Ok, but this assumes that the malware has access to a complete database of all CMOS maps for all motherboards. And that the ability to access the CMOS is built into the live CD (should be reasonably easy not to compile it in at all! No compiler, no real scripting, should make it hard for malware to get at the CMOS). So, in theory, the machine is compromisable if someone can get the user to run a piece of software that runs to correctly identify the CMOS map, gets permissions to install a kernel module and then gets the correct software to enable it to write the CMOS bit..
Hmm.. The fact a commercial company released a product says they're at least reasonably serious about it. They did, after all, pay developers to put it out there..
As to how it can cause OSS harm.. Where on earth did you get that from? Nero producing a product has nothing to do with hardware companies making proprietary changes. They've always been able to do that, and always have. Can you say "Winmodem" or "Windows Printer"? Both designed with proprietary interfaces which Linux can't use. The former I stayed well away from, the latter, well, I run a Konica Minolta magicolour 2300W. Works just fine from my Linux boxes.
Now, if someone produced hardware that linux just couldn't talk to, then Nero would be stuffed, as it wouldn't be able to use the api to talk to the hardware anyway, at least until a driver writer finds a way to talk to the hardware properly again.
It may just have skipped past your attention, but the whole 'trusted computing' initiative is heading to put just those copy controls in every device. Now, if Nero has the bits built in there to cope with it from the moment it's released, and the rest of the open tools lag, at least there's some product out there that can handle the slack until Open works it out, and gets back in the game. If it doesn't, no big deal. People use what they feel like.
I think about twelve years back, you'd have been one of those voices saying "Linux. That gives us nothing new. It's just another UNIX alike. What do we need that for? It'll only hamper the BSDs and not provide us with anything worthwhile in return!".
A product is a product. I'm glad Nero are in the market. They're offering something to compliment their windows product, for those people that may be wanting to move from Windows to Linux, and just want something they already know and are familiar with.
Anything that makes the transition easier is a great thing.
The great thing about OSS is it's a really open market. You can charge what you want for your product (including free). Nero want money for you to be able to have their product (you have to have the retail version, or buy one to get it). That's fine! If you don't want it, don't get it. Nobody uses it, and it'll go away (just like MusicMatch Jukebox for Linux did way back when). But, it's there. And there are some more developers who've been exposed to Linux. And as Ballmer is always chanting, it's all about "Developers, developers, developers".
The Military for having to Beta test MS' latest patches (they'll be the one whose systems crash most by having patches applied that haven't met the real world before), or Commerce, who suddenly realise that they're going to be getting cracked hard, by something MS knows about, has a fix, and just can't be bothered to give them a cure for..
Not being a lawyer, I doubt my familiarity is anywhere in the same league as yours. I've just wrapped up my small sole trader company (system architecture & bespoke app development for small to medium companies) to work full time. From the business side of it, Patents on Software scare the socks off me. Suddenly, writing some trivial code to perform a simple task becomes spec, design, huge patent search, development, maintenance.
Still, glad that you found the gist of what I wanted to convey at least reasonable, and thanks for politely pointing out the places where I was dead wrong.:)
Whereas at the moment, large companies with money can churn out patent applications that have no real basis at will. These serve to clog up the Patent Office to such an extent that the patent examiners, not having time to check in detail for prior art (the possibility pool is simply becoming far too large for most of the applications that may be covered), do a cursory check, and pass the patent, relying on the hope that if Prior art is then discovered, the courts will overturn the Patent, doing their job for them.
However, small developers don't have either the money to make many patent applications (raising the bar on prospective patents available to them Vs the big companies) or to fight court costs when they get slammed with a lawsuit for a very tenuous connection from an IP Holding Company in the litigation business, or from one of the big players that worries they may have a good idea going there.
For a product with an obsolescence cycle of about 4 years (maybe 5 at the outside), a patent length of 25 years is simply ludicrous. Putting patents into this environment will only feed the lawyers, and stifle real innovation.
Cheap/free patents for small companies means that new ideas for software come along and get patented by the developer (hey it's free), and a product gets built. If it's a good one, MS get to buy them out for a snip.
If the patent is too expensive for the new idea (for a small company/solo developer), then to get the idea out, and get recognition, the route may well be through Open Source. In which case, the whole world gets to use it unencumbered. And if it's a real killer app/idea, then MS don't have chance to get the monopoly on it (read, it's now a gain for the open source movement).
So, free patenting is a good thing for MS to keep real new ideas in their fold.
