I canceled my Playstation Network account and sold my PS3 because of a EULA update in April. Many pages of EULA bullshit that you had to agree to, and I just got sick of it. It was the final straw after all the thuggish Geohot nonsense.
If we keep on agreeing to these EULAs they're going to keep on shoveling them down our throats.
As one of the 50% of Americans who own stock in corporations, I wish you'd learn about them and who owns them.
Who owns them? The CEOs and board members who pay themselves exorbitant salaries, regardless of their performance and the huge supply of people qualified for their positions (pretty much anybody in upper management). A doctor responsible for lives and has been trained for years to do his job gets paid less, but we are to believe that these foxes guarding the henhouse are worth millions of dollars?
The corporations are the people, or at least a large number of them. People who think there's more to earning a living than someone sending you a paycheck - then complaining about it.
Are you talking about stockholders who sit on their asses and hope the stock price rises?
Don't forget the consumers that turn a blind eye and focus on whatever is cheapest. There's plenty of blame to go around.
That said, it would be nice if extremely profitable companies like Apple could push standards and enforce them. They have the leverage. It would also make for good marketing.
By releasing it as open source, that could be considered inducing infringement. The license he was given was for Doom 3 with stipulations that don't work under an open source model.
They've already imposed the roadblock by asserting their patent on the original Doom 3 release. If Carmack was to then knowingly release the code with the patent, he could be sued for infringement.
"Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent."
And even scarier for somebody writing or distributing open source software:
"Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer. "
Although you provide a compelling argument. There are a couple of facts that you overlook here
Unless he's Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com, he just copied and pasted somebody else. Instead of being clear about that upfront, he just linked to it at the very end.
One favorite was to sound interested and then ask for their own personal telephone number. When they inevitably refused, I'd say something like "what's wrong, you don't like having strangers bother you at home?"
I played a few of those games too, but ultimately decided it was taking more of my time than I wanted. So instead, as soon as the person went into their pitch, I would just leave the phone off the hook, thereby wasting their time and not mine.
It's all in the context of actions. When a company adopts a "Don't be evil" motto, it's clearly in a reaction to perceived evilness in how companies routinely ignore ethics in their decision making.
One action does not make Google an evil company, and that was not what I was saying. Google was "evil" in the particular decision to make an open source promise and then break it for a "bad user experience" excuse. That's what this thread is about.
Somebody else already addressed the open source issue. As for the "bad user experience" thing, Apple can validly claim it's for the user experience just like Google can. Just read Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. After Adobe is making moves to abandon Flash, it actually makes him sound spot on.
Now why should you give Google a free pass, because "Google knows best"? They said they would open source it, they didn't. They used an excuse Apple uses all the time -- an excuse that is at least plausible, though it isn't one I accept from either company.
It's not a matter of entitlement, it's a matter of holding people to their promises. If you want all the accolades and fuzzy warmth from adopting open source, then live by it. Otherwise, expect backlash, and rightfully so.
Seriously, the Google apologists bug the heck out of me.
Could you have imagined the chaos resulting from people trying to hack a tablet-only OS into their smartphone with half the phone functionality, and everything that makes the form factor work, missing completely?
Can I imagine people taking responsibility for what software gets run on what device? Yes. Can I imagine people updating their software on devices where Honeycomb was shipped? Yes. Can I imagine Google not redefining standard terms like open source and having people lap it up and defend the practice?
They were never evil. They're not MS/Apple. Do you have a short term memory loss? Honeycomb was withheld, and they told people why.
Yes, they were evil. It doesn't matter what the excuse is, open source means you release the source, no excuses.
[Andy] Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience.
Which is exactly the excuse that Apple makes for all kinds of lockdown.
The problem isn't as much that we are blind, we are just overexposed and have a hard time really knowing the difference between a president having an extra marital affair or authorizing an illegal wiretap.
