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What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

What happens if I post marked up text ? Will they change my text ?

That would be changing what I say. While my work is placed and published into the public domain, it does not mean they can change what I say - if they change my hyperlinks - they are changing what I say! Is that allowable ?

There's something called a market economy that you're dealing with here, and the only way that you could possibly make it fairer is to take the damn government out of it completely.

Maybe in some Randian dream world. I know enough free-market advocates to know that 99% of them are upper-middle class suburbanites and think that everyone is as privileged as they are. Capitalism is an inherently flawed system, with equallly flawed apologists.

Complaining while still buying and using what you're complaining about is sheer hypocrisy.

You complain about government intervention, yet you use the Internet, a government-sponsered network. Better go check the dictionary again.

Breaking the law to obtain access to whatever you're not willing to pay for is downright criminal

Actually, it's Civil Disobediance in a state where corporations have all the power. It is not only a right, but as free persons, it is a duty.

They don't let you go into Tower Records and tape CD's out of the listening stations, why should the Internet be any different?

The Internet was designed to be used for all forms of free speech. The convential view of "legality" has no meaning in a libertarian anarchy such as the net. Get used to it. You lost.

In short: if the industry's terms are unacceptable, don't deal with the industry.

It's hard to do so when you're dealing with a monopolized industry, such as major record studios. When corporations try to worm their way into controlling every aspect of your life, it's hard to get them out.

In short: if the industry's terms are unacceptable, don't deal with the industry.

"IP theft" is an oxymoron.

-- Floyd


-- Floyd

According to the article, the ruling is based upon a legal precedent called Trespass To Chattels. However, this doesn't seem at all consistent with the definition of chattel. How can info on a web site be considered "personal, movable property?"

HERE is the definition of -generation-. I was using the word as it appears defined in definition 4b.

As far as assuming I am young based on my alleged stupidity, I will assume you're an asshole based on your post but realize that that may not be the case.

Clickitty click.

Was that really that hard?

--

From www.dictionary.com:
militia
n. Abbr. mil.

1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2. A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3. The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.

Emphasis is my own.

republic (r-pblk)
n. Abbr. rep., Rep., Repub.

1. a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
   b. A nation that has such a political order.

1. a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
   b. A nation that has such a political order.

I think we're missing the point here.
The X-box is an example of the fruits of capitalism.
You see, Capitalism is a double-edged sword.
With competition comes competitive products, and theoretically, competitive prices.
However, separate groups do not benefit from each others accomplishments leading to large amounts of duplicated (read: wasted) effort.
Under communism, we probably would have no x-box, and there would be no N64 or Dreamcast
There would be a PlayStation 7 and a N256.
They would play every game on the market, have stunning graphics, run blazingly fast, and cost very little to produce.
The missed point here is that the Open Source movement is parallel to Marxist Communism.
Each person gives according to his ability, and recieves according to his needs.
While the open source movement is aided by the fact that the cost of getting the product to many people is not significantly more than getting it to a few, The fact remains that under the right conditions such a system can be very succesful.
I agree that greed is a very real and necessary motivator, but it doesn't mean wanting more than the person next door, it means wanting more than you need.
This definition makes the matter clearer:
To want/get/have more than the person next door is childish and futile.
To want/get/have more than you need is natural and normal.
The world may not be ready for communism, but the general trend of civilization is that technology allows for needs to be taken care of with less and less effort, and for increasing focus on wants.
Some day, maybe not long from now, software will generally be free, and people will pay programmers for customization, custom solutions, and added features.
Some day, maybe not long from now, food will generally be free, and people will work that extra hour to get a PlayStaion 7.

To be more on topic,
If microsoft made a game console that used a slightly faster version of the same processor as one of their competitors, they could write a program that would be less of an emulator than another implementation of the other game console.
This is, ironically, parallel to the (Marxist?) project that will some day, maybe not long from now, be their downfall.

