Please, this is beyond pathetic. The actually church was not used...
Gotcha, its just a virtual replica by accident./sarcasm
So what if its legal? Is still impolite to take someone elses private property and use images of it in a work they are going to find offensive. Its not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal, because we need to be able to do things like this to make documentaries, report news, and so forth.
But that doesn't make it right to be a jerk about it. Suppose I were to make a CGI movie featuring a 'faceless individual' who works at your companies address, in a building modeled after your workplace, drives the same type of car as you, and wears a name tag with your initials on it.
It would all be legal. After all I'm not actually using your image, so I don't need a model release. And since your actual workplace and car were not used all property arguments are useless. Repeat it with me, 'this is a virtual model of your environment'.
That the faceless individual in my CGI movie happens to be a pedophile who films rape scenes in the office after hours is no biggie right? Its not you. I'm sure you wouldn't be offended, or try to take steps to protect your companies reputation.
Home contracts used to promise at least the company's best efforts to maintain a certain service level - and now they're effectively promising nothing at all.
Neither am I. I pay to use their service from month to month, and I can cancel service anytime I want. If I cancel tomorrow my bill stops tomorrow.
A lot of people out there think they have a 'contract' but they don't. Plain an simple.
Otherwise it appears that the Church has so little faith in their own message that they have to use a secular government to enforce their views.
I'm sorry, which government would you have them use?
And what's the issue here anyway? The desire not to have violent video games set inside their private property without their permission? Is that really unreasonable?
Property owners have a long history of suing when pornographers and moviemakers in general set their unsavory 'stories' in their properties without permission. Why should the church be any different?
A mystery? This has been going on since day one, and has never been a mystery. And even if it is a "mystery" on the non-DRM files, it was never a mystery on the DRM files, was never hidden, and was never secret. This has been known, never obfuscated, and obvious to anyone who clicked "Get Info" on anything purchased from the iTunes Store, ever.
EXACTLY.
This is about as 'evil' as the time I bought a book on special order. The staff had put a paper insert inside the front cover with my name and phonenumber, presumably so that they knew who had ordered it. But they didn't tell me!! And it was personally identifying!!... why if I had started committing crimes with that book the police would have had my name and number!! I'm never buying a book from that company again!/sarcasm
My favorite quote of all this was from an EFF attorney; to paraphrase: if someone steals your iPod, the thief would have the name and email address of the rightful owner!
Heaven help the poor sap if someone were to steal his cellphone. or his wallet. or his briefcase. or his laptop.
You can't know I'm not a figment of your imagination. You can't know you are awake. Have you seen the Matrix? Have you seen the 13th Floor? Have you seen Dark City?
When push comes to shove you don't know anything. You only beleive your reading slashdot, and you only beleive that all the posts here were put their by other people, who you beleive actually exist. Whole thing could just be a bad dream, or perhaps someone elses bad dream.
If all you want is remote light, why not dispense with the bulb and solar cell and just shine the flashlight at a mirror? Or dispense with the mirror and just point the flashlight where you want the light to in the first place?
Where they pay everything for community leaders, major guild leaders, etc. to come out to San Diego and talk to them about the direction of the MMO. I know that have done this for EQ1 and EQ2.
Yeah, that was productive. Lets take the people who play 20 hours a day and ask them about the direction the game should take. Big surprise their laundry list of wants were about as out of touch with the majority of players as you could possibly get.
Its the accounts that log in 1-3 times a week that are your bread and butter. They're paying full price and using a FRACTION of the bandwidth of the 'hardcore no-lifers'. They also consume content at a much slower pace. They are your MOST PROFITABLE PLAYERS. A good businessman would want to ensure *that* group was happy, they should be priority one.
The group that plays continuously, sucks up all your bandwidth, devours your support time, grinds through your content, whines incessantly, and fills your forums with cruft - these are your loss leader bunch. You need them too, and they are a crucial part of the mmorpg scene. But too often pulishers lose sight of the fact that this group represents maybe 10-20% of the playerbase and further they represent the least profitable 10-20%.
Pandering to them is a real disservice to the larger and more profitable playerbase, and to the overall health of the game/world.
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 1
So...
DRM is a TECHNOLOGY to physically ENFORCE copyright. Moreover DRM in actual practices is a defective technology that has in every implementation prevented or burdened legal/legitimate uses while simultaneously failing to prevent widespread copyright violations.
The GPL is a LICENSE (not a technology at all), so right there the comparison between the GPL and DRM is completely flawed. Furthermore, the GPL is a license that EXTENDS not enforces copyright. It grants the recipient additional rights that they do not have under copyright.
Comparing the GPL to DRM is about as sensible as comparing a vehicles owners manual to photo-radar.
Its sounds like you want to compare the GPL to Copyright, not DRM. And if you want to compare it copyright, ok, that's fair. Copyright gives you a very limited set of rights to redistribute protected works without permission under 'fair use' outside of that you have no permission to redistribute at all. The GPL merely gives you that permission to redistribute with a couple restrictions on how. I can't see how anyone could find getting permission to do something you couldn't otherwise do offensive. Its absurd. It takes NOTHING away from you, and if you don't want to exercise that permission you don't have to.
Now BSD *ALSO* gives you permission to redistribute copyprotected works. The principle difference between the BSD and the GPL is that the GPL requires that any derivative works that are created AND redistributed be released under the GPL. At first blush this appears to make the BSD license more permissive.
And in the short run it *IS*. But that permissiveness, though greater only lasts one generation. The first user to derive from the work is free to re-distribute under the most closed source per-cpu/per-seat/per-user/per-hour license he wants, and the person who gets THAT work has NO permission at all to anything. Period.
