Re:Flash is proprietary and NOT a good idea for we
on
Flash and Open Source
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· Score: 4, Insightful
So... much as I dislike flash 'intros' as much as the next man, what do you suggest for web-based interactive graphics? I don't know of anything as widespread and well-supported as Flash.
Anyway, the Flash file format is open: http://www.openswf.org/ (Well, in that it is openly documented, anyway...)
Re:Warez isn't THAT bad
on
e-Denounce
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· Score: 2
I agree, I've been pirating software for some time as well. Why should I pay for it, I'm not making money from it
Yes, but you are using it. If you don't want to pay for it, don't use it. Hardly anybody makes money from playing games, but does that mean that nobody should pay for them?
Most of the time I just like playing with software to see what it does.
You ought to try a different distribution - Redhat or Caldera maybe - they all have very easy-to-use graphical installation programs - just as easy to use as Windows, really.
Personally I prefer Windows over Linux, but the distribution of Linux I do use is 'ZipSlack' - it's a Slackware distribution packaged in a 32Mb zip file - just uncompress onto a FAT partition and boot into dos. Excecute the Linux.bat file. Presto! No need to set aside a partition or anything. I have it running on an old 486 laptop. (No X-Windows, though. You'd have to install that yourself:-P)
I'm British. Everybody I know uses SMS on their phone. Most of these people are between about 24 and 36 - not really 'kids'... (Well... you might not agree if you're 58, but I'm assuming you're a bit younger than that... ?)Most phones here have a T9 or equivalent system that makes composing SMS messages fairly quick. It's not exactly a 102-key keyboard, but it's not bad. Perhaps you don't have that kind of thing over the pond yet.
SMS messages are superior to leaving text messages in several ways:
a) The message is stored on the phone - you don't have to ring up somewhere every time you want to listen. b) There's no problems with not being able to understand what someone is saying on the voicemail because their reception has broken up partway through. c) You can send an SMS without making any noise, or in places where it's too noisy to practically hold a conversation on the phone (Down the pub for instance...) d) You don't need to talk to the person. You can't rely on being able to leave a voicemail. Sometimes you want to send the message without the chat. e) Phone numbers etc.. are much easier to send, as you can often cut and paste to/from the message.
SMS is neat. Much like email, just a bit smaller and more portable.
I suspect that they are worried that a bit of GPLed code will somehow make it into a bit of the windows codebase - intentionally or otherwise.
It only takes one programmer on the MS campus to fuck up and that could happen. I imagine that they're worried that then people would start taking them to court to gain access to the code.
C'mon - if you heard that MS has some GPLed code in Windows - which would you put your weght behind:
a) They just take the code out b) They are forced to open their codebase
I suspect a solution for him would consist of several parts - some of which might use Java. I would be bit suprised if he found a completely platform-independant solution.
Windows boxes are everywhere. His main requirement is that he will be able to do his work anywhere. Windows boxes fulfil that requirement. If his solution works on Apple or Linux boxes, great. If it doesn't - no big deal.
I found this quote (from a Slashdotter) quite funny:
I was in a company that was run by technical people, but when the company ran into financial trouble, decided to become more "market oriented".
They hired a bunch of professional executives, marketing people, etc. Marketing was put in charge of determining product direction, as they knew what the customer wanted.
Well it turned out that the technical people were in fact smarter than the marketing and PR guys, who seemed to think that software could be created by committees and meetings and lots of vision. The company sank like a rock."
(S)He blames the downfall of the company on the marketing people, and yet had stated earlier that they were already in trouble anyway. Sounds to me like the company was doomed irrespective of the marketdroids.
Taking risks is all about the possible benefits involved.
If all you're getting is your wage (or rather, not getting it...) - get the hell out, startup or not.
If you're going to miss out on a payslip, you'd better be damn sure that you're getting a big bunch of money some other way later (i.e. stock options etc...)
It's a very good example of an open source license - it's short, concise and easy to understand. (Unlike some other licenses out there *coughGPLcough*...)
. . .
Shared Source License for Microsoft Windows CE.NET This License governs use of the accompanying Software.
Posted: January 07, 2002
You can use this Software for any noncommercial purpose, including distributing derivatives. Running your business operations would not be considered noncommercial.
For commercial purposes, you can reference this software solely to assist in developing and testing your own software and hardware for the Windows CE.NET platform. You may not distribute this software in source or object form for commercial purposes under any circumstances.
