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Open Letter By Eric S. Raymond To Chris Dodd
An anonymous reader writes "ESR, one of the finest engineers behind the open source movement and much of the software we use everyday, writes an open letter to U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd. ESR points out the concerns of 'the actual engineers who built the Internet and keep it running, who write the software you rely on every day of your life in the 21st century' about politicians attempts to lock down our Internet or our tools. A portion of the letter reads: 'I can best introduce you to our concerns by quoting another of our philosopher/elders, John Gilmore. He said: “The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
To understand that, you have to grasp that “the Internet” isn’t just a network of wires and switches, it’s also a sort of reactive social organism composed of the people who keep those wires humming and those switches clicking. John Gilmore is one of them. I’m another. And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network.'"
Politicians are always attempting to be experts at everything. This failure is magnified when they start talking about the Internet, because on the Internet, everyone's an expert.
Right?
Give your enemy a primer on all your motivations and explain how you are organized. What are we, gorillas pounding our chests?
How dare these self-righteous, misanthropic geeks dare tell us it's their network? Who bought and paid for this network? Why does this network exist in the first place? Because WE built it with our holy dollars. Someone get a muzzle on this dissident! A prime example of why we need control of our network!
” To understand that, you have to grasp that “the Internet” isn’t just a network of wires and switches"
Well of course not, as every (ex-) politician knows, it's a series of tubes.
An anonymous reader writes "ESR, one of the finest engineers behind the open source movement...
ESR, is that you? /runs for cover (literally, he's a gun nut don't you know)
What open source projects does ESR actively contribute to?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm sure Mr. Raymond is quite aware that Senator Dodd no longer holds public office. It is still appropriate to refer to public officials by the title of the last office they held; this is common among those who have served in the Senate, as state governors, etc.
Furthermore, Senator Dodd is now the CEO of the MPAA, an organization whose positions on electronic rights is quite well known, and cause for substantial concern.
Lastly, I think it's a good idea to continue to refer to Mr. Dodd as Senator Dodd, since he took an oath to represent the people and the constitution of this nation, and should be reminded of that at every opportunity.
Write failed: Broken pipe
Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or... these guys are going to take your balls. They're going to send one to the New York Times, one to the LA Times press-release style. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
That guy hypes himself way too much.
This is my sig.
100% correct. Senators, in the United States, retain that title even after they leave office.
I thought the beauty of the Internet was that once you're online, nobody knows you're a dog.
Write failed: Broken pipe
ESR is about to learn a likely painful lesson about how senators don't like to be talked down to. Senators are like judges on meth.
While I agree with the whole semantics there is a very important detail to keep in mind here. "Our" Internet also means that its partly 'theirs' as well. Quite frankly I'm not too sure if this was a good idea. Because in that same letter he's also giving clear reasons why the politicians could easily ignore the whole thing alltogether. After all: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.".
Would I be a politician I'd pick this up as "Great news, so even if we totally screw up it will just repair itself!".
... Don't you mean, "Eric S. Raymond writes:"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One day, such ideas and souls will infuse into this network of wires and switches, and lead to the emergence of a living entity.
Dear Congress,
You are damage. We will route around you.
-- the Internet
The mason and the carpenter know which walls hold up the building because they built them.
And the IT guy has all the passwords and keys to every router closet.
And management doesn't give a shit what the workerbees think.
This might help him understand what's going on, but he'd never read it either.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Dear Senator Todd, You're a tool. Sincerely, Me
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
My first reaction was "wow, ESR writes better than most engineers I've come across." Very well penned, sir.
Also,
Don’t screw with the Internet. Because it will screw you right back.
is destined to become a battlecry...
I can see the fnords!
The fact is that there is a serious choke point for the vast majority of users (in the U.S. at least). A handful of big name companies control almost all the broadband ISP's and trunk lines in the U.S. You can't very easily "route around it" if the few providers in your area are censored. In my area, you can choose from 1 cable ISP, 1 DSL ISP, and 3 major cell providers. All five of these are major companies who would bow to the government in an instant if asked. If they were all effectively censored, there would be nowhere to turn save a satellite provider.
There are always ways around censorship for the hardcore techies, of course. But it really wouldn't be that hard to censor the internet for 99% of the population if the government really wanted to.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In that case, it should be "Douchebag Dodd."
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Speak for yourself! I'm a marmoset
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
I'm getting sick of hearing the propaganda terms "lockdown" and "crackdown" used in place of the correct term, oppression. Are we too afraid to say it? Not politically correct enough? Can't admit our own reality to ourselves? Fuck that.
Let's call a spade a spade here. The terms "crackdown" and "lockdown" imply that the victim was doing something wrong or immoral in the first place. THAT is exactly why government and the media use these terms. They are "self-justified". They are deliberately false depictions of reality. It's pure propaganda, but the amazing part is that some victims will actually repeat the terms themselves.
The correct term, oppression, implies that the victim is innocent, not guilty -- and that the oppressors are guilty, not merely "getting around to that crackdown". For christ's sake, use the correct term.
However, for purposes of clarity, the summary should point out both that he is a former Senator and that he is now CEO of the MPAA.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That is kind of their job as they make laws that impact a wide variety of things. Or at least that is the convention on the public facing side of what they do, speaking to journalists as if they are experts and have first hand knowledge.
In reality, what they know outside of their particular field (mostly lawyering) comes mostly from subject matter experts and those come from whatever lobbying group musters them. So while politicians may be informed before they put forward a law, their information is often cherry picked or outright biased.
ESR is no different in this case as he has his own agenda he is trying to push. It would be hard to find subject matter experts without one. And this isn't confined to just the Interent or fast moving geek tech. "The shoulder thing that goes up" is one of the many famous examples where a politician was trying to have something outright banned from production despite having no clue what it was.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
A piece of junk that I, and millions of others use daily. I've relied on fetchmail for a decade now, and it hasn't let me down yet.
Can't say the same about p.o.s. like busybox.
Writing the head of the MPAA to try and sway him about the internet (to misquote former MPAA head Jack Valenti speaking of VCRs in the eighties) -- "The internet is to movies what Jack the Ripper was to women."
ESR ir right, but I think he sent his letter to the wrong Senator. It should have gone to the 100 corrupt Senators who actually legislate, rather than former corrupt Senators.
Free Martian Whores!
Well of course not, as every (ex-) politician knows, it's a series of tubes.
Yuk, yuk, yuk.
This is a stale joke that really isn't that funny. Ted Stevens wasn't as ludicrously incorrect with that statement as the condescending hipsters would like you to believe. Network engineers and architects frequently/typically refer to network links as pipes and the internet is a collection of those links. Regardless of whether or not Ted knew what the internet was, "a series of tubes" is a perfectly valid metaphor!
