I completely disagree with you. I don't believe that lack of law enforcement, on moral grounds or otherwise, is sufficient excuse to break that law.
I also think you're confusing a 'government entity' breaking the law with single witness incidents of people who work for that entity breaking the law.
Then again, maybe I'm not catching your drift on this one. I've been modded to hell already for having this opinion so I might as well quit while I'm very, very behind.
P.S. in response to your other comment, I'm not American. Maybe this is where the ideological difference comes in to play.
I agree that unjust laws should be broken so that they can be challenged. That is absolutely 100% NOT what this is about. Just laws should be upheld regardless of whether the police do or not, and they should be held accountable when they don't.
If he'd said "I don't agree that the speeding law is a just law, so I will break it", then I wouldn't disagree. However, he said "Police don't follow traffic laws, so I won't", which he has since informed me he didn't mean and I'm stupid for thinking he did.
Are you twelve years old? "I saw that other guy do it" is NOT a valid reason for you to do the same thing.
You're not even disobeying the law for some kind of ideological difference with the law itself. You are literally seeing someone do something wrong and emulating because you can.
Apple forces you to use iTunes, and that's enough - what percentage of people will load up iTunes and just decide to buy from that store because it's more convenient? I don't think that's an insignificant percentage.
Further to that, just because the DRM is trivial for you to defeat, that doesn't mean that:
a) You're not technically in breach of the DMCA, no matter how much or little you care about it*, nor
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
Trolling doesn't always mean name-calling. It can be posting things which are demonstrably false to provoke a response.
I understand this isn't the case and apologise without reservation.
It doesn't, and that's not what happened.
My information on this was wrong, so I concede this point.
Name one example.
Pick one of the many times Apple has removed posts from forums complaining about a bug or security issue. Apple are notorious for this, and such has been commented on Slashdot numerous times.
The iPhone NDA was enforced to harshly (in my opinion, of course) to prevent developers from talking about why their applications were removed from the iPhone store.
Neither are true.
I already posted links above regarding alleged infringement from Apple of UI ideas from both Xerox and Creative. The former was dismissed only due to the length of time taken to file and is still argued to this day on who would have been victorious. The latter resulted in Apple being asked to pay to license Creative's patent. Seeing as Creative's MP3 players have been out with the same UI since the Nomad, it becomes hard to believe that they didn't know what they were doing.
They support open standards all throughout every product they sell
This is exaggeration at best. I don't think you can say anything about iPod or iTunes is 'open', and there's a story on the front page right now regarding that very thing. The OS may well be, but nothing over the top of it seems to follow suit.
If monopolistic lock-in was their tactic, they're extremely bad at it.
I disagree. They're very, very good at it. iPod now accounts for about 70% of all MP3 players, and each one of those leverages FairPlay and iTunes and thus lock-in to the iTunes platform. Throw in things like 'accidentally' breaking iTunes on Vista, and suing the arse off anybody who tries to copy music to the iPod in a fashion not authorised by them. I don't see how any of this is better than Microsoft tying a media player to an operating system.
A Clue: not everyone who disagrees with you drinks the kool-aid.
I agree with you, and the insinuation was not deserved. Still, I disagree with you on most of your points, and I think that Apple's MP3 dominance and tying to iTunes is an anti-trust investigation waiting to happen.
I'm not sure whether you're trolling me or not, but I'm going to bite anyway.
You've picked the examples I provided that are convenient to prove your point, obviously ignoring those that might have a chance of proving you wrong. How does pushing Safari as a security update for iTunes associate Apple products with a certain level of quality? How does silencing developers and users who try and criticise them improve their image? Stealing UIs from Xerox and Creative? Preventing installs of OSX on unsupported hardware? If all they're after is improving their product, there are other ways to move which would do the same thing without happening to increase potential lock-in.
2) Apple's ONLY strategy is to innovate and have the better product
Say that with a straight face. Apple repeatedly leverages what control it has to improve it's marketshare without necessarily innovating at all.
Let's see... refusing to license FairPlay to other MP3 players to push iPod/iTunes lock-in, banning applications from their distribution store that 'replicate features' in Apple-owned products, banning any other form of distribution other than their own under the pretense of 'security', engaging in lawsuits against anybody who dares to install their OS on hardware they don't control, forcing their own developers into NDAs to prevent them complainign about any of the above, using Software update to push Safari as a 'security update'... All the while, a good portion of their 'innovations' have been bought or stolen from various places. Xerox, anybody?
Would you like me to go on? I'm pretty sure I could find more. The majority of Apple's innovation nowadays is innovating new ways to keep people tied to their hardware. Anybody who thinks that Apple are better than Microsoft in any regard is suffering from delusions brought on by excessively shiny equipment.