I think we're missing the point here.
The X-box is an example of the fruits of capitalism.
You see, Capitalism is a double-edged sword.
With competition comes competitive products, and theoretically, competitive prices.
However, separate groups do not benefit from each others accomplishments leading to large amounts of duplicated (read: wasted) effort.
Under communism, we probably would have no x-box, and there would be no N64 or Dreamcast
There would be a PlayStation 7 and a N256.
They would play every game on the market, have stunning graphics, run blazingly fast, and cost very little to produce.
The missed point here is that the Open Source movement is parallel to Marxist Communism.
Each person gives according to his ability, and recieves according to his needs.
While the open source movement is aided by the fact that the cost of getting the product to many people is not significantly more than getting it to a few, The fact remains that under the right conditions such a system can be very succesful.
I agree that greed is a very real and necessary motivator, but it doesn't mean wanting more than the person next door, it means wanting more than you need.
This definition makes the matter clearer:
To want/get/have more than the person next door is childish and futile.
To want/get/have more than you need is natural and normal.
The world may not be ready for communism, but the general trend of civilization is that technology allows for needs to be taken care of with less and less effort, and for increasing focus on wants.
Some day, maybe not long from now, software will generally be free, and people will pay programmers for customization, custom solutions, and added features.
Some day, maybe not long from now, food will generally be free, and people will work that extra hour to get a PlayStaion 7.

To be more on topic,
If microsoft made a game console that used a slightly faster version of the same processor as one of their competitors, they could write a program that would be less of an emulator than another implementation of the other game console.
This is, ironically, parallel to the (Marxist?) project that will some day, maybe not long from now, be their downfall.

ELEED Elastic Low-Energy Electron Diffraction

From dictionary.com and acronym finder.

(I REALLY should get back to work.)

Rami James
Guy with too much work
--

Speak for yourself. I'm an old coot.

Only if the suit has validity -- but that is simply to recompense the harmed people. See "accountability."

One should be expected to be held responsible for harm caused by one's actions and by one's words; however, the government should take not be taking neither your liberty nor your property. Reimbursing those you have harmed is what accountability is all about.

Freedom of speech does not make speech free in the sense that it comes without responsibility. Speech is to be free from government action, not all action.

As every Grammar * out there knows, the proper verb is baits, check it out.

From www.dictionary.com

• a.Absence of matter.
• b.A space empty of matter.
• c.A space relatively empty of matter.
• d.A space in which the pressure is significantly lower than atmospheric pressure.

More seriously, you cannot say something is obsolete before it actually is. Check the dictionary definition.

(And no, I don't know how to spell "naysayer")

Yes you do: "naysayer".

...of the English Language, 3rd Edition indicates that either a hard g or a j sound is correct.

Look for yourself.

I'd post the pronunciation here, but I don't know how to make i-breves and stuff in html.

Amen brother, except you're thinking of durum.

Thanks to Dictionary Com for this insight.

Page down until you find the def of Hash as the character # .

Excerpted from dictionary.com:

defeat
n.

1. The act of defeating or state of being defeated.
2. Failure to win.
3. A coming to naught; frustration: the defeat of a lifelong dream.
4. Law. The act of making null and void.

2. Failure to win. That seems to speak pretty clearly to me.

Excerpted from Remember the Alamo:

The Alamo was remembered, as well as the Goliad massacre (perpetrated by order of General Santa Anna), forty-six days later, on April 21, 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, where 783 men led by General Sam Houston defeated 1,500 Mexicans. The battle lasted only eighteen minutes. When all was over, 630 men of the Mexican army were dead; 730 were prisoners. Nine Texans lost their lives.

General Santa Anna, disguised as a peasant, was captured the following day.

The independence of Texas was won !

So here we're talking about how the Texans got caps popped in them, and died (natchly), and then just to put a happy ending on it, we talk about San Jacinto.

