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I don't think this sounds too different from a normal restraining order.

The difference is the place. In real life restraining orders are necessary because there is nothing you can do to prevent being accosted.

On the net, this is what kill files are for.

If the individual resorts to mailbombs or proves able to evade a well constructed kill file (they rarely are) you apply pressure to their provider:

1. Complain to their provider.
2. If that doesn't work, complain to the next provider upstream.
3. Even if that doesn't work, a solution such as those used against spammers and their unresponsive providers (RBL, negative press campaigns, etc.) is less prone to abuse than the law.

If the law was used as a last resort, it would be directed against the provider, not (directly) against the user.

Can anyone think of additional methods that might be used before the law? (In addition to switching to a more modern forum with karma and moderation (like Slashdot)).

sklein

See the Jargon File

At least it is according to the Linus Torvalds FAQ
--

from the almighty Jargon file

The ANSI/CCITT standard is surrounded by suck/blows and the INTERCAL substandard is surrounded by U turn/U turn backs

^ Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare: chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of'); fang; pointer (in Pascal).

& Common: <ampersand>; amper; and. Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from sh(1)); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what could be sillier?]

| Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare: <vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX); [spike].

. Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>. Rare: radix point; full stop; [spot].

() Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane]; parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.

{} Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>. Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet].

[] Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back].

< > Common: <less/greater than>; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

--

from the almighty Jargon file

The ANSI/CCITT standard is surrounded by suck/blows and the INTERCAL substandard is surrounded by U turn/U turn backs

^ Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare: chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of'); fang; pointer (in Pascal).

& Common: <ampersand>; amper; and. Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from sh(1)); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what could be sillier?]

| Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare: <vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX); [spike].

. Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>. Rare: radix point; full stop; [spot].

() Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane]; parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.

{} Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>. Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet].

[] Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back].

< > Common: <less/greater than>; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

--

from the almighty Jargon file

The ANSI/CCITT standard is surrounded by suck/blows and the INTERCAL substandard is surrounded by U turn/U turn backs

^ Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; . Rare: chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of'); fang; pointer (in Pascal).

& Common: ; amper; and. Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from sh(1)); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what could be sillier?]

| Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare: ; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX); [spike].

. Common: dot; point; ; . Rare: radix point; full stop; [spot].

() Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; ; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane]; parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.

{} Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; . Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet].

[] Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; ; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back].

Common: ; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

--

from the almighty Jargon file

The ANSI/CCITT standard is surrounded by suck/blows and the INTERCAL substandard is surrounded by U turn/U turn backs

^ Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; . Rare: chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of'); fang; pointer (in Pascal).

& Common: ; amper; and. Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from sh(1)); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what could be sillier?]

| Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare: ; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX); [spike].

. Common: dot; point; ; . Rare: radix point; full stop; [spot].

() Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; ; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane]; parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.

{} Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; . Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet].

[] Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; ; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U turn back].

Common: ; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

--

Linus is part of the Swedish speaking minority (6%) of Finland. Swedish is one of the two official languages of Finland. I found this out from esr's Rampantly Unofficial Linus Torvalds FAQ
--

FWIW, you can hear how Linus pronounces Linux.

More to the point, Jeopardy does not mark you wrong for unambiguous mispronunciations or spellings.
--

check the jargon file
#define X(x,y) x##y

From http://microsoft.aynrand.org

"...Microsoft, whose trailblazing Windows is the operating system for most personal computers today..."


I am totally against the DoJ on this issue. I'm not a libertarian (as far as I know), but I do tend to think that the best way to make a marketplace better is to make it more free. I also believe that lawsuits like that of the DoJ are symptomatic of a society which wishes to take no responsibility-- nobody was *forced* to enter into a contract with Microsoft, and nobody was *forced* to use Internet Explorer. I'm not going to stay quiet on these issues-- I hold my freedom too dear to not say anything.

But no matter *what* I do, I will *never* support the people over at microsoft.aynrand.org. They spend as much time putting Gates up on a pedestal as they do trashing the DoJ. They seem to think that, if they support Microsoft's right to do business, then they must show Microsoft to be an upstanding and wonderful company. This isn't true-- Microsoft isn't a good company; their software sucks and their prices are inflated.