Sometimes when I read
“The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
which appears as a nice and cutesy rainbows and unicorns saying, I get the impression that it actually means
"Fuck off. You don't belong here and we'll subvert anything you try to do that impacts what we want to do"
In an angry, anti-establishment, "we know better than you" superior way.
Note that I do believe in a free Internet.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
ESR ir right, but I think he sent his letter to the wrong Senator. It should have gone to the 100 corrupt Senators who actually legislate, rather than former corrupt Senators.
Don't you you mean corrupt format Senators?
We may often disagree, but I have to agree with you here.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
His claim to have written "software you use everyday" is giflib; he stopped maintaining it in 1994, but it's in lots of browsers and browsing devices.
I can see where you're coming from, but who do you think pushes those 100 corrupt senators to adopt restrictive internet laws? Hint: lobbies like the MPAA, where Dodd is now chief. Convince the MPAA, RIAA, UFIA, etc to back off and those 100 corrupt senators won't even pay attention to the issue, because the corruption comes from them taking bribes and kickbacks from said special interests to vote for the laws in question.
You know, those 100 corrupt senators have to get paid somehow. Corruption can usually be solved by the "follow the money" principle. What if that's what ESR is doing?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Eric: Who is it? Strangers: The people who make you disappear. Eric: Why? Strangers: You stood in the way of them. Eric: Oh.
Wasn't James Madison against this, and insisted that senators and presidents should be entitled "Mister", like everybody else, not to create a new nobility that would be against the constitution?
"...there are some things we will not stand having done to our network." (emphasis mine)
That is exactly how I feel. As a Network Engineer myself I share their frustration with old, grumpy, white men who sit on capital hill raining down laws that would effect my job and customers without understanding the technology itself, nor the gravity their actions would have on the Internet community at large. I've watched the hours long C-SPAN videos of the hearings with the SINGLE Google representative they invited as an "expert" only to see her get cut-off and publicly flogged and discredited, while old men who had to read basic networking terms such as "internet", "Internet" (they are not interchangeable), "IP Address" and "DNS" off a prepared piece of paper, listed the "merits" of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA. Especially from a security standpoint, the amount of negative repercussions to censoring the internet along the same lines as China could be catastrophic, and that is before even considering its' effect on free speech.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Nobody knows bro!
This one I remember: ESR's goodbye note
This one I felt certain I would find: Ubuntu and GNOME jump the shark
(Failure to properly support Unicode in 2012? You're soaking in it.) ESR longs for the era when when the Unix ethos bound us together. It ends in another bail-out, this time with a less dramatic letter.
Maybe the Unix brotherhood has finally jumped the shark. I'm not sure I believe in the political force ESR claims to represent. It feels more like he's writing the letter to convince himself.
Jamie Zawinski was feeling the irritation back in 2003: Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers. Personally I blame SMS.
Well, I have a leather jacket and a USB fob with Mint 12 to get on with the exorcism before the April EOL on 10.10. I didn't know the open source movement would degenerate into a lifetime occupation of oasis hopping. That was not my original dream.
ESR, one of the finest engineers behind the open source movement and much of the software we use everyday
Really, this guy is the "finest" we have to offer in terms of open source engineers? The guy who wrote pretty much nothing but "fetchmail" that was of a little significance? The guy who likes to present himself as if he was Linus' real hacker brother despite never having contributed to the kernel? I had really hoped he had FINALLY disappeared...
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
From the letter,
His description of "approved" operating systems is too broad. Signing code itself is not a problem, in fact it's a blessing when used properly. The key to proper use is deciding who holds the signing keys. The consumer who owns the device needs to be in charge of that device; he or she must be able to decide whether or not unsigned code is allowed to run. If the user chooses to run only signed code, I think it perfectly fine to let manufacturers implement this as they wish. This could be extended to several layers: the hardware, the boot OS, the user OS, etc. Each of these could be secured, with the user's permission, by the corresponding manufacturer/distributor.
This certainly wouldn't prevent developers from "cutting" any shape they wanted with their code. But they would have to participate in some share system of security. That doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch to me, and fundamentally a good idea, to boot.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
ESR is no different in this case as he has his own agenda he is trying to push.
You are more right than you realize. ESR considers himself one of the Open Source greats despite that his largest contribution is that he maintained the termcap db and his is the first I've heard anything from him since Linus Torvalds refused his rewrite of the kernel config system. Not to mention his self proclaimed expertise in lovemaking.
His main function in life is to be what bloggers were before we called them bloggers and really isn't someone we need or want as a spokesman.
ESR, one of the finest engineers behind the open source movement and much of the software we use everyday
ESR is a shameless self publicist, who wrote a book once. If he's one of the finest engineers of the open source movement, then the movement is in serious trouble. As far as I can tell, he has never written any code that people actually use.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Who cares? Madison's dead and he's just one of the founders.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Besides having contributed to many project, you are talking about a guy that branded "open source", went out and sold it succesfully.
Then using your argument perhaps he should be referred to as the finest marketing and sales guy of the open source movement. The "Steve Jobs" of open source, not the "Steve Wozniak" of open source. Jobs did some engineering work in the early days too, however that is not where he stood out. Perhaps you are onto something with this marketing and sales argument.
(to misquote former MPAA head Jack Valenti speaking of VCRs in the eighties) -- "The internet is to movies what Jack the Ripper was to women."
It's ironically funny because most people relate people in the movie industry as whores, and pirates as murdering the industry.
It doesn't actually matter. You don't lose one title because you gain another. Mr. and Senator are both perfectly acceptable. Additionally, people who try to change this and harp on the fact that they want to be called by a given title (e.g. Doctor, Senator, etc.) rather than the generic one are more interested in people acknowledging their self-perceived superiority rather than actually showing respect to a given accomplishment.
Wasn't James Madison against this, and insisted that senators and presidents should be entitled "Mister", like everybody else, not to create a new nobility that would be against the constitution?
Who cares? Madison's dead and he's just one of the founders.
That's just the way he would have liked to have been referred to posthumously.
ESR ir right, but I think he sent his letter to the wrong Senator. It should have gone to the 100 corrupt Senators who actually legislate, rather than former corrupt Senators.
Don't you you mean corrupt format Senators?
And there was I thinking he had cleaned up his act since he was a senator.
Obviously, he never had any collusion with the MPAA until he was suddenly appointed CEO of its entire organization. /sarcasm off
You gave 'em the solution: get rid of the people who makes things work...
