Slashdot Mirror

RandyDownes sends word that Canonical has released the beta version of Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). The release announcement boasts faster boot times, GNOME 2.31, and a speedier version of Evolution. In addition, "The Ubuntu Software Center has an updated look and feel, including the new 'Featured' and 'What's New' views for showcasing applications, and an improved package description view. You can now easily access your package installation history too." The release notes and download page are both available.

iFrated informs us of a successful penetration of US Defense Department computers by the Chinese military last June. From the article: "The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the [Chinese] People's Liberation Army. One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a 'very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty' that the PLA was responsible." The PLA is also accused of breaking into German government computers, including a network in the office of the Chancellor.

cachedout writes "SCO's Ralph Yarro had the floor yesterday at the Utah Technology Commission meeting in front of Utah lawmakers. Yarro proposed that free wireless sites and subscribers should be held responsible should any porn be delivered to minors because hotspots are apparently where kids go to watch porn all day long. Yarro told lawmakers that open wireless access points should be made a crime because we have an Internet out of control."

unum15 writes "This week is Novell's Brainshare conference. They are touting the Microsoft covenant not to sue as 'good for consumers'. However, Bruce Perens decided to take this opportunity to 'rain on Novell's parade'. Perens read a statement from RMS affirming the GPLv3 would not allow companies to enter deals like this and continue to offer GPLv3 software. Perens even goes as far as to suggest this move is an exit strategy by Novell. There are also audio and pictures of the event available."

elanghe writes "The Michigan Attorney General filed suit against two companies sending adult-oriented email messages to the state's children, in violation of the Michigan Children's Protection Registry. A similar law in Utah is being challenged by the porn industry. While the FTC, influenced by the Direct Marketing Association, rejected the idea of a do-not-email registry, have these two states proven anti-spam laws like these — unlike CAN-SPAM — really have teeth?"

pashdown writes "Namco has announced a Nintendo 3-in-1 arcade game that contains Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros. The new upright has a 25" monitor instead of the traditional 19". Arcadeflyers.com has the flyer."

yeremein asks: "After yet another black ink cartridge has fizzled out, I've decided that it's time to stop giving money to a known DMCA abuser and buy a new printer. Since I'm fed up with the clogged jets and drifting print head misalignment, not to mention the exorbitant cost of ink cartridges, I'd like to go with a laser printer this time around. It doesn't have to be a high duty cycle one, since it's for home use and I only print maybe 100 pages per month. And black only is fine. Any suggestions for an inexpensive laser that is Linux friendly, and does not employ any 'smart chip' technology that would prevent the toner cartridge from being refilled or cause it to 'expire' and stop working at a certain date regardless of the toner level?"

pashdown writes "Get your two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes ready! In honor of the 25th Anniversary of Space Invaders, Taito has commissioned Namco to remake the classic arcade game. The only thing not nostalgic is the price, increased from one quarter to two." We had a sneak peek of this cabinet as a Slashdot Games story a couple of weeks back.

pashdown writes "Get your two-liter bottles of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtapes ready! In honor of the 25th Anniversary of Space Invaders, Taito has commissioned Namco to remake the classic arcade game. The only thing not nostalgic is the price, increased from one quarter to two." We had a sneak peek of this cabinet as a Slashdot Games story a couple of weeks back.

yeremein writes "According to this vnunet.com article, SCO's code changes Update: 10/04 20:51 GMT by T : (This should read "SGI's" rather than "SCO's.") removing arguably System-V-related code from SGI's Linux submissions is 'not enough.' According to Blake Stowell of SCO, 'Making minor amendments to its XFS file system doesn't cure the breach. SGI must do more as outlined [in the August letter] to cure all of their breaches.' But later on in the article, we learn what was outlined in the August letter: 'We don't believe that SGI has taken all of the steps necessary to cure all of the breaches, and in fact in our letter to them, we state "SGI's breaches of these agreements cannot be cured."' So SCO essentially told SGI, 'You're in violation of our contract and unless you remedy the violations, we'll pull your UNIX license. Oh, BTW, you can't remedy the violations.' This looks to me like the clearest example yet of how SCO is acting in bad faith." Read on below for another snippet of SCO strangeness.