While the first user to derive from the GPL project, must release under the GPL, and the person who gets that work as all the rights and permission to further redistribute that that the original authors granted when they released the original. So the permissiveness of the GPL license is perpetuated to ALL end users of the code, even if it has been derived from or extended to.
To criticize huge swaths of people for doing something that is A: normal and B: in their best interests...
is a straw man argument.
I am critical of people for doing things that are NOT in their best interests. Of course, I have a broader definition of 'best interest' than just greedy self-centered hedonistic 'what makes me feel good right this second'.
Also, in the example given, there's no mention that the account is currently active. What's to say that the guy had an account previously and has since discontinued it's use? Wouldn't his email address still be tied to an (inactive) account?
The real question is 'so what'? If *I* had an long disused and inactive 'match.com' account and my wife found out about it, so what, I've got nothing to hide.
Of course, my wife wouldn't have to ask match.com, she could (and would) just ask me.
And no, this isn't a case of 'if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you don't need privacy' its simply a case of: 'i don't need that kind of privacy from my wife'.
That said, I do think divulging list membership *is* something of a privacy concern. But perhaps, on some level, if you join a public group, and wish to remain anonymous you should be obligated to take steps to be anonymous. (e.g. use a throwaway email address).
In order to satisfy the criteria that it be a unique identifier, other people have to be denied using it -- if they are denied using it, they know its in use.
The website really can't do anything about it, they don't want multiple users using the same address, nor do they want the same user using an address multiple times, thus the unique criteria on the email address makes sense. And a direct consequence of that is that other people will be able to determine the address is in use by virtue of the fact that they aren't allowed to use it.
but there are lots of people who do exactly what he's talking about and stand to get in trouble if someone does what he's trying. Whether or not you agree with it, it's very common human behavior.
Just being a jackass is common behaviour doesn't mean we should stop criticizing people when they act like one. The more society tolerates being a jackass, the more people will assume being a jackass is ok.
Seems to me that if you want to cheat on your girlfriend, your not with the right woman, and should probably just do the honest thing and tell her that.
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 1
Sounds a lot like DRM.
The GPL prevents you from taking something someone elses code in the same way, oh, copyright law does. Is copyright law "DRM" too? Do you even know what DRM is?
Additionally, seeing as the GPL gives you several additional rights to code you receive that copyright law DOESN'T. And the only privilege it restricts (that being the license you use when you re-distribute) is a priviledge you don't even normally get, I think comparing the GPL to DRM is about as ignorant as you can get.
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 1
First, *code* is an inanimate object and, as such, has no freedoms.
Yes, and a park is a public space that anyone can use. It has no "freedoms" either, but is carefully protected so that it REMAINS a public space.
So, those who are against "Tivoisation" typically want to modify the Tivo to do various things like remove DRM, but they want the GPL to force Tivo to allow them to do it by dictating what rights they have over the code used in Tivo devices... I believe there are words used to describe this kind of mindset/behaviour...
Not at all. TiVo is welcome not to use GPL code in their product.
People against TiVoisation typically simply want the rights the GPL confers to them as *recipients of GPL code*. If TiVo doesn't want to confer the rights of the GPL they shouldn't be distributing GPL code.
Tivo is selling you code that explicitly confers to you the right to modify it, but is locked in a box you aren't legally allowed to open. That's not a situation anyone who contributed code to a GPL project wanted. They wanted the reciepients to be able to modify it, that's WHY they was released under GPL.
Consider the mirror image - people who write free proxy servers for per-seat/per-connection/per-cpu licensed proprietary code (certain databases come to mind...). The proxy server runs on one seat, uses one connection, on one cpu. Technically it adhered to the license. But it utterly VIOLATED the spirit of the license which intended to collect a fee from everyone who accessed their system.
So what did those corporations do... they rewrote their licenses to either incorporate proxy servers into the license and demand their pound of flesh regardless of whether the connection was direct or indirect, or they prohibited proxy servers outright.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If the Proprietary software movement rewrites licenses that are toxic to their way of thinking, why shouldn't FOSS.
There is no question as to which license gives more freedom to developers over the code that they produce.
No. I don't need to license the code I produce.
If I produce the code I can release under any license, or as many licenses as I like.
If I choose to release under the GPL because I want to ensure that anyone who receives my code is free to modify it then I am free to do that. If I choose release under the BSD because I want to ensure that it can be integrated into closed source projects I am free to do that. I can even release the same project under both licenses.
If I choose to release under the GPL then I can draw upon any other GPL project out there and integrate it with my project. That is the benefit of choosing the GPL. But I'm free not to draw on that pool, and not to release under the GPL.
The *only* thing the GPL prevents me from doing is taking SOMEONE ELSES CODE and overriding their licensing choice.
.it's safe to say they lost at least a handful of customers as a result.
But its not like those customers became Microsoft customers. Or even abandoned linux. The only abandoned Novell.
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 1
Now let's say that you've written another program and released it under the GPL. Someone takes it and incorporates it into their own program. Your code is just one small part of a much bigger program. According to the GPL, not only must this other person publish his modifications to your source code, he must publish all of his own original, completely unrelated code that makes up his program.
If his program is so large that the GPLed code is just a tiny part of it, and he doesn't want to release it under the GPL it shouldn't be that much effort to just re-write that GPLed part himself. Its not like there is anything making him use my GPLed program, nor am I 'springing the GPL' on him when he's not looking.
