Slashdot Mirror
Interview with Don Marti
mpawlo writes "I just picked Don Marti's brain in a short interview published by Greplaw. Don Marti is the editor of LinuxJournal and the mastermind behind the Burnallgifs campaign. He has strong views on free software, software patentability and the freedom of the Internet. Marti should personally be featured in any encyclopedia under 'geektivism' and the brief interview may be of interest to Slashdotters not yet familiar with Mr Marti."
Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party??
Slashdot only allows a user with your karma to post 2 times per day. You've already shared your thoughts with us that many times. Take a breather, and come back and see us in 24 hours or so.
If you think this is unfair, please email jamie@slashdot.org with your username "SweetAndSourJesus". Let us know how many comments you think you've posted in the last 24 hours.
Version 1.0 by Anonymous Pancake
As an assistant member of the security team of a large fortune 500 company, I have discovered a new form of terrorism stemming from the deepest underground of the Internet. A site catering to hackers, communists and anti-Americans called Slashdot.org has created a new type of denial-of-service attack known as 'the Slashdot effect'. This attack has been used against what are seen as the enemies of the 'Open source movement' which include many large American companies such as Microsoft as well as many American media companies such as Time-Warner-AOL. The Slashdot Effect could have a potentially crippling effect on the American computer industry and I feel it is justified to offer my own advice on this problem.
What is the Slashdot Effect?
The Slashdot Effect (also known as Slashdotting) is a new form of denial-of-service attack stemming from the site Slashdot.org. Once they find a 'target' (whether it be a large media company or small personal homepage) the URL of the site is posted on the front page of Slashdot.org. Members of this site attempt as quickly as they can to follow these links and overload the target server. This causes the 'target' website to slow to a grinding halt before going offline. It can sometimes take days or even weeks for the site to recover from such a surge of traffic, and often the servers can be damaged beyond repair (that is, they cannot be fixed with a simple defrag!).
Who is normally the target of the Slashdot Effect and how is it done?
Many American companies have already been attacked by the Slashdot Effect. Targets often include news sites such as the New York Times as well as well as large American companies such as Intel. Sites that criticize the open-source movement are a prime target. For example, lets say an American media website such as the London Times does a review of a little known operating system known as Linux. Linux is an operating system developed by a hacker from communist Finland, which is based on code stolen from an American operating system known as Unix. It was created in cooperation with a communist group known as g.n.u. (Which stands for Glorified Novelty Unix) and is generally unusable by non-hackers. Obviously since it is such an archaic and unstable operating system compared to those made by American companies such as Microsoft it would get a bad review on the London Times. Once a Slashdot member discovers this honest review the URL would be posted on the front page of Slashdot.org. A flood of users would follow the link to the site and bring the server to a grinding halt. Since most of these users are terrorists they would probably have ads disabled using European hacking software. This would mean a potential loss of thousands of dollars worth of ad revenue. To top it off, members of Slashdot.org often plagiarize the articles and post it on illegal mirrors, furthering the loss of ad revenue. Members of Slashdot are rewarded for plagiarizing in the form of 'Karma', a form of hacker currency, on Slashdot.org.
What can I do to avoid the Slashdot Effect and how would I deal with it if it happened?
The easiest way to avoid the Slashdot effect is to refrain from posting anything about any open-source software, especially Linux. Focus your website on fine American companies such as Microsoft. You can also set up your server to reject any links from Slashdot.org, something many people have done. If you think your site is being attacked by the Slashdot Effect, contact the authorities immediately and report this act of terrorism. The penalties against hacker/terrorists are stiff and you can feel confident that the perpetrators of this terror will be punished in the harshest possible means.
Good luck and God bless America!
His cartoons in Mad magazine were the best!
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
Click here!
Curious how 3 out of 4 images on the page are gifs.....Sorta like that Mandrake page explaining GNU, where the GNU gnu image is a gif....
Hypocrisy anyone?
Any relation to Marti DeBergi?
I have enjoy Linux Journal since I started to subscribe to it a little over a year ago. What direction do you see the Journal going in the next 5 years ? If(but more likely when) Linux gains more mainstream support do expect to include more "beginner" type articles and running such promotions like including distrobutions of Linux? Keep up the good work.
It's all Politics
He has strong views on free software, software patentability and the freedom of the Internet.
So do Bill Gates and the RIAA. Point? Opinions are just like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they're all full of shit.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Duh, dissappointing.
I thought they were interviewing Don Martin from MAD.
Like our purpose in life is to slashdot websites?
Now that Unisys' patent is set to expire early next year, the gif format will be free once again. Looking back, did you feel your campaign was successful? What would you have done differently, if you could? Finally, will you drop your campaign to "burnallgifs" once the format is "free"?
Cheers,
Nicholas
who cares what don marti thinks.
i don't.
every site that does a dynamic map or chart in GIF format has to get a separate license
l
http://cloanto.com/users/mcb/19950127giflzw.htm
Here's a clip:
GIF files are not covered by the patent. There is no risk in distributing GIF files or in using the GIF name. According to a CompuServe spokesperson, "Recent discussions of GIF taxes and fees are totally without merit. For people who view GIF images, who keep GIF images on servers, or who are creating GIF images for distribution, the recent licensing discussions have no effect on their activities."