Put it in perspective: if KKK members were to be banned from demonstrating or exercising their rights to free speech, I would be upset. But that doesn't mean I would put Klan members up on a pedestal and say that they are pillars of society-- that would be bullshit!

Perhaps a better paper to read is this one, which was written (surprisingly) by Eric S. Raymond-- yes, that's right, the same guy who wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". I don't totally agree with this one, either, but at least it doesn't try to make Bill Gates into some sort of demigod while trashing the DoJ until it looks like pure evil.

Besides that, what does product quality have to do with defending the company? You should fight for the freedom of *any* entity whose freedom is being taken away unjustly-- even those that say despicable things or make atrocious products. It doesn't matter-- you should be willing to stand up for freedom.

Yahoo has been adding a bunch of new features that run only on the Windows and Mac [...]

I think Yahoo! is a great example of a site that makes its content accessible to all browsers. Especially, when chrome is the norm.

Microsoft most certainly does not have a monopoly, by the traditional definition. I would agree with you wholeheartedly there. After all, I believe personally that it is impossible to actually sustain a monopoly when there are cheaper and/or free products out there which are better.

The thing, though, that sets this case apart as a precedent is that we've never seen this before. Since when do people give things away for FREE? I mean, in the UNIX world this doesn't strike us as terribly new, but in the Windows world-- quite the novel concept.

The reason, referring back to my first paragraph, that I don't see this as a traditional monopoly is that Microsoft has preyed on the people who feel the need, for one reason or another to buy a computer, and yet lack the know-how to actually learn much from the experience. A company with an advertising blitz, flashy manuals, impressive sounding names and more is hard to compete with. That's what Be Inc., Apple Inc., RedHat Inc., SuSE (insert German corporation abbreviation here), and all the others out there have to deal with.

I think that certainly the Justice Department is stretching their definition of a monopoly, but even then if you have that domination of the market psychologically instead of physically, it's the same in my mind. Microsoft has maintained a monopoly by convincing people that their software is good, maybe just because it simply ships with their computer and therefore strikes them as "free" or whatever other reason, and that it's easier to use than other things. Most of the above is not true, or only debatably so, but it's what the people I deal with with on a daily basis, at school, believe.

I think this could be a big boost to consumers in this country and everywhere else. It may mean that we have to go back to the days when it cost more to get all your software, but how many of us really use Microsoft GeeWhizTool that comes preinstalled? This could save consumers the hassle of uninstalling that stuff, and then trying to learn about more; it could also help the Open Source community in getting the word out, on well-known sources (bad pun :P), and getting people to use software that is free. It could revolutionize the computer market.

So ask yourself this then. Do we want a world where every computer comes installed with the programs Microsoft wants you to see-- after all, I doubt many people will dispute after seeing MS' internal email that they had an agenda for computer OEMs? Where instead of maintaining a physical monopoly, where no one else can compete, they simply block out space in the minds of vulnerable -- and sometimes deep-pocketed -- individuals and make it the company's own?

Or instead we can live in a world where everyone competes on an even basis, like an open-air market full of independent vendors instead of a grocery store. (Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar for the basis of my analogy.) You all can pick... I'm decided.

Someone should rewrite UNIX in FORTRAN.

Too right. It's time the Real Programmers reclaimed UN*X from the quiche eaters. Recently, the trend has been to make UN*X easy to use. The 'people' behind this abomination seem not to realise: if we do this, people will use it!

It is clear that steps must be taken. In addition to rewriting UN*X in FORTRAN, I propose additional measures:

• All UN*X program names to be shortened to 6 characters or less, by arbitrary removal of letters. Obscurity is a plus.
• UN*X shell to be rewritten: Shell programming is now done in INTERCAL. (it goes without saying that we rm -rf the entire X source tree)
• The only editor available will be TECO (although I suppose ed may be appropriate also).

It is only through measures such as these that UN*X can return to its glory days.

Fight the good fight, gentlemen.

Remeber: If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.

--
Repton.

Someone should rewrite UNIX in FORTRAN.

Too right. It's time the Real Programmers reclaimed UN*X from the quiche eaters. Recently, the trend has been to make UN*X easy to use. The 'people' behind this abomination seem not to realise: if we do this, people will use it!