Now, I know that the Alamo is not significant to the vast majority of Americans, but it is an excellent example, which is why I've spent so much time working on this comment. (This wouldn't have taken that long, but abovenet is having problems. I wonder if they're being DOS'd again.) In any case, the Alamo is seen as a victory, in spite of it being a defeat, because a small force held off supposedly overwhelming odds. I won't get into highly defensible positions, though. That's a different discussion.

Excerpted from dictionary.com:

defeat
n.

1. The act of defeating or state of being defeated.
2. Failure to win.
3. A coming to naught; frustration: the defeat of a lifelong dream.
4. Law. The act of making null and void.

2. Failure to win. That seems to speak pretty clearly to me.

Excerpted from Remember the Alamo:

The Alamo was remembered, as well as the Goliad massacre (perpetrated by order of General Santa Anna), forty-six days later, on April 21, 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, where 783 men led by General Sam Houston defeated 1,500 Mexicans. The battle lasted only eighteen minutes. When all was over, 630 men of the Mexican army were dead; 730 were prisoners. Nine Texans lost their lives.

General Santa Anna, disguised as a peasant, was captured the following day.

The independence of Texas was won !

So here we're talking about how the Texans got caps popped in them, and died (natchly), and then just to put a happy ending on it, we talk about San Jacinto.

Now, I know that the Alamo is not significant to the vast majority of Americans, but it is an excellent example, which is why I've spent so much time working on this comment. (This wouldn't have taken that long, but abovenet is having problems. I wonder if they're being DOS'd again.) In any case, the Alamo is seen as a victory, in spite of it being a defeat, because a small force held off supposedly overwhelming odds. I won't get into highly defensible positions, though. That's a different discussion.

Cut to a couple of years ago - Gateway buys the remains of Amiga and potimism flares up that, in fact, they'll take the plunge into a new platform and out of the Wintel business.

potimism (potimism) n.

Smoking so much pot that reason is overwhelmed, resulting in a tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation: "There is a touch of potimism in every worry about one's own moral cleanliness" (Victoria Ocampo). See also optimism.

It's rare that we see such an apt choice of words. :)

--

According to www.dictionary.com:

allot (-lt)
v. tr. allotted, allotting, allots.

To parcel out; distribute or apportion: allotting land to homesteaders; allot blame.
To assign as a portion; allocate: allotted 20 minutes to each speaker. See Synonyms at assign.

In High School we got to hear an entire lecture in English class on this very subject.

Hooptie

Ah, the lovely arrogance of the Slashdotter. This is a similar sentiment to "I don't need chrome on my desktop, just give me command lines" and "Don't make Linux easier! That will just let them in."

What this type of person doesn't realize is that appreciation of aesthetics (including naming aesthetics) is an important part of being human. If people like you ran the world, we'd all be living in gray concrete houses, completely modular. If you want a bigger house, just put two blocks together! Isn't that efficient? Two stories, just stack them up!

If you haven't figured it out by now (probable), intelligence is not a function of how austere a lifestyle you can stand.

--

It's spelled: Millennium.

You would be better off with a line printer; That way, if you get a whole shitstorm of traffic, it will have a better chance of keeping up. They tend to be far speedier than a dot matrix.

line printer
A printer that prints one entire line at a time. Print quality is low compared with a laser printer. Line printers typically use sprocket feed and wide fanfold paper.
...
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2000 Denis Howe

Line printers have a solenoid for each character position, and a chain that runs around at fairly psychotic speeds. The solenoid fires when the letter it wants is under it.

Historical Note: People used to capitalize on the nature of of line printers to make them make music, kind of like Apple ][ floppy drives. In fact, it is the use of firing every solenoid at the same time (by printing around half of the characters on the chain on a line) that directly led to the characters on a line printer's chain being out of order -- It tended to blow the capacitors in the power supply to drive all those solenoids simultaneously.

If the ad was on the ENTIRE front page, how was there a story below it?