Clinton was impeached for perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit, you know, the same kind of harassment that is currently dragging down Herman Cain. Of course, supporters of Cain don't really give a shit, just as supporters of Clinton didn't really give a shit.
Meanwhile, Weiner was forced to step down because he did some sexting with, apparently, women who were open to it. Can anybody make logical sense out of this?
There are also a large percentage of Americans who don't give a shit about illegal wiretaps if they think it's keeping us safe from terrorists. Even Obama gave the illegal wiretaps a free pass (immunity) when he had the chance to vote on it, despite previous campaign pledges to hold people accountable.
In a chaotic system, any minor change can result in a big change after a period of time. The butterfly effect is not "utter bollocks". That you described it as such in a weather system is particularly egregious, since that is where the term originated and is accepted mainstream science.
You can read the Wikipedia page and cite a counter-source if you disagree.
Surprise, surprise, a first post that responds to the title only, and not even the summary. The story isn't that DRM is flawed, the real story here is that secrecy laws were evoked to redact commentary from the BBC. Concluding paragraph from the article:
Welcome to DRM Britain. Our BBC will give privileges to American TV companies that the US government won't give them, and our "independent" regulator won't even tell us why.
Practical uses include getting catsup out of the bottle? really, that's it?
The summary also mentioned "new self-cleaning surfaces that never get dirty" and "in the energy industry for making oil flow more efficiently through pipes".
I'm saying copyrights and patents are not property, they're bans.
They are property, in the sense that they are exclusively owned and can be sold or transferred. It's also true that this property was carved out as a special class by laws that limits what others may do with their own physical property or even just publicly performing.
Such a law wouldn't say anything about Firefox. It said you'd have to respect a Do Not Track sent by the client. If the client defaulted to opt-in tracking, so what?
Slashdot Mirror
Managers have managers. Yes they will.
I canceled my Playstation Network account and sold my PS3 because of a EULA update in April. Many pages of EULA bullshit that you had to agree to, and I just got sick of it. It was the final straw after all the thuggish Geohot nonsense.
If we keep on agreeing to these EULAs they're going to keep on shoveling them down our throats.
As one of the 50% of Americans who own stock in corporations, I wish you'd learn about them and who owns them.
Who owns them? The CEOs and board members who pay themselves exorbitant salaries, regardless of their performance and the huge supply of people qualified for their positions (pretty much anybody in upper management). A doctor responsible for lives and has been trained for years to do his job gets paid less, but we are to believe that these foxes guarding the henhouse are worth millions of dollars?
The corporations are the people, or at least a large number of them. People who think there's more to earning a living than someone sending you a paycheck - then complaining about it.
Are you talking about stockholders who sit on their asses and hope the stock price rises?
Don't forget the consumers that turn a blind eye and focus on whatever is cheapest. There's plenty of blame to go around.
That said, it would be nice if extremely profitable companies like Apple could push standards and enforce them. They have the leverage. It would also make for good marketing.
By releasing it as open source, that could be considered inducing infringement. The license he was given was for Doom 3 with stipulations that don't work under an open source model.
They've already imposed the roadblock by asserting their patent on the original Doom 3 release. If Carmack was to then knowingly release the code with the patent, he could be sued for infringement.
You can use any patented device or process for personal use
No, not really. There is no exemption granted for this in patent law: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/271.html
"Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent."
And even scarier for somebody writing or distributing open source software:
"Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer. "
Although you provide a compelling argument. There are a couple of facts that you overlook here
Unless he's Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com, he just copied and pasted somebody else. Instead of being clear about that upfront, he just linked to it at the very end.
:)
One favorite was to sound interested and then ask for their own personal telephone number. When they inevitably refused, I'd say something like "what's wrong, you don't like having strangers bother you at home?"
I played a few of those games too, but ultimately decided it was taking more of my time than I wanted. So instead, as soon as the person went into their pitch, I would just leave the phone off the hook, thereby wasting their time and not mine.
