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Slashback: Stallman, Again, Wanderungen
Which way to America, please? After word of Microsoft Honcho Jim Allchin's (somewhat bizarre) words on Free software (later "clarified" by MS), we linked to a (preliminary) response to Allchin from RMS. Now RMS has himself issued a final version of his statement, here for your edification, passed on by Dan Gillmore, technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.
Very eloquent.Thanks, Dan.
And if you're not yet out of sparklers, pie, bunting or RAM, matthew writes: "Bradley M. Kuhn, the new Vice President of the Free Software Foundation, has an essay published here. It's a more personal answer to Microsoft's attack against the GPL."
Start flossing that stein and pressing those Lederhosen! Jetzt! Alex writes: "I'm proud to announce that we finally got it managed. The date is fixed. The Linuxbierwanderung 2001 (1) will take place from 25th of August to the 1st of September in Bouillon (2), Belgium. As the hall we get the upper floor of the Archeoscope (3), a museum direct in town. It's warm, dry, nice, with enough electricity and has up to some 20 ISDN-lines. To get things easier for you we added a lot of phonenumbers and addresses of camping sites and hotels on the webpage. See (4) to look for your favorite place. So, now it's time to register ! To register yourself, your family, your pets, your computers and your lectures see (5). Thank you for your attention, Cheers, Alex.
(1) The Linuxbierwanderung 2001
(2) Bouillon on the Net
(3) The Archeoscope
(4) Hotel Overview
(5) Join the Linuxbierwanderung and register !"
I wish this didn't sound suspiciously close to LinuxWorld (San Francisco) 2001, because a lot of people would probably like to go to both. Lucky Europeans;) How about one of these in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee? I'll bring the fireworks, you bring the moonshine ...
I would have stopped at Pizza-Nizza afterward ... Google bought Deja. RallyDriver sends a report from the coolest six-letter city on I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio (gulp -- covered my bases?).
"On Thursday at the Omni hotel here in Austin [?] , we had the now familiar wake: the auction. While the public was overbidding on everything from furniture to laptops, dual P3 VA FullOn servers were going for as low as $275 a piece.
The show, however, goes on. Rumors of unemployment levels in Austin are greatly exaggerated, and it seems like most of the Deja people are already moving on to new opportunities. If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.
Most of the server equipment (they still had the previous generation of equipment and the one before that) was picked up by junk dealers and resellers according to its vintage, but ironically a number of the rackmount boxes will be going right back where they came from -- Exodus Austin, where Deja was hosting, is also our co-lo provider."
They're not worth half that.
Ugh.
Not many people make Bill Gates look attractive. RMS is blessed.
That's cause AMD is based in Austin and everyone knows that AMD chips are not 100% x86 compatible and AMD users are criminals. Legitimate users and businesses will always use Intel because of their rock solid stability and error-free performance.
If you're going to bite, then do it right. The reason why there are more hate crimes against gays in Austin is because there are more gays in Austin. This is the same principle that dictates that there are more crimes against Chinese people in China.
--cp
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
What I was trying to say is that a concentration of hate crimes in an area is an awfully good reason not to live there, especially if you fall into one of the catagories for which people are victimized.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That was one of the concerns which lead to the creation of the Open Content License back in 1998:
http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml
It's commonly used for books which are released both in print and on a free basis on-line, eg., Linux Administration Made Easy, and all the content at Linux.Com.
when the end goal is that *all* software is free software, how does one pay salaries?
The only feasible way is to charge service fees for customized work. The "product" as we know it goes away. This unfortunately puts a tremendous economic burden on those that fund innovation, or those that are early adopters -- since laggards by definition won't have to pay much for the work (since it's available free, as opposed to "not at all, it hasn't been written yet").
So if salaries go down, that means those who program are those who do it for the hobby, for the community, for "scratching the personal itch" -- leading to a supply-driven market. Last I checked, markets were supposed to be demand-driven, not supply-driven. And that means that people's needs aren't being met. All for the sake of "freedom".
People *will* give up freedom to have their needs met.
-Stu
"Reaganomics" was supply-side, and arguably a pipe-dream. Clinton wasn't a supply-sider.
The federal reserve's policies have always had their roots in moneterist theories, which in turn have their roots in demand-side macroeconomics.
-Stu
ahh, so you know better than everyone else.
copyright is called "practicality" -- you know, the thing that keeps idealism in check?
