:BEGIN HUMOR:
Well, finally OpenOffice has become a viable Office Suite, having finally added the most notable features of Office, namely script exploit capabilities. It's about time... now there is nothing keeping people from switching to OO!!!
:END HUMOR:
Actually the radio will be telling people who to like. It will be people they can afford (most likely free people in many cases). Sounds like a win for me if the RIAA gets what they want.
Not necessarily... keep in mind SoundExchange and Internet Radio... I'm sure the RIAA has plans to enforce this royalty scheme for all broadcast music, whether from a member label or not. If so, this will mean nothing for independent labels and bands - and will mean (1) the RIAA will have control over all content played on the airwaves as well as (2) reap the profits from royalties of such.
Keep in mind, while the direction I think they are going in is pure speculation, nothing else seems to make sense... after all ASCAP and BMI are already collecting royalties on behalf of the artists for music played on the airwaves and elsewhere - so the RIAA's efforts, as stated, make no sense at all, without there being some other plans and motivating factors behind them (like assuming control of all royalty payments for music played and control for all music played using such a system; as I speculate). It would though leverage control over who gets played, putting such a thing entirely in the RIAA's control - making paid airtime even more prevalent (since the RIAA could now "reimburse" stations for playing their member's selected content to offset the new royalty scheme).
And, with a congress that currently seems to be willing to bend over backwards to change the law so the RIAA can break it, change the law so the RIAA benefits and change the law so the RIAA gains more control over everything musical; this seems like one more step in their plans for total domination of any music played or performed anywhere... slowly musicians on any label are losing the right to decide how their music is played, to whom, when and how they receive payment for said music.
My only question is what is next? At this rate, we wont even be able to sing in the shower without having to pay the RIAA royalties (though for some of us, perhaps me included, that isnt necessarily a bad thing;-) )
That's weird... Syncing with OS/2 isnt that difficult... with apps from IBM and others that allow it - assuming you dont want to just use the Palm Desktop software in a virtual VPC session (though that requires a Serial connection instead of USB - unlike the other solutions available).
I see... and how many of them have RFID chips in them (that have a tendency to be proven very insecure, allowing very easy identity theft - much less the tracking and monitoring implications), as well as a barcode that is not encrypted that any club, bar, bank, store that asks for ID with a credit card/check purchase can swipe to gain more information on you than they are entitled to? Just wondering. A national ID is no worse than a (our) national passport. It is the implementation of the additional features of the planned US National ID that most people are against. How many of the countries you have listed or referenced in your link have run into those problems?
Raymond did not answer the question, he made a statement that may or may not be unrelated.
"Is it raining out?"
"Dont you see my umbrella?"
And what does that mean? Nothing other than I brought my umbrella with me to work for reasons I havent stated... nor have I stated it was raining.
Raymond's marketing doublespeak doesnt say much of anything other than he made a mistake (with some explanation of the mistake) and that he is upset that people complain that a patch takes too long and that people complain that not enough QA is done. Nothing more and nothing less.
Ya know, you are right, you are an arrogant ass, or whatever you admitted to be - and pretty good at it, as you also admitted... but right as rain as well!!!:-)
Gotta add you to my friends list - for both reasons!!!;-)
Oh - but here's something to add to your response... if MS knew which printer driver for which outdated printer (as they seem to be indicating they do), then why not use that driver for the test? Of course, I too agree with you and think especially with the number of responses about this fix causing issues, that printer driver was far from the only culprit - or may not even have been the culprit for the bug that surfaced in the fix...
Well, I'm content with people here reading 1/4 of the article and posting dribble - especially since your responses point out their shortcomings far better than I could!
That's what happened at CompUSA... all the upper management we liked and respected (who seemed to care about the "grunts") all upped and left... by the time us on the front lines knew what happened and was happening, it was too late - though some of the uppers did try giving us hints...
Exactly the problem - not too much of an issue since I can use JFS which supports different sector sizes, but HPFS (and HPFS386) dont frag, while JFS does. And HPFS386 is faster than JFS in my experiences.
Though I am curious if the file systems can still do logical sector sizes of 512bytes...