However, they may want to defang software patents themselves, as they're not yet sure how many other "IP Holding Companies" exist out there with patents that could feasibly screw MS over, and making no products of their own, can't be leaned on by MS' own portfolio.
I get the impression they've come to realise that free (or very cheap) patents that last only a couple of years aren't a bad thing. Expensive patents that last ten times the obsolescence cycle of a product are a good way to get scorched earth campaigns going in the tech field (possibly to the extent so many IP holding companies with no product to sell own so much of the patent landscape, it's not even feasible to create a non-obsolete product from the late 1970s).
I think it's more to do with the now terrible working hours, and vicious conditions applied to the tech sector. Women seem to be a lot more sensible about taking that kind of crap from an employer than guys (who still feel driven to be "Primary breadwinner", and as such are more reluctant to leave a job and walk into uncertainty). From being a contractor across a LOT of companies in my time, and various full time roles, I've always found that the guys on the job have always (well, nearly always) just got on with the job, and treated the women the same as anyone else. If you want to pick up on the guys that didn't deal too well with women being around, I'd like to note that I've been some places where the guys have been no problem at all, and one or more of the female workers have been putting down they guys (which is seen as perfectly 'politically correct' and not a problem).
So, now the sector has been flooded by the people who were in it for a quick buck, and the money's leaving the area, so are the people who wanted the quick easy money. The ones left are the ones who are passionate about the role. Much as women are superior at human interaction languages, I've always noted that they are usually far better at interacting with humans.. And their interest tends to wane when faced with using an artificial language to communicate with a computer that has nothing much interesting to say back. I'll wholeheartedly agree with your competency though. The ones that were good that you've met are likely the ones staying in the field (they must have really enjoyed it to get really good).
Because it's still "new". Word Perfect has been round for years, and is a known name. It's trusted.
For any Government/Large corporation, you're not looking for something new with all the shiny knobs and bells. You're looking for something that's ground it's heels in a little, and has earned your trust by proving itself over the course of years.
Maybe, in time, Star Office will get a look in (I hope so). But for now, the Big Picture is either Corel, or Microsoft.
Once they get the law in, they win. All they have to do is win once. And it's pretty much over for a long long time. On the other hand, the anti-patent side has to win every time to keep it out. When the Pro-Patent side are paid for by almost bottomless pockets, and the anti-patent by ethics and common sense, in todays world, it's just a matter of time.
Actually, Economically viable does come into OSS. If you download something for free, that's part of the TCO. A bad app, or one that crashes a lot wastes time. Time has a monetary value when applied to a person (one hour work == so much money). Even stuff that's free to download then has a cost associated to use it.
This is why OSS didn't steamroller MS right out of the enterprise. People are still evaluating the cost of using it. And cost comes right back to being economically viable.
The thing I like about paying a "License fee", or as it would be termed these days "A broadcast subscription" is that it gives you the chance of having a channel that is completely devoid of any commercials. None. Imagine, being able to watch your favourite movie/TV program, live, with no adverts. Just enjoy the flow. That's the BBC.
As for it being government owned, yep, it'll bend over to the government of the day (well, mainly Labour, as if a Tory government had done a tenth what Labour has this last few years, Labour would have had them strung up and hung to dry long ago.). But it's not all about the news. I don't trust the main media news any more. The BBC has some great shows on there, and, personally, I think the license is great value overall (and yep, I do know that's just my own personal opinion on the matter). And yes, I do have Sky too..
Actually, the fairest way is by subscription. I'd happily pay, as a subscription, the price I currently pay for a TV License. If that 'Subscription' fee covers both 'Net access and TV reception, then they'd have what they wanted, without having to apply any extra taxes (and I can guarantee they'd have a REAL fight on their hands if they tried to tax every single PC out there. They can't make exceptions for businesses, as suddenly, everyone will become a sole trader business with a zero turnover.)
You can't copyright a name. You can, however, trademark it.. As far as I'm aware, Flex isn't a trademark (yet). What's worrying is that Macromedia may apply and be granted the trademark on 'Flex', and then try and force a namechange on the GNU established version..
Actually, evidence that came to light into the media at later times showed that Downing Street had, in fact, been told that the information they were basing the attack on was false.
It was known that the WMD information was at best unreliable, but it was the sole piece of information that was available that allowed Phony Tony to leap into the fray over the express wishes (70% against at the start) of the public opinion.
When multiple sources investigated the same leads as the journalist, but under greater scrutiny again, not only were the documents proved to be 'sexed up', but the meat of it was obtained by a forged document intended for other purposes.