The founding fathers put the need for copyright in the constitution for this very reason... one needs to give up freedoms for periods of time in order to promote the progress of the arts and sciences.
-Stu
I bet you'll be modded down, but hell, you're right. I had someone give me a lecture recently about using Acrobat Reader to view PDFs. Seems that by choosing to use Acrobat Reader instead of XPDF I was giving up my software freedoms. Erm, excuse me?
:-)
To be blunt, I had a choice between the Free XPDF and the proprietary Acrobat Reader. I chose Acrobat Reader. I'm restricting my own rights by choosing it? I think not.
God, I'm thinking of jumping ship now...how's FreeBSD doing these days?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
It's been that way since Day 1, sorry. Thou shalt not speaketh vilely of our great patron saint, St. IGNUcius.
Feh, I think we could do without him, myself. Thanks for starting the GNU project, but sometimes, Mr. Stallman, you get in the way.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
In the pre-beta release of Stallman's response he made the claim that the Free version of Kerberos did not interoperate at all with the Microsoft version of Kerberos shipped with Windows 2000.
In this final release he backs down from this position. He removed the lie from the response, but instead he turned the paragraph into simple innuendo without any substantiation.
Well, at least we know one thing. Even though Stallman is to arrogant to come out and apologize for lying, at least he's willing to admit when he's wrong.
Richard Stallman is a Communist, it's readily apparent in all of his writings. That's not meant to demonize him. Theoretically I don't think communism is a fine societal formation.
But the problem is that it only works in theory, it ignores all other facets of the society we currently live in.
Stallman has written that he doesn't think programmers should be paid salaries. He's written that he finds it disgusting that people would even suggest working for money.
He has claimed that he has purposefully not pursued marriage because he realizes if he did he'd have to set his priorities differently. Meaning, he'd have to pursue that evil money in order to care for the family.
I don't know why you would say this is ad hominem, it's all true and is found as revelations in all of his various writings.
But the thing is, his dream is theoretical and it is clearly evident that he does not take into regard evidence within the real world to support his theory.
I think the views RMS expresses are damaging to the industry. He's the polar opposite of what is wrong with the industry today. That is the problem, he suggests replacing one bad thing with another bad thing.
The good is somewhere in the middle, a balance of copyright and consumer interests.
If you disagree, then fine. But please don't sit there and whine about how misunderstood poor RMS is.
Why weren't his comments released under the GPL?
:-)
Yes, considering every post critical of RMS has been labeled as a troll or flamebait, it is absolutely natural to conclude what you just did.
I'm a liberal... What I want to know is, why are you so afraid to acknowledge that Richard Stallman's ideas are based a lot upon the Communist writings of Karl Marx.
People kill for love so don't get involved with voilent persons or those involved with violent
or irational persons.
People kill for money so take extra recautions when you cary money around. Or better yet don't cary much money with you. And when you do make it aparent that you don't.
People kill for personal vengence. Be honest in your dealings to avoid creating a motive.
People kill because they dislike your race, religeon, nationality or sexual orientation. For this kind of crime there realy are only 2 options. Don't live near such people or cary a large loaded firearm at all times.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Courts still have the option of giving suspended sentences to convicted morderes. If both the convict and the judge are in the KKK and this is a hate crime it WILL hapen.
This particular legislation circomvents the judges discretion.
More importantly it was only created because that discretion was so frequently abused.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Hey you, yeah you typing in MS word. Did you know you were oppresed?
I had this mental image of the MS Office Paperclip, suddenly appearing to preach Free Software.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
This was one of the most feared of all the Orwellian predictions, that having certain THOUGHTS could be considered illegal.
This is a dangerous and foolish step. Law must be based on what was actually done, not why it was done. The motivations of other people is something that can never be determined accurately. It can be guessed at over coffee, but has no place in a legal system.
There is a bill in Oregon to to have 'eco crimes' categorized as hate crimes. This would make the penalties most severe for exercising one's Constitutional right of assembly, as trespassing for the purpose of protesting damage to the environment will become a 'hate crime'.
That's only the start -- this isn't just a slippery slope, it's close to a frictionless surface.
"Hate crime" as a category is ridiculous, and should have no special legal standing.
> Watch out that you don't confuse motive and intent.
Interesting point. In the case of hate crimes, the point seems to be that the "intent" is to kill members of a sub-population generically, or to harrass or intimidate them into leaving.
So perhaps the question is, should intent to drive a group away through killing, assault, bombing, etc., be a crime.