An anonymous reader writes "As many are aware, SCO has sought (and got) a 4 month extension to its IBM lawsuit. According to the Salt Lake Tribune: 'SCO spokesman Blake Stowell said Tuesday that he understood the extension is being sought "for the purpose of gaining documents from IBM related to the patents they claim. . . . Some of the patents aren't even filed with the U.S. Patent Office, as far as we can learn."' I thought this was worth looking at, and quickly found that the patents in question are 4,814,746, 4,821,211, 4,953,209, and 5,805,785 - which can be found by typing in their numbers in this USPTO form."

Kerberos99 writes "Mission Critical Security Planner is a timely and important book from Eric Greenberg, author of Network Application Frameworks (reviewed on Slashdot and used as a text in many CS courses). In Mission Critical Security Planner (MCSP),Greenberg advocates an actionable, meaningful security approach that doesn't get hung up on methodology or reliance on abstract standards, like DoD and other common standards." Read on for the rest of Kerberos99's review. Mission Critical Security Planner author Eric Greenberg pages 416 publisher Wiley rating 9.5 reviewer Kerberos99 ISBN 0471211656 summary Provides an innovative approach to create a customized security improvement plan, including analyzing needs, justifying budgets, and selecting technology, while reducing time and cost.

Greenberg delights in skewering bureaucracies that believe planning and methodology is an end in itself, yet recognizes key business realities facing security advocates and suggests practical approaches to "selling security" within an organization -- an important topic given tight or shrinking budgets.

Greenberg is clearly a security guy and writes with experience and authority -- at times the style is conversational and humorous and at others professorial -- it is a good read for a security-focused text. While providing a strong overview of sound security planning and risk management concepts, MCSP also digs down and provides details where it counts regarding filters, proxies, IDS/VA, configuration management, content management (ActiveX, etc), and so forth yet consistently presents this low-level detail within the framework of an actionable security planning methodology that will be relevant five or even ten years from now. MCSP is anything but a security cookbook of technology discussions gleaned from public sources, although many basic concepts and topics are explained in the book's comprehensive glossary. Instead, the book presents the strengths and weaknesses of various technologies and approaches as they relate to the security improvement process.

MCSP utilizes a sequence of sophisticated worksheets to guide the reader through the security planning process and create a dynamic, actionable security plan -- not a plan that lives on the shelf. Using Greenberg's approach there are three components to the Security Plan: Security Stack (physical, network, application, OS), Life-Cycle Stack (technology selection, implementation, operations, incident response), and Business (information, infrastructure, people). Interestingly, you may have noticed that the Security Stack is similar to the OSI model -- this is typical of the rational and logical approach throughout the book. Using the worksheet approach as a guide, the Security Plan is mapped to 28 pre-defined security elements addressing the core security planning challenges of a distributed computing environment. Based on the worksheets, the impact analysis method approach provides a readily understandable plan that reflects the specific business, technical, and lifecycle tradeoffs in your organization.

Greenberg keeps it interesting with many anecdotes illustrating key points and thought-provoking arguments. For example, he advocates an approach that will hold vendors accountable for poor security by providing a quantifiable method for business software users to track security. The final chapter covers strategic security planning with PKI and provides a roadmap for selling an organization on the benefits of PKI when appropriate.

MCSP is an innovative and useful security book. The book provides security staffers and planners with the logical framework and tools they need to create a comprehensive, living, and actionable security plan enabling the organization to shift from a reactive security posture to a more pro-active approach. Highly recommended.

Online reader resources are available and chapter one maybe downloaded from http://www.criticalsecurity.com.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Setting the Stage For Successful Security Planning.
• Chapter 2: A Security Plan That Works
• Chapter 3: Using the Security Plan Worksheets: The Fundamentals
• Chapter 4: Using the Security Plan Worksheets: The Remaining Core and Wrap-Up Elements
• Chapter 5: Strategic Security Planning with PKI
• Chapter 6: Ahead of the Hacker: Best Practices and a View of the Future

You can purchase Mission Critical Security Planner from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

DarkSparks writes "The EFF is urging everyone to contact their Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor Representative Rick Boucher and John Doolittle's recently introduced Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA, H.R. 5544), which would introduce labelling requirements for usage-impaired "copy-protected" compact discs, as well as make several key amendments to the DMCA, including affirming the right of scientific research into technology protection measures and affirming the right of citizens to circumvent technology measures to gain access to copyrighted works they've purchased."