I can get back to you with Apple leveraging it's MP3 player monopoly to push it's own DRM and iTunes store, which happens to be completely and deliberately incompatible with everything else on the market.
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
NCSoft isn't going under - far from it. TR was just not making them anywhere near enough money to keep it going. Not only that, but for people who stick with the game till the end, every player will get:
- 3 months free on City of Heroes - 3 months free on Lineage 2 - beta access to Aion - a pre-order key for Aion - 1 month free and a paid-for client for Aion
Not a bad deal for 'wasting' 60 bucks on a failed MMO - a free game and about 100 dollars in free game time.
Not quite what you're after, and MTP may not be truly open, but it is freely licensable by everyone and anyone. There's also support in Linux via libmtp.
Creative dumped their own protocol in favour of it, so it can't be that bad.
It's funny to see the current M$ party line as, "incompetent IT people are going to install Vista so get used to it."
Apparently, according to twitter, a random slashdotter making a statement makes it "M$ party line". We're not sure what relationship this random Slashdotter's opinion has to Microsoft advertising strategy, but they're linkable because everybody on Slashdot is a Microsoft shill except twitter, who is the lone voice of truth and decency in a sea of lies and slander.
This would be funny, except you actually sound exactly that ridiculous, so instead it's a bit pathetic.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, a woman dropped an expensive toolbag. An organisation comprised predominantly of men oversaw the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia...
If you're keeping score, I think women might be in the lead for some time yet ;)
Yeah, fair enough. I know a lot of the stuff I said up the page is technically troll-ish, but I stand by the general point I made.
I remember the Recycle Bin thing now, I was in the zone and sarcasm tends to zoom over my head when I'm in the mood to make a point :)
If you're going to argue on semantics, then I can't complain - I'm pretty pedantic myself, so.
Conceded :)
I completely disagree with you. I don't believe that lack of law enforcement, on moral grounds or otherwise, is sufficient excuse to break that law.
I also think you're confusing a 'government entity' breaking the law with single witness incidents of people who work for that entity breaking the law.
Then again, maybe I'm not catching your drift on this one. I've been modded to hell already for having this opinion so I might as well quit while I'm very, very behind.
P.S. in response to your other comment, I'm not American. Maybe this is where the ideological difference comes in to play.
Please feel free to link where that happened, and I'll clarify for you.
I asked GP whether he was being sarcastic, and he said no. Good job on the /. stalking though, I look forward to reading your posts more often.
I agree that unjust laws should be broken so that they can be challenged. That is absolutely 100% NOT what this is about. Just laws should be upheld regardless of whether the police do or not, and they should be held accountable when they don't.
If he'd said "I don't agree that the speeding law is a just law, so I will break it", then I wouldn't disagree. However, he said "Police don't follow traffic laws, so I won't", which he has since informed me he didn't mean and I'm stupid for thinking he did.
Clearly I'm the moron, because you made a statement and I assumed you actually meant what you said.
I'm not challenging that, I'm challenging the idea that breaking the law is fine and dandy just because someone else does.
Are you twelve years old? "I saw that other guy do it" is NOT a valid reason for you to do the same thing.
You're not even disobeying the law for some kind of ideological difference with the law itself. You are literally seeing someone do something wrong and emulating because you can.
Please tell me that you're being sarcastic.
I've always assumed they mean "We can't stop you using this, so we're going to pretend it helps."
I wish people would just, you know, drive slower without having to be forced to, but I guess that's wishful thinking.
Apple forces you to use iTunes, and that's enough - what percentage of people will load up iTunes and just decide to buy from that store because it's more convenient? I don't think that's an insignificant percentage.
Further to that, just because the DRM is trivial for you to defeat, that doesn't mean that:
a) You're not technically in breach of the DMCA, no matter how much or little you care about it*, nor
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
*Double negative, bitches!
Trolling doesn't always mean name-calling. It can be posting things which are demonstrably false to provoke a response.
I understand this isn't the case and apologise without reservation.
It doesn't, and that's not what happened.
My information on this was wrong, so I concede this point.
Name one example.
Pick one of the many times Apple has removed posts from forums complaining about a bug or security issue. Apple are notorious for this, and such has been commented on Slashdot numerous times.
The iPhone NDA was enforced to harshly (in my opinion, of course) to prevent developers from talking about why their applications were removed from the iPhone store.
Neither are true.
I already posted links above regarding alleged infringement from Apple of UI ideas from both Xerox and Creative. The former was dismissed only due to the length of time taken to file and is still argued to this day on who would have been victorious. The latter resulted in Apple being asked to pay to license Creative's patent. Seeing as Creative's MP3 players have been out with the same UI since the Nomad, it becomes hard to believe that they didn't know what they were doing.
