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Who Bought Linux.Net?
So Fred VanKampen (who has to hold the record for most money made by reselling two domain names) e-mailed us to say that the Domain Name for 'Linux.Net' has been sold. He won't say to whom, but it supposedly will be announced at LinuxWorld next week. Of course we have no idea what he got for the entry, but the rumors were that he made several million when he sold Linux.com to
VA Linux. Hopefully he'll take me for a ride in his yacht. ;)
Microsoft, for use in their upcoming "Windows 2000 is a better Linux than Linux itself" campaign.
Going to Linux.net will forward to www.microsoft.com/windows2000/
Gates will smile as he makes Linux.net his browser's startup page. Ballmer will break out in hysterical laugh as it is announced.
The battle lines are drawn...
EverCode
rah!
OS/2 WARP! babeeeeeeeee!
can linus go WARP speed? i think not!!!
woooooooooohoooooo!!!
hehe yeah, well that's Fred's company in the Netherlands. Wait for the update ;) Eelco.
Define "work". Is buying and selling stock "work"? Is writing a hit single or game "work"? Please be careful how you use my language, I don't want it broken by someone misusing it. By the way, the true "worker's paradise" is where everyone like their work so much that they don't think of it as work. This is why there will never be a "worker's paradise"
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
Oh, where, oh where is a MP3 of the Soviet national anthem when I need it? I REALLY need to email it to the Socialist, here. This person {Fred Whatever) DID give something useful! Ask your local charity if time and $$$ are worthless! He invested his money for the fees, and his time to make sure the domain went where it should. I DEFY you to say that his money and time are not equivalent to "work". BTW, I hear that Red China is allegedly still Socialist in the way you seem to admire.....
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
Kudos to an Anonymous Coward!! The previous poster's comment would have been just as (or more) effective without the doggone flame! I didn't know how to fill my tooth, but the dentist didn't call me a "dumbass" he just fixed it! (By the way, I do have issues with all the "Anonymous Cowards" out there. I would love to be able to praise intelligent commentary by name, as well as fry idiots.)
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
..in that effort was expended by (I forget his name as well). Effort is also expended by burglars. Crowbars aren't free, you know. Those TV's aren't going to walk into the van themselves. Still, the work involved in stealing, or in speculating, is NOT what brings about the profit. Rather, the profit exists beforehand and, as society has not been able to devise a way to maintain fairness, it goes to whomever has it in his ability to take it.
Whether or not there is a product is not relevant. The fellow in question did not create any product, regardless of whether any product does in fact exist.
This is not a zero-sum game.
Repeating what some objectivist told you? A free market in general might not be a zero-sum game, BUT THIS IS. If anything is a zero-sum game, speculation is. Do you not know what "zero-sum" means? It means nothing new is produced, only shuffled around. WHAT NEW WAS PRODUCED? Rent, interest, speculation, charity, theft - all are zero-sum.
Buying and selling stock is indeed work, but not how you think of it. The stock broker who researches and chooses stocks is working, whereas the investor whose money he uses is not working (in that capacity). If the investor chooses his own stocks, he is only working in the capacity that he chooses those stocks. Profits he makes by buying low and selling high are not made through work - at least, not his work. They are made through exploitation of the work of the employees of the company in which he invests.
For a definition, I'll take a snippet from Webster's Unabridged, 1913:
1. Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end
But you must keep in mind that one may acquire wealth by a combination of work in addition to e.g. usury or theft - so even a worker can be an exploiter, insofar as he obtains more than he has worked for.
I believe that yeah the guy got the doamin at a time when other more profitable doamins would certainly have been available ...And yeah can make some money out of it and give himself a pat on the back ...But I realy think he should give a substancial amount of the money to the linux community or start/invest a company that is pro open source linux.
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
I believe that yeah the guy got the domain at a time when other more profitable domains would certainly have been available
...And yeah can make some money out of it and give himself a pat on the back
...But I realy think he should give a substancial amount of the money to the linux community or start/invest a company that is pro open source linux.
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
First of all, his name is spelled "Fred N. van Kempen". Fred is his first name, N. is his middle initial, and "van Kempen" is his last name.
/usr/src/linux/* /etc/*'. He was a primary coder of Minix, a student of Andrew Tanenbaum. He wrote parts of its networking subsystem including the NE2000 driver which became Donald Becker's template for Linux's NE2000 driver which is the template for every Linux ethernet device driver I've ever seen, which are all sitting atop the networking subsystem that is at least squarely based on or a rewrite of Linux's NET2 (the network subsystem of around kernel 1.0 to 2.0) which he also largely pioneered from inception to production. He's contributed to many elements of unix-like systems because of being at the right place at the right time when much of unix was purely grassroots, and sticking with it even in a time and place where it was not profitable (almost literally starving student).
It seems to be that out of all the contention over the sale of linux.com and linux.net, the most rational response has been that Fred should donate at least part of the money to free software.
Where would you suggest that he send money, and why? What would you have done with the money? Maybe it even makes material sense since he'd be taxed on it anyway.
I'll pass your comments on to him the next time I see him before he leaves the U.S. He's not feeling very well.
And finally, like a few people have mentioned, get a clue about his contributions by grepping some source code. 'rgrep -i kempen
I've seen his name in SunOS 5.7 config files. He's got the source code of every revision of unix and most other types of OS's ever, and has just installed BSD on his "new" PDP in his office in Holland.
The point is that foolz who bust their asses to make the best software the world can handle, should be able to eventually be very comfortable. Just like when you get a degree and graduate. Fred coordinated live production testing of Linux's NET2 among European universities while he was developing it. Ever wonder how come suddenly Linux broke out of almost total obscurity around kernel 1.0.9 and 1.2.13 and hit the ground running, knocking commercial competitors down left and right? You don't come by this kind of community-oriented obsessive talent every day. If you haven't coded your own underground open-standard OS's (plural), for years without pay, on its own merit, while in production testing, and innovating on the world's collective established body of work along the way, and helping build companies to publish and reward the work of others, bite your tongue. Without these things, Linux would not exist.
And all this insane materialism in the world of free software has done to him is that now he bought his first car since forever, and one of those really expensive Mavica digital cameras! He's a true classic Dutch gentleman with impeccable manners and a tremendous sense of humor under any situation, who buys dinner for his friends at the local grill.
Yes, he went on to more commercial stuff after school (he originally had a degree in accounting), but you really should understand the economics of the land of Holland first. Although he and I might still have some discrepancies on the ethics of using Microsoft software anywhere for any reason, it's essentially roughly *similar* to what many other free software heavyweight contenders have done after their initial university-subsidized nirvana. Linus, the celebrity engineers of VA, etc, all ride atop a cloud of extreme commercialism and secrecy.
We're in a world that's still trying to figure out how to put down its bombs...material means are still developing.
That material/practical/profit part of our community, as it develops into its own industry, is a LONG TERM work in progress.
So is Fred's professional direction, so make some more specific and productive suggestions about post-sale proceeds. I think you guys will be pleasantly flabbergasted at what's already cooking inside his goofy head. (uh, that was supposed to sound like a good thing.)
Now see what you Slashdottian hotheads have done? You guys done worked me up to where I'm making runon sentences! I have a pseudo-intellectually verbose nature which suits Slashdot just fine, as long as we keep from being self-righteous and stick with the Good of the Code.
Goddamit! Malda approves! Isn't that enough for you people?
I AM 31337~ AND J00 r 2!!
And therefore I love him!
You should love him, too!
He might take you out on his yacht!
I think I don't even want to know the details of what's going on between those guys on that yacht!
That pretty much says it right there.
--
The best defense is always the one provided by one's opponent.
But that article was so full of insight that even a repetition still deserves (Score:5, Insightful). It tells us more about moral in todays "open source" community than any other article I've seen on Slashdot yet.
