Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Assembly, Avoidance, Civility
Good place for a lemonade stand. The march of the gigantic temporary European computer city-state goes on: Late writes that "Assembly 2002 starts in Finland on Thursday at 12.00 EET-DST (GMT +3). With over 2800 computer places and an expected total of over 4500 visitors, Assembly is one of the largest combined demo- and lanparties in the world. Those of you who can't make it, can watch our streamed TV broadcast. We'll be broadcasting all the competitions, at least part of the seminars that include such speakers as Rob Hubbard (C64 music legend) and a whole bunch of other programs."
You are condemned to live even longer. h4mmer5tein writes: "The BBC has an update on the asteroid story from a few days ago saying that it won't, after all, hit the earth in 2019. More information is being collated but it seems that 2060 is unlikely to see an impact either."
Iron IronGorilla adds: "Much like a Microsoft crash^H^H^H^H^Hrelease date being pushed back, NASA is reporting here that we are not, in fact, all going to die on February 1st, 2019 ..."
The dangers of meeting someone who means what he says. A few weeks ago, reader Al3x wrote his account ("Results of the Commerce Dept's DRM Workshop") of the recent gathering in DC of (officially invited) representatives of the entertainment industry and the less-officially invited members of the public. Alex criticized the approach of several members of the Free software community on hand for the discussion, including Richard Stallman.
Stallman writes in response:
"Al3x went to the July 17 Washington Digital Restrictions Management panel feeling admiration for me, but left disappointed with my views and actions. I think his disappointment was partly due to a couple of misconceptions, so I hope this explanation will partly restore his good opinion of my work and methods.I cannot deny Al3x's charge that I, and the rest of us, defied the rules of the meeting by refusing to be completely silent. If it is wrong to disobey an unfair system, I stand convicted, but I am not ashamed. However, in the scale of civil disobedience, ours was very mild. Women demanding the vote sometimes chained themselves to doorways, which might have been inconvenient for some passersby. Blacks demanding an end to segregation sometimes broke rules, and even laws, by sitting in a Whites-only diner or at the front of a bus. It is up to each of you to decide your ethical approach to judging acts of disobedience to an unfair system.
Al3x criticized NY Fair Use for 'preferring to show up and disrupt the debate' rather than ask for a seat on the panel. Our occasional laughter and less frequent verbal comments did not disrupt the panel, and all the panelists were able to express their views; but because our means were so limited, we could not communicate very much. We would have much preferred to participate officially, on an equal footing with Jack Valenti, but they had refused our request, just as they refused the EFF. Our measured protest appears to have obtained for us the chance for a seat on a subsequent panel.
After the meeting, Al3x asked me for my views on intellectual property. As it happens, I think it is a grave mistake to formulate one's views in terms of 'intellectual property,' and I explained why.
I explained that the term 'intellectual property' lumps together disparate areas of law, including copyright, patent, trademark, and others, and that they are so different that it is a mistake to try to group them together. The public policy issues of these various areas of law result from the details of how they restrict the public, and those details are different; if you try to form your opinions about 'intellectual property,' you will miss all of these issues, and you will be led to propose sweeping generalizations which cannot help being foolish. I explained the problems of the term 'intellectual property' to Al3x hoping this would help him and others he communicates with avoid that pitfall in thinking.
I suspect a miscommunication took place there, because when I said that his proposed copyright system for music might be a good one, he perceived that as a contradiction. Perhaps when I said 'the term "intellectual property" is bad,' he heard me as saying 'everything people call "intellectual property" is bad.' That, however, is exactly the sort of sweeping overgeneralization that the term 'intellectual property' leads people to form; it is to discourage such simplistic views that I ask people to avoid the term. I have views on copyright, views on patent, and views on trademark, but I do not have *any* position on 'intellectual property.' As Al3x learned, I'm not 100% opposed to copyright, though I believe it should be much less restrictive to the public than it is now.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.htm for more explanation of the problems of the term 'intellectual property.' If you're interested in my views on copyright, see www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html.