This isn't hard to understand. Dominate implies more than one party is involved and the party in question is reigning supreme (or grabbing the most attention) amongst all parties. Loners can't Dominate -- they have no Domain to rule.

There is no "bug" in the story headline.

See: the definition:

dominate
v. dominated, dominating, dominates.
v. tr.

1. To control, govern, or rule by superior authority or power: Successful leaders dominate events rather than react to them.
2. To exert a supreme, guiding influence on or over: Ambition dominated their lives.
3. To enjoy a commanding, controlling position in: a drug company that dominates the tranquilizer market.
4. To overlook from a height: a view from the cliffside chalet that dominates the valley.

1. To have or exert strong authority or mastery.
2. To be situated in or occupy a position that is more elevated or decidedly superior to others.

At the same time, it's a mistake to try to put people too far off of the issue. While some of us may be able to handle the concepts "there are bad corporations" and "there are good corporations" at the same time, there are plenty whose brains just can't handle that. I'd rather they have an instinctive distrust of corporations than go blindly into what lies in wait for them.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it." People in general (and I mean the vast populace, not of course the enlightened slashdot population (you know who you are, if you didn't, you wouldn't be enlightened.) But even here on /. we can see plenty of herd behavior and me-tooism.

Ask yourself when the last time was that you really felt a deep conviction that a corporation had your best interests at heart. A corporation is A body that is granted a charter legally recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. It doesn't care about you. It doesn't love you. It just wants your money.

That said, it is a generalization, but I do not think is is an overgeneralization. By and large, corporations exist to take money from people who seem to have too much of it, and put it into the pockets of people with even less use for the stuff. Those people then spend it on outlandishly pointless things like Rolls Royces and Modern Art and put it back into the stream.

We've seen corporations do so many heartless things in the pursuit of the almighty [monetary unit] that we've become jaded. People tend to forget how far some will go for filthy lucre. I am not saying by any means that all corporations are evil, but only that any corporation of size has power, and you know what they say about that stuff.

If you would, please make G.E. remove the PCBs from our lakes and rivers.

You often confuse Capitalism with Democracy, since Capitalism makes no claims as to protecting "human rights."

Socialism has nothing to do with the U.S.S.R or China, which use a totalitarian "State Capitalism."

Reagan is seen as some sort of icon

Government could simply enforce contracts, and capitalism would flourish. For a good example, take a look at the corporations with factories in China

This may come as a shock to you, but the Government (local, state, federal) already invest storages of money in various ways, in order to make a profit. The goal of this is usually to lower a tax burden, or prevent an increase in the tax burden. It has nothing to do with the Government trying to buy corporations.

I suggest you read a little about Capitalism, Socialism, the English and U.S. Industrial Revolution, and the Russian revolution. It's all quite interesting, and you'll have a more informed perspective.

If you would, please make G.E. remove the PCBs from our lakes and rivers.

You often confuse Capitalism with Democracy, since Capitalism makes no claims as to protecting "human rights."

Socialism has nothing to do with the U.S.S.R or China, which use a totalitarian "State Capitalism."

Reagan is seen as some sort of icon

Government could simply enforce contracts, and capitalism would flourish. For a good example, take a look at the corporations with factories in China

This may come as a shock to you, but the Government (local, state, federal) already invest storages of money in various ways, in order to make a profit. The goal of this is usually to lower a tax burden, or prevent an increase in the tax burden. It has nothing to do with the Government trying to buy corporations.

I suggest you read a little about Capitalism, Socialism, the English and U.S. Industrial Revolution, and the Russian revolution. It's all quite interesting, and you'll have a more informed perspective.

If you would, please make G.E. remove the PCBs from our lakes and rivers.

You often confuse Capitalism with Democracy, since Capitalism makes no claims as to protecting "human rights."

Socialism has nothing to do with the U.S.S.R or China, which use a totalitarian "State Capitalism."

