Iraq switched oil trade from US dollars to Euro and were trying to convince OPEC to do the same. It would have completely upset the US's fragile debt based economy if opec nations flushed their accounts of dollars for euro. We all know what happened next don't we? Now China on the other hand..... would the US invade China if it cashed in it's dollars? I doubt it and if they did, global warming would fade into insignificance. "Thank god nuclear winter cancelled out global warming" - Taranga Leela
Well that was a pointless load of gibberish. Comparing a scam like dianetics designed to con money out of people with the FOSS movement that has produced all it has in such a cooperative and charitable way. Why don't you just compare frogs with horses? Nice trolling there.
Then you license it that way, I'll use GPL. If everyone did it your way FOSS would be insignificant. RMS has proved that he has a better handle on how things work and how to protect the FOSS community than anybody. The success of FOSS under GPL is all the proof I need to confirm that. You continue to work for corporations for free and I'll work for the community, ok?
Hans Reiser has been convicted of nothing and that is a personal case that has nothing to do with the software world. That case is as wierd as a case can get so where do you get off assuming that he is guilty? How can you compare that to the plethora of convictions that M$ have received for unethical business practices around the world? Are you dissapointed when an apple doesn't taste like an orange?
Maybe so but China does own enough to destroy the US economy at a stroke. Perhaps the word "most" was poorly chosen but the argument is still valid. China have a huge stick to wave around as do others, as you correctly point out (how fragile is the US ecomony hey?). Where is the Linux stick? When M$ attack linux it's akin to Walmart attacking the Salvation Army so it generates a lot of justifiable animosity from the common folk - nobody likes a bully.
BSD license is more liberal? Try so liberal that it is useless. RMS's GPL vision gives us protection against corporate parasites and without it FOSS would be nothing. Just look at the Dlink case if you don't understand the strength and advantages of the GPL.
I agree with you, that sort of respect is indeed the only type that M$ have earned - acknowledgement that they are aggressive, poisonous vipers and should be treated as such. That isn't the type of respect that is being asked for here.
touche khasim. It's amazing how many bs people talk about linux when they don't know shit. My pc is a debian sid (that means it's the unstable branch with all the latest stuff around for Mr know it all, knows nothing) that is many years old and gets upgraded almost weekly and it's still running like a champion. I had to remove a dodgey windows update that completely crash somebody's machine a while ago and needed to be booted into a dos prompt from the windows install disc to repair. I then had to either search back into my long term memory for dos commands or I could find it with a whole suite of marvelous gui apps on a linux live disc. Guess which method I used.
There's a big difference between Linux and China. China is HUGE and owns enough US currency and bonds to bankrupt the US overnight. For Linux to be in the same position we'd have to buy most of microsoft's shares. China can tell the US to shove their laws, they don't apply to the Chinese people and there isn't a damn thing the US can do about it. The situation is rather different in the Linux/M$ situation. If we forgive M$ for their past transgressions and try to play nice M$ will attack and destroy like they've done to all their previous "friends".
Call me cynical but if you don't learn math you can't see what a bad deal large home loans are. Australia has one of the highest personal debt in the world and most of it is because people think that borrowing 90% or more of the value of an oversized house at huge interest rates is a good idea. The less people that learn math the longer they can keep the whole scam rolling.
(a cynic is what an idealist calls a realist - Sir Humphrey Appleby)
That is true in theory but the reality is different in the corporate music industry. Once signed to a big label they insist that you use _their_ studio and pay them whatever rate they set. This inflated figure is then deducted from sales along with a host of other expenses that are also dictated by the label. So when talking about a major label the terms studio and label are interchangeable.
Software pirates steal nothing. Theft is the act of depriving the owner of use of their property. Copying is therefore not theft - end of story. The real pirates are the RIAA affiliates.
What they and their corporate scumbag mates have done is instituted a new form of feudalism. Under traditional feudalism the lord owned the man, under this new feudalism the lord owns the man's output. The result is the same except that under the old regime the lord had responsibilities to his serfs. Under this new regime the lord of the manor just takes and is unencumbered by responsibility. It is time that intellectual property was owned by the intellect that created it instead of ammoral corporations that buy it and use it to strengthen their stranglehold on society. A corporation is NOT a person and it is high time that the law that declared them to be one was quashed. The system is broken.
