First of all, your FUDding about GNU stuff is rather unappealing.. More importantly, though, it's NOT that they're not being as perfectly Saintly as they can be-- it's that they're attempting to portray themselves as being "in" with tne Open Source(/free software) crowd, which they aren't... that's all.
I'd just like to state that the person who pointed out how Inprise/Borland has taken great pains to portray themselves as the benefactors of the "Open Source" community had a VERY good point. What is going on here is essentially the cheapening of what free software stands for. It used to be that people would use the term "free software"-- but that is all about freedom, which conjures up all sorts of unpleasant (at least, to Corporate America's eyes) imagery of scruffy revolutionaries sitting in smoky bars sipping cognac, and so the term "open source" was adopted by ESR, thereby dissociating the code from any immediately obvious social issues and turning it purely into a technical or economic issue. Alright, but then what? Then, all the companies that released even the slightest bit of information, or the smallest of binaries, started flinging about the word "Open"; now, here comes Borland (or whoever the hell owns them now) trying to paint themselves as being in the same boat as the "Open Source" community, while meanwhile all it is doing is giving away (after a mandatory registration AND a survey, I might add) a very much closed-source compiler, for Windows only (!!!), with no debugger?!
I fear that the logical continuation of this pattern is as follows-- since Borland has just established that by giving away free-beer-free goodies (not even necessarily whole software packages-- arguably, a development package is not complete without a debugger!) somehow puts one in the same boat as the Open Source/free software crowd, the next steps involve doing the same for (in order):
* Crippleware/nagware/software that times out after X days-- "But see, it's helping them until it expires! They can use it to create Open Source applications for 30 days!"
* Inexpensive software ("But see, it's cheap.. we're not greedy, so we're helping the Open Source community!")
And, eventually, anyone selling their piece of software for a few bucks less than their competitors will attempt to brand themselves as being pillars of the Open Source community...
When I loaded the original URL (the one pointed out in the post), all I saw was that Netscape couldn't find a plug-in for Quicktime files. I viewed the source, and downloaded the.MOV pointed to by it... and it was merely the "Click here to start playing" thingee. Since I'm using Debian (and not Windows or Mac OS), clicking in the middle of my Quicktime player's window doesn't exactly do anything;) (I can sit there clicking on my xanim all day-- it won't do jack squat).
Firstly, how the hey did you find this real URL? Secondly, how the hey can I set up stuff in Netscape or Mozilla under GNU/Linux so that things will play properly?
The funniest scene in the whole thing (so far) has to be the part where Cypher is looking over Trinity's helpless jacked-in body and goes "l00k a7 m3 tr1nity. 1 m @n 31337 h@x0r.", or whatever. That part had me laughing out loud!:D
Y'know, gang, there really are a lot of very smart, very mature people who happen to be under 18 (for the record, I'm not one of them.. I'm neither under 18 nor very smart or mature;) )..
Hmm.. I tried to sign, and for the first umpteen times I tried, I got a message telling me that the user who runs the page has too many processes going. Apparently, this system is on a process quota and can't handle being Slashdotted. I'd like to offer some free Webspace on the nonprofit hosting provider I run, www.twu.net... if whoever runs this petition would like some, let me know.
Actually, you won't lose everything that's RPMd. Debian can deal with RPMs just fine-- you can use the traditional "rpm" program (yes, the same one from Red Hat) or you can convert them to.DEB packages with the "alien" package.:)
Yes, and all that RC5 cracking "proves" is that dividing a brute-force problem into a lot of little slices and giving each slice to a computer will eventually find an answer (actually it proves nothing, proof by example is not a proof). If you had given just the keyspace chunk containing the right answer to just one computer, you still would have found the answer, without every other computer.:)
So what's your point? Sure, all it proves is that distributed work, uh, WORKS. Because it DOES. Sure, it's not as efficient as simply seeking out the One Person Who Actually Does Know The Answer, but it's a quick and dirty way to solve problems that sometimes-- as with RC5 cracking-- is the only feasible way to do it without a huge time/money budget.
