They cry poor and beg congress for subsidies for R&D for new drugs, and then charge us Americans outrageous prices for these subsidized drugs, and block competition, when the rightful ownership of these patented drugs is American citizens since we paid for the development of the drugs with our tax dollars.
So: American pharmaceutical companies should top the piracy watch lists, not other nations which use eminent domain to revoke monopoly protections where revocation of those monopolies IS for betterment of the common good - something which patents and copyrights is supposed to encourage, not restrict.
What IS a good reason is that performance issues and bugs are unlikely to be resolved. I had to switch my machines to EXT3 and XFS to avoid corruption issues while running Myth, and found that KDE is a whole lot more responsive on either of those filesystems than it is on Reiser. I love the zero-slack (NO wasted space) feature of Reiser, but on my work machine, and on my home machine, I could right-click a file in Konqueror or Nautilus, and wait anywhere from five to 20 seconds for the context menu to appear.
I was surprised, so I did a clean install on two identical drives (Seagate 7200.10 300GB SATA drives), except one was Reiser formatted, and one XFS. XFS consistently performed better when having to manipulate files via the GUI tools. Deletes of large directories seemed much faster in XFS as well. I was surprised, because although I initially chose Reiser for the zero-slack and journaling features, ReiserFS is touted for performance. I found the opposite to be true: that ReiserFS is a poor performer.
I tested this on SuSE 10.0 and OpenSUSE 10.2. I don't know if it's distro-related because I've never installed Ubuntu on Reiser (I don't think you even CAN install Ubuntu on Reiser by default)
- There was creative work involved in generating the number; it wasn't a purely automatic process
So? The number is just a number, even though it is expressed in hex. The creative work which generated may be copyrighted, but that creative work is not what is being disseminated throughout the Internet now, is it? What is being relayed is an uncopyrightable number.
I have no problem with paying the artists for their work. I hate how inaccessible previews are, hate that pop radio limits their play lists to whatever payola will buy (oh, right, payola doesn't exist any more;)), and hate that stores violate all kinds of consumer protection laws by refusing returns on media.
When Napster was at its prime, I was downloading stuff randomly - I'd pick a letter, or a couple of letters, search for them, and download it. I'd then sample the tracks, and buy CDs of what I liked. I discovered Herb Alpert that way, and learned that I actually like jazz. I also tracked down some back catalogue stuff from artists and discovered a whole lot of rock that one just doesn't hear on the radio any more. Lots of B-sides that never get airplay, import albums, and such. I bought MORE CDs during the time when Napster was in its prime than I did in the 13 years I owned CD players previous to that.
SINCE the RIAA started suing users, I quit downloading, I quit listening to pop radio, and I have only bought 7 CDs since then - from Pink Floyd, No Doubt, Weird Al, and David Gilmour. I don't download and I don't listen to pop radio because I simply do not want to expose myself to new material which might entice me to spend money which supports the RIAA. I listen to classic rock stations, which play mostly stuff I already own on DVD, or I listen to classical, or Christian stations, or talk radio.
RIAA, you lost a customer. I used Napster to sample stuff to actively seek out CDs to purchase, and you insulted me as a customer by suing customers, rather than embracing P2P networks. If you had ANY business sense, you'd have flooded P2P networks with low-quality tracks (64kpbs or 128kbps) for sampling. Sure, some people would be happy with those and not make purchases, but that type of consumer is recording off of radio or trading mix CDs with friends anyhow, so you would not be losing a damn thing. By attacking paying customers who simply want to sample product and purchase what they like, you have alienated customers like me. Now I go out of my way to avoid exposure to RIAA-member works so I avoid the temptation of buying, downloading, borrowing, or otherwise consuming your product. The labels will win me back as a listener and paying customer when they embrace fair use, embrace the wonderful profit opportunity P2P offers, and quit persecuting (yes, I said persecuting, not prosecuting) paying customers. Until then, fuck you. I'm happy with my 300-400 CDs (I never really counted them - I have a larger than average collection but not huge) and aside from a handful of artists' work (plus buying replacements for a few CDs which were stolen from me - I have only rips for backups, not bit-for-bit copies of the CDs, sadly), you have permanently lost me as a customer and a listener.
