Slashback: Safety, Transmissions, Breakage

Slashback has updates tonight on nuclear-safe hosting facilities, the temporary return of Metricom's Ricochet service, and a possible problem with Apple's newest upgrade for anyone using Xfree86 under Mac OS X.

A soft spot on the Apple?MacXGuy writes: "I recently obtained by free 10.1 upgrade from the Apple Store in the Mall of America. After installing it on my Titanium PB-G4 XFree4.1 (http://www.mrcla.com/XonX/) no longer works. (I'm definitely not installing it on my Dual 800 G4 until a workaround is found.)"

Since most of the stuff I've heard about the 10.1 upgrade has been positive to the point of suspicion, I wonder if anyone else has experienced similar upgrade quibbles with it.

Another good reason for a complex infrastructure. PhantomHarlock writes "New York City officials requested and got what's left of Metricom to re-activate the wireless network in the area surrounding the World Trade Center. Rescue and cleanup crews are using the network to coordinate and access death certificates filed online. Only one rooftop transmitter had been destroyed, the other four are still intact."

Even when you're right, you're wrong -- as the fine print clearly shows. An anonymous reader points to column in InfoWorld about interpreting the overlapping, contradictory and sometimes funny EULAs that accompany Microsoft products. Microsoft certainly isn't alone in that regard either -- ever read a EULA you thought was totally fair, unambiguous, and satisfying? Mr. Anonymous writes: "This was amply illustrated last week after I mentioned here that the EULA (end-user license agreement) for FrontPage 2002 contains a term prohibiting use of the software in connection with a site that disparages Microsoft or its online services. I love it."

The only place to hunker is a well-connected bunker. severn2j writes: "It seems that AL Digital's nuclear bunker (posted on /. a few weeks ago), has paid off for them in light of the attacks on the U.S. So much so that they've got another one."

And for all your fair-use needs ... An Anonymous Coward writes "Maybe lyrics.ch is going down now, but most of its content and even more is available from LyricsDot which is not going to close."

Good to hear. Amateur song transcription really isn't such a bad thing, except when you consider most of the songs.

*Ahem*

[11thangel]

Ok, its a change in the minor version of the OS. Think win98->winme, or anything->winxp. Or even linux2.2->2.4. Xfree 3.x->4.x. SOMETHING breaks. Whether it be 3d support, drivers for anything (or everything), or if its hardly recognizable as the same program, when the minor version number (or the major version number for that matter) goes UP, support for something must come DOWN. Either that or UP and DOWN or just two keys on my keyboard, I can't see straight enough to tell.

EULA Issues

[os2fan]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer

If MS is inserting into its licenses, conditions of approved content, then they may well be stepping on the jurisdiction of the judge.

There is a certian right to protect the IP rights of a work, which is limited to the use of the work and derived copies. This means that MS can restrict the production and distribution of copies of their work.

There is also the certian right of association of "good name". This means, that if I write on some subject, then I can have you disassociate your work against mine. This was done, for example with Karl Marx and the "survival of the fittest". In the present context, it means the use of MS logos on sites that disparage MS.

But one can not prevent one from using a companies works, legally acquired, to fight against a company, as long as the product is not identified.

The licence as provided is not aimed at the protection of abuse of the intellectual property it covers, but to cover other IP not implied in the license. That is, the licence implies that you should protect IP that you are not being given special access to. It might be interesting to test this role of restraint in court, especially since the annual license thing has been deemed rental in Germany, with the implied restriction of owner (ie MS) fixes.

The other thing is that judges might not take kindly to other people dishing out punishment for crimes that they decide punishment for. For example, if I were to create a hate site, and such a site were legal, than MS could still punish me. If the judge decides it were illegal, than the judge punishes me, and this is all I should pay, not an additional punishment from MS.

What the EULA also grants, by undefined terms "hate, porn", is that they can control content. And for this control of content, they might also be leaving themselves open to the legal content of sites [... by acting as an editor, you become responsible for content ...]

This is a job for Super Geek!

[darkonc]

Uhm, isn't getting an 802.11b free-network [slashdot.org] up around ground zero the kind of thing that us slashdot types could do to help with the rescue effort? (note that 'freenet' is apparently trademarked [freenet.org]).

I note that the ricochet network is only guaranteed to the end of October. It shouldn't be that difficult to get a free network up and running to cover the site by then (even if it has to be powered by car batteries [statpower.com]!).

Re:10.1 breaks things

[njug]

GCC (and emacs) can't really be replaced by a non-GNU alternative. The note said wget was going to be removed because it *could* be replaced by a non-GNU alternative.

So my hunch is that they want to expunge the GNU stuff they can avoid, and deal with what they can't.