It is clear that steps must be taken. In addition to rewriting UN*X in FORTRAN, I propose additional measures:

• All UN*X program names to be shortened to 6 characters or less, by arbitrary removal of letters. Obscurity is a plus.
• UN*X shell to be rewritten: Shell programming is now done in INTERCAL. (it goes without saying that we rm -rf the entire X source tree)
• The only editor available will be TECO (although I suppose ed may be appropriate also).

It is only through measures such as these that UN*X can return to its glory days.

Fight the good fight, gentlemen.

Remeber: If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.

--
Repton.

What is happening with the Trove project?

A Few Comments:
1. Great Idea!
2. Can we break up existing code into pieces and organize them? There is a lot of it out there in all the other Opensource projects
3. The infrastructure and ideas are similiar to the Trove Project (which is similiar to Freshmeat)
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/trove/

That's all

I just followed the links on their page, what let me to the gif-to-png page
There you can find a python script to convert your web to png, it is said to be around for 4 years already..
I haven't tested it yet on my page, it's under construction right now.. One thing left.. animated gif.. the only way out JAVA script? And I think converting to png is just making a stand, after all, everyone knows Linux users are rebelious...

I have two comments to make about this.

Number one, I think this excessive worry about whether PNG support in existing browsers is sufficient, is another instance of this sin of ``worrying about appearance more than about content'' pointed out by ESR in his HTML Hell Page. The whole idea of having transparency in images seems dubious at best.

Even if you insist on having transparent images, please don't let the fact that PNG browser support is not perfect prevent you from using them anyway. If you do, it never will be perfect (spell ``vicious cycle''). This (refusing PNG's because browsers don't fully support them) is a form of bugware: don't indulge in bugware. Just like you should write correct HTML even though buggy HTML might look better on some (or even on all) browsers. (One canonical example of this is — which I insist on using even though Netscape — under Linux at least — bugs on it.)

Secondly, I have a proposal for action, to show how ridiculous this whole patent issue is. Create a small image that reads something like ``PATENTS SUCK''. Draw it on a piece of paper. Get a copy of the GIF standard, and do the LZW compression by hand. This is not nearly as hard as Huffman, it should be doable if the image is small enough. Then distribute the image as widely as possible. Even better: sell it, so you can claim you made a commercial use of it.

Suddenly your brain is worth $5000. Impressive isn't it?

I have two comments to make about this.

Number one, I think this excessive worry about whether PNG support in existing browsers is sufficient, is another instance of this sin of ``worrying about appearance more than about content'' pointed out by ESR in his HTML Hell Page. The whole idea of having transparency in images seems dubious at best.

Even if you insist on having transparent images, please don't let the fact that PNG browser support is not perfect prevent you from using them anyway. If you do, it never will be perfect (spell ``vicious cycle''). This (refusing PNG's because browsers don't fully support them) is a form of bugware: don't indulge in bugware. Just like you should write correct HTML even though buggy HTML might look better on some (or even on all) browsers. (One canonical example of this is — which I insist on using even though Netscape — under Linux at least — bugs on it.)

Secondly, I have a proposal for action, to show how ridiculous this whole patent issue is. Create a small image that reads something like ``PATENTS SUCK''. Draw it on a piece of paper. Get a copy of the GIF standard, and do the LZW compression by hand. This is not nearly as hard as Huffman, it should be doable if the image is small enough. Then distribute the image as widely as possible. Even better: sell it, so you can claim you made a commercial use of it.

Suddenly your brain is worth $5000. Impressive isn't it?

I've seen the term here, in both the Jargon File and on Everything, but trademarks just don't seem to fit the term.

Censorship on Everything?
Fuck That .

INTERCAL
For Dummies.

Now that's a book I *would* buy.

How many times could one article use the phraseology, "...proving that..." and "the moral of the story is..."? Rhetorical question.

The special(ly inane) report was advertised as the "10 Craftiest Hacks" and the "10 Most Subversive Hacks", but it's neither. And what's with the slam at Kevin Mitnick on the front page of the article? My understanding is that industrial espionage involves companies spying on each other for competitive advantage, not one man's virtual dumpster diving.