Instead, I spend my entertainment dollars on DVDs. RIAA members, you are extremely short sighted and are so blinded by greed you fail to see the huge potential for extended long-term growth. Your loss, not mine.
I used to like Gnome, but quickly got sick of gconf, having to recompile to make configuration changes to the GUI, and Nautilus is a clone of Windows' file explorer.
KDE is NOTHING like Windows. If anything, Gnome is closer to Windows' usability paradigm than KDE is. KDE is far more flexible, and allows for more productivity. When I have to work in Windows I feel crippled because of the lack of tabbed browsing, having to use filezilla or winscp to download files THEN do what I need to do an upload them. It is less flexible, plus having to open multiple instances of explorer clutters the desktop. Nautilus is similar in that regard.
-- Media Center is INCREDIBLE and unlike Myth, it works out of the box
-- Recording audio is SIMPLE, whereas in Linux, it can be a PITA with some audio chipsets
-- Hardware support for bleeding-edge hardware (and new-but-not-quite-bleeding-edge-any-more) is fairly good, unlike Linux
-- the new GUI sure is pretty (but on the other hand, Beryl on Linux is FANTASTIC. KDE + Beryl + Vista-like skin is orgasmic. Beryl provides everything in Linux that Microsoft promised for the Windows GUI but dropped the ball on)
And, well, that's about it. Why DON'T I run Vista, and why do I choose Linux?
-- Freedom. I do what I want, when I want, with any media I purchase (mainly DVDs, transcoding them for viewing on my PocketPC or remotely from work)
-- Freedom. Microsoft cannot illegally revoke my right of first sale on Linux due to too many hardware upgrades, or at whim.
-- Explorer SUCKS. Give me konqueror's tabbed file browsing and KDE's KIO slaves. fish:// makes working on remote boxes a breeze.
-- cmd.exe SUCKS (and so does SFU and monad/powershell is better but not great). bash rocks.
-- *nix is inherently secure, and not an easily-bypassed [cancel] [allow] hack.
All Microsoft needs to do to win me back as a customer is:
-- Quit treating paying customers as criminals, especially since it does not stop "pirates" at ALL (read: eliminate activation)
-- Make it EASY to install an alternate desktop such as KDE, replacing the crappy Explorer
-- Ease up on the DRM, especially since EVERY Windows alternative, including OS X, are becoming increasingly lax in that regard. DRM should protect the customer's assets from vandals, not block customers from using their own legally-purchased belongings as they see fit.
and there is no working definition of "fair use" that excuses the breaking of legally sanctioned encryption.
Bypassing encryption certainly IS allowed under the exemptions quite explicitly in the text of the DMCA, for the purpose of interoperability. Cracking it so you can make a backup under Fair Use is interoperability (it will not interoperate with your backup program without decrypting it). Ripping/transcoding it for viewing on a PDA, iPod, Linux/Myth, etc. is interoperability.
MPAA members disagree with you in their advertisements. When was the last time you heard an advertisement say "License {movie} on DVD today." No, it is ALWAYS "OWN {movie} on DVD today."
They recognize in their advertising that when you BUY a commodity product, even a COPYRIGHTED one, you OWN it. Were the movie a work for hire under contract, it would be a different matter. When you BUY a DVD, you OWN it.
Actually there is no problem with manipulating search results - PROVIDING you follow Google's guidelines.
What that means is essentially the following:
- You must have real content
- No utilizing linkfarming
- No cloaking
- No doorway pages
- No hiding text by making uber-tiny, same color as the background, or using other similar tactics
- All text must be easily readable by an average user.
- Either don't bother with META tags, or make them relevant to the content. If they don't mesh it will either hurt you or the META tags will be simply ignored.
When I compare your 25+ year old approach which is strife with viruses to UNIX's 30+ years of a nice secure track record, the choice on the way to go is pretty clear.
Windows XP Embedded is much, much smaller than Windows XP; it's stripped-down and tailor built for a device. I'd expect embedded Vista builds to be similar in that regard.