And about a site covering multiple subjects, I'm not saying everything should be organised into extremely specialised categories. Their could be general TLDs too.
Has anybody considered the possibility that Andover.net would consider buying the linux.net domain? It would make a good fit for their most profitable businesses, and would probably make their stock price jump.
"The Linux Network" says a lot more than "Andover Net", besides, look at their index page and see that they are calling themselves "The Leading Linux Desination" so it's a fit.
Don't be too surprised if I'm right!
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
Speculation is a zero-sum game? Ridiculous. I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it. What if this fellow had registered dogturds.com? I suppose there are different things that we would call him, but the one that comes immediately to my mind isn't speculator. Unless and until someone else decides they want that domain name, it is only worth what he paid for it. Even that is questionable. But he has a choice, just like you and me, to either register it or not.
Let's look at an example, {begin shameless plug for a friend} linuxempire.net is a nice site.
But it's value is only what someone else is willing to give for it. Would my friend be accused of being a squatter if some startup Linux distributor wanted to call their distro LinuxEmpire and offered him a million bucks or so for the domain name? I don't think so.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
sad
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
maybe Linus should sue *him* too!
I'm not sure whether this is good or bad. One one hand, I'm don;t like people registering domains that may be useful later and then not using then for anything. That's just mean. On the other hand, this is a free market economy, and people should be able to"buy low, sell high." So, I'm relly not sure where I stand.
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
The profit is zero-sum. $75 is spent, no new product is created, and $2million is income.
I get something. I hold on to it. Be it land, or Hershey bars or domain names, it is paid for at the time of my acquisition at the market value. Now that the demand is higher, I can either continue to hold it for myself, or I can sale it to someone else that is willing to pay me for it.
I never said you couldn't do it, only that it was zero-sum. And it is. Nothing new is created, unlike trading money for labor, where the labor did not previously exist. Don't you see how you've just proved my argument? You buy it, and sell it, and nothing is produced by you. If VA had bought it themselves for $75, the rest of the world would not have been without $3million dollars in some product produced by this fellow (as he produced no product). That makes it zero-sum.
I Just Don't Get It (tm).
The $2 million originally came from... what? Thin air?
It was there for VA to use as they desired. Now it's there for the fellow to use.
Zero-sum means nothing was created. He created an Internet domain name, where that domain name did not previously exist. And obviously it had some value, or VA would not have come up with the money (whether it was $2 million or $200) to buy it.
Your definition of labor apparently differs from mine. Mental labor counts, too. Not just manual labor.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
Domain Name: LINUX.NET
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS1.WEST.NET
Name Server: NS1.INFOMAGIC.NET
Name Server: EARTH.NJCC.COM
Updated Date: 13-jun-1999
As you can see, even if it was transferred, their name wouldn't be known.
The $75 was spent to create a new product. A domain name.
Ha! The domain name already existed. Actually, the domain name doesn't "exist", in any physical sense, at all. What this fellow did was buy rights to choose to what IP the DNS name would resolve. The rights were for sale, he bought them, and sold them for more than his original buying price. That makes it zero-sum, whether or not it was right, commendable, wise, ethical, or anything else. If your only basis for defending it is that it is not zero-sum, your defense fails.
The reason it's called DNS speculation is that in practice it works very much the same as speculation in land (even though the DNS situation was set up artificially, and the land one not). Surely you agree that speculation in land is zero-sum?
Your definition of labor apparently differs from mine. Mental labor counts, too. Not just manual labor.
The first time you falsely characterized my use of the word "labor" (or "work") as referring only to manual labor, I gave you the benefit of the doubt; I assumed you simply misinterpreted my previous statements, and corrected you. But it appears your false characterization (at least this later one) was a deliberate straw-man. I won't repeat what I've already said; suffice to say if you are unwilling to take what I explicitly state as my position you do both of us a disservice by replying, and make meaningful discussion futile.
How is this different from the recent SeriousDomains.com auction that was stopped by Linus? Is he getting a share out of this, or what?
--
Play Match-It.
Profits he makes by buying low and selling high are not made through work - at least, not his work. They are made through exploitation of the work of the employees of the company in which he invests.
Would that exploitation include the fact that he is helping to keep those workers employed? He is helping to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered.
For a definition, I'll take a snippet from Webster's Unabridged, 1913: 1. Exertion of strength or faculties; physical or intellectual effort directed to an end (Emphasis is mine)
He is surely working for his money.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
And are you, King AC, the one that decides what is useful? How about if he buys the names and then refuses to sale them to anyone.
I suppose that if you bought them and put up a lame ass web site, that would be OK. Maybe one of those WaReZ sites that pop up all the rest of the places you registered when you try to leave.
Yeah, that's really useful.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
Face it. Nobody buys stock for the dividends anymore. You just don't make any real money that way. You make money by buying low and selling high. If this is OK, then so should it be with cars, land, apartment leases, domain names, etc. The only reason to have "mixed feelings" is if you have some reservationa about capitalism itself... you pinko commie. :)
Maybe you should have waited to post this after we find out who bought it.
Hey, didn't MS place a bid on linux.com? Maybe it's them
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
You aren't going to change my mind about the original /. post. The fellow that originally bought linux.com had every right to sale it for whatever he could get for it.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
I don't think is the same thing that (for exampl) domainbank does. So go easy onhim.
-- Slashdot sucks.
It appears we have reached the point where we should agree to disagree.
/. post. The fellow that originally bought linux.com had every right to sale it for whatever he could get for it.
I don't think so. You still seem not to even understand my position.
You aren't going to change my mind about the original
I never contested that he had the right to do it; my only claim was that it should not be condoned (on the basis that it is not work (physical or intellectual) and thus exploitation (of those who do work)). If all you assert is that he has the right, we've not disagreed!
But if you insist that this fellow is a productive worker (in the capacity of his DNS speculation), I must ask (only) that you tell me what was produced by him, ie what existed not before his effort but after, that he traded with VA. Your inability to name this product, even under the pretense of making peace, I must take as concession (assuming the best). It seems clear to me, and is surely clear to you, that such a product does not exist, and rather than admit this you would bow out of the conversation altogether. (No insult is intended by this; I honestly believe this conclusion is very well-warranted.)
If the answer is "yes", then they are not squatting. The domain is theirs to do with as they please.
I don't know the people involved, so I have no opinion on this.
So, Fred VanKampen: you wanna be a millionaire? By selling domain names? Now I see that you're an ex-Linux developper, so I'll make this simple:
You can't open-source domain names!!
It just doesn't work that way. What you need is the spirit of Free Enterprise, something that is not found in "Open Source" software, but which I hope to introduce later this year. See, you thought open source was a revolution? Wait till you see how you can earn money off of it! True! Not a scam, either, except that the work is not yours, but the money is.
So, you take this open source software, and put it on a store shelf. Some one will see it, take it to the cashier, and pay for it!. This money is yours, it is not open-source, no matter what anyone says. You keep it, kiss it, hold it.
Now, if all the open-source people did this, or even started doing it when the whole open source thing started 3 years ago, we would all be rich: user, programmer, and AC alike. This 'getting rich', we call it capitalism. I know it's a new concept to old-school, die-hard socialistic linux programmers, but it brings in money! Just ask eric raymond why he deserves his millions. Through hard work? Nope. Through his innovative software? What has he written. The reason why he is rich and you are not is that he is a capitalist and you are a linux user. The two are mostly incompatible, but can be combined in odd ways. Just ask richard stallman, whose sailing round the world in his luxury yacht, just drinking tequila and letting the bevy of beatiful women comb his beard.
That, my friends, is the life of a capitalist. Don't you want it too?
