If Ms stopped to sell its products in Europe then the EU would bow down, no question.
I think that it is the other way around. If media reports are correct, the EU has theatened to ban Microsoft from selling Windows Vista in the EU if the do not follow the EU judgements.
which likely means that they're going to be bleeding Microsoft's EU holdings dry after a pretty short time.
I think that Microsoft has pretty large holdings in the EU. If we disregard any physical property, remember that the EU member state Ireland is a regional distribution center for Microsoft, channeling large amounts of Microsoft's income because of their low corporate taxes for US corporate subsidiaries. IIRC, Microsoft Ireland does not only serve the EU, but also other European countries, and possibly other countries as well. So I think the EU has ample of opportunity to seize Microsoft financial assets.
I wonder if this means that future harddrives will create an exhaust of lubricants. I might have to invest in a better ventilation system for my apartment then. And I wonder how the other computer parts would react to this exhaust, since my harddrives are located right behind the intake fan.
Unless the "hole" was intentional. Whether it is a hole depends on the viewpoint. The BPA and the RIAA surely views it as a hole that must be closed down, but maybe the Russian government and/or people won't agree? Do you think that the RIAA should have the right to dictate Russian law against the local wishes?
Nitpick: "ACME Patent Troll" would be a paradox, since ACME means American Company Making Everything, but part of the definition of patent troll is that it doesn't make anything.
Companies whose only current business is a patent portfolio (SCO, NTP)
Last time I checked, SCO didn't have any patent portfolio. They may have one or two patents, but none of those are involved in its string of lawsuits. The only patent infringement claims in the SCO case was in IBM's countersuit, but I think that they were dropped IIRC.
I'm sorry. I live in the United States. I have a hard time remembering politicians actually advocating an issue based on personal conviction. All I ever see anymore is "negotiating" positions with special interest groups.
Ahh, I see. I live in Sweden, and I strongly believe at least a few of our parties argue based on personal convictions. But then we have proportional representation in the parliament, rather than a two-party system. In my opinion, arguing from personal conviction is more common in the smaller parties, and the former system gives more room for those than the latter.
You must hate politicians, since that's very much what they are doing. Or they rather tell everyone what they think is right and wrong, but they often leave out the "I think" part. And I cannot see Stallman being much different. He doesn't tell you what you must do, but rather tell you his version of right and wrong. The only ones telling you what you must do is ultimately law enforcement, and military services in countries that employ conscription.
Where would we be without a good reference implementation of TCP/IP
The TCP/IP reference implementation was developed at UC Berkeley, which is a state university, i.e. public funded. I fully understand if non-governmental organizations and individuals release software under the GPL, but tax-funded entities are another matter. I think that tax-funded organizations should license software under the least restrictive license (such as BSD), but then everyone has already payed for the development (tax evaders excluded), so they should be free to use it as they wish, which includes using it in proprietary software.
With any other OS you have to install what not extensions to the kernel and/or recompile
It was a long time since I had to recompile the kernel to get hardware to work in Linux. I see this point about recompiling the kernel brought up a lot by Windows guys that tried Red Hat 5.2 and still believes that this is the state of the art. Or maybe they tried Gentoo without realizing that compiling the software yourself is one of its major points?;)
By the way, even Windows drivers are technically extensions to the kernel, so even with Windows you probably had to install "kernel extensions" (if you ever had to install drivers to get some hardware to work).
Are those six OS editions separate pieces on the disc, or do their installation include different subsets? In the first case, this might mean that even some editions of Vista would still fit on a CD, while the second case implies that at least Vista Ultimate requires a DVD. By the way, how much space does Vista use when installed? This is actually the only interesting metric spacewise, since I don't really care about how much space it takes on the CD/DVD, I rather care about the space used when installed.
Installing from CD/DVD does not put any strain on the servers (apart from updating the system afterwards). The real reason why "install Everything" was removed is that this option caused several conflicting packages to be installed, creating more problems than it solved.
If nothing else, it's funny. It's like an environmentalist ranting and raving about SUVs driving the environment until someone points out, "dude, you're driving a Hummer."
That reminds me about the leader of the Swedish Green Party, who drives an SUV. He claims that it's his wife's car, as if that would be an excuse.
In the United States, laws against "contributory infringement" would be applicable, however Sweden does not have these laws.
Actually, we do, but they have an interesting twist. A contributory infringement sentence requires that someone can be sentenced for a main infringement. If you cannot hold someone responsible for the main crime, nobody can be held responsible for the contributory crime. The main crime would be the up- and downloaders of the actual material, but the main prosecutor in the TPB case is not sure that anyone can be held responsible for the main infringement. The problem is that nobody shares a significant portion of the material, but only small bits and pieces, which may not be covered by Swedish copyright. IANAL, but this is mostly a rewording and translation of what the TPB prosecutor wrote in a PM (in Swedish) that is available on the Swedish national television (SVT) website.
As a side note, the same prosecutor notes (in the PM) that Swedish copyright law only covers movies produced in the EEC area. In other words, e.g. American movies are very weakly protected by Swedish copyright law.
unlike some of the other mysterious black boxes on Google Earth.