If you were plotting a military takeover of the government, for example, and you killed someone, you would be tried not only for the murder, but for treason (or whatever it was John Brown was hanged for).
It is entirely appropriate that a murder directed toward a group be handled much differently than a murder directed toward an individual. A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors. A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead. He is also capable of much greater carnage -- no one who is pissed at their neighbor is going to blow up a hundred people because of it. But people driven to hate crimes can, and do target hundreds of people.
I wonder how many people actually get it?
IAAL,BIANLY
Not necessarily. I mean, it is quite concievable that copyright could fall without a new spirit of cooperation taking it's place. (Look at Napster, for example.) In such a scenario, I'd argue* that a GPL-like structure is still necessary, to protect my code against those who would take without giving back. I'm fairly certain that you are correct that in Stallman's ideal world, copyright would die because we'd all "just get along." But failing that, my guess is that he'd prefer to keep copyright in order to protect those who do chose to cooperate.
~luge
*I have no idea if RMS would agree here.
IAAL,BIANLY
Well put. For example, he is very strongly pro-copyright- the GPL falls completely if there is no copyright. In fact, if I had to make a blanket statement about RMS on IP, I'd say that e isn't anti-IP- he's against the trend where IP is used by large corporations to control our computing lives, and in favor of individuals chosing to share their IP. He certainly can't be against IP in all it's forms- if that is the case, we live in a BSD-licensed* world, and $LARGE_CORPORATION could exploit RMS's code without giving two bits back to RMS and his community. And I think we can all agree on what he'd think about that.
~luge
*Note: this isn't to knock BSD folks. If you want to allow others to use your code without encumbrance, that's your bag- you have that choice. In an IP free world, there would be no choice- everything would be BSD-style, whether the coder liked it or not.
IAAL,BIANLY
Hey dud, it's not Wanderungenmitpenguinenborkborkbierdrinkinundsowei ter, but das Wanderungenmitpenguinenborkborkbiergetrinkenundsow eiter.
:-)
I just know this is going to make a big difference in your life.
(Ducking the empty beer bottles thrown my way.)
BTW, the comment area seems to force an unwanted blank into the middle of the Wander~1 words.
Thus the crime is perpetrated upon more then the individual lying broken / bloodied / dead but rather upon the catagory / class / community of persons who were targetted; and the penalties reflect this.
While ignorent folks try and claim it's some sort of "special protection" to be a member of a community listed under many hate-crime ordinances it's entirely irrelavant unless the crime was committed upon the basis of the victems being a *whatever*.
Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
As to this being a strike against Austin - it is. A former employer attempted to move me there upon which I had to explain was not an option: I was not going to move to a place where my legal protections were lessened.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
A hate crime is distinct because it is also an act of communication to others in the target group (and I - as well as the courts - believe that a non-white person who attacks a white person on the basis of their race is committing a hate crime) - in addition to the direct attack on the individual as a target, the act threatens other individuals in the target group. If I am gay, and three people in my community have been attacked for being gay, then I am being directly menaced (essentially, assaulted - it can be seen as an act of assault on all people in the target group), while if I am attacked for having cut someone off in the freeway, there isn't really an implicit message being sent to people who cut other people off on a freeway. That is the nature of the hate crime.
The hate crime has special status because there is an implicit threat even to those who were not attacked or killed. The threat of violence with the ability and will to carry it out is defined as assault. When one demonstrates that will by attacking or killing someone, motivated by their membership in a particular group, then all people in that group are implicitly assaulted. It is these corollary victims that compound the injustice of the act and justify additional punishment.
Would you mind sharing with us the results of the research you undoubtedly did and telling us in which way they contradict his views?
bye
schani
Perhaps you should take a Cultural Anthropology 101 class and learn something about the history of what we consider "property" and how young the modern meaning of it is. It may not change your opinion but you will be able to put it forward with a few well-put arguments that may convince people or at least interest them.
You may also learn about the proper use of the words "fornicate", "bovine" and "dung".
Erwin
Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
I agree. When you've done that, come back and we'll talk again.
And it's "rather than" not "rather then".
-
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
How does my taking the position that all murderers should be taken out of society permanently, regardless of whether they murdered because they hated their victim or because they hated a broader class of people, equate into protecting the murderer's rights?
Are you even reading these things before you reply to them?
-
Yeah, yeah, and the majority of people convicted under hate crimes laws have been black.
