Slashback: Eldred, Cruise, SOAP

Slashback tonight with several updates, ranging from patent encumbrances to SOAP 1.2 to the transcript for Eldred v. Ashcroft, with more bits in the middle on the recent Geek Cruise in the Caribbean, the all-important cable TV lineups, and more. Read on below for the details! A little light reading. hayek writes "The transcript of oral argument at the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft is now available online."

And then we saw the sharks. a9db0 writes "Part II of Doc Searl's travelogue recounting his experiences on the Geek Cruise has been posted here by the fine folks over at the Linux Journal"

In an earlier report from Geek Cruise, Linus predicted 2.6 by June 2003. If you liked the list of features being considered for 2.6, you can thank puriots0 for "the list of what's been included in time for the feature freeze for Linux 2.6", as found at kernelnewbies.org.

Peel back your eyelids and let these images flood your brain. strredwolf writes "I think we had half the story when Cartoon Network said they were going to remove Zoids and G Gundam in their Toonami block. It was more like remove Zoids, move G Gundam to Midnight Run with GI Joe, put HeMan and Transformers on full weekdays, and double up on DB and DBZ. The website and broadcast prove it now. (This report was done while watching to Toonami live.)"

And Stalke writes "Recently, rumours about Stargate SG1 7th season included it both being renewed as well as speculation that it might be cancelled. MGM and Scifi put those rumours to rest today by officially announcing a 7th season. It will begin filming next year with a full 22 episodes ordered. No word about Daniel Jackson returning though :("

Cracking down on alien fraudsters. yep writes "Administrators of the alien-hunting distributed computing experiment SETI@home have announced they will crack down on cheats who rort statistics on computing power lent to the project. The announcement follows a united protest from the chief contributors. SETI@home director David Anderson announced SETI@home would do its best to investigate users returning suspiciously high amounts of work and delete their accounts if it uncovered solid evidence of cheating."

Sure they're not. tiltowait writes "The Hartford Courant article "The FBI Has Bugged Our Public Libraries" has been retracted (this was mentioned here - but the older article has been removed). Even if the retraction can be trusted, this doesn't change the fact that the FBI can still bug libraries as freely as the CIA can assasinate with impunity, or that more McCarthyism is on the way."

This story retracts the claims of bugging made in the previous one. Since the FBI has little incentive to tell the truth on this count, I don't see what incentive anyone has to believe their denial.

Cleaning up the future for SOAP. Makarand writes "A major hurdle in finalizing the SOAP 1.2 specification has been removed. Both Epicentric, a subsidiary of Vignette, and WebMethods, which makes integration software, had said in earlier statements that they may have patents that cover the technology used in the SOAP 1.2 specification which would have made SOAP 1.2 non royalty-free hindering approval by W3C. Epicentric has now amended its earlier statement saying they no longer believe they hold any such patents, and even if they did, they are interested in making them available on a royalty-free basis. WebMethods has made no comments yet."

Comments

A new low...

[igaborf]

...even for /.

Let's see... the FBI says the report wasn't true, the city librarian says the report wasn't true, the reporter says the report wasn't true, and the reporter's two anonymous sources say the story wasn't true. And the delusional /. editor's response? "Since the FBI has little incentive to tell the truth on this count, I don't see what incentive anyone has to believe their denial."

Un-fucking-believable.

Until It's You

[Myriad]

As for the CIA capping terrorists:
"..hey man, nice shot!" - Filter

Read this, particularly the part about the three peasants.

What if someone were to turn around and declare you a terrorist?

Still finding it such a good idea?

Re:Eldred's Question Time

[Anomalous Canard]

Not at all.

First of all, it's difficult to tell which way the Justices are leaning from the questions. They've done their homework and read all thr briefs. They know Lessig's argument. What they are doing in the questioning is testing the argument to find its weaknesses. The stronger the argument, the harder the questions.

When you get down to SG Olsen's questioning, you'll see how thoroughly they demolish his position. "Whatever limit Congress sets as long as its finite" is a non-starter. Later on the Justices joked about theatre boxes in England being leased for 900 years. It's finite in mathematical terms, but unlimited in practical terms.

The real question for the court is how too define appropriate limits to Congressional powers that give meaning to the phrase "limited times" without usurping the Congressional function of setting the limit. They don't want to be in a position of having to say x years is OK, but y years is too long. Lessig has offered them a meaningful place to put that limit. SG Olsem has not.

They are also concerned that the argument which defeats the CTEA defeats the 1976 act as well. Lessig's own brief distinguishes the two and the clerks know this if the Justices don't.

Reading the transcript gave me hope. Several of the Justices got the point that Lessig was making. There is a real liklihood of a positive outcome. Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Breyer are likely yesses. There's only one more needed.

It's a little more informative to read the transcript which was posted to the web a few weeks ago. Someone put in the names of the Justices which this official transcript lacks. Also read Lessig's blog. I think he has real reasons to feel confident.