So, the journalist was, in truth, correct. His information and assumptions were correct. Yet Downing Street now expect the BBC to reform because of this political travesty of revealing to the world what was really going on.
Actually, I do use Windows. I've been using MS software since the late 80's.. Been using UNIX since then too (and CP/M when it was in vogue back then, along with a dash of PrimeOS and VMS).
As to your allusion that they're saying 'Infringe MS copyright by taking the DLLs from MS Windows', I can only assume you're talking about all the DLLs they refer to that say 'Leave as builtin, as Windows native doesn't really run under WINE'. A couple (mainly video decompression codecs) they say run better if you have the Windows native DLL, but it'll work with the WINE builtin. I have Windows (2000, fully licenced thank you). What copyright am I infringing by using a DLL from the Win partition on my dual boot workstation? None, I think.
If you think Nintendo should sue anyone that runs a ROM on an emulator, then, methinks you also believe that people who reverse engineered the original PC BIOS should have been sued into oblivion, leaving the PC as an IBM only, expensive, underpowered and underperforming business machine, leaving it dead in the water. Maybe the Amiga would have picked up the slack to make a decent gaming machine, or perhaps even Apple but I can guarantee the IBM PC would never have been that.
In fact, without that reverse engineer and 'emulation' of the IBM BIOS, Microsoft would never have had their foothold they do now. And a lot of the apps you hold dear would never have been written in the first place, unless they were written for an Apple (or whatever machine took it's place.. Perhaps a Sinclair machine even?).
One of the Great things about the PC is the amount of things written for it (MS and Non-MS). So don't come whining because you hate all things non-microsoft. If you don't want to use something that's not the product of Emulation, go use a Mac. Just don't whine about all the apps you don't have that you had on Windows. Deal with what you have and don't gripe, or sue your way out of your predicament.
I really can only imagine that you didn't grow up in the tech industry over the last 20 years (which I've been working/studying it for the last 24). I think the bit about the ROM letting them sell Nintendos is a bit of a giveaway about you not understanding the market. The games are definitely NOT there to let them sell more Nintendo boxes.. The boxes are there to let them sell games. Games are where the real money is. If they run well under an emulator, and they can sell MORE legit copies (which they can, if they make them available), then Nintendo will be making yet MORE money. Which, for any business, is a good thing.
Emulation letting Office run would be a great thing if MS had an 'Office' company, which the proposed split of years back in the Monopoly proceedings were hinting at. They'd have jumped at the chance of widening their install base. However, MS, in the monopoly position are leveraging their strength to protect the core Windows OS (by stopping all periphery market software from running on any non-MS platform when it's perfectly capable of doing).
In fact, it's not the first time MS has persued this tactic. In Windows 3.x, they deliberately inserted a check to see if you were running a non-MS DOS. If you were, it threw loads of error messages at you. For most non-tech users, this worried them enough to ditch their non-MS dos (which was actually more efficient in many cases) for the MS version. They were hauled up in the courts over that, and found guilty. After they'd killed the effective competition, as the courts took forever to decide. Just like they steamrollered BeOS by illegal business practices.
No, I don't hate MS for competing in the days gone by with the likes of Lotus and Corel, and winning. What I do hate is what they do now to try and maintain their stranglehold on the industry. Winning by merit I can take (and Windows does indeed have it's merits, which I can appreciate for what they are), but sheer malicious practice on their part makes me more reluctant to pay them anything in future (they won't get money from me for XP, and I won't use it, due to that crap activation. I change hardware too frequently. If they carry on like that, I'll simply buy Apple later for business apps, and Linux for the emulation of what I can get for Games).
You have a weird view there.. Using DLLs you've not paid for? You just bought office.. That means you've paid for it, fair and square.. Why shouldn't you use them how you like?
Nobody's expecting MS to go to any lengths to do anything to affect running in an unsupported environment.. Which is why you'll never find people using MS Office making support calls about it. It's the WINE team's job to do that, and they're doing that pretty well..
It's nothing like getting Nintendo to do anything to get their ROMs working on a SNES emulator.. In face, more like Nintendo rewriting all their ROMs to specifically NOT work on a particular emulator. Largely a pointless task. Now, if MS wasn't a monopoly, they'd be doing what they could to get business in (hey, WINE is just getting them extra revenue, by allowing Linux users to purchase and use Windows programs). Being able to arbitrarily turn away paying customers says something about a business.