While VanKampen's goal of protecting the name may seem laudable, that role is not his to play. Linus owns the trademark rights to "Linux" - as long as the linux.net domain is going to be used in relation to the Linus OS, VanKampen cannot use the domain name without permission from Linus.
My -assumption- is that he -does- have such permission (as will the party to whom it is sold), but for VanKampen, rather than Linus, to retain the proceeds from the sale of the domain name may do serious damage to Linus' trademark rights - as a requirement for protecting those rights is control over the name. Linus cannot claim to control the use of the name if VanKampen is entitled to control the proceeds of the sale of a domain name that he cannot legally use without permission from Linus. VanKampen can only be holding linux.net as an implicit or explicit licensee of Linus, not as a rightful owner.
Boring...
Once a technology has reached that point in its lifecycle where domain name deals, buyouts, IPOs and the like are the chief means of progress, that technology has ceased to be interesting from a technological standpoint.
Corollary #1: Slashdot is now a business page. Expect deals like this to be praised without question.
Corollary #2: Prepare for a massive cultural shift this year. The technically inclined will be moving on to something else very soon.
:Michael
transmeta. Just a thought.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Is this Fred VanKampen actually Fred van Kempen, who used to do the Linux TCP/IP stack before Alan Cox 'took over'?
The question should not be who owns a domain, but what the ownder does with the domain.
The web site at domain X should be consistent with the domain name, at least for generic names. People surf to a generic domain, like linux.com, either because they hope the site will have good resources for things in that category, or because the domain is easy to find. They do not expect or want the message "This site is for sale" or anything to that effect.
People who buy generic domains with the intent of resale have the duty, at least to provide links to sites that provide the sort of information their domain name implies. This is not to say that they should be forced to, just that it is the right thing to do, and that the more useful their domain is, even just as a set of links, the more desirable the domain becomes. Without content, any domain becomes less desirable.
Diggs, please, I have three times repeated that I consider intellectual effort as valid and deserving of the terms "labor" and "work" as manual labor. Why do you continue to hammer in a point I have never once contested?
Buying something and selling it as-bought is NOT LABOR. It's not manual labor, NOR IS IT INTELLECTUAL LABOR.
Would that exploitation include the fact that he is helping to keep those workers employed? He is helping to keep them fed, clothed and sheltered.
Is the lord any less an exploiter for feeding his serfs? Dead slaves produce no labor. But though the lord or master or investor will pay wages (in whatever amount will gain him the most profit) to those he exploits, the masters are no less exploiters unless they take only the product of their own labor, and no one else's (at which point, they cease to be investors, or masters, or lords, but are instead workers).
When a farmer labors, the product of that labor is his harvest. When an author labors, the product of that labor is his text. To what end is investing directed? To what end, besides being granted (by government) title over the product of another's labor? WHAT IS PRODUCED?
(Now I must again point out, that there is some effort involved in investing, but it is much like the effort involved in burglary and maraudary, in that the effort itself does not bring about the product, but merely takes it from the hands of another whose effort actually produced it. You must show some product that is created through the investor's effort; it must be different than the lord producing (a word I use in disgust, in this context) the harvest of his serfs through the effort of oppressing their ability to flee and to take [most of] their own harvest.)
He created an internet address. It did not exist before he registered it. He traded it to VA for cash. Someone else may have thought of it, but since they did not register it and have DNS point to them, it effectively did not exist.
The example I used way back about Stephen King was meant to show that the words Mr. King uses exist in someone else's head before hand, but until they are put on paper, the book does not exist.
There is no concession and no insult intended here. It is just a disagreement.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
A DNS name doesn't exist, and treating it like an object does not make sense. If your point is only to show that DNS speculation is not deserving of that title, "speculation", I find this discussion silly. It seems obvious to me that all the essential characteristics of speculation exist in DNS speculation, and that is why it has been so named. But if you agree that speculation is unjust and only disagree in the above, although I feel you are mistaken, I also feel the point is minor and that we are largely of the same mind.
If your argument is instead that "intellectual property" (so-called) is the equivalent of speculation, and therefore speculation and "intellectual property" must be either both just or unjust together, I commend your reasoning. However, the conclusion from there should be that "intellectual property" is unjust, not that speculation is just, for reasons stated previously. (If you believe that opposition to "intellectual property" is equivalent to the position that intellectual effort is not labor, you are simply mistaken. I hold only that creation of "intellectual property" should be payed, like any other labor, indeed like most forms of intellectual labor, exactly once, in whatever amount it is able to secure through free trade.)
A DNS name must exist. The IP address equals that name. Without the name, us humans would be telling others to go to http://111.112.113.114/index.html or whatever. We remember names much better than long strings of numbers. The only reason this was ever an issue was because this guy bought and paid for a DNS record (name) that others wanted, and then sold it to one of those people (for a stack of $$$).
If your point is only to show that DNS speculation is not deserving of that title, "speculation", I find this discussion silly.
Not my point at all. DNS speculation, land speculation, pork futures speculation. It's all the same. You puts up your money, You takes your chances.
It seems obvious to me that all the essential characteristics of speculation exist in DNS speculation, and that is why it has been so named.
Agreed.
But if you agree that speculation is unjust and only disagree in the above, although I feel you are mistaken, I also feel the point is minor and that we are largely of the same mind.
I do not agree that speculation is unjust.
If your argument is instead that "intellectual property" (so-called) is the equivalent of speculation, and therefore speculation and "intellectual property" must be either both just or unjust together, I commend your reasoning.
That is what I have been trying to say. Apparently my choice of words have been poor. My examples could have been better, but I thought that using someone that made money from a few words strung together in some DNS record was roughly equivalent to a novel writer putting common words together and making money from that effort.
However, the conclusion from there should be that "intellectual property" is unjust, not that speculation is just, for reasons stated previously.
Again, I must disagree. I will try to define intellectual property (or at least what I think it is). It is words and notes put together to make a song. It is words strung together to make a book or a magazine article. It is a painting.
(If you believe that opposition to "intellectual property" is equivalent to the position that intellectual effort is not labor, you are simply mistaken.
That was not my intention. See above.
I hold only that creation of "intellectual property" should be payed, like any other labor, indeed like most forms of intellectual labor, exactly once, in whatever amount it is able to secure through free trade.)
You had me ready to insert a big, bold Agreed! here. Then I re-read the exactly once part and you lost me. I guess you could say that, considering that a contract that calls for payments over many years could be considered being paid "exactly once", but I get antsy when "always", "never" and "exactly" get thrown around.
You know what? I think it comes down to this one question. Is it OK for the fellow to register the DNS name and then sale it to someone else? I think it is.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
A DNS name must exist.
My point was that DNS speculation is true speculation. You agree, so forget it.
Again, I must disagree. I will try to define intellectual property (or at least what I think it is). It is words and notes put together to make a song. It is words strung together to make a book or a magazine article. It is a painting.
That is not what "intellectual property" means. "Intellectual property" means privilege to exclusive use over a certain piece of information. Not to be payed for a magazine article, but to restrict others' use over the information in the article (and be payed to lift the restriction). In other words, it is the scarcity economics of property applied to information through a forced government monopoly, even though information is not a scarce resource. That is what people mean by "intellectual property", in a legal sense, in a sense that one might "oppose" it.
Some people refer to information as "intellectual property", but that is bad practice. Information is not "intellectual property" unless someone has been granted government privilege over it.
You know what? I think it comes down to this one question. Is it OK for the fellow to register the DNS name and then sale it to someone else?
You cloud the question with such vague language as "OK". I might agree with you, depending on how you define "OK", but it's sure that speculation (DNS or otherwise) is exploitive, either way. Is it OK for me to ask someone to work in my factory under sub-humane conditions, when he has the option of simply choosing not to work in such a factory if he does not like those conditions? Again, it depends on what is meant by "OK". (And, even rephrased, that is not the question the discussion comes down to, but the question the discussion seeks to answer. Like the factory question, it is hardly so simple as one might imagine.)