Multi-homed web server, tons of image scans running about 500K a piece, lotsa html for the static sites, some scripts and templates for the script driven sites, my music of course (gotta have music), numerous snapshot backups that I have been too lazy to compress into an archive, multiple running and testing versions of some of our sites (and all the related scans, other images, templates, scripts, etc) all in separate directory trees so we ensure that one code version or one script/program revision is isolated from the other scripts/programs and data.
I could zip a lot of the older directory trees and drop that number down to a hundred thousand or so, but I havent felt like bothering...
(what I was trying to point out was) even if it was 90,000 the difference in wasted space is still significant. A factor of 8 - for what people here seem to think is questionable reliability improvements.
Um, go read my post again where (1) I indicate my knowledge of the default block size and the ability to change it, and (2) indicate that on my eComStation servers, the default (and only) block size is 512 bytes.
Yes, but you are forgetting three factors...
1 - Any file that doesnt end on a block size boundary (ie: multiples of 4096) will waste space (ie: a 6144 byte file - which is larger than the block size - wastes 2048 bytes).
2 - What files nowadays are smaller than 4K? (keep in mind the quantity of files that fit that criteria and read #3)
3 - The quantity of files is what exasperates the situation. (Quantity x free space at end of last block).
NTFS does nothing to alleviate this.
So, I guess my post wasnt a troll - especially since I was using NTFS as an example only (and indicated that users could and some do adjust the block size of a partition to prevent space waste). And I would also guess that you either didnt really read my post (or you would have seen that), and/or are a troll yourself, and/or just have no idea of what you are talking about and think spouting off one (totally irrelevant) fact will make it sound like you know something. Hopefully it's the first one, cause by something as simple and innocent as not enough coffee... but this is/. so maybe I should know better...
Only on my gaming machine... my servers are all eComStation, and one or two will become some variant of Linux soon. Problem I will run into is that HPFS (eComStation) has a fixed block size of 512 bytes.
Hmmmm, obviously you never stopped to do the math. Lets say I have 900,000 files (I have partitions with more actually). That is an average of 1,843,200,000 bytes wasted using a 4K block size. Compare that to a 512 byte block size with 230,400,000 bytes wasted.
Please explain to me how:
1.8GB
is not much different than
230MB
Or are you claiming that the file allocation table on a 512byte sector drive would be over a gig and a half? Mine is using a whopping 80MB for file tables and extended attributes and reverse link information.
Keep in mind that some filesystems such as HPFS (and I am sure others) rarely/barely fragment, which decreases the size of the file allocation table considerably. Perhaps you are thinking of an NTFS file system world anyway - but in those cases, the fs' default block size is 4K anyway, so this is still moot except for those who change that block size, or those who use other file systems that are more efficient.
Well, Vista I only use at work (because I have to), and OS/2 is still in active development under the name eComStation, and still has a better threading model than Linux (which from what I understand is being addressed by the Linux community, so that may change). Also, I prefer the WorkPlace Shell to any other GUI I have used (though OSX comes close) - I like being able to extend the GUI in an infinite number of ways with very small and simple coding, and I like the fact that it is object oriented unlike the Win GUI, and moreso than the various Linux GUIs I have played with. In addition, the servers I run fly on OS/2 & eComStation, but only perform very very well on Linux (far better than any variant of Windows, but nonetheless, Warp still outperforms Linux on the same hardware for the type of serving I do). Linux will hopefully catch up in that respect soon - especially with the changes planned in the threading model - but by then, yet another release of OS/2 (eComStation) will come out and that may be a moot point.
Hopefully it will... but as I put my entire CD collection onto my machine, that will only alleviate MS's part in the wasted space issue...:-(
Much of the other issues a larger sector size alleviate would also be addressed if MS would revise NTFS so it wouldnt fragment. They know how, as they have access to the HPFS internals (HPFS rarely exceeds 1 or 2% fragmentation). That is something else I dont understand... they have the answers to many complaints about Windows (that being only one of them) and do nothing about it. I guess it's a matter of economics (like the ability to sell "better"/"full function" defrag tools to supplement/replace the ones that come in Windows...