DrInequality writes: "For those of you out there who admire the portability of Java but want something faster or open source, the answer to your prayers is finally here. The Internet Virtual Machine is open source, fast and supports C, C++, Java and ObjectiveC. There are some cool demos for Linux (requires Redhat 6.0 or above, and OpenGL 1.2 or Mesa 3.41) here (1.5MB) and for Windows (requires glut32.dll, here) here (1.5MB)." We mentioned this last year; perhaps it has improved. I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in a language as portable as Java but speedier.

flikx sent in an issue that may affect several of us in the future, especially if you happen to work in a similar environment. It's a free speech issue, and one that puts a huge question mark on just how far U.S. First Amendment rights really extend. The short version: filkx ran a weblog called "SOS," for the laudable goal of providing an open discussion forum for student government issues. He had a steadfast rule of non-censorship, which soon landed him in political hot waters with the University of Utah. A new administration steps in, the site is shut down, and filkx now faces criminal charges, expulsion and a cute twist: the university claims that the site's content is now their own property. flikx notes, "I'd like to say up front that this is a fairly large and multifaceted issue, and would also like to draw attention to a related article up on Slashcode". You can read the details by clicking on the link.

The following is written by former-Slashsite admin, flikx:

Early last fall, I personally created a Slash site called SOS under student government for my University. I did everything myself with no outside help of any sort, and entirely volunteer. I have never been paid for my efforts in any way, and never expected monetary compensation. I did not actually work for the University, but was a student in Mechanical Engineering. I created said site with the ultimate goal of providing an open discussion forum and weblog for all students of the University.

During the course of operation of the site, I fielded numerous complaints about abuse to the site, and took them in a professional manner, though steadfastly refused to censor any content on the site. Remember that many in Utah are very conservative and dislike free speech on some levels...being fairly conservative myself, I never thougtht I'd run afoul of people. The problem is that I continuously ran afoul of politics as people threatened me repeatedly due to my failure to censor the site. The abuse was minimal, especially by Slashdot standards.

Six weeks ago, the administration censored the entire site due to the threat of legal action due to inapropriate content. The site was down for just over a week, and I was forced to implement strict posting guidelines and adopt a censorship policy for the site.

A new administration recently took over, and first on the list was to get rid of me, and the site. There's much more involved here in politics, plus scr1pt k1dd13 threats spoofed from my email and everything, but the bottom line is that the site was censored for good. The server was physically removed by the police, and the disks wiped after 'evidence' was removed. All known backups were destroyed, and they even obtained a protective order from me and banned me from the University property. I'm also suspended indefinately, and face immediate expulsion from the University. (BTW - I'm almost done with my Mechanical Engineering degree .. so this is not light by any means. If expelled, I'm forced to start over as a freshmen if I ever get into another school.)

So here's some of the problems with which I turn to the Slashdot crowd for a solution:

The administration threatened me, and had the legal team tell me that everything on the site is intellectual property of the University of Utah. Everything. That includes all stories, all comments, user accounts, even the graphic design I did. I have off-site backups of the site, and could easily redeploy the site elsewhere provided the time and hosting. I've already put 2000+ unpaid volunteer hours into the University, and they take away my work. It should be my right to operate an open discussion forum, but it seems that it's not.

What does the Slashdot crowd think about this issue? Should [or does] everything belong to my University? The only involvement the university had was hosting the site and buying the server, that's it. Obviously, the site could be moved elsewhere, and I still have a team together that could operate the site independant to the University. But as I am already being expelled and even facing criminal charges for 'computer crimes', this is far beyond your average Ask Slashdot."

Cliff: If you are interested in obtaining some context for this story, you can dig around the cached pages from SOS on Google.

Aarthek writes: "A new report is showing how people are signing on to the internet. Notice that the growth according to this report shows that DSL has had less than 2% growth in the first quarter of 2001. Where Cable is showing a 18% growth. The full report can be found here." This certainly matches my experience with DSL vs. cable, but for various reasons you're probably familiar with, DSL can be a better way to connect -- if it's available in your area, and you have a solvent provider, and you're near enough to a CO, and they'll squeeze you in an installation time, and your house wiring is up to it.

