Why should Microsoft had to tell anybody else about another deal they made? That would be stupid. Whether you accept the truth of it or not, Microsoft made a fair deal with Paterson. There is no moral or legal president (and never will be) in business to do such an asnine thing.
So in other words, you would willing give up freedom for security. To be honest as a member of the armed forces it is people like you who honestly scares me. I can deal with bullets flying towards me. I can deal with the possible IEDs on a road. I can even deal with dying if it comes down to it.
What I can not deal with is the loss of freedom. I don't want to be tracked from point A to point B because somebody thinks they need to know about my whereabouts. I don't need my conversations with another individual recorded, no matter how loud or soft my voice gets. Considering I know more than a couple of students, professors, commanders, etc., who's voice gets EXTREMELY LOUD at times when engaged in a conversation.
I don't need sensationalistic politics or politicians who feel to earn their paychecks they need to introduce some outrageous tracking and monitoring scheme, which essentially now makes the citizens feel like criminals. No society is free of crime, because Man has wants and needs and sometimes in some individuals those wants and needs are larger then others (in a negative way).
To close, you may like living in a "Demolition Man" society, where everything is tracked and controlled. But eventually, such a society will foster members who are soft and weak, and unfit to take care of themselves. And then they will be overrun by someone who's utterly ruthless and without fear or respect of
rules and laws.
Without copyright, Joe Schmoe gets an interesting idea one day while at lunch goes home and after sometime comes up with a software application. For sake of arguement, lets assume that said name application just happens to be unique. Joe Schmoe puts a lot of time and resources in to rollout this software (advertisements, marketing campaigns, etc.) Joe Schmoe knows its a good piece of software, he's a good software engineer (again for sake of arguement).
Finally, the big day comes, Joe Schmoe sells his first one for $99.99, (assuming a normal workday of 9 to 5), Joe's made some good money at the end of the day. about 50 copies sold. Lets just say 10 of the copies went to some very unscrupluous people, who decided to reverse engineer it (or worse just change the name) and remarket the application for a lower price. Now all of Joe's hard work and effort is useless. Granted as most advocates of the free / open source movement say, well he could sell the software, just at a lower price or he could sell support.
Joe Schmoe should not have to jump through those hoops to make money. That is what copyright and patents enforce. Joe Schmoe may not have a problem with his idea being copied and / or modified, but he want's his fair cut of any and all future profits. Again, none of this is possible without protection of copyrights and / or patents.
Bullshit. If I state terms of usage (per an EULA or other contract) which clearly states, if you use this software, you are agreeing not to copy, share, or otherwise tamper with the internals of this software and you hit the 'AGREE' button, then you have accepted the contract. If you don't read what you are accepting that is no excuse. Once you hit 'AGREE' if you do anything outside of the terms of the contract, you have violated (i.e. broke) the contract. In a lawful society, (which we are somewhat), the creator has the right to sue for damages. Whether the third party was aware or not.
Its the same as if you bought a television from someone who stole it from someone else. If the owner or police catch you with their property, you can still be arrested and / or sued for receipt of a stolen product.
Not all infomation (to include software) was intended by its original creator / owner to be free.
I'd definitely concur. We use Toughbooks in Iraq and other combat zones, and the little suckers don't break at all. (Heck, I've even chucked one at somebody... but nevermind that;). Seriously though, the only issue I have with Toughbooks is the fact that hardware-wise they are always behind the curve by about 4-8 months (in terms of processors, memory, etc.)
But other than that, Toughbooks are simply grunt-proof. lol
Perhaps in today's 'lets assume every teenager who is not out trying to score nookie, or hang at the mall' society. But some of us do remember a time when experimentation was encouraged and nurtured. To be honest, I'll be surprised if some state or gov agency doesn't pop by his house and have a little chat or worse the next time he wants to fly any where, his name 'magically' now appears on the no-fly lists.
What's really sad is that people are so frightened, that they would willingly give up personal freedoms and stifle overly creative children for some ill-perception of national security.
True, however Bloomburg is still owner (i.e. major shareholder) in his company. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I believe you cannot be a majority holder in a company and still be President of the USA.
It is also true (as evidenced by the Open / Free Source communities) that some people are not motivated by money. Perhaps he could a good president, I mean considering who we have had, a new face with a new approach could work. I don't think he would win, because of the fact there are people who positively hate the fact that he has that much money. Combined with the fact, as President, he would be under extreme checks and balance (more than he is under now).
