This. Uber may be run by (as stated by another/.er) "the most punchable management shit weasels" but at least they are committing to this free market idea we supposedly support instead of trying to suppress wages.
It is probably useless trying to reason with GP. As soon as the systemd comparison came out (and I know it is fashionable on/. at the moment) it was clear that GP wasn't interested in discussion.
The only thing heavier than Eclipse would be to run your own Java web service stack on your desktop that hosted a "collaborative" text editor. And that would only be marginally heavier.
Because the plain old internet doesn't make as much money for Facebook. Walled gardens are great for corralling profits and that is the real driver here, of course you can view facebook with all of its ads for free with one of these connections.
This isn't just about terrorism and the summary does a disservice to the discussion to imply otherwise. This surveillance is used by many other three-letter-agencies for far more than investigating terrorism. One of the key problems with this program is that the American people have no idea how deep it goes and who is using it for what. Opposing this program is about opposing the blank check that has been given to all governmental agencies to use mass surveillance against average citizens when there is no reason to suspect they are involved in anything illegal.
It does seem like a big deal. I mean, last year there nominations titled "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love", which was an unusual choice for both a Nebula (a different SF/F award, chosen by a jury) and a Hugo nomination. The genre is floundering fairly hard.
I agree that the awards are floundering hard, but I disagree about the genre. There is a large body of good SciFi out there, you just have to look a bit harder to find it through the noise.
Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:
a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.
Keeping things geo-locked pushes people to piracy. Drop the locks and at least the portion of the population that want to pay either for content or convience can do so. Geolocking doesn't stop those that will pirate, it stops those that will not from paying.
b) You end up having to deal with the tax systems of every single EU country anyway due to the retarded VAT changes they introduced this year, so it doesn't help simplify your business at all, and you theoretically aren't allowed to opt out of serving particular regions due to their horrible paperwork requirements, so being able to geoblock unprofitably complicated regions whilst claiming you have some other reason is quite attractive.
If we are assuming the basics of captialism hold here and there is a sufficiently sized market, the regulatory changes will be made. If not by the multinationals looking for profit, then by the local people who are pissed they can't buy what they want.
I don't mean to start a religious war, but this one of the key reasons that not all open source software is free(libre) software. Sure you can see the code, you can even run the code, but MS isn't promising you a license to use their patents.
There is a difference between suspecting and being looked at as paranoid, and everyone knowing something as a fact.
It is sad to me that people who claimed this was happening before Snowden were all considered tin foil hat crazy. And after Snowden the plotical establishment have all taken the stance of "Well, duh. Of course that has always been happening". There was never a "Holy shit, our government lies to us" moment, just move on to "We have always been at war with Eastasia."
It's a knee-jerk reaction because you are assuming what Uber will do without any evidence beyond the actions of others. I doubt you'd like being judged by the actions of other people as it would probably be highly inaccurate judgement - the exact same logic applies here.
And yet this is largely how the world works. Good on you if you can completely avoid judging others based on what you have seen entities "like" them do in the past.
Screaming and sobbing about some slippery slope or the actions of other companies isn't helping anyone, let alone you.
Because there is so much screaming and sobbing here. Commenters are simply pointing out that given shareholders, you should expect the company to run rough shod over user privacy if it is profitable. Lying to yourself about this fundamental truth isn't helping anyone, let alone you.
Is it knee jerk, or is it watching what other companies have done and seeing the inevitable path that a company run by, as another poster put it, some of the most punchable management shitweasels will take in the name of shareholder value?
They said that secuire boot cannot be disabled, not that the keys are locked. A platform key is updatable as long as the new key is signed with the old without disabling secure boot. So you would still need Microsoft to sign your new PK.
That said, this is a very appropriate time for everyone that predicted this is what MS had in mind when they first announced the Secure Boot standard so say "I told you so" to the MS apologists that denied it.
IMO, it is far worse to outright lie to customers (think SimCity isn't failing to start because of DRM, oh wait, that is exactly why you can't start it) than to have spotty customer support. Especially when, as others have stated, I have had to contact Valve support all of 0 times in the decade I have been using Steam or playing Valve games. This is, like, my opinion, man. YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
This. Uber may be run by (as stated by another /.er) "the most punchable management shit weasels" but at least they are committing to this free market idea we supposedly support instead of trying to suppress wages.
I think it is naive to assume that this isn't want Obama et al wanted all along. Good job to McConell for stalling long enough to force the issue.
It is probably useless trying to reason with GP. As soon as the systemd comparison came out (and I know it is fashionable on /. at the moment) it was clear that GP wasn't interested in discussion.
The only thing heavier than Eclipse would be to run your own Java web service stack on your desktop that hosted a "collaborative" text editor. And that would only be marginally heavier.
Ahahhahahahaha If you are going to troll, you should try and do so intelligently, /. _used_ to have those.
Because the plain old internet doesn't make much money for anyone.