Reagan is seen as some sort of icon

Government could simply enforce contracts, and capitalism would flourish. For a good example, take a look at the corporations with factories in China

This may come as a shock to you, but the Government (local, state, federal) already invest storages of money in various ways, in order to make a profit. The goal of this is usually to lower a tax burden, or prevent an increase in the tax burden. It has nothing to do with the Government trying to buy corporations.

I suggest you read a little about Capitalism, Socialism, the English and U.S. Industrial Revolution, and the Russian revolution. It's all quite interesting, and you'll have a more informed perspective.

If you would, please make G.E. remove the PCBs from our lakes and rivers.

You often confuse Capitalism with Democracy, since Capitalism makes no claims as to protecting "human rights."

Socialism has nothing to do with the U.S.S.R or China, which use a totalitarian "State Capitalism."

Reagan is seen as some sort of icon

Government could simply enforce contracts, and capitalism would flourish. For a good example, take a look at the corporations with factories in China

This may come as a shock to you, but the Government (local, state, federal) already invest storages of money in various ways, in order to make a profit. The goal of this is usually to lower a tax burden, or prevent an increase in the tax burden. It has nothing to do with the Government trying to buy corporations.

I suggest you read a little about Capitalism, Socialism, the English and U.S. Industrial Revolution, and the Russian revolution. It's all quite interesting, and you'll have a more informed perspective.

Hmm, I didn't know age had anything to do with one's knowledge of a subject. Maybe there's some hidden law I don't know about that makes it so I can't be trained until I'm older. Oh, by the way - here's the definition of an engineer. Strangely enough, I have this driver's license.. and of all things, my car has an engine in it too.. which seems to fit definition 2 quite well. Even stranger - my driver's license says I'm 20 years old. The government must have made a mistake - I can't be an engineer and "only" be 20... I think I'll have to return my license...

Dictionary.com entries on Iridium seem to suggest FascDot is right. Sorry 575.

Futhermore you should turn in your Nobel Prize for Economics, because you'd realize that a monopoly doesn't have to be 100% in order to be a monopoly.

My definition of monopoly is pretty much the same as the dictionary definition of monopoly. I'd post it here but it's darned long. You'll notice that it contains words like 'sole', 'exclusive' and 'absolute', not 'most', 'almost all', or 'dominant'.

Incidentally, you spelled 'furthermore' wrong :)

It need only have such a commanding presence that it is unassailable. Think of a guy with a stick trying to invade a castle. It's not going to happen.

That's because he's a dumbass for trying to invade a castle with a stick in the first place. Maybe he'd be better off using a little ingenuity and seducing one of the maids, or giving them a big horse on wheels for a gift. But I digress...

My point is that its *not* impossible for another company to produce a closed-source desktop operating system that cuts significantly into the Windows market. It hasn't yet been done, not because it is impossible, but because many would-be competitors have tried and fumbled due to their own mismanagement. Commodore failed to even attempt to market the Amiga (god I loved that computer). Apple has always had pretty good marketing, and was producing great stuff in the late 80s / early 90s, but consistently fucked up in their attempts to create a modern OS and ship affordable hardware. They're now recovering nicely under Jobs, which shows its possible to make headway. IBM could have scored big with OS/2, which was a great product, but fumbled big time on the marketing.

All of these would-be contenders had a chance, but none have managed to convince a large number of consumers that they offered more value than Windows.

If you ask the average Joe, he is quite happy with his Gatesway WinPC. He has no loyalty whatsoever to MS - he doesn't even really care about operating systems. If he heard of a better alternative he'd be willing to give it a shot, but for his purposes one does not exist.

Sooner or later, one of these competitors will manage to get it right and ship an affordable, widely-publicized, reliable, easy to use, closed-source operating system that offered more overall value than Windows. Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X is damned impressive next to Winblows - maybe that will be the one, who knows?