On the flip side it could a 'crazy as a fox' move. Although he would have both money and power (a very dangerous combination, in the wrong hands)
Seriously, he would have to be an idiot. Considering he would have to divest himself of most (if not all) of his shares of Microsoft (which is worth billions), just to take a salary of 200,000 per year would be lunacy. Of course there are other kickbacks, but nothing compared to what he is worth or earns now.
So if MIT or Carnegie Mellon offered a BS / MS in Computer Game Design and Programming, would you all still think the same way? I'm just curious because it seems like a lot of the answers offered seem to be harsh to the point of negative. Isn't the field still evolving? Perhaps some people don't want to do CS, plus who is to say an individual who studied Computer Game Design and Programming, couldn't do CS work? Working towards and finishing a degree demonstrates a certain level of determination and / or skill.
Shunning a person because its not 'traditional' doesn't mean they can't do the job.
With respect to hackers (old and new), you may all understand the in's and out's of a computer, but most fail to understand how business works. Some people (myself very much included) do not want to be a 'service and / or support' based shop as a primary goal. The intellectual property (i.e. the code) IS the basis of the business.
Proponent's of open source (normally of the GPL brand) often talk about "Free as in Beer", tell me where can you get beer free? The local supermarket or bar isn't giving it away. Just because something is cheap to make does not mean nobody wants to profit as much as he can from it. This might sound unfair to some and immoral to others, but business is not about morality or fairness per se... it about who makes the most money at the end of the day.
I see a lot of negative comments (and seeing that I use Windows based systems exclusively, but am learning Linux just to have second skillset) this does not really affect me, but I am curious (from a business standpoint) if there are any positives that can come from this? Granted, I know people use past performance to dictate their decisions, but until I get a balanced understanding (meaning BOTH pros and cons), one can't just make the arguement all things MS bad, and all things Linux good.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
I'm sure some (not all) of the same people who feel software should be free (as in beer, whatever that means, since I don't think I can get beer for free from Food Lion), also feel that outraged that a person actually would want to make profit off of someone else. All we are witnessing here is are individuals who understand how to make money. Whether you want to believe it or not it IS fair how they did it. There is no law (higher or otherwise) which states everything must be shared equally, and no I don't believe it should be. You keep what you can get (legally) and if others don't like it, tell them to suck it up.
As much as I take issue with Sony at times (Laptop batteries being my most current issue), this is not Sony's problem. Sony set their price. Somebody else got a better deal (be it perceived or realized). Besides, like a previous poster said, if people are willing to pay that price, then they are satisfied with
it. Its a game system, not something important like water, sheesh.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
On a whim, I looked up the history of English (as a language), and was facinated the by the change in the language over the years, I suspect what we are going
through is something simliar (but at a much faster rate of change). All cultures evolve, and there will always be some who doesn't want it too. Consider American (meaning the United States) English versus England's English, there are pointed differences and they invented the language (I have more than enough English friends who joke about the way we speak, and vice verser.)
Stagnation kills, and change IS inevitable.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Two reasons I can think of off the top of my head: (1) microscopically fine rust powder sounds geeky to the average reader, while nanorust sounds cool, and (2) who wants to actually spout microscopically fine rust powder, when it can be shortened to nanorust?
Granted it does sound like a buzzword, be even as a geek, I'd hate to have to say all of that, when ironically enough, nanorust actually would make sense to me.
(disclaimer, I am a both a double major in business admin (marketing concentration) and computer science), so I can see both sides of the arguement here.
One other thing to think of, as it just came to mind... to capture (meaning get them interested) a venture capitalist or even the future generation of scientists (meaning the children), you gotta make it sound simple now days. A lot of smart people are turned off if it sounds too technical, (one of the reasons I believe a lot of children who are good at math -- I'm using my daughter for instance, is great at math, but gets frustrated because of the technical terminology (she always who came up with these stinking terms), whereas if its broken down to sound simple, then they understand it better and can do the work without complaint.