So what? The very fact that we're compiling this kind of statistic is further evidence that these wrong-headed laws divide us.
Giving a murderer a lesser sentence because the color of his skin is the same as his victim's isn't equal rights.
-
A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors.
No, a person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to anyone with whom he interacts, because they might cut in line in front of him or double park. Such a person has demonstrated that he cannot live by the rules of a civilized society, and that he will not resolve minor disputes by taking them to small claims court, but instead by killing someone.
Such a person should not be in society, and it is reckless and irresponsible to allow him to continue interacting with others. Whether that means life in prison without paroll or the death penalty is a seperate topic, for which I have an opinion that isn't really relevant to what's being discussed at present.
A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead.
Nonsense. Most bigots who kill don't kill even a dozen people, much less millions. As for being a bigger threat, do you honestly think your hypothetical unstable neighbor is going to encounter less rude people than your bigot is going to encounter Jews?
The bigot is going to self-select himself AWAY from potential victims. He's probably less of a threat than the unstable fool, who is going to be interacting with other people every day.
Both the bigot and the unstable neighbor have one thing in common; they have demonstrated that they cannot live by the rules of society, and that they present a threat to the lives and well-being of others as a result of this deficiency. Both should be removed from society permanently.
-
All criminal for all of human history has and must punish those actions which follow from evil thought more severely than those actions which do not (i.e., negligence).
And you're missing a CRUCIAL point:
If we punish a murderer inspired by skin tone more serverely than we punish one inspired by money, BY DEFINITION, we aren't giving the one inspired by money the "ultimate" penalty. In order for one to be more, the other has to be less, and that "wiggle room" means sociopaths let loose to prey upon society.
It comforts me not at all that I am more likely to be killed for my wallet than for my color. I'd rather both crimes carried the same penalty; life without possibility of parole, spent in a little bitty room with adequate food and sunlight, but nothing else.
-
Of course, the reason you should personally be concerned about "hate crimes" is that you're open to becoming a completely arbitrary victim.
And am I less so, because of hate crime laws?
Read what I wrote again; I'm not saying hate crimes don't exist, I'm saying hate crime LAWS accomplish nothing other than dividing us further.
Nowhere have I said that hate crimes should not be punished. Quite the opposite; simply that the punishment for ANY violent crime should be very severe, and extremely violent crime (murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to kill) should be punished permanently.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
I am far more likely to be killed for my wallet or automobile than for the amount of melanin in my epidermis, and this would be true even if I were a black female living in Austin.
The fact that I am a straight white male (lower-upper class, atheist, but you were close enough) doesn't make it any less tragic if I'm killed. My wife and child wouldn't love me any more if I were a minority.
Hell, the fact that I'm not called a minority is further proof of the arbitrary and illogical nature of these divisions. I'm Irish, my "people" are still being oppressed.
Except that that's bullshit; I'm an American, and so is the American who was born in India in the next cubicle, and the American born in China in the one after him, and the American of African descent walking by, and the American of Greek descent in the next room who happens to be gay.
It's just as wrong to kill one of us as the next one, for any premeditated reason.
-
And we're not just talking about ordinary crime. We're talking about hate crimes.
I fail to see how you're any more dead if the man who kills you hates all people of your skin tone, not just you.
I further fail to see why such crimes should have greater penalties than "ordinary" crimes. If murder demands a certain penalty, it should demand that penalty regardless of the race, color, creed, or religion of either victim or assailant.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
-
--
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I have no opinion on "intellectual property rights," because the term is too broad to have a sensible opinion about. It is a catch-all, covering copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other disparate areas of law; areas so different, in the laws and in their effects, that any statement about all of them at once is surely simplistic. To think intelligently about copyrights, patents or trademarks, you must think about them separately. The first step is declining to lump them together as "intellectual property".
I'm not sure if I understand why one would choose to misrepresent RMS so badly. In any case this particular passage seems quite clear and I see no evidence of his "speaking with a forked tongue". Perhaps RMS doesn't speak well for all of us, but we should at least give him the respect of quoting him accurately and then discussing the pros and cons of his views.
It's called a "troll". You've haven't posted for a while, have you?
Try the right to not use GPL'd software.
Just don't use it. And don't whine about it.
Nobody cares if you don't. You're *never* going to make a contribution anyways, so we won't feel deprived when you refuse the participate.
Go and code another closed-source VB app. Yay you.