They support open standards all throughout every product they sell
This is exaggeration at best. I don't think you can say anything about iPod or iTunes is 'open', and there's a story on the front page right now regarding that very thing. The OS may well be, but nothing over the top of it seems to follow suit.
If monopolistic lock-in was their tactic, they're extremely bad at it.
I disagree. They're very, very good at it. iPod now accounts for about 70% of all MP3 players, and each one of those leverages FairPlay and iTunes and thus lock-in to the iTunes platform. Throw in things like 'accidentally' breaking iTunes on Vista, and suing the arse off anybody who tries to copy music to the iPod in a fashion not authorised by them. I don't see how any of this is better than Microsoft tying a media player to an operating system.
A Clue: not everyone who disagrees with you drinks the kool-aid.
I agree with you, and the insinuation was not deserved. Still, I disagree with you on most of your points, and I think that Apple's MP3 dominance and tying to iTunes is an anti-trust investigation waiting to happen.
I think you meant to say "licensing the UI from Xerox PARC".
Xerox didn't seem to think so. I can't find a mention of a licensing deal, but you seem to know where I would find details.
You make it sound like when Microsoft renamed the Trash the "Recycle Bin" and put it in the opposite corner of the screen and called it "innovation'.
That doesn't even sound relevant to what I said, and it doesn't sound like I'm the one with the axe to grind.
I'm not sure whether you're trolling me or not, but I'm going to bite anyway.
You've picked the examples I provided that are convenient to prove your point, obviously ignoring those that might have a chance of proving you wrong. How does pushing Safari as a security update for iTunes associate Apple products with a certain level of quality? How does silencing developers and users who try and criticise them improve their image? Stealing UIs from Xerox and Creative? Preventing installs of OSX on unsupported hardware? If all they're after is improving their product, there are other ways to move which would do the same thing without happening to increase potential lock-in.
The kool-aid is strong with you, it seems.
2) Apple's ONLY strategy is to innovate and have the better product
Say that with a straight face. Apple repeatedly leverages what control it has to improve it's marketshare without necessarily innovating at all.
Let's see... refusing to license FairPlay to other MP3 players to push iPod/iTunes lock-in, banning applications from their distribution store that 'replicate features' in Apple-owned products, banning any other form of distribution other than their own under the pretense of 'security', engaging in lawsuits against anybody who dares to install their OS on hardware they don't control, forcing their own developers into NDAs to prevent them complainign about any of the above, using Software update to push Safari as a 'security update'... All the while, a good portion of their 'innovations' have been bought or stolen from various places. Xerox, anybody?
Would you like me to go on? I'm pretty sure I could find more. The majority of Apple's innovation nowadays is innovating new ways to keep people tied to their hardware. Anybody who thinks that Apple are better than Microsoft in any regard is suffering from delusions brought on by excessively shiny equipment.
I can get back to you with Apple leveraging it's MP3 player monopoly to push it's own DRM and iTunes store, which happens to be completely and deliberately incompatible with everything else on the market.
Is that too inconvenient a truth?
Your obvious bias aside, this is a court case that is trying to prove that Microsoft has misled customers to their detriment. They haven't yet tried to prove there is any detriment to the consumer, and are struggling to prove that they were being deliberately misleading.
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
This got insightful?
NCSoft isn't going under - far from it. TR was just not making them anywhere near enough money to keep it going. Not only that, but for people who stick with the game till the end, every player will get:
- 3 months free on City of Heroes
- 3 months free on Lineage 2
- beta access to Aion
- a pre-order key for Aion
- 1 month free and a paid-for client for Aion
Not a bad deal for 'wasting' 60 bucks on a failed MMO - a free game and about 100 dollars in free game time.
Not quite what you're after, and MTP may not be truly open, but it is freely licensable by everyone and anyone. There's also support in Linux via libmtp.
Creative dumped their own protocol in favour of it, so it can't be that bad.
I just spotted it here, so it looks like it's made it up now.
I completely agree. IMHO, copyright should be 25 years (or lower) or the death of the author, whichever is later.
Novell took $350 million dollars to agree that GNU/Linux was owned by M$ and that everyone needs to pay a license to use free software.
Another piece of borderline libel from the mouth of Slashdot's most prolific troll. You do realise that you can't just make things up?
It's funny to see the current M$ party line as, "incompetent IT people are going to install Vista so get used to it."
Apparently, according to twitter, a random slashdotter making a statement makes it "M$ party line". We're not sure what relationship this random Slashdotter's opinion has to Microsoft advertising strategy, but they're linkable because everybody on Slashdot is a Microsoft shill except twitter, who is the lone voice of truth and decency in a sea of lies and slander.
This would be funny, except you actually sound exactly that ridiculous, so instead it's a bit pathetic.
To be honest, I think he would have got a similar reaction (mostly silence, save one voice saying 'So?')