I sure wish I could be there. Unfortunately, Santa Clara is a long way from Omaha, NE...
I'd be insterested in knowing what the plaintiff's reaction was(and will be) to the sheer number of supporters that showed up. Were they visibly uncomfortable, or just caught off-guard?;)
DVD piracy is already impractical. As yet, recordable DVD media is way to small to hold an average movie. DVD movies normally range from 6 to 9 gigs in size, and recordable DVDs only hold about 4. The hard disk is also out of the question, so where do you put it? How would you distribute it? The 'net? How many people have T3's at their disposal?
Interesting idea, really, but... why dick around with encryption at all? The only point of encryption on these things is the paranoid and stupid belief that it will prevent people from pirating it... worse yet, their scheme relies on security through obscurity, which is an even worse idea.
*sigh* God, I wish this would work. But, the mainstream DVD sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers simply won't care. Personally, I'm not going to buy any DVD's until this is resolved... not because I'm boycotting them necessarily, just out of personal disgust for their industry--I really can't in good conscious give them money while they're doing something like this.
Ahh, I think we are both confusing the ideas of Operating System, and Operating Environment. "Linux" can fit on a floppy--it just won't do much. Technically, the kernel is the only part which is the OS. The Operating Environment, however, describes the extra crap that makes the OS more useful. BeOS is nice, but it doesn't do much on its own. Neither does Linux, although there are much more utils available for it. The point is, there's a straightforward ratio: the more virsatility you want, the more code bloat you'll have to put up with.
People could then build AOL clients that showed no advertisements at all
Oh no! Well, that just won't do!:) Yeah, I suppose you have a point there... actually, there is a utility on Freshmeat that'll let you open a connecting through AOL straight to the Internet... a quick hack, and certainly not user-friendly though. I'm not worried; AOL will port it over once the user base is large enough, and AOL'ers are the last people who will ever switch to Linux anyway.
Actually, the DVD package for Linux comes with four programs: reset (used for error-checking), tstdvd (unlocks the disc and saves title keys), dvdinfo (displays various info about the files), and css-cat--this is the little bastard that actually does the decrypting.
All you need to do a verbatim copy of a DVD is one of the utilities: tstdvd. This program does nothing more than read the title keys and unlock the disc so the contents can be accessed--no decrypting is done.
Once this is done, you could use css-cat to decrypt the.vob files, but you could also unlock the disc with tstdvd and copy the still-encrypted files.
How could converting to different formats possibly be illegal?!
Consider this: say I bought an LP back when they were popular. Then the album is later released on cassette; I want to switch so I buy it again. Then it comes out on CD--again, I buy the same album. Now I own the same freakin' album three times over. Is this neccessary?
By buying a movie or CD, I'm not actually buying the content, I'm buying the rights to view/hear it--the medium in which I do this is irrelevant. The recording and movie industries don't want this, obviously, because then they can't stick it to us every time they change formats. This is why they're so upset about digital media--we can copy or compile the content without any loss of quality. They're not squirming because we're cheating them out of money that should be theirs; they're mad because now they gotta play fair.
There's another reason users should be educated as well.
If people were actually knowledgable in how the Internet works, do you think they would be so concerned about crackers in the first place?
The media loves to hype up so-called "cybercrime" until you'd almost fear for your life going online, even though you're very much unlikely to ever be threatened by crackers. Businesses are one thing-- e-commerce sites are a target. But personal users are something else entirely. If you're intelligent enough to use encrypted servers whenever you order something with your credit card, then there's not many circumstances in which you'd be at risk. Just look at Kevin Mitnick for a perfect example of someone doing something marginally illegal and being treated like public enemy #1.
If I can't abide by a shrinkwrap software license, I don't use the software.
Ahh, but the glaring problem of shrink-wrap licenses is that you aren't allowed to see the conditions of the license until after you agree to it. I can't speak for the rest of you, but that sounds like complete bullshit to me. Just try to get a copy from a software vendor; apparently it's just too difficult for them to post it on their website or make it available to anyone who wants it. Sounds pretty underhanded.