The GPL isn't just about getting back changes people have made to something you've written. If it were, then it should be sufficient for him to release his mods to your code but to keep his own code private.
Actually lots of projects do manage to pull this off. I've used lots of closed source software that required I install ghostscript. I've got a Go game that required I install an OSS Go Engine. You are allowed to do this, provided an adequate level of separation exists. Its ok for a closed source package to depend on a GPL package provided they aren't integrated.
The GPL sets a clear line of what amounts to "integrated" to help people like you determine where the line is. This enables proprietary software to be written *for* Linux. This enables proprietary software to be written *using* linux. If you want to release mods to my code and keep your code private you can do that provided you keep them separate enough.
I concede that the requirements of that separation are more than you might -like-. For example you might think dynamically linking to a GPL library isn't 'integrated', while the GPL indicates that for its purposes it is. But really, whats the *real* difference between dynamically linking, statically linking, and just copying and pasting the source code directly into your application??
Of course, then again, for people who want/need that's precisely why we have the LGPL.
No, the GPL is about spreading the "code wants to be free" ideology. Which is fine if that's your intent, but please be honest about it.
Yes, GPL code is designed to remain free, and it deliberately avoids letting itself get wrapped/trapped into proprietary hardware, and proprietary software. To refer to my previous analagy it is a 'free man' that specifically avoids going into rooms without doors and windows.
To fix your analogy, which is more free? Being able to build on existing works if and only if you agree with the established dogma [=gpl]? Or being able to build on existing works in any way you wish, even to the point of heresy [=public domain]?
The former gives EVERYONE else more freedom, as they can modify the new work, as well as the existing works, at the expense of your freedom to prevent them.
The latter gives YOU one extra 'freedom': the freedom to prevent them from building on the new work, but this comes at the expense of everyone elses freedom to modify it.
What's more free? I think the former.
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 1
a possible view point would be that the hardware is broken.
If it were simply broken then logically it should be both possible and legal to fix the hardware.
as long as the source code for the software is available, who cares?
The freedom to modify code is implicitly denied if the hardware won't run it.
"Ah, but you can run it on different hardware, hardware that *will* run it. After all you have the source code, right?" you might reply. And its true, but its a consolation prize at best, a slap in the face to everyone who contributed to the GPL source TiVo runs but who are now prevented from fixing their TiVos by DRM. Despite the fact that the TiVo software license specifically says users *are* allowed to modify it... its GPL after all.
But more importantly, the GPLv3 looks ahead, past the limited threat that is "TiVo". Its looking ahead to a possible future where Red Hat, Novell, and other Linux vendors decide to do the same thing.... a world in which corporations lock you to their flavor of linux, and the hardware ensures you don't switch or modify it. Sure the source code is all sitting there where you can look at it, but what good does it do you, unless you work for the right corporation your modifcations can't be run, because *all* the hardware locks you out.
Sadly there is nothing that can force hardware vendors to continue to release hardware that can run code that isn't 'blessed' by the government, or a handful of corporations if the world goes that way, but at least the FOSS can draw a line in the sand and say its not going there, that its not going to contribute to building its own coffin.
And the best way to ensure that hardware vendors continue to release hardware that can run our code is to ensure their is as much demand for that kind of hardware as possible. Ensuring that our code requires such hardware helps ensure there will be a solid demand. Otherwise what's to stop Dell from releasing Ubuntu PCs that will only run Dell-signed Ubuntu. What if IBM follows suit. Then Novell. Then Sun. Then Red Hat...
And once most of the hardware is DRM/TPM enabled, its really only a short legistlative hop for corporate interests to insist that all hardware sold legally be required to only run code they've signed... 'for the children'. The only resistance at that point would be a fringe of code hackers... who likely will be portrayed as mostly criminals.
End result we'll have all this GPL code we have the right to modify, but nowhere to run any code we modify.
The world of TPM and DRM is literally toxic to the freedom to modify that the GPL stands for.
just don't buy the broken hardware. what would happen if motorola released the complete source code for their linux phones but without a means to flash the memory?
I dunno, they'd have incentive to get the phone firmware right the first time?:)
Seriously though there is a big difference between hardware that lacks software update features, and hardware that not only prevents you from modifying the software, but criminalizes you for modifying it. Despite the fact that its software ironically (even hypocritically) comes with a license that SPECIFICALY ALLOWS YOU TO.
With the former, there is no hypocrisy. All you need is a soldering pen. Its inconvenient, sure, and beyond a lot of peoples technical ability, sure, but its not illegal. You still have the freedom to do it.
speed dial doesn't suck; I call the same four numbers more often than any other: v-mail, wife's mobile, home, office. That's probably half my outgoing calls from my cell right there.
saying "Call John Doe" is the quickest way to call someone in my address book, faster and easier than dialing.
saying "Dial 123-456-7890" is only slightly slower, and works for people not in your contacts. Its not quite as fast as blind dialing, but it doesn't tie up a hand or require tactile feedback either.
My phone does all this very well NOW. Its only going to get BETTER in the future.
Two years from now I'm going to say call the pizza hutt on main street, and the device will do a search, and make the call intelligently determining that I want to call the most *local* pizza hut on main street...
Ten years from now I'll be saying 'call my sisters friend, what's his name, the one with the sports car' and it will probably be able to figure it out...
Re:This is what I HATE most about FOSS
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GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
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· Score: 4, Insightful
But don't think for one second that the GPL is about "freedom".
Yes you should.
Public domain is about freedom. To a lesser extent, so is BSD.
They do nothing to protect freedom. They are merely free for the taking.