Aarthek writes: "As I was doing my usually daily browse I came across this story from PCWorld. After my experiences with PhoenixDSL being transfered to Telocity, and Telocity not delivering the service. I've been wondering how much longer companys like Rhythms can stay 'in the game.'" The article has a brief postmortem on DSL providers who have already dissolved and paints no rosy picture for the survivors. Low margins, high barriers -- sounds like another case of DSL Woes.

bradipo writes "I was watching Level 9 for the first time and I thought I saw a glimpse of a linux desktop, so I kept watching. Sure enough, they were using Linux as the computer that a couple of kids were using to view NASA documents, etc... I captured as many as I could with my nifty tv capture card. It looks to me like they were using Enlightenment or WindowMaker or possibly both together."

Justin Goldberg writes: "I saw this article over on Linuxtoday about Internet C++, a new language that will bring standard languages and APIs, as well as current applications, to the Internet. Doom has already been ported to Internet C++, as well as X Galaga and Tetris. IDoom (the name of the Doom port) runs pretty jumpy on my machine running X on FreeBSD, but the release is in alpha stage." The reader forums on the site are pretty interesting, too, in discussing whether this is a truly (Free / Open Source) language, and about the extant alternatives.

Kismet asks: "I've recently been involved in a largish Web application written using Microsoft tools. It consists of a UI layer written in VBScript for Microsoft ASP, a business tier of COM objects, and a backend on SQL Server 7. How can I implement something like this with Linux? It's really easy to use server-side COM objects with ASP, but is there anything that easy for PHP or Mason or something else on Linux? PHP's database stuff is neat, but I'd like to move that out of the site script."

Mirele writes "The Salt Lake Tribune reports in an article today that a lot of formerly secret documents that Microsoft had submitted in the now-settled Caldera case have been unsealed. These documents include a deposition by a former Microsoftie that indicated she had destroyed e-mail correspondence when urged to do so by her boss. They also show Microsoft's inclination to overdesignate documents as secret. The judge unsealed all but about 30 documents. "

Mirele writes "The owner of www.xenu.net, the most comprehensive anti-Scientology website on the Net, reported on alt.religion.scientology that the site was shut down after the ISP received a letter from Scientology's Religious Technology Center alleging trademark infringement. The heart of RTC's complaint is that xenu.net uses their trademarks, the words 'Scientology,' 'Dianetics,' and 'Hubbard,' in the metatags." A look at the legal history shows that all the cases that were won involved trademarked terms in meta tags that did not appear on the webpage; that does not appear to be the case here. When Playboy unsuccessfully sued a Playmate for metatagging the term "Playmate," she countersued; does anyone know what the result was? Update: 11/19 03:00: The site's back up.

Kismet asks: "I see a lot of news and reviews about encryption on Slashdot regularly. The subject seems rather interesting. I suppose that cryptography is covered in CS classes, but for hobbyists, what is the best way to learn? What kind of math background does one need? Are there any good "beginning" books on the subject? What is the history of Cryptography? "

redbeard writes "The NYTimes (requires free login) has an interesting write up on "ruggedized" laptops, these things can withstand tornados, being run over by trucks and being submerged in water, among other things. Panasonic is planing on a scaled-down line for consumer use, kind of like the Hummer vs. HUMVEE." If it lasts more than 6 mos in my hands, I consider it rugged...

Stern has gifted us with a review of Dave Barry's In Cyberspace. The book itself is 1996, but I can attest to the sheer humour of it, simply by it's long half-life in washroom. Click below to read more. In Cyberspace author Dave Barry pages publisher Fawcett Columbine rating 7 reviewer Stern ISBN summary stselling humor book about computers and computer people, cyberporn and the net. It is funny to anybody who works with these machines, but is aimed at a slightly older and less sophisticated audience than the Slashdot crowd. The Scenario

Dave Barry is a comedy writer who makes more money than I care to think about by writing about boogers and broken appliances. If you have used the Internet longer than six months, you've probably been e-mailed his essay about the exploding whale in Oregon. Barry's humor often relies on mocking uncomfortable truths, and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political commentary several years ago. In this book (which contains mostly new material), Barry writes about Microsoft Word, tech support hotlines, hardware upgrades, selecting fonts, and other topics close to the heart of any computer user.

What's Bad?

Barry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sophisticated computer user. Though amusing to just about anybody, his jokes are intended for readers with an understanding of computers similar to his own. Intepreting various comments he makes about the first computer he ever owned, he's probably been using PCs since the early 1980s (the book was published in 1996).