CNET's definition of spoofing is "the interception and jumbling of information from a content-providing Web server before it reaches a person browsing the site...very popular in 1997."
Definitely the borderline lame-assness the Jargon File refers to in its spoof entry. I'm worrying I missed out on that crazy 1997 spoofing fad. Hmm.

I really can't tell whether the article is simply lame or perniciously brain-dead. The tone of the AirTran hack description is misbegottenly whiny, calling morbid humor "crass" (if you can believe that).

Finally, I bet "Real-world hackers" could get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan. Especially if they're Real World "hackers."

GCC became forked because the FSF sat on changes that were being submitted. For years. EGCS was an attempt to get working C++ code out to the general public (Cygnus had been releasing it as part of GNUPro for some time). EGCS literally saved the project I was working on and I'm sure it did the same for others.

Now that EGCS and GCC are back together as one, some of the other forks are being rolled in (Haifa, FORTRAN and Ada for sure, though I don't know what's happening with PGCC).

The act of forking caused the FSF to get off their collective duff and do something. That's a Good Thing.

Linux would not be forked for the same reason (I hope!). It would be forked if Linus and others didn't like the TurboLinux changes. This (hopefully) prevents cruft from entering the mainstream kernel.

--

GCC became forked because the FSF sat on changes that were being submitted. For years. EGCS was an attempt to get working C++ code out to the general public (Cygnus had been releasing it as part of GNUPro for some time). EGCS literally saved the project I was working on and I'm sure it did the same for others.

Now that EGCS and GCC are back together as one, some of the other forks are being rolled in (Haifa, FORTRAN and Ada for sure, though I don't know what's happening with PGCC).

The act of forking caused the FSF to get off their collective duff and do something. That's a Good Thing.

--

• Pentium optimization
• Trying to support C++
• FORTRAN
• Pascal
• Ada
• Special forms of optimizations (IBM Haifa stuff, for instance)

The net result of the forks were that you could have a compiler that covers one purpose, but not necessarily more than one.

I do support of some R/3 code where our local group has "forked" from the standard stuff SAP AG provides; it is a bear of a job to just handle the parallel changes when we do minor "Legal Change Patch" upgrades. We've got a sizable project team in support of a major version number upgrade; the stuff that we have forked will represent a big chunk of the grief that results in that year long project.

I would consider a substantial fork of the Linux kernel to be a significantly Bad Thing.

Note that if it forks, the Turbo version may have a hard time supporting code written for the non-Turbo version. Major things that are likely forthcoming include:

• New filesystem support, including LVMs, ext3, Reiserfs, SGI's XFS
• New devices such as network cards, SCSI host adaptors, USB devices
• Further support for 64 bit architectures, and support for 64 bit structures on 32 bit architectures ( e.g. - solving such issues as the 2038 Problem and the 2GB File Size Limit Problem and the 2GB Process Size Limit and such)

Ten years from now some Visual Basic programmer will be writing a story about you comparing you to Mel. It will probably go something like "Kitsune didn't approve of visual design tools. He didn't approve of GUIs either. ``If you can't pipe it on a command line,'' he asked, ``what good is it''..."

To use any of the other languages, you need to be a Real Programmer.

You have to be a Real Programmer to use any language other than VB? Being an avid C/C++ and Perl enthusiast, I find it rather interesting to have myself compared to this definition. Is there something vaguely reminiscent of bit bashing in hacking C/C++? I am well and truly boggled by the very assertation.

No, maybe it's because we wouldn't want to follow your standard.

Hitler would be so proud.

Time to invoke Godwin's Law.


...phil

And if Linux wasn't open source, almost no one would ever had heard of it. Linus and maybe a few of his friends would be the only ones using it, if even they didn't get bored and give up on it.

Open Source is definately more than just being able to see the source code. It's also the right to make changes and distribute them to anyone, a sort of assurance that even if the original author vanishes off the face of the planet that the software can still be developed and supported, a support system that's not dependant on one central company to fix every bug single-handedly and then distribute as they see fit ($80 for a 6-month-late fix, for example), and a sense of community among the hackers (not definition 8) who do work on Open Source projects. Especially this sense of community is why most of us don't see many companies truely grokking Open Source.