In return, we simply require that you agree:
1. Not to remove any copyright notices from the Software.
2. That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is licensed pursuant to terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be licensed to or otherwise shared with others.
3. That if you distribute the Software in source code form you do so only under this License (i.e. you must include a complete copy of this License with your distribution), and if you distribute the Software solely in object form you only do so under a license that complies with this License.
4. That the Software comes "as is", with no warranties. None whatsoever. This means no express, implied or statutory warranty, including without limitation, warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or any warranty of noninfringement. Also, you must pass this disclaimer on whenever you distribute the Software.
5. That neither Microsoft nor its suppliers will be liable for any of those types of damages known as indirect, special, consequential, or incidental related to the Software or this License, to the maximum extent the law permits, no matter what legal theory it's based on. Also, you must pass this limitation of liability on whenever you distribute the Software.
6. That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software for a person's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically.
7. That the patent rights Microsoft is licensing only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make.
8. That your rights under the License end automatically if you breach it in any way.
They even say explicitly that it is fine to use the code as a reference when building your own commercial code, as long as you don't include any of it.
The reason it went to court was that XS4ALL did not wish to censor any of the incoming traffic, as it had committment to deliver everything that was sent to its customers to its customers.
It could have filtered out all their mail, but chose rather to try and get Abfab to stop sending the mail, therefore meaning that it has not had to do any censorship at all.
When I did my CS degree, we worked exclusively on UNIX boxes - but it didn't stop the majority of my friends and I ending up in Windows-programming jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
So... much as I dislike flash 'intros' as much as the next man, what do you suggest for web-based interactive graphics? I don't know of anything as widespread and well-supported as Flash.
Anyway, the Flash file format is open: http://www.openswf.org/ (Well, in that it is openly documented, anyway...)
I agree, I've been pirating software for some time as well. Why should I pay for it, I'm not making money from it
Yes, but you are using it. If you don't want to pay for it, don't use it. Hardly anybody makes money from playing games, but does that mean that nobody should pay for them?
Most of the time I just like playing with software to see what it does.
Well, download the demo then.
I think the word you're looking for is 'Favour' (Or to use the U.S. spelling, 'Favor')
It's as bad as 'Burglarize' instead of 'Burgle' and my pet hate, the use of 'Leverage' as a verb, rather than 'Lever'.
You ought to try a different distribution - Redhat or Caldera maybe - they all have very easy-to-use graphical installation programs - just as easy to use as Windows, really.
:-P)
Personally I prefer Windows over Linux, but the distribution of Linux I do use is 'ZipSlack' - it's a Slackware distribution packaged in a 32Mb zip file - just uncompress onto a FAT partition and boot into dos. Excecute the Linux.bat file. Presto! No need to set aside a partition or anything. I have it running on an old 486 laptop. (No X-Windows, though. You'd have to install that yourself
Damn. I thought I was flaming.
Does the European Treo support GPRS, seeing as it's avaliable across most of Europe now?
I'm British. Everybody I know uses SMS on their phone. Most of these people are between about 24 and 36 - not really 'kids'... (Well... you might not agree if you're 58, but I'm assuming you're a bit younger than that... ?)Most phones here have a T9 or equivalent system that makes composing SMS messages fairly quick. It's not exactly a 102-key keyboard, but it's not bad. Perhaps you don't have that kind of thing over the pond yet.
SMS messages are superior to leaving text messages in several ways:
a) The message is stored on the phone - you don't have to ring up somewhere every time you want to listen.
b) There's no problems with not being able to understand what someone is saying on the voicemail because their reception has broken up partway through.
c) You can send an SMS without making any noise, or in places where it's too noisy to practically hold a conversation on the phone (Down the pub for instance...)
d) You don't need to talk to the person. You can't rely on being able to leave a voicemail. Sometimes you want to send the message without the chat.
e) Phone numbers etc.. are much easier to send, as you can often cut and paste to/from the message.
SMS is neat. Much like email, just a bit smaller and more portable.
Why?
For those who think metric.
Or weighs as much as:
almost eight litre cartons of orange juice
or 13 pints of beer
Longer extensions work just dandy with Windows, and have done for seven years - there's no reason why people shouldn't use the extension 'jpeg2'
I suspect that they are worried that a bit of GPLed code will somehow make it into a bit of the windows codebase - intentionally or otherwise.
;)
It only takes one programmer on the MS campus to fuck up and that could happen. I imagine that they're worried that then people would start taking them to court to gain access to the code.