I think its all pretty irrelevant at this point anyway. Whether its Linux or something else, open source is obviously where things are happening. KDE2, Gnome2, Berlin, AtheOS, Mozilla, XFree4, KOffice, AbiWord, Konqueror, kernel 2.4, Gimp, Freenet, MPEG4, etc. Everything is developing so fast now its making my head spin, and its only accelerating as we add more users and as global Internet connectivity improves. Regardless of the court's ruling, Microsoft is in for the fight of its life against free software.

1 October, 2000
For immediate distribution

Apple, often lauded for having sparked revolutions in the design of the personal computer in the form of its "Macintosh" line, is now poised to ignite a whole new revolution in the field of teledildonics. With the advent of the new "Touchy-Feelie Force Feedback Mouse," Internet pervs all over the world will enjoy a whole new range of virtual tittilation.

The new Touchie-Feelie mouse responds not by clicking buttons, but by manipulating in a provocitive manner: lightly tapping, stroking, and rhythmic squeezing all produce distinct results. A waterproofed version is in the works to enable oral stimulation, and a force-feedback model has already reached the testing phase.

"These new mice are amazing," said Roy Farbengrinkle, a vendor of pornographic software lucky enough to get to beta test the force-feedback model. "They resist just the right amount when stroking digital [expletive deleted]. And the way that it shakes when I use it to [deleted] her in the [deleted] with a [deleted] camshaft [deleted] really [deleted] my [deleted], let me tell you."

Farbengrinkle warned, however, that the mice may not be suitable for every purpose. "The other day I was checking my stocks and I sneezed - I guess the way my hand squeezed the mouse caused me to buy 200 shares of Alcatel. So they're not really all that good for, you know. Business stuff." He then shrugged. "But hey, who really uses their computer for anything but porn, anyway?"

Copyright 2000, Amalgamated Dress

Actually, the word to describe the process is BOOTLEGGING

from Dictionary.com:

bootleg (btlg)
v. bootlegged, bootlegging, bootlegs.

1). To make, sell, or transport (alcoholic liquor) for sale illegally.

2). To produce, distribute, or sell without permission or illegally: a clandestine outfit that bootlegs record albums and tapes.
... etc.
Produced, sold, or transported illegally: bootleg gin; bootleg tapes.
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
[From a smuggler's practice of carrying liquor in the legs of boots.]
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

catch the irony here? see, Seagrams was founded on a legacy of bootlegging alchohol.

We need to put the smack down on this feeb of a ceo. I'm boycotting hard and fast, too. He reminds me of that curmudgeon T. Herman Zweibel, Publisher Emeritus at The Onion
-=b

We now live in an era in which a few clicks of your mouse will make it possible for you to summon every book ever written in any language, every movie ever made, every television show ever produced, and every piece of music ever recorded.

Can we agree that this would be a good thing? Does anyone think it wouldn't? I want to make sure we all agree on this.

Music is on the leading edge of this revolution, and because of that, it has become the first product to illuminate the central - and I believe the most critical - challenge for this technological revolution: The protection of "intellectual property rights."

Finally, an MP3/Napster opponent who leads off his argument by saying that intellectual property rights are the most important issue. Most of them jump straight to talking about theft and how much money they think they're losing.

For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo.

Let me get this straight. If ideas are freely available, if they are given, taken, disseminated, distributed, shared, WITHOUT restraint, then they will die out. But if we restrain ideas, and make sure we control how they get distributed, then they can survive and prosper. Right.

And why is this important? Because you, like we in the entertainment business, are thoroughly dependent on patents and copyright. You need them no less than we do, to protect your processes, your conceptions, your software code, your procedures, your designs, your ideas.

No I don't. I don't think up ideas for personal gain, I think them up -- not to sound too self-important here -- for the betterment of humanity, for *everyone's* sake. They don't need to be registered in my name to do their job. If Thomas Edison hadn't patented the lightbulb, that wouldn't have stopped anyone from using it. In fact, had it not been for the patent system, Edison would not have been able to steal thousands of ideas, concepts and tools from other inventors and patent them as his own.