(ac) I hold only that creation of "intellectual property" should be payed, like any other labor, indeed like most forms of intellectual labor, exactly once, in whatever amount it is able to secure through free trade.)
(diggs) You had me ready to insert a big, bold Agreed! here. Then I re-read the exactly once part and you lost me. I guess you could say that, considering that a contract that calls for payments over many years could be considered being paid "exactly once", but I get antsy when "always", "never" and "exactly" get thrown around.
Perhaps I was not clear enough. A person can be payed in any way to create information, but there is no need to pay to USE information that one already has, and that any attempt to force such payment is simple extortion.
My examples could have been better, but I thought that using someone that made money from a few words strung together in some DNS record was roughly equivalent to a novel writer putting common words together and making money from that effort.
In one sense it is the same: in that the novel writer would claim ownership, or privilege to exclusive use over those words, you are correct (he could not). In another sense it is different: that the DNS speculator has generated any productive labor, you are incorrect (he has not). The speculator does exert some labor, but it is an unproductive labor, one he could not sell, or not sell at anywhere near the scale he now sells.
The creation of information will be payed whether or not the government can offer an exclusive monopoly over it, because it is productive labor. We know this for two reasons: first because it is intuitive, as clearly creation of information is valuable; and second because historically it is true, when there has been no "intellectual property" intellectual labor has still been payed (and similarly, even currently there is intellectual labor that produces information that cannot be made into "intellectual property", and it is still payed).
Speculation [of land, as an example] is not payable without monopoly privilege, for the same two reasons: first that it is intuitive, that nobody would pay anyone anything significant to speculate for him if he had the option of speculating himself instead; second that historically nobody did the above, e.g. in the US land rush, nobody bought land from speculators when there was equivalent land next to it to speculate. (There are objections to this that you could make, but please think long about them before you reply, because they all fail under scrutiny, and I will show why. You know as well as I that speculation is not productive labor, in fact that the defining trait of speculation is that the product exists beforehand and is not improved before resale.)
By the way, I responded below in reference to the question of what it means to work or labor (in case you had not noticed).
Let me take you back in time - to when you posted the comment that made me post a reply.
{A+C post} Call me a socialist... but I don't see how anyone can support a person making money through any means other than work. Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work. That may be unavoidable, but it's odious to condone it, even if one admits the futility of trying to prevent it.
That is what got me going. That is what caused me to put pen to paper, so to speak. Your idea that "making money without having to work" is an odious thing. As I replied then, and as I believe now, that is wrong.
I tried at that time to show you that there are many different types of work. It looks like I did not do a very good job, as you chided me many times about your definition of work. Heck, there was even one that I missed until you pointed it out above.
Well, guess what? It doesn't matter if what he did is work or not. You have shown that you think speculation is wrong and should not be condoned. I think it is right.
It doesn't matter if your definition of "OK" is different than mine. It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO. If enough people say no, then that someone has a choice - do the work himself or make the conditions (and/or the compensation) better.
Later in this discussion (I'm tired of quoting - look it up yourself if you don't believe me) you said that the products of labor belong to the laborers. Agreed. But what you seem to dislike is those laborers trading that product for a paycheck and then the one signing the paycheck reselling that product for a higher amount of money.
Geez O. Pete, if the laborers don't like their compensation, quit. If the conditions are that freakin' bad - Duh! - quit. Start up their own business and undercut that evil guy that dared to employ them in the first place.
We strayed WAY off the original point. You tried to convince me that what's his name getting a couple million dollars took those millions out of circulation. (see #153 and #154) I tried to end this politely (#158) but you drew me back in. In #159 you said that you never contested his right to do it. Well, I never said you did. What I replied to was your calling it odious and mocking his "earning". I said I thought he had the right and indeed was right to have done it. A clever chap (or lucky, but then we sometimes make our own luck), in the right place at the right time. More power to him.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
Well I'm glad, at least, that you finally admit speculation is not labor.
This is a matter of semantics. I think it is work. Obviously not by your definition, but work indeed.
You may not have said that the $2 million was taken out of circulation, but you did say If VA had bought it themselves for $75, the rest of the world would not have been without $3million dollars (#153).
Whether or not theft is zero-sum is not germaine to this argu, err, discussion. Speculation != theft.
OK means, well, just that. I have never had an indepth discussion about what OK means, so I never really gave it much thought. (It reminds me of President Clinton's evasiveness and asking what is is). I know I have to choose carefully here, so bear with me. OK means alright. It means within his rights. Fair means fair and Just means just. OK doesn't come into my play there.
{Diggs}It is absolutely OK for someone to ask you to work in deplorable conditions for only a tiny compensation. You can say NO.
{A+C}Of course you can. You can say "NO", and starve
It's not either/or. If you don't like the job you have now, you can quit. That does not mean you will starve. It means you will find another source of income. I just left one job and took another. I didn't starve between them.
I did support unions. To a point. Now I think they have outlived their usefulness and become their own problem. The problem I have with unions is when they demand guaranteed jobs and guaranteed incomes. It is not conducive to good work habits knowing that you are not subject to punishment or termination. Do you ever wonder why automobiles cost what they cost today? It's not because the materials have gone up in price so much. It's mostly due to the high cost of the factory workers salaries (and benefits packages). Now, don't get me wrong here. The workers should get everything they can. I know I did when I went looking for a replacement job for the one I left. I have a problem with the unions being in the pocket of politicians. The fact that the factories can't replace a striking worker with someone else willing to work for less is repulsive to me. If there is no one that wants to do the job for the compensation offered, the compensation will increase. Forcing the factory to pay more than market value only raises the end cost to you and me. It's called trickle down economics. There is nothing else. When the cost of the employees goes up, the cost of the car goes up so the selling price goes up so I need more money to buy it, so I want more money, so my product's price goes up... It's a vicious cycle. If the government was not in this cycle, it would level out on it's own.
Even if I could quit without starving, how would it follow that I shouldn't oppose the person who created those conditions?
It would not. Oppose away. Get the rest of the community to oppose. As I said, if no one is willing to do the job for the compensation offered....
you have not shown otherwise, and have apparently conceded, that speculation is not labor
Nope. No concession from here.
I have shown that speculation is harmful to the working class, and that the working class should oppose it, and work towards ending it. Any person who becomes wealthy through speculation is an enemy of the working class, regardless of whether he is within his rights or whether his behavior is "OK".
Speculation is not harmful to "the working class." When I make contributions to my 401K account, I am speculating. I am part of the working class. Any person that becomes wealthy through speculation is living the American Dream(tm).
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
I'll just tell you now.. I bought linux.net
I dont understand what all the fuss is. We here at the Leasing Impregnated Nuns with Unmarred Xylophones network are very excited about our upcoming IPO. There is a huge untapped market in pregnant nuns and their clean xylophones. We've already been drowned in orders!
So, please, make sure you grab some of our stock when we begin our IPO. (symbol INUX) You won't regret it!
Yeah I would setting for a couple of millions of dollars.. Yeah..
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
This is pathetic. I thought Van Kempen was a badass programmer. Why would he stoop to shit like this?
Why doesn't he give the money back to the community?
More to the point, does his inaction on this constitute failure to defend his trademark? If some half-wit judge thinks so, he could lose control over the name Linux.
0 1 - just my two bits
I have known fred for many years, he is NOT a nice guy. He got fired from infomagic for having a hard drive full of porn, and the last time I talked to him (about a year ago) he said he 'regretted doing any work on Linux, cos it sucks' (that isnt word for word, but that was the gist of the conversation).