Besides, such licenses are rarely, if ever, held up in court.
I see so many people bitching that it's too hard to use. Give it time; desktop useability is still in its infantcy. GNOME has only been around for a year--look how far its come!
Fact is, the desktop market will be the last place Linux makes an impact, and Microsoft will fight it tooth and nail. It will be messy. But I can wait until then; in fact, the rock hard stability and efficiency of Linux has made it well worth my while despite the various inconveniencies.
Sure. Operating Systems are hefty no matter what. But the reason Win2K is gonna suck is because it's closed-source. At least with Linux, we have the hacker community improving the code and adding features--but with Microsoft, there's only the Microsoft developement team. "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"--and Microsoft is clearly outnumbered.
The issue is furthur compounded by the fact that Open Source software has no deadlines--and as I've stated above, Win2K has been behind schedule for over two years. MS is in a big hurry to release it, and being in a hurry does not help your coding.
The important thing, particularly for the iMac/iBook is that the machine is as simple to use as possible. Having one mouse button goes a long way towards helping achieve this.
Yeah, I've never understood that. You spend all that time developing a computer that is as easy to use as possible, and then you equip it with a mouse and keyboard that are ergonomic nightmares. My hand cramps in about two minutes from using that stubby little round mouse.
One click shopping is nothing more that sending CC info through a cookie. Sending info about yourself is what cookies for invented for. There's nothing at all novel about what they did.
You don't have to like their distribution, but there's no basis to comparing them to Microsoft. Domination of Open Source == domination of no one. They can't overcharge you, because the stuff is freely downloadable off the net. Since all their stuff is open, a program written for Red Hat will work on any distro. A business founded on Open Source has no leverage against consumers.
Everything Red Hat writes is GPL. They pay programmers to write GPL software. Their existence depends on a GPL operating system. How could they possibly go the way of Microsoft?
Windows 2000 has been behind schedule for over two years. The codebase is around 40 million lines of code--taking into account average programming accuracy, that's around 600,000 defective lines of code. Gee, I wanna run right out and buy it!
True, that's only conjecture--but MS has been under so much pressure from Linux, the Government, and the media lately that they're desperate to get Win2K out the door, no matter how buggy. I agree with Eric S. Raymond; Windows 2K will be a train wreck of an OS.
"The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a new version that I ever heard.... And so, in no sense, is stability a reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason. You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs." -- Bill Gates, qouted by Klaus Brunnstein of FOCUS magazine, 4 Nov 1995
If Apple can't 'right' a decent OS, they probably wouldn't have sold 1.4 million iMacs so quickly.
Yes, that's right. Everyone bought the iMacs because they have a quality OS. The fact that the regular Mac's have the exact same software is irrelevant. (/sarcasm) Please. The iMacs sold because they're cute, nothing more.
Apple is crafting an operating system that is mainstream in the consumer market. Come find me when Linux is commonly used in the household. WHen you have to edit a text file to change the color depth of your monitor, my mom, brother, friends, or acquaintances won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Um, do you even use Linux? Have you ever heard of XF86Setup? Graphical utilities work so much better than editing a text file.
Given, Linux has its niche, too--and a great one--but it can't touch Apple in the consumer market. That's plain fact.
I see this type of comment a lot. Linux is a server operating system! The fact that it works decently as a desktop OS is phenomenal in and of itself. The useability is actively being improved in "Linux time" (e.g. faster than Microsoft and Apples' developement teams put together), so that will be remedied.
I've only been using Linux exclusively for several months, and I've seen it advance at a dizzying rate. The installation process went from being a pain in the ass to being easier than Windows; the GUI went from being passable to being excellent; device support has skyrocketed; there's too many examples to put here. Fact is, while Windows may look more collected and better at first glance, the guts of it are a mess. Linux looks unfinished in many areas because Linux hackers are more concerned about the guts of the system (the actually important stuff) rather than the front-end. I'd sacrifice a little ease-of-use for rock hard stability.
Windows 98 is a service pack for a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit fix to an 8-bit operating system. With every iteration, the Gordian's Knot of a codebase gets more and more complex and intertwined.