As for not getting the big deal about using MS office on *NIX.. You've not worked in an office environment where people are throwing round documents with macros in just to format headings have you? They won't work in anything BUT MS Office.. Thus the need to run it in emulation..
Now, I can understand MS turning around and saying 'Buy what you like of ours, but we're not going to support it on anything other than the environment we sold it for'.. But actually changing their code to specifically look for certain things, and STOP you using stuff if you choose to use it other than where they expect you to?
It's like selling a town car, and specifically make it stop working if it detects mud under the wheels, as they only sold it to you to use on tarmac roads (and then only on the tarmac roads that you pay them a toll for).
Wonder where you came up with that idea.. Linus has previously spoken out saying he has no problem at all with Binary only drivers being developed for the Linux kernel. As long as something's being ported from an existing driver, it's just fine (case in point, the NVidia drivers). So, a company that does a windows/other OS and a Linux Driver would be completely in the clear as far as he's previously stated (and he was quite clear on this point in a number of his statements).
Great, so you get your $245 back. Bet you don't get your 40 man days (or so) of engineer time for the company techs spent working on it covered. That's a lot more expensive than $245.
An interesting rebuttal to be sure. Still, the crux of the issue is that you're landing a heavy boot square in the domain of the MAME authors. You make allusion to them infringing on proprietary copyright and patents. And, in the great tradition of people quoting this, then fail to mention any of them. Please, if you can prove MAME is indeed infringing on Patent and Copyright, please inform us of your findings. Downloading a ROM for free, yes, that is indeed copyright infringement (not stealing, as you represent your company, please be semantically correct). But, it seems that, to prevent 'unfair' competition (people providing a harness that can play games on it, if someone purchases a ROM, for cheaper than you can provide), you then decide to put a claim on a name made by others. While technically legal, you are, in spirit, no better than someone who infringes on other trademarks. I've heard of MAME (stopped using it, as I couldn't find somewhere to legally purchase the ROMS, and no vendor seemed interested in that activity), but I've never heard of your products. This absolutely reeks of a company with little market recognition seeking to acquire a name by subterfuge and bad practice.
I would say, if you have an issue with people selling these machines for less than you can produce legitimate ones, you should be working hand in hand with the MAME authors, and providing them with legal backup to chase the makers of these license infringing machines, giving them a stronger position, rather than trying to subvert the name and position.
Much as you may believe you're legally able to do this, I think your grasp of the aftereffects of doing this are lacking. Many emulation enthusiasts may avoid you on principle. I know I will. I look upon you as a hypocrite. While justifying your move as one to prevent 'theft' of a piece of 'intellectual property' (name and code of a ROM), you 'steal' someone else's property (their name, which is the whole umbrella of their project, thus subverting the project itself). Your 'plan' seems nothing more than "Someone's taking from what we want, so we'll take something from someone completely different.".
Work with the MAME group, and you may well get good results, if you treat them well. Work against them, and one name change and a few months later, you'll have the same problem, with a massive PR problem on your hands.
If you make more money, you spend more, putting it back into circulation. Plus, if others are bright enough in your sector to do the same thing (use OSS and save money), you can bet that you'll be forced to lower your prices to stay competitive. And all the others in the market segment will also need to find ways to match the price. Enjoy the time while you're ahead. If you can make more money by using FOSS, then it's doing exactly what it was intended to do.
There are different types of Politics. I think the suggestion was 'remove Mainstream Party Politics from Science'. Once you have big groups, there are always internal politics (such as best methodologies, etc.). The point is, that, given a narrowly scoped and delicate environment (any highly specialized branch of a discipline), you don't really care about the internal, educated and trained 'politics' pulling this way and that on fine points of methodology. What you do care about is the uneducated and largely ignorant politics riding roughshod over it to achieve the aim that has nothing to do with research being performed in the research group. In this case, aim is to look good, and make the stats say "Everything's rosy", while the research group may know otherwise.
All that being said, I don't think it's at GW's feet. It's the case that someone wants to look better in the eyes of the party, so applies pressure all around to come up with things that make them look good, and thus edge them towards a promotion/more money.
That being said, he is a VERY strong proponent of the system that leads to this behaviour being encouraged.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, but this assumes that the malware has access to a complete database of all CMOS maps for all motherboards. And that the ability to access the CMOS is built into the live CD (should be reasonably easy not to compile it in at all! No compiler, no real scripting, should make it hard for malware to get at the CMOS).
So, in theory, the machine is compromisable if someone can get the user to run a piece of software that runs to correctly identify the CMOS map, gets permissions to install a kernel module and then gets the correct software to enable it to write the CMOS bit..