Oh shit! I would have never believed the two of them... oh no. Oh man, this is too much.
Dynamite fishing?! You should be ashamed, you brutes!!
Or, just perhaps, it should go to Fred van Kempen. It would be a fitting reward for the splendid work he did on NET2. Without his work, Linux wouldn't be where it is today, so it seems only right that he should reap some of the profits as well.
The fact that domain names sell for millions is a sign of obsolescence of the current naming system. Who should own the domain, say... diamond.com? Diamond Multimedia? A diamond retailer? How about a South African diamond mine? or a New York cutter? All could claim to have some right to the name, among thousands of others. But who gets it? The first to register it. The fact that there is competition for domain names, and squatters of those names, exposes the weakness of DNS. When there were a handful of domains on the Internet, this wasn't an issue. I'm sure the folks who thought up DNS never imagined the present commercialization of the internet, but this system is stifled, and at the end of it's useful life.
Funny that they would sell it to a small Dutch company. Maybe there is a vested interest in Interchain? Things that make you go hmm.
Why does CmdrTaco take us all for a ride in his yacht? Didn't he and Hemos make millions when they sold out to Andover?
Oh come on, CmdrTaco isn't exactly a pauper himself. He's trying to make us forget the several million he made selling Slashdot. More likely they'll go yacht racing.
... a little playing around with whois shows that lots of evil domain names are still available. For example, if you feel adventurous, why not go register www.evil-monopoly.com and have it link to, say, MSFT just for grins? It's still available.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
If you think linux.net is big, check out www.clownpenis.com. You know that domain name is going to pay off.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
This is who distributed the IP address that linux.net points to:
Reseaux IP European Network
Co-ordination Centre
Singel 258
Amsterdam, NL-1016 AB
http://www.ripe.net/nicdb.html
+31 20 535 4444
Fax- - +31 20 535 4445
http://www.ripe.net/nicdb.html
this is what ripe.net gave out for 193.79.73.114
inetnum: 193.79.73.0 - 193.79.73.255
netname: CDONE
descr: NetOne/CDOne Internet Facilities
country: NL
admin-c: MC2488
tech-c: TJ1177-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: NLNET-MNT
mnt-lower: NLNET-MNT
changed: andre@NL.net 19960115
changed: ripe-dbm@ripe.net 19990706
changed: ton@NL.UU.NET 19991023
source: RIPE
don't know if that helps any?
Yittrix
>The fact that he maintained some networking code seems quite irrelevant to me. He bought the domain for cheap, and is selling it for a lot. That's it, and we know how to call this.
Shrewd.
Micro$oft!
Perhaps InterNIC or whatever company replaces them could link disputed domain names to a list of the sites that have registered them.
First problem: For a $50 registration fee, by registering "diamond.com" you've just required InterNIC to put up a redirecting web server for a year. That'll run a lot more than $50.
Second problem: If this were allowed, how many people do you think would register "microsoft.com" and other well-hated sites in an attempt to bury the original site in a sea of alternate registrant links?
Third problem: You're thinking too web-centric. "diamond.com" may have a web server, or it may be the central domain for 10,000 net-connected computers at Diamond Multimedia's offices. You're going to conscript that domain and make a change costing Diamond thousands of dollars, just because someone else paid $50 for a cool domain name? What about email addresses? Where does mail to root@diamond.com get sent? What happens when someone else registers hotmail.com? What happens when some non-HTTP protocol becomes the most important thing on the net, or when diamond.com turns out to be running more FTP than web traffic, or when it's the domain name for some chat server or something else that needs a unique IP?
Fourth problem: What about preexisting links? For $50, you say I can register microsoft.com, require the site to change into a redirection page, and thus break every existing http://*.microsoft.com/* link? Sweet.
Well, there's more, but you get the picture. Anyone have any more ideas?
Frankly, I'd be fine with allowing companies to override previous registrants of existing trademarks (but even then, what if the domain name is a trademark for different companies in different industries?), but that's about as much as I'd stretch it. If you had your heart set on anonymouscoward.com, and whois tells you that Cybernet2000 has already registered it (damn!), then you'd better either suck it up and pay what they want, or get a new domain name.
In this article's particular case, I'd have been OK with it if Linus had decided to enforce his trademark and prohibit anyone else from "squatting"... but it's *his* choice. The original linux.net owner is an old time kernel developer, did a good job selling linux.com, and if Linus doesn't have a problem with his getting rich off the domain names then certainly nobody else has a right to.
I might have thought at one time that selling the linux* domain names would be a good way for Linus to make money himself while coding free software... but of course now that he's slated to become a bajillionaire over the next decade on Transmeta stock options that's not really necessary.
Anyway, the all important differences that invalidate your analogy are:
Finally, not only did the domain name not have a prior owner, also was there no existing company that "obviously" would have a right to it.
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
Whoa. Capitalism, bad trip man.
figures. 1 day the head penguin is threatening to sue *.squattor. the next day, a light hearted annc. re: a favored sqattor getting megabucks for SELLING a .con to 1 of the favored elite(tm) of the "community". nothing gnu in duh world of BIG "business". please note recent PURCHASE of linux "news" site buy FUDnected megasloth internet.com. whooze call is it as* to whether or kNoT sum1 is "supportive" of duh "community"? it would appear as* dough I.T.s ALL about duh fewsure of whooze getting rich off the efforts of many. nothing gnu hear.
Registrant:
Linux/PRO Intl Support Network (LINUX3-DOM)
Hoefbladhof 27
2215DV VOORHOUT
NL
Domain Name: LINUX.NET
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone
Contact: Van Kempen, Fred N (FNV)
waltje@INFOMAGIC.NL +31 (35) 6980059
(FAX) (520) 526-957 (FAX) +31 (35) 6980215
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
I don't know where you're from but in the U.S. free speech isn't all or nothing. There are areas not protected by free speech laws e.g. obscenity (which is relative and thus difficult to define), libel, slander and provocative speech. Let's also not forget the infamous shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
In life nothing is black and white unless it's a cartoon in a newspaper. I'm not sure exactly what is meant by an "ethical squatter" but I can comment on the linux.com sale. Linus owns the trademark, he can permit it be used as he sees fit as long as he indicates it is occuring with his permission. He risks losing it if he let's it used without taking any action (like Xerox and Frisbee) but as long as he acknowledges that it has occured all is well.
InterNIC says:
Linux/PRO Intl Support Network (LINUX3-DOM)
Hoefbladhof 27
2215DV VOORHOUT
NL
Any ideas?