-----

Check the Jargon File entry: "[from archaic English verb for `shudder', as with fear]"

..."The grue was originated in the game Zork (Dave Lebling took the name from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" fantasies) and used in several other Infocom games as a hint that you should perhaps look for a lamp, torch or some type of light source. Wandering into a dark area would cause the game to prompt you, "It is very dark. If you continue you are likely to be eaten by a grue." If you failed to locate a light source within the next couple of moves this would indeed be the case. ..."

> Well, just a useful tidbit of information -
> Mutt was the open source mailer ESR developed
> to test the ideas he presented in CatB
> (The Cathedral and the Bazaar)

bzzzzt - wrong!

Sorry, but that would be fetchmail, which is a mail retrieval-utility. See this link.

I hope they finally included imap folder browsing. I'm suprised they haven't added a gui (xmutt?) to the program yet. Well, just a useful tidbit of information - Mutt was the open source mailer ESR developed to test the ideas he presented in CatB (The Cathedral and the Bazaar). ESR also thinks this mailer sucks - it just sucks less than all the other mailers. :^)

--

Could it be that acceptance of one type of license vs. another simply boils down to readability, i.e. whether a mere mortal can quickly scan and understand it?

In this respect, the BSD and GPL licenses rule, closely followed by the Perl artistic license. All of these are clearly written with understandability in mind, not just with a lawyer's mindset.

However, the licenses that Netscape produced, and worse still what SUN published with their SCSL is so bloated and peppered with legal terms that the average developer may tire and loose momentum before he/she actually reaches the end of the document.

I know I only finished reading the SCSL because I made it a point to be able to report to users here on campus what it may mean to them.

I would think that at least in the academic sector and among the crowd of 'hobby enthusiasts', people have little patience to wade through legalese, hence there will be little participation in 'open source' projects that are marred with a long and incomprehensible license.

ESR stated that a plausible promise will motivate people to participate. This may include an interesting project, strong design and reasonably clean, understandable (and maybe even working) source. I propose that clean and strong design be also applied to the license (or simply use an established and accepted license). lest noone will bother.

To that, only one thing can be said:

Go to ESR's pages and read until you either fall asleep or run out of documents ;)

He covers your question quite nicely in CaTB though.

Floris.

Besides being so old school, why not spend the time and energy everyone else seems to think would be so well spent on patent applications, non-disclosure agreements and related shenanigans (and the related fees for attorney time) on developing the idea?

I would like to recommend that your friend spend his (or her) time locating someone (be it a VC, senior accountant, regular business or ?) who can join with him and develop and bring to market the concept involved.

Even better, as the tool runs on Linux, why not make it open source and pursue compensation by achievement instead of flogging the sick horse of reward by scarcity of closed source knowledge, secondly reducing the value of your friends device to business by creating it as a proprietary item? Your friend is already out front by thinking up the concept and if he is good enough to think up this idea, he is probably the best person to develop the idea even if, through disclosure, the whole world knows about it.

VA Linux Systems sells machines and will make money because they take the same parts that other companies have available, but people people (and more often businesses) buy their Linux computers because of the value add they provide by knowing more about what works and what doesn't than anyone else and provide better linux support than other computer producers who now install Linux on their computers, not because they have a patent on ways to implement Linux on PCs.

The concept is the same regardless of whether of the idea in question is hardware or software.

Reading ESR's The Magic Cauldron should get him started on the right road.

Quote from the VA Linux web site...
" There were no matches for patent found on www.valinux.com."

I agree. This analogy may be way off, but think of Hitler. He (single-handedly?) convinced an enormous group of people that he knew who deserved to live and he knew what the world should be like and proceeded from there. And look what he did.

I don't particularly like Bill Gates but you do advocacy a bad name when you compare a dislikable businessman to an evil madman like Hitler. Bill Gates' megalomania never killed anybody. Hitler got his jollies killing millions of people, soldiers and civilians alike. Think about that. Seriously.

As a Linux advocate, I think this kind of comparison harms to the credibility of the cause. Would you trust the judgement of someone who confuses a mass murderer with a marketer of inferior products? Be aware that comparing to Hitler isn't particularly novel either. It's been done. By Godwin's law, invoking a comparison to Hitler means that you have run out of ideas and that you lose the argument immediately.