It also means more wasted space on a Windows machine where the user wants a block size of say... 512bytes, or OS/2 and eComStation's HPFS that only uses 512bytes to prevent space waste. It doesnt seem like much, but it does add up if you have a lot of files (pr0n, music, data, images, etc).
Jim is entirely correct in his post... There are people who prefer Windows, with experience on other OS's to compare it to. And though I only have one Windows machine (to play games on and nothing more), I cant blame them. For some people, the ability to "just get my work/game playing done" is all they want... and though I truly dislike Windows for a number of reasons, Windows has the rest of the computer world beat in that game. While Linux is a well maturing, stable, wonderful OS, and MacOSX is a beautiful OS that I truly love, they lack the ability to play the "latest and greatest" games or the newest copy of Office and other software, simply because they arent written for it (which the average end user doesnt care about or want to know about). They just want a machine that does what they want it to - therein lies Windows' appeal.
While downloading a copy of OpenOffice, having a dedicated WinGame machine and doing the rest of my work on eComStation, Linux or MacOSX is fine for me, most users seem to want the "comfort" and "piece of mind" of being able to buy a program from your local "insert computer store name here" - as well as the ability to have one machine to rule them all. I use whatever OS/machine is most suitable to the task [thus for me for thread intensive high demand serving, I use eComStation and am playing with Linux which is slowly catching up; for games it is WindowsXP; for various other things it is MacOSX when I get the chance to use a Mac (at work or elsewhere - havent ponied up for one of my own yet)].
I like the ability of having a machine suited to a task [perhaps because I understand that some tasks are far better suited to certain OSs and I do far more computing tasks than the average (non/.) computer user]... it's kinda like cars... I'd love to have a 40mpg+ super hybrid for the long trips to and from work, a motorcycle for those beautiful days, a muscle car for those adventurous nights, a sports car for those short quick showy drives (not that I can afford or own all of those:-) ).... most people will be happy though with one decent car where the mpg tradeoff is offset by other features (like 8 person seating in that mini-van for the big family, etc).
But add to that, the plethora of people for whom Windows is the best OS due solely to the lack of exposure, or the knowledge of the existence of any other OS... (at work) I still meet a ton of people who dont even truly have a concept of what an OS is and think Windows XP is part of the computer thanks to MS's marketing.
-I've had people even ask me if Vista will run Windows XP because they "know" that the Internet is part of XP (whatever XP is) and XP is part of the computer.
-I've had people who think that a Mac must be XP as well since it is a computer, runs, and/or has Internet access.
-I've had people who confuse Word with XP and vice-versa.
-These are also the same people who think that the "Internet Explorer" icon is the Internet - or think the IE icon is the sum total of the entire Internet.
Many of these are the same people who think their 40lb computer, case, components is a hard drive (that XP is a part of). So for many XP is the best OS there is, simply because, like a VCR, they dont realize there is underlying code that is not the hardware that makes it "work"
Jim is also entirely right in saying that other people's opinions are just as valid (based off their needs or desires as I indicated - as well as probably off a bunch of other reasons).
For me Windows is suffering - especially when each new release is touted to be faster (which I take to mean on the same hardware) and turns out to be slower and need many fixes and a few CPU/MB lifecycle upgrades before it is decent. But then again that is because I compare it to my more favored OSs like Linux and eComStation which have had a minimal increase in hardware requirements over the decades. I love the fact that
Wrong - the "expert" was expected to indicate that he did/did not find evidence of file sharing/distribution - and I would expect the methodology or proof of either to be documented if I were that "expert" - who in their right mind on the other side of the court from the RIAA wouldnt ask "And you came to that conclusion how? Prove it. You just made a statement, so prove it." I know I would. Jacobson's answer of "gee I didnt think to document it", "gee I dont understand", etc to me did/would look ridiculous.
Keep in mind, IANAL - and you dont seem to have fully read/understood the deposition of Jacobson or what it was about.:-)
IANAL, but have been following this, and here is my interpretation. Mr. Beckerman can feel free to correct me if I am wrong and/or expound on this if there are points I have missed.