Corporatism is another word for fascism (according to Mussolini) and it's time that it stopped. Then again, most of the west has a birthrate way below 2 so I guess this too shall pass. Biology gazumps economics and politics every time.
As an ex long term telco employee I can confirm that telco's give preferential treatment to corporate "strategic partners" (collusion anybody?) that would boggle your mind. These corporate discounts could never be matched by a municipality due to the scale involved. The amount of pocket pissing that goes on would make your stomach turn but when a telce does it it is is simply called standard business practices. How is a council giving preferential treatment to their customers any different?
What the hell has the size of the company that invented a format got to do with standards? Once it's adopted as a standard it is set in stone and the origin of the format is irrelevant. The reason people cry corruption is because it has become so common for decisions to be influenced by lobby groups that present rationalisations (erm, sorry - "arguments") to justify indulging their particular financial interests. How are political donations different from simply handing a sack full of money under the table? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck.........
Searching your customers? wtf? When did that become acceptable? This is a movie theater ffs. It's bad enough when police demand to search your person, let alone a private citizen. Where are we heading? What's next - cavity searches by restaurant waiters to make sure you haven't concealed a bottle of wine in your ass?
Just because you are used to plea bargaining that doesn't make it right. It's a disgraceful way to conduct a court and is one thing that is held up by anti-american detractors as an example of why the rest of the world should resist going down the same path.
The David Hicks fiasco showed this in stark relief. It might seem normal to US citizens to behave this way but that doesn't make it acceptable to others.
To sum the article up in one sentence; "I respond well to threats by bullies."
This does indeed point out how unethical the whole proprietary codec situation is. This is a case of simply trying to lock people into a particular group of businesses products. It is both unethical and is supposed to be illegal in most countries. But of course, one gets the justice one pays for and the richer you are the easier it is to subvert the law to your purposes. This is particularly true when the government is actually bought and paid for by corporate lobby groups.
This goes for many other patent and copyright situations too and it is good that some people get scared when it is brought to their attention. It is scary. How can culture advance when everything is owned and never becomes creative commons? It is the worst thing to happen to culture since subjective marketing.
You are right, it isn't just linux. The entire patent/copyright system has been perverted to the point where it has become an attack on every private citizen.
Dead right tgatliff. It's like buggy whip manufacturers trying to stop people buying cars because cars didn't need buggy whips. Or even more apt; trying to force car manufacturers to replace the accelerator with a pad that you had to whip. What an evil bunch car drivers are for killing the buggy whip industry.;) They must be stopped!!!!
Adapt to the market or die. Considering the unethical way that the record industry have always behaved (payola, exploiting naive young musos with outrageous contracts, etc) it's probably best that they do die imo. Musos simply don't need the thieving dirtballs any more. Die, die, die my darling!! Suffer, it couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.
I go over that limit just about every month on a crappy isdn link (128k) and I'm not downloading movies, legal or otherwise. It's all linux related stuff mostly. I use debian/sid so I'm dist-upgrading a couple of machines regularly and I do a lot of artwork for the community. Anybody that stays with this isp has rocks in their head. Find one that has a few ethics and doesn't make lame excuses for not delivering what they advertise. Calling 5G unlimited is simply false advertising. Protest with your wallet, they are obviously dodgey.
Or translated into common language: "We at Symantec make more money selling software to plug Windows security holes than any other platform. Please buy Windows, we really like it.":)
Have you people never heard of hyperbolic expressions? They are literary devices that exagerate things to the logical conclusion to point out holes in an argument. There is nothing wrong with his comparison between drm and sweat shops; it demonstrates stupidity of the argument he was countering quite adequately. The logical parallel is quite valid and doesn't suggest that the two things are of equal criminality at all. I think you people should read more and blog less.
The freedom of choice argument is irrelevant when the choices are removed by corporate thuggery.
I can't say I've ever been told to rtfm with Linux. Perhaps I don't expect to have my hand held and actually know how to read and use a search engine.
There are many types of Linux from beginners distros like Ubuntu to guru distros like Gentoo. If you are asking extremely obvious questions and are being told to rtfm then perhaps you are using the wrong distro for your level of knowledge. Horses for courses.
Would you go to a lecture on quantum mechanics and ask the lecturer to explain Newton's first law of dynamics? What do you think you would be told?