He gets to re-write history whenever someone express' their understanding of what he said.
And always it is to make himself look better. Why? Because he comes across like an ass.
It isn't htat he is an ass. He just presents himself as one.
I got a 1600 on my SATs. So I consider myself to be a pretty open-minded and science-accepting person. But who seriously believed the asteriod was going to crash into Earth. Simple math shows us that it would have to be going in speeds exceeding 300 MPH to crash into us in 2019. Any asteroid going 300 MPH would most definitely burn up before it reached the atmosphere.
I got a 1600 on the SATs.
- Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
- Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
- Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
The "troll" moderation reason is fragmented and broken, why? Because they are trying to use an obsolete usenet term on a realtime discussion, "trolls" can cover a huge blanket of ideas.- Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
- Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
- Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
Subnet banning, this bans a user unless they email jamie macarthy with their mp5ed ipids. This is unfair, and banning a subnet BLOCKS A WHOLE ISP SOMETIMES, and not that individual user! This can cause chaos! But real trolls use annoymous proxys to get around this so THIS JUST BANS LEGITMATE USERS! Also, they are trying to censor some anoymous proxies, mainly from countrys like africa, so this yet more DISCRIMINATION! Pink page of Death, This censors people who use legitmate proxys or firewalls. The Bitchslap! An unethical punishment which is applied to moderators who fight censorship against this site! In addition the Editors use their un-limited mod points to create a communist style censored discussion on slashdot! But, the issue that concerens us the most, is the COMMENT QUOTA. A discrimatory system that stiffles discussion, cripples the community and will ultimateley destroy slashdot unless it is removed! Annoymous cowards are allowed only 10 posts a day! This is unethical! Users with negative karma only get two! That is DISCRIMINATION! How would you like to only be able to speak once a day, just because of the color of your skin. That would be racism, and slashdot is discrimitating on people just because of a negative number in a database! BOYCOTT SLASHDOT! LET THEM DIE! We wan't these stupid useless restrictions REMOVED! This comment will be posted again and again until it does! Inportant imformation for users Boycott slashdot, they are pissing over their community, they are becoming like the RIAA and MICROSOFT! Do NOT TOLERATE THIS SHIT! Here are some real news for nerds sites. We don't need slashdot, slashdot deserves to die! MSNBC BBC NEWS News.com Linux online Linux daily news network Weird news from dailyrotten.com Trollaxor, news for trolls, they are real people too! CNN.com New york times (free registration required) LINUX.com; News forge K5 Mandrake forum Toms hardware The register Kde dot news The linux kernel Archives Adequecy; Xfree86.orgPunish them, here are their emails, spam them, flame them goatse them! Rob malda Jamie Macarthy ChrisD Hemos Micheal Pudge The others ones apperantly dont have an e-mail, probably because ROB MALDA IS PRETENDING HE IS JOHN KATZ. Thank you for reading this, please feel free to repost this information, please reply to add your comments, fight slashdot and its CENSORSHIP Don't forget to sign the petition!- Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
- Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than others
- Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.
The "troll" moderation reason is fragmented and broken, why? Because they are trying to use an obsolete usenet term on a realtime discussion, "trolls" can cover a huge blanket of ideas.- Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop, besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
- Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and googles "Im feeling lucky".
- Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!
