Slashdot Mirror

Anonymous Coward writes "I am building a museum exhibit which requires the use of 10 listening stations. These should be able to play back a few minutes of audio, should have an obvious Play button (and no other buttons: less confusion for the elderly and less to break for the kids), and should be able to work with an absolute minimum of supervision for three months of constant use. There are fancy ready-made solutions to this problem, but at $350, it would be too expensive to buy 10 of them. Similarly, there are cheap solutions ($20 CD player + $15 headphones), but this is probably not reliable or user friendly enough for this exhibit. Does the Slashdot community have any suggestions for how to build a reasonably inexpensive museum listening station?"

The Importance of writes "The FCC has been regulating 'indecent' speech on the airwaves for quite some time, but have been getting a lot more attention recently. For example, during last year's Golden Globe Awards U2's Bono said 'This is really, really f-ing brilliant.' Last October the FCC ruled that was ok. Yesterday, under political pressure, the FCC overruled that decision. However, for the first time, the FCC also ruled that the f-word is not only 'indecent' but also 'profane.' According to this new decision by the FCC, any speech that is grossly offensive, whether or not it has anything to do with sex or excretion, is 'profane.' This is a major step forward (backward?) for FCC censors. My analysis is here."

eoyount writes "Wired has an interesting story about a really simple idea I wish I had thought of. Transferring large files across the Internet isn't easy for your average joe, but a combination of RSS and BitTorrent technology might just make it easier - Slashdot ran a previous story on the theoretical blending last year." (LegalTorrents is run by the strangely familiar simoniker, who wrote a short piece on the O'Reilly Network about how it was set up, and offers observations on how well the combination fares.) Update: 03/17 21:45 GMT by T : Ernest Miller submits two related postings he's written on RSS+BitTorrent, a combination he calls "broadcatching."

ijones writes "Andrew Cooke recently reviewed for Slashdot Purely Functional Data Structures, which is on my book shelf next to The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia by Paul Hudak from the Yale Haskell Group. In his review, Cooke presented an overview of some available functional programming languages, such as OCaml, SML, and of course Haskell. Havoc Pennington once called Haskell 'the least-broken programming language available today.' Haskell is a purely functional, lazy, statically typed programming language. You can read more about Haskell itself here." Read on for ijones' review of The Haskell School of Expression. The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia author Paul Hudak pages 363 publisher Cambridge University Press rating 9 reviewer Isaac Jones ISBN 0521644089 summary Learn to program in a functional style in Haskell by implementing graphics, music, and robots simulations.

As the title implies, The Haskell School of Expression introduces functional programming through the Haskell programming language and through the use of graphics and music. It serves as an effective introduction to both the language and the concepts behind functional programming. This text was published in 2000, but since Haskell 98 is the current standard, this is still a very relevant book.

Haskell's standardization process gives us a window into two different facets of the community: Haskell is designed to be both a stable, standardized language (called Haskell 98), and a platform for experimentation in cutting-edge programming language research. So though we have a standard from 1998, the implementations (both compilers and interpreters) are continually evolving to implement new, experimental features which may or may not make it into the next standard.

For instance, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler has implemented a meta-programming environment called Template Haskell. Haskell is also easy to extend in directions that don't change the language itself, through the use of Embedded Domain-Specific Languages (EDSLs) such as WASH for web authoring, Parsec for parsing, and Dance (more of Paul Hudak's work) for controlling humanoid robots.

Before we get too far, I should offer a disclaimer: The Haskell community is rather small, and if you scour the net, you may find conversations between myself and Paul Hudak or folks in his research group, since I use some of their software. That said, I don't work directly with Hudak or his research group.

In fact, the small size of the Haskell community is a useful feature. It is very easy to get involved, and folks are always willing to help newbies learn, since we love sharing what we know. You may even find that if you post a question about an exercise in The Haskell School of Expression , you'll get a reply from the author himself.

I consider this book to be written in a "tutorial" style. It walks the reader through the building of applications, but doesn't skimp on the concepts (indeed, the chapters are meant to alternate between "concepts" and "applications"). In some ways, the code examples make it a little difficult to jump around, since you are expected to build upon previous code. The web site provides code, however, so you can always grab that and use it to fill in the missing pieces.

For readers who wish to use this book as a tutorial, and to implement all of the examples (which is highly recommended), I suggest that you grab the Hugs interpreter and read the User's Guide while you're reading the first few chapters of The Haskell School of Expression. Hugs is very portable, free, and easy to use. It also has an interface with Emacs. Unfortunately, some of the example code has suffered from bit-rot, and certain things don't work out-of-the-box for X11-based systems. The bit-rot can be solved by using the "November 2002" version of Hugs. This is all explained on SOE's web page.

The Haskell School of Expression should be very effective for programmers who have experience in more traditional languages, and programmers with a Lisp background can probably move quickly through some of the early material. If you've never learned a functional language, I highly recommend Haskell: Since Haskell is purely functional (unlike Lisp), it will more or less prevent you from "cheating" by reverting to a non-functional style. In fact, if you've never really looked at functional programming languages, it may surprise you to learn that Haskell has no looping constructs or destructive assignment (that is, no x = x + 1). All of the tasks that you would accomplish through the use of loops are accomplished instead through recursion, or through higher-level abstractions upon recursion.

Since I was already comfortable with recursion when I started this book, it is hard for me to gauge how a reader who has never encountered recursion would find this book's explanation of the concept. The Haskell School of Expression introduces recursion early on, in section 1.4. It is used in examples throughout the book, and if you follow along with these examples, you will most certainly be using it a lot. The introduction seems natural enough to me, but I note that Hudak does not give the reader any extra insight or tricks to help them along. Not to worry, though; recursion is very natural in Haskell and the reader may not even notice that they are doing something a little tricky.

The use of multimedia was a lot of fun for me, and should quickly dispel the myth that IO is difficult in Haskell. For instance, Hudak has the reader drawing fractals by page 44, and throughout the book, the reader will be drawing shapes, playing music, and controlling animated robots.