If you *take* something from the public domain and modify it, it can belong to you, and you can then distribute it while denying the very public who freely provided that source material to you in the first place the right to further modify it. So sure, the public domain is about freedom: giving YOU freedom to freeload the work of others and ultimately screw me over.
The GPL infringes on our freedoms for very specific resons, and it does so with good intent. But it infringes upon them nevertheless.
The GPL is about perpetuating the freedom of the *code*, specifically the freedom to modify the code.
And in doing so, the *only* freedom of yours that it infringes upon is your freedom to infringe upon others freedom with respect to modifications of the code further down the line.
(It really denies very little. You can use GPL tools to make non-GPL products (including other programs.) You can use GPL tools to run your business without returning anything back. The only thing you are required to give back is any modifications to the GPLed code itself, and even then, ONLY if you are re-distributing it.
Derivative works of GPLed CODE remains GPLed. That's it. That's the GPL in a nutshell. Everything in the GPL is there simply to ensure that no-one can take GPL'd code and fork it into proprietary non-free code. (or [with gplv3] tivoise it by binding 'gpl code' into hardware/drm schemes that make it effectively non-free.) To ensure that any tool that starts out FREE cannot become NON-FREE.
(TiVoisation is the equivalent of putting a 'free man' into a cell with no doors or windows. There's nothing legally stopping him from leaving the cell -- but his 'freedom' isn't worth a hill of beans -- he still can't get out.)
When you GPL your code you are asserting that it will be forever "free", that nobody can lock it up.
GPL is a lot like Free Speech.
Which is more 'free' a society where you can say whatever you like, and then someone in government can exercise their freedom to lock you up for ever. [=public domain] Or a society where you can say whatever you like, and the government is forced to protect your right to do so, even though you are infringing on someones freedom to lock you up forever. [=gpl]
Despite their reputations, I suspect few in government are honestly going for that ever-fashionable "Word6" look in their documents.
But if some clerk used Word 6 back in 92, and that file has been in use since then, being updated by successive clerks, that 'do-it-like-Word6' tag is still going to be in there, waiting to choke some non-Microsoft reader, which won't know how to do it. It will then muck up the formatting of the file. Maybe catastrophically.
As long as 'do-it-like-Word6' and 5500 hundred other pages of cruft is in the 'standard', those files will continue to work reliably only in MS Office.
Even if we switched to ODF tomorrow, we'll still have to cope with legacy documens for decades to come. But at least, once the document is converted to ODF, we'll be able to read it forever. Even if someone has to write the reader from scratch - at least we'll have both the documentation and the legal right to do it.
With MSOOXML we have neither. If MS decides to discontinue or just charge (ever more) outrageous prices for Office you're stuck. You can't write your own reader because you don't have adequate documentation -- even the 6000 pages is incomplete. And even if you had the docs, you might not have the legal right to do it.
A possible solution would be that government limits its documents to using only the standardized features in MS Office Open XML.
How are you going to tell Microsoft Office to limit the files it writes to the subset of standardized features in MSOOXML? Microsoft Office doesn't KNOW which subset is 'standardized', so how can it possibly limit the files it writes to that subset.
If someone were to define THAT subset and program MS Office to 'know about it', then we'd essentially have a whole new standard. (And it would look pretty much like ODF.)
If MS had actually -wanted- a simple standardized open format, they would have just created one in the first place.
It would also disqualify MS Office for government use if it actually uses these unspecified features;-)
Sane people, of course, want to do everything possible to avoid launching nuclear missile. It's the crazy ones that are the big danger. The crazy ones tend to run countries that are messed up and, to say the least, do not have cutting edge missile technology.
I do hate to do it, but come on, remember Hitler.
"Crazy people" are perfectly capable of ending up with cutting edge missile technology. Hell, there is nothing stopping a "crazy person" from becoming the president of the US. I think the greatest threat to the United States and world security in general is the United States.
Besides, if a 'crazy terrorist' wants to nuke the US, a missile base in poland has only a fraction of a snowballs chance in hell of stopping him. Considering how much drugs, illegals, and other contraband manages to cross the border every hour I wouldn't be much surprised if the 'crazy terrorists' launched their nuke from *inside* the US border.
Meanwhile the very fact that the US feels the need to set up all these bases in the first place just riles all those 'crazy people' up. Its like guarding against fire ants by poking their nest with a stick 'to let them know who's boss'. It's only going to end badly.
I also see no value in voting for the lesser of two evils since I hate them both equally (there is no lesser) and such a vote is pointless anyway (who you vote for is still evil).
As I said elsewhere, its not that his criticims aren't valid observations of the genre in general, its that singling out LOTR and criticising it based on those 'expectations' is what is ridiculous.
For what its worth, I agree, the MMORPG genre can and should evolve, and his criticisms are valid of the genre.
But, if you buy a MMORPG today, and you see the damage scroll by in the text window, and you find this 'archaic and disappointing', then your expectations are WAY out of whack for the genre.
Its like climbing into a Volvo and then writing a scathing review about how they don't float, can't fly, can't dodge accidents, don't steer themselves, and require you keep pouring some sort of foul smelling liquid into them.
Those are valid observations, and I'm sure ALL of us would like like to see carsevolve to the point we have flying self navigating safe cars that run on dew drops. Nobody thinks cars shouldn't evolve.
But if you are going to review a modern car and the lack of these is 'disappointing' you deserve to be ridiculed.
Slashdot Mirror
Please, this is beyond pathetic. The actually church was not used...