]# traceroute linux.net traceroute to linux.net (193.79.73.114), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 206.48.252.50 (206.48.252.50) 2.233 ms 2.270 ms 2.386 ms 2 206.48.105.213 (206.48.105.213) 25.521 ms 28.987 ms 59.121 ms 3 miraf-router1.hondutel.hn (206.48.104.65) 67.329 ms 76.651 ms 67.414 ms 4 208.248.47.37 (208.248.47.37) 558.506 ms 574.277 ms 567.139 ms 5 802.Hssi4-0-0.GW1.MIA1.ALTER.NET (157.130.68.237) 603.111 ms 663.275 ms 5 86.067 ms 6 111.ATM4-0.XR1.ATL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.232.138) 557.347 ms 574.251 ms 686 .500 ms 7 295.ATM3-0.TR1.ATL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.232.94) 581.635 ms 587.661 ms 549. 038 ms 8 109.ATM6-0.TR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.136.58) 638.516 ms 629.430 ms 574. 432 ms 9 199.ATM6-0.XR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.178.177) 665.688 ms 576.177 ms 610.200 ms 10 195.ATM2-0.GW1.NYC5.ALTER.NET (146.188.177.225) 576.890 ms 611.641 ms 573.458 ms 11 321.ATM2-0.BR2.NYC5.ALTER.NET (137.39.30.110) 618.359 ms 620.554 ms 568.283 ms 12 225.ATM0-0-0.CR2.AMS2.Alter.Net (146.188.2.5) 742.642 ms 691.763 ms 663.582 ms 13 195.ATM4-0-0.CR2.AMS6.nl.uu.net (146.188.9.98) 699.382 ms 705.402 ms 688.789 ms 14 101.atm6-0-0.cr2.ams7.nl.uu.net (212.136.160.86) 644.697 ms 716.431 ms 717.752 ms 15 asp20-atm.NL.net (212.206.255.205) 665.260 ms 696.206 ms 661.827 ms 16 hvs01.NL.net (195.193.225.17) 649.199 ms 710.873 ms 739.621 ms 17 hvs10.NL.net (193.79.235.40) 661.286 ms 740.757 ms 680.234 ms 18 imnl-gw.interchain.net (193.79.73.113) 662.399 ms 702.199 ms 706.305 ms 19 imnl-gw.interchain.net (193.79.73.113) 776.973 ms !X 674.580 ms !X 707.591 ms !X
]# traceroute linux.net
traceroute to linux.net (193.79.73.114), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 206.48.252.50 (206.48.252.50) 2.233 ms 2.270 ms 2.386 ms
2 206.48.105.213 (206.48.105.213) 25.521 ms 28.987 ms 59.121 ms
3 miraf-router1.hondutel.hn (206.48.104.65) 67.329 ms 76.651 ms 67.414 ms
4 208.248.47.37 (208.248.47.37) 558.506 ms 574.277 ms 567.139 ms
5 802.Hssi4-0-0.GW1.MIA1.ALTER.NET (157.130.68.237) 603.111 ms 663.275 ms 5
86.067 ms
6 111.ATM4-0.XR1.ATL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.232.138) 557.347 ms 574.251 ms 686
.500 ms
7 295.ATM3-0.TR1.ATL1.ALTER.NET (146.188.232.94) 581.635 ms 587.661 ms 549.
038 ms
8 109.ATM6-0.TR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.136.58) 638.516 ms 629.430 ms 574.
432 ms
9 199.ATM6-0.XR1.NYC1.ALTER.NET (146.188.178.177) 665.688 ms 576.177 ms 610.200 ms
10 195.ATM2-0.GW1.NYC5.ALTER.NET (146.188.177.225) 576.890 ms 611.641 ms 573.458 ms
11 321.ATM2-0.BR2.NYC5.ALTER.NET (137.39.30.110) 618.359 ms 620.554 ms 568.283 ms
12 225.ATM0-0-0.CR2.AMS2.Alter.Net (146.188.2.5) 742.642 ms 691.763 ms 663.582 ms
13 195.ATM4-0-0.CR2.AMS6.nl.uu.net (146.188.9.98) 699.382 ms 705.402 ms 688.789 ms
14 101.atm6-0-0.cr2.ams7.nl.uu.net (212.136.160.86) 644.697 ms 716.431 ms 717.752 ms
15 asp20-atm.NL.net (212.206.255.205) 665.260 ms 696.206 ms 661.827 ms
16 hvs01.NL.net (195.193.225.17) 649.199 ms 710.873 ms 739.621 ms
17 hvs10.NL.net (193.79.235.40) 661.286 ms 740.757 ms 680.234 ms
18 imnl-gw.interchain.net (193.79.73.113) 662.399 ms 702.199 ms 706.305 ms
19 imnl-gw.interchain.net (193.79.73.113) 776.973 ms !X 674.580 ms !X 707.591 ms !X
I hate those people who buy a domain, don't use it, but put a text on it which says: You can buy this domain for lots of money. Such things mustn't be sold/bought for that much, it should just be the 70 bucks for InterNIC every year.
Btw. I like the story about the guy who bought www.micosoft.com (The missing r) and made it redirect to some sort of porn-site. Microsoft wanted him to release that domain, and offered him quite a lot of money.
Then later: D'oh!
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
So where does all of this explain the use of the word "ethical" for a domain squatter?
It doesn't, and I don't see why it should.
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
First of all they were FREE in 1994. There were free till sometime after july 1995.
Back then they were all owned by the US goverments National Science Foundation. I suspect that the law still counts them as US property that is licensed to the users (which they can transfer). Now if I sign a long term lease with the US goverment for a house in Miami (they did end up with a few) and I release it for more, I'm obligated to refund all but %25 becuase there are federal laws that say the most proffit you can make while dealing with the goverment is 25%.
If this guy had a problem with domain name hording, he could send a check for a large sum of money to the NSF via a congress-critter. That would end domain name squatting real qucik.
but I don't see how anyone can support a person making money through any means other than work. Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work. That may be unavoidable, but it's odious to condone it, even if one admits the futility of trying to prevent it.
...but linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds right?
didn't he also say that he registered the name to prevent this kind of profiteering?
perhaps the money raised by Fred VanKampen should go into some foundation.
stty erase ^H
Just promise to take CmdrTaco for a ride in your yacht.
We have evidence that this particular fellow is an ethical squatter -- he bought up linux.com way back when in order to prevent unsavory types from abusing it, and then he sold it to the company with the best vision of how to turn it into a useful site for the community as a whole (and not just for a particular company's products or distribution). In particular, we're pretty sure that he even turned down some higher offers than the one he eventually took from VA, because he thought that VA had the better vision -- not an approach the typical squatter would take.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Even I have been getting crazy to buy my domain freeos.com but I have decided not to sell it and instead make it the resource center for free operating systems.
Prakash
Prakash
FreeOS.com - The resource center for free operating systems.
I'd personally be happy if the 3letter TLDs would have a lot more granularity instead of just "commercial", "network" and "organisation" (and some others...) How about "OS:Linux:Development"? Would make searching way simpler too :)
You do believe in Santa Claus, don't you?
"look at that, breach hull, all die, even had it underlined..." -crow
In fact, I fail to see why people are ready to pay ridiculos amounts of money for a combination of letters. So VA Linux would have domain valinux.com istead of linux.com, what's bad? If companies wouldn't create such a fuss over this, they won't have to pay so many money, and the money could possibly go to something that is really important.
Another thing I fail to see is why someone is allowed to sell "linux" domain names while TM on "Linux" belongs to Linus? Why his lawyers won't do the same thing that etoys lawers did? Why someone should make big bucks on Linux, giving absolutely nothing to Linux and just getting in the way of people who really do something?
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Exactly how would you register domain names? When a user types "diamond.com" (or the Real Name "diamond", or "diamond" in whatever dumbass scheme could replace DNS), it's got to go somewhere. How would you decide where it goes? Highest bidder? A government agency? I'm genuinely curious; I can't think of anything better than "first come first served". It seems to me like 50% of the complaints about the current "first come, first served" scheme come from clueless companies who didn't figure out that "that Internet thing" might be important until last year, by which time their name had been registered as a .com long ago.
Although I do agree with your description of the situation, I still believe that there should an intermediate "squatting category" for people like VanKampen: "Semi-selfish squatting".
:-)
Obviously the guy had some ethical principles or he'd had taken the highest offer for the domains he squatted. Nevertheless good old greed got the better of him. Or more likely, the millions of US$'s for the lesser offers were enough to satisfy his greed while allowing him to still look at his old geek friends in the eye, and himself in the mirror.
I'm very surprised that Linus let this thing go through in the first place because it's about first level domains with his trademark on the line as a trading article.