It's all in the context of actions. When a company adopts a "Don't be evil" motto, it's clearly in a reaction to perceived evilness in how companies routinely ignore ethics in their decision making.
One action does not make Google an evil company, and that was not what I was saying. Google was "evil" in the particular decision to make an open source promise and then break it for a "bad user experience" excuse. That's what this thread is about.
Somebody else already addressed the open source issue. As for the "bad user experience" thing, Apple can validly claim it's for the user experience just like Google can. Just read Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. After Adobe is making moves to abandon Flash, it actually makes him sound spot on.
Now why should you give Google a free pass, because "Google knows best"? They said they would open source it, they didn't. They used an excuse Apple uses all the time -- an excuse that is at least plausible, though it isn't one I accept from either company.
It's not a matter of entitlement, it's a matter of holding people to their promises. If you want all the accolades and fuzzy warmth from adopting open source, then live by it. Otherwise, expect backlash, and rightfully so.
Seriously, the Google apologists bug the heck out of me.
Could you have imagined the chaos resulting from people trying to hack a tablet-only OS into their smartphone with half the phone functionality, and everything that makes the form factor work, missing completely?
Can I imagine people taking responsibility for what software gets run on what device? Yes. Can I imagine people updating their software on devices where Honeycomb was shipped? Yes. Can I imagine Google not redefining standard terms like open source and having people lap it up and defend the practice?
They were never evil. They're not MS/Apple. Do you have a short term memory loss? Honeycomb was withheld, and they told people why.
Yes, they were evil. It doesn't matter what the excuse is, open source means you release the source, no excuses.
[Andy] Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience.
Which is exactly the excuse that Apple makes for all kinds of lockdown.
The problem isn't as much that we are blind, we are just overexposed and have a hard time really knowing the difference between a president having an extra marital affair or authorizing an illegal wiretap.
Clinton was impeached for perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit, you know, the same kind of harassment that is currently dragging down Herman Cain. Of course, supporters of Cain don't really give a shit, just as supporters of Clinton didn't really give a shit.
Meanwhile, Weiner was forced to step down because he did some sexting with, apparently, women who were open to it. Can anybody make logical sense out of this?
There are also a large percentage of Americans who don't give a shit about illegal wiretaps if they think it's keeping us safe from terrorists. Even Obama gave the illegal wiretaps a free pass (immunity) when he had the chance to vote on it, despite previous campaign pledges to hold people accountable.
In a chaotic system, any minor change can result in a big change after a period of time. The butterfly effect is not "utter bollocks". That you described it as such in a weather system is particularly egregious, since that is where the term originated and is accepted mainstream science.
You can read the Wikipedia page and cite a counter-source if you disagree.
Good to know. Cultural references are always dicey.
Surprise, surprise, a first post that responds to the title only, and not even the summary. The story isn't that DRM is flawed, the real story here is that secrecy laws were evoked to redact commentary from the BBC. Concluding paragraph from the article:
Welcome to DRM Britain. Our BBC will give privileges to American TV companies that the US government won't give them, and our "independent" regulator won't even tell us why.
Practical uses include getting catsup out of the bottle? really, that's it?
The summary also mentioned "new self-cleaning surfaces that never get dirty" and "in the energy industry for making oil flow more efficiently through pipes".
Did you want an exhaustive list?
Germany has no concept of "copyright".
Yes they do, as they are part of the Berne Convention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements
I'm saying copyrights and patents are not property, they're bans.
They are property, in the sense that they are exclusively owned and can be sold or transferred. It's also true that this property was carved out as a special class by laws that limits what others may do with their own physical property or even just publicly performing.
An Aspie wouldn't know the comment was insensitive.
If you're serious, see a doctor. You might have a brain tumor or something.
Such a law wouldn't say anything about Firefox. It said you'd have to respect a Do Not Track sent by the client. If the client defaulted to opt-in tracking, so what?