/sarcasm
Gotcha, its just a virtual replica by accident.
So what if its legal? Is still impolite to take someone elses private property and use images of it in a work they are going to find offensive. Its not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal, because we need to be able to do things like this to make documentaries, report news, and so forth.
But that doesn't make it right to be a jerk about it. Suppose I were to make a CGI movie featuring a 'faceless individual' who works at your companies address, in a building modeled after your workplace, drives the same type of car as you, and wears a name tag with your initials on it.
It would all be legal. After all I'm not actually using your image, so I don't need a model release. And since your actual workplace and car were not used all property arguments are useless. Repeat it with me, 'this is a virtual model of your environment'.
That the faceless individual in my CGI movie happens to be a pedophile who films rape scenes in the office after hours is no biggie right? Its not you. I'm sure you wouldn't be offended, or try to take steps to protect your companies reputation.
Home contracts used to promise at least the company's best efforts to maintain a certain service level - and now they're effectively promising nothing at all.
Neither am I. I pay to use their service from month to month, and I can cancel service anytime I want. If I cancel tomorrow my bill stops tomorrow.
A lot of people out there think they have a 'contract' but they don't. Plain an simple.
Otherwise it appears that the Church has so little faith in their own message that they have to use a secular government to enforce their views.
I'm sorry, which government would you have them use?
And what's the issue here anyway? The desire not to have violent video games set inside their private property without their permission? Is that really unreasonable?
Property owners have a long history of suing when pornographers and moviemakers in general set their unsavory 'stories' in their properties without permission. Why should the church be any different?
A mystery? This has been going on since day one, and has never been a mystery. And even if it is a "mystery" on the non-DRM files, it was never a mystery on the DRM files, was never hidden, and was never secret. This has been known, never obfuscated, and obvious to anyone who clicked "Get Info" on anything purchased from the iTunes Store, ever.
/sarcasm
EXACTLY.
This is about as 'evil' as the time I bought a book on special order. The staff had put a paper insert inside the front cover with my name and phonenumber, presumably so that they knew who had ordered it. But they didn't tell me!! And it was personally identifying!!... why if I had started committing crimes with that book the police would have had my name and number!! I'm never buying a book from that company again!
My favorite quote of all this was from an EFF attorney; to paraphrase: if someone steals your iPod, the thief would have the name and email address of the rightful owner!
Heaven help the poor sap if someone were to steal his cellphone. or his wallet. or his briefcase. or his laptop.
If you allow the creation of wealth from mob drops, why not from crafting outcomes?
One reason is that crafting is MUCH easier to macro. And your ability to generate wealth is only limited by the speed at which your macro can run.
you don't 'know' anything. you can't. no one can.
You can't know I'm not a figment of your imagination.
You can't know you are awake.
Have you seen the Matrix?
Have you seen the 13th Floor?
Have you seen Dark City?
When push comes to shove you don't know anything. You only beleive your reading slashdot, and you only beleive that all the posts here were put their by other people, who you beleive actually exist. Whole thing could just be a bad dream, or perhaps someone elses bad dream.
If all you want is remote light, why not dispense with the bulb and solar cell and just shine the flashlight at a mirror? Or dispense with the mirror and just point the flashlight where you want the light to in the first place?
8p
Where they pay everything for community leaders, major guild leaders, etc. to come out to San Diego and talk to them about the direction of the MMO. I know that have done this for EQ1 and EQ2.
Yeah, that was productive. Lets take the people who play 20 hours a day and ask them about the direction the game should take. Big surprise their laundry list of wants were about as out of touch with the majority of players as you could possibly get.
Its the accounts that log in 1-3 times a week that are your bread and butter. They're paying full price and using a FRACTION of the bandwidth of the 'hardcore no-lifers'. They also consume content at a much slower pace. They are your MOST PROFITABLE PLAYERS. A good businessman would want to ensure *that* group was happy, they should be priority one.
The group that plays continuously, sucks up all your bandwidth, devours your support time, grinds through your content, whines incessantly, and fills your forums with cruft - these are your loss leader bunch. You need them too, and they are a crucial part of the mmorpg scene. But too often pulishers lose sight of the fact that this group represents maybe 10-20% of the playerbase and further they represent the least profitable 10-20%.
Pandering to them is a real disservice to the larger and more profitable playerbase, and to the overall health of the game/world.
So...
DRM is a TECHNOLOGY to physically ENFORCE copyright. Moreover DRM in actual practices is a defective technology that has in every implementation prevented or burdened legal/legitimate uses while simultaneously failing to prevent widespread copyright violations.
The GPL is a LICENSE (not a technology at all), so right there the comparison between the GPL and DRM is completely flawed.
Furthermore, the GPL is a license that EXTENDS not enforces copyright. It grants the recipient additional rights that they do not have under copyright.
Comparing the GPL to DRM is about as sensible as comparing a vehicles owners manual to photo-radar.
Its sounds like you want to compare the GPL to Copyright, not DRM. And if you want to compare it copyright, ok, that's fair. Copyright gives you a very limited set of rights to redistribute protected works without permission under 'fair use' outside of that you have no permission to redistribute at all. The GPL merely gives you that permission to redistribute with a couple restrictions on how. I can't see how anyone could find getting permission to do something you couldn't otherwise do offensive. Its absurd. It takes NOTHING away from you, and if you don't want to exercise that permission you don't have to.
Now BSD *ALSO* gives you permission to redistribute copyprotected works. The principle difference between the BSD and the GPL is that the GPL requires that any derivative works that are created AND redistributed be released under the GPL. At first blush this appears to make the BSD license more permissive.