Oh, and while Vista may eat processor cycles and RAM for lunch if you run aero (EVEN if you have a bleeding-edge video card), it boots extremely quickly. I did not try the classic interface when I installed the beta, so I cannot vouch for RAM and CPU consumption, but I cannot believe that it is not at least as efficient as Windows XP with the classic interface is. As an aside: You DON'T want Office 2007 on the OLPC - it eats screen estate, processor, and RAM like you wouldn't believe. The stupid ribbons would eat up half the low-resolution screen on the OLPC.
The only thing blocking my installing Vista on my PC at home is activation: I change hardware frequently (especially when telecommuting and need to change the configuration for tests) so I'd use up the two allowed "hardware upgrades" within a week. The MSDN distribution may be more lax in this regard, but I haven't subscribed to MSDN in a couple of years. Nothing noteworthy was coming out until recently.
Windows Mobile is actually quite nice. Microsoft was the first company to really get the PDA right - the original Palm OS sucked because the interface was annoying, it forced you to learn graffiti (despite handwriting recognition already being mature at the time, see the Newton), NO multimedia, and when M$ beat them to the punch Palm's response was that no one wants multimedia from a PDA (wrong! See tcpmp, pockettv, countless mp3 players etc.), and Palm OS did not multitask. Also, Pocket PC/Windows Mobile uses a subset of the Windows API, which makes porting lightweight applications relatively easy. Also, the PocketPC offered a lot of expansion through slots/sleds/sleeves in the early days, enabling one to add hard drives, flash cards, GPS, and a variety of other peripherals, INCLUDING video capture and CAD applications.
So, I wouldn't rule out Windows Mobile as a contender for this. More likely Microsoft would want to include an embedded limited-functionality Windows Vista to prime the market for Windows in developing nations, and that could very well be where the extra $75 in cost is going. I'd rather see Linux on the OLPC to expose people to an OS which does not restrict one's computing freedom, and to increase support and marker share of Linux, but that's just me. Microsoft is plenty persuasive and I'm sure it will ultimately ship with SOME Windows variant, since what Microsoft wants, Microsoft gets.
Funny, I wasn't aware that they were albums or movies.
No, but it IS a commodity good, not a work for hire under contract, and as such, right of first sale applies; NOT licensing. You are still bound by Copyright Law so this doesn't mean you get to buy one copy and install it on 30,000 computers in an enterprise, but legally, you CAN hack and modify it, you CAN bypass all the DRM you want, you CAN delete it, you CAN remove that copy from one PC and install it on another PC. If you modify it you might not be able to redistribute the derivative work, but you can certainly distribute a utility which can affect those modifications/improvements.
It is a commodity item sold off the shelf, just like books, guns, and frozen OJ concentrate.
It won't. In order to share Itunes purchases now, all you need to do is strip off the DRM (either by downloading utilities to do so, or burn to CD and then re-rip it) and share it.
No, you're NOT. RIAA and MPAA members fully recognize this in their advertising. When a movie comes out on DVD, they don't say "license Narnia on DVD today" they say "Own Narnia on DVD today" and ditto for CDs.
It is a commodity product; just as with a book, when you buy it, you OWN it. It does come with some limited restrictions, e.g., you cannot make and distribute copies (in full or in part) outside of the Fair Use clause exceptions, but you absolutely, positively do own it.
I wouldn't want to hire someone who wrote a piece of software that clearly violates University Policy and used it for 6 months.
Keep in mind that some universities require that you run only WINDOWS on machines attached to their network, including computers connected from your dormitories. Sometimes policy is stupid and ought to be ignored, just as unjust laws ought to be broken.
Slashdot Mirror
They cry poor and beg congress for subsidies for R&D for new drugs, and then charge us Americans outrageous prices for these subsidized drugs, and block competition, when the rightful ownership of these patented drugs is American citizens since we paid for the development of the drugs with our tax dollars.
So: American pharmaceutical companies should top the piracy watch lists, not other nations which use eminent domain to revoke monopoly protections where revocation of those monopolies IS for betterment of the common good - something which patents and copyrights is supposed to encourage, not restrict.
