Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Disputes, Clones, Audio
Needed: One referee. Quixotic1 writes "A small company I work for has discovered that a domain name has been registered with their U.S.-trademarked (since 1980) name. Requests to the owner of the site (a U.S. citizen) have gone unanswered, so we're now moving on to filing an ICANN dispute. There was a query last week about inexpensive alternatives to the $1000+ UDRP arbiters. The discussion ended up revolving around whether the author had a valid claim or not, but I'd still like to know -- are there inexpensive alternatives?"
I bet there's money to be made if someone can come up with cheaper means of settling such disputes.
Store in the ammunition box. leonbrooks writes "Recently, images from a presentation by Microsoft Belgium were published on the web. The presentation made some startling (for Microsoft) concessions to Open Source, then set about FUDding the GPL into the ground. I whacked together a point-by-point answer to the anti-GPL FUD. Happy linking ..."
Tithe 10 percent. Luke Francl writes "Inspired by Lawrence Lessig's OSCON remarks, Lessig's Challenge is a way for people concerned by the attempts by the entertainment industry to close off the net to fight back. The challenge is to spend more on those who fight for the open network than you do on its enemies. Since it appeared on Slashdot last month, 10 people have joined me and we've raised over $2300 for good causes (organizations like the EFF, the ACLU, the FSF, along with free software/open source programmers and online artists). And that's just the ones I know about! Cory Doctorow wrote to tell me that many people were inspired by the challenge to join the EFF. ... Check out the list of suggested recipients."
Like obsidian, and coal, and dirt ... salimfadhley writes "Today BBC Radio 4 began serialising Phillip Pullman's popular "Dark Materials" trilogy. The beeb will be broadcasting one episode per week, with a RA stream of the latest episode that can be found on the promotional site. You can find "The Golden Compass" (called "Northern Lights" in Europe) on the website now. This stream will be replaced with episode 2 next Saturday.
The Dark Materials series was originally intended as children's fiction, however owing to excellent storytelling and a significantly darker theme than Harry Potter, has done rather well in U.S. and UK adult market.
The central premise of the series is that God is evil, a celestial impostor who pretends to have created the universe and who so intensely hates flesh and blood that he wants people to live a repressed, joyless existence. Unsurprisingly this theme has upset fundamentalist Christians."
Unfamiliar? Read the Slashdot review of the trilogy.
The clones I meet are mostly in pairs. PizzaFace writes "The Washington Post reports that the Raelian clone claim echoes a hoax of 25 years ago. And while we have better technology now for testing the claim quickly, there is still room for deception, and some people don't trust the science (and pseudoscience) reporter the Raelians appointed to test their claim."
If you're not ready to let your 10 year old read whatever they like provided it's not prohibited by law (i.e. giving the child hardcore pornography), you've got serious issues. If your child wishes to read the Chronicles of Narnia, let them. If they wish to read a biography about Charles Manson, then let them. Even if you're opposed to the views of a book or an author, forbidding it will only make them want it more. Therefore, if you're so anti-Christian, then I advise you to buy your child the Bible and see what happens.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
But now I think I know what it is.. MS is pissed because they are not allowed to steal code. It is only a matter of time until MS is going to have to play the code cards, and we will see how much is taken. It's slightly more than that however, it's the "danger of a good example". MS does not want people to decide on anything else than marketing and market control. Maybe some people will decide by software quality, maybe some other people will decide because they can only trust code they can get their hands on. In the end however, what OS and the GPL are is a slow juggernaut, forever marching ahead that cannot be stopped. Improvements are always coming, the quality is constantly improving. Eventually it will overwhelm companies who do not have a positive image such as Microsoft. On a side note, that is why Apple's charging for iTools is important. Apple should realize in this day and age the only currency you have is the respect and value you have among computer users..and Apple is spending it quickly. Microsoft does not have any at all.
It's a vaccine, not a virus. It protects a body of work from being destroyed by an embrace/extend infection on the works that spring from the original body.
It is proprietary software that eats away at the software that is available to the public, and more importantly, eats away at the building blocks that are available to users for creating bigger and better works.
The analogy of the so-called "GPL virus" imagines that a parasite is growing within a body- and the body in this analogy is the profit potential offered by monopoly preservation for companies like Microsoft. (Please understand that I am referring to legal intellectual property monopolies, not illegal market domination monopolies such as the one Microsoft was convicted of.) On the other hand, if the body is conceived of as the software available for use and building upon to the public at large, then it's clear that it is proprietary software that shrivels up the "body" in question.
If you have a lot of Microsoft stock options I guess I could see why you'd favor the first analogy, sort of. But if not, I'm puzzled.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...