Subnet banning, this bans a user unless they email jamie macarthy with their mp5ed ipids. This is unfair, and banning a subnet BLOCKS A WHOLE ISP SOMETIMES, and not that individual user! This can cause chaos! But real trolls use annoymous proxys to get around this so THIS JUST BANS LEGITMATE USERS! Also, they are trying to censor some anoymous proxies, mainly from countrys like africa, so this yet more DISCRIMINATION! Pink page of Death, This censors people who use legitmate proxys or firewalls. The Bitchslap! An unethical punishment which is applied to moderators who fight censorship against this site! In addition the Editors use their un-limited mod points to create a communist style censored discussion on slashdot! But, the issue that concerens us the most, is the COMMENT QUOTA. A discrimatory system that stiffles discussion, cripples the community and will ultimateley destroy slashdot unless it is removed! Annoymous cowards are allowed only 10 posts a day! This is unethical! Users with negative karma only get two! That is DISCRIMINATION! How would you like to only be able to speak once a day, just because of the color of your skin. That would be racism, and slashdot is discrimitating on people just because of a negative number in a database! BOYCOTT SLASHDOT! LET THEM DIE! We wan't these stupid useless restrictions REMOVED! This comment will be posted again and again until it does! Inportant imformation for users Boycott slashdot, they are pissing over their community, they are becoming like the RIAA and MICROSOFT! Do NOT TOLERATE THIS SHIT! Here are some real news for nerds sites. We don't need slashdot, slashdot deserves to die! MSNBC BBC NEWS News.com Linux online Linux daily news network Weird news from dailyrotten.com Trollaxor, news for trolls, they are real people too! CNN.com New york times (free registration required) LINUX.com; News forge K5 Mandrake forum Toms hardware The register Kde dot news The linux kernel Archives Adequecy; Xfree86.orgPunish them, here are their emails, spam them, flame them goatse them! Rob malda Jamie Macarthy ChrisD Hemos Micheal Pudge The others ones apperantly dont have an e-mail, probably because ROB MALDA IS PRETENDING HE IS JOHN KATZ. Thank you for reading this, please feel free to repost this information, please reply to add your comments, fight slashdot and its CENSORSHIP Don't forget to sign the petition!wow, who would have though marijuana users would have enough initiative to actually setup a site with content n' stuff :D
why run from Vincenzo?
Stallman was actually comparing DRM to a woman's right to vote AND civil rights of blacks?
You go to great lengths to attack Stallman's use of the word "free" and how software (as a non-entitity) can't be free in the way Stallman means it. What about free speech? Right or wrong, the "free" in Stallman's free software speaks about the rights of individuals the same way "free' in "free speech does.
Okay, let's get to the root of this, once and for all.
"Free speech," the phrase, is a shorthand. It's a shorthand for the relevant passage of the first amendment to the Constitution, which says, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." (Parts unreleated to speech omitted.) This basically means, "The government can't-- within reason-- prevent you from expressing yourself." I said "within reason" because there are literally hundreds of areas in which expression has to be limited for reasons of safety, or security, or the overall good of society. This is considered appropriate and is accepted by all. That's freedom of speech, or "free speech."
How does that apply to "free software?" "Free" software, in RMS's definition, is software that is licensed under the GPL or a similar license. That license basically says that nobody is allowed to create derivative works based on the licensed software and release them under different licensing terms. That's it, in a nutshell. If the source work is GPL'd, the derivative works must be GPL'd.
How does that relate to freedom of speech? If anything, the GPL is the opposite of the idea behind freedom of speech, because it embodies a law (actually, a contract) that abridges the freedom of the user of the software. When you use GPL'd software, you are not free to do what you want with it. You're restricted, just like you are when you accept any licensing agreement. Again, there are lots of circumstances under which limiting freedom is appropriate, even necessary. There's nothing wrong with limited freedom, in and of itself. It's just that it can't be "free" and "not free" at the same time.
Calling GPL-licensed software "free," when it's meant in any sense other than "zero cost," is inaccurate, misleading, and (at worst) downright deceptive.
I take it from the rest of your comment that you agree with my assessment of RMS's language: it's emotional, instead of rational. It's evocative, rather than being insightful. And in his effort to make it visceral, he crosses the line into hyperbole and propaganda.
[Sletje] 'Al3x' is 31% lame, alextreme
nuf said...
This sig is intentionally left blank