This computer had virtually no practical use other than to consume electricity. You know how modern personal computers contain a microchip "brain" that, despite being no larger than a Chiclet, can perform millions of mathematical calculations per second? Well, I don't think my Radio Shack computer had one of those. I think there might have been an actual Chiclet in there, calling the shots...

Most of the humor, therefore, is about the goofy error messages in Windows 95. You can generalize his jokes to apply to the goofy error messages from other operating systems, but don't expect him to talk about the particular difficulties that a typical Slashdot reader confronts. The book is also somewhat repetitive.

What's Good?

Many of Barry's jokes fall into two categories: the difficulty of getting a new computer (or new software) to work, and the sad fact that they're not very useful even once you have them working. This second point is even more true than Barry may realize. Every study I have read on the effect on introducing computers into a workplace shows a drop in productivity as a result. While computers may speed routine tasks, the time that is freed is then spent fussing with the computer, playing with fonts, chaging desktop pictures, and so forth.

Computer spending has increased essentially every year for decades. In 1996, companies in the United States spent 43% of their capital budgets on computer hardware. That is more than they invested in factories, vehicles or any other type of durable equipment. Meanwhile, productivity growth in the seven richest nations of the world has fallen precipitously in the past 30 years, from an average of 4.5% a year during the 1960s to a rate of 1.5% recently. The slowdown has hit the biggest IT spenders -- service-sector industries, especially in the U.S. -- hardest.

Barry's brilliance comes from his ability to reflect troubling truths like this in memorable quips.

You know how annoying it can be to keep a schedule on old-fashioned paper: Every time you want to record an appointment, you have to get out your schedule book and write your appointment down. Wouldn't it be easier if you simply had to go to your computer, turn it on, wait for it to "boot up," use the mouse to locate and click on the scheduling program icon, wait for the program to load, then use the mouse to get to the right day, then type in the appointment information in the proper space, and the time in the proper space, making sure to use the format allowed by the program, then close the scheduling program without being 100 percent certain that you would ever see this information again?

If you answered "Yes!" then you're ready to join the millions of cyberhumans like me who have dumped clumsy schedule-and-address books weighing as much as three ounces and are now carrying around laptop computers that can incorporate the same information in a package that -- including power cables, spare batteries, etc. -- weighs easily 25 times as much!...

While this passage may be somewhat dated by the introduction of the Palm Pilot, his larger point remains true, that many of us compulsively use computers even where they make our lives less pleasant. His descriptions of the web are funny, though dated. One chapter, widely circulated via e-mail, lists some of Barry's favorite websites and makes fun of them. Of course, he warns us that "By the time you read this, you may not be able to visit all of these pages. I visited most of them in mid-1996; some of them may have since gone out of existence for various reasons, such as that their creators were recalled to their home planets." The list includes "Mr. T Ate My Balls," the "Trojan Room Coffee Machine," the famous Oregon "Exploding Whale", and other sites you've probably visited at one point or another. Given what I have already said, it should come as no surprise that Barry describes one of the chief benefits of the net that, if it's 8pm and your 12 year old kid suddenly remembers that he has a report on the Spanish-American War due the next morning,

No problem! Your cyber-savvy youngster simple turns on your computer, activates your modem, logs on to the Internet -- the revolutionary "Information Superhighway" -- and, in a matter of minutes, is exchanging pictures of naked women with other youngsters all over North America.

The MsPtato and RayAdverb chapters represent a sharp change in style, telling in straightforward narrative the story of two adult strangers who meet in Internet chatrooms and find themselves to be soulmates. For readers who are new to the net, I think these chapters would illustrate how the net breaks down social barriers and changes peoples lives.

So What's In It For Me?

It's funny. You can read the chapters in any order. I suggest borrowing it from a library or a friend, because you'll finish it in less than an hour.

Pick this book up at Amazon.