If people dare to take connections back under fire, then running a service in peace time is a cakewalk. And ISP's like XS4ALL have shown that some dare to put their money where their mouth is. Any ISP offering USENET binary access is probably done by a geek admin as the top bosses at the bigger ISP's wouldn't even know what it is.
The blackout already showed just how far reaching support is. Oh the commercial net wasn't that affected but just how did Poland decide to not support ACTA after all? And why aren't the other European nations leaning hard on Poland to change its mind?
Nursie is just a coward and wants to think everyone is as afraid to make a stand as he, so that his cowardness doesn't seem so bad after all.
Sorry but some dare to make a stand and gosh... so far it is actually working pretty well. If everyone was a jelly livered as Nursie, we would long have had ACTA worldwide and Sopa and Pipa and much much worse.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I was with you, Eric, right up until you called the media industry execs "stupid" and "dimwits". Your arguments were clear and well stated right up to that point. However, when you call your audience dimwits, they stop listening and discount anything you've said up to that point. This is a great shame, because your letter was incredibly persuasive and non-ranty up to that moment.
Apache guy, Open Source enthusiast, runner
If he had stopped here: "we will not allow our gift of fire to be snuffed out by jealous gods." He would have had a great letter we could show to anyone to explain this whole thing in layman's terms. But, no, he had to go on and mention RMS, his hate for DRM (understandable), and make a totally unrelated argument...
This is the first time I hear about ESR in years. I thought he was forked a few years back!
The phases that the "censorship" problem used to go through can be summarised thus:
Something is created ...
Someone tries to suppress its (free) distribution
Someone else finds a way to nullify that suppression
Other people start using the nullifying technique
The technique is "productionised" and rolled out to the masses
A new suppression scheme is developed
Now, the problem is that instead of the above being simply a technical "game" any more, the rules have changed. More and more frequently a legal solution is used to stamp out the nullification process - and its developers get jailed or bankrupted by the costs of engaging in a legal process. In fact, it's frequently no longer necessary to actually prosecute people, simply to make the intention known, and if the individuals who discovered how to avoid censorship don't roll over - then pretty much every entity in the chain that supplies them with internet connectivity will, instead.
So the problem has evolved from being merely: the internet is a technical medium, we can form a technical "routing" round the problem, to being one where the censors are playing on their home ground and can use force, size and legal might to get their own way. And as with all things legal, whether it's just and fair is irrelevant.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Which is stupid. Senator, Representative, President, are all job titles. No longer have the job? You don't get the honorific.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
As far as I can tell, he has never written any code that people actually use.
fetchmail and bogofilter are written by him.
(+1, Disagree)
While I agree with what ESR is saying, government (and former government) officials don't like threats.
"there are some things we will not stand having done to our network"
Referencing the Founding Fathers' individual beliefs and opinions is illogical. We have a democracy. We have voting and majority rule. Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and others had many beliefs, and often ended up disagreeing with each other. That's why the Constitutional Convention took months to write a relatively short document. That's why the US Constitution is full of compromises.
The three brances of government create the current state of law and custom. Until they intervene, the differing opinions of individuals, even individual founders, does not matter.
I never heard about it, until it came up in an anti-piracy story. All the stories about the piratebay have done in my own circle is get people to ask how they too can download stuff... Streisand effect times a 100.
Only geeks used usenets, then Napster came out and early adoptors used it. Then the lawsuits hit and people actually started using their new fangled cable connections for more then using email purely by searching for the name from the anti-piracy stories.
Distrubuted trackers once were only for the super paranoid, now they are common place. Meanwhile only a handful of the old methods have shut down. eMule is still around, the japanse have 3 different P2P networks just for their country. And it turns out that the reason you don't see many Chinese on western networks is that Xunlie has that market covered.
Oh, some Americans might have given up all seperation of state and corporation but frankly who cares. The rest of the world has pretty much decided that P2P is here to stay. It is like the war on drugs, the US might put millions in jail to try to stop it, the rest of world realizes that there is no stopping it if the majority wants it.
This isn't a case of what might be the ideal state of affairs in a utopian society, people can copy, they will copy. Fight it and you will find the majority against you. And this war will involve going after rich white kids whose parents can afford lawyers. Good luck getting them to accept the majority of them spending time in jail.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Smarmy marmoset", sounds like a good name for an Ubuntu release.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Have you heard of Tor?
Unlikely, he is the head of one of the most corrupt organizations in the worl. (This post has not been rated).
George Washington in particular was against this - the reason he went by "Mr President" was that he wanted to have some sort of title that indicated that the President of the United States was on par with his counterparts in other countries (which were likely to be Kings, Dukes, or Princes), but he wanted to emphasize that the President is also just a regular citizen, so he started it with "Mister". One of the key reasons he was instrumental in creating American democracy is that after he won the American Revolutionary War he didn't take the army he'd just won with and try to take over the country, and then as President stepped down after 2 terms and peacefully transferred power to John Adams.
I am officially gone from
ESR ir right, but I think he sent his letter to the wrong Senator. It should have gone to the 100 corrupt Senators who actually legislate, rather than former corrupt Senators.
ESR does much more damage when he opens his mouth than he's ever helped by opening it. And I'm really, really tired of the whole tribal meme with regards to the Internet. There WAS an "Internet Culture" when the Internet was new and shiny and very few people were on it. But the Internet has been ubiquitous for years now, and it's just another communications service. Grandma uses it now. It's a technology. That's it. Not a movement, not a clan, and not a religion. Whenever ESR speaks of things like "our elders", I get flashbacks of all those people that saw the first Matrix movie and thought it was the beginning a deep religious movement or something. Unless you're a living parody right of the the Big Bang TV show, most people read this kind of stuff and just roll their eyes.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And both of those were pretty sweet back in the day. However, these days, most of the people I know, including those who have their own domains and could run their own mail servers if they so wish, just push everything to a hosted app service for mail, such as google mail. With always-on, broadband connections to the home and our phones, being able to auto-pop email after establishing a dial-up PPP connection isn't something that we "use everyday," as was the initial claim. He's pretty much a has-been, and also I heard he was some sort of nazi or something and thought he disappeared like 10 years ago.
...with those who one one. Ultimately, control of the internet resides with those who operate it.
Like the internet? Fond of electricity? And phone? And petroleum products? And a functioning natural gas pipelines? High frequency stock trading? Best not to fuck with those who run these things. This extends to any critical, high-tech, specialized activity. Up to this point, politicians have left the operators of these things alone. Should they become sufficiently annoying, it wouldn't surprise me if the technically competent started flexing some muscle.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
With always-on, broadband connections to the home and our phones
For some people, but not for all. A lot of people download their e-mail with POP3 or IMAP because they don't want to pay an extra $28 per device per month for a cellular data plan.