Let's face it - money corrupts ideals. I'm afraid we can already see it starting in the "Distro Wars" threads here and in other discussions everywhere. Whenever I see mindless drivel claiming that one distro or another is "crap" I begin wondering whether that guy is just a pitiful speculator/investor in "another camp". This explanation used to only apply to the Microsoft defenders in the past, but unfortunately this behaviour can only worsen as companies such as Caldera, SuSE and TurboLinux launch their IPO's. Unlike Red Hat, these companies are not going to "GPL everything" and I suspect that the ensuing competition based on proprietary components will leave its mark.
Folks, we need LSB and distro-neutrality not "distro-hate". We must also discourage companies from relying on prorietary and exclusionary features, esp. where basic operations and interoperability is concerned.
Oops, I admit straying off topic towards the end although it's still all about money, ethics and greed. Please moderate gently.
If it was legal I'd put _here_ a link to J J Cale's "Money talks"...
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Dors AI
Remember all those news domains that were approved like .store and .corp... I wonder if anyone has linux.store. If any of those endings ever catches on, that could be a great way to make a buck...Although an evil way.
I'm not sure that it is possible to have an independent committee, anymore. People have to make a living, and in their workday they will be involved with companies that have a stake in things going one way or another. Not to say that people can't be objective, but we're all human. There are clearly a lot of power shifts going on, and a lot of shifting influences, with a lot at stake. There also seems to be a naivete or unwillingness to look at things with the same independent thought we used to see here.
For example, it is clear that some people view any purchase of domain names whatsoever, for purposes other than building a single site, to be unacceptable. Other people believe that it is okay to see trends and buy and sell domain names like any other assets. It's okay to agree to disagree. But does a philosophical difference, or should a philosophical difference prevent the use and development and sale of those names for Linux businesses? I don't think so.
In the trademark situation, the fundamental issue should be whether or not a name or a site using that name (porn, Microsoft lovefest, etc.) violates or denigrates the mark. A name which has in no way done either, should not be dismissed, nor should it be removed from the market by all intents and purposes, because you're worried it might be misused, or because you don't like the person (or assume you won't like the person, since you don't know the person), in my example. I have no doubt that LinuxStinks.com would have been allowed to continue to exist. And when a user community was built up for that, would have been allowed to be sold, too. So what is the difference? The difference is that I was an unknown, and suspect because I was unknown. In our self-righteous rantings about other things and other sectors here, we call that bigotry.
Suppose that Somebody is in charge of the GoldPan, a phenomenally successful way to extract gold from them thar hills. Suppose Somebody lets all their friends and even lots of strangers try their hand at using the GoldPan and even shows them great ways to use it. Several people create neat little accessories that make it even more efficient. Everybody gets very excited about the GoldPan and all the opportunities on the them thar hills. Then, one day, on the new ship in from Afar, Stranger arrives and buys a vein that Everybody had ignored until then, and sets up several camps along the vein and says "All welcome. Come and try your hand at my vein. Use this neat GoldPan that everybody's using. But nobody's ever used it on this vein. Everybody seemed disinterested in this vein, but I think this vein holds great promise. But I'm not going to hog it all to myself. Come buy your stake."
Now does that threaten the quality of the Goldpan? No. Does it irritate Everybody who's been working different veins with the GoldPan? Some, naturally. Is it worse because the Stranger's from Afar? Is it because we're shocked that we've made open invitations to come join us in these hills, but we deep down thought nobody else would come? Or is it because we thought they would come ask permission to buy that valley before they bought their stake, because certainly nobody else would have run down and tried to stake the same claim, if they thought it might disappear. Or is it because it is really not worth anything, and we should save this guy from Afar from his own stupidity. Or is it just plain and simple we don't think anybody from Afar should have such a big stake in one vein, even if we didn't pay any attention to it before and even if they did put up the money for it. Is it because we didn't want it in the first place, and took no measures to purchase it, but now that somebody owns it, it irritates us that he wants to offer parts of it for sale? Maybe yes, yes and yes. But is it wrong? Some say yes, some say no. Should the guy be run out of town on a rail? That's what was done in the old west... or maybe found slashed in a dark alley.
Is one of the big threats that somebody might actually see value in one of those camps on that vein and spend money on it? Or is it that it was almost free for the taking only a little while ago, but now this guys got it and I wish I had gotten it, or better yet nobody got it because then we'd only have to worry about what we were working on before this guy came along? Or is it because we had this open invitation to come one and come all, but then somebody actually took us up on it, but it isn't anybody I know?
Bottom line is I staked out lots of camps in one vein of the corporate valley. I was selling domain names with Linux in them. I've encounted resentment and righteous puffery because I was an unknown, and because some people don't trust the unknown, and measures have been exclusionary because of philosophical differences. LinuxInfrastructures.com, and LinuxRollouts.com and LinusInnovation.com and LinuxBenchmarking, and most of our other Linux domain names have to do with the corporate service sector, which we've been players in, for 14 years. To say that offering domain names for sale will dilute the Linux marketplace as some have claimed is absolutely absurd. There are literally thousands of domain names for sale. To say that LinuxInfrastructures or any of my names suggest ownership of the mark is also ludicrous. To say that buying parts of a vein and then selling off some of my stakes (or at least offering them for sale) to help finance my expansion is inappropriate is also absurd. Just like an incubator in a research park, there are lots of little niches in the vein I've staked out. There are even more business incubators out there in a lot more Linux valleys and a lot more Linux veins, and all of them have a lot more money and a lot more everything then we have right now. But there are a lot of businesses out there who don't have much imagination, and if you've been a consultant for very long you know that, ten times over. Sometimes you need to build an opportunity and paint a picture until somebody gets it. And that creative image making and position staking is not only worth something, but it's an entire industry, with lots of Manhattan advertising agencies and corporate identity makers charging millions for it. And there are still thousands of domain names out there. Hundreds of thousands. It's almost the same kind of mis-enlightenment that the guy in the patent office in the early 1900's had, when he said "Everything that's ever going to be invented has already been invented." Let's get with it. Is this open source, open invitation, or not. Are legitimate business uses of Linux derivative names, including creating domain names for specific mindshare positions and then selling them like any worthy business asset, to be allowed or not?
To say that using Linux to get money is an isolated behavior for domain speculators (as in "now the use of "linux" in this case has really been a question of blocking somebody ELSE from using the term and using it to get money.") is a limited view. Linux in the name is critical to being a player, any player, in this industry. As reported in an earlier post, LinuxCare's filing says "If we fail to adequately promote and maintain our brand name or are unable to continue using "Linux" as part of our brand name, our business may be adversely affected." Yeah. Ditto.
So we're back to Is it okay to squash and block because of a philosophical difference when no wrongdoing or damage to the mark is proven? Open-minded objectivity is going to be key here. What happened to me does not, from where I'm sitting, feel like open minded, open source anything . And objective analysts in this forum, and even Linus Torvalds himself, would not support, I believe, the way I was actually treated. (see what really happened.). And while you're at it, think about this. If you had spent a lot of your hard-earned money (very very hard earned, for you get rich quick illusionists) to buy domain names that included Linux (as many, many, many people have), and if there were precedent after precedent of hundreds of sites and uses out there with Linux in the name, would you be blindsided and incredulous that some Threaten Now, Talk Never lawyer would call and suggest that you not sell the names or even remove any references to the names? Is this a free country? Is this still America? Is this an Open Community -- come one, come all? See the Penguines Parody if you have any sense of humor at all. Otherwise, the issues here and violations here are not very funny, and not very Linux-esque, or even American, for my open-minded, level-headed, non-hypocritical colleagues, who've been quietly supportive in private emails to me.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Typo. The first sentence should have been "... the auction was stopped by the lawyer, who was called not by Linus but by one..." Sorry.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Anybody here old enough to like Westerns or remember Louis L'Amour or even US history? You know the founding rancher who's a good guy and owns a big ranch, and builds this town, but then these new power guys come in.. the big guys, and they have a guy over here, running foreman for the Big Rancher, and everybody has to answer to the Foreman now. And there's a couple guys who work for the new Big Rancher who now owns the town, and hates nesters. New rancher comes in. Water is found. Now Big Rancher wants more of the water holes. Boys, what are we going to do with this no good. Let's call them "nesters" and kill them -- Call them "nesters" in front of everyboy over at the saloon. (These guys are so easy.) Just stir up a mob. Don't even talk to the new guy or get to know him/her. Just kill him. He has no right to that water hole. We were here first. We want it all. But don't tell anybody. What difference does it make that they filed on the land, and own title. They've got no right. Next thing you know they'll be runnin' sheep and we only like cattle around here. We never saw it before and got along fine without it, but now that we know it's there, let's kill them, and take the water hole. Now, while we've got the mob going, let's look around the town and see who else we need to get to tow the line. Perfect timing. You wanna play? Fine, but you have to deal with The Boss. Boss wouldn't like that. Well, he never complained before. Yep. But he's not running things anymore, we are, and we say what goes....