Heh. That's because they integrated the damn thing right into the OS. If you actually had to load it seperately, it would run like shit just like Netscape. Using IE is not worth booting to Windows.
And even if it were, I would never knowingly aid their agenda in close-sourcing the Internet and polluting the standards.
I wouldn't recommend running Mozilla on Windows, but it never takes down the OS under Linux. And running into Mozilla crashes in Linux is a good thing! If there aren't many people using it and running into the bugs, it would take them much longer to shake them out. M12 includes a program that sends them information about the nature of the crashes when they occur, so all you have to do is describe what happened.
If we want a dependable, full-featured (not to be confused with feature-bloated) browser for Linux, I think we should be responsible to help out those who want to write one. Finding bugs is half the problem.
If a browser is ever to beat IE, it will be Mozilla or nothing. If we believe in Open Source, then we should get behind important projects like this as often as we can.
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I'd be insterested in knowing what the plaintiff's reaction was(and will be) to the sheer number of supporters that showed up. Were they visibly uncomfortable, or just caught off-guard? ;)
DVD piracy is already impractical. As yet, recordable DVD media is way to small to hold an average movie. DVD movies normally range from 6 to 9 gigs in size, and recordable DVDs only hold about 4. The hard disk is also out of the question, so where do you put it? How would you distribute it? The 'net? How many people have T3's at their disposal?
Interesting idea, really, but... why dick around with encryption at all? The only point of encryption on these things is the paranoid and stupid belief that it will prevent people from pirating it... worse yet, their scheme relies on security through obscurity, which is an even worse idea.
*sigh* God, I wish this would work. But, the mainstream DVD sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers simply won't care. Personally, I'm not going to buy any DVD's until this is resolved... not because I'm boycotting them necessarily, just out of personal disgust for their industry--I really can't in good conscious give them money while they're doing something like this.
Sure, I suppose it has an application for converting formats... but this stuff was meant for Linux playback.
Ahh, I think we are both confusing the ideas of Operating System, and Operating Environment. "Linux" can fit on a floppy--it just won't do much. Technically, the kernel is the only part which is the OS. The Operating Environment, however, describes the extra crap that makes the OS more useful. BeOS is nice, but it doesn't do much on its own. Neither does Linux, although there are much more utils available for it. The point is, there's a straightforward ratio: the more virsatility you want, the more code bloat you'll have to put up with.
Oh no! Well, that just won't do! :) Yeah, I suppose you have a point there... actually, there is a utility on Freshmeat that'll let you open a connecting through AOL straight to the Internet... a quick hack, and certainly not user-friendly though. I'm not worried; AOL will port it over once the user base is large enough, and AOL'ers are the last people who will ever switch to Linux anyway.
All you need to do a verbatim copy of a DVD is one of the utilities: tstdvd. This program does nothing more than read the title keys and unlock the disc so the contents can be accessed--no decrypting is done.
Once this is done, you could use css-cat to decrypt the .vob files, but you could also unlock the disc with tstdvd and copy the still-encrypted files.
Consider this: say I bought an LP back when they were popular. Then the album is later released on cassette; I want to switch so I buy it again. Then it comes out on CD--again, I buy the same album. Now I own the same freakin' album three times over. Is this neccessary?
By buying a movie or CD, I'm not actually buying the content, I'm buying the rights to view/hear it--the medium in which I do this is irrelevant. The recording and movie industries don't want this, obviously, because then they can't stick it to us every time they change formats. This is why they're so upset about digital media--we can copy or compile the content without any loss of quality. They're not squirming because we're cheating them out of money that should be theirs; they're mad because now they gotta play fair.
If people were actually knowledgable in how the Internet works, do you think they would be so concerned about crackers in the first place?
The media loves to hype up so-called "cybercrime" until you'd almost fear for your life going online, even though you're very much unlikely to ever be threatened by crackers. Businesses are one thing-- e-commerce sites are a target. But personal users are something else entirely. If you're intelligent enough to use encrypted servers whenever you order something with your credit card, then there's not many circumstances in which you'd be at risk. Just look at Kevin Mitnick for a perfect example of someone doing something marginally illegal and being treated like public enemy #1.