Once a Senator, always a Senator. After your term is over, you keep both your title and your full salary and benefits. Nice work if you can get it.
I'm sure Mr. Raymond is quite aware that Senator Dodd no longer holds public office.
I believe he sent the letter because he is fully aware that Senator Dodd has moved on to a position of real power: from puppet to puppet-master.
The Only Way to remove power from RIAA/MPAA is to tear down the Copyright Wall, the Great Wall that surrounds *everything* save for a bunch of books and some wax rolls (and a few items that passed into the public domain because of technicalities). Think about that: everything that matters is under copyright. Everything. This equates to royalties. Corporate cash registers going ka-ching. This is what gives them their power.
The BSA shouldn't really mind a fixed, 20-year-after-publication copyright; 20 years ago we were at Windows 3.1 (note that the first stable WordPerfect for Windows, v5.2 from 1992, would still be copyrighted today under that system).
The clarity I am looking for is that he is no longer an elected member of the U.S. government and is now being openly paid by the MPAA (as opposed to when he was an elected member of the U.S. government and was being not-so-secretly paid by big bankers to write banking laws).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yet most Americans will weigh Madison's opinion more heavily than yours. Why is that?
I haven't seen any evidence that he is a Nazi. He puts his views on everything for all to see. So you can read for yourself that he advocates for Open Source and guns while arguing and against monogamous marriage.
There is a difference between the people who use it, the people who own it, the people who run it. And most of the people who run the core stuff are on the same page.
Well one of his more valuable contributions is GPSD which the maritime industry not only uses every day, but hourly. Every time we put to sea the GPS talks to GPSD which in turn drives the chart software that displays our position at the helm. For that code alone I would nominate Raymond for a MacArthur Fellowship.
and now, he's on the No Fly List and DHS Watch lists as a Potential Terrorist. Maybe the gubbermint will pick him up and send him to g'tmo for some reeducation.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
While I appreciate ESR's statements, pinheaded politicians and bureaucrats tend to take things the wrong way regardless how small the words are you use to spell it out. I can picture some knucklehead seeing the Gilmore quote and saying, "well, these internet geeks are getting militant! They're threatening us!" And then they do stoopid things like propose federal licensing of all network engineers backed by heavy fines and Federal prison terms, to where resetting your own WAP would get you a year in jail and a $50,000 fine.
---------------------------------------
Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
TBH, I was likewise a bit shocked by this as well, and it saddened me because I felt that this could have been a real manifesto for these new times we live in, a dignified piece by one of our respected elders and that unbeatably articulated his position in a cogent and measured manner.
The same exact sentiment could have been expressed, but without the 'strong qualifiers' that somehow made their way onto this, as they will invariably become the focal point of many dismissing it as 'extremism'; and it arguably would have made a much stronger impact without calling anyone any names.
Editing is still an option, just send out a press release saying that the wrong version was uploaded to GitHub, or whatever else ranting writers use for version control nowadays.
In the spirit of open-source, a professional writer should take a stab at re-writing this and make it palatable for mass consumption. The ideas are all there. They just need to be expressed in a manner less likely to alienate those who will read it, so that the deeper meaning sinks in, rather than stopping most at the sensationalism of calling the entire media industry "thieves and liars" which will lead them to ignore it outright.
There definitely has to be a way to convey the same exact thoughts, but with this being implied rather than stated. Let the readers illustrate the meaning on their own.
Our lives: nothing but a work in progress...
Better worded as "corrupt former senator" rather than the other. Your wording implies that he might no longer be corrupt :P
Congress views freedoms as threats and eliminates them. Sound better?
Except it's not alliterative. You could have Mardy Marmoset, though.
My thoughts on his statement "And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network" ... is black webs ... is there anyway to combat a web of organised file sharers? I remember the early days of Quake lans etc ... 1997-1998 ... we spent more bandwidth through the router file copying than we did playing the game. It's just expanded globally a little.
You may be a user, but that doesn't make you part of the culture that ESR is referring to . He's talking about the culture of the people who actually work on and in the Internet. The people who would of course care about how it is used, as opposed to the people who use it and have no idea of how it works, or how it could be damaged and what the damage may do to the Internet as a whole.
Uh he also wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which as far as I know was the first article of any sort that could explain how Open Source worked, and why it worked so well. Surely that's got to count for something.
Possibly the funniest cartoon ever, thanks for the reminder! For those that havent seen it it has its own Wikipedia Page
I don't see how this letter could do any damage whatsoever. It was informative and polite while simultaneously firm in stating the committment that most of the people that WORK on the internet feel.
God is imaginary
as opposed to the people who use it and have no idea of how it works, or how it could be damaged and what the damage may do to the Internet as a whole.
Like, say, senators?
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
But I thought the Usenet Cabal is a hoax?
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I agree, but I see a touch of irony in that post being made by "Pope". ;^)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You kids and your love of stuff we did in the 90s -- it's ADORABLE!
Listening to ESR is like logging into myspace, friendster or orkut for new messages.
I may agree with quite a few of his basic arguments, but he flipped the bozo bit a long, long time ago.
You'll excuse me. I have an Old School Roleplaying game to DM...
We have a republic. We have voting for representatives and representative, judicial and executive rule. We have a constitution that specifies these things, and instructs the government that each state government must also conform to this structure.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or... these guys are going to take your balls. They're going to send one to the New York Times, one to the LA Times press-release style. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
Yeah, he's with those guys.
OTOH he's entitled to his opinion as much as anyone else, and at least he bothered to write a letter to Dodd, unlike 99% of the people here on Slashdot. I'm not saying he's better than me because he got off his ass, but rather, he's better than me because he lifted a finger. You might say the bar is low, but he's over it.
No matter who is making "a statement" most of the general public "read this kind of stuff and just roll their eyes."
That's because the general public neither knows nor cares about the "political battles" of life, much less the technological challenges. They don't care if Apple is a walled garden, they don't care if the MPAA "censors" the internet", they don't care if the US is hated for interfering in foreign nations, ...
Are you beginning to catch the key pattern of "most people" yet?
They don't care.
Just make it work. If it stops working, then the people will care -- once it's too late.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Fetchmail is about as relevant as Lotus Notes.
For the purposes of clarity, the summary should also point out that when he was a senator, Chris Dodd was busy fucking over the populace (along with his buddy Barney Frank) by crawling into bed with Freddie Mac/Fanny Mae and precipitating the housing/banking crisis.