You're kidding right? Never mind the large sector of the American economy built on the plain old internet.
Because the plain old internet doesn't make as much money for Facebook. Walled gardens are great for corralling profits and that is the real driver here, of course you can view facebook with all of its ads for free with one of these connections.
This
Seriously, who thought that the Sun would handle anything submitted with any kind of serious journalism? This is News Corp after all.
This isn't just about terrorism and the summary does a disservice to the discussion to imply otherwise. This surveillance is used by many other three-letter-agencies for far more than investigating terrorism. One of the key problems with this program is that the American people have no idea how deep it goes and who is using it for what. Opposing this program is about opposing the blank check that has been given to all governmental agencies to use mass surveillance against average citizens when there is no reason to suspect they are involved in anything illegal.
This.
I'd love to see a counter example, but much like ROUS's, I don't think they exist.
Lol, I write my patches 160 characters at a time, now to figure out why nothing has been merged...
It does seem like a big deal. I mean, last year there nominations titled "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love", which was an unusual choice for both a Nebula (a different SF/F award, chosen by a jury) and a Hugo nomination. The genre is floundering fairly hard.
I agree that the awards are floundering hard, but I disagree about the genre. There is a large body of good SciFi out there, you just have to look a bit harder to find it through the noise.
But really, if real programmers ever got their hands on Windows under a GPL, they would just strip out anything of value and add it to Linux. Really.
So that kernel would look remarkably like the one we have today :)
Clearly. Geoblocking is at least partially about market segmentation. The EU is so large that it has extremely major disparities in wealth between its member nations. Consider the difference between Sweden and Romania. If you have a movie and charge a single price to stream it across the entire EU then:
a) Some people will find it incredibly cheap and others will find it still too expensive, just pushing them back towards piracy.
I suppose this is slashdot and I should expect any reponse to my inital post to be condesending, well done. You wanted an argument, this is abuse
Keeping things geo-locked pushes people to piracy. Drop the locks and at least the portion of the population that want to pay either for content or convience can do so. Geolocking doesn't stop those that will pirate, it stops those that will not from paying.
b) You end up having to deal with the tax systems of every single EU country anyway due to the retarded VAT changes they introduced this year, so it doesn't help simplify your business at all, and you theoretically aren't allowed to opt out of serving particular regions due to their horrible paperwork requirements, so being able to geoblock unprofitably complicated regions whilst claiming you have some other reason is quite attractive.
If we are assuming the basics of captialism hold here and there is a sufficiently sized market, the regulatory changes will be made. If not by the multinationals looking for profit, then by the local people who are pissed they can't buy what they want.
One would think that a bigger potential market would be _better_ for the European film industry. Clearly I don't understand capitalism.
I don't mean to start a religious war, but this one of the key reasons that not all open source software is free(libre) software. Sure you can see the code, you can even run the code, but MS isn't promising you a license to use their patents.
There is a difference between suspecting and being looked at as paranoid, and everyone knowing something as a fact.
It is sad to me that people who claimed this was happening before Snowden were all considered tin foil hat crazy. And after Snowden the plotical establishment have all taken the stance of "Well, duh. Of course that has always been happening". There was never a "Holy shit, our government lies to us" moment, just move on to "We have always been at war with Eastasia."
Mod parent up
It's a knee-jerk reaction because you are assuming what Uber will do without any evidence beyond the actions of others. I doubt you'd like being judged by the actions of other people as it would probably be highly inaccurate judgement - the exact same logic applies here.
And yet this is largely how the world works. Good on you if you can completely avoid judging others based on what you have seen entities "like" them do in the past.
Screaming and sobbing about some slippery slope or the actions of other companies isn't helping anyone, let alone you.
Because there is so much screaming and sobbing here. Commenters are simply pointing out that given shareholders, you should expect the company to run rough shod over user privacy if it is profitable. Lying to yourself about this fundamental truth isn't helping anyone, let alone you.
And how is Uber to work for?
Is it knee jerk, or is it watching what other companies have done and seeing the inevitable path that a company run by, as another poster put it, some of the most punchable management shitweasels will take in the name of shareholder value?
Easy, the solution is don't use Uber. I am surprised that this is surprising anyone.
If anyone is counting
They said that secuire boot cannot be disabled, not that the keys are locked. A platform key is updatable as long as the new key is signed with the old without disabling secure boot. So you would still need Microsoft to sign your new PK.
That said, this is a very appropriate time for everyone that predicted this is what MS had in mind when they first announced the Secure Boot standard so say "I told you so" to the MS apologists that denied it.
You assume that the German government didn't ask the USA for this letter to justify something they wanted to do anyways...
IMO, it is far worse to outright lie to customers (think SimCity isn't failing to start because of DRM, oh wait, that is exactly why you can't start it) than to have spotty customer support. Especially when, as others have stated, I have had to contact Valve support all of 0 times in the decade I have been using Steam or playing Valve games. This is, like, my opinion, man. YMMV.