C'mon - if you heard that MS has some GPLed code in Windows - which would you put your weght behind:
a) They just take the code out
b) They are forced to open their codebase
Yup - though so!
Geez.
I suspect a solution for him would consist of several parts - some of which might use Java. I would be bit suprised if he found a completely platform-independant solution.
Windows boxes are everywhere. His main requirement is that he will be able to do his work anywhere. Windows boxes fulfil that requirement. If his solution works on Apple or Linux boxes, great. If it doesn't - no big deal.
He wants to be able to store all his work on the internet somewhere and be able to access it and work on it *anywhere*.
Anywhere pretty much means a Windows PC. When was the last time you walked past an internet cafe where you could use a Linux/Unix box?
What happens if you don't have a driving license?
Is it some kind of 'drivers only' club?
I found this quote (from a Slashdotter) quite funny:
I was in a company that was run by technical people, but when the company ran into financial trouble, decided to become more "market oriented".
They hired a bunch of professional executives, marketing people, etc. Marketing was put in charge of determining product direction, as they knew what the customer wanted.
Well it turned out that the technical people were in fact smarter than the marketing and PR guys, who seemed to think that software could be created by committees and meetings and lots of vision. The company sank like a rock."
(S)He blames the downfall of the company on the marketing people, and yet had stated earlier that they were already in trouble anyway. Sounds to me like the company was doomed irrespective of the marketdroids.
So let me get this straight... from your sample of one, you can draw a conclusion?
Taking risks is all about the possible benefits involved.
If all you're getting is your wage (or rather, not getting it...) - get the hell out, startup or not.
If you're going to miss out on a payslip, you'd better be damn sure that you're getting a big bunch of money some other way later (i.e. stock options etc...)
Will very likely look pretty much this license, which is the Shared Source license for Windows CE .NET.
Here's the Microsoft Shared Source License.
.NET
.NET platform. You may not distribute this software in source or object form for commercial purposes under any circumstances.
It's a very good example of an open source license - it's short, concise and easy to understand. (Unlike some other licenses out there *coughGPLcough*...)
.
.
.
Shared Source License for Microsoft Windows CE
This License governs use of the accompanying Software.
Posted: January 07, 2002
You can use this Software for any noncommercial purpose, including distributing derivatives. Running your business operations would not be considered noncommercial.
For commercial purposes, you can reference this software solely to assist in developing and testing your own software and hardware for the Windows CE
In return, we simply require that you agree:
1. Not to remove any copyright notices from the Software.
2. That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is licensed pursuant to terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be licensed to or otherwise shared with others.
3. That if you distribute the Software in source code form you do so only under this License (i.e. you must include a complete copy of this License with your distribution), and if you distribute the Software solely in object form you only do so under a license that complies with this License.
4. That the Software comes "as is", with no warranties. None whatsoever. This means no express, implied or statutory warranty, including without limitation, warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose or any warranty of noninfringement. Also, you must pass this disclaimer on whenever you distribute the Software.
5. That neither Microsoft nor its suppliers will be liable for any of those types of damages known as indirect, special, consequential, or incidental related to the Software or this License, to the maximum extent the law permits, no matter what legal theory it's based on. Also, you must pass this limitation of liability on whenever you distribute the Software.
6. That if you sue anyone over patents that you think may apply to the Software for a person's use of the Software, your license to the Software ends automatically.
7. That the patent rights Microsoft is licensing only apply to the Software, not to any derivatives you make.
8. That your rights under the License end automatically if you breach it in any way.
They even say explicitly that it is fine to use the code as a reference when building your own commercial code, as long as you don't include any of it.
Sorry to be a grammar Nazi, but it's 'Saturdays'... You should never put in an apostrophe to make something plural.
The reason it went to court was that XS4ALL did not wish to censor any of the incoming traffic, as it had committment to deliver everything that was sent to its customers to its customers.
It could have filtered out all their mail, but chose rather to try and get Abfab to stop sending the mail, therefore meaning that it has not had to do any censorship at all.
To be honest, that's what you get for using a proprietary language wholly owned by a particular company.
Java is not an open standard, which is why Sun was able to sue Microsoft over Microsoft's implementation, as they had licensed the technology.
It shouldn't be suprising now that MS wants to stick with its own homegrown alternative.
Hint to Sun: If you want people to pack your technology - it might be a good idea to to sue them.
When I did my CS degree, we worked exclusively on UNIX boxes - but it didn't stop the majority of my friends and I ending up in Windows-programming jobs.