Hmm.. The fact a commercial company released a product says they're at least reasonably serious about it. They did, after all, pay developers to put it out there..
As to how it can cause OSS harm.. Where on earth did you get that from? Nero producing a product has nothing to do with hardware companies making proprietary changes. They've always been able to do that, and always have. Can you say "Winmodem" or "Windows Printer"? Both designed with proprietary interfaces which Linux can't use.
The former I stayed well away from, the latter, well, I run a Konica Minolta magicolour 2300W. Works just fine from my Linux boxes.
Now, if someone produced hardware that linux just couldn't talk to, then Nero would be stuffed, as it wouldn't be able to use the api to talk to the hardware anyway, at least until a driver writer finds a way to talk to the hardware properly again.
It may just have skipped past your attention, but the whole 'trusted computing' initiative is heading to put just those copy controls in every device.
Now, if Nero has the bits built in there to cope with it from the moment it's released, and the rest of the open tools lag, at least there's some product out there that can handle the slack until Open works it out, and gets back in the game.
If it doesn't, no big deal. People use what they feel like.
I think about twelve years back, you'd have been one of those voices saying "Linux. That gives us nothing new. It's just another UNIX alike. What do we need that for? It'll only hamper the BSDs and not provide us with anything worthwhile in return!".
A product is a product. I'm glad Nero are in the market. They're offering something to compliment their windows product, for those people that may be wanting to move from Windows to Linux, and just want something they already know and are familiar with.
Anything that makes the transition easier is a great thing.
The great thing about OSS is it's a really open market. You can charge what you want for your product (including free). Nero want money for you to be able to have their product (you have to have the retail version, or buy one to get it). That's fine! If you don't want it, don't get it. Nobody uses it, and it'll go away (just like MusicMatch Jukebox for Linux did way back when).
But, it's there. And there are some more developers who've been exposed to Linux.
And as Ballmer is always chanting, it's all about "Developers, developers, developers".
The Military for having to Beta test MS' latest patches (they'll be the one whose systems crash most by having patches applied that haven't met the real world before), or Commerce, who suddenly realise that they're going to be getting cracked hard, by something MS knows about, has a fix, and just can't be bothered to give them a cure for..
Not being a lawyer, I doubt my familiarity is anywhere in the same league as yours.
:)
I've just wrapped up my small sole trader company (system architecture & bespoke app development for small to medium companies) to work full time.
From the business side of it, Patents on Software scare the socks off me. Suddenly, writing some trivial code to perform a simple task becomes spec, design, huge patent search, development, maintenance.
Still, glad that you found the gist of what I wanted to convey at least reasonable, and thanks for politely pointing out the places where I was dead wrong.
Whereas at the moment, large companies with money can churn out patent applications that have no real basis at will.
These serve to clog up the Patent Office to such an extent that the patent examiners, not having time to check in detail for prior art (the possibility pool is simply becoming far too large for most of the applications that may be covered), do a cursory check, and pass the patent, relying on the hope that if Prior art is then discovered, the courts will overturn the Patent, doing their job for them.
However, small developers don't have either the money to make many patent applications (raising the bar on prospective patents available to them Vs the big companies) or to fight court costs when they get slammed with a lawsuit for a very tenuous connection from an IP Holding Company in the litigation business, or from one of the big players that worries they may have a good idea going there.
For a product with an obsolescence cycle of about 4 years (maybe 5 at the outside), a patent length of 25 years is simply ludicrous.
Putting patents into this environment will only feed the lawyers, and stifle real innovation.
The chain of events here is:
Cheap/free patents for small companies means that new ideas for software come along and get patented by the developer (hey it's free), and a product gets built.
If it's a good one, MS get to buy them out for a snip.
If the patent is too expensive for the new idea (for a small company/solo developer), then to get the idea out, and get recognition, the route may well be through Open Source.
In which case, the whole world gets to use it unencumbered. And if it's a real killer app/idea, then MS don't have chance to get the monopoly on it (read, it's now a gain for the open source movement).
So, free patenting is a good thing for MS to keep real new ideas in their fold.
However, they may want to defang software patents themselves, as they're not yet sure how many other "IP Holding Companies" exist out there with patents that could feasibly screw MS over, and making no products of their own, can't be leaned on by MS' own portfolio.
I get the impression they've come to realise that free (or very cheap) patents that last only a couple of years aren't a bad thing.