And in the short run it *IS*. But that permissiveness, though greater only lasts one generation. The first user to derive from the work is free to re-distribute under the most closed source per-cpu/per-seat/per-user/per-hour license he wants, and the person who gets THAT work has NO permission at all to anything. Period.
While the first user to derive from the GPL project, must release under the GPL, and the person who gets that work as all the rights and permission to further redistribute that that the original authors granted when they released the original. So the permissiveness of the GPL license is perpetuated to ALL end users of the code, even if it has been derived from or extended to.
To criticize huge swaths of people for doing something that is A: normal and B: in their best interests...
is a straw man argument.
I am critical of people for doing things that are NOT in their best interests. Of course, I have a broader definition of 'best interest' than just greedy self-centered hedonistic 'what makes me feel good right this second'.
Also, in the example given, there's no mention that the account is currently active. What's to say that the guy had an account previously and has since discontinued it's use? Wouldn't his email address still be tied to an (inactive) account?
The real question is 'so what'? If *I* had an long disused and inactive 'match.com' account and my wife found out about it, so what, I've got nothing to hide.
Of course, my wife wouldn't have to ask match.com, she could (and would) just ask me.
And no, this isn't a case of 'if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you don't need privacy' its simply a case of: 'i don't need that kind of privacy from my wife'.
That said, I do think divulging list membership *is* something of a privacy concern. But perhaps, on some level, if you join a public group, and wish to remain anonymous you should be obligated to take steps to be anonymous. (e.g. use a throwaway email address).
In order to satisfy the criteria that it be a unique identifier, other people have to be denied using it -- if they are denied using it, they know its in use.
The website really can't do anything about it, they don't want multiple users using the same address, nor do they want the same user using an address multiple times, thus the unique criteria on the email address makes sense. And a direct consequence of that is that other people will be able to determine the address is in use by virtue of the fact that they aren't allowed to use it.
but there are lots of people who do exactly what he's talking about and stand to get in trouble if someone does what he's trying. Whether or not you agree with it, it's very common human behavior.
Just being a jackass is common behaviour doesn't mean we should stop criticizing people when they act like one. The more society tolerates being a jackass, the more people will assume being a jackass is ok.
Seems to me that if you want to cheat on your girlfriend, your not with the right woman, and should probably just do the honest thing and tell her that.
Sounds a lot like DRM.
The GPL prevents you from taking something someone elses code in the same way, oh, copyright law does. Is copyright law "DRM" too? Do you even know what DRM is?
Additionally, seeing as the GPL gives you several additional rights to code you receive that copyright law DOESN'T. And the only privilege it restricts (that being the license you use when you re-distribute) is a priviledge you don't even normally get, I think comparing the GPL to DRM is about as ignorant as you can get.
First, *code* is an inanimate object and, as such, has no freedoms.
Yes, and a park is a public space that anyone can use. It has no "freedoms" either, but is carefully protected so that it REMAINS a public space.
So, those who are against "Tivoisation" typically want to modify the Tivo to do various things like remove DRM, but they want the GPL to force Tivo to allow them to do it by dictating what rights they have over the code used in Tivo devices... I believe there are words used to describe this kind of mindset/behaviour...
Not at all. TiVo is welcome not to use GPL code in their product.
People against TiVoisation typically simply want the rights the GPL confers to them as *recipients of GPL code*. If TiVo doesn't want to confer the rights of the GPL they shouldn't be distributing GPL code.
Tivo is selling you code that explicitly confers to you the right to modify it, but is locked in a box you aren't legally allowed to open. That's not a situation anyone who contributed code to a GPL project wanted. They wanted the reciepients to be able to modify it, that's WHY they was released under GPL.
Consider the mirror image - people who write free proxy servers for per-seat/per-connection/per-cpu licensed proprietary code (certain databases come to mind...). The proxy server runs on one seat, uses one connection, on one cpu. Technically it adhered to the license. But it utterly VIOLATED the spirit of the license which intended to collect a fee from everyone who accessed their system.
So what did those corporations do... they rewrote their licenses to either incorporate proxy servers into the license and demand their pound of flesh regardless of whether the connection was direct or indirect, or they prohibited proxy servers outright.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If the Proprietary software movement rewrites licenses that are toxic to their way of thinking, why shouldn't FOSS.
There is no question as to which license gives more freedom to developers over the code that they produce.
No. I don't need to license the code I produce.
If I produce the code I can release under any license, or as many licenses as I like.
If I choose to release under the GPL because I want to ensure that anyone who receives my code is free to modify it then I am free to do that. If I choose release under the BSD because I want to ensure that it can be integrated into closed source projects I am free to do that. I can even release the same project under both licenses.
If I choose to release under the GPL then I can draw upon any other GPL project out there and integrate it with my project. That is the benefit of choosing the GPL. But I'm free not to draw on that pool, and not to release under the GPL.
The *only* thing the GPL prevents me from doing is taking SOMEONE ELSES CODE and overriding their licensing choice.
.it's safe to say they lost at least a handful of customers as a result.
But its not like those customers became Microsoft customers. Or even abandoned linux. The only abandoned Novell.
Now let's say that you've written another program and released it under the GPL. Someone takes it and incorporates it into their own program. Your code is just one small part of a much bigger program. According to the GPL, not only must this other person publish his modifications to your source code, he must publish all of his own original, completely unrelated code that makes up his program.
If his program is so large that the GPLed code is just a tiny part of it, and he doesn't want to release it under the GPL it shouldn't be that much effort to just re-write that GPLed part himself. Its not like there is anything making him use my GPLed program, nor am I 'springing the GPL' on him when he's not looking.