It's phonetics. Slur a well known Redmond company's name and you get....
Micro$lop!!!
Descriptive IMHO, as well...
And I thought all you 37337 /. h4X0r dudes had a penchant for transliteration and wordplay...
Read ESR's definition on hackers, it's lurking somewhere at Tuxedo

come on, man. no truely elite cracker goes on an interview for a lame mtv show. however, i don't necessarily disagree with you; for i don't know the man. he could be a professional cracker (lookup tiger team in the jargon file) or something like that; if he is, i applaud him. but the fact remains, this show has a high probability of being bunk. and i'm only judging by the inappropriate title and video clips. if your friend is as cool as you say he is, mtv is wrong. if he isn't, then mtv is inaccurate.

personally, i suspect the show will be rather quabby, but i shall withhold judgement until it airs.

Has anyone else noticed that the following statement from ESR's response article:

... I have made a point of not gratuitously waving my policitcs around in my papers...

... contrasts rather starkly with ESR's actual writings? For instance, have a look at ESR's "acceptance speech" , delivered upon receiving, on behalf of the entire Open Source movement, an award from the CPSR:

... All too often, people who invoke 'social responsibility' are demanding that we give up individual liberty -- that we accept just a bit more taxation, just a bit more regulation, just a bit more government intrusiveness, all for the supposed good of society...

... this paper goes on to claim that a "socially responsible" programmer must never become involved in projects that aid firearms regulation.

Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with ESR's political beliefs, I find it questionable that ESR has any business taking umbrage at the notion of questioning those beliefs. He has made a point of injecting those beliefs into his discussions of open source, and he is acting as a representative for this community.

Personally, I think that makes criticisms of the consistancy, logical foundation, and appropriateness of his politics fair game in this discussion.

Compression using the Huffman algorithm is commonly referred to as huffing. Decompression was naturally dubbed puffing.

Compression using the Huffman algorithm is commonly referred to as huffing. Decompression was naturally dubbed puffing.

Bezrukov's article reminds me very much good-old Soviet times, high school and/or college in Russia, and myself reading obligatory articles written by Marx, Lenin, Plekhanov and other theorists of socialism/communism. Yet it is largely style, and just a little bit the content that do that: the title of the article sounds very Lenin--Vladimir Ulianov liked very long names for his works.

Yet as I said, what is in the article (putting aside stylistics) is not really Marxist or Leninist. It is a fairly good critique the whole essense of which, IMHO, can be phrased like so:

OSS is not exactly such a novel thing--it has been known in scientific community for a long time. Current hype and success of it has to be largely attributed to Linux, but it is too naive to claim that OSS as a new software development paradigm means the total obliteration of any other way of developing software.

Before you flame, I know that I have left much of the article out. But I think that pages and pages that are left behindare just illustrate and support the above stated points.

Bezrukov does attack ESR as much as having his name in the article name. Why? Because ESR represents exactly this naive, on the border of blind-folded chauvinism, view of OSS. ESR, propaganda is one thing, reality is whole a lot different.

Yes, Linux popularity grows and it is the only OS rapidly gaining ground. This growth is not solely canibalistic (at the expense of other *nixes) as Microsoft would want it to look. But there are problems as well: there still are problems with fitting Linux in a business environment (office productivity suits like StarOffice, Applixware are not exctly a good match to Microsoft Office, while they may actually be as good if not better than Lotus SmartSuit and Corel PerfectOffice). I am not sure that making Linux easier and easier to install will matter as much to success: good publicity, applications, credibility will make a much better job than a no-pain-five-minutes-see-mom-no-hands Linux distros. After all, if business community is the target, their users will not be installing the system--IT people will. Home user is a whole another matter--and a topic for a separate discussion.