So what kind of town is this going to be, and who is going to run things? You want a town that's owned, or do you want free commerce for all. Hard work. Hard life. But a good stake not threatened by power mongers.. there's a possibility of working the land and making something good come out of it. Given a chance, and some room to play. How about it boys. What's it going to be? You snookered, or you read up the laws of the land? You cowards and lackeys or are you individualists?
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. from Birmingham Jail, 1963
You're comparing yourself with the heroic founding rancher of a Louis Lamour story?
I don't want this to come off as flamebait, but what *ARE* you smoking, squatter?
US Trademark law is very clear about such things. The Linux trademark covers "computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation." Linux.net very definitely falls under the actual trademark listed here, and so I'm sure that whoever is buying and selling has gotten things squared away with Linus Torvalds.
On the other hand, separate trademarks can incorporate Linux in their names, and such a thing is called a derivative. My domain name LinuxInfrastructures.com, for example, is descriptive of the services sector. Almost all my Linux domain names are. It is most certainly not a trademark infringement to own such a name, to broadcast that you have such a name for sale, or to sell it, and the domain name itself is perfectly legal following the guidelines of the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The proper procedure for building such a site and wrapping an identity around it would be to gain a license to use the Linux trademark incorporated into your own trademark. This has been done before, and has substantial precedent in the case of Linux, so there are no grounds to be exclusionary. There are precedents in registered trademarks in the USPTO, and it has precedent, even without trademarks, across hundreds of domain names in the Linux community.
eToys lawyers, (if you are referring to the skirmish with the etoy art site in Europe), had a different battle. eToys.com is similar to eToy.com, but the trademark is eToys.com. You do not automatically own a plural of a domain name, nor should you. It would have been nice if they had just contacted each other on a friendly cyberneighbor kind of basis (would have been nice in my case of selling domain names, too!) and asked them nicely if they wouldn't mind putting the naked stuff on a non-front page, given the terrific traffic to eToys, and inadvertently to eToy from kids. Most people are protective of kids and wouldn't cry "censor" just to put the stuff one page back. But it's all in how civilized people are talking with each other and how they approach each other. That's why I haven't gotten my hackles up about the way I was treated, although I have every right to. It just happened, and maybe soon I can have a civilized conversation with the only stakeholder that matters in this, and that is Linus.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. from Birmingham Jail, 1963
Sorry `bout this being AC but I've forgotten my login - I'm terrible with names, even my own :)
Anyway, I've repeatedly seen people complain that they can't get a DN cause someone else has registered it and this has led me to do a little research into DNS - not a lot, just a little, I'm still a newbie :)
Ok, let's say you want neuron.net but some git's nicked it.
" Fine," you say (probably with swearing and complaining) and go without.
You do some hunting and find a service that provides third level domain name redirection so that you can have your domain name, it just looks a little odd.
I did that. I looked for neuron.net (taken) so I hunted around and found a redirect service. :)
So, instead of my address being what I wanted, it's http://www.neuron.cjb.net.
It's a shameless plug I know
But what about DNS? I couldn't believe that the software running the DNS was restricted to .com, .net and .org, plus the numerous country codes, so I did a little reading.
GOOD LORD!! You can assign any domain name!
The first thing that came to mind was The Egg in ShadowRun, the Internetwork that runs alongside the Matrix (and yes the game came before the movie) but is not of the Matrix.
Two Internetworks using the same software and standards running alongside each other, connected but not dependant.
The Matrix goes down and a few nodes disappear from the Egg, and vice versa.
I think you can see where this is going, but if you can't i'll throw this idea into the arena and see what happens.
Let's start our own Internetwork, built by geeks for geeks and policed by all.
In the same way that telnet is apart of the Internet, we could start our own subnetwork system.
Good idea? Maybe. Possible? Definately. :)
Then maybe I could get my neuron.egg address.
Zero Kelvin
zero@neuron.cjb.net
www.neuron.cjb.net
This slashdot story talked about Linus' lawyers cracking down on domain names containing the word "linux" within them. The action was mainly targeted at a domain name auction house. Well, this guy seems little different than an auction house even if he only does have 1 or 2 auctionable items. Why isn't Linus' attorneys going after him to simply sieze the domain name? And more to the point, if Linus has power ofer *linux*.*, then should he not get some or all of the profit made from sale of his trademarked name?
Oh go away, people like you suck. If your not going to do anything useful with the domain names besides sell them then you deserve nothing.
Your definition of work is obviously different from mine. Work includes brain work as well as the back breaking physical kind. Just think, Steven King makes all those millions of dollars just for stringing words together on a page.
Now this fellow has obtained millions of dollars without having to work at all for it, and will probably continue to use that money to exploit people who do work, "earning" more money, still without having to work
This fellow got there before we did, thus entitling him to the spoils of his labors. Exploiting people who do work? This fellow will do what just about anyone would do. Spend some. Invest some. Either way, he will make a contribution to the economy. Either directly by making purchases; keeping people in jobs manufacturing whatever he buys, transporting the products to the stores, selling the products. Hell, even the trash man gets some when he throws away all that packing material. If he invests it, he has now made it easier for me to get a loan to start up my own Linux distribution company (DiggsLeenucks, I can dig it). Damn, I guess that just created some more jobs.
I don't see the problem with so called "cyber-squatters." They aren't much different from real life squatters. Remember in your history classes about the Old West? The land rushes? "I got here first, so this is mine. Oh, you want it? How much will you give me for it? Well, he said he would give me more than that, so you have to come up with more." OR "I don't like the way you operate, so even though you are offering more money, I am going to sale it to him. That is my perogative as a property owner."
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
By definition the first post can't possibly be redundant.
"ethical squatter"? What the hell is that. It opens the can of worms as to who decides what is ethical. Either you must support domain name prospecting fully and 100% or you must support a total ban on the practise. There can be no "robin hood" inbetweens. (Robin Hood was a criminal, IMO). Being wealthy doesn't mean it's okay for someone to stick you up. Theft is theft even if you do give the spoils to blind orphaned war widows or whatever.
The fact that he maintained some networking code seems quite irrelevant to me. He bought the domain for cheap, and is selling it for a lot. That's it, and we know how to call this.
geez rob, you make it sound like you're still living in a box and eating tuna fish everyday, struggling to pay the electric bill.
go buy your own boat.
--
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Registrant:
Linux/PRO Intl Support Network (LINUX3-DOM)
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Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
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Record created on 13-Jun-1994.
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NS1.INFOMAGIC.NET 165.113.211.2
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Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
Sorry, this guy is as bad as any fuck-you-ha-ha-i-registered-the-domain-before-you- so-pay-me-for-it.com site. Death to squatters.