I agree that is not a good reason to drop the OS.
What IS a good reason is that performance issues and bugs are unlikely to be resolved. I had to switch my machines to EXT3 and XFS to avoid corruption issues while running Myth, and found that KDE is a whole lot more responsive on either of those filesystems than it is on Reiser. I love the zero-slack (NO wasted space) feature of Reiser, but on my work machine, and on my home machine, I could right-click a file in Konqueror or Nautilus, and wait anywhere from five to 20 seconds for the context menu to appear.
I was surprised, so I did a clean install on two identical drives (Seagate 7200.10 300GB SATA drives), except one was Reiser formatted, and one XFS. XFS consistently performed better when having to manipulate files via the GUI tools. Deletes of large directories seemed much faster in XFS as well. I was surprised, because although I initially chose Reiser for the zero-slack and journaling features, ReiserFS is touted for performance. I found the opposite to be true: that ReiserFS is a poor performer.
I tested this on SuSE 10.0 and OpenSUSE 10.2. I don't know if it's distro-related because I've never installed Ubuntu on Reiser (I don't think you even CAN install Ubuntu on Reiser by default)
So? The number is just a number, even though it is expressed in hex. The creative work which generated may be copyrighted, but that creative work is not what is being disseminated throughout the Internet now, is it? What is being relayed is an uncopyrightable number.
I have no problem with paying the artists for their work. I hate how inaccessible previews are, hate that pop radio limits their play lists to whatever payola will buy (oh, right, payola doesn't exist any more ;)), and hate that stores violate all kinds of consumer protection laws by refusing returns on media.
When Napster was at its prime, I was downloading stuff randomly - I'd pick a letter, or a couple of letters, search for them, and download it. I'd then sample the tracks, and buy CDs of what I liked. I discovered Herb Alpert that way, and learned that I actually like jazz. I also tracked down some back catalogue stuff from artists and discovered a whole lot of rock that one just doesn't hear on the radio any more. Lots of B-sides that never get airplay, import albums, and such. I bought MORE CDs during the time when Napster was in its prime than I did in the 13 years I owned CD players previous to that.
SINCE the RIAA started suing users, I quit downloading, I quit listening to pop radio, and I have only bought 7 CDs since then - from Pink Floyd, No Doubt, Weird Al, and David Gilmour. I don't download and I don't listen to pop radio because I simply do not want to expose myself to new material which might entice me to spend money which supports the RIAA. I listen to classic rock stations, which play mostly stuff I already own on DVD, or I listen to classical, or Christian stations, or talk radio.
RIAA, you lost a customer. I used Napster to sample stuff to actively seek out CDs to purchase, and you insulted me as a customer by suing customers, rather than embracing P2P networks. If you had ANY business sense, you'd have flooded P2P networks with low-quality tracks (64kpbs or 128kbps) for sampling. Sure, some people would be happy with those and not make purchases, but that type of consumer is recording off of radio or trading mix CDs with friends anyhow, so you would not be losing a damn thing. By attacking paying customers who simply want to sample product and purchase what they like, you have alienated customers like me. Now I go out of my way to avoid exposure to RIAA-member works so I avoid the temptation of buying, downloading, borrowing, or otherwise consuming your product. The labels will win me back as a listener and paying customer when they embrace fair use, embrace the wonderful profit opportunity P2P offers, and quit persecuting (yes, I said persecuting, not prosecuting) paying customers. Until then, fuck you. I'm happy with my 300-400 CDs (I never really counted them - I have a larger than average collection but not huge) and aside from a handful of artists' work (plus buying replacements for a few CDs which were stolen from me - I have only rips for backups, not bit-for-bit copies of the CDs, sadly), you have permanently lost me as a customer and a listener.
Instead, I spend my entertainment dollars on DVDs. RIAA members, you are extremely short sighted and are so blinded by greed you fail to see the huge potential for extended long-term growth. Your loss, not mine.
You cannot copyright a number. Good luck with that wild goose chase!
I used to like Gnome, but quickly got sick of gconf, having to recompile to make configuration changes to the GUI, and Nautilus is a clone of Windows' file explorer.