Would you care to expand on this, please? I have never seen any black boxes in Google Earth, but then I haven't looked at the entire surface of the Earth.:)
Yes, it is perfectly reasonnable to alter terms of service. Generally, you pay recurrent fees for a service, so if the terms change and you are not happy with the service, you stop using AND stop paying.
I don't know about you, but here in Sweden many ISP:s require subscribers to agree to certain lock-in periods, where you agree to use the service for at least six or twelve months. During this period, it isn't possible to walk away, even if they change the TOS to something you think is unreasonable. You can stop using the service, but you would still have to pay for it until the lock-in period has expired.
it is not entirely unreasonable to say that the computers used by an anti-war group might suddenly become inoperable when they are targeted by the government.
They could do that technically, but I think that it would be corporate suicide for Microsoft to allow them to do this. Far too many opponents of the current administration, as well as more general America-haters are using Windows, and if one such case actually happened, I think that many, or even most, of them would quickly shop for another OS that didn't include such a "feature".
it is unreasonable to alter terms and conditions after a song has been sold.
I wonder if he is aware of that this is common in other businesses too. IIRC altering terms after the purchase is somewhat common in proprietary software licensens, not to mention web site and ISP terms of service and privacy policies. In those cases it is up to the consumer to stay updated about changes to those agreements.
If I was in that position, I would be greatly disappointed that my country gave in to such pressure,
Yep, and that is one of my interests in this matter. I do not condemn the US for leaning on my government, but I do condemn my government for givig in to the pressure. But remember that some people won't turn down an opportunity to whine at the US, reasonable or not.
My other interests in this matter concern the other suspicious aspects of this raid, such as DNA samples taken from their legal advisor (anyway, why would DNA be useful in an IP case?), refusal to allow suspects a legal advisor, covering of security cameras during the raid, seizure of a lot of unrelated servers, including a few political ones, etc, etc.
Either a) enough people actually agree with these laws that they should stand or b) we should vote different people in next election.
Many people think that these laws suck, but since they think that other issues are more important, they accept the bad laws so they can vote for the guys with the right politics in the important fields.
and is permitted at least under U.S. law. I admit to an unfamiliary with Swedish law.
In Sweden, there are two different types of entrapment (called "provokation", meaning provocation), "bevisprovokation" (rught translation "evidence provocation") which is legal, and "brottsprovokation" (rough translation "crime provocation") which is illegal. Evidence provocation is used to gather evidence from the suspect about previous crimes, while crime provocation would mean inciting the suspect to committing a new crime. The difference between them is to me somewhat unclear, but then IANAL.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that it is the other way around. If media reports are correct, the EU has theatened to ban Microsoft from selling Windows Vista in the EU if the do not follow the EU judgements.
I think that Microsoft has pretty large holdings in the EU. If we disregard any physical property, remember that the EU member state Ireland is a regional distribution center for Microsoft, channeling large amounts of Microsoft's income because of their low corporate taxes for US corporate subsidiaries. IIRC, Microsoft Ireland does not only serve the EU, but also other European countries, and possibly other countries as well. So I think the EU has ample of opportunity to seize Microsoft financial assets.
I wonder if this means that future harddrives will create an exhaust of lubricants. I might have to invest in a better ventilation system for my apartment then. And I wonder how the other computer parts would react to this exhaust, since my harddrives are located right behind the intake fan.
I wonder what they will use to convince the Russians to do as the BPA/RIAA/etc want.
Unless the "hole" was intentional. Whether it is a hole depends on the viewpoint. The BPA and the RIAA surely views it as a hole that must be closed down, but maybe the Russian government and/or people won't agree? Do you think that the RIAA should have the right to dictate Russian law against the local wishes?
Nitpick: "ACME Patent Troll" would be a paradox, since ACME means American Company Making Everything, but part of the definition of patent troll is that it doesn't make anything.
Last time I checked, SCO didn't have any patent portfolio. They may have one or two patents, but none of those are involved in its string of lawsuits. The only patent infringement claims in the SCO case was in IBM's countersuit, but I think that they were dropped IIRC.
Ahh, I see. I live in Sweden, and I strongly believe at least a few of our parties argue based on personal convictions. But then we have proportional representation in the parliament, rather than a two-party system. In my opinion, arguing from personal conviction is more common in the smaller parties, and the former system gives more room for those than the latter.
And the lost sale is then blamed on piracy, and they'll ask the government for even more restrictive laws.
You must hate politicians, since that's very much what they are doing. Or they rather tell everyone what they think is right and wrong, but they often leave out the "I think" part. And I cannot see Stallman being much different. He doesn't tell you what you must do, but rather tell you his version of right and wrong. The only ones telling you what you must do is ultimately law enforcement, and military services in countries that employ conscription.
The TCP/IP reference implementation was developed at UC Berkeley, which is a state university, i.e. public funded. I fully understand if non-governmental organizations and individuals release software under the GPL, but tax-funded entities are another matter. I think that tax-funded organizations should license software under the least restrictive license (such as BSD), but then everyone has already payed for the development (tax evaders excluded), so they should be free to use it as they wish, which includes using it in proprietary software.
I'd say that's quite a lot just for an operating system.