Because Mr. Beckerman and Co have done far more through their actions than what you suggest. While your suggestion may get Ms Lindor off, their method has set precedants and/or invalidated numerous of the methods and sources of information that the RIAA heavily rely upon to make their cases. Thus, in effect, the RIAA must work a lot harder, use different methods, find different sources (or be able to prove that Media Sentry's data is reliable through something more than "It looks good to me") and totally change their method of sustaining suit (and perhaps change their method of bringing suit) - otherwise, they'll be "laughed" out of court.
Either way, they wont be able to proceed in future suits of this type without being ripped apart, and they will have to come up with different methods and sources of information to proceed on other cases - and to prevent being ripped a new one again, they will have to have real expert witnesses and real supporting information to sustain the validity of their "evidence" and prove it's relationship to the case and the person(s) they are suing.
Mr. Beckerman and Co went for the bases loaded grand slam instead of the empty base single - and every person in the future who is wrongfully accused by the RIAA (and possibly those with suits ongoing now) will benefit from his hard work and the contributions of the Groklaw, Slashdot and other internet communities.
OK, perhaps not "a lot" especially in comparison to other game companies... but with (A) all their sequels, add-ons, expansions, etc... and (B) the possibility of a game that isnt Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo branded, what I was trying to point out was that this upcoming announcement could be something "entirely new" or the next Warcraft/Diablo version/add-on/etc.
So that's a yes on a StarCraft 2, eventually, and a yes to a product announcement next month. The only question now is are they one in the same.
Which means the guy who wrote the article (not Blizzard) is questioning/hoping the announcement is one and the same as a new StarCraft being made.
Yeah, it is all a matter of semantics... and only time will tell. If Blizzard has nothing in their upcoming pipeline (except StarCraft 2) then I could see the reason for the ambiguity - it does make it seem like they may have a lot more to announce (depending on how you - or I - read it). I for one am hoping it's a StarCraft 2 announcement, but the statement made by Blizzard doesnt necessarily say that. Or even imply it.
Slashdot Mirror
:BEGIN HUMOR:
Well, finally OpenOffice has become a viable Office Suite, having finally added the most notable features of Office, namely script exploit capabilities. It's about time... now there is nothing keeping people from switching to OO!!!
:END HUMOR:
Not necessarily... keep in mind SoundExchange and Internet Radio... I'm sure the RIAA has plans to enforce this royalty scheme for all broadcast music, whether from a member label or not. If so, this will mean nothing for independent labels and bands - and will mean (1) the RIAA will have control over all content played on the airwaves as well as (2) reap the profits from royalties of such.
Keep in mind, while the direction I think they are going in is pure speculation, nothing else seems to make sense... after all ASCAP and BMI are already collecting royalties on behalf of the artists for music played on the airwaves and elsewhere - so the RIAA's efforts, as stated, make no sense at all, without there being some other plans and motivating factors behind them (like assuming control of all royalty payments for music played and control for all music played using such a system; as I speculate). It would though leverage control over who gets played, putting such a thing entirely in the RIAA's control - making paid airtime even more prevalent (since the RIAA could now "reimburse" stations for playing their member's selected content to offset the new royalty scheme).
And, with a congress that currently seems to be willing to bend over backwards to change the law so the RIAA can break it, change the law so the RIAA benefits and change the law so the RIAA gains more control over everything musical; this seems like one more step in their plans for total domination of any music played or performed anywhere... slowly musicians on any label are losing the right to decide how their music is played, to whom, when and how they receive payment for said music.
My only question is what is next? At this rate, we wont even be able to sing in the shower without having to pay the RIAA royalties (though for some of us, perhaps me included, that isnt necessarily a bad thing ;-) )
-Robert
That's weird... Syncing with OS/2 isnt that difficult... with apps from IBM and others that allow it - assuming you dont want to just use the Palm Desktop software in a virtual VPC session (though that requires a Serial connection instead of USB - unlike the other solutions available).
I see... and how many of them have RFID chips in them (that have a tendency to be proven very insecure, allowing very easy identity theft - much less the tracking and monitoring implications), as well as a barcode that is not encrypted that any club, bar, bank, store that asks for ID with a credit card/check purchase can swipe to gain more information on you than they are entitled to? Just wondering. A national ID is no worse than a (our) national passport. It is the implementation of the additional features of the planned US National ID that most people are against. How many of the countries you have listed or referenced in your link have run into those problems?
