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Microsoft Shuts Down Lik Sang
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has taken legal action, shutting down popular import gaming site Lik Sang for distributing X-box mod chips. Lik Sang is a popular import gaming site based out of Hong Kong. The full article (MSNBC) can be found here." Several people have pointed to the same story on news.com.
Is this a new record?
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
The companies who make those crappy CPU fans and cases that don't fit right and just cut your fingers
The people who make those really crappy NICs and video cards
The people who make those little screwdrivers that band or strip on the first thing you take apart with them
The companies that make those $2 keyboards and $1 mice I find at every company who's too cheap to buy decent stuff.
Richard Stallman's writings about the GPL are designed to hide his true
intent and to make it seem as if he is engaged in some form of "noble"
cause. In fact, the aim of the GPL is to destroy a particular group --
to sabotage a legitimate class of endeavor which Richard claims is
"immoral."
Open source itself is a noble pursuit, as are public libraries. It's
wonderful when software which was developed at the public's expense, or
by those generous enough to share their work, is available to all. But
the GPL is an attempt to use open source as a weapon by preventing
exactly one group of people from benefiting from it: programmers and
engineers who would build upon that work and be rewarded for doing so.
In fact, it goes farther in that it damages or destroys the prospects
of ANYONE who would hope to make a living by creating software.
When he played in the sandbox of academia more than 20 years ago,
Richard insisted upon MAKING everyone else share his or her toys. When
they did not, he vowed vengeance. He has, for more than 20 years, nursed
a grudge against those who would not give their work away for free.
He has built a storehouse of rhetoric -- employing time-honored propaganda
techniques -- in an attempt to sabotage their efforts.
The fundamental problem with Richard's crusade was (and is!) that he failed
to recognize that the norms and practices of academia were artificially created
to bring about a particular end: the development of knowledge which can then be
used "outside the bubble" in the real world. In the world of academic research,
researchers forego material rewards, but are rewarded instead with an
opportunity to live, full-time, in an incredibly rewarding intellectual
playground. But that world is not self-sustaining; rather, it is created
and supported by funding from government and from private businesses. What
they ask, in return, is that they be able to build practical products based
on the work that is done there. This symbiotic relationship works well, and
most academics understand it. But Richard did not -- and was angered by the
efforts of companies such as Symbolics, which sought to use the work
done in the MIT AI Lab to produce real world products. (It failed,
incidentally, though for reasons which had nothing to do with the quality
of its products.)
In short, the GPL is effectively the result of an academic's tantrum --
railing against the "unfortunate" reality that the real world is not entirely
like the cloistered world which once existed in the MIT AI Lab. In the
real world, the reward systems are inescapably and irrevocably different,
and we must recognize and in fact appreciate this.
Richard, it's still time to recognize that what you are doing is hurtful and
harmful and stop doing it. Would you really like to be remembered for having
spent your entire life nursing a petty grudge?
Borrowed from John McL.
:
Originally, proletaries were the class of
inhabitants of the Roman Empire
who did not serve the Impirium by
creative works or by other service,
but through their careless reproductive
habits. The word derives from the
Latin _proles_, offspring, and the word
proletariat literally means
"those with many offspring."
Ancient Rome was a slave society with
three slaves to every citizen, according to the
Tiberian Census of CE 30 or so, depending
upon the calendar you prefer.
The machinery of the Empire was literally
activated by human muscle, the battleships
of the Roman Navy being powered
by slaves and the very skeins of hair that
stored energy for the imperial _ballistae_
(artillery) grown on slaves fed for the purpose.
The slaves powering the Empire were derived from
conquered peoples and especially from the
nameless proletary class.
In modern times, the nearest equivalent
would be those who serve the corporate State
not through creative works, but through
the consumption of things they are
instructed to purchase by the media of
public information, and by their exposure of
their children to the advertisers of such things.
Well, I find that my milk usually stays quite usable up to a week and a half after the due date. Horizon Organic milk, and Lucerne, have always been quite robust milks, as far as I'm concerned. My local dairy produces some damn good milk, as well.
Now I need a freaking brownie, so I can get some milk... See what you've done?!
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
"Isn't that a cliche in and of itself?"
Does it matter? I wasn't solving your problem.
"Was I solving yours? :-)"
:D
Are you solving it now?