Any book on Haskell must be appraised for its explanation of monads in general and IO specifically. Monads are a purely functional way to elegantly carry state across several computations (rather than passing state explicitly as a parameter to each function). They are a common stumbling block in learning Haskell, though in my opinion, their difficulty is over-hyped.

Since input and output cause side-effects, they are not purely functional, and don't fit nicely into a function-call and recursion structure. Haskell has therefore evolved a way to deal safely and logically with IO through the use of monads, which encapsulate mutable state. In order to perform IO in Haskell, one must use monads, but not necessarily understand them.

Some people find monads confusing; I've even heard a joke that you need a Ph.D. in computer science in order to perform IO in Haskell. This is clearly not true, and this book takes an approach which I whole-heartedly agree with. It gets the reader using monads and IO in chapter 3 without explaining them deeply until chapters 16 (IO) and 18 (monads). By the time you get there, if you have heard that monads are confusing, you might be inclined to say "how is this different from what we've been doing all along?" Over all, I was pleased with the explanation of monads, especially state monads in chapter 18, but I felt that the reader is not given enough exercises where they implement their own monads.

If you're worried that drawing shapes and playing music will not appeal to your mathematic side, you will be pleased by the focus on algebraic reasoning for shapes (section 8.3) and music (section 21.2), and a chapter on proof by induction (chapter 11).

After reading this book you will be prepared to take either of the two paths that Haskell is designed for: You can start writing useful and elegant tools, or you can dig into the fascinating programming language research going on. You will be prepared to approach arrows, a newer addition to Haskell which, like monads, have a deep relationship to category theory. Arrows are used extensively in some of the Yale Haskell group's recent work. You will see a lot of shared concepts between the animation in The Haskell School of Expression and Yale's "Functional Reactive Programming" framework, Yampa. If you like little languages, you'll appreciate how useful Haskell is for embedded domain-specific languages. It may be even more useful now that Template Haskell is in the works. Andrew Cooke described Purely Functional Data Structures as a great second book on functional programming. In my opinion, The Haskell School of Expression is the great first book you're looking for.

You can purchase Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

ijones writes "Andrew Cooke recently reviewed for Slashdot Purely Functional Data Structures, which is on my book shelf next to The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia by Paul Hudak from the Yale Haskell Group. In his review, Cooke presented an overview of some available functional programming languages, such as OCaml, SML, and of course Haskell. Havoc Pennington once called Haskell 'the least-broken programming language available today.' Haskell is a purely functional, lazy, statically typed programming language. You can read more about Haskell itself here." Read on for ijones' review of The Haskell School of Expression. The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia author Paul Hudak pages 363 publisher Cambridge University Press rating 9 reviewer Isaac Jones ISBN 0521644089 summary Learn to program in a functional style in Haskell by implementing graphics, music, and robots simulations.

As the title implies, The Haskell School of Expression introduces functional programming through the Haskell programming language and through the use of graphics and music. It serves as an effective introduction to both the language and the concepts behind functional programming. This text was published in 2000, but since Haskell 98 is the current standard, this is still a very relevant book.

Haskell's standardization process gives us a window into two different facets of the community: Haskell is designed to be both a stable, standardized language (called Haskell 98), and a platform for experimentation in cutting-edge programming language research. So though we have a standard from 1998, the implementations (both compilers and interpreters) are continually evolving to implement new, experimental features which may or may not make it into the next standard.

For instance, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler has implemented a meta-programming environment called Template Haskell. Haskell is also easy to extend in directions that don't change the language itself, through the use of Embedded Domain-Specific Languages (EDSLs) such as WASH for web authoring, Parsec for parsing, and Dance (more of Paul Hudak's work) for controlling humanoid robots.

Before we get too far, I should offer a disclaimer: The Haskell community is rather small, and if you scour the net, you may find conversations between myself and Paul Hudak or folks in his research group, since I use some of their software. That said, I don't work directly with Hudak or his research group.

In fact, the small size of the Haskell community is a useful feature. It is very easy to get involved, and folks are always willing to help newbies learn, since we love sharing what we know. You may even find that if you post a question about an exercise in The Haskell School of Expression , you'll get a reply from the author himself.

I consider this book to be written in a "tutorial" style. It walks the reader through the building of applications, but doesn't skimp on the concepts (indeed, the chapters are meant to alternate between "concepts" and "applications"). In some ways, the code examples make it a little difficult to jump around, since you are expected to build upon previous code. The web site provides code, however, so you can always grab that and use it to fill in the missing pieces.

For readers who wish to use this book as a tutorial, and to implement all of the examples (which is highly recommended), I suggest that you grab the Hugs interpreter and read the User's Guide while you're reading the first few chapters of The Haskell School of Expression. Hugs is very portable, free, and easy to use. It also has an interface with Emacs. Unfortunately, some of the example code has suffered from bit-rot, and certain things don't work out-of-the-box for X11-based systems. The bit-rot can be solved by using the "November 2002" version of Hugs. This is all explained on SOE's web page.

The Haskell School of Expression should be very effective for programmers who have experience in more traditional languages, and programmers with a Lisp background can probably move quickly through some of the early material. If you've never learned a functional language, I highly recommend Haskell: Since Haskell is purely functional (unlike Lisp), it will more or less prevent you from "cheating" by reverting to a non-functional style. In fact, if you've never really looked at functional programming languages, it may surprise you to learn that Haskell has no looping constructs or destructive assignment (that is, no x = x + 1). All of the tasks that you would accomplish through the use of loops are accomplished instead through recursion, or through higher-level abstractions upon recursion.

Since I was already comfortable with recursion when I started this book, it is hard for me to gauge how a reader who has never encountered recursion would find this book's explanation of the concept. The Haskell School of Expression introduces recursion early on, in section 1.4. It is used in examples throughout the book, and if you follow along with these examples, you will most certainly be using it a lot. The introduction seems natural enough to me, but I note that Hudak does not give the reader any extra insight or tricks to help them along. Not to worry, though; recursion is very natural in Haskell and the reader may not even notice that they are doing something a little tricky.