Raymond did not answer the question, he made a statement that may or may not be unrelated.
"Is it raining out?"
"Dont you see my umbrella?"
And what does that mean? Nothing other than I brought my umbrella with me to work for reasons I havent stated... nor have I stated it was raining.
Raymond's marketing doublespeak doesnt say much of anything other than he made a mistake (with some explanation of the mistake) and that he is upset that people complain that a patch takes too long and that people complain that not enough QA is done. Nothing more and nothing less.
Ya know, you are right, you are an arrogant ass, or whatever you admitted to be - and pretty good at it, as you also admitted... but right as rain as well!!! :-)
Gotta add you to my friends list - for both reasons!!! ;-)
Oh - but here's something to add to your response... if MS knew which printer driver for which outdated printer (as they seem to be indicating they do), then why not use that driver for the test? Of course, I too agree with you and think especially with the number of responses about this fix causing issues, that printer driver was far from the only culprit - or may not even have been the culprit for the bug that surfaced in the fix...
Well, I'm content with people here reading 1/4 of the article and posting dribble - especially since your responses point out their shortcomings far better than I could!
:-)
That's what happened at CompUSA... all the upper management we liked and respected (who seemed to care about the "grunts") all upped and left... by the time us on the front lines knew what happened and was happening, it was too late - though some of the uppers did try giving us hints...
Excellent points and thanks for the reply!
:-)
-Rob
Exactly the problem - not too much of an issue since I can use JFS which supports different sector sizes, but HPFS (and HPFS386) dont frag, while JFS does. And HPFS386 is faster than JFS in my experiences.
Though I am curious if the file systems can still do logical sector sizes of 512bytes...
Multi-homed web server, tons of image scans running about 500K a piece, lotsa html for the static sites, some scripts and templates for the script driven sites, my music of course (gotta have music), numerous snapshot backups that I have been too lazy to compress into an archive, multiple running and testing versions of some of our sites (and all the related scans, other images, templates, scripts, etc) all in separate directory trees so we ensure that one code version or one script/program revision is isolated from the other scripts/programs and data.
I could zip a lot of the older directory trees and drop that number down to a hundred thousand or so, but I havent felt like bothering...
(what I was trying to point out was) even if it was 90,000 the difference in wasted space is still significant. A factor of 8 - for what people here seem to think is questionable reliability improvements.
Um, go read my post again where (1) I indicate my knowledge of the default block size and the ability to change it, and (2) indicate that on my eComStation servers, the default (and only) block size is 512 bytes.
Sorry if my post confused you...
Yes, but you are forgetting three factors...
1 - Any file that doesnt end on a block size boundary (ie: multiples of 4096) will waste space (ie: a 6144 byte file - which is larger than the block size - wastes 2048 bytes).
2 - What files nowadays are smaller than 4K? (keep in mind the quantity of files that fit that criteria and read #3)
3 - The quantity of files is what exasperates the situation. (Quantity x free space at end of last block).
NTFS does nothing to alleviate this.
So, I guess my post wasnt a troll - especially since I was using NTFS as an example only (and indicated that users could and some do adjust the block size of a partition to prevent space waste). And I would also guess that you either didnt really read my post (or you would have seen that), and/or are a troll yourself, and/or just have no idea of what you are talking about and think spouting off one (totally irrelevant) fact will make it sound like you know something. Hopefully it's the first one, cause by something as simple and innocent as not enough coffee... but this is /. so maybe I should know better...
Better luck next time...
:-)
Only on my gaming machine... my servers are all eComStation, and one or two will become some variant of Linux soon. Problem I will run into is that HPFS (eComStation) has a fixed block size of 512 bytes.
Hmmmm, obviously you never stopped to do the math. Lets say I have 900,000 files (I have partitions with more actually). That is an average of 1,843,200,000 bytes wasted using a 4K block size. Compare that to a 512 byte block size with 230,400,000 bytes wasted.