Expensive patents that last ten times the obsolescence cycle of a product are a good way to get scorched earth campaigns going in the tech field (possibly to the extent so many IP holding companies with no product to sell own so much of the patent landscape, it's not even feasible to create a non-obsolete product from the late 1970s).
I think it's more to do with the now terrible working hours, and vicious conditions applied to the tech sector.
Women seem to be a lot more sensible about taking that kind of crap from an employer than guys (who still feel driven to be "Primary breadwinner", and as such are more reluctant to leave a job and walk into uncertainty).
From being a contractor across a LOT of companies in my time, and various full time roles, I've always found that the guys on the job have always (well, nearly always) just got on with the job, and treated the women the same as anyone else.
If you want to pick up on the guys that didn't deal too well with women being around, I'd like to note that I've been some places where the guys have been no problem at all, and one or more of the female workers have been putting down they guys (which is seen as perfectly 'politically correct' and not a problem).
So, now the sector has been flooded by the people who were in it for a quick buck, and the money's leaving the area, so are the people who wanted the quick easy money.
The ones left are the ones who are passionate about the role.
Much as women are superior at human interaction languages, I've always noted that they are usually far better at interacting with humans.. And their interest tends to wane when faced with using an artificial language to communicate with a computer that has nothing much interesting to say back.
I'll wholeheartedly agree with your competency though. The ones that were good that you've met are likely the ones staying in the field (they must have really enjoyed it to get really good).
Nah..
People buy DVDs because:
1: They hve pretty covers (and usually extra bits on the DVD).
2: They're viewable in guaranteed high quality on a cheap piece of hardware.
3: You don't have to be connected to the net to watch a DVD.
4: You don't have noisy cooling fans in the background when watching a DVD.
5: If you hate the movie, at least you get a great coaster for your money.
A competing format may well help lower the cost of the disks though, which would be a great boon to us all.
Because it's still "new". Word Perfect has been round for years, and is a known name.
It's trusted.
For any Government/Large corporation, you're not looking for something new with all the shiny knobs and bells. You're looking for something that's ground it's heels in a little, and has earned your trust by proving itself over the course of years.
Maybe, in time, Star Office will get a look in (I hope so).
But for now, the Big Picture is either Corel, or Microsoft.
Once they get the law in, they win.
All they have to do is win once. And it's pretty much over for a long long time.
On the other hand, the anti-patent side has to win every time to keep it out.
When the Pro-Patent side are paid for by almost bottomless pockets, and the anti-patent by ethics and common sense, in todays world, it's just a matter of time.
Actually, Economically viable does come into OSS. If you download something for free, that's part of the TCO.
A bad app, or one that crashes a lot wastes time.
Time has a monetary value when applied to a person (one hour work == so much money).
Even stuff that's free to download then has a cost associated to use it.
This is why OSS didn't steamroller MS right out of the enterprise. People are still evaluating the cost of using it.
And cost comes right back to being economically viable.
That's exactly what Copyright USED to be like, before the corporations started trying to extend it indefinitely..
Prior art is Patent Law
The thing I like about paying a "License fee", or as it would be termed these days "A broadcast subscription" is that it gives you the chance of having a channel that is completely devoid of any commercials.
None.
Imagine, being able to watch your favourite movie/TV program, live, with no adverts. Just enjoy the flow.
That's the BBC.
As for it being government owned, yep, it'll bend over to the government of the day (well, mainly Labour, as if a Tory government had done a tenth what Labour has this last few years, Labour would have had them strung up and hung to dry long ago.). But it's not all about the news. I don't trust the main media news any more.
The BBC has some great shows on there, and, personally, I think the license is great value overall (and yep, I do know that's just my own personal opinion on the matter). And yes, I do have Sky too..
Actually, the fairest way is by subscription.
I'd happily pay, as a subscription, the price I currently pay for a TV License.
If that 'Subscription' fee covers both 'Net access and TV reception, then they'd have what they wanted, without having to apply any extra taxes (and I can guarantee they'd have a REAL fight on their hands if they tried to tax every single PC out there. They can't make exceptions for businesses, as suddenly, everyone will become a sole trader business with a zero turnover.)
You can't copyright a name. You can, however, trademark it..
As far as I'm aware, Flex isn't a trademark (yet).
What's worrying is that Macromedia may apply and be granted the trademark on 'Flex', and then try and force a namechange on the GNU established version..
Actually, evidence that came to light into the media at later times showed that Downing Street had, in fact, been told that the information they were basing the attack on was false.