I certainly hope that no company is going to try to put a patent on this thing. I read recently that some company actually patented the IC when it came out; this same sort of action today (taken on the successor to the IC) could spell disaster for our technological future..:/
How this AC's little rant hasn't been moderated down to "Flamebait", I don't know...
Anyhow, think of it this way. I'm not a big Java person, but some of my close friends are, and already I've seen evidence of some nasty incompatibility problems as one moves across platforms. With a proprietary implementation of Java, there is no way to get a guaranteed fix-- you're simply at the mercy of the people who made the implementation (here, Sun). But if you find a problem with a free software implementation, well, you just ask the folks who wrote it, and if they're not willing to fix it, you fix it yourself. Or you persuade a friend to do it. Or you persuade some guy on IRC to do it. Whatever. The point is that proprietary software makes you completely dependent on somebody else, whose motives are not compatibility and quality but profit and more profit. It makes you powerless, and thus, it's a Bad Thing(TM).
Jesus. Isn't there any way things could be scripted up to automatically launch a massive barrage of DoS attacks at people who post garbage like this? For shame.
I think the hype over issues such as this needs to stop. Clearly, all this is is the natural successor to what humans have been doing for literally thousands of years-- selective breeding.
There's nothing special about life, and there's nothing wrong about creating life. There's even nothing wrong about creating SENTIENT life. The only thing that humanity could ever do that would be morally 'wrong' pertaining to the creation and/or modification of life is to mistreat sentient beings-- for example, to modify existing sentients (including, but not limited to, conventional human beings) without permission, or to create a new sentient race and then enslave them. THAT would be wrong. This isn't wrong at all!
As for the cloning bit, that's even less important. "Cloning" would more accurately be called "twinning"-- that's all it is, the artificial creation of a twin. If you got a hold of Einstein's DNA and "cloned" him, all you would have would be a person who would look like Einstein and have basically the same potential-- at birth-- as he did. You wouldn't end up with EINSTEIN HIMSELF. The memories would not be there. Cloning, essentially, merely creates a new life with the same genetic starting point as another life-- just like the natural creation of twins within a woman's womb does. And engineering life? No moral problems there. When we start talking of creating sentient slave races, -then- bother me.
What sort of trollish nonsense is this? You seem to be making the point that since some of the laws pertaining to children are designed to protect them from being exploited, they're all okay. This is patently false. The problem is that children are powerless-- the fact that they were powerless in the first place was what opened the doors to people to use them for forced labor, which directly (supposedly) led to the child labor laws to which you seem to be alluding...
Those same child labor laws ALSO make it illegal for children who LEGITIMATELY want to work-- for one, I did, when I was 12, and I'm sure there are others like me out there-- to follow their wishes. Child labor law goes about things all the wrong way. Just as it's stupid to ban all alcohol use under 21 (including responsible alcohol use!), it's stupid to ban all work under 14/16/18/whatever it is in your county (including VOLUNTARY, PAID work). US law-- and, I'd wager to say, law in general-- has a long history of being dogged and heavy-handed and highly conservative, and this is no different.
In any case, what does this silly comment of yours have to do with the fact that kids can't download Corel Linux? Does your praise of child labor law somehow also equate to automatic acceptance of the laws that make it legitimate for Corel to refuse children their useful OS? If so, how?
You're missing the point. When things like this are just let slide, they grow ever-more legitimized. The problem isn't that people ACTUALLY fear that this silly EULA is ACTUALLY going to stop kids from downloading Linux-- it's that they (well, at least some of us... well, at least MYSELF) see that once stuff like this becomes legitimized, it opens the door to a legitimized and publically accepted out-and-out ban on GNU/Linux (and other OSes?) use by "minors", distribution by distribution by distribution.
Or, to put it another way-- can you imagine what would happen if you had to be 18 to install Windows? What would the mundanes say?