Yet most Americans will weigh Madison's opinion more heavily than yours. Why is that?
Crap. Even those who recognise the name mostly have no idea what Madison's opinion on anything was and if told will weight it according to how much it says what they want it to say.
Sounds better than Maverick Meerkat.
ESR has done a lot of important work for the Battle for Wesnoth project.
I trust Chris Dodd to talk about banking more than I trust Eric Raymond to talk about just about anything.
Seriously, ESR is socially worse than Stallman, and without his great successes (GCC, Emacs).
What makes it even more delicious is that Steiner at the time wasn't aware that he was saying anything particularly profound.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not in general, no, but in the specific case where the creator of intellectual property, or their legal agents, puts rights to that IP on the market at a specific price, and copies are made and used against the will of the IP owner and without legitimate ownership of the related rights of that IP, copying is wholly illegal, legitimately punishable, definitely counter to the authorized and intended structure of our society, and often, if not always, injures the IP holder financially either directly or indirectly, as the violation of those rights extends via any portion of a network of violators. It is this last concern -- which is also the basis for society assigning these rights -- that leads to the concept of theft: the financial injury.
If IP, or specific rights to it, is put on the market, and one is unwilling to meet the asking price, the only action available which is assured not to injure the IP holder financially by violating rights they legitimately hold and which otherwise may very well have brought them significant financial advantage is to refuse to utilize the IP in any manner that impinges upon those rights.
We live in a country where rights to IP are given value by a constitutional provision that specifically allows for patent and copyright, with the stated intention of fostering innovation by virtue of seeing to it that IP rights and recompense for same are formally supported by the system.
The relevant portion:
Congress duly followed up with a battery of IP law that does exactly that.
Consequently, the idea that "copying is not stealing" is invalid -- when copying in violation of rights of the IP holder's, you are taking rights you do not own, against the laws that say you are forbidden to do so and specifically assign them to someone else, and which specify the penalties for such takings, in accordance with the highest law of the land: the US Constitution.
If you want that to change, you can say that "copying should not be considered stealing and then work to have legislation changed accordingly. But you've got a heck of an uphill battle -- especially today, when IP represents more of the US economy's value than it ever has previously. Pretending that the situation you want already exists is counter productive to your goals -- it just marks you as a crazy person or someone so immature and unfamiliar with how the system actually works that you can be safely ignored.
I would also remind you that these same laws are what protect open source software, empower the GPL, etc. Don't know if you are a fan of those things or a true IP rights anarchist, but it's worth mentioning in any case.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If perhaps the Senator won’t read this, perhaps we who do might copy and paste this into various more widely read fora? With proper attribution. We need WSJ coverage not just /.
An anonymous reader writes "ESR, one of the finest engineers behind the open source movement.."
Nice try, ESR
Even if you don't believe ESR should be granted any special credibility as a critic, there is still a widespread and IMO valid idea that there is such a thing as abuse of the Internet. By users, for example (spam). And by governments (censorship). These things offend a lot of people, not just ESR and a few cohorts.
No, he was being paid not-so-secretly by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That's why they were left out of his reform bill.
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
Mr Madison to you...
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Then how about: Prick
He, also, received several special loans from various banks.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
http://xkcd.com/1005/
This one you need to download and turn down the contrast to get the obligatory part.
Ahh... Memories... L.U.N.C.H (tinc) was a good time. We had a regular meeting for about half a year of the Local Usenet Cabal Houston, and I will let you guess when.
Politicians are always attempting to be experts at everything. This failure is magnified when they start talking about the Internet, because on the Internet, everyone's an expert.
Right?
On the other hand, when they want an expert in something like the damage caused by coal mining, they'll bring in a coal mining executive, because, hey, who has more experience with coal mining than a CEO?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
There is always the bandwidth of a station wagon full of ... USB hard drives. Also, VPNs over the Internet are more and more common. Which is the point. While I may not work for weeks so I can get the latest episode of Chuck, I will to make a circumvention tool to allow free and open access again. By "Widening the net" they add to the ranks of people against them.
Don't you you mean corrupt format Senators?
As if there is a format of Senator that is not corrupt?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I'm not a fan of the Senator, however I think that in deference to the position there should be some semblance of decorum when referring to individual members of Congress or the President. There's far too little civility shown to the holders of the latter office for the current and previous occupants. The fault of that rests squarely on the two main political parties, their congressional attack dogs, and various political organizations masquerading as news outlets, charitable groups or think tanks. Not much thinking or charity as far as I can see.
Hence, I will have to disagree with you. Regardless of my feelings for the Senator, that's still his title.
Well written, and aligned with my own thoughts. (Though, my initials aren't any sort of known TLA for the most part...)
Check your premises.
Referencing the Founding Fathers' individual beliefs and opinions is illogical.
Wrong. It's quite logical as they were the ones who created the document that (in theory) governs us to this day. Therefore it is logical that we understand their beliefs and opinions in order to understand the constitution they wrote.
We have a democracy...
Wrong again. We have a representative republic...at least in theory. In practice we are nearing an elected dictatorship.
We have voting and majority rule...
Wrong a third time. We do have voting...but majority rule rarely decides anything in congress where anyone can "filibuster" or stop a bill from a vote simply by putting their name down on paper as such.
Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and others had many beliefs, and often ended up disagreeing with each other. That's why the Constitutional Convention took months to write a relatively short document. That's why the US Constitution is full of compromises.
3 strikes and yet you aren't out. This statement is very insightful. It helps to explain a great many things in the constitution and it directly contradicts your statement that it is illogical to reference the beliefs and opinions of the founders. Half the stuff they put in there is because the smaller states were scared spitless that the larger ones would use their majority to impose their will on the minority. Sound familiar?
Interestingly enough, as originally designed, the federal government had only one part that was democratically elected. The US House of Representatives. That was the body that was supposed to be the direct voice of the general population. The Senate was the voice of the state governments (which in turn answered to the people of those states). The President was elected via Electors who answered to the states and the Vice President was the person who had the 2nd most electoral votes, regardless of party and the Supreme Court was provided as a means to balance power between Congress and the President.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Yeah, but then he wrote one of the stupidest, most self-aggrandizing things ever to grace slashdot: http://news.slashdot.org/story/99/12/10/0821224/esr-writes-on-surprised-by-wealth
6 months later, when his stock was worth a tiny fraction of what it was at IPO time (and who knows how long/how far down he held it past the obligatory 6 months for IPO beneficiaries) we all chuckled and ESR faded into obsolescence.