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Iraq switched oil trade from US dollars to Euro and were trying to convince OPEC to do the same. It would have completely upset the US's fragile debt based economy if opec nations flushed their accounts of dollars for euro. We all know what happened next don't we? Now China on the other hand ..... would the US invade China if it cashed in it's dollars? I doubt it and if they did, global warming would fade into insignificance. "Thank god nuclear winter cancelled out global warming" - Taranga Leela
Well that was a pointless load of gibberish. Comparing a scam like dianetics designed to con money out of people with the FOSS movement that has produced all it has in such a cooperative and charitable way. Why don't you just compare frogs with horses? Nice trolling there.
Then you license it that way, I'll use GPL. If everyone did it your way FOSS would be insignificant. RMS has proved that he has a better handle on how things work and how to protect the FOSS community than anybody. The success of FOSS under GPL is all the proof I need to confirm that. You continue to work for corporations for free and I'll work for the community, ok?
Hans Reiser has been convicted of nothing and that is a personal case that has nothing to do with the software world. That case is as wierd as a case can get so where do you get off assuming that he is guilty? How can you compare that to the plethora of convictions that M$ have received for unethical business practices around the world? Are you dissapointed when an apple doesn't taste like an orange?
Maybe so but China does own enough to destroy the US economy at a stroke. Perhaps the word "most" was poorly chosen but the argument is still valid. China have a huge stick to wave around as do others, as you correctly point out (how fragile is the US ecomony hey?). Where is the Linux stick? When M$ attack linux it's akin to Walmart attacking the Salvation Army so it generates a lot of justifiable animosity from the common folk - nobody likes a bully.
BSD license is more liberal? Try so liberal that it is useless. RMS's GPL vision gives us protection against corporate parasites and without it FOSS would be nothing. Just look at the Dlink case if you don't understand the strength and advantages of the GPL.
I agree with you, that sort of respect is indeed the only type that M$ have earned - acknowledgement that they are aggressive, poisonous vipers and should be treated as such. That isn't the type of respect that is being asked for here.
touche khasim. It's amazing how many bs people talk about linux when they don't know shit. My pc is a debian sid (that means it's the unstable branch with all the latest stuff around for Mr know it all, knows nothing) that is many years old and gets upgraded almost weekly and it's still running like a champion. I had to remove a dodgey windows update that completely crash somebody's machine a while ago and needed to be booted into a dos prompt from the windows install disc to repair. I then had to either search back into my long term memory for dos commands or I could find it with a whole suite of marvelous gui apps on a linux live disc. Guess which method I used.
There's a big difference between Linux and China. China is HUGE and owns enough US currency and bonds to bankrupt the US overnight. For Linux to be in the same position we'd have to buy most of microsoft's shares. China can tell the US to shove their laws, they don't apply to the Chinese people and there isn't a damn thing the US can do about it. The situation is rather different in the Linux/M$ situation. If we forgive M$ for their past transgressions and try to play nice M$ will attack and destroy like they've done to all their previous "friends".
Isn't this like a christian saying we should respect the devil because he's powerful and not going away? Respect is earned and M$ haven't earned it.
Call me cynical but if you don't learn math you can't see what a bad deal large home loans are. Australia has one of the highest personal debt in the world and most of it is because people think that borrowing 90% or more of the value of an oversized house at huge interest rates is a good idea. The less people that learn math the longer they can keep the whole scam rolling. (a cynic is what an idealist calls a realist - Sir Humphrey Appleby)
That is true in theory but the reality is different in the corporate music industry. Once signed to a big label they insist that you use _their_ studio and pay them whatever rate they set. This inflated figure is then deducted from sales along with a host of other expenses that are also dictated by the label. So when talking about a major label the terms studio and label are interchangeable.
Software pirates steal nothing. Theft is the act of depriving the owner of use of their property. Copying is therefore not theft - end of story. The real pirates are the RIAA affiliates. What they and their corporate scumbag mates have done is instituted a new form of feudalism. Under traditional feudalism the lord owned the man, under this new feudalism the lord owns the man's output. The result is the same except that under the old regime the lord had responsibilities to his serfs. Under this new regime the lord of the manor just takes and is unencumbered by responsibility. It is time that intellectual property was owned by the intellect that created it instead of ammoral corporations that buy it and use it to strengthen their stranglehold on society. A corporation is NOT a person and it is high time that the law that declared them to be one was quashed. The system is broken. Corporatism is another word for fascism (according to Mussolini) and it's time that it stopped. Then again, most of the west has a birthrate way below 2 so I guess this too shall pass. Biology gazumps economics and politics every time.