I know this is really offtopic, but how do most people pronounce GIF? I've always pronounced it like "gift" without a t, but everyone else I know seems to call it "jiff". Seems like a good slashdot poll to me.
but if I wanted to get rid of gifs used in an application I support, I would have to replace them with an animated, lightweight (ie/ not flash) solution
What would work?
(I'm not asking Don Marti, I read the header, unlike all the rest asking questions when it's actually a link to an interview that already took place. I'm asking the rest of you Slashdot readers. Just thought I'd clarify that. God I'm bored right now.)
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Yet Another Wanky Nerd...
Fuck, you self-important shits need to SERIOUSLY get over yourselves. At least the burger-flippers at taco hell arren't full of "we are goign to save the world" style pretense.
Just put on the paper hat; spit out yer HTML and STFU
- GIF: like "Jif", the peanut butter
- PNG: "P N G"
Please educate yourself next time before you go and make yourself look foolish.I'm the editor of Linux Journal and vice-president of the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group.
# Why should we burn all GIFs?
The Internet is a good thing because you don't need the permission of any one entity to publish. If you choose a patented format, you are throwing away the advantage of publishing on the Internet in the first place.
Many commonly used image editing programs come with a GIF license. However, GIF licenses on shrink-wrap software do not apply to GIFs that you may generate on the fly -- every site that does a dynamic map or chart in GIF format has to get a separate license.
# How do you burn something that is not tangible?
You print it out, and if you're holding your event in a place that prohibits public fires, you draw flames on it with a marker. It's not the burning that's important, it's freeing yourself from needing a license to publish.
# Greplaw still uses GIFs. What should we do instead?
Use PNG or JPEG images, depending on which gives you the best quality and image size. Almost all browsers in use today support both.
# Software patentability is entering Europe and European strong author's rights are entering the US. Why is this is a problem?
I'm not familiar with the strong author's rights issue.
Software patents are a big problem, though.
Best to start from first principles, since people argue the same issue from different points of view and never get anywhere. I'm going to be US-centric and look at our Constitution, which I think soundly expresses the point of view that patents are not a property right or a natural right.
Copyrights and patents appear in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, along with other miscellaneous economic powers of Congress. They're right next to "Post offices and post roads".
If patents are not a natural right or a property right, what are they? As you might guess by the post office and road connection, they're a government program to promote economic growth. Patents are intended to do two things: promote R&D investment by the private sector; and encourage the private sector to publish inventions. The Constitution makes this explicit in its stated reason for copyrights and patents: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts."
Patents reward these two economically desirable behaviors (doing research and publishing) with a temporary government-granted monopoly on a particular invention. Congress has full discretion on what kinds of content can get a patent and on how long a patent can last. (If patents were a "right" the Constitution would require them -- as it is, the Constitution only allows them.)
So, how should Congress decide which kinds of content get a patent and which don't? You have to strike a balance between, on one hand, the economic benefit of any R&D motivated by the prospect of a patent that would not have happened otherwise, and on the other hand, the transaction costs that are an inevitable result of the patent's existence.
You have to draw the line of what gets a patent and what doesn't somewhere. If you allow the patenting of rhyming words, sports plays, or musical notes, day-to-day life becomes an impossible mess of patent cross-licensing. And, as for these areas, there is no economic evidence that software patents help the economy or even encourage R&D. They may do the opposite -- see the Bessen and Maskin paper (PDF-format).
Software is a good thing because in software, a small investment can create and manage great complexity. When you impose the same transaction costs on software as on hardware, much useful software that could otherwise have been created does not exist. We are seeing this today in the field of video compression. The MPEG patent licensing mess is excluding everyone except for large, well-funded corporations from creating innovative new video-related software.
There may be increased R&D investment in a few areas, such as video compression, due to the prospect of a lucrative patent, but this economic gain is swamped by the loss of productive software later.
As a software patent opponent, I argue simply that patentability creep should be rolled back. The patent office should again exclude algorithms and business methods, as it already excludes ordinary mathematical theorems and their proofs. Forming a "GPL patent pool" might help to cut some of the transaction costs where GPL-covered software is concerned but cannot hope to ameliorate patents' harm to developers who use other licenses.
# Why should a lawyer be interested in Linux?
Why should a lawyer be interested in Cat 5 cable, or ATX power supplies, or USB keyboards? Linux is a generic, commodity item that does what you want it to do, as part of a larger system that you control.
# How will free software change society?
Free software won't so much change society as it will bring the computer business more in line with the rest of the economy. If you went shopping for any non-computer product, and got offered an End User License Agreement like those offered in the computer business, you'd laugh and walk out. Free software gives the customer the same rights of inspection and control that he or she has when buying non-computer products such as furniture (you can cut a hole for your cables in your desk) or cars (you can change your own oil.)