I didn't mean to go on diatribe, but I think that is the problem with a lot of professionals (be it computer geek, business geek, etc.) If its made simple,
people will get interested enough to continue. Kinda like hammering a nail with w sledgehammer, its overkill.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Why is tabbed browsing so coveted? I've used it in both IE and Firefox and in both applications its a memory hog? Not to mention, and perhaps I'm wrong about this, but if one tab crashes does it take down all of the others with it? At least with separate windows, you can set up the system to kill just the one window rather than all of them at once.
Well I call bullshit. lol Sheesh, I know most people on slashdot really believes that Linux is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it really is not the
end all be all OS for everybody. The original poster can use the group policy editor alog with the MS shared computer toolkit and will be fine. No need to force every student to now learn a entire OS just for the sake of Linixising the world or imposing some uber security setup which will either (a) cause some kids to cut class or worse (imagine away) Leave Linix in the server space where its good at.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Forbes may not be credible to techies and geeks, however it is VERY reliavant to the business world and those who control the money that funds these projects. Thats a fact. I'm sure in an ideal world everyone would want to share their ideas and work. However in 2006 (and probably for the near future), money is still the driving force for most of the world. Stallman's arguement that, "one is allowed to charge for GPL'd software" is laughable at best and hippocritical at worse, since what individual would pay for something he can get for free? SNI would have to have a real compelling reason (ability to make that cost back plus profit). (Yes, I do realize that some FOSS developrs make money, but to be honest I consider those that do to be an anomaly).
Call me cynical, but since money rules the day, I'd take what Forbes says quite seriously. Or to put it in terms of a popular song in the early 90's C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me).
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student and Proud Parent!)
Just curious, did you right click and remove the checkmark from the lock the toolbar section? (that being said, I do notice that the address bar and search bar is entirely fixed now... I'm not sure yet if I like its placement...) But as far as I can tell after the reboot,/. main page rendered fine. Not saying your setup doesn't work (you may other config settings than mine) but all of my websites thus far are ok.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
(er...forget the 'Good Guy' thing, lol everybody is good at times;)
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, I like Xerox and I hope they don't shoot themselves in the foot again (like they did with the GUI and the Mouse).
Why should Microsoft had to tell anybody else about another deal they made? That would be stupid. Whether you accept the truth of it or not, Microsoft made a fair deal with Paterson. There is no moral or legal president (and never will be) in business to do such an asnine thing.
So in other words, you would willing give up freedom for security. To be honest as a member of the armed forces it is people like you who honestly scares me. I can deal with bullets flying towards me. I can deal with the possible IEDs on a road. I can even deal with dying if it comes down to it.
What I can not deal with is the loss of freedom. I don't want to be tracked from point A to point B because somebody thinks they need to know about my whereabouts. I don't need my conversations with another individual recorded, no matter how loud or soft my voice gets. Considering I know more than a couple of students, professors, commanders, etc., who's voice gets EXTREMELY LOUD at times when engaged in a conversation.
I don't need sensationalistic politics or politicians who feel to earn their paychecks they need to introduce some outrageous tracking and monitoring scheme, which essentially now makes the citizens feel like criminals. No society is free of crime, because Man has wants and needs and sometimes in some individuals those wants and needs are larger then others (in a negative way).
To close, you may like living in a "Demolition Man" society, where everything is tracked and controlled. But eventually, such a society will foster members who are soft and weak, and unfit to take care of themselves. And then they will be overrun by someone who's utterly ruthless and without fear or respect of rules and laws.
Now that is an individual who should resell that for 2000 dollars and make a killer profit.
And for the seller... Sucks to Be You!!
Hmmm lets examine that.
.
Without copyright, Joe Schmoe gets an interesting idea one day while at lunch goes home and after sometime comes up with a software application. For sake of arguement, lets assume that said name application just happens to be unique. Joe Schmoe puts a lot of time and resources in to rollout this software (advertisements, marketing campaigns, etc.) Joe Schmoe knows its a good piece of software, he's a good software engineer (again for sake of arguement).
Finally, the big day comes, Joe Schmoe sells his first one for $99.99, (assuming a normal workday of 9 to 5), Joe's made some good money at the end of the day. about 50 copies sold. Lets just say 10 of the copies went to some very unscrupluous people, who decided to reverse engineer it (or worse just change the name) and remarket the application for a lower price. Now all of Joe's hard work and effort is useless. Granted as most advocates of the free / open source movement say, well he could sell the software, just at a lower price or he could sell support
Joe Schmoe should not have to jump through those hoops to make money. That is what copyright and patents enforce. Joe Schmoe may not have a problem with his idea being copied and / or modified, but he want's his fair cut of any and all future profits. Again, none of this is possible without protection of copyrights and / or patents.