The use of multimedia was a lot of fun for me, and should quickly dispel the myth that IO is difficult in Haskell. For instance, Hudak has the reader drawing fractals by page 44, and throughout the book, the reader will be drawing shapes, playing music, and controlling animated robots.

Any book on Haskell must be appraised for its explanation of monads in general and IO specifically. Monads are a purely functional way to elegantly carry state across several computations (rather than passing state explicitly as a parameter to each function). They are a common stumbling block in learning Haskell, though in my opinion, their difficulty is over-hyped.

Since input and output cause side-effects, they are not purely functional, and don't fit nicely into a function-call and recursion structure. Haskell has therefore evolved a way to deal safely and logically with IO through the use of monads, which encapsulate mutable state. In order to perform IO in Haskell, one must use monads, but not necessarily understand them.

Some people find monads confusing; I've even heard a joke that you need a Ph.D. in computer science in order to perform IO in Haskell. This is clearly not true, and this book takes an approach which I whole-heartedly agree with. It gets the reader using monads and IO in chapter 3 without explaining them deeply until chapters 16 (IO) and 18 (monads). By the time you get there, if you have heard that monads are confusing, you might be inclined to say "how is this different from what we've been doing all along?" Over all, I was pleased with the explanation of monads, especially state monads in chapter 18, but I felt that the reader is not given enough exercises where they implement their own monads.

If you're worried that drawing shapes and playing music will not appeal to your mathematic side, you will be pleased by the focus on algebraic reasoning for shapes (section 8.3) and music (section 21.2), and a chapter on proof by induction (chapter 11).

After reading this book you will be prepared to take either of the two paths that Haskell is designed for: You can start writing useful and elegant tools, or you can dig into the fascinating programming language research going on. You will be prepared to approach arrows, a newer addition to Haskell which, like monads, have a deep relationship to category theory. Arrows are used extensively in some of the Yale Haskell group's recent work. You will see a lot of shared concepts between the animation in The Haskell School of Expression and Yale's "Functional Reactive Programming" framework, Yampa. If you like little languages, you'll appreciate how useful Haskell is for embedded domain-specific languages. It may be even more useful now that Template Haskell is in the works. Andrew Cooke described Purely Functional Data Structures as a great second book on functional programming. In my opinion, The Haskell School of Expression is the great first book you're looking for.

You can purchase Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

ijones writes "Andrew Cooke recently reviewed for Slashdot Purely Functional Data Structures, which is on my book shelf next to The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia by Paul Hudak from the Yale Haskell Group. In his review, Cooke presented an overview of some available functional programming languages, such as OCaml, SML, and of course Haskell. Havoc Pennington once called Haskell 'the least-broken programming language available today.' Haskell is a purely functional, lazy, statically typed programming language. You can read more about Haskell itself here." Read on for ijones' review of The Haskell School of Expression. The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia author Paul Hudak pages 363 publisher Cambridge University Press rating 9 reviewer Isaac Jones ISBN 0521644089 summary Learn to program in a functional style in Haskell by implementing graphics, music, and robots simulations.

As the title implies, The Haskell School of Expression introduces functional programming through the Haskell programming language and through the use of graphics and music. It serves as an effective introduction to both the language and the concepts behind functional programming. This text was published in 2000, but since Haskell 98 is the current standard, this is still a very relevant book.

Haskell's standardization process gives us a window into two different facets of the community: Haskell is designed to be both a stable, standardized language (called Haskell 98), and a platform for experimentation in cutting-edge programming language research. So though we have a standard from 1998, the implementations (both compilers and interpreters) are continually evolving to implement new, experimental features which may or may not make it into the next standard.

For instance, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler has implemented a meta-programming environment called Template Haskell. Haskell is also easy to extend in directions that don't change the language itself, through the use of Embedded Domain-Specific Languages (EDSLs) such as WASH for web authoring, Parsec for parsing, and Dance (more of Paul Hudak's work) for controlling humanoid robots.

Before we get too far, I should offer a disclaimer: The Haskell community is rather small, and if you scour the net, you may find conversations between myself and Paul Hudak or folks in his research group, since I use some of their software. That said, I don't work directly with Hudak or his research group.

In fact, the small size of the Haskell community is a useful feature. It is very easy to get involved, and folks are always willing to help newbies learn, since we love sharing what we know. You may even find that if you post a question about an exercise in The Haskell School of Expression , you'll get a reply from the author himself.

I consider this book to be written in a "tutorial" style. It walks the reader through the building of applications, but doesn't skimp on the concepts (indeed, the chapters are meant to alternate between "concepts" and "applications"). In some ways, the code examples make it a little difficult to jump around, since you are expected to build upon previous code. The web site provides code, however, so you can always grab that and use it to fill in the missing pieces.

For readers who wish to use this book as a tutorial, and to implement all of the examples (which is highly recommended), I suggest that you grab the Hugs interpreter and read the User's Guide while you're reading the first few chapters of The Haskell School of Expression. Hugs is very portable, free, and easy to use. It also has an interface with Emacs. Unfortunately, some of the example code has suffered from bit-rot, and certain things don't work out-of-the-box for X11-based systems. The bit-rot can be solved by using the "November 2002" version of Hugs. This is all explained on SOE's web page.

The Haskell School of Expression should be very effective for programmers who have experience in more traditional languages, and programmers with a Lisp background can probably move quickly through some of the early material. If you've never learned a functional language, I highly recommend Haskell: Since Haskell is purely functional (unlike Lisp), it will more or less prevent you from "cheating" by reverting to a non-functional style. In fact, if you've never really looked at functional programming languages, it may surprise you to learn that Haskell has no looping constructs or destructive assignment (that is, no x = x + 1). All of the tasks that you would accomplish through the use of loops are accomplished instead through recursion, or through higher-level abstractions upon recursion.