It was known that the WMD information was at best unreliable, but it was the sole piece of information that was available that allowed Phony Tony to leap into the fray over the express wishes (70% against at the start) of the public opinion.
When multiple sources investigated the same leads as the journalist, but under greater scrutiny again, not only were the documents proved to be 'sexed up', but the meat of it was obtained by a forged document intended for other purposes.
So, the journalist was, in truth, correct. His information and assumptions were correct.
Yet Downing Street now expect the BBC to reform because of this political travesty of revealing to the world what was really going on.
So much for journalistic freedom.
Actually, I do use Windows. I've been using MS software since the late 80's.. Been using UNIX since then too (and CP/M when it was in vogue back then, along with a dash of PrimeOS and VMS).
As to your allusion that they're saying 'Infringe MS copyright by taking the DLLs from MS Windows', I can only assume you're talking about all the DLLs they refer to that say 'Leave as builtin, as Windows native doesn't really run under WINE'.
A couple (mainly video decompression codecs) they say run better if you have the Windows native DLL, but it'll work with the WINE builtin. I have Windows (2000, fully licenced thank you). What copyright am I infringing by using a DLL from the Win partition on my dual boot workstation? None, I think.
If you think Nintendo should sue anyone that runs a ROM on an emulator, then, methinks you also believe that people who reverse engineered the original PC BIOS should have been sued into oblivion, leaving the PC as an IBM only, expensive, underpowered and underperforming business machine, leaving it dead in the water.
Maybe the Amiga would have picked up the slack to make a decent gaming machine, or perhaps even Apple but I can guarantee the IBM PC would never have been that.
In fact, without that reverse engineer and 'emulation' of the IBM BIOS, Microsoft would never have had their foothold they do now. And a lot of the apps you hold dear would never have been written in the first place, unless they were written for an Apple (or whatever machine took it's place.. Perhaps a Sinclair machine even?).
One of the Great things about the PC is the amount of things written for it (MS and Non-MS). So don't come whining because you hate all things non-microsoft. If you don't want to use something that's not the product of Emulation, go use a Mac. Just don't whine about all the apps you don't have that you had on Windows.
Deal with what you have and don't gripe, or sue your way out of your predicament.
I really can only imagine that you didn't grow up in the tech industry over the last 20 years (which I've been working/studying it for the last 24). I think the bit about the ROM letting them sell Nintendos is a bit of a giveaway about you not understanding the market.
The games are definitely NOT there to let them sell more Nintendo boxes.. The boxes are there to let them sell games. Games are where the real money is. If they run well under an emulator, and they can sell MORE legit copies (which they can, if they make them available), then Nintendo will be making yet MORE money.
Which, for any business, is a good thing.
Emulation letting Office run would be a great thing if MS had an 'Office' company, which the proposed split of years back in the Monopoly proceedings were hinting at. They'd have jumped at the chance of widening their install base.
However, MS, in the monopoly position are leveraging their strength to protect the core Windows OS (by stopping all periphery market software from running on any non-MS platform when it's perfectly capable of doing).
In fact, it's not the first time MS has persued this tactic. In Windows 3.x, they deliberately inserted a check to see if you were running a non-MS DOS. If you were, it threw loads of error messages at you. For most non-tech users, this worried them enough to ditch their non-MS dos (which was actually more efficient in many cases) for the MS version. They were hauled up in the courts over that, and found guilty. After they'd killed the effective competition, as the courts took forever to decide. Just like they steamrollered BeOS by illegal business practices.
No, I don't hate MS for competing in the days gone by with the likes of Lotus and Corel, and winning. What I do hate is what they do now to try and maintain their stranglehold on the industry.
Winning by merit I can take (and Windows does indeed have it's merits, which I can appreciate for what they are), but sheer malicious practice on their part makes me more reluctant to pay them anything in future (they won't get money from me for XP, and I won't use it, due to that crap activation. I change hardware too frequently. If they carry on like that, I'll simply buy Apple later for business apps, and Linux for the emulation of what I can get for Games).
You have a weird view there.. Using DLLs you've not paid for? You just bought office.. That means you've paid for it, fair and square..
Why shouldn't you use them how you like?
Nobody's expecting MS to go to any lengths to do anything to affect running in an unsupported environment.. Which is why you'll never find people using MS Office making support calls about it. It's the WINE team's job to do that, and they're doing that pretty well..
It's nothing like getting Nintendo to do anything to get their ROMs working on a SNES emulator.. In face, more like Nintendo rewriting all their ROMs to specifically NOT work on a particular emulator.
Largely a pointless task.