Bullshit. If I state terms of usage (per an EULA or other contract) which clearly states, if you use this software, you are agreeing not to copy, share, or otherwise tamper with the internals of this software and you hit the 'AGREE' button, then you have accepted the contract. If you don't read what you are accepting that is no excuse. Once you hit 'AGREE' if you do anything outside of the terms of the contract, you have violated (i.e. broke) the contract. In a lawful society, (which we are somewhat), the creator has the right to sue for damages. Whether the third party was aware or not.
Its the same as if you bought a television from someone who stole it from someone else. If the owner or police catch you with their property, you can still be arrested and / or sued for receipt of a stolen product.
Not all infomation (to include software) was intended by its original creator / owner to be free.
I'd definitely concur. We use Toughbooks in Iraq and other combat zones, and the little suckers don't break at all. (Heck, I've even chucked one at somebody... but nevermind that ;). Seriously though, the only issue I have with Toughbooks is the fact that hardware-wise they are always behind the curve by about 4-8 months (in terms of processors, memory, etc.)
But other than that, Toughbooks are simply grunt-proof. lol
Perhaps in today's 'lets assume every teenager who is not out trying to score nookie, or hang at the mall' society. But some of us do remember a time when experimentation was encouraged and nurtured. To be honest, I'll be surprised if some state or gov agency doesn't pop by his house and have a little chat or worse the next time he wants to fly any where, his name 'magically' now appears on the no-fly lists.
What's really sad is that people are so frightened, that they would willingly give up personal freedoms and stifle overly creative children for some ill-perception of national security.
True, however Bloomburg is still owner (i.e. major shareholder) in his company. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I believe you cannot be a majority holder in a company and still be President of the USA.
It is also true (as evidenced by the Open / Free Source communities) that some people are not motivated by money. Perhaps he could a good president, I mean considering who we have had, a new face with a new approach could work. I don't think he would win, because of the fact there are people who positively hate the fact that he has that much money. Combined with the fact, as President, he would be under extreme checks and balance (more than he is under now).
On the flip side it could a 'crazy as a fox' move. Although he would have both money and power (a very dangerous combination, in the wrong hands)
I stand corrected, thanks. But I still think he would be an idiot. lol
Seriously, he would have to be an idiot. Considering he would have to divest himself of most (if not all) of his shares of Microsoft (which is worth billions), just to take a salary of 200,000 per year would be lunacy. Of course there are other kickbacks, but nothing compared to what he is worth or earns now.
Even though I dislike OpenOffice, I would suggest taking a wait-and-see approach, rather than just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So if MIT or Carnegie Mellon offered a BS / MS in Computer Game Design and Programming, would you all still think the same way? I'm just curious because it seems like a lot of the answers offered seem to be harsh to the point of negative. Isn't the field still evolving? Perhaps some people don't want to do CS, plus who is to say an individual who studied Computer Game Design and Programming, couldn't do CS work? Working towards and finishing a degree demonstrates a certain level of determination and / or skill.
Shunning a person because its not 'traditional' doesn't mean they can't do the job.
With respect to hackers (old and new), you may all understand the in's and out's of a computer, but most fail to understand how business works. Some people (myself very much included) do not want to be a 'service and / or support' based shop as a primary goal. The intellectual property (i.e. the code) IS the basis of the business.
Proponent's of open source (normally of the GPL brand) often talk about "Free as in Beer", tell me where can you get beer free? The local supermarket or bar isn't giving it away. Just because something is cheap to make does not mean nobody wants to profit as much as he can from it. This might sound unfair to some and immoral to others, but business is not about morality or fairness per se... it about who makes the most money at the end of the day.
I see a lot of negative comments (and seeing that I use Windows based systems exclusively, but am learning Linux just to have second skillset) this does not really affect me, but I am curious (from a business standpoint) if there are any positives that can come from this? Granted, I know people use past performance to dictate their decisions, but until I get a balanced understanding (meaning BOTH pros and cons), one can't just make the arguement all things MS bad, and all things Linux good.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
I'm sure some (not all) of the same people who feel software should be free (as in beer, whatever that means, since I don't think I can get beer for free from Food Lion), also feel that outraged that a person actually would want to make profit off of someone else. All we are witnessing here is are individuals who understand how to make money. Whether you want to believe it or not it IS fair how they did it. There is no law (higher or otherwise) which states everything must be shared equally, and no I don't believe it should be. You keep what you can get (legally) and if others don't like it, tell them to suck it up.
