Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm
Alacritech settles litigation with MSFT and BRCM An anonymous reader writes "Alacritech, Microsoft Corporation and Broadcom Corporation today announced that they have entered into agreements that settle all outstanding disputes between Alacritech and Microsoft, as well as provide Microsoft and Broadcom access to Alacritech's patent portfolio relating to scalable networking. (Previously mentioned on Slashdot here and here.)"
Sir, you have no right to read about your rights. Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for. A memorable quote in the Times article says '...There is no human right to read.'"
Don'tcha think felony is a bit strong for a few button presses? ZombyHero writes "In a follow-up to a previous story, the 13 high school students from Kutztown, PA charged with felony computer trespassing for violating district usage policy are fighting back. They've hired lawyers have begun talking with the Assistant DA. As a former student of the school, I know that the district is used to getting its way. Hopefully this will knock them down a few notches."
Starship Exeter flies again! An anonymous reader writes "There's a new episode of Starship Exeter, a fan-made feature set in the original series Star Trek universe. The new episode, The Tressaurian Intersection, follows on from The Savage Empire, which was featured on Slashdot before. This time it's better than ever... better than the original series, in fact! You can watch the entire episode online."
Treasure hunts, commence. We've posted quite a few interesting applications for Google's mapping service; now phauly writes "I created an Animated Google Map (with some gnus and mozillas attacking Microsoft office) using Google Maps API. I think it would be easy to create real playable Games on Google Maps. For sharing ideas (and implementations!) I created the Games on Google Maps wiki page. For now some ideas are: risk, freeciv, freecraft, car races on real maps! Feel free to edit the page suggesting/revising/implementing ideas."
Isn't that what dupes are for?
They're not there yet in terms of funding, it seems. But if unfettered fanfic productions could compete, it begs the question of whether the competition would weed out the weak and determine the best as the winner or if it would fracture the support of the fan base so much that no project could obtain sufficient funding.
Start a happiness pandemic
The author of the controversial Linux Desktop of the Future essay has posted a follow up article containing clarifications and defying misconceptions.
No, but he does have quite the "mad prophet in the desert" hair and beard.
- G
Start a happiness pandemic
Imagine the complexity one could introduce to the game...Maybe not use individual troops, but use something similar to Axis and Allies, where each piece represents approximately one division/squadron/task force (maybe ships only represent one ship... has been awhile). Lay siege to your hometown, and animate peasants running through the streets.
Then again, maybe we can adapt Trogdor to play out against SCO's offices...
#define CLUE 0
Or do we need patents on website content? Copywrites? Or can we trust people to not steal?
For example, say there is a college kid who really likes beer and porn. He likes it so much, he sets up a website that becomes popular, it lists different beers, and reviews porn. One drunken night, this college kid uses his cell phone to take a couple low resolution pictures of himself having sex, and he puts it up.
A few years pass, somehow he graduates and starts looking for work. Someone tells him that his website comes up when googled, and that might not be the best thing when it comes for finding work.
So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.
Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?
I'll give one more example. A woman who is 26 years old has 2 kids, and no skills. She got knocked up by a bum. Now she is working in a grocery store, as a check out clerk for $7 an hour, not enough to feed and cloth her family.
She starts up a website where she gets naked. She is making good money, and she manages to make enough to get a nicer place to live, feed her kids, and go to college. A couple years later, she takes down the website. She has a good job. But someone decides to put the content back up. Her kids are now 13 years old. Her employeer also knows how to use google. Should people judge her based on who she used to be, what she did to survive within a specific context of existance?
If someone wants to put up a website, they have that right. But it appears that people don't have a right to remove their content from circulation. That is the problem.
The great thing about life is people can change, they can move away to a new community, they can start over. The internet in some ways is making that impossible. It is like jobs that do credit checks, to work as a secretary they want to know how much money you owe, and if you paid it off on time.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Does anyone else think that this might be the end of RMS? I mean, it's one thing to take on the software industry, but it's quite another to take on the publishers of Harry Potter.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Maybe the damn editor should go back to high school.
This is not a new problem.
It was not the "Canadian Supreme Court" that made this ruling, it was the Supreme Court of British Columbia, according to the link new report. I know foreign geography is tough for Americans. It does make a difference - I am virtually certain that the injunction would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada if it was ever taken that far.