Please explain to me how:
1.8GB
is not much different than
230MB
Or are you claiming that the file allocation table on a 512byte sector drive would be over a gig and a half? Mine is using a whopping 80MB for file tables and extended attributes and reverse link information.
Keep in mind that some filesystems such as HPFS (and I am sure others) rarely/barely fragment, which decreases the size of the file allocation table considerably. Perhaps you are thinking of an NTFS file system world anyway - but in those cases, the fs' default block size is 4K anyway, so this is still moot except for those who change that block size, or those who use other file systems that are more efficient.
Well, Vista I only use at work (because I have to), and OS/2 is still in active development under the name eComStation, and still has a better threading model than Linux (which from what I understand is being addressed by the Linux community, so that may change). Also, I prefer the WorkPlace Shell to any other GUI I have used (though OSX comes close) - I like being able to extend the GUI in an infinite number of ways with very small and simple coding, and I like the fact that it is object oriented unlike the Win GUI, and moreso than the various Linux GUIs I have played with. In addition, the servers I run fly on OS/2 & eComStation, but only perform very very well on Linux (far better than any variant of Windows, but nonetheless, Warp still outperforms Linux on the same hardware for the type of serving I do). Linux will hopefully catch up in that respect soon - especially with the changes planned in the threading model - but by then, yet another release of OS/2 (eComStation) will come out and that may be a moot point.
Hopefully it will... but as I put my entire CD collection onto my machine, that will only alleviate MS's part in the wasted space issue... :-(
Much of the other issues a larger sector size alleviate would also be addressed if MS would revise NTFS so it wouldnt fragment. They know how, as they have access to the HPFS internals (HPFS rarely exceeds 1 or 2% fragmentation). That is something else I dont understand... they have the answers to many complaints about Windows (that being only one of them) and do nothing about it. I guess it's a matter of economics (like the ability to sell "better"/"full function" defrag tools to supplement/replace the ones that come in Windows...
It also means more wasted space on a Windows machine where the user wants a block size of say... 512bytes, or OS/2 and eComStation's HPFS that only uses 512bytes to prevent space waste. It doesnt seem like much, but it does add up if you have a lot of files (pr0n, music, data, images, etc).
No prob :-)
Definitely not an anything zealot (except coffee perhaps)... Each OS has it's place, it's fan/user base (same thing sometimes), and it's purpose...
Gee, so much for humor.....
Well, that's because MS wants to finally be first to market with something - and this is all they have that might fit that category... :-)
Jim is entirely correct in his post... There are people who prefer Windows, with experience on other OS's to compare it to. And though I only have one Windows machine (to play games on and nothing more), I cant blame them. For some people, the ability to "just get my work/game playing done" is all they want... and though I truly dislike Windows for a number of reasons, Windows has the rest of the computer world beat in that game. While Linux is a well maturing, stable, wonderful OS, and MacOSX is a beautiful OS that I truly love, they lack the ability to play the "latest and greatest" games or the newest copy of Office and other software, simply because they arent written for it (which the average end user doesnt care about or want to know about). They just want a machine that does what they want it to - therein lies Windows' appeal.
While downloading a copy of OpenOffice, having a dedicated WinGame machine and doing the rest of my work on eComStation, Linux or MacOSX is fine for me, most users seem to want the "comfort" and "piece of mind" of being able to buy a program from your local "insert computer store name here" - as well as the ability to have one machine to rule them all. I use whatever OS/machine is most suitable to the task [thus for me for thread intensive high demand serving, I use eComStation and am playing with Linux which is slowly catching up; for games it is WindowsXP; for various other things it is MacOSX when I get the chance to use a Mac (at work or elsewhere - havent ponied up for one of my own yet)].
I like the ability of having a machine suited to a task [perhaps because I understand that some tasks are far better suited to certain OSs and I do far more computing tasks than the average (non /.) computer user]... it's kinda like cars... I'd love to have a 40mpg+ super hybrid for the long trips to and from work, a motorcycle for those beautiful days, a muscle car for those adventurous nights, a sports car for those short quick showy drives (not that I can afford or own all of those :-) ).... most people will be happy though with one decent car where the mpg tradeoff is offset by other features (like 8 person seating in that mini-van for the big family, etc).