Ahh, but the glaring problem of shrink-wrap licenses is that you aren't allowed to see the conditions of the license until after you agree to it. I can't speak for the rest of you, but that sounds like complete bullshit to me. Just try to get a copy from a software vendor; apparently it's just too difficult for them to post it on their website or make it available to anyone who wants it. Sounds pretty underhanded.
Besides, such licenses are rarely, if ever, held up in court.
BeOS == Desktop OS
Linux == Server OS
I see so many people bitching that it's too hard to use. Give it time; desktop useability is still in its infantcy. GNOME has only been around for a year--look how far its come!
Fact is, the desktop market will be the last place Linux makes an impact, and Microsoft will fight it tooth and nail. It will be messy. But I can wait until then; in fact, the rock hard stability and efficiency of Linux has made it well worth my while despite the various inconveniencies.
The issue is furthur compounded by the fact that Open Source software has no deadlines--and as I've stated above, Win2K has been behind schedule for over two years. MS is in a big hurry to release it, and being in a hurry does not help your coding.
Yeah, I've never understood that. You spend all that time developing a computer that is as easy to use as possible, and then you equip it with a mouse and keyboard that are ergonomic nightmares. My hand cramps in about two minutes from using that stubby little round mouse.
And that's Linux's fault? AOL really should open source their client. They sell content, and they give the program away for free anyway.
One click shopping is nothing more that sending CC info through a cookie. Sending info about yourself is what cookies for invented for. There's nothing at all novel about what they did.
You don't have to like their distribution, but there's no basis to comparing them to Microsoft. Domination of Open Source == domination of no one. They can't overcharge you, because the stuff is freely downloadable off the net. Since all their stuff is open, a program written for Red Hat will work on any distro. A business founded on Open Source has no leverage against consumers.
Red Hat + success == Good Thing(tm)
True, that's only conjecture--but MS has been under so much pressure from Linux, the Government, and the media lately that they're desperate to get Win2K out the door, no matter how buggy. I agree with Eric S. Raymond; Windows 2K will be a train wreck of an OS.
"The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a new version that I ever heard.... And so, in no sense, is stability a reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason. You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs." -- Bill Gates, qouted by Klaus Brunnstein of FOCUS magazine, 4 Nov 1995
Yes, that's right. Everyone bought the iMacs because they have a quality OS. The fact that the regular Mac's have the exact same software is irrelevant. (/sarcasm) Please. The iMacs sold because they're cute, nothing more.
Apple is crafting an operating system that is mainstream in the consumer market. Come find me when Linux is commonly used in the household. WHen you have to edit a text file to change the color depth of your monitor, my mom, brother, friends, or acquaintances won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Um, do you even use Linux? Have you ever heard of XF86Setup? Graphical utilities work so much better than editing a text file.
Given, Linux has its niche, too--and a great one--but it can't touch Apple in the consumer market. That's plain fact.
I see this type of comment a lot. Linux is a server operating system! The fact that it works decently as a desktop OS is phenomenal in and of itself. The useability is actively being improved in "Linux time" (e.g. faster than Microsoft and Apples' developement teams put together), so that will be remedied.
You obviously do not grok Open Source. Go read The Cathedral and the Bazaar before you criticize.
Windows 98 is a service pack for a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit fix to an 8-bit operating system. With every iteration, the Gordian's Knot of a codebase gets more and more complex and intertwined.
And even if it were, I would never knowingly aid their agenda in close-sourcing the Internet and polluting the standards.
If we want a dependable, full-featured (not to be confused with feature-bloated) browser for Linux, I think we should be responsible to help out those who want to write one. Finding bugs is half the problem.
If a browser is ever to beat IE, it will be Mozilla or nothing. If we believe in Open Source, then we should get behind important projects like this as often as we can.
Dude, this is Microsoft. I don't think that will be an issue :)
On the scale of an Operating System, only Open Source would have the capability to release something that quickly.