Since I was already comfortable with recursion when I started this book, it is hard for me to gauge how a reader who has never encountered recursion would find this book's explanation of the concept. The Haskell School of Expression introduces recursion early on, in section 1.4. It is used in examples throughout the book, and if you follow along with these examples, you will most certainly be using it a lot. The introduction seems natural enough to me, but I note that Hudak does not give the reader any extra insight or tricks to help them along. Not to worry, though; recursion is very natural in Haskell and the reader may not even notice that they are doing something a little tricky.

The use of multimedia was a lot of fun for me, and should quickly dispel the myth that IO is difficult in Haskell. For instance, Hudak has the reader drawing fractals by page 44, and throughout the book, the reader will be drawing shapes, playing music, and controlling animated robots.

Any book on Haskell must be appraised for its explanation of monads in general and IO specifically. Monads are a purely functional way to elegantly carry state across several computations (rather than passing state explicitly as a parameter to each function). They are a common stumbling block in learning Haskell, though in my opinion, their difficulty is over-hyped.

Since input and output cause side-effects, they are not purely functional, and don't fit nicely into a function-call and recursion structure. Haskell has therefore evolved a way to deal safely and logically with IO through the use of monads, which encapsulate mutable state. In order to perform IO in Haskell, one must use monads, but not necessarily understand them.

Some people find monads confusing; I've even heard a joke that you need a Ph.D. in computer science in order to perform IO in Haskell. This is clearly not true, and this book takes an approach which I whole-heartedly agree with. It gets the reader using monads and IO in chapter 3 without explaining them deeply until chapters 16 (IO) and 18 (monads). By the time you get there, if you have heard that monads are confusing, you might be inclined to say "how is this different from what we've been doing all along?" Over all, I was pleased with the explanation of monads, especially state monads in chapter 18, but I felt that the reader is not given enough exercises where they implement their own monads.

If you're worried that drawing shapes and playing music will not appeal to your mathematic side, you will be pleased by the focus on algebraic reasoning for shapes (section 8.3) and music (section 21.2), and a chapter on proof by induction (chapter 11).

After reading this book you will be prepared to take either of the two paths that Haskell is designed for: You can start writing useful and elegant tools, or you can dig into the fascinating programming language research going on. You will be prepared to approach arrows, a newer addition to Haskell which, like monads, have a deep relationship to category theory. Arrows are used extensively in some of the Yale Haskell group's recent work. You will see a lot of shared concepts between the animation in The Haskell School of Expression and Yale's "Functional Reactive Programming" framework, Yampa. If you like little languages, you'll appreciate how useful Haskell is for embedded domain-specific languages. It may be even more useful now that Template Haskell is in the works. Andrew Cooke described Purely Functional Data Structures as a great second book on functional programming. In my opinion, The Haskell School of Expression is the great first book you're looking for.

You can purchase Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Popageorgio writes "Yale's Lawmeme features the most oppressive, paranoid web site TOS ever, found at the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum. 'Additionally, in the event that your actions in violation of this User Agreement result in our being deprived of our exclusive rights . . . you agree to pay us liquidated damages in the amount of five million U.S. dollars . . . . You agree to use only the provided permissions e-mail address (or other e-mail links on this website, as appropriate) and not to telephone us or content contributors with permissions or other requests, nor to attempt to circumvent the provisions of this agreement, and telephone calls placed in disregard of the foregoing will be charged at two hundred fifty dollars per telephone call.'(Emphasis theirs)." The museum acknowledges this is crazy, too -- read on for more.

The legal birdseed here (appropriately and manically illustrated in the manner of The Secret Guide to Computers) makes the copy on Dr. Bronner's Soap look sane; the user agreement ("Click on any link or image to indicate "I ACCEPT" the USER Agreement.") begins with a little blurb about why it's necessary, and asks you not to be put off by the legalese. That might seem disingenuous at first, but buried in the text is this note, too: "[Yes, we know that you think that all this legalese is completely ridiculous, and we think so too, but we also believe that current law unfortunately requires that it be done this way; So if you know of a better, simpler 'legally correct' way, do tell us how!]"

(Besides this amusing legal stuff, the site is actually very interesting, at least if you enjoy U.S. history and trains.)

Thanks to LawMeme for their complex article discussing how to regulate player content in virtual worlds, with particular relevance to the recent announcement that MMO Second Life "now recognizes the ownership of in-world content made by subscribers." The author starts with a question posed by a third party at the time of the announcement: "You're creating this world in which people come to play and be creative, and yet you've given this world a system that has been extensively criticized as limiting creativity. Haven't you just given them a new set of hurdles to creativity?" He then outlines his worries: "If your game platform - your game's rules and infrastructure - is non-coercive, then your game is going to have a serious problem resisting the intrusion of decidedly unfree real-life values as soon as your players start to care greatly about it. Only if your game is so trivial and so boring that no one attaches any significance to what happens there will the sense of play survive unaided."

The Importance of writes "SunnComm, which yesterday had threatened to sue Alex Halderman for writing a report critical of SunnComm's MediaMax CD3 DRM technology, has now backed off that threat. 'I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research,' SunnComm's CEO Peter Jacobs said."

The Importance of writes "A couple of weeks ago BMG released an audio CD with a new type of DRM. Earlier this week, a computer science graduate student at Princeton wrote a report showing the DRM was ineffective - it could easily be defeated by use of the 'shift' key. The stock of the DRM company (SunnComm) has since fallen by 20%. Now, SunnComm plans to sue the student under the DMCA and claim that SunnComm's reputation has been falsely damaged. According to SunnComm's CEO, 'No matter what their credentials or rationale, it is wrong to use one's knowledge and the cover of academia to facilitate piracy and theft of digital property.'"

The Importance of writes "Last week, Slashdot readers provided a number of answers to the question "What is Music?" in the context of compulsory licensing. Now LawMeme asks another question about compulsory licenses: Why Only Music? Many compulsory licensing schemes have been proposed to cover music alone, but most of the arguments in favor of a compulsory license for music apply equally as well to other media types. Millions share movies, P2P can't be stopped, the MPAA hasn't provided legitimate alternatives for what consumers want, etc. If music should have a compulsory license, why shouldn't movies, software, ebooks and other media also be covered by compulsory licenses?"