Yipes. Sorry about that, guys. I didn't know that things were like that outside the US. (BELIEVE ME, I'm not a pro-US individual; I don't like it at all, but I AM used to it.) You learn something new every day.:/
That's why everything that belongs to you until you're 18 is legally the property of your parents. Childhood very closely resembles slavery in so many ways, it's not funny. It's just socially acceptable...
'Scuse me, sonny. Just because you're over eightteen and I'm over eightteen doesn't mean that everyone is over eightteen. Whatever happened to consideration for those who society overlooks? I was a "minor" when I first used Linux, a "minor" when I first installed Linux on my own machines, and I have helped many "minors" install Linux. Why should Corel Linux be the "adults-only" OS? Try being a little more sensitive to others' needs here-- some kids might actually WANT this stuff!
Okay, so... what you just said basically amounts to "yeah, "minors" can't use Corel Linux 'cuz they can't enter into legally binding agreements... and so they have "no right" to use Corel Linux." How does stating the ugly facts make them somehow okay?
Those who are bringing up Corel's probable reason for doing this, are bringing up the fact that no contract with a "minor" can be legally binding. This is quite irrelevent due to current common practice. The contents of a disk (i.e. software) is just like the contents of a book (i.e. a novel)-- both are "intellectual property", quite copyable but illegal to copy.
WHEN was the last time that you had to be 18 to purchase a (non-pornographic) book?
Even in the software world-- other than "adult" titles, when was the last time you had to be 18 to download a piece of software? An -operating system-, no less?
I think that we should talk to Corel about this and try to get them to change their ways.
Uhh... why don't you read my comment a little closer, fool... I was talking about the RECORD COMPANY EXECS. Those ARE the people who sell/produce the CDs.:PPP
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, your FUDding about GNU stuff is rather unappealing.. More importantly, though, it's NOT that they're not being as perfectly Saintly as they can be-- it's that they're attempting to portray themselves as being "in" with tne Open Source(/free software) crowd, which they aren't... that's all.
I'd just like to state that the person who pointed out how Inprise/Borland has taken great pains to portray themselves as the benefactors of the "Open Source" community had a VERY good point. What is going on here is essentially the cheapening of what free software stands for. It used to be that people would use the term "free software"-- but that is all about freedom, which conjures up all sorts of unpleasant (at least, to Corporate America's eyes) imagery of scruffy revolutionaries sitting in smoky bars sipping cognac, and so the term "open source" was adopted by ESR, thereby dissociating the code from any immediately obvious social issues and turning it purely into a technical or economic issue. Alright, but then what? Then, all the companies that released even the slightest bit of information, or the smallest of binaries, started flinging about the word "Open"; now, here comes Borland (or whoever the hell owns them now) trying to paint themselves as being in the same boat as the "Open Source" community, while meanwhile all it is doing is giving away (after a mandatory registration AND a survey, I might add) a very much closed-source compiler, for Windows only (!!!), with no debugger?!
I fear that the logical continuation of this pattern is as follows-- since Borland has just established that by giving away free-beer-free goodies (not even necessarily whole software packages-- arguably, a development package is not complete without a debugger!) somehow puts one in the same boat as the Open Source/free software crowd, the next steps involve doing the same for (in order):
* Crippleware/nagware/software that times out after X days-- "But see, it's helping them until it expires! They can use it to create Open Source applications for 30 days!"
* Inexpensive software ("But see, it's cheap.. we're not greedy, so we're helping the Open Source community!")
And, eventually, anyone selling their piece of software for a few bucks less than their competitors will attempt to brand themselves as being pillars of the Open Source community...
But again, that's just my 2c.
Okay. How the hell did you find that?
.MOV pointed to by it... and it was merely the "Click here to start playing" thingee. Since I'm using Debian (and not Windows or Mac OS), clicking in the middle of my Quicktime player's window doesn't exactly do anything ;) (I can sit there clicking on my xanim all day-- it won't do jack squat).
When I loaded the original URL (the one pointed out in the post), all I saw was that Netscape couldn't find a plug-in for Quicktime files. I viewed the source, and downloaded the
Firstly, how the hey did you find this real URL? Secondly, how the hey can I set up stuff in Netscape or Mozilla under GNU/Linux so that things will play properly?