With any other OS you have to install what not extensions to the kernel and/or recompile
It was a long time since I had to recompile the kernel to get hardware to work in Linux. I see this point about recompiling the kernel brought up a lot by Windows guys that tried Red Hat 5.2 and still believes that this is the state of the art. Or maybe they tried Gentoo without realizing that compiling the software yourself is one of its major points? ;)
By the way, even Windows drivers are technically extensions to the kernel, so even with Windows you probably had to install "kernel extensions" (if you ever had to install drivers to get some hardware to work).
There are six operating systems on that disc
Are those six OS editions separate pieces on the disc, or do their installation include different subsets? In the first case, this might mean that even some editions of Vista would still fit on a CD, while the second case implies that at least Vista Ultimate requires a DVD. By the way, how much space does Vista use when installed? This is actually the only interesting metric spacewise, since I don't really care about how much space it takes on the CD/DVD, I rather care about the space used when installed.
and it placed a huge strain on the servers.
Installing from CD/DVD does not put any strain on the servers (apart from updating the system afterwards). The real reason why "install Everything" was removed is that this option caused several conflicting packages to be installed, creating more problems than it solved.
If nothing else, it's funny. It's like an environmentalist ranting and raving about SUVs driving the environment until someone points out, "dude, you're driving a Hummer."
That reminds me about the leader of the Swedish Green Party, who drives an SUV. He claims that it's his wife's car, as if that would be an excuse.
In the United States, laws against "contributory infringement" would be applicable, however Sweden does not have these laws.
Actually, we do, but they have an interesting twist. A contributory infringement sentence requires that someone can be sentenced for a main infringement. If you cannot hold someone responsible for the main crime, nobody can be held responsible for the contributory crime. The main crime would be the up- and downloaders of the actual material, but the main prosecutor in the TPB case is not sure that anyone can be held responsible for the main infringement. The problem is that nobody shares a significant portion of the material, but only small bits and pieces, which may not be covered by Swedish copyright. IANAL, but this is mostly a rewording and translation of what the TPB prosecutor wrote in a PM (in Swedish) that is available on the Swedish national television (SVT) website.
As a side note, the same prosecutor notes (in the PM) that Swedish copyright law only covers movies produced in the EEC area. In other words, e.g. American movies are very weakly protected by Swedish copyright law.
unlike some of the other mysterious black boxes on Google Earth.
Would you care to expand on this, please? I have never seen any black boxes in Google Earth, but then I haven't looked at the entire surface of the Earth. :)
I checked out app now, installer in local envorement was nice, app itself is with libwine, but it is something at least.
I also checked out Google Earth 4 Beta for Linux now, and I cannot find a trace of Wine or libwine. Where did you find it?
Yes, it is perfectly reasonnable to alter terms of service. Generally, you pay recurrent fees for a service, so if the terms change and you are not happy with the service, you stop using AND stop paying.
I don't know about you, but here in Sweden many ISP:s require subscribers to agree to certain lock-in periods, where you agree to use the service for at least six or twelve months. During this period, it isn't possible to walk away, even if they change the TOS to something you think is unreasonable. You can stop using the service, but you would still have to pay for it until the lock-in period has expired.
it is not entirely unreasonable to say that the computers used by an anti-war group might suddenly become inoperable when they are targeted by the government.
They could do that technically, but I think that it would be corporate suicide for Microsoft to allow them to do this. Far too many opponents of the current administration, as well as more general America-haters are using Windows, and if one such case actually happened, I think that many, or even most, of them would quickly shop for another OS that didn't include such a "feature".
it is unreasonable to alter terms and conditions after a song has been sold.
I wonder if he is aware of that this is common in other businesses too. IIRC altering terms after the purchase is somewhat common in proprietary software licensens, not to mention web site and ISP terms of service and privacy policies. In those cases it is up to the consumer to stay updated about changes to those agreements.
If I was in that position, I would be greatly disappointed that my country gave in to such pressure,
Yep, and that is one of my interests in this matter. I do not condemn the US for leaning on my government, but I do condemn my government for givig in to the pressure. But remember that some people won't turn down an opportunity to whine at the US, reasonable or not.
My other interests in this matter concern the other suspicious aspects of this raid, such as DNA samples taken from their legal advisor (anyway, why would DNA be useful in an IP case?), refusal to allow suspects a legal advisor, covering of security cameras during the raid, seizure of a lot of unrelated servers, including a few political ones, etc, etc.
Either a) enough people actually agree with these laws that they should stand or b) we should vote different people in next election.
Many people think that these laws suck, but since they think that other issues are more important, they accept the bad laws so they can vote for the guys with the right politics in the important fields.
and is permitted at least under U.S. law. I admit to an unfamiliary with Swedish law.
In Sweden, there are two different types of entrapment (called "provokation", meaning provocation), "bevisprovokation" (rught translation "evidence provocation") which is legal, and "brottsprovokation" (rough translation "crime provocation") which is illegal. Evidence provocation is used to gather evidence from the suspect about previous crimes, while crime provocation would mean inciting the suspect to committing a new crime. The difference between them is to me somewhat unclear, but then IANAL.