Beware the Ghost Of Usenet Postings Past
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
No, it was not the Canadian Supreme Court (aka the Supreme Court of Canada) that permitted the injunction.
Instead, it was the Supreme Court of British Colombia that made that ruling. There's a world of difference, just like the difference between the State Supreme Court of California and the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
It would be nice if the submitter of the story (or the editor who summarized it) could RTFA, but I guess that would be too much for Slashdot
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
Wesley crosses a Tressaurian street in flagrant violation of the Tressaurian "Don't Walk!" sign and is sentenced to death, with sexy results.
Remember that phrase, you're going to hear it a lot.
The crime that was committed was unauthorized distribution by the store selling the books. Copyright owners do not have any authority over you reading a book, only copying it. But they want that authority. And "no right to read" is the phrase they will use to get it.
I think I liked the old universe better. You know, the one where Richard Stallman seemed like a nut with crazy predictions of the future?
The enemies of Democracy are
In the end This is not realy abut the right to read, but property rights. If I legally buy a product, that is legally available(and by that I mean that is in not on a government list of contraband), then I should be able to use it any way unless it was stipulated prior to the purchase that such use was forbidden.
Certainly all that is idealized, and it is often necessary to put restrictions on certain property after the fact, but what we are talking about in this case it a book. I do not know of any law that says it is illegal to buy a book before the official release data. I know of no law that says it is illegal to talk about a book before the release date. There are contract terms that prevent these things, but i doubt the purchasers of this book signed any of those contracts. It is really the fault of the retail outlets that sold the books, and any consequences are theirs
If I cared about this lame corporate utterances, and had a copy of the book, i would have read it and posted a review. I am happy that the kids have something to read, and that they are reading, but at the end of the day this just proves that absolute power leads absolutely to evil.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
When you publish, that's it - you cannot retract what you put in public for others to read.
Furthermore while you should be allowed to no longer present what you like, for research needs I absolutly think that anyone who is capabile of doing so shoudl be able to store and re-present data you have publically published.
To go back to your example, lets say years later that woman (or that man) runs for president. Would you (as a citizen) want that hidden or want a clean vetting of a persons past details?
Now lets take this another way. Say you can make whatever you publish disappear. So then is it OK for news sites or blogs to change what they had published in the past, while disallowing anyone to make note of there being a change and what the old content was?
If you plan to do embarrassing things, don't do them in public. people need to be RESPONSIBLE for past actions. I said some dumb things on Usenet when I was younger in college (incidentally usenet archives are why we'll never see a technically oriented gen-Xer in a high-ranking public position) but I just have to deal with whatever happens as a result of past actions.
Personally I think the site in question falls into the category of historical recording, and I think is important. If it can't store anything we are all screwed from the standpoint of having any accurate history of out time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Pecking Order for BC:
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Supreme Court of Canada Court of last resort
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BC Court of Appeals Normally sits as 3 judges but can reconsider it's own rullings with a bank of 5 or 7
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BC Supreme Court Civil court, major felonies and appeals of lower courts
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BC Provincial Court non-indictable crimes
Somewhere about the provincial court level you can also throw in family and small claims court.BTW: The injunction is probably unconstitutional, but I can't see anybody appealing it.. By the time the appeal went thru, the book would be released. I'm guessing that the judge who issued it just didn't want to face down his/her kids for not protecting 'ol Harry.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
from RMS's website:
" Here's the text of a complaint that I am sending to the TSA for misleading treatment at Logan Airport.
When I continued to verbally criticize the conduct of the agents, and didn't sit down and shut up, they called the State Police, and one Officer Gillespie told me that "Unless you shut up I will throw you out." I asked if that meant he would arrest me for speaking, and he said, "No, for making a scene." (Different words for the same act.) I told him that was bullying and abuse of power, and refused to shut up. "
Stallman doesn't seem to understand that the right to free speech doesn't also mean the right to a platform for free speech. Airlines rent space at airports, and if they don't want you there because your a belligerent ass, then they have the right to call the cops to kick you out. You don't have the right to make people listen to you, RMS.
Vote for Pedro