Anyone who has had sexual intercourse with Eric S. Raymond and/or uses Linux should go and get an AIDS test immediately!
Eric, known as ESR in certain circles, is one of the most sexually-promiscuous people in the Open Source community. For example, he’s currently sleeping with two unemployed Linux hobbyists on a regular basis who do all sorts of sick, depraved shit with him like shoving Twinkies up their asses so that Eric can suck the filling out.
Another instance of Eric's disgusting behavior is when he and his Linux losers held what is known in the industry as a “Linux party.” Think that means some kind of icecream social? Think again! One night, Eric held Linus Torvalds at gunpoint and almost choked him to death on a giant turd, after which he gained root access to the Linux code server. Eric likes to pistol-whip geeky programmers and get his penis and gun barrels licked clean.
Eric Raymond gives little regard to whom he sleeps with or what they may be infected with. His is a pathological obsession for attention caused by years of Linux programming and self-aggrandizement. When asked by a Linux user group to speak publicly at their next meeting, Eric ended up having sex in the bathroom with one of their members and throwing up all over the place. And let’s not even get into the time that Eric managed to shit into the brownie mix at a LAN party!
Eric also has surprise sex whenever he can. One time, he visited Rob Malda, the founder of Slashdot.org. After breaking into Rob's place, Eric was seen exiting the property house at dusk, throwing empty bottles of Jägermeister after what neighbors called a “loud night of moaning and fighting.” Rob allegedly suffered bowel-incontinence for the next several days. He certainly didn't post any stories to Slashdot for a while after Eric's visit!
Because of this kind of depraved, wanton activity Eric has seen “odd results” on his last several AIDS tests, but he insists that there must be a bug in their testing software. Maybe it’s running Linux?!
If you think retroviruses, gunplay, and herbal liquer are sexy, go for it. As long as you tell Eric that you're a Linux user, he won’t turn you down.
Otherwise, steer clear of this walking Open Source sewer. Not only will you contract one of Eric’s diseases but you will have the shame of appearing on his list of one-night stands and Linux butthole rape. That’s not something anyone should want or be proud of—except Eric S. Raymond.
The Popes solved that problem by holding the title until they die.
However, that is the worst thing to do for a U.S. politician and I'm not so sure about the Supreme Court either. I think a 10-year term for them would have made more sense.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Neatly and clearly put. As King Canute showed his Courtiers, if change is inevitable you should use it or drown. These cretins have millions upon millions of free distribution channels available to them and what do they do? Sue them into oblivion and try to get them all locked up like terrorists! It seems their street-corner-gangster minds are so consumed with hatred and avarice and half-witted thuggery that they are quite incapable of rational thought. Frankly I am sure I am not alone in hoping the old criminal mobster guard will drown as painfully and agonisingly as possible, and leave the future to those who have the intelligence and integrity to use it.
Posting AC, as a single critical post about the EU plunged my 'credit rating' down to about -44 and my Karma to 'Unbelievably Hideous'. At least an AC will get 0 and Neutral. What a ridiculous moderation system Slashdot runs. Free speech it aint.
Not to mention the people who made , which includes ESR.
I have no problem with him speaking from that point of view because of his involvement in the 'net, his accomplishments in the field of technology and the fact that he generally knows what the hell he's talking about, unlike too many random /. participants, possibly including me.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves elected President should by no means be allowed to hold the office.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Uh he also wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which as far as I know was the first article of any sort that could explain how Open Source worked, and why it worked so well.
Were there any actual studies that support his explanation?
Smarmy Smarmoset. Set to be released the 13th minute of the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month, Smarch.
Good news is that it will be a Ubuntu LTE release. Bad news is that it will still feature Unity.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
"Smarmy marmoset", sounds like a good name for an Ubuntu release.
Not a chance as there's no alliteration. But I agree
Fuck yeah! Lick my buns. Suck on my balls. To you censorship!
Senator, Representative, President, are all job titles. No longer have the job? You don't get the honorific.
Which would be true, except for the fact that the custom has been exactly to the contrary for, oh, a couple of centuries now.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
his accomplishments in the field of technology
Which are? Oh yeh, a program that downloads mail from a POP3 mailbox.
Look, I think the US government - particularly Congress - are a bunch of supercilious idiots, prone to trying to make comprehensive rules about things they totally don't understand and (importantly) don't care that they don't.
Nevertheless, probably the worst possible way to get these people to react in the way you want them to* is not to try to look like an even more supercilious tool than they are. "(John Gilmore)...one of our philosophers/elders..." OK, you're really not going to impress anyone with trying to clothe network design/maintenance with some quasi-religious overtones. Philosophers? Elders? Really? As intelligent as ESR may be, I wouldn't necessarily credit him or John Gilmore with the intellectual chops to debate angels and pins with, say, Voltaire or Kant. They're no more Philosophers than anyone whose long service at a task gives them insight into how it works. Sorry Eric, that doesn't rate you the title "Philosopher". "Elder" might carry a touch more credence as "an elder person with some special dignity or authority in a tribe or community" but still, it still sounds as silly as calling him a rabbi or 'network buddha' which might even be more accurate.
*of course, this assumes you're actually trying to solve the problem, not grandstand to the crowd or stroke your epeen.
"...(the internet is)...also a sort of reactive social organism..." Now we're into some sort of sophomoric psychosocial commentary. If you want to be specific, the internet really is just a bunch of wires and protocols, within which reside a number of different creatures - your 'reactive social organism' (which, sadly, isn't the sort of higher consciousness that you imply; the huge majority is about a sort of hedonistic narcissism that would have made Caligula blush) being one, the Greater Internet Dickwad being another example. I'm part of this network, and I'll tell you that while I agree with most of your logical premises (minus the ego), and I find Chris Dodd a repellent archetype of Congresspeople as a subspecies, I find your note itself so off-putting that it's impossible to support you.
It IS fair to say that the protocols are designed to see any interruption in information flow - ie censorship - as damage. But then to say "...And there are some things we will not stand having done to our network...." - I can PROMISE you that the last way you're going to get cooperative, constructive help from a US government official is to THREATEN them.
In fact "ESR", they're about the only people on this planet who have as inflated a sense of self importance as, well, you seem to.
-Styopa
USA is a representative constitutional democracy. Why some Americans insist on calling that "republic and not a democracy", when the world "republic" is largely orthogonal to "democracy", nor does it imply constitution, separation of powers, federalism etc, is beyond me.
For that matter, no country in the world today is a non-representative democracy; vast majority of democracies have a constitution (sometimes implicit); and quite a few are federations.