As an ex long term telco employee I can confirm that telco's give preferential treatment to corporate "strategic partners" (collusion anybody?) that would boggle your mind. These corporate discounts could never be matched by a municipality due to the scale involved. The amount of pocket pissing that goes on would make your stomach turn but when a telce does it it is is simply called standard business practices. How is a council giving preferential treatment to their customers any different?
What the hell has the size of the company that invented a format got to do with standards? Once it's adopted as a standard it is set in stone and the origin of the format is irrelevant. The reason people cry corruption is because it has become so common for decisions to be influenced by lobby groups that present rationalisations (erm, sorry - "arguments") to justify indulging their particular financial interests. How are political donations different from simply handing a sack full of money under the table? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck.........
Searching your customers? wtf? When did that become acceptable? This is a movie theater ffs. It's bad enough when police demand to search your person, let alone a private citizen. Where are we heading? What's next - cavity searches by restaurant waiters to make sure you haven't concealed a bottle of wine in your ass?
Yes, yes, it is. "Would you like some fascism with that patriotism sir? It's included in the price"
Just because you are used to plea bargaining that doesn't make it right. It's a disgraceful way to conduct a court and is one thing that is held up by anti-american detractors as an example of why the rest of the world should resist going down the same path. The David Hicks fiasco showed this in stark relief. It might seem normal to US citizens to behave this way but that doesn't make it acceptable to others.
Of course Elton John doesn't want things to change, he's done quite well out of the current regime. He can hardly be called a neutral observer.
To sum the article up in one sentence; "I respond well to threats by bullies." This does indeed point out how unethical the whole proprietary codec situation is. This is a case of simply trying to lock people into a particular group of businesses products. It is both unethical and is supposed to be illegal in most countries. But of course, one gets the justice one pays for and the richer you are the easier it is to subvert the law to your purposes. This is particularly true when the government is actually bought and paid for by corporate lobby groups. This goes for many other patent and copyright situations too and it is good that some people get scared when it is brought to their attention. It is scary. How can culture advance when everything is owned and never becomes creative commons? It is the worst thing to happen to culture since subjective marketing. You are right, it isn't just linux. The entire patent/copyright system has been perverted to the point where it has become an attack on every private citizen.
Dead right tgatliff. It's like buggy whip manufacturers trying to stop people buying cars because cars didn't need buggy whips. Or even more apt; trying to force car manufacturers to replace the accelerator with a pad that you had to whip. What an evil bunch car drivers are for killing the buggy whip industry. ;) They must be stopped!!!!
Adapt to the market or die. Considering the unethical way that the record industry have always behaved (payola, exploiting naive young musos with outrageous contracts, etc) it's probably best that they do die imo. Musos simply don't need the thieving dirtballs any more. Die, die, die my darling!! Suffer, it couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people.
I go over that limit just about every month on a crappy isdn link (128k) and I'm not downloading movies, legal or otherwise. It's all linux related stuff mostly. I use debian/sid so I'm dist-upgrading a couple of machines regularly and I do a lot of artwork for the community. Anybody that stays with this isp has rocks in their head. Find one that has a few ethics and doesn't make lame excuses for not delivering what they advertise. Calling 5G unlimited is simply false advertising. Protest with your wallet, they are obviously dodgey.
Or translated into common language: "We at Symantec make more money selling software to plug Windows security holes than any other platform. Please buy Windows, we really like it." :)
Have you people never heard of hyperbolic expressions? They are literary devices that exagerate things to the logical conclusion to point out holes in an argument. There is nothing wrong with his comparison between drm and sweat shops; it demonstrates stupidity of the argument he was countering quite adequately. The logical parallel is quite valid and doesn't suggest that the two things are of equal criminality at all. I think you people should read more and blog less. The freedom of choice argument is irrelevant when the choices are removed by corporate thuggery.
I can't say I've ever been told to rtfm with Linux. Perhaps I don't expect to have my hand held and actually know how to read and use a search engine. There are many types of Linux from beginners distros like Ubuntu to guru distros like Gentoo. If you are asking extremely obvious questions and are being told to rtfm then perhaps you are using the wrong distro for your level of knowledge. Horses for courses. Would you go to a lecture on quantum mechanics and ask the lecturer to explain Newton's first law of dynamics? What do you think you would be told?