Table of Contents

1. A Brief History of Computing from Cave Walls to Windows 95
   Not That This is Necessarily Progress
2. How Computers Work
3. How touy and Set Up a Computer
   Step One: Get Valium
4. Becoming Computer Literate
   Or: Words for Nerds
5. Comdex
   Nerdstock in the Desert
   Or; Bill Gates Is Elvis
6. Software
   Making Your Computer Come Alive So It Can Attack You
7. How to Install Software
   A 12-Step Program
8. Word Processing
   How to Press an Enormous Number of Keys Without Ever Actually Writing Anything
   Or: If God Had Wanted Us to Be Concise, He Wouldn't Have Given Us So Many Fonts
9. The Internet
   Transforming Society and Shaping the Future, Through Chat
   Or: Watch What You Write, Mr. Chuckletrousers
   Or: Why Suck is OK, Blow is Not
   Plus: Danger! Sushi Tapeworms!
10. Using Internet "Shorthand"
    How You Can Be Just as Original as Everybody Else
11. Selected Web Sites
    At Last: Proof that Civilization is Doomed
12. MsPtato and RayAdverb
    A Story of Love Online
13. Conclusion
    The Future of the Computer Revolution
    Or: Fun with Mister Johnson
14. Reprise
    MsPtato and RayAdverb

redbeard writes "BBC News has an article on the world's smallest harp. I guess the next step is a full Nanotech orchestra. . . " That, and the machines that are going to make me immortal, and able to survive at the bottom of the Marinas Trench.

Kevin S. Van Horn has written an interesting piece describing why he thinks ideas should not be property. I think that this is something that a lot of us agree with, but he presents it well. Check it out. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Kevin S. Van Horn Why Ideas Should Not Be Property

Here's an interesting essay by Benjamin Tucker, that's very relevant to the free / open-source software movement. It predates Richard Stallman and the FSF by a good 85 years, and gives better arguments against the whole notion of ideas as property than I have ever seen expressed elsewhere. I've excerpted the relevant parts below.

• For the fourth of these monopolies, however, - the patent and copyright monopoly, - a more plausible case can be presented, for the question of property in ideas is a very subtle one. The defenders of such property set up an analogy between the production of material things and the production of abstractions, and on the strength of it declare that the manufacturer of mental products, no less than the manufacturer of material products, is a laborer worthy of his hire. So far, so good. But, to make out their case, they are obliged to go further, and to claim, in violation of their own analogy, that the laborer who creates mental products, unlike the laborer who creates material products, is entitled to exemption from competition.

I take it that, if it were possible, and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete things at the same time, there never would have been any such thing as the institution of property. Under those circumstances the idea of property would never have entered the human mind, or, at any rate, if - it had, would have been summarily dismissed as too gross an absurdity to be seriously entertained for a moment. Had it been possible for the concrete creation or adaptation resulting from the efforts of a single individual to be used contemporaneously by all individuals, including the creator or adapter, the realization, or impending realization, of this possibility, far from being seized upon as an excuse for a law to prevent the use of this concrete thing without the consent of its creator or adapter, and far from being guarded against as an injury to one, would have been welcomed as a blessing to all, - in short, would have been viewed as a most fortunate element in the nature of things. The raison d'etre of property is found in the very fact that there is no such possibility, - in the fact that it is impossible in the nature of things for concrete objects to be used in different places at the same time. This fact existing, no person can remove from another's possession and take to his own use another's concrete creation without thereby depriving that other of all opportunity to use that which he created, and for this reason it became socially necessary, since successful society rests on individual initiative, to protect the individual creator in the use of his concrete creations by forbidding others to use them without his consent. In other words, it became necessary to institute property in concrete things.

But all this happened so long ago that we of today have entirely forgotten why it happened. [...] And so it has come about that [...] most of us are not only doing what we can to strengthen and perpetuate his [property's] reign within the proper and original limits of his sovereignty, but also are mistakenly endeavoring to extend his dominion over things and under circumstances which, in their pivotal characteristic, are precisely the opposite of those out of which his power developed.

All of which is to say in briefer compass, that from the justice and social necessity of property in concrete things we have erroneously assumed the justice and social necessity of property in abstract things, - that is, of property in ideas, - with the result of nullifying to a large and lamentable extent that fortunate element in the nature of things, in this case not hypothetical, but real, - namely, the immeasurably fruitful possibility of the use of abstract things by any number of individuals in any number of places at precisely the same time, without in the slightest degree impairing the use thereof by any single individual. Thus we have hastily and stupidly jumped to the conclusion that property in concrete things logically implies property in abstract things, whereas, if we had had the care and the keenness to accurately analyze, we should have found that the very reason which dictates the advisability of property in concrete things denies the advisability of property in abstract things. We see here a curious instance of that frequent mental phenomenon, - the precise inversion of the truth by a superficial view.