So what's wrong with that essay of ESR's? I'd not read it before (despite being on Slashdot since the very beginning), but it sounds pretty matter of fact to me, and no different in the "self-aggrandizing" area than a lot of other blogs by tech people.
It's very common for open source projects to have a very vocal and opinionated person at their helm. This person just happens to have earned some money from an IPO, but who cares? I don't see what gets you so agitated. He's a public speaker so he needs a high profile to get invited to give talks --- rather him than me.
Oh ugh even with proof-reading I still managed a lovely typo.
...and ALL of them (still living...not sure about heirs) get their in-office salary as a pension! Isn't that great?
I wonder what I'm going to do with the $2000 (TOTAL) I have saved up in my Social Security account...?
Will draft for food...
It's our network. And we are not anonymous. We are far more powerful. We are responsible. We seek to create, not to destroy. We are the hackers who build the Internet. What we created out of thin air, will not be destroyed by the power hungry few. The notion in itself is soo last century. Go away!
Nope. It's a constitutionally authorized republic with democratically elected representatives. Which is not at all what you said. It starts with the constitution, which defines a republic form of government (federally explicit, step-by-step, and state-wise by power-backed guarantee), and then further provides for democratic selection of the representatives themselves by the citizens -- but not of the laws.
Well, no, again. The constitution is the top of the implication chain. It then specifies the republic. And the separation of powers. And what small portions of the process are democratic, and the large ones that are not. It isn't democracy that implies anything -- democracy is a low level consequence, where and when it is constitutionally defined within the bounds of the republic.
I see that. Luckily, it isn't beyond "some Americans" who actually understand how the system was designed and specified, and it wasn't beyond the founders, either... Article IV, section 4:
Irrelevant to our situation or my comments.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah, but sending it to him isn't exactly going to stop him. His office is not an elected position. He's not going to risk losing his job come November this year. He'll do whatever the hell he wants to, ergo whatever makes him the most money, ergo ignore the letter and continue doing what the MPAA was tasked to do by the movie industry.
Whereas if you write to the actual Senators and Representatives currently in that capacity, you'd likely get more done.Some of them might even listen.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I've always disliked his writing, and when I got to "elder of the tribe" I closed the tab. This kind of "open letter" isn't helpful at all; quite the opposite, it encourages politicians by reinforcing the notion that only basement-dwelling socially maladjusted nerds know or care about these types of issues.
Nope. It's a constitutionally authorized republic with democratically elected representatives. Which is not at all what you said. It starts with the constitution, which defines a republic form of government (federally explicit, step-by-step, and state-wise by power-backed guarantee), and then further provides for democratic selection of the representatives themselves by the citizens -- but not of the laws.
Can you give anything to back your claim that it "starts with the constitution"? For that matter, what does it even mean for republic to "start" with anything?
In any case, nothing in what you wrote contradicts it being a representative democracy. If it has representatives elected by the citizens, it is a democracy, period. Consult your local dictionary for details
Well, no, again.
I think you misunderstand what I wrote. The word "republic", in general, does not imply constitution nor separation of powers nor federalism. By itself, it never did.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government
English of that day was not exactly the same as what we speak today. Back then, "democracy" referred strictly to Ancient Greece and the likes. It is not so today, and that has been true for over a century now.
Irrelevant to our situation or my comments.
It's directly relevant, because all those countries, having all the same things as US, do not refuse to call themselves democracies - reflecting the actual meaning of the word today.
They finally posted the leaked video! i hope it does not get removed: uncoverthebest.com
Seriously? How about basic civics class? What do YOU think authorizes the government to exist? And tells it how it should constitute (<--hint!) itself? Oh, and there's this insignificant little bit:
You're just rolling me now, aren't you? In that case, lol, IHBT. If not... dude, go find a high school and sit in on a civics class, seriously.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
An "open letter" isn't really written to it's recipient, but rather is a way of explaining a position to an audience - the intent is to convince the audience, not the recipient.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I think it's fine to continue with the honorific if they served out their full term. Those who are ejected from office or quit before their term is up should lose it.
Both programs show what Eric means by Bazaar development: "I throw out my half-assed code, other people spend years fixing my bugs and design flaws, and I take the credit."
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Wrong. We used to have a republic. Today, we have a functioning federal constitutional democracy, albeit one where the Constitution is largely ignored by the democratically elected.
(Why no longer a republic? Because entirely too many parts of the country have been disenfranchised by voting district rezoning and the disproportionate vote that urban areas have, as well as the destruction of our once-many Representative house.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Seriously? How about basic civics class? What do YOU think authorizes the government to exist?
It depends on the government in question, but the most broad answer would be consent of its citizens, aka "public contract".
dude, go find a high school and sit in on a civics class, seriously.
If they teach that US is "republic not a democracy" in civics classes in US, that's really sad. In civics I did in my school, we actually learned what all those things mean, and we've learned them from examples of many different countries, not just our own; nor did we get stuck on archaic 250-year-old definitions.
Where there any actual studies that refuted his explanation?
I'm not aware of any such studies in general. And, for the lack of such, I don't see how one can reasonably say that ESR has "explained" how FOSS works. At best, he offered an untested hypothesis.
nobody knows you're a dog.
Facebook knows you're a dog. It also knows what breed, how old you are, your preference in bitches (or other dogs as it may be), your favorite brand of dogfood, and how often you play fetch.
If you think it's me vs. Madison, you've missed the point. Saying "Wasn't James Madison against this" conveniently leaves out that there were a number of his peers who were all for it. Ben Franklin was one such. Madison succeeded to the extent that the President isn't "His Royal Highness", but he lost to the extent that the President, Senators, and others do have titles that clearly differentiate them from regular citizens -- as Ben Franklin wanted. Madison's side lost to Franklin's side. If you want to reopen the issue, that's fine, but presenting just one side of the argument is misleading. Our Founders were not unified on this topic.
I had to giggle at the fact that the article starts off by calling him "ESR" and then goes on to explain what he did.
If people know who the hell "ESR" is they already know what he's done. If they don't, perhaps the first introduction to him should be his name?
Yes, it's in the title (I wonder if that was done by the submitter or editor?). It's still bad form. You can be casual or you can be formal, but mixing and matching it is just silly.
Dear God, for the last time (not actually the last time): The United States of America is in fact a democracy, as you correctly noted it is also representative, but the two are by no means exclusive of each other. Unless you are in the context of specific implementations of the general concept of democracy (rule by the people), it is a perfectly legitimate description of the US and quite a number of other countries who are not technically direct democracies.
Again: In general usage, 'democracy' describes the broader concept of rule by the people without necessarily referencing specific implementations.