As much as I take issue with Sony at times (Laptop batteries being my most current issue), this is not Sony's problem. Sony set their price. Somebody else got a better deal (be it perceived or realized). Besides, like a previous poster said, if people are willing to pay that price, then they are satisfied with it. Its a game system, not something important like water, sheesh.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
On a whim, I looked up the history of English (as a language), and was facinated the by the change in the language over the years, I suspect what we are going through is something simliar (but at a much faster rate of change). All cultures evolve, and there will always be some who doesn't want it too. Consider American (meaning the United States) English versus England's English, there are pointed differences and they invented the language (I have more than enough English friends who joke about the way we speak, and vice verser.)
Stagnation kills, and change IS inevitable.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Two reasons I can think of off the top of my head: (1) microscopically fine rust powder sounds geeky to the average reader, while nanorust sounds cool, and (2) who wants to actually spout microscopically fine rust powder, when it can be shortened to nanorust?
Granted it does sound like a buzzword, be even as a geek, I'd hate to have to say all of that, when ironically enough, nanorust actually would make sense to me. (disclaimer, I am a both a double major in business admin (marketing concentration) and computer science), so I can see both sides of the arguement here.
One other thing to think of, as it just came to mind... to capture (meaning get them interested) a venture capitalist or even the future generation of scientists (meaning the children), you gotta make it sound simple now days. A lot of smart people are turned off if it sounds too technical, (one of the reasons I believe a lot of children who are good at math -- I'm using my daughter for instance, is great at math, but gets frustrated because of the technical terminology (she always who came up with these stinking terms), whereas if its broken down to sound simple, then they understand it better and can do the work without complaint.
I didn't mean to go on diatribe, but I think that is the problem with a lot of professionals (be it computer geek, business geek, etc.) If its made simple, people will get interested enough to continue. Kinda like hammering a nail with w sledgehammer, its overkill.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
That is fine, but let the individual business make the decision, not the government.
Or maybe IASA... but that might bring down the wrath of the Peacekeepers, lol.
Uh I'll buy your copy off you. lol (seriously)
Why is tabbed browsing so coveted? I've used it in both IE and Firefox and in both applications its a memory hog? Not to mention, and perhaps I'm wrong about this, but if one tab crashes does it take down all of the others with it? At least with separate windows, you can set up the system to kill just the one window rather than all of them at once.
Well I call bullshit. lol Sheesh, I know most people on slashdot really believes that Linux is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it really is not the end all be all OS for everybody. The original poster can use the group policy editor alog with the MS shared computer toolkit and will be fine. No need to force every student to now learn a entire OS just for the sake of Linixising the world or imposing some uber security setup which will either (a) cause some kids to cut class or worse (imagine away) Leave Linix in the server space where its good at.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
Forbes may not be credible to techies and geeks, however it is VERY reliavant to the business world and those who control the money that funds these projects. Thats a fact. I'm sure in an ideal world everyone would want to share their ideas and work. However in 2006 (and probably for the near future), money is still the driving force for most of the world. Stallman's arguement that, "one is allowed to charge for GPL'd software" is laughable at best and hippocritical at worse, since what individual would pay for something he can get for free? SNI would have to have a real compelling reason (ability to make that cost back plus profit). (Yes, I do realize that some FOSS developrs make money, but to be honest I consider those that do to be an anomaly). Call me cynical, but since money rules the day, I'd take what Forbes says quite seriously. Or to put it in terms of a popular song in the early 90's C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me).
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student and Proud Parent!)
Just curious, did you right click and remove the checkmark from the lock the toolbar section? (that being said, I do notice that the address bar and search bar is entirely fixed now... I'm not sure yet if I like its placement...) But as far as I can tell after the reboot, /. main page rendered fine. Not saying your setup doesn't work (you may other config settings than mine) but all of my websites thus far are ok.
;)
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Proud Parent!)
(er...forget the 'Good Guy' thing, lol everybody is good at times