What's with the title? It's like "All you bullshit belong to us!" or something.
Yeah, although ZDNet is now claiming the copyright. Go get 'em, Stallman!
Look, I may not agree with everything Stallman says, but I never have a problem understanding what he says.
Here, it's pretty clear that he doesn't want to make the article too long, so he discusses only copyright. That's the form of IP that the GPL most clearly attacks.
The sentence you quoted is part of his explanation of why he isn't discussing the other forms of IP in that article.
Doesn't sound much like a troll to me.
Don't forget about Burning Man, which is August 27 - September 3. A large chunk of techie types trek there every year as well, especially from the Bay Area. I bet it'll draw alot of people who otherwise might have gone to lwe of the linuxbierwanderung.....
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
RMS's comments also made zdnet today (in the Commentary section). Picture and all :-/ .
He does not hate corporations.
He does not want to steal your property.
It infuriates me when people lash out against Stallman because they think he goes too far or they think he misrepresents them.
If you think he is too stubbornly stuck on Freedom then you're entitled to your opinion but it is stupid to attack him for his opinion. He has made a great contribution to our society. What good comes of attempting to discredit him and his work? To do so reveals your own malignance. I challenge you to go make your own contribution.
If you think Stallman misrepresents you then don't attack him. Instead, make your own opinion heard. He is defending his code and his rights. He is defending the rights of all of us who believe in the freedom of speech. He is defending all those who subscribe to the philosophy of the GPL. If you don't like Free Software then go promote your own Open Source software or your proprietary software. Don't stoop to Ad Hominem arguements to promote your ideas. Again, it only exposes your own lack of character.
"...when people have to tell you you're being oppressed, something is most definitely amiss. "
Maybe you don't feel oppressed using proprietary software. I think most people who don't write code don't feel too opressed. But most people also intuitively know they should be able to copy and distribute software freely. That's why most people will make an "illegal" copy of MS Word or Windows for their friends. They don't have to hate Microsoft, but they know that a proprietary software copyright holder should not have the right to tell you what you can (and can't) do with your copy.
Stallman is a generous, honest and brilliant man. Instead of attacking him, I challenge you to emuate him.
-R
------
Tired of ICANN despotism?
Go OpenNIC!
No, RMS isn't at all pro-copyright.
The GPL uses the force of copyright simply to counteract (in his view) the evils of copyright. He'd be far happier if there simply was none.
He isn't against all IP, thought. He's got no objection to IP (indeed, copyright) on 'artistic works'. It's the unusual status of software as a tool which can be copied at near-zero cost, and modified and enhanced so easily which makes it possible and very powerful to share, benefitting everyone.
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
An overview map can be found here.
He means he has no one opinion on intellectual property rights in general because it is such a broad term. He goes on to say as much.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
Is it different if I steal a newspaper in peacetime than if I steal troop deployment plans during war? (treason)
Is it different if I kill four or five people out of personal hatred than if I kill four or five people in a politically motivated bombing? (terror)
I think you put your finger on the relevant issue, but in the wrong context. We always treat crimes which strike at our ability to coexist as a society. Hate crimes are designed to do things like this: make gays go into the closet; blacks go back to subservience; immigrants to return overseas.
In other words,the reason that hate crimes are worse than personally motivated crimes or garden variety depravity is that they are meant to unhinge society by striking at entire groups of victims.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"...Vidar strode forth and set one foot - that on which he wears the shoe - on the lower jaw of the wolf. With one hand he seized the upper jaw, and tore the two apart, killing the monster."
Snorri Sturluson
Prose Edda
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Not quite. The law rightfully takes something else into consideration...
motive
A woman kills her husband after years of abuse, (but the case was not self-defense) and a woman kills a total stranger because he is gay. Should they be punished the same way?
I don't think so. We're not machines, every case is different. The law should provide guidelines to judging a case, but in the end motive has to be considered.
So people who have been victimized, but not for reasons of race, sex, national origin, or sexual orientation, aren't particularly excited about laws saying that people victimized for those reasons are more worthy of protection than they are, and that the victimizers should be punished more severely than those who victimized them. What do you find odd about that?
lets say you write said software and sell it to people in binary form. lots of people here about it and know what it is used for, but it doesn't suit everybodys needs. should we all sit around with our thumbs up our asses, giving you money for software that is somewhat useful but not exactly how we would like that? hell no. so we write our own, and because we need it to get the job done, not to feed ourself, we release it under the gpl. you can either make your software better and keep getting money, or you can do nothing and eventually the free alternative will be better. just because write a piece of software once doesn't mean you should be set up for the rest of your life.