You're an asshole.
There aren't any studies that refute that, so it must be true.
Deference is earned.
His revision of the MIT jargon file to push his personal political agenda with items like "Fisking" is a case in point. Now he's calling himself an engineer it appears, but sorry kid, fetchmail, bits of nethack and bits of the jargon file don't really count as engineering by any definition I can think of.
He turns up on this site at times to argue with people so you can get an idea of where he stands on issues from those exchanges.
Seriously? How about basic civics class? What do YOU think authorizes the government to exist?
It depends on the government in question, but the most broad answer would be consent of its citizens, aka "public contract".
dude, go find a high school and sit in on a civics class, seriously.
If they teach that US is "republic not a democracy" in civics classes in US, that's really sad. In civics I did in my school, we actually learned what all those things mean, and we've learned them from examples of many different countries, not just our own; nor did we get stuck on archaic 250-year-old definitions.
The United States is a Constitutional Republic. Period.
References:
CIA World Fact Book
Wikipedia
And of course the Constitution itself.
Words mean something. If your school taught you that the US is a "democracy" then I'm sorry but your school taught you wrong.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
As a very old hacker, I learned on the Edsac II in 1962 I have real problems with the meme idiots that attack ESR, he has written good code and a number of seminal (ie before evryone thought of the idea) papers especially TC&TB.
He, and his opinions need treating with respect, even if you dont agree.
As a non-American his treatment of Dodd is unbelieveably gentle, the man is a crook, who has dishonoured his office and should be locked up.
I see your viewpoint but 'archaic 250-year-old definitions' as you put it is *very* important. How else can we know the meaning of what the founders intended to create if we don't even understand what the hell they're saying? The Constitution is a living document, not a mutant one.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
the Vice President was the person who had the 2nd most electoral votes,
I wish that was true :(
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
The Popes solved that problem by holding the title until they die.
However, that is the worst thing to do for a U.S. politician and I'm not so sure about the Supreme Court either.
Holding office until you are dead, and having fixed terms of office are not mutually exclusive
Executing your rulers after they have served their terms is not a new concept
No, its an "open letter", which means its target is most likely the public at large.
Yes, the internet has "culture", it did so long before they let these mouth breathing pop culture non-technical types on. No, they are not going to be pushed around by some johnny-come-latelys who have a reputation as thugs as despots.
I think the point stands. Just because the MPAA/RIAA are a fearsome machine with both economic and political leverge, it does not mean they have the right to demand the internet become theirs when they put in %0 of the work.
There's nothing wrong with using archaic definitions in context - i.e. when discussing US Constitution, noting that "republic" really implied certain specific connotations to the Founding Fathers, party establishing continuity with the Roman Republic (separation of powers, rule of law), and partly with their own ideals of how things should be.
But I don't see why that same definitions should then be used in everyday discussion on vaguely related matters, especially when the term has a different and far more widespread definition today. In that sense, the continuous insistence that "US is a republic and not a democracy" does not clear anything up to most people - rather, it only serves to muddy the water. This is even more true when people saying such things don't really understand what they mean, which I've seen a few times as well - e.g. in the context of discussion of democracy in post-Saddam Iraq, some American would post a comment along the lines of "sure it doesn't work as well as we do, they're a democracy and we're a republic". *facepalm*
The US is undoubtedly a constitutional republic; I never said anything different. It is also a democracy. The meanings of the words "republic" and "democracy" in modern language are largely orthogonal, though republic usually does imply at least some democracy.
My reference would be any English dictionary you may have around you, preferably the one that's not 250 year old. E.g. Google:
"A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives; A state governed in such a way."
My school taught me things as they are in modern terms, not things that were 250 years ago in terms that were used back then and have changed their definitions since. I'm sorry if that sounds offensive to you, but, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, whenever you Americans make that "we're not a democracy" claim, you are, at best, ridiculing yourselves, and at worst, you're claiming to be something that is shameful to be.
The vast majority of people do not care as you said. That is why governments and corporations can get away with massive abuse, why the 99% are slaves to the 1%, why the best politicians we can find are often outright loons who hold ideas that are often very opposed to the ideas held by their constituents and why the world is so very fucked up at the moment. :P
As you said, the vast majority only react when things stop working. When combined with politicians who can only see to the end of their term, and only act in the interest of getting re-elected (or hired to head some corporate board of directors when they retire), this is disastrous. It is for this reason I have come to the conclusion that when global warming threatens to kill millions of people elsewhere, we will do nothing. When those people die, we will largely continue to do nothing. When its too late, the general population will be yelling that they didn't know
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
USA is a representative constitutional democracy.
To qualify for being a democracy, I think the minimum standard would be "one man, one vote". Any country that practices or allows disenfranchisement of its citizen shouldn't be called a democracy.
If they weren't corrupt they wouldn't be swayed by campaign bribes. Unfortunately the system itself is corupted to the point that only the corrupt can get elected.
Free Martian Whores!
So when people cite "what our founding fathers would want", I always wonder which one(s).
Fools being foolish doesn't undermine proper usage. Just because some people parrot a saying to pretend they know what they're talking about shouldn't mean those who DO understand what they're saying aught to be called out for using proper language. As for the reason for the insistence of proper usage. It's because the very foundation of our society is based on these words, it is the DNA of everything we do. If people want to discuss things using modern definitions it should be laid out at the beginning of the conversation, never assumed. Otherwise two people can have a conversation where both sides 'agree' with each other and yet in truth are vehemently opposed to one anothers positions.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
Agreed. I enjoyed listening to him at the Perl Conference 1997 and his "Cathedral and the Bazaar" and, to a lesser extent "Homsteading the Noosphere", essays were useful. I used fetchmail when I had dialup. Everything he has uttered since has been unenjoyable.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
I'd include gpsd as well - my understanding is that it is very widespread and if you read his blog he spends quite a bit of time hacking together a network of half the GPS devices out there for testing purposes.
When your mother "explains" that you can't live in her basement now, it's an explanation, not an untested hypothesis.
He explained how it worked by giving reasonable definitions of closed and open source, and showing the differences in both the cultural and the practical.
Culturally, with Open Source, many people poking around the source code, find more and more varied solutions to problems. Through the evolution of this, better software emerges.
With Closed source, a limited number of people are poking around the source code, so consequently fewer solutions to problems arise. Closed source must therefore have more bugs and design errors since fewer eyes are looking for them and tend to be more narrowly focused.
He explained it. Whether you believe it or not, is up to you. The proof is in the fact that Open Source software is the most prevalent software in the world.