The GPL isn't just about getting back changes people have made to something you've written. If it were, then it should be sufficient for him to release his mods to your code but to keep his own code private.
Actually lots of projects do manage to pull this off. I've used lots of closed source software that required I install ghostscript. I've got a Go game that required I install an OSS Go Engine. You are allowed to do this, provided an adequate level of separation exists. Its ok for a closed source package to depend on a GPL package provided they aren't integrated.
The GPL sets a clear line of what amounts to "integrated" to help people like you determine where the line is. This enables proprietary software to be written *for* Linux. This enables proprietary software to be written *using* linux. If you want to release mods to my code and keep your code private you can do that provided you keep them separate enough.
I concede that the requirements of that separation are more than you might -like-. For example you might think dynamically linking to a GPL library isn't 'integrated', while the GPL indicates that for its purposes it is. But really, whats the *real* difference between dynamically linking, statically linking, and just copying and pasting the source code directly into your application??
Of course, then again, for people who want/need that's precisely why we have the LGPL.
No, the GPL is about spreading the "code wants to be free" ideology. Which is fine if that's your intent, but please be honest about it.
Yes, GPL code is designed to remain free, and it deliberately avoids letting itself get wrapped/trapped into proprietary hardware, and proprietary software. To refer to my previous analagy it is a 'free man' that specifically avoids going into rooms without doors and windows.
To fix your analogy, which is more free? Being able to build on existing works if and only if you agree with the established dogma [=gpl]? Or being able to build on existing works in any way you wish, even to the point of heresy [=public domain]?
The former gives EVERYONE else more freedom, as they can modify the new work, as well as the existing works, at the expense of your freedom to prevent them.
The latter gives YOU one extra 'freedom': the freedom to prevent them from building on the new work, but this comes at the expense of everyone elses freedom to modify it.
What's more free? I think the former.
a possible view point would be that the hardware is broken.
:)
If it were simply broken then logically it should be both possible and legal to fix the hardware.
as long as the source code for the software is available, who cares?
The freedom to modify code is implicitly denied if the hardware won't run it.
"Ah, but you can run it on different hardware, hardware that *will* run it. After all you have the source code, right?" you might reply. And its true, but its a consolation prize at best, a slap in the face to everyone who contributed to the GPL source TiVo runs but who are now prevented from fixing their TiVos by DRM. Despite the fact that the TiVo software license specifically says users *are* allowed to modify it... its GPL after all.
But more importantly, the GPLv3 looks ahead, past the limited threat that is "TiVo". Its looking ahead to a possible future where Red Hat, Novell, and other Linux vendors decide to do the same thing.... a world in which corporations lock you to their flavor of linux, and the hardware ensures you don't switch or modify it. Sure the source code is all sitting there where you can look at it, but what good does it do you, unless you work for the right corporation your modifcations can't be run, because *all* the hardware locks you out.
Sadly there is nothing that can force hardware vendors to continue to release hardware that can run code that isn't 'blessed' by the government, or a handful of corporations if the world goes that way, but at least the FOSS can draw a line in the sand and say its not going there, that its not going to contribute to building its own coffin.
And the best way to ensure that hardware vendors continue to release hardware that can run our code is to ensure their is as much demand for that kind of hardware as possible. Ensuring that our code requires such hardware helps ensure there will be a solid demand. Otherwise what's to stop Dell from releasing Ubuntu PCs that will only run Dell-signed Ubuntu. What if IBM follows suit. Then Novell. Then Sun. Then Red Hat...
And once most of the hardware is DRM/TPM enabled, its really only a short legistlative hop for corporate interests to insist that all hardware sold legally be required to only run code they've signed... 'for the children'. The only resistance at that point would be a fringe of code hackers... who likely will be portrayed as mostly criminals.
End result we'll have all this GPL code we have the right to modify, but nowhere to run any code we modify.
The world of TPM and DRM is literally toxic to the freedom to modify that the GPL stands for.
just don't buy the broken hardware. what would happen if motorola released the complete source code for their linux phones but without a means to flash the memory?
I dunno, they'd have incentive to get the phone firmware right the first time?
Seriously though there is a big difference between hardware that lacks software update features, and hardware that not only prevents you from modifying the software, but criminalizes you for modifying it. Despite the fact that its software ironically (even hypocritically) comes with a license that SPECIFICALY ALLOWS YOU TO.
With the former, there is no hypocrisy. All you need is a soldering pen. Its inconvenient, sure, and beyond a lot of peoples technical ability, sure, but its not illegal. You still have the freedom to do it.
Dialing from the top of your head is obsolete.
speed dial doesn't suck; I call the same four numbers more often than any other: v-mail, wife's mobile, home, office. That's probably half my outgoing calls from my cell right there.
saying "Call John Doe" is the quickest way to call someone in my address book, faster and easier than dialing.
saying "Dial 123-456-7890" is only slightly slower, and works for people not in your contacts. Its not quite as fast as blind dialing, but it doesn't tie up a hand or require tactile feedback either.
My phone does all this very well NOW. Its only going to get BETTER in the future.
Two years from now I'm going to say call the pizza hutt on main street, and the device will do a search, and make the call intelligently determining that I want to call the most *local* pizza hut on main street...
Ten years from now I'll be saying 'call my sisters friend, what's his name, the one with the sports car' and it will probably be able to figure it out...
But don't think for one second that the GPL is about "freedom".
Yes you should.