I doubt there is any similarity. I read a bit of Russian, and the translation of 'Stalin' (Leo Trotsky's bio of Joseph Stalin, which ended up with three blood spattered chapters because Stalin had him assasinated) does absolutly no justice to the original. It's vivid, alive. The translation is dead, overanalyzed. Kind of like Das Kapital (Marx/Engels). The original paints a picture, the translation leaves you with a cold feeling.
You are prolly just reading academic stoichisms in the translation. RMS speaks like he has a stick up his ass...
.sig: Now legally binding!
Whenever somebody mentions God and Freedom (it's got a lower case f in my dictionary) in the same breath I can never remember which flavour of fundamentalism they belong to. I get this weird image of large numbers of horsemen bearing down on me with swords drawn and flying large flags, crying 'Death to the Unbelievers'...
Duh?
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
I think the term for Stallman would be "pro-copyleft."
No one is arguing that it is the physical attributes of the assailant or victim that spell out the penalty of a crime. If John hates Jim because Jim's having sex with John's wife, then it doesn't matter what race John or Jim is, the intention is pretty clear. The set of people that John is likely to harm in the future is confined to those who have wronged him in some way.
But what if John killed Jim because he didn't like his race? Then the set of people that John is likely to harm in the future is very large. In this case, John is much more dangerous. So it is appropriate to punish him for his racist beliefs.
But I would agree with you to a certain degree. I don't think that making a special legal status for "hate crimes" is appropriate. Such considerations should be specific to the case at hand. For example, if John kills Jim just because he feels like killing someone, anyone, then he is more dangerous than either the racist or the jealous husband.
Hate crime legislation is too specific. Special crimes for hate crimes should be subsumed under current sentencing guidelines, and judges should have enough leeway to give appropriate punishments to all types of murderers. But do not forget that any type of murder is hate-based, and it is the hate responsible for the murder that is being punished.
Your crime stats may be right, but blaming it on a concentrated population is absurd. Austin is definitely sprawling. Just listen to a few of the overzealous greens around town (note, that is overzealous greens, I have no problem with the green party, though I do disagree with some of their views). Why did lightrail fail in Ausin? Sprawl was a big part, it's awfully hard to convince the majority of the population that didn't perceive any benefits from lightrail.
I also happen to know a number of law enforcement officers in the area and none of them have a "texas-ranger" attitude towards crime. Please give them some credit. They have a dangerous job and get paid crap.
Of course people should do some research on any neighborhood they might move into, but that applies anywhere in the world. I did mine and don't know of a crime of any type happening in my neighborhood since I moved here five years ago.
I'm not sure what you have against Austin, but tone down the rhetoric a little. I know there are some bad points to austin, just like every other city.
Not quite. The law rightfully takes something else into consideration... motive
Agreed. While the argument that you are not any more dead is true, this is not just about paying for the damage you do (although that is important as well). Prison time also takes into account your threat to society.
Even with the above considered, it is also important to note that many people claim that hate crimes are different because they affect an entire population. The logic behind that reasoning is that when a person kills another just because he/she is a certain race/ethnicity/religon/whatever, then all people of that type are affected. It affects the lives of people that weren't even involved in the crime because they have to live in fear. It's strange how the act of one person can affect so many in this way, but for things like this, that can be the case.
I'm not saying that I totally agree with the argument above or that it's valid reasoning for determination of punishment, but that's the way some people feel.
If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.
If you don't work in high tech, Austin is a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Or better yet, when people have to tell you you're being oppressed, something is most definitely amiss.
Hey you, yeah you typing in MS word. Did you know you were oppresed?
No. Really?
Yes, really.
What about the illegal aliens we keep chained to looms in the basement?
The looms run Linux. They're fine.
You mean GNU/Linux?
Yes, of course. Pardon me.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Gees...What an ass. I wonder how many posts his page can take before his e-mail/database/drive quota is reached. If only Monkey were here. He would know what to do
Your post is FUDdy. I'd mod you down.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
That's the way we like it. 8^)
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Watch out that you don't confuse motive and intent. Legally, they are two entirely different things. It is rare that motive is considered when prosecuting someone, but very common that intent is considered. In the murder example you gave, the person's intent is considered... I.e., they had no intent at all, it was a fit of rage. Therefore, the punishment will likely be less severe (3rd degree murder, perhaps).