The Internet does not exist, and cannot prosper in a world that is separate from our civilized society and the fundamental laws upon which it is based.

He uses the word "civilized" a lot. I don't think it means what he thinks it means. Look it up. Know what word is conspicuously absent from the definitions? "Law". Also "property", "business", "consumer", and "money".

I have moved those lawyers - or some of them - but I have done so, and will continue to do so - not to attack the Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to protect it. For its benefit.

It seems to me that if this were true, it would be self-evident, and he wouldn't need to repeat himself in an effort to drive the point home.

We will launch a secure downloading format later this summer that will be the start of making our content widely available in digital form.

It will be interesting to see what measures this format will take to ensure that once one person downloads something, s/he can't share it with the rest of us.

And because of the security our product will offer, consumers' privacy will also benefit because their files and their systems won't be corrupted.

Yeah, you know, my biggest complaint about Napster has always been that it keeps corrupting my files and my systems. Please.

We will re-emphasize this truth and articulate this message in an educational effort, with our industry allies, targeted to the great majority of people who want to do the right thing - yet, may not fully comprehend that accessing copyrighted material without proper payment or permission in the digital world, is as wrong as it is in the physical world.

Oh, if only Napster users *understood* that downloading copyrighted material they don't own was illegal! I bet they'd stop doing it then.

. . . technology will offer the owners of property at least as much comfort as it may currently offer to hackers and spies, pirates and pedophiles.

More demonizing of the term "hacker". That's productive.

Technology exists that can trace every Internet download and tag every file. These tools make it possible to identify those who are using the Internet to improperly and illegally acquire music and other copyrighted information.

And soon, tools will exist that allow those people to circumvent these file-tagging and criminal-identifying technologies.

On line, privacy is assuring that what you do, so long as it is legal, is your own business and may not be exploited by others.

Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing, or hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the Internet - and presuming the right that nobody should know who you are. There is no such right.

Privacy is being able to close the door when you go into a public toilet. Anonymity is not being required to write your name and address on the door before you do so. Understand how these are important to each other?

Here at Slashdot, we call anonymous people "cowards". But we don't deprive them of the ability to post.

This is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank.

Which is the crime: putting on the ski mask, or robbing the bank? If knowing people's identities is all that prevents us from total anarchy, the problem lies with those citizens who care so little for their fellow people that they would freely commit crimes against them. We need to stop perpetuating a society that creates so many heartless citizens. But we don't need to blame the ski masks.

In the appropriation of intellectual property, myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of 100 million European children even its name) . . .

He has got to be kidding. Are we supposed to picture those 100 million European children crying disconsolately just because a piece of software made a pun on the name of their breakfast food? Are even puns going to be outlawed now? He says "stolen" as if the Gnutella developers were maliciously appropriating the name, like the pirates they really are. You know, when humor is outlawed, only outlaws will be funny, except for people who are unintentionally funny, like Seagram's chairmen.

. . . are, in my opinion, the ringleaders, the exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of someone else's property.

These are pretty strong words from someone whose company makes most of its money by selling a drug (i.e. alcohol). If he wants to criticize MP3.com/Napster/Gnutella for enabling copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property, let's first talk about how many automobile accidents Crown Royal enables each year. Let's talk about the abusive fathers who hold a belt in one hand and a bottle of Chivas Regal in the other. Let's talk about Captain Morgan's contribution to date rape, or the casino patrons who are served free drinks so they'll waste more money, or the lives, bank accounts, and relationships destroyed by alcohol addiction. Frankly, I don't think Ed Bronfman is in much of a position to be moralizing about a crime as relatively trivial as music piracy.

What individuals might do unthinkingly for pleasure, in my view, they do with forethought for profit, justifying with weak and untenable rationale their theft of the labor and genius of others.