If you want to read a novel where software-like licensing is applied to a regular product with ludicrous results, read "Secrets of the Wholly Grill: A Novel about Cravings, Barbecue, and Software" by Lawrence G Townsend.
# Many countries consider public procurement policies where free software should be encouraged or even mandated. What is your take on a "Peru law"?
Governments have a responsibility to their citizens not to enter into unfair contracts. Most or all proprietary software licenses are unfair contracts, and subject the customer to lock-in and limit the customer's ability to fix problems.
Microsoft's lobbying against fair software purchase laws has been weak. They don't even put an End User License Agreement on their web site. If even the people who wrote it are ashamed of it, why should anyone else be willing to accept it?
# After September 11, 2001 you wrote an open letter to Michael Eisner, head of Disney, urging him not to go to Washington, D.C. to lobby for the SSSCA. Why did you do that?
I am on a mailing list based on a Linux server across the street from the World Trade Center. On September 11th, the traffic was about who's where, is everyone all right, which hospitals are open for blood donations, is a particular subway station open, what's going on. Stuff you can't get from TV. We can't let the media corporations seize control of hardware, lock out free software, and turn the net into a one-way medium like TV. Unless printing and postage get real cheap real fast, free speech in the USA needs the net.
# If major companies like IBM and Sun discontinue their support of free software, what will the effects be on the current movement?
Remember the question, "If the Linux startups fail, what will happen to free software?" There's enough customer pull that if customers can't get free software products and services from IBM and Sun, they'll get it someplace else.
# Declan McCullagh of News.com has stated: 'Trust me, a few--even a few thousand--peeved e-mail messages won't change vote totals that lopsided', hence geeks should focus on code, not on government. Do you agree?
Email spam was a "geek" issue until recently, and now, as it affects more and more people, the organizations that begain calling politicians' attention to it are involved in the mainstream political process. If you learn and understand the political process now, and begin making contacts, you will better be able to use the support you get as the anti-Net crackdown affects more and more people.
Declan is half-right in that focusing on code is good too. By all means, develop something that's questionable DMCA-wise but that everybody wants to use. You will motivate more people to be interested in DMCA reform.
# Finally - what is Pigdog and why?
Pigdog.org is the leading Internet news and content site. I am not an employee, just a satisfied reader.
Don Marti was interviewed by Mikael Pawlo.
and a fanatic, not to mention a gay commie but that comes with membership in the open sores community. Open sores from all the buttsex that is.
now you see, this is why we never should have come down from the tres, waaaaay to complicated.
Cheer up the worst is yet to come!!! -yE oLdE pHaRt
I use ESR's gif2png to convert my legacy GIF files to PNG for web use. I provide Solaris SPARC and x86 packages (Linux packages are available elsewhere).
You know... Don Martin from Martin from MAD. I love him.
2) Quoting from the article:
I don't follow this. What MPEG patent licensing mess? There is none. If you want to use an algorithm developed by someone else, at great expense, you follow their rules. If you want to use their algorithm for free... then, I'm sorry, you'll just have to come up with your own algorithm. And when you're done, don't forget to give it away for free.
3) Uhhh... this guy has what qualifications to be talking about law and interpreting the Constitution? I didn't see anything in his bio about being a lawyer.
stupid karma whores
The AIDS holocaust in Africa makes it clear that ANY patents are EVIL. End intellectual property laws! Ignore me!
But everything2.com has never even heard of Geektivisim:
Nothing Found
Sorry, but nothing matching "geektivism" was found.
If you Log in you could create a "geektivism" node. If you don't already have an account, you can Create A New User...
Nor Don Marti:
Here's the stuff we found when you searched for "don marti"
[long list of non-don marti things snipped]
If you Log in you could create a "don marti" node. If you don't already have an account, you can Create A New User...
Maybe someone could log in and fix that, I never quite got into that whole everything2.com scene.
Wax on, wax off baby!
Long ago and far away at the beginning of the Dot.Com bubble I worked with Don Marti. He is largely responsible for turning me into the linux zealot I am today :). I have never met a nicer or more jovial geek.
because i didnt believe the other guy. =(
please dont click
*crying*
Damn, when I first read it I thought it said an Interview with a Dry Martini. I don't know about you, but the second one sounds much more enjoyable.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
-1 flamebait, maybe. Hell, -1 troll, maybe, sure...but 'off topic'? I was exactly ON topic (and, inna just /., would recieve a +5 insightful mod.).
Don't bogart the CRACKPIPE, you aryan DUMBFUCKS.
"Jif" ? WTF are you smoking? As for P-N-G though, you are correct.
Steven Woston
Lead Programmer, J-j-j-julius SoftwareWhy doesn't the Don just make them an offer they can't refuse?
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
I really liked the interview. Marti has a way of getting to the heart of issues in a clear and concise way.
Don's coming to the Linux Users' Group of Davis, out here near Sacramento, on February 4th.
"Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US companies
like Microsoft." - Some AOL'er.
"To this end we dedicate ourselves..." -Don
-- From the sig of "Don", don@cs.byu.edu
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