Life without Windows or OS X

GNU/Linux is quite possibly the most important free software achievement since the original Space War, or, more recently, Emacs. It has developed into an operating system for business, education, and personal productivity. GNU/Linux is no longer only for UNIX wizards who sit for hours in front of a glowing console. Are you thinking about switching to Linux and want to learn how to use it? Have you been using GNU/Linux for some time and want to learn even more? This is the place for you.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Own What You Pay For

I known many of my statements on this blog seemed to aimed at “geeks”. But its really aimed at every one...if you use a computer and or surf the web I'm speaking to you. My mission is to chat about “choice” and the governments responsibility to make sure we have one.

XCP Digital rights management, is on of those things that effect us all and not for the better. XCP uses rootkit technology to hide certain files from you on a your own computer,and that technique is a security threat to computer users. Did you know one of the uninstallation options provided by Sony BMG introduced further vulnerabilities to computer systems?
Why is Napster requiring users to pay an additional $.99 per each track to burn a track to CD when songs bought through Napster cannot be played on iPods? If you bought the songs and your not breaking any copyright laws, then why then DRM restrictions?
Linux users are barred from popular music services by Microsoft's unwillingness to license DRM to Linux companies. Therefore, most content obtained from online commercial sources such as Napster are out of reach. Microsoft is clearly trying to use their operating system monopoly to strong-arm control of the music industry and lock out competing Linux companies.
Because Microsoft did such a powerful job of marketing and locking up all the software channels, we ended up with a monopoly. Unfortunately, Microsoft then abused that monopoly, as the courts found, by locking others out of that channel and creating an environment where they were free to raise prices regardless of the quality of their products or services.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's [sic] essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message proposing the "Standard Oil" Monopoly Investigation, 1938

1 Comments:

At 6:05 PM, Blogger Jenny said...

Did u see where the newest version of iTunes was configured to sweep your system to see what you had so it could tell you what you should buy, all without your permission?
Apparently they have since disabled it.

That's a great quote, too bad people as a whole don't really understand the ramifications of all these little things that are happening around us.

 

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