For clarification, the definiton of motive is "The inducement, cause or reason why a thing is done". Intent is "The determination or resolve to do a certain thing, or the state of mind with which something is done".
Essentially, for the most part, the law doesn't care why you did something. For example, let's say a man embezzles money from a big corporation. He gets busted. On the stand, the defense attorney asks the man, "why did you do it?". The man explains that his wife needed an operation, and his insurance wouldn't cover enough of the costs, so he needed to do it. Is the man going to get a lesser sentence?
I modded the Troll Investigation and I got
Here's a few reasons that hate crimes are worse than "normally" motivated crimes:
The world *deeply* hates Hitler. The world hates murderers.
The world *desparately* doesn't want another Hitler. We simply just don't want another murderer.
His motive: Kill everyone who he hates (which was just about anyone non-blye-eyed-aryan [including me... I've got brown eyes]). The general motive of a "sane" murderer: Kill for greed. The difference? Killing for greed doesn't involve me or you, unless you are in some way related to the murderer (even if just by unfortunate time and place). Killing for hate means *you* are already on a hit list.
I say we send an extra-special message to anyone who plans to put me in constant fear of my life. I'm not in constant fear of someone murdering for greed, but I know if there was an anti-WASP in town I'd be shittin' bricks (pardon the expression).
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I smell the Automatic Complaint Letter Generator! If I didn't use it so much myself it might have fooled me.
But what I'm clueless about this time is about what happened to this article from earlier today:
Anti-Napster: What Will Happen Now?
I mean, it was there when I saw it, and it was then when I posted to it on the front page, and now I can't find it any place in the system except by the direct link.
I thought my Meds were kinking in, but there it is.
Ideas? (besides changing the drugs)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Hate crimes are often recorded in greater proportion to population in areas where the police are more attuned to them. I would expect police in Austin, a state capitol and a liberal college town rolled into one, to be more on the lookout for hate crimes than Dallas or Fort Worth. The stat reveals as much about the measurer as the measured.
It sure would be nice if some of us poor yokels down in the land of gnats and mosquitoes got a chance to go to a great Linux show... esp. seeing as the Atlanta Linux Showcase has now become the Anual Linux Showcase link. I think that Gatlenberg would be a great place to have it... It is a somewhat central point to the SE US. Great place too!
I think that your personal goals and ideals are commendable, and wish you luck in attaining and maintaining them. However, I know that a lot of people (Corporations) and myself dont subscribe to them.
I like free software. On occasion, I have reason to write software, and in most cases, I will make that software available to whomever wants it, at no cost. (assuming there is no cost to me to get it to them). But I think there is a personal choice in what you do with your software.
There is a very real cost in copying software in an unauthorised manner. Which is is to say, I have to eat, I have to live, or logically, I cant write more software.
Lets assume I have written some amazing new program. What I have created is innately my own creation, by definition of create. I could, in reality, keep it to myself, nothing says that I have to distribute it. But then I think "Hey, why dont I try to recap some of my expenses in writing this? I know a lot of people would also find it handy". So I personally decide to sell non-exclusive lincenses of this program. In the course, your friend buys a copy. Now what 'right' does your friend have to give you a copy? It is not his creation, he knew when he bought it that he would not be allowed to copy it... and he paid money still, knowing this was the case. How can you argue that he has a right to copy it? So he illegally, and unfairly makes a copy of the software. You look at it, and say "Hey, I'd love to make this work in way ZyXXy". So you want to modify an unauthorised (illegal) copy of a program you personally have no rights whatsoever to do anything with, not even to run. The only right you have to that program is to produce a competitor, and that without running my program, because you have not obtained permission to run it (a license).
Sometimes its not a multi-million-dollar corporation behind the program you're copying because you think you have the 'right' to. Sometimes, its a guy (or girl) desperately trying to use their skills well enough to make a living, trying to get enough money to pay those daily expenses. Sometimes, not paying your way is equivalent to saying "I dont care if you starve, are homeless, or exist at all, I just want to use your software, and I will not pay".
I hope that you can take the time to examine your motives. I really do think that it is commendable that you wish to help write Free software for people to use. But I also do honestly think that expecting that same wish from everyone is both ignorant and arrogant when they have stated that they do not believe the same, and will not, and that you must not apply your own beliefs to their software.