I don't know, I'd say Gnutella was a pretty ingenious piece of work itself. And I'd be remiss were I not to point out that its developers aren't earning a single cent from it.

They rationalize what they do with a disingenuous appeal to utopianism: Everything on the Internet should be free.

Oh, no! Anything but that! You know, it's typical that such a hardcore capitalist can't understand that some people really mean it when they say something should be free.

What of the extraordinary gifts of software and whole operating systems of which we sometimes read?

They are rare, and sometimes they are loss leaders. Some of the donors may regret their generosity when later they are confronted with their children's college tuition and orthodontic bills, but yes, they have given, and they have given freely.

You hear that, Linus? What a fool you are, for giving away your operating system. Think of your children's college tuition! Forget the thousands of users! Forget the superior operating system, forget the challenge to the Microsoft empire! What will these things matter when it comes time to pay your children's orthodonist bills? Do you think you can derive some kind of *happiness* out of what you've done? Do you mean to take some sick sort of satisfaction from a job well done? What are you, some goddamned altruistic commie bastard? See where your generosity will get you! Hah!

Those whose intellectual property is simply appropriated on the Internet or anywhere else, are forced to labor without choice or recompense, for the benefit of whoever might wish to take a piece of their hide.

If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.

Trading MP3s == enslaving the musicians. Got it.

World War II was won by the Allied forces . . .

Very stereotypically American tactic: bring World War II, the war that made the U.S. the superpower it is today, into the argument whenever you want to get the red-blooded American patriots on your side. Unfortunately, it has little to do with the issue at hand.

But being fair, and being just, is what allowed our civilized society to survive and prosper, while that of our conquering ally, the Soviet Union, cracked, crumbled and collapsed because it attempted to perpetuate a society that was fundamentally unjust, and unfair.

As someone else has already pointed out in this thread, the Soviet Union most likely "cracked" because its leaders were greedy and self-serving, not because it was based on an unjust system.

Thank you for letting me speak from the heart.

It's a scary world in which we have to thank people for the "privilege" of being able to speak from our hearts.

In closing, just remember, kids: don't get your philosophy from the same place you get your ginger ale.

The scenario you described would actually be:

espionage (sp--näzh, -nj) n. The act or practice of spying or of using spies to obtain secret information, as about another government or a business competitor.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Your right, the RIAA is not a corporation. The best description would probably be cartel. look it up.

Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?

Hm, yes, I missed that one. Well spotted!! He is not only confused in his ethics, he is also contradictory. You can make an obscene profit, as long as he is not loosing out on the cash.

Sad.

Previously ([37], [118]) I thought his ethics was just confused, but as I read further through the article I realise that Bertrand has completely lost it.

The free software advocates must recognize that some issues are more important than who owns software

Eh, yes, but what does that have to do with anything? There are always more important issues, but that does not make all issues unimportant.

And what does gun control have to do with free or open source software!? Beats me. But even if we try to follow his thread of thought we end up at:

Given the choice between

• a society where all software would be proprietary, and civilized measures would be in place preventing .. a disturbed ... [person] from buying a ... gun without any background check...;
• a society where all software would be free and Mr. Raymond's views on gun "freedom" were fully realized,

any ethically-conscious person would choose the former

A couple of points are in order, lest anybody should be persuaded by Mr. Meyer's ravings:

1. You sould always be very nervous when somebody claim they speak for "any ethically-conscious person". Not everybody will agree with the Law According to Bertrand, and to brand them all as un-ethical shows Mr. Meyer as a bigot.
2. The two choices offered are not the only ones. We can choose to free software and restrain the right to bear arms, if we want.
3. I do not particularly care for Eric's views on guns, but, as the saying roughly goes (Voltaire again, I think), I will defend his right to express those views. That freedom is important, and it is sad that Bertrand does not recognise this.

Enough! of this madness. Next subject, please!