KDE is NOTHING like Windows. If anything, Gnome is closer to Windows' usability paradigm than KDE is. KDE is far more flexible, and allows for more productivity. When I have to work in Windows I feel crippled because of the lack of tabbed browsing, having to use filezilla or winscp to download files THEN do what I need to do an upload them. It is less flexible, plus having to open multiple instances of explorer clutters the desktop. Nautilus is similar in that regard.
Well, what if one is shiva? How many hands are available then? :D
Well here are a few good things about it:
-- Media Center is INCREDIBLE and unlike Myth, it works out of the box
-- Recording audio is SIMPLE, whereas in Linux, it can be a PITA with some audio chipsets
-- Hardware support for bleeding-edge hardware (and new-but-not-quite-bleeding-edge-any-more) is fairly good, unlike Linux
-- the new GUI sure is pretty (but on the other hand, Beryl on Linux is FANTASTIC. KDE + Beryl + Vista-like skin is orgasmic. Beryl provides everything in Linux that Microsoft promised for the Windows GUI but dropped the ball on)
And, well, that's about it. Why DON'T I run Vista, and why do I choose Linux?
-- Freedom. I do what I want, when I want, with any media I purchase (mainly DVDs, transcoding them for viewing on my PocketPC or remotely from work)
-- Freedom. Microsoft cannot illegally revoke my right of first sale on Linux due to too many hardware upgrades, or at whim.
-- Explorer SUCKS. Give me konqueror's tabbed file browsing and KDE's KIO slaves. fish:// makes working on remote boxes a breeze.
-- cmd.exe SUCKS (and so does SFU and monad/powershell is better but not great). bash rocks.
-- *nix is inherently secure, and not an easily-bypassed [cancel] [allow] hack.
All Microsoft needs to do to win me back as a customer is:
-- Quit treating paying customers as criminals, especially since it does not stop "pirates" at ALL (read: eliminate activation)
-- Make it EASY to install an alternate desktop such as KDE, replacing the crappy Explorer
-- Ease up on the DRM, especially since EVERY Windows alternative, including OS X, are becoming increasingly lax in that regard. DRM should protect the customer's assets from vandals, not block customers from using their own legally-purchased belongings as they see fit.
On the other hand, China is a sovereign nation, and are not subject to US laws, despite US corporations wishing that they were.
but. . . this is different because it's done in wireless devices?
Bypassing encryption certainly IS allowed under the exemptions quite explicitly in the text of the DMCA, for the purpose of interoperability. Cracking it so you can make a backup under Fair Use is interoperability (it will not interoperate with your backup program without decrypting it). Ripping/transcoding it for viewing on a PDA, iPod, Linux/Myth, etc. is interoperability.
MPAA members disagree with you in their advertisements. When was the last time you heard an advertisement say "License {movie} on DVD today." No, it is ALWAYS "OWN {movie} on DVD today."
They recognize in their advertising that when you BUY a commodity product, even a COPYRIGHTED one, you OWN it. Were the movie a work for hire under contract, it would be a different matter. When you BUY a DVD, you OWN it.
. . . then do what I did: visit mpaa.org :D
Visit this page in particular: http://www.mpaa.org/piracy_OptDisk.asp
Actually there is no problem with manipulating search results - PROVIDING you follow Google's guidelines.
What that means is essentially the following:
- You must have real content
- No utilizing linkfarming
- No cloaking
- No doorway pages
- No hiding text by making uber-tiny, same color as the background, or using other similar tactics
- All text must be easily readable by an average user.
- Either don't bother with META tags, or make them relevant to the content. If they don't mesh it will either hurt you or the META tags will be simply ignored.
When I compare your 25+ year old approach which is strife with viruses to UNIX's 30+ years of a nice secure track record, the choice on the way to go is pretty clear.
Thanks, but no thanks.
[cancel] [allow]
Microsoft's site shows it clearly:
4 ~-84.419424&style=a&lvl=19&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-100 0&scene=2023607&sp=Point.q9x2067yygqs_4275%20Athen s%20Boonesboro%20Rd%2C%20Lexington%2C%20KY%2040509 -8534%2C%20United%20States___&encType=1
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=37.9793
My penmanship is absolutely atrocious yet both the Newton and PocketPC can recognize my handwriting.
