If you consider that the normal practice for a software company is to make money by selling what they write, GPLing their code could put a large dent in their revenues. Even if they rewrite it from scratch, they have to pay their developers for the time it takes to do it. The main thing is not letting them get away with something like "ok, we'll fix it, but we'll keep selling this until we do"
So just tweak it to get by... Besides, there isn't ANYTHING out there that 'effectively blocks most objectionable content.' Or even comes close.
Just use Andrew's Law: "There is always a loophole."
So, you have to block stuff that's 'obscene', 'child porn' or 'harmful to minors'... I work as a network admin at a school (whose tech committe does NOT want censorware), and from what it sounds like, I can bash out a quick proxy that blocks just one site of each category and slap it on the firewall... sounds like that would meet the requirements! =)
Having been fairly closely involved with elections for some time now, I can tell you that almost every situation you've described is a federal crime.
-There can be no campagning or 'electioneering' withing 100' of the polling place. (look around next time you go vote, there should be distance markers 100' from the door)
-Your boss could end up in federal prison
-and you're *already* required to vote at a specific polling place, anyway
-the harrassers can't be any closer than 100', so it's kind of hard to see who's voting for what (and regardless, if you're being harrassed, i'm sure there's some other federal law you can slap them with)
"The e-mail you received was an invitation from MSN Explorer, sent on behalf of an existing user who changed their e-mail address and wants you to try MSN Explorer."
I don't know about everyone else (and IANAL), but this REEKS of a class-action suit. I don't use the program, but if I did, I certaintly wouldn't give them the right to do anything 'on my behalf'. Unless, of course, it's buried somewhere in the EULA... Better watch that bank account, too.
cost only about $200 more, and it's a dual celeron 450, plays MP3s, etc, AND runs a Q3 server, UOX3 server, http server, mail server, file server, and 100Mbit router/firewall for my roommate and I...
Why spend $600 on something that can only play music??
Start a campaign to have EVERYONE put 'deCSS' in the meta tags of all html docs... there'd be so many false hits, the MPAA'd HAVE to read every page...
This just in:
The Apache Software Foundation, Microsoft, Netscape, Lotus, and many other http and ftp server software developers are being sued for making it possible to distribute copyrighted materiel...
Here's what I would do if i was afraid of someone getting at my deleted stuff. 1. Delete stuff 2. Buy new hard drive 3. Use a disk image utility that only copies existing files to image to the new disk. 4. Destroy old disk.
-Pissed off company pays off politician -Politician whispers to Admiral -Submarine finds 'annoying free speech ship' -Headlines next day: Floating Server Farm Sinks After Mysterious Explosion!
I agree that no one feature or 'thing' will make Linux the dominant OS. But one other thing to think about: Software is quickly getting more complex (and in MS's case, much larger), and the development times must suffer accordingly. On the other hand, new hardware is appearing faster (or so it seems). The question is, will any single company be able to keep up with getting their software onto new platforms quickly and reliably? MS is having problems, and they have mind-boggling amounts of resources to throw at it. Linux, on the other hand, gets ported quickly, and almost by habit to new platforms. IMO, the Open Source development model itself will eventually make Linux (etc), a more dominant OS, simply because it's far more responsive. Maybe that's the 'one thing'.
This is how we managed to get the powers-that-be to accept Linux: We (the desktop support peons) had been saying how great it was for months, and running a few boxes of our own. Mostly we just got chuckled at behind our backs. Then we had a problem with a misson-critical box. The two alternatives were, add the functionality to another unix box, which would have required patching the OS, or put it on an NT server (service pack headaches). Oh, and there was only 15-20 mins till the #!))! hit the fan. In that 15 min, we set up (from bare metal) a linux box that provided the required functionality, and the chuckles stopped. Now our entire internet DMZ runs on linux, in addition to a few other misc. servers.
Here's an interesting scenario that just occurred to me: I steal a very rare item from you in the game. I then turn around and sell this on e-bay for $1500. Now, how is this different from stealing a $1500 piece of jewelry from you IRL? Could someone possibly turn you in to the authorities for this? After all you essentially just acknowledged (by accepting the money) that you took something worth $1500 from them. If you just steal and sell in game, it would be logical that the only consequences would be in game, but when you start involving RL, then what? Any lawyers want to comment?
I think it would be cool to have a 3D game engine that's open source, but allows people to use it for commercial products, provided they release any modified engine code. (not necessarily the whole game/whatever) That way, companies could cut out the engine dev time, and just start with the latest stable engine release. We'd probably all be better off, since we'd have a standard (probably cross-platform) engine, that hasn't been rushed to market full of bugs.
After working in the desktop support division of my company for some time, I've come to the conclusion that computers have some type of "common sense exclusion field" surrounding them. Anyone entering this field is rendered incapable of making rational decisions. Otherwise intelligent people will do the stupidest things to and with their compters. I don't think there's much of an excuse for normal adults, who've had years to amass experience and common sense to do some of the stupid things I've seen. (CD-ROMs in 5.25" drives, 5.25" floppys in the space between devices, and how hard can it be to plug a power cord into the only socket it fits into on the back of the machine??) Having said that, I will usually do my best to help those who ask 'dumb' questions before they do something stupid. (they at least know what they don't know) It's those that mess up their computers, then call and want me to fix it, or those that repeatedly do the same thing after I've told them not to, that get laughed at afterwards.