The Importance of writes "Last week, Slashdot readers provided a number of answers to the question "What is Music?" in the context of compulsory licensing. Now LawMeme asks another question about compulsory licenses: Why Only Music? Many compulsory licensing schemes have been proposed to cover music alone, but most of the arguments in favor of a compulsory license for music apply equally as well to other media types. Millions share movies, P2P can't be stopped, the MPAA hasn't provided legitimate alternatives for what consumers want, etc. If music should have a compulsory license, why shouldn't movies, software, ebooks and other media also be covered by compulsory licenses?"

The Importance of writes "Last week, Slashdot readers provided a number of answers to the question "What is Music?" in the context of compulsory licensing. Now LawMeme asks another question about compulsory licenses: Why Only Music? Many compulsory licensing schemes have been proposed to cover music alone, but most of the arguments in favor of a compulsory license for music apply equally as well to other media types. Millions share movies, P2P can't be stopped, the MPAA hasn't provided legitimate alternatives for what consumers want, etc. If music should have a compulsory license, why shouldn't movies, software, ebooks and other media also be covered by compulsory licenses?"

The Importance of writes "As noted previously, a couple of weeks ago BMG released a new CD by Anthony Hamilton that included DRM. Slashdot readers speculated that the system wouldn't work. Now there is a report proving it doesn't work by Alex Halderman, a graduate student at Princeton's computer science department and the author of an earlier, definitive report (PDF, HTML version) on first generation CD copy protection. Famed computer scientist Ed Felten asks: "Is this the end of the road for CD copy protection?" His answer? "It ought to be.""

The Importance of writes "There has been much discussion about compulsory licensing schemes. Most of the debate has been about music. But what happens when any file can easily be converted into a sound file and back again? Can shareware authors convert their software to digital music and get paid for sharing it? Can pornographers get paid for turning images into sound? Scott Matthews has written a program (Ka-Blamo) that does the conversion. LawMeme looks at some of the issues. This raises the question, what should count as music and why?"

The Importance of writes "There has been much discussion about compulsory licensing schemes. Most of the debate has been about music. But what happens when any file can easily be converted into a sound file and back again? Can shareware authors convert their software to digital music and get paid for sharing it? Can pornographers get paid for turning images into sound? Scott Matthews has written a program (Ka-Blamo) that does the conversion. LawMeme looks at some of the issues. This raises the question, what should count as music and why?"

The Importance of writes "There has been much discussion about compulsory licensing schemes. Most of the debate has been about music. But what happens when any file can easily be converted into a sound file and back again? Can shareware authors convert their software to digital music and get paid for sharing it? Can pornographers get paid for turning images into sound? Scott Matthews has written a program (Ka-Blamo) that does the conversion. LawMeme looks at some of the issues. This raises the question, what should count as music and why?"

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann, whose work has previously been noted on Slashdot, has written a new piece about virtual life and death in MMORPGs, and what that means for online democracy. Any serious discussion of democracy online that features comments on "The Secret of Monkey Island" has got to be good."

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann, whose work has previously been noted on Slashdot, has written a new piece about virtual life and death in MMORPGs, and what that means for online democracy. Any serious discussion of democracy online that features comments on "The Secret of Monkey Island" has got to be good."

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann, whose work has previously been noted on Slashdot, has written a new piece about virtual life and death in MMORPGs, and what that means for online democracy. Any serious discussion of democracy online that features comments on "The Secret of Monkey Island" has got to be good."

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann has written an interesting piece on protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs. In particular, he talks about the 'tax revolt' in Second Life."

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann has written an interesting piece on protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs. In particular, he talks about the 'tax revolt' in Second Life."

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann has written an interesting piece on protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs. In particular, he talks about the 'tax revolt' in Second Life."

The Importance of writes "The recent RIAA lawsuits have raised many questions and issues, but the focus has been on P2P filesharing. Before there was P2P, though, there was filesharing via webservers. There doesn't seem to be much complaint about the RIAA shutting down people who upload MP3s to their homepage. Why do many people seem to treat http filesharing different than P2P filesharing? LawMeme has one answer."

The Importance of writes "The recent RIAA lawsuits have raised many questions and issues, but the focus has been on P2P filesharing. Before there was P2P, though, there was filesharing via webservers. There doesn't seem to be much complaint about the RIAA shutting down people who upload MP3s to their homepage. Why do many people seem to treat http filesharing different than P2P filesharing? LawMeme has one answer."

The Importance of writes "The recent RIAA lawsuits have raised many questions and issues, but the focus has been on P2P filesharing. Before there was P2P, though, there was filesharing via webservers. There doesn't seem to be much complaint about the RIAA shutting down people who upload MP3s to their homepage. Why do many people seem to treat http filesharing different than P2P filesharing? LawMeme has one answer."

gojomo writes "AaronSw offers a compelling idea: use anonymous transferable digital cash to allocate the monies collected for creators in a compulsory licensing scheme, to avoid some of the potential problems outlined by other compulsory critiques. LawMeme calls it a "Proto Whuffie" but expects fake artists to sign up for the loot. I might call it "voucher socialism" -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing."

gojomo writes "AaronSw offers a compelling idea: use anonymous transferable digital cash to allocate the monies collected for creators in a compulsory licensing scheme, to avoid some of the potential problems outlined by other compulsory critiques. LawMeme calls it a "Proto Whuffie" but expects fake artists to sign up for the loot. I might call it "voucher socialism" -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing."

The Importance of writes "Compulsory licensing schemes such as those proposed by the EFF have been critiqued, but now LawMeme has an interesting article that claims Google will win the filesharing wars if a compulsory license is adopted."

The Importance of writes "Compulsory licensing schemes such as those proposed by the EFF have been critiqued, but now LawMeme has an interesting article that claims Google will win the filesharing wars if a compulsory license is adopted."

