Windows either, and you're just spitting out recycled factoids you've heard from other sources.
Evil in my eyes is not necessarily evil in another's, and vice versa. I also admit to never having seen the actual game/propaganda/whatever, so my post is somewhat theoretical in nature.
Evil is relativistic. If you take that into consideration, Google's "Don't be evil" motto/guideline/whatever actually makes a bit of sense.
And this wasn't also?
Face it, Apple deserves criticism when it messes up on its decided course to censor all executables for iOS. It is perfectly OK to criticize Apple for not having the balls to approve content which criticizes Apple --- and AFAIK this content wasn't even criticizing Apple directly (unlike the strawman examples you talk about), it was criticizing all smartphone production (and probably, by association, smartphone consumption).
If someone wants to worship censorship because it's Apple's censorship, he should at least be honest about it. In the case of the Apple App Store, Apple took the decision to censor all executables so that it could give a "walled garden" experience. I can understand how consumers benefit from having malware walled out; I can imagine some consumers enjoying the walling out of various content which offends them (e.g., naked breast images); but I find the submission of the executable in question here (be it classified as a game, an app, or propaganda) to be an interesting commentary on society --- it emphasizes the fact that consumers enjoy not having to deal with criticism of themselves (since they encouraged the production of the smartphone they use by buying it).
> He goes online
I don't believe you missed the golden opportunity:
>> He goes online (<sarcasm>using the Internet, also invented by Al Gore</sarcasm>)
It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with your reasoning, I was finding your idea quite interesting.
However you state "they wouldn't be making you", while missing the whole point of my comment: they would have no power to "make you" accept the terms of their EULA if they didn't think that "using software" was a protected use under current copyright law. I can't see how typical usage of software causes distribution, which is what the post I replied to claimed was "the whole point of copyright".
Intentional, sorry it wasn't clear.
Waiting for the "disallowing proprietary standards will impede innovation!" reply...
Where are the lobbyists when you kneed (I wish!) them?
> The whole point of copyright is to preserve the right to distribute for the owners
Unless you somehow believe that you have the super-human ability to know the motivations of many different governments who have passed various forms of copyright, I think that claiming that you understand the "point" of copyright is a bit over-the-top. The reality is that everyone has their own idea what copyright is and/or should be.
My personal idea is that the goal of copyright is/should be about remuneration, not control. Judging from the moderation on my comment the last time I talked about it, a lot of people disagree.
BTW, it seems to me that the existence of EULAs show that at least some lawyers believe that copyright isn't just about distribution.
And no one in their right mind would think that it was legitimate to demand $1M USD for a disc. If an artist chooses to relate to his audience in such a way, I don't find it unreasonable that his audience would return the favor and choose to listen to his music without paying him (even if illegal).
If by legitimate you meant "legal", you are correct, but many people might instead interpret "legitimate" differently.
This guy is so unknown he had to post his own story?
> it's actually damn good technology done right
You do not specify exactly what you are referring to: did you mean "using ebooks and ereaders", or were you talking about the Kindle in particular?
The current E-Ink tech is useless for video because the refresh rate is very slow.
What fascinates me about the summary is the plastic encapsulation. I wonder if eventually we will have objects which resemble paper books, but the individual pages will be easily rewritable?
My guess is that before that happens, mainline culture will change enough that people will think of paper books similar to the way most relate now to phonograph records. OTOH, I don't really believe I have any great ability to predict the future that far out.
Actually, I was surprised to find out that crass use with no socially redeeming features, something which I considered was still parody, was often not considered such by the US judicial system. Check out:
(references cribbed from The Ethical Visions of Copyright Law (PDF), by James Grimmelmann --- see page 2017 / 13).
This is eerily parallel to RMS with respect to copyright. Ideally, he would prefer that copyright not exist, but it is the basis for the GPL/copyleft model of enforced sharing.
Utilizing a resource which you would prefer not exist, but it does, to derive benefits in the meantime while you wait for it to be abolished, is not hypocrisy in my eyes --- providing that you do not claim that the resource is wholly bad, there is no problem with this. It only becomes hypocrisy if you add the additional logical error of "false dichotomy". Since I don't know anything about Assange's statement or its context, it's impossible for me to know whether it was absolute enough to warrant calling his position hypocritical.
OK, I start to understand a bit more. One would have to provide some way for the browser to add exceptions for when you want to explicitly trust a particular self-signed certificate (and therefore have the connection be indicated as secure).