The funniest scene in the whole thing (so far) has to be the part where Cypher is looking over Trinity's helpless jacked-in body and goes "l00k a7 m3 tr1nity. 1 m @n 31337 h@x0r.", or whatever. That part had me laughing out loud! :D
...And the DeCSS issue is unrelated to the whole GNU/Linux world HOW?
He's a well-known "Linux" (as the press always calls it) figure. His support is not only helpful, it's entirely appropriate.
Someone moderate this flamebaiter down...
;) )..
Y'know, gang, there really are a lot of very smart, very mature people who happen to be under 18 (for the record, I'm not one of them.. I'm neither under 18 nor very smart or mature
Hmm.. I tried to sign, and for the first umpteen times I tried, I got a message telling me that the user who runs the page has too many processes going. Apparently, this system is on a process quota and can't handle being Slashdotted. I'd like to offer some free Webspace on the nonprofit hosting provider I run, www.twu.net... if whoever runs this petition would like some, let me know.
Actually, you won't lose everything that's RPMd. Debian can deal with RPMs just fine-- you can use the traditional "rpm" program (yes, the same one from Red Hat) or you can convert them to .DEB packages with the "alien" package. :)
Yes, and all that RC5 cracking "proves" is that dividing a brute-force problem into a lot of little slices and giving each slice to a computer will eventually find an answer (actually it proves nothing, proof by example is not a proof). If you had given just the keyspace chunk containing the right answer to just one computer, you still would have found the answer, without every other computer. :)
So what's your point? Sure, all it proves is that distributed work, uh, WORKS. Because it DOES. Sure, it's not as efficient as simply seeking out the One Person Who Actually Does Know The Answer, but it's a quick and dirty way to solve problems that sometimes-- as with RC5 cracking-- is the only feasible way to do it without a huge time/money budget.
I certainly hope that no company is going to try to put a patent on this thing. I read recently that some company actually patented the IC when it came out; this same sort of action today (taken on the successor to the IC) could spell disaster for our technological future.. :/
How this AC's little rant hasn't been moderated down to "Flamebait", I don't know...
Anyhow, think of it this way. I'm not a big Java person, but some of my close friends are, and already I've seen evidence of some nasty incompatibility problems as one moves across platforms. With a proprietary implementation of Java, there is no way to get a guaranteed fix-- you're simply at the mercy of the people who made the implementation (here, Sun). But if you find a problem with a free software implementation, well, you just ask the folks who wrote it, and if they're not willing to fix it, you fix it yourself. Or you persuade a friend to do it. Or you persuade some guy on IRC to do it. Whatever. The point is that proprietary software makes you completely dependent on somebody else, whose motives are not compatibility and quality but profit and more profit. It makes you powerless, and thus, it's a Bad Thing(TM).
Jesus. Isn't there any way things could be scripted up to automatically launch a massive barrage of DoS attacks at people who post garbage like this? For shame.
--Caspian
Yeah. Custom microbes. That's really slavery.
I s'pose you'll say that the microbes we use today are "slaves" to the beer industry, the yogurt industry, etc...
I think the hype over issues such as this needs to stop. Clearly, all this is is the natural successor to what humans have been doing for literally thousands of years-- selective breeding.
There's nothing special about life, and there's nothing wrong about creating life. There's even nothing wrong about creating SENTIENT life. The only thing that humanity could ever do that would be morally 'wrong' pertaining to the creation and/or modification of life is to mistreat sentient beings-- for example, to modify existing sentients (including, but not limited to, conventional human beings) without permission, or to create a new sentient race and then enslave them. THAT would be wrong. This isn't wrong at all!