Furthermore, were the conditions the same in both cases, and concrete things capable of use by different persons in different places at the same time, even then, I say, the institution of property in concrete things, though under those conditions manifestly absurd, would be.' infinitely less destructive of individual opportunities, and therefore infinitely less dangerous and detrimental to human welfare, than is the institution of property in abstract things. For it is easy to see that, even should we accept the rather startling hypothesis that a single ear of corn is continually and permanently consumable, or rather inconsumable, by an indefinite number of persons scattered over the surface of the earth, still the legal institution of property in concrete things that would secure to the sower of a grain of corn the exclusive use of the resultant ear would not, in so doing, deprive other persons of the right to sow other grains of corn and become exclusive users of their respective harvests; whereas the legal institution of property in abstract things not only secures to the inventor, say, of the steam engine the exclusive use of the engines which he actually makes, but at the same time deprives all other persons of the right to make for themselves other engines involving any of the same ideas. Perpetual property in ideas, then, which is the logical outcome of any theory of property in abstract things, would, had it been in force in the lifetime of James Watt, have made his direct heirs the owners of at least nine-tenths of the now existing wealth of the world; and, had it been in force in the lifetime of the inventor of the Roman alphabet, nearly all the highly civilized peoples of the earth would be today the virtual slaves of that inventor's heirs, which is but another way of saying that, instead of becoming highly civilized, they would have remained in the state of semi-barbarism. It seems to me that these two statements, which in my view are incontrovertible, are in themselves sufficient to condemn property in ideas forever.

Kevin S. Van Horn has written an interesting piece describing why he thinks ideas should not be property. I think that this is something that a lot of us agree with, but he presents it well. Check it out. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Kevin S. Van Horn Why Ideas Should Not Be Property

Here's an interesting essay by Benjamin Tucker, that's very relevant to the free / open-source software movement. It predates Richard Stallman and the FSF by a good 85 years, and gives better arguments against the whole notion of ideas as property than I have ever seen expressed elsewhere. I've excerpted the relevant parts below.

• For the fourth of these monopolies, however, - the patent and copyright monopoly, - a more plausible case can be presented, for the question of property in ideas is a very subtle one. The defenders of such property set up an analogy between the production of material things and the production of abstractions, and on the strength of it declare that the manufacturer of mental products, no less than the manufacturer of material products, is a laborer worthy of his hire. So far, so good. But, to make out their case, they are obliged to go further, and to claim, in violation of their own analogy, that the laborer who creates mental products, unlike the laborer who creates material products, is entitled to exemption from competition.

I take it that, if it were possible, and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete things at the same time, there never would have been any such thing as the institution of property. Under those circumstances the idea of property would never have entered the human mind, or, at any rate, if - it had, would have been summarily dismissed as too gross an absurdity to be seriously entertained for a moment. Had it been possible for the concrete creation or adaptation resulting from the efforts of a single individual to be used contemporaneously by all individuals, including the creator or adapter, the realization, or impending realization, of this possibility, far from being seized upon as an excuse for a law to prevent the use of this concrete thing without the consent of its creator or adapter, and far from being guarded against as an injury to one, would have been welcomed as a blessing to all, - in short, would have been viewed as a most fortunate element in the nature of things. The raison d'etre of property is found in the very fact that there is no such possibility, - in the fact that it is impossible in the nature of things for concrete objects to be used in different places at the same time. This fact existing, no person can remove from another's possession and take to his own use another's concrete creation without thereby depriving that other of all opportunity to use that which he created, and for this reason it became socially necessary, since successful society rests on individual initiative, to protect the individual creator in the use of his concrete creations by forbidding others to use them without his consent. In other words, it became necessary to institute property in concrete things.

But all this happened so long ago that we of today have entirely forgotten why it happened. [...] And so it has come about that [...] most of us are not only doing what we can to strengthen and perpetuate his [property's] reign within the proper and original limits of his sovereignty, but also are mistakenly endeavoring to extend his dominion over things and under circumstances which, in their pivotal characteristic, are precisely the opposite of those out of which his power developed.