But face it, the reason no one encrypts the vast majority of web traffic is because it is totally uninteresting, and such encryption carries a cost (higher energy bill, higher maintenance cost, higher probability that a viewer will fail to be able to view your data). Yes, I know that this makes encrypted transfers "stand out" more --- but I don't think it's going to change in the near future.
From one of the articles:
This should have been a headline all for itself: Microsoft UI specialists "come out" about CLI preference.
Everyone accepting self-signed certificates without checking who created them is going to make us all more secure against governments?
The problem is with the current trust model itself, as others have noted here. Changing it to blindly trusting everything isn't going to improve the situation (and that is what you are proposing, for Joe Sixpack, anyway).
> I find it incredibly ironic that MLK's family should take such a position.
Once it's out of protection, cue the "I have a wet dream" parodies galore. This is why.
> a shit load of other services are impacted
The linked article quotes a Google spokesperson that the services impacted are, all told:
Am I the only one around here who wouldn't be impacted by that? I did play around with Buzz but frankly, I didn't use it much and wouldn't miss it.
You obviously don't have grandchildren, or nephews, etc.
Actually, that you think this is creepy, is itself, in my eyes, creepy. You actually believe that 17-year olds should only be able to speak with their parents, each other, or other adults for whom some lawmaker has been gracious enough to create an exception?
Or did you just not think about it before opening your keyboard?
Thanks for the thoughtful question. It all depends on how I would view the DRM. If the author would make it clear to me that the point of the DRM is that his business model is "ten cents per read" (kind of like a rental model), unlike dead tree books for which it is clear the business model is "you can read it as many times as you like", then I probably wouldn't download a copy for my use under the second business model, or at least until I'd already paid him (via repetitive payments for the "per read" edition) as much he himself charged for that second business model, or if he didn't offer the second model, I'd probably make a personal judgment comparing the book to other books which were sold with that model and guess at a "fair price".
If he didn't make it clear, then I probably would be confused. Quite a lot of people seem to be going for the "low price, high volume" model of marketing nowadays...
Your question actually highlights something I hadn't thought of, before. If breaking the DRM were actually trivial, and I could easily do it myself, it would be legal for me to do so and convert his ten cent eBook into an unprotected one --- but I wouldn't feel OK with that morally (unless, as I stated above, I somehow paid the author more). On the other hand, if I had to scan / OCR every page myself from my eBook reader in order to get the unprotected version, I admit it would probably piss me off enough that I might actually end up paying the author less.
A "Master API"? What device does that interface to, a universal controller?
> Later they even offered pay-what-you-want model, but still the piracy rate is the same.
This statement makes no sense to me. I can understand how this statement could make sense to someone who views copyright as a right to control, but I view copyright as a temporary usufruct granted the creator, with a goal which is to enable him to generate income from his creations. Once the creator has made his work available for free, I personally wouldn't view it as piracy if I somehow obtain his work via an alternative method rather than taking his direct offer to give it to me for free.
Of course, I also don't view it as piracy if I download a digital version of music I've bought in the past. Or if I download a cracked ebook to lend to a friend after buying a DRM protected one. My guess is that more and more consumers will look at things this way, no matter what the **AAs and their ilk think about it.
US, UK. Both common-law countries, yet they seem have such different legal/judicial "cultures".
I suspect that someone accused of filesharing 24 songs over dialup wouldn't get a multimillion-dollar decision of damages against them in the UK. But, of course I could be wrong. Are there any barristers / solicitors lurking on /. to chime in and give us first hand opinion about the differences in the practice of IP law between the two countries?
> The only thing that protects linux from this is its tiny market share
Nope. Most distros also patch kernel vulnerabilities somewhat faster than Microsoft, because they think it's more important to push out the patches than to risk pissing off their users, since their users are currently (mainly) not paying.
Most Windows botnets are kernel botnets. In XP, moving from a user-space botnet to a kernel-level one was trivial for most user installations.
Your point that Linux is still quite vulnerable to user-space botnets is correct, but if/when the time comes it will be possible to try to catch such botnets from the kernel level. My guess is that people using Linux will "roll-over" their user installations periodically, just like people used to reinstall Windows periodically. Some of these "roll-overs" will work for getting rid of infections, and others will be circumvented by the botnets.
Another advantage of Linux over Windows is that it is possible to legally run it in a VM without having to pay for a second license. Easy VM usage will help against (but not eliminate) the threat of malware/botnets.
Of course, by that time, I'll probably be running Haiku, Syllable, Hurd, or Plan 9, myself. Hope to see the day!