But add to that, the plethora of people for whom Windows is the best OS due solely to the lack of exposure, or the knowledge of the existence of any other OS... (at work) I still meet a ton of people who dont even truly have a concept of what an OS is and think Windows XP is part of the computer thanks to MS's marketing.
-I've had people even ask me if Vista will run Windows XP because they "know" that the Internet is part of XP (whatever XP is) and XP is part of the computer.
-I've had people who think that a Mac must be XP as well since it is a computer, runs, and/or has Internet access.
-I've had people who confuse Word with XP and vice-versa.
-These are also the same people who think that the "Internet Explorer" icon is the Internet - or think the IE icon is the sum total of the entire Internet.
Many of these are the same people who think their 40lb computer, case, components is a hard drive (that XP is a part of). So for many XP is the best OS there is, simply because, like a VCR, they dont realize there is underlying code that is not the hardware that makes it "work"
Jim is also entirely right in saying that other people's opinions are just as valid (based off their needs or desires as I indicated - as well as probably off a bunch of other reasons).
For me Windows is suffering - especially when each new release is touted to be faster (which I take to mean on the same hardware) and turns out to be slower and need many fixes and a few CPU/MB lifecycle upgrades before it is decent. But then again that is because I compare it to my more favored OSs like Linux and eComStation which have had a minimal increase in hardware requirements over the decades. I love the fact that
Wrong - the "expert" was expected to indicate that he did/did not find evidence of file sharing/distribution - and I would expect the methodology or proof of either to be documented if I were that "expert" - who in their right mind on the other side of the court from the RIAA wouldnt ask "And you came to that conclusion how? Prove it. You just made a statement, so prove it." I know I would. Jacobson's answer of "gee I didnt think to document it", "gee I dont understand", etc to me did/would look ridiculous.
Keep in mind, IANAL - and you dont seem to have fully read/understood the deposition of Jacobson or what it was about. :-)
IANAL, but have been following this, and here is my interpretation. Mr. Beckerman can feel free to correct me if I am wrong and/or expound on this if there are points I have missed.
Because Mr. Beckerman and Co have done far more through their actions than what you suggest. While your suggestion may get Ms Lindor off, their method has set precedants and/or invalidated numerous of the methods and sources of information that the RIAA heavily rely upon to make their cases. Thus, in effect, the RIAA must work a lot harder, use different methods, find different sources (or be able to prove that Media Sentry's data is reliable through something more than "It looks good to me") and totally change their method of sustaining suit (and perhaps change their method of bringing suit) - otherwise, they'll be "laughed" out of court.
Either way, they wont be able to proceed in future suits of this type without being ripped apart, and they will have to come up with different methods and sources of information to proceed on other cases - and to prevent being ripped a new one again, they will have to have real expert witnesses and real supporting information to sustain the validity of their "evidence" and prove it's relationship to the case and the person(s) they are suing.
Mr. Beckerman and Co went for the bases loaded grand slam instead of the empty base single - and every person in the future who is wrongfully accused by the RIAA (and possibly those with suits ongoing now) will benefit from his hard work and the contributions of the Groklaw, Slashdot and other internet communities.
OK, perhaps not "a lot" especially in comparison to other game companies... but with (A) all their sequels, add-ons, expansions, etc... and (B) the possibility of a game that isnt Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo branded, what I was trying to point out was that this upcoming announcement could be something "entirely new" or the next Warcraft/Diablo version/add-on/etc.
From the article:
So that's a yes on a StarCraft 2, eventually, and a yes to a product announcement next month. The only question now is are they one in the same.
Which means the guy who wrote the article (not Blizzard) is questioning/hoping the announcement is one and the same as a new StarCraft being made.
Yeah, it is all a matter of semantics... and only time will tell. If Blizzard has nothing in their upcoming pipeline (except StarCraft 2) then I could see the reason for the ambiguity - it does make it seem like they may have a lot more to announce (depending on how you - or I - read it). I for one am hoping it's a StarCraft 2 announcement, but the statement made by Blizzard doesnt necessarily say that. Or even imply it.