Public domain is about freedom. To a lesser extent, so is BSD.
They do nothing to protect freedom. They are merely free for the taking.
If you *take* something from the public domain and modify it, it can belong to you, and you can then distribute it while denying the very public who freely provided that source material to you in the first place the right to further modify it. So sure, the public domain is about freedom: giving YOU freedom to freeload the work of others and ultimately screw me over.
The GPL infringes on our freedoms for very specific resons, and it does so with good intent. But it infringes upon them nevertheless.
The GPL is about perpetuating the freedom of the *code*, specifically the freedom to modify the code.
And in doing so, the *only* freedom of yours that it infringes upon is your freedom to infringe upon others freedom with respect to modifications of the code further down the line.
(It really denies very little. You can use GPL tools to make non-GPL products (including other programs.) You can use GPL tools to run your business without returning anything back. The only thing you are required to give back is any modifications to the GPLed code itself, and even then, ONLY if you are re-distributing it.
Derivative works of GPLed CODE remains GPLed. That's it. That's the GPL in a nutshell. Everything in the GPL is there simply to ensure that no-one can take GPL'd code and fork it into proprietary non-free code. (or [with gplv3] tivoise it by binding 'gpl code' into hardware/drm schemes that make it effectively non-free.) To ensure that any tool that starts out FREE cannot become NON-FREE.
(TiVoisation is the equivalent of putting a 'free man' into a cell with no doors or windows. There's nothing legally stopping him from leaving the cell -- but his 'freedom' isn't worth a hill of beans -- he still can't get out.)
When you GPL your code you are asserting that it will be forever "free", that nobody can lock it up.
GPL is a lot like Free Speech.
Which is more 'free' a society where you can say whatever you like, and then someone in government can exercise their freedom to lock you up for ever. [=public domain] Or a society where you can say whatever you like, and the government is forced to protect your right to do so, even though you are infringing on someones freedom to lock you up forever. [=gpl]
Despite their reputations, I suspect few in government are honestly going for that ever-fashionable "Word6" look in their documents.
But if some clerk used Word 6 back in 92, and that file has been in use since then, being updated by successive clerks, that 'do-it-like-Word6' tag is still going to be in there, waiting to choke some non-Microsoft reader, which won't know how to do it. It will then muck up the formatting of the file. Maybe catastrophically.
As long as 'do-it-like-Word6' and 5500 hundred other pages of cruft is in the 'standard', those files will continue to work reliably only in MS Office.
Even if we switched to ODF tomorrow, we'll still have to cope with legacy documens for decades to come. But at least, once the document is converted to ODF, we'll be able to read it forever. Even if someone has to write the reader from scratch - at least we'll have both the documentation and the legal right to do it.
With MSOOXML we have neither. If MS decides to discontinue or just charge (ever more) outrageous prices for Office you're stuck. You can't write your own reader because you don't have adequate documentation -- even the 6000 pages is incomplete. And even if you had the docs, you might not have the legal right to do it.
A possible solution would be that government limits its documents to using only the standardized features in MS Office Open XML.
;-)
How are you going to tell Microsoft Office to limit the files it writes to the subset of standardized features in MSOOXML? Microsoft Office doesn't KNOW which subset is 'standardized', so how can it possibly limit the files it writes to that subset.
If someone were to define THAT subset and program MS Office to 'know about it', then we'd essentially have a whole new standard. (And it would look pretty much like ODF.)
If MS had actually -wanted- a simple standardized open format, they would have just created one in the first place.
It would also disqualify MS Office for government use if it actually uses these unspecified features
Precisely.
Sane people, of course, want to do everything possible to avoid launching nuclear missile. It's the crazy ones that are the big danger. The crazy ones tend to run countries that are messed up and, to say the least, do not have cutting edge missile technology.
I do hate to do it, but come on, remember Hitler.
"Crazy people" are perfectly capable of ending up with cutting edge missile technology. Hell, there is nothing stopping a "crazy person" from becoming the president of the US. I think the greatest threat to the United States and world security in general is the United States.
Besides, if a 'crazy terrorist' wants to nuke the US, a missile base in poland has only a fraction of a snowballs chance in hell of stopping him. Considering how much drugs, illegals, and other contraband manages to cross the border every hour I wouldn't be much surprised if the 'crazy terrorists' launched their nuke from *inside* the US border.
Meanwhile the very fact that the US feels the need to set up all these bases in the first place just riles all those 'crazy people' up. Its like guarding against fire ants by poking their nest with a stick 'to let them know who's boss'. It's only going to end badly.
I also see no value in voting for the lesser of two evils since I hate them both equally (there is no lesser) and such a vote is pointless anyway (who you vote for is still evil).
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
As I said elsewhere, its not that his criticims aren't valid observations of the genre in general, its that singling out LOTR and criticising it based on those 'expectations' is what is ridiculous.
For what its worth, I agree, the MMORPG genre can and should evolve, and his criticisms are valid of the genre.
But, if you buy a MMORPG today, and you see the damage scroll by in the text window, and you find this 'archaic and disappointing', then your expectations are WAY out of whack for the genre.
Its like climbing into a Volvo and then writing a scathing review about how they don't float, can't fly, can't dodge accidents, don't steer themselves, and require you keep pouring some sort of foul smelling liquid into them.
Those are valid observations, and I'm sure ALL of us would like like to see carsevolve to the point we have flying self navigating safe cars that run on dew drops. Nobody thinks cars shouldn't evolve.
But if you are going to review a modern car and the lack of these is 'disappointing' you deserve to be ridiculed.