As for the cloning bit, that's even less important. "Cloning" would more accurately be called "twinning"-- that's all it is, the artificial creation of a twin. If you got a hold of Einstein's DNA and "cloned" him, all you would have would be a person who would look like Einstein and have basically the same potential-- at birth-- as he did. You wouldn't end up with EINSTEIN HIMSELF. The memories would not be there. Cloning, essentially, merely creates a new life with the same genetic starting point as another life-- just like the natural creation of twins within a woman's womb does. And engineering life? No moral problems there. When we start talking of creating sentient slave races, -then- bother me.
--Caspian
What sort of trollish nonsense is this? You seem to be making the point that since some of the laws pertaining to children are designed to protect them from being exploited, they're all okay. This is patently false. The problem is that children are powerless-- the fact that they were powerless in the first place was what opened the doors to people to use them for forced labor, which directly (supposedly) led to the child labor laws to which you seem to be alluding...
Those same child labor laws ALSO make it illegal for children who LEGITIMATELY want to work-- for one, I did, when I was 12, and I'm sure there are others like me out there-- to follow their wishes. Child labor law goes about things all the wrong way. Just as it's stupid to ban all alcohol use under 21 (including responsible alcohol use!), it's stupid to ban all work under 14/16/18/whatever it is in your county (including VOLUNTARY, PAID work). US law-- and, I'd wager to say, law in general-- has a long history of being dogged and heavy-handed and highly conservative, and this is no different.
In any case, what does this silly comment of yours have to do with the fact that kids can't download Corel Linux? Does your praise of child labor law somehow also equate to automatic acceptance of the laws that make it legitimate for Corel to refuse children their useful OS? If so, how?
Somebody moderate this guy down, please!
You're missing the point. When things like this are just let slide, they grow ever-more legitimized. The problem isn't that people ACTUALLY fear that this silly EULA is ACTUALLY going to stop kids from downloading Linux-- it's that they (well, at least some of us... well, at least MYSELF) see that once stuff like this becomes legitimized, it opens the door to a legitimized and publically accepted out-and-out ban on GNU/Linux (and other OSes?) use by "minors", distribution by distribution by distribution.
Or, to put it another way-- can you imagine what would happen if you had to be 18 to install Windows? What would the mundanes say?
Yipes. Sorry about that, guys. I didn't know that things were like that outside the US. (BELIEVE ME, I'm not a pro-US individual; I don't like it at all, but I AM used to it.) You learn something new every day. :/
If no one pays attention to a law, rule or restriction, does that mean that that law, rule or restriction is automatically "okay"?
That's why everything that belongs to you until you're 18 is legally the property of your parents. Childhood very closely resembles slavery in so many ways, it's not funny. It's just socially acceptable...
That's ridiculous and you know it. Hardly anyone uses a long-distance ISP any more. :P
'Scuse me, sonny. Just because you're over eightteen and I'm over eightteen doesn't mean that everyone is over eightteen. Whatever happened to consideration for those who society overlooks? I was a "minor" when I first used Linux, a "minor" when I first installed Linux on my own machines, and I have helped many "minors" install Linux. Why should Corel Linux be the "adults-only" OS? Try being a little more sensitive to others' needs here-- some kids might actually WANT this stuff!
Okay, so... what you just said basically amounts to "yeah, "minors" can't use Corel Linux 'cuz they can't enter into legally binding agreements... and so they have "no right" to use Corel Linux." How does stating the ugly facts make them somehow okay?
...and don't care either ;)
Actually, I doubt the "know" part too..
Those who are bringing up Corel's probable reason for doing this, are bringing up the fact that no contract with a "minor" can be legally binding. This is quite irrelevent due to current common practice. The contents of a disk (i.e. software) is just like the contents of a book (i.e. a novel)-- both are "intellectual property", quite copyable but illegal to copy.
WHEN was the last time that you had to be 18 to purchase a (non-pornographic) book?
Even in the software world-- other than "adult" titles, when was the last time you had to be 18 to download a piece of software? An -operating system-, no less?
I think that we should talk to Corel about this and try to get them to change their ways.
--Caspian
Uhh... why don't you read my comment a little closer, fool... I was talking about the RECORD COMPANY EXECS. Those ARE the people who sell/produce the CDs. :PPP