The Importance of writes "Compulsory licensing schemes such as those proposed by the EFF have been critiqued, but now LawMeme has an interesting article that claims Google will win the filesharing wars if a compulsory license is adopted."

The Importance of writes "Yale's LawMeme has an interesting article pointing out that the RIAA is having some PR success with their anti-file sharing lawsuits. People being sued are not just angry with the RIAA, they are angry with Kazaa. The LawMeme article thinks this is bad news for innovation since Congress might be likely to pass a law making innovative software providers more liable for the copyright infringements of their customers in order to stop the public outcry over the RIAA lawsuits." And in other news, a P2P group is planning to pay off the RIAA for that 12-year-old's settlement, and the BBC has an article about another victim.

The Importance of writes "Yale's LawMeme has an interesting article pointing out that the RIAA is having some PR success with their anti-file sharing lawsuits. People being sued are not just angry with the RIAA, they are angry with Kazaa. The LawMeme article thinks this is bad news for innovation since Congress might be likely to pass a law making innovative software providers more liable for the copyright infringements of their customers in order to stop the public outcry over the RIAA lawsuits." And in other news, a P2P group is planning to pay off the RIAA for that 12-year-old's settlement, and the BBC has an article about another victim.

The Importance of writes "Yale's LawMeme has an interesting article pointing out that the RIAA is having some PR success with their anti-file sharing lawsuits. People being sued are not just angry with the RIAA, they are angry with Kazaa. The LawMeme article thinks this is bad news for innovation since Congress might be likely to pass a law making innovative software providers more liable for the copyright infringements of their customers in order to stop the public outcry over the RIAA lawsuits." And in other news, a P2P group is planning to pay off the RIAA for that 12-year-old's settlement, and the BBC has an article about another victim.

mpawlo writes "I am still pursuing my new pastime, interviewing interesting Internet policy individuals for Greplaw. Fresh catches include Freenet creator Ian Clarke on his decision to leave the USA, free speech and Freenet and former Lawmeme editor-in-chief Ernest Miller on DRM and privacy, copyright and the First Amendment... and, of course, why blogs matter. Maybe this will provide some food for thought."

stinkypig sent in a blurb about Feral Robot Dogs, assorted modifications of the commercial AIBO dogs to be "more useful". For various definitions of useful. See also a discussion on smartmobs.com.

ahem writes "A journalist attends the World Economic forum, and writes an email to a few friends. It's a chatty, casual conference report. The conference is a gathering of the 5,000 most powerful people in the world. The report gives a breezy insight into how stuff gets done at that level, and what the concerns are that keep the world's leaders up at night. That email was intended only for the journalist's friends. That email winds up getting plastered all over the net. Here is a very interesting discussion of the implications of this "privacy spill." Make sure you read down to the Epilogue. Here is the email itself." The Lawmeme discussion is quite thoughtful and in-depth, very good reading.

An anonymous reader writes "Lawmeme's Paul Szynol describes how during installation RealPlayer hides checkboxes that elect that the user receives spam, making it look like the user chose to make the selections when in fact he probably just didn't see the options. "This is essentially a cheap and dirty marketing tactic which creates an illusion of informed acceptance by the user where no such acceptance really exists." Other people have posted similar examples from other applications. Is this illegal, or just annoying?"

The Importance of writes "Back in October, SearchKing sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank, as previously reported. Now, Google has filed a reply and a motion to dismiss. LawMeme has both documents as well as analysis."

The Importance of writes "Back in October, SearchKing sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank, as previously reported. Now, Google has filed a reply and a motion to dismiss. LawMeme has both documents as well as analysis."

The Importance of writes "Back in October, SearchKing sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank, as previously reported. Now, Google has filed a reply and a motion to dismiss. LawMeme has both documents as well as analysis."

The Importance of writes "Back in October, SearchKing sued Google for reducing SearchKing's pagerank, as previously reported. Now, Google has filed a reply and a motion to dismiss. LawMeme has both documents as well as analysis."

dpatil writes "The 2003 Japan Prize winners have been announced. James Yorke (who named the field of chaos theory) and Benoit Mandelbrot (father of fractals) will share the prize for "Creation of Universal Concepts in Complex Systems--Chaos and Fractals". Here is the citation. The Japan Prize is right up there after the Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal. A good article on Yorke and his research team at the University of Maryland appeared in the Washington Post"

Gamer writes "There is an interesting debate on Grand Theft Auto and rating of computer games going on. It started with Lawmeme's Paul Szynol wants 'distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material'. Greplaw's Mikael Pawlo has a reply saying 'Computer games are art and should be dealt with accordingly, without any references to the prohibition tactics of the 1980:ies.' Would the world not be a better place without the violence in GTA? I don't understand Pawlo's art argument, although I love gaming. I agree with Paul Szynol. Kids should not get violent games." I really don't have a problem with regulating violent games- its when the government tries to outlaw them that I have a problem.

David Gerard writes "As seen on Yale LawMeme: Microsoft is requiring colleges wanting cheap licenses to keep their license terms secret (e.g. Ohio State, University of Michigan) ... in direct contravention of state public records and Freedom of Information laws." Many FOI laws have loopholes permitting state agencies not to disclose information when it would harm business interests, so what the colleges and Microsoft are doing may not actually be illegal (or could be argued not to be, anyway), but it certainly is shady.

David Gerard writes "As seen on Yale LawMeme: Microsoft is requiring colleges wanting cheap licenses to keep their license terms secret (e.g. Ohio State, University of Michigan) ... in direct contravention of state public records and Freedom of Information laws." Many FOI laws have loopholes permitting state agencies not to disclose information when it would harm business interests, so what the colleges and Microsoft are doing may not actually be illegal (or could be argued not to be, anyway), but it certainly is shady.