Windows XP Embedded is much, much smaller than Windows XP; it's stripped-down and tailor built for a device. I'd expect embedded Vista builds to be similar in that regard.
Oh, and while Vista may eat processor cycles and RAM for lunch if you run aero (EVEN if you have a bleeding-edge video card), it boots extremely quickly. I did not try the classic interface when I installed the beta, so I cannot vouch for RAM and CPU consumption, but I cannot believe that it is not at least as efficient as Windows XP with the classic interface is. As an aside: You DON'T want Office 2007 on the OLPC - it eats screen estate, processor, and RAM like you wouldn't believe. The stupid ribbons would eat up half the low-resolution screen on the OLPC.
The only thing blocking my installing Vista on my PC at home is activation: I change hardware frequently (especially when telecommuting and need to change the configuration for tests) so I'd use up the two allowed "hardware upgrades" within a week. The MSDN distribution may be more lax in this regard, but I haven't subscribed to MSDN in a couple of years. Nothing noteworthy was coming out until recently.
Windows Mobile is actually quite nice. Microsoft was the first company to really get the PDA right - the original Palm OS sucked because the interface was annoying, it forced you to learn graffiti (despite handwriting recognition already being mature at the time, see the Newton), NO multimedia, and when M$ beat them to the punch Palm's response was that no one wants multimedia from a PDA (wrong! See tcpmp, pockettv, countless mp3 players etc.), and Palm OS did not multitask. Also, Pocket PC/Windows Mobile uses a subset of the Windows API, which makes porting lightweight applications relatively easy. Also, the PocketPC offered a lot of expansion through slots/sleds/sleeves in the early days, enabling one to add hard drives, flash cards, GPS, and a variety of other peripherals, INCLUDING video capture and CAD applications.
So, I wouldn't rule out Windows Mobile as a contender for this. More likely Microsoft would want to include an embedded limited-functionality Windows Vista to prime the market for Windows in developing nations, and that could very well be where the extra $75 in cost is going. I'd rather see Linux on the OLPC to expose people to an OS which does not restrict one's computing freedom, and to increase support and marker share of Linux, but that's just me. Microsoft is plenty persuasive and I'm sure it will ultimately ship with SOME Windows variant, since what Microsoft wants, Microsoft gets.
No, but it IS a commodity good, not a work for hire under contract, and as such, right of first sale applies; NOT licensing. You are still bound by Copyright Law so this doesn't mean you get to buy one copy and install it on 30,000 computers in an enterprise, but legally, you CAN hack and modify it, you CAN bypass all the DRM you want, you CAN delete it, you CAN remove that copy from one PC and install it on another PC. If you modify it you might not be able to redistribute the derivative work, but you can certainly distribute a utility which can affect those modifications/improvements.
It is a commodity item sold off the shelf, just like books, guns, and frozen OJ concentrate.
It won't. In order to share Itunes purchases now, all you need to do is strip off the DRM (either by downloading utilities to do so, or burn to CD and then re-rip it) and share it.
No, you're NOT. RIAA and MPAA members fully recognize this in their advertising. When a movie comes out on DVD, they don't say "license Narnia on DVD today" they say "Own Narnia on DVD today" and ditto for CDs.
It is a commodity product; just as with a book, when you buy it, you OWN it. It does come with some limited restrictions, e.g., you cannot make and distribute copies (in full or in part) outside of the Fair Use clause exceptions, but you absolutely, positively do own it.
Keep in mind that some universities require that you run only WINDOWS on machines attached to their network, including computers connected from your dormitories. Sometimes policy is stupid and ought to be ignored, just as unjust laws ought to be broken.
At $751 for the only version worth a damn, it's no wonder Vista isn't selling.
Oh, really? So, I can run legacy Mac OS9 ("mac classic") apps on a new Intel-based Macintosh?
cool! Oh wait, you can't.
(Oh I know, you can run an emulator just like you can on Windows or Linux, but it's hardly the same)