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
I agree: if you kill someone in cold-blood, who cares if you did it because of his race, or because you wanted to steal his shoes?
However, the fact that a location has a lot of crimes that are attributable to intolerance does say something about the community. Mind you, I've never been to Texas and don't know what Austin is like, but if there are more hate crimes there than other similarly sized cities, than either people there are more likely to see something as a hate crime, or people there are more intolerant...
-- dR.fuZZo
Perhaps heaven is OpenSource?
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
Oh really ?
You would be surprised. When adjusted to population percentage Whites are MORE likely to be victims of hate crime.
Quoting RMS "it cannot justify denying the public important freedoms. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail." Property rights are meant to advance human well-being, not as an excuse to disregard it. "
We are talking about fucking code, programs which are designed by people who are perfectly within their rights NOT to publish source code.
"Human rights" , my ass.
2. Yes! No more people move to Austin! Austin is full! We don't want you! Go away! If it takes false figures from a slashdot troll about how racist Austin is to scare people away, so be it! Just leave and never come back!
-A former Austinite.
That's as I understood it from the older story which I am too lazy to look up.
It's true that it's not exactly the most pleasant way to make a point.
----
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
This isn't true at all. Everything I've read from RMS has suggested that the need that the GPL addresses is the need for open sharing of code. If there were no copyright, then the GPL would be unable to address that need. Perhaps all source code would be totally redistributable and reusable, but people would still only distribute binaries and keep their sources a closely guarded secret. Heck, if copyright law were to suddenly disappear, all sorts of companies would start doing the same thing with GPL'd code. If what you say about RMS's (the the GPL's) intentions were true, then RMS's ideal license would be an X or BSD-style license, which is most definitely not the case.
Of course, I meant to say "(and the GPL's)", not "(the the GPL's)". Duh (yes, I even previewed :).
Didn't notice if this link was posted by anyone else, but RMS has submitted a response to Microsoft on ZDNet news.
Developers: We can use your help.
>Ask not what you country can do for you. Ask >what you can do for your country. -- anonymous
Anonymous? Anonymous!?? How about JFK? This was a famous line from one of JFK's public addresses.
~Captain Tact(less)
This isn't so. The GPL falls if there is no copyright, yes, but the GPL exists to fix a legal bias towards non-cooperation. Were there no legal bias (copyright law), there would be no need of the GPL. There might be needs for similar structures, but the GPL would be no more necessary for a copyrightless world than crutches are for someone after they are healed.
Jacob Nielson agrees with me. 76% of users are as stupid as me. Do 5 person tests and you'll see yourself.
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
>> And we're not just talking about ordinary
>> crime. We're talking about hate crimes.
>
> I fail to see how you're any more dead if
> the man who kills you hates all people of
> your skin tone, not just you.
And his punishment can't make you any less dead, so why should we bother to punish him?
As any cop will tell you, the law is not meant to protect you as a person, but us as a society.
The purpose of designating some crimes as hate crimes is to dissuade terrorists; to demonize their beliefs; and to popularize the notion that hate is not ennobling or bonding, it's just plain bad.
Punishing someone only for murder when their real goal was to injure a community isn't enough. You have to punish all the crimes related to a criminal act or closure doesn't occur in that community. If closure doesn't occur, hate rebounds, society is disrupted, and the terrorists win.
--Blair
"Same deal with script kiddies..."
(pardon the OT; he didn't post an email addr):
I'm looking for a good Gyro place in the South Bay area. If you know of one, please let me know.
There's a place called Ylassoo (sp?) in what looks like an old, tiny Taco Bell on Saratoga-Sunnyvale (not Saratoga) down near where it hits 85, in the south lobe of Cupertino, iirc.
I got an above-average souvlaki there. I don't know how their gyros are. But you're right. There's not enough Greek deli around here.
--Blair
"This is not a hate-crime for souvlaki transaction."
Bradley M. Kuhn later added that only in America, the Land of Opportunity, could he have tried out the open-source gnoQuake 6.8 on a city of his choice today.
--------------------------------
BTW: RMS is most certainly interested in the Components of Intellectual propertie rights, he just doesn't feel comfortable commenting on the entire issue in such a short piece (he wouldn't have enough time to fully explain his stance). To find out his true opinions on the issues invovled, check out his excellent The Cathedral and the Bazaar
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...
Sorry, brain burp. The Cathedral and the bazaar is by Eric S. Raymond, not RMS.
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...