I've heard a lot of people describe Richard Stallman as "unreasonable." I find Stallman instead to be one of the most persistently, relentlessly reasonable people whose thoughts I've ever encountered. Stallman may be a dogmatist, but the dogma is sincere and his own, not borrowed. A new book from the GNU Press called Free Software, Free Society collects several of his essays (and some other material) into one slim book. Stallman's essays document what his actions (as a programmer and through projects like GNU) have demonstrated concretely -- that the software future can be one primarily of rigorously open and freely, explicitly shareable code: a nightmare of control is not the only option. Free software enthusiasts might find little actually new: Those readers are probably already aware that control exercised through hidden, inaccessible bits is becoming more odious, more ubiquitous and more invisible. This makes the book worth reading especially to people who are currently not interested in the distribution and disclosure of software's source code. Unless you can completely disentangle the future of society from the future of software, this should concern you. Free Software, Free Society author Richard Stallman pages 220 publisher GNU Press rating 9 reviewer timothy ISBN 18822114981 summary Philosophy and practicality don't have to clash; this book makes the case that software can be open, and why it should be.

What's between the covers Free Software, Free Society is divided into four sections:

• One: The GNU Project and Free Software (10 chapters)
• Two: Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents (6 chapters)
• Three: Freedom, Society and Software (5 chapters)
• Four: The Licenses

Despite the division into chapters, the book's content does not conform to a single straight line, so I will deal with the chapters I mention out of the order in which they appear.

The book starts off on a good note. Key to understanding nearly everything in the book is a basic understanding of what source code is. Since Stallman's usual audiences don't need to have this explained, Richard E. Buckman and book editor Joshua Gay provide a three-page introduction ("A Note on Software") which is as good and concise an explanation as I've ever seen of the meaning of "source code," "compiler," "assembler," "machine code" and "operating system." Without quibbling over details that space has made them gloss over, this section is a good mental boot camp for anyone reading the book with no programming knowledge at all.

This note is followed by a topic guide which walks a prospective reader through the contents of the book better than a table of contents can, pointing out what concepts are dealt with in the book's chapters, a sort of micro-index. (And in a book this brief, it helps make up for the lack of a more thorough index.)

Lawrence Lessig's introduction largely repeats what Lessig has said in the past about the openness of software. One paragraph in particular sums up one of my favorite analogies when it comes to Free software, and one which I think translates well to those familiar with other fields, like art and architecture:

"... Law firms have enough incentive to produce great briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by someone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy flourishes, with later work added to the earlier."

Old hat, new hat.

Those familiar with Richard Stallman will no doubt recognize at least some of these essays, or at least their cores, because of the persistence with which Stallman has spread the word of the origins and underlying philosophies of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. The first chapters of the book may bore readers who have heard dozens of times the story of Stallman's experiences with the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) in the MIT AI lab, the dissolution of the software-sharing society there, and how it directly led to his quest for a complete Free operating system. Stallman is an engaging writer, though, and I found myself enjoying it even though I have heard the story several times before.

The chapter in this section most likely to trouble those set in conventional thinking when it comes to software is Chapter 4, "Why Software Should Not Have Owners."

Despite the title, the book does not consist entirely of essays; it also includes a transcript of Stallman's speech at NYU in May of 2001, which shows how consistent Stallman's speaking is with his writing style. Some people have derided Stallman (and the FSF) as too academic, removed from the realities of normal computer users and the business world which right now implicitly favors non-Free software, so it's interesting to note the context of that speech -- it was a direct, welcome reaction to the prodding of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's speech on the same campus earlier the same month, in which Mundie casually referred to the "viral aspect" of the GPL, and declared that Free software "puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector."

There's also Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" and even (Chapter 10) the text and score of the Free Software Song. 'The Right to Read" may be the part of the book most appropriate for reprinting in tract form to leave around public libraries: this is a story, not quite hypothetical enough, about a future where every time a book is read, it must be unlocked with a password and authorized by those who hold the strings of copyright -- and sharing books is prohibited. Replace "books" with "e-books" and the story becomes less an allegory as a description of current reality.

Just as current are Chapters 12 ("Misinterpreting Copyright -- A Series of Errors") and 16 ("The Danger of Software Patents"). Stallman's arguments here, despite his protests that practicality is secondary to ethical interests, are eminently practical and should be read by everyone whose work touches either copyright or patents. And contrary to disparagement sometimes heaped on the Free software movement, he does not dismiss either of these in toto -- he simply points out forcefully ways in which these protections can be dangerously perverted.

Some of Free Software, Free Society's contents may strike readers (whatever their level of interest) as needlessly pedantic. I'm thinking here specifically of Chapter 21, "Words to Avoid," which lists 14 words and phrases Stallman discourages in the context of Free software as he defines it. On second glance, I think even this chapter is well suited to the book, since the reasoning presented for his objections to each word on this list (a paragraph or two apiece) will be most informative to people not already steeped in the lore and leanings of the Free Software movement. Some of these (I'll tease by saying that the entry for "content" is my favorite) squeeze in some humor as well.

Stallman's philosophy is what drives his attachment to Free software, but this book is not just a collection of harangues -- there's a great deal of practical advice as well.

Chapter 8, "Selling Free Software" is an essay found in earlier form on the GNU website, which in a few hundred words obliterates a persistent myth about Free software -- that it can't be sold or can't make its sellers a profit. Stallman emphasizes the differences that the GPL has on distribution terms, but lays out the terms clearly:

"Except for one special situation*, The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."

Helpfully, that older chapter is preceded by one written earlier this year, "Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University." This is a particularly short chapter -- it takes up only two pages -- but the brevity is to Stallman's credit. I would like to see many more case studies beyond the single example presented (a GNU Ada compiler developed at NYU with Air Force funding, with a contract that specified its source code would be donated to the FSF) but these would probably be better in a book with a narrower scope. By not dwelling on unneeded specifics, Stallman has saved space to explain arguments and tactics which may be useful in persuading your school to endorse a Free software license. I also learned in this chapter that "The University of Texas has a policy that, by default, all software developed there is released as free software under the GNU General Public License." (Can anyone tell me more schools where this is true?)

