It happens all the time with custody cases. One parent gets full custody of the child, and then the other parent abducts the child. The child isn't necessarily going to run away, but it's still kidnapping.
Of course Linus is entitled to his opinion on these issues, but I believe that his take on it is harmful because it's the "famous people slightly connected to the issue seeming to be expert on the issue to the public" syndrome. He is no more competent in this case than the celebrities ridiculed by the bbc in a previous article.
Case in point: Remember when Linus voiced his complaints on Groklaw about the DRM clause of GPLv3? He completely failed to make any sort of valid legal argument. I actually thought the guy who was claiming to be Linus was an imposter, because his complaints just seemed too clueless to be coming from Linus. I patiently waited for the email to linux-kernel where Linus would say "that's not me on Groklaw", but it never came. I guess Linus really doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the law.
I now think that although Linus Torvalds is a central figure in the free/open-source software phenomenon, he just doesn't understand it the way other people do.
All Microsoft has to do to get around his patent is make it so that, once DRM breaks your computer, it stays broke. (Until you do something. Like, the infamous "format and reinstall".) (Which, BTW, you can only do once.)
Exactly. It forces DRM to be nasty (unless you licence this patent) and therefore harder to shove down consumers' throats.
Even if Red Hat licenses this patent out for an exorbitant amount of money (which it would have to be, considering DRM really hurts Red Hat's business), it will serve to fund the development of free alternatives to DRM-infested software.
This is where IT comes in. If IT is sufficiently competent (and sufficiently funded), they'll be able to fix things that break, and disable access to breakable things you don't need so you can't break them accidentally.
Exactly. The problem is that you're supposed to have an XML catalog that lists the location of the DTDs on the local filesystem (at least, that's how 4suite works). If you don't set that up, a validating parser can either fail or fetch the DTD from the URL specified in the document (personally, I prefer that it just fail so that I can fix the problem, but it's not the default).
If I burn a CD from a friend, the owners lose one sale.
If you burn a CD from a friend, the copyright holders lose one sale, ASSUMING you would otherwise have bought the CD. In aggregate, the cost to the copyright holder is far less than one sale per burned CD.
If you buy a counterfeit CD, then the formula is the same (the copyright holders lose the value of the sale assuming you would otherwise have bought the CD), but the cost to the copyright holder is at least what you paid for the counterfeit CD. This makes it a lot easier to show monetary damages in court, and it's essentially impossible to justify as "not hurting anyone".
...until Linksys basically discontinued the WRT54G as we knew it, making it hacker-unfriendly, then re-releasing the GL version for $20-30 more than you could get it initially.
To their credit, this is actually fairly common in the electronics industry. You start by selling a device (possibly at a loss) with expensive parts, in order to just get your product onto the market. Shortly after you've released the original product, you create a new revision using cheaper components and recapture the profits you lost on the first revision. The fact that Linksys continues to produce the WRT54GL version at all shows that they understand the value of being hacker-friendly.
I don't know about you, but when somebody distributes something, which I worked hard to produce and sell, freely onto the Internet, I get really upset.
The question is basically, "If there were a DRM system that didn't do the things that DRM does, would you be opposed to it?"
My answer is still yes, for at least the following reasons:
It adds to the non-recurring engineering costs of digital media devices. When you design a device that handles media, you have to pay your engineers deal with the DRM aspect of it.
It adds to the unit costs of digital media devices. You have to add extra/more powerful hardware to every device in order to do the encryption or whatnot.
It stifles innovation. Right now, you can pick up the parts for a new device from your favourite electronics distributor (e.g. Digi-Key, Jameco, etc), and build a digital media device. With DRM, the parts you need will necessarily not be available to you. Even if the parts were available (which they wouldn't be), there would likely be legal barriers to entry into the market. All of this spells doom for small-budget inventors.
The sting is in what he has to say about Windows and the XBox 360. With not so much as bone tossed the way of the OSX and Linux PC gamer.
*Ahem*, so this isn't enough for you:
Quake III Arena source code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
BTW, if and while in themselves are not "boolean logic", they are jumps that rely on a boolean condition.
Boolean logic has no concept of jumps, because it is not a programming language, it is a form of maths.
That's only because the CPU has abstracted the boolean logic for you.
That's nice, but the characters in the prequels completely lacked the depth that they had in the originals.
Take, for example, the Millennium Falcon. It looked like an incredibly beautiful, complicated, high-tech piece of futuristic machinery. The first think Luke says when he sees it: "What a piece of junk!" Later, when Leia first sees it: "In that thing? You're braver than I thought!"