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If you consider that the normal practice for a software company is to make money by selling what they write, GPLing their code could put a large dent in their revenues. Even if they rewrite it from scratch, they have to pay their developers for the time it takes to do it. The main thing is not letting them get away with something like "ok, we'll fix it, but we'll keep selling this until we do"
#!/bin/bash
# IP of site that's obscene
$OBSCENE_SITE=""
# IP of child porn site
$CP_SITE=""
# IP of site that's harmful to minors
$MINOR_SITE=""
$ROUTE="/sbin/route"
$ROUTE add -host $OBSCENE_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
$ROUTE add -host $CP_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
$ROUTE add -host $MINOR_SITE netmask 255.255.255.255 reject
So just tweak it to get by... Besides, there isn't ANYTHING out there that 'effectively blocks most objectionable content.' Or even comes close.
Just use Andrew's Law: "There is always a loophole."
So, you have to block stuff that's 'obscene', 'child porn' or 'harmful to minors'... I work as a network admin at a school (whose tech committe does NOT want censorware), and from what it sounds like, I can bash out a quick proxy that blocks just one site of each category and slap it on the firewall... sounds like that would meet the requirements! =)
Having been fairly closely involved with elections for some time now, I can tell you that almost every situation you've described is a federal crime.
-There can be no campagning or 'electioneering' withing 100' of the polling place. (look around next time you go vote, there should be distance markers 100' from the door)
-Your boss could end up in federal prison
-and you're *already* required to vote at a specific polling place, anyway
-the harrassers can't be any closer than 100', so it's kind of hard to see who's voting for what (and regardless, if you're being harrassed, i'm sure there's some other federal law you can slap them with)
I don't know about everyone else (and IANAL), but this REEKS of a class-action suit. I don't use the program, but if I did, I certaintly wouldn't give them the right to do anything 'on my behalf'. Unless, of course, it's buried somewhere in the EULA... Better watch that bank account, too.
cost only about $200 more, and it's a dual celeron 450, plays MP3s, etc, AND runs a Q3 server, UOX3 server, http server, mail server, file server, and 100Mbit router/firewall for my roommate and I...
Why spend $600 on something that can only play music??
Start a campaign to have EVERYONE put 'deCSS' in the meta tags of all html docs... there'd be so many false hits, the MPAA'd HAVE to read every page...
The Apache Software Foundation, Microsoft, Netscape, Lotus, and many other http and ftp server software developers are being sued for making it possible to distribute copyrighted materiel...
argh...
Here's what I would do if i was afraid of someone getting at my deleted stuff.
1. Delete stuff
2. Buy new hard drive
3. Use a disk image utility that only copies existing files to image to the new disk.
4. Destroy old disk.
-Pissed off company pays off politician
-Politician whispers to Admiral
-Submarine finds 'annoying free speech ship'
-Headlines next day: Floating Server Farm Sinks After Mysterious Explosion!
I agree that no one feature or 'thing' will make Linux the dominant OS. But one other thing to think about: Software is quickly getting more complex (and in MS's case, much larger), and the development times must suffer accordingly. On the other hand, new hardware is appearing faster (or so it seems). The question is, will any single company be able to keep up with getting their software onto new platforms quickly and reliably? MS is having problems, and they have mind-boggling amounts of resources to throw at it. Linux, on the other hand, gets ported quickly, and almost by habit to new platforms. IMO, the Open Source development model itself will eventually make Linux (etc), a more dominant OS, simply because it's far more responsive. Maybe that's the 'one thing'.
This is how we managed to get the powers-that-be to accept Linux: We (the desktop support peons) had been saying how great it was for months, and running a few boxes of our own. Mostly we just got chuckled at behind our backs. Then we had a problem with a misson-critical box. The two alternatives were, add the functionality to another unix box, which would have required patching the OS, or put it on an NT server (service pack headaches). Oh, and there was only 15-20 mins till the #!))! hit the fan. In that 15 min, we set up (from bare metal) a linux box that provided the required functionality, and the chuckles stopped. Now our entire internet DMZ runs on linux, in addition to a few other misc. servers.
Here's an interesting scenario that just occurred to me: I steal a very rare item from you in the game. I then turn around and sell this on e-bay for $1500. Now, how is this different from stealing a $1500 piece of jewelry from you IRL? Could someone possibly turn you in to the authorities for this? After all you essentially just acknowledged (by accepting the money) that you took something worth $1500 from them. If you just steal and sell in game, it would be logical that the only consequences would be in game, but when you start involving RL, then what? Any lawyers want to comment?
I think it would be cool to have a 3D game engine that's open source, but allows people to use it for commercial products, provided they release any modified engine code. (not necessarily the whole game/whatever) That way, companies could cut out the engine dev time, and just start with the latest stable engine release. We'd probably all be better off, since we'd have a standard (probably cross-platform) engine, that hasn't been rushed to market full of bugs.
1. Mail check for money you *would* have spent on the movie to EFF or similar organization.
2. Drive to the library instead of the theatre, and read to your hearts content!
See also: Computer Stupidities
As for humor in general, almost all jokes are at someone's expense, and we all tell them, so we shouldn't be complaining...just laughing.