The practical upshot of a philosophical book. Free Software, Free Society is not a book for casual reading, and has no thrills, cliffhangers or suspense -- unless you apply the thoughts within to current, real situations, in which case you can probably find more excitement than you might care for. When Stallman wrote "The Right to Read," no one had yet been arrested for making eBooks accessible or copyable. This book is intentionally didactic and persuasive.

Your library (local or school) should carry a copy of this book because it is distillation of ideas that are philosophically important but by no means abstract. And if the libraries available to you don't carry it, I suggest filling out a book request form -- which you may be able to do right from your computer. (Here are two online examples from Yale and New York City's branch libraries.) Likewise for (as appropriate) your school's computer science department, law school and business school. It would also make a nice gift to your Congressional representatives, since many of them seem to have forgotten that preserving a free society supposed to be their highest aim.

This is a book worth buying, reading, and passing on.

* That exception is when source code is not physically included with binaries; the source code must then be available upon request from the binaries' provider.

You can purchase Free Software, Free Society directly from the GNU Press site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

OrangeHairMan writes "Google.com is being sued by SearchKing.com because Google "purposefully devalued his companies' and his customers' web sites, causing his business to suffer financially." There's a page on SearchKing.com's site too." Does anyone besides me find this hilarious? My favorite part is that the name of the site is "Search King".

Slashback's updates tonight (read on below) have more on Dataplay, background on the PowerPC that Apple and IBM have been brewing, the return (triumphant?) of XviD, Neal Stephenson's next opus, and more.

Pins and needles, pawns and bishops. s20451 writes "It looked grim earlier in the week, but following a fifth game meltdown by Kramnik and a brilliant game 6 by Fritz, the computer has tied the match 3-3. Betting on the computer in game 6 would have brought you a 7-1 return! I'll be on the phone to Vegas."

The new, new, new economy has room for camels. SwiftOne writes "According to their website, The Perl Journal has gotten enough subscriptions to begin online release (the planning of which was previously covered, along with the concerns about not reaching their goal. The first (next) issue is expected in early November."

Maybe it was the 15th-mover disadvantage. melt writes "Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives, finally called it quits on Friday, October 11, 2002. The remaining 120 employees (who have been on furlough for the past few weeks) have been let go and the company has closed shop. They are looking for a buyer for the remaining pieces. Full story at the Rocky Mtn News web site."

Zoom in until you see little canyons ... Twirlip of the Mists writes "IBM's chief scientist for their iSeries family of servers (a.k.a. the AS/400 family) has an article on iseriesnetwork.com describing the somewhat confusing history of the POWER4 microprocessor. In light of recent speculation about a possible relationship between IBM and Apple, this article is of particular interest. It clears up-- at least partially-- some of the complex, incestuous relationships between the PowerPC architecture, the PowerPC processor family, and the POWER4 processor. As an added bonus, there's some talk about the upcoming POWER5 and POWER6 processors near the end. The key phrase (and disclaimer): 'expected to appear in 2004.'"

Shame on Sigma. Gruturo writes "After almost 3 months the XviD project and website have reopened, though Sigma Designs has not complied yet with all their requests (they still carry their copyright on many modified sources). In these last 2 1/2 months the project still went underway, although unofficially:
B-frames are practically ready, motion estimation algorithms have been improved, work started for Qpel implementation."

Please stop teasing us. If you liked Cryptonomicon, you've probably been impatiently watching the announcements of when the next Stephenson book would appear. wka writes "Previous false starts notwithstanding, Amazon says Neal Stephenson's new novel Quicksilver will be published in January."

And next week, building box-girder bridges. scubacuda writes "Lawmeme has released Part III to their Law School in a Nutshell series (Part I and Part II were previously featured on /.)"

Slashback's updates tonight (read on below) have more on Dataplay, background on the PowerPC that Apple and IBM have been brewing, the return (triumphant?) of XviD, Neal Stephenson's next opus, and more.

Pins and needles, pawns and bishops. s20451 writes "It looked grim earlier in the week, but following a fifth game meltdown by Kramnik and a brilliant game 6 by Fritz, the computer has tied the match 3-3. Betting on the computer in game 6 would have brought you a 7-1 return! I'll be on the phone to Vegas."

The new, new, new economy has room for camels. SwiftOne writes "According to their website, The Perl Journal has gotten enough subscriptions to begin online release (the planning of which was previously covered, along with the concerns about not reaching their goal. The first (next) issue is expected in early November."

Maybe it was the 15th-mover disadvantage. melt writes "Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives, finally called it quits on Friday, October 11, 2002. The remaining 120 employees (who have been on furlough for the past few weeks) have been let go and the company has closed shop. They are looking for a buyer for the remaining pieces. Full story at the Rocky Mtn News web site."

Zoom in until you see little canyons ... Twirlip of the Mists writes "IBM's chief scientist for their iSeries family of servers (a.k.a. the AS/400 family) has an article on iseriesnetwork.com describing the somewhat confusing history of the POWER4 microprocessor. In light of recent speculation about a possible relationship between IBM and Apple, this article is of particular interest. It clears up-- at least partially-- some of the complex, incestuous relationships between the PowerPC architecture, the PowerPC processor family, and the POWER4 processor. As an added bonus, there's some talk about the upcoming POWER5 and POWER6 processors near the end. The key phrase (and disclaimer): 'expected to appear in 2004.'"

Shame on Sigma. Gruturo writes "After almost 3 months the XviD project and website have reopened, though Sigma Designs has not complied yet with all their requests (they still carry their copyright on many modified sources). In these last 2 1/2 months the project still went underway, although unofficially:
B-frames are practically ready, motion estimation algorithms have been improved, work started for Qpel implementation."

Please stop teasing us. If you liked Cryptonomicon, you've probably been impatiently watching the announcements of when the next Stephenson book would appear. wka writes "Previous false starts notwithstanding, Amazon says Neal Stephenson's new novel Quicksilver will be published in January."

And next week, building box-girder bridges. scubacuda writes "Lawmeme has released Part III to their Law School in a Nutshell series (Part I and Part II were previously featured on /.)"