ESR being a very good and a bit less extreme public person for OSS and Linux has done and still does a very good job publicising the movement. Yet he is not perfect. He also seems to get carried away lately, maybe someone else truly needs to get part of his job? He has taken Bezrukov's article way too personally. As much as not even consulting a dictionary before using certain terms, like socialism, Marxism, communism. Do not really want to flogg this horse one more time, but:

• socialism is "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods" (Merriam-Webster). The root here is Latin socium--same as in society. It does not have to contradict with freedom of choice, be it personal freedom or market freedom. It is rather that years of Soviet and Chinese socialism (read: vulgar communism) have created bad publisity and a certain mind-set, especially in Western people. I am not very fond of a term (and frankly M-W definition is quite lousy too), just as well as of some ideas behind it, but OSS/FSF does have certain similarities to it (this collectivistic, socium-oriented view), especially when publicized by ESR. It sometime even borders with an utopian communism.
• communism is "a: a theory advocating elimination of private property b: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed" (same source). If you read Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Final Odissey you'd remember him mentioning that comminusm is ideal and perfect (hence utopian) society, but it is possible only on an insect or small animal level. Humans are too complex. It will probably take aeons to reach such an outstanding level of conscience that would permit communism into being.
• Marxism is "he political, economic, and social principles and policies advocated by Marx; especially : a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society" (M-W again). If you leave out political crap that starts in, AFAIR, 3rd volume of Capital (political and class struggle, etc.), it is more of a political economy textbook, similar to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

You can never really put an equal sign between these terms. Moreover, free market economy adept should really take time and put some effort into reading Marx's Capital : this is a great description of free market and how it functions. Do not let popular propagandistic views of Marx, socialism and communism prevail--it is like thinking that all Scots are wearing kilts all the time, Dutch people are riding bicycles on icy channels in wooden shoes with baskets of tulips in both hands, or Russians drinkng vodka from a samovar every morning chit-chatting with bears.

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/travelrules. html

The idea behind the per-diem fee wouldn't be to make money per se (I expect to be quite wealthy once the dust from the Linux IPOs has settled) but to separate the expensive conferences that attract powerful people from the marginal events where the hacker community would get less leverage from my presence.

And so much for ESR doing this stuff for the fun of it.

sklein

ESR has posted his responce to Nikolai Bezroukov's criticism. ESR states that he "welcomes such criticism" but that Nikolai "adds almost nothing useful to the debate."

There are a number of good points being brought up that I don't want to waste time by repeating. I think the article is interesting, but that one of the basic arguments is flawed.

It seems obvious to me, especially given certain statements by ESR, that CatB and the related essays are definitely optimistic and romantic versions of the open source movement by design. ESR and some others of the OSS are trying to sell the idea so that it becomes a reality. They are trying to create a meme that will propagate and overwhelm some of the less useful capitalistic conventions of the modern software world.

That the article attacks on these points is valid, but it misses the entire purpose of ESR's writing.

Scary Devils really should know better than to insult their cow-orkers publically and traceably. I mean, talk about your CLMs.

James Billington, a Library of Congress librarian and author pointed out in a commencement address at American University that early on, the TV was lauded as having fantastic potential for education. Now it's the babysitter.

A similar thing is happening on the internet -- less information content and more eye candy -- and it's not just because the marketing monkeys are pushing it. Those of the mode want it, or it wouldn't be that way. THAT is capitalism. The means that people employ to make the money (the capitalists) are manifestations not of their own rotting souls, but of the tastes of the general public. In the words of George Carlin (explaining why we have such terrible politicans to choose from) "Maybe it's the public that sucks."

I agree that the internet stands to be better than the TV, as it is not restricted to finite channels controlled by marketers, or governments, appealing to or controlling the majority. It can be this way only if people are free to build any sort of webpage they want, i.e. laissez-faire. I suppose capitalism has become a bad word, but its real meaning is the closer ideology to the spirit of the internet.

It should be kept in mind, however, that such Industrial Age economic/cultural terms will cease to have much meaning in a few decades. We are on the crest of Alvin Toffler's third wave. As Peter Drucker pointed out in a piece in October's Atlantic Monthly, it's likely that we will need to live in the Age of Information for a few decades before life with computers, biotechnology, etc. will have so shaped our thinking that our cultural institutions evolve into those which will be characteristic of the Third Age. Toffler predicts that many of these institutions (economics, government, family, etc) will be more similar to the first Age (the agrarian age) than the second (the Industrial age). Eric Raymond's essays are particularly interesting to me for this reason--he likens many aspects of the evolving culture to forgotten philopsophies. The collection of analyses really suggest a movement towards thinking and acting in ways which transcend "capitalism".

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Once in a while you get shown the light,

If you ever see hack with a negative connotation, it's probably being misused.