All of which is to say in briefer compass, that from the justice and social necessity of property in concrete things we have erroneously assumed the justice and social necessity of property in abstract things, - that is, of property in ideas, - with the result of nullifying to a large and lamentable extent that fortunate element in the nature of things, in this case not hypothetical, but real, - namely, the immeasurably fruitful possibility of the use of abstract things by any number of individuals in any number of places at precisely the same time, without in the slightest degree impairing the use thereof by any single individual. Thus we have hastily and stupidly jumped to the conclusion that property in concrete things logically implies property in abstract things, whereas, if we had had the care and the keenness to accurately analyze, we should have found that the very reason which dictates the advisability of property in concrete things denies the advisability of property in abstract things. We see here a curious instance of that frequent mental phenomenon, - the precise inversion of the truth by a superficial view.

Furthermore, were the conditions the same in both cases, and concrete things capable of use by different persons in different places at the same time, even then, I say, the institution of property in concrete things, though under those conditions manifestly absurd, would be.' infinitely less destructive of individual opportunities, and therefore infinitely less dangerous and detrimental to human welfare, than is the institution of property in abstract things. For it is easy to see that, even should we accept the rather startling hypothesis that a single ear of corn is continually and permanently consumable, or rather inconsumable, by an indefinite number of persons scattered over the surface of the earth, still the legal institution of property in concrete things that would secure to the sower of a grain of corn the exclusive use of the resultant ear would not, in so doing, deprive other persons of the right to sow other grains of corn and become exclusive users of their respective harvests; whereas the legal institution of property in abstract things not only secures to the inventor, say, of the steam engine the exclusive use of the engines which he actually makes, but at the same time deprives all other persons of the right to make for themselves other engines involving any of the same ideas. Perpetual property in ideas, then, which is the logical outcome of any theory of property in abstract things, would, had it been in force in the lifetime of James Watt, have made his direct heirs the owners of at least nine-tenths of the now existing wealth of the world; and, had it been in force in the lifetime of the inventor of the Roman alphabet, nearly all the highly civilized peoples of the earth would be today the virtual slaves of that inventor's heirs, which is but another way of saying that, instead of becoming highly civilized, they would have remained in the state of semi-barbarism. It seems to me that these two statements, which in my view are incontrovertible, are in themselves sufficient to condemn property in ideas forever.

A writes "Of especial interest to all those in Norway: acording to Yahoo News, Norwegians can probe any machine on the internet. Not sure how this translates into international law, but it is a victory!"

Jamie Zawinksi wrote in to tell me to tell everyone to lay off Mozilla.org and try one of the many mirrors- the huge demand has crippled the machine. Hit the link below to get a decent list of com and edu mirrors. Update:Couple of neato things, A screenshot of NS5 was sent in by Christopher Blizzard, and an insider who requested anonymity sent us a picture from this mornings big event, wrote "The main three people in this picture are Jim Barksdale, Jamie, and Tara Hernandez. Tara is manager of the build team. Just to the left of JimB is Jim Roskind, who led the Java-ectomy." Thanks guys.

ftp://odin.appliedtheory.com/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

http://www.gbnet.net/public/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.landfield.com/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.epix.net/pub/mozilla/

ftp://netscape.primehost.com/pub/ftp.mozilla.org/

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/www/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.muc.muohio.edu/pub/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.bogalusa.com/mozilla/

ftp://sod.off.net:211/pub/mozilla/

ftp://mirrors.javanet.net/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.cache-world.com/mirror/mozilla.org/

ftp://ftp.dqc.org/pub/

ftp://powermike.com/powermike.com/pub/ftp.mozilla.org

ftp://ftp.tos.net/pub/ftp.mozilla.org/

ftp://pfaffben.user.msu.edu/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.shuttle.org/mozilla/

ftp://mirror.neosoft.com/pub/mozilla/

http://www.us.inside.net/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mozilla/

http://sunsite.utk.edu/ftp/netscape-source/

ftp://mirror.tummy.com/pub/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.one.net/pub/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.mindwell.com/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.ntr.net/pub/mozilla/

ftp://ftp-netscape.connectnet.com/pub/netscape/source/

ftp://mozilla.meer.net/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.inetdev.org/mirrors/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/mirrors/site/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

ftp://mozilla.savages.com/

ftp://mirrors.xmission.com/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.dsnet.net/pub/