The character with the most depth in first prequel was Jar-Jar.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it is. It's just that geeks/nerds/etc. who have it blend in with the rest of society, for the most part.
Horrible, horrible web design.
Don't see a problem? Increase your font size, then scroll.
It happens all the time with custody cases. One parent gets full custody of the child, and then the other parent abducts the child. The child isn't necessarily going to run away, but it's still kidnapping.
Case in point: Remember when Linus voiced his complaints on Groklaw about the DRM clause of GPLv3? He completely failed to make any sort of valid legal argument. I actually thought the guy who was claiming to be Linus was an imposter, because his complaints just seemed too clueless to be coming from Linus. I patiently waited for the email to linux-kernel where Linus would say "that's not me on Groklaw", but it never came. I guess Linus really doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the law.
I now think that although Linus Torvalds is a central figure in the free/open-source software phenomenon, he just doesn't understand it the way other people do.
Yes, instead of using the word "stealing" to describe a phenomenon that is much more complicated than that.
Exactly. It forces DRM to be nasty (unless you licence this patent) and therefore harder to shove down consumers' throats.
Even if Red Hat licenses this patent out for an exorbitant amount of money (which it would have to be, considering DRM really hurts Red Hat's business), it will serve to fund the development of free alternatives to DRM-infested software.
It's not a Freudian slip, it's a gender-indeterminate pronoun.
This is where IT comes in. If IT is sufficiently competent (and sufficiently funded), they'll be able to fix things that break, and disable access to breakable things you don't need so you can't break them accidentally.
Maybe, but he's still right. Why not take his advice and outlive him?
Exactly. The problem is that you're supposed to have an XML catalog that lists the location of the DTDs on the local filesystem (at least, that's how 4suite works). If you don't set that up, a validating parser can either fail or fetch the DTD from the URL specified in the document (personally, I prefer that it just fail so that I can fix the problem, but it's not the default).
aptitude install libpam-opie opie-client opie-server
If you burn a CD from a friend, the copyright holders lose one sale, ASSUMING you would otherwise have bought the CD. In aggregate, the cost to the copyright holder is far less than one sale per burned CD.
If you buy a counterfeit CD, then the formula is the same (the copyright holders lose the value of the sale assuming you would otherwise have bought the CD), but the cost to the copyright holder is at least what you paid for the counterfeit CD. This makes it a lot easier to show monetary damages in court, and it's essentially impossible to justify as "not hurting anyone".
That's the difference.
Interesting. I wonder if this marks the beginning of a move away from IE for Microsoft.
Since you changed to the wrong directory.
So now the truth is just a "perspective"?
You know, I'd be shocked (SHOCKED!) to find out that the person who said that also complains that secularism is flawed due to "moral relativism".
s/hypothetical/contrived/
Actually, it's a philosophical question that is valueless because it assumes a situation that simply can never happen.
I've expanded on my answer here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216596&cid=175 80306.
...until Linksys basically discontinued the WRT54G as we knew it, making it hacker-unfriendly, then re-releasing the GL version for $20-30 more than you could get it initially.To their credit, this is actually fairly common in the electronics industry. You start by selling a device (possibly at a loss) with expensive parts, in order to just get your product onto the market. Shortly after you've released the original product, you create a new revision using cheaper components and recapture the profits you lost on the first revision. The fact that Linksys continues to produce the WRT54GL version at all shows that they understand the value of being hacker-friendly.
Your being upset has what relevance, exactly?
... but I still prefer ALSA.
The question is basically, "If there were a DRM system that didn't do the things that DRM does, would you be opposed to it?"
My answer is still yes, for at least the following reasons:
Bottom line: DRM is bad for consumers.
This is exactly what I was thinking. It's not just a matter of not knowing how to build such a DRM system, it's a matter of simply being impossible.
*Ahem*, so this isn't enough for you:
To his credit, the artistic side of things was never his area of responsibility.
That's only because the CPU has abstracted the boolean logic for you.
That's nice, but the characters in the prequels completely lacked the depth that they had in the originals.
Take, for example, the Millennium Falcon. It looked like an incredibly beautiful, complicated, high-tech piece of futuristic machinery. The first think Luke says when he sees it: "What a piece of junk!" Later, when Leia first sees it: "In that thing? You're braver than I thought!"
The character with the most depth in first prequel was Jar-Jar.