Now, if MS wasn't a monopoly, they'd be doing what they could to get business in (hey, WINE is just getting them extra revenue, by allowing Linux users to purchase and use Windows programs). Being able to arbitrarily turn away paying customers says something about a business.
As for not getting the big deal about using MS office on *NIX.. You've not worked in an office environment where people are throwing round documents with macros in just to format headings have you? They won't work in anything BUT MS Office.. Thus the need to run it in emulation..
Now, I can understand MS turning around and saying 'Buy what you like of ours, but we're not going to support it on anything other than the environment we sold it for'.. But actually changing their code to specifically look for certain things, and STOP you using stuff if you choose to use it other than where they expect you to?
It's like selling a town car, and specifically make it stop working if it detects mud under the wheels, as they only sold it to you to use on tarmac roads (and then only on the tarmac roads that you pay them a toll for).
Wonder where you came up with that idea.. Linus has previously spoken out saying he has no problem at all with Binary only drivers being developed for the Linux kernel. As long as something's being ported from an existing driver, it's just fine (case in point, the NVidia drivers).
So, a company that does a windows/other OS and a Linux Driver would be completely in the clear as far as he's previously stated (and he was quite clear on this point in a number of his statements).
Great, so you get your $245 back. Bet you don't get your 40 man days (or so) of engineer time for the company techs spent working on it covered. That's a lot more expensive than $245.
An interesting rebuttal to be sure.
Still, the crux of the issue is that you're landing a heavy boot square in the domain of the MAME authors.
You make allusion to them infringing on proprietary copyright and patents. And, in the great tradition of people quoting this, then fail to mention any of them. Please, if you can prove MAME is indeed infringing on Patent and Copyright, please inform us of your findings.
Downloading a ROM for free, yes, that is indeed copyright infringement (not stealing, as you represent your company, please be semantically correct).
But, it seems that, to prevent 'unfair' competition (people providing a harness that can play games on it, if someone purchases a ROM, for cheaper than you can provide), you then decide to put a claim on a name made by others.
While technically legal, you are, in spirit, no better than someone who infringes on other trademarks.
I've heard of MAME (stopped using it, as I couldn't find somewhere to legally purchase the ROMS, and no vendor seemed interested in that activity), but I've never heard of your products.
This absolutely reeks of a company with little market recognition seeking to acquire a name by subterfuge and bad practice.
I would say, if you have an issue with people selling these machines for less than you can produce legitimate ones, you should be working hand in hand with the MAME authors, and providing them with legal backup to chase the makers of these license infringing machines, giving them a stronger position, rather than trying to subvert the name and position.
Much as you may believe you're legally able to do this, I think your grasp of the aftereffects of doing this are lacking. Many emulation enthusiasts may avoid you on principle. I know I will.
I look upon you as a hypocrite. While justifying your move as one to prevent 'theft' of a piece of 'intellectual property' (name and code of a ROM), you 'steal' someone else's property (their name, which is the whole umbrella of their project, thus subverting the project itself).
Your 'plan' seems nothing more than "Someone's taking from what we want, so we'll take something from someone completely different.".
Work with the MAME group, and you may well get good results, if you treat them well.
Work against them, and one name change and a few months later, you'll have the same problem, with a massive PR problem on your hands.
If you make more money, you spend more, putting it back into circulation.
Plus, if others are bright enough in your sector to do the same thing (use OSS and save money), you can bet that you'll be forced to lower your prices to stay competitive. And all the others in the market segment will also need to find ways to match the price.
Enjoy the time while you're ahead. If you can make more money by using FOSS, then it's doing exactly what it was intended to do.
Don't buy it? They didn't.
There are different types of Politics. I think the suggestion was 'remove Mainstream Party Politics from Science'.
Once you have big groups, there are always internal politics (such as best methodologies, etc.).
The point is, that, given a narrowly scoped and delicate environment (any highly specialized branch of a discipline), you don't really care about the internal, educated and trained 'politics' pulling this way and that on fine points of methodology.
What you do care about is the uneducated and largely ignorant politics riding roughshod over it to achieve the aim that has nothing to do with research being performed in the research group.
In this case, aim is to look good, and make the stats say "Everything's rosy", while the research group may know otherwise.
All that being said, I don't think it's at GW's feet. It's the case that someone wants to look better in the eyes of the party, so applies pressure all around to come up with things that make them look good, and thus edge them towards a promotion/more money.
That being said, he is a VERY strong proponent of the system that leads to this behaviour being encouraged.