My wife and I have two accounts with Bank of America-- a checking and a savings. When we signed up for them, the deal was we would not have to pay any service fees if the combined value of our accounts was $800. My wife and I have kept considerably more than that in our accounts but for the first three months we had the $2.00 service fee for being under our balance.
Every time we would call the operator would tell us that 'every appears to be normal' and they would remove the service fee. It was very frustrating to have to sit on the phone for an hour over $2.00!
After about the third month they realized that there was still some type of policy rule being applied that stated that we needed to keep $2000 in our savings-- a statement that wasn't in our service agreement when we signed up.
Other than BOA, we've also had issues with TimeWarner of North Carolina. What amazes me the most is that all of my complaints, and it seems many of everyone elses, are for major corporations. You'd think that they would have the resources and knowledge to create systems that could prevent a lot of what we all see. I know that no system is flawless but just about everyone who has used auto-billing has a story.
It sounds to me like this is a foolish idea. I know that for 99% of most computer users a computer without an internet connection is, well, just an over sized paper weight.
However, I would be willing to bet that most individuals who would pirate software probably have multiple PCs. What's to stop them from downloading the files that they need or want to use on their Vista box on another machine and then "Sneaker Netting" them to the Vista system. Sure, that would be a pain in the tail but it would be an alternative for those who are waiting for a crack to eventually show up.
I'm not saying I'd do that but I'd bet that there are a lot of people out there who would.
I haven't followed the issues with the newly drafted GPL policies closely but I am curious about it. If it's so bad, can't these developers just create a modified version or write a new license agreement that is similiar but what they want?
What's keeping this from happening? Please for give my ignorance. I claim only a general understanding of open-source by laws.
The reason why I made such a post was because the article expresses the idea that the KDE 4 team is coming up with something innovative and new. Sure, I'm excited about it myself because I am a KDE fan. That doesn't change the fact that I get pissed at any company who touts new features for their upcoming software as 'original' when it's already been done before.
Any computer geek who is remotely interested in the history of modern computing knows all of the big rip-off stories of the past thirties years. This is a practice that has come to be all but excepted. I just wish, however, that the developers of such projects would be a little more honest in their presentation of their ideas. They could just have easily said that 'We like the direction that many OS environments are going in the PC industry and we think we can improve on them from within the KDE.'
Slashdot Mirror
My wife and I have two accounts with Bank of America-- a checking and a savings. When we signed up for them, the deal was we would not have to pay any service fees if the combined value of our accounts was $800. My wife and I have kept considerably more than that in our accounts but for the first three months we had the $2.00 service fee for being under our balance.
Every time we would call the operator would tell us that 'every appears to be normal' and they would remove the service fee. It was very frustrating to have to sit on the phone for an hour over $2.00!
After about the third month they realized that there was still some type of policy rule being applied that stated that we needed to keep $2000 in our savings-- a statement that wasn't in our service agreement when we signed up.
Other than BOA, we've also had issues with TimeWarner of North Carolina. What amazes me the most is that all of my complaints, and it seems many of everyone elses, are for major corporations. You'd think that they would have the resources and knowledge to create systems that could prevent a lot of what we all see. I know that no system is flawless but just about everyone who has used auto-billing has a story.
It sounds to me like this is a foolish idea. I know that for 99% of most computer users a computer without an internet connection is, well, just an over sized paper weight.
However, I would be willing to bet that most individuals who would pirate software probably have multiple PCs. What's to stop them from downloading the files that they need or want to use on their Vista box on another machine and then "Sneaker Netting" them to the Vista system. Sure, that would be a pain in the tail but it would be an alternative for those who are waiting for a crack to eventually show up.
I'm not saying I'd do that but I'd bet that there are a lot of people out there who would.
I haven't followed the issues with the newly drafted GPL policies closely but I am curious about it. If it's so bad, can't these developers just create a modified version or write a new license agreement that is similiar but what they want? What's keeping this from happening? Please for give my ignorance. I claim only a general understanding of open-source by laws.
...and he wants to become a patent lawyer?
Any computer geek who is remotely interested in the history of modern computing knows all of the big rip-off stories of the past thirties years. This is a practice that has come to be all but excepted. I just wish, however, that the developers of such projects would be a little more honest in their presentation of their ideas. They could just have easily said that 'We like the direction that many OS environments are going in the PC industry and we think we can improve on them from within the KDE.'
Why is that so hard?
Which, in many ways, is a rip-off of OS X.
You mean to tell me that burnt CD of Adobe Photoshop I purchased wasn't really OEM?! Damn!