The GPL only exists to fix the insanity that is copyrighted code. Better not code was copyrighted, sure. But since can can be copyrighted, better as much of it as possible is held in common trust, to be shared and used among those who are willing to set their improvements free.
You do not have to be pro-copyright, to be pro-enforcement of the tool that is battling the ills of copyrighted code. When we decide that math was a stupid thing to try to legally magic-wand into products anyway, there will be no GPL to enforce.
Anything that exists as a string og 1 and 0's (or any matrix of formal signs) is information. Not all entertainment is information, but the entertainment which has been codified as information is, unsurprisingly, information.
Don't get me wrong - I am all for improving the justice system, fair laws, etc. etc.
I am just not a fan of trusting either. Especially not the lawmakers - as they are a single point of failure, and easily (and already) bought.
I would rather live in a world where any and all regimes (however legitimate, fair, corrupt or not they may be) will need to secure me, my cooperation and my property before they can listen in on my conversations, check what I do on my computer or strip away my anonymity.
...that is what Moglen et al have been saying all along: don't trust the lawmakers and people in power to make you free. Guarantee your freedoms one by one, by building them - free speech, anonymity, etc. can be engineered!
"Upon request", as you say. "Courts". Ie. within a legal framework, subject to rights, seizure and eventually your own compliance.
The danger we are trying to avert, is the disappearance of the need for those things. Of course the evildoers can always get a death squad or a court order - but they cannot automatically spy on everyone and aggregate the results, nor keep us from doing and saying what we want.
That, not immunity from due process, is what we are looking for.
Insightful? More like troll - but a couple of other people at least seem to feel the need for a serious answer...
Microsoft is a repeat offender of FUD and EEE tactics. Just to mention the tip of the iceberg. Facebook owns the largest sociological database in existence, and they are selling its usage to the highest bidder. Google is trying to take over the web, while have pioneered the FB business model.
So in this case, current PATENT law is not hurting innovation at all. It's doing even less wrt t copyright.
Uhm. So, because Apple and HTC have big enough war-chests of patents, departments of lawyers on call and huge investments and budgets set aside for these situations, we're fine? I agree that Apple and HTC are fine, but I am not sure I am fine with those things being a requisite for being allowed to innovate...
Google just doesn't understand why people want to use social networking sites and what people want.
Google is not out to give you what you want. They are out to change what you want. They might fail with you, but you are not their entire user segment. They are going to make search social. Have people log in, in order to use their hugely popular services (gmail, maps, etc.), then add all our usage data to their search servers, enabling better, and more importantly, new areas of search.
They may be a late comer to the SN business, but they are not out to "compete too late" (that would be Microsoft's business plan). They are out to change, not just social networking, but the web.
I would assume that this excerpt from the Google Terms of Service (Section 2.3):
- You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google Means that you are not even allowed to do a Google search (using their website without accepting their terms)...
I haven't RTFA, but the instant question is: So what?
Censorship. Surveillance. Monopolies.
We are using these devices to think! We should control them, or others will control us.
Home analogy time: Own your home - you decide the furniture, the security, etc. You live in privacy and freedom. You have to find and call a locksmith or other craftsmen you trust if anything goes wrong, or maybe you can fix it yourself or know a friend. You pay a "normal" market price. Rent a flat - most contracts will let you decide furniture, security, etc. You live in as much privacy and freedom as the lease lets you. Your landlord have most responsibilities when something goes wrong. You pay above market price for these services and the home. Rent a flat, in an insane, dystopian world where noone cares about their rights - your landlord decides your furniture (ads everywhere), the security level that fits his business plan. He watches your every move and sells this information, you are not allowed to have conversations that political or monetary power has demanded or paid him to suppress. Your landlord has no responsibilities, and only performs enough work on the flat to make you stay. You pay the absolute maximum price because there are two or three landlords in the world who have no interest in a pricing war.
We have traditional rights in our homes, better legal protection, and the technology behaves differently in this sphere. So the above is ludicrous. Except when it comes to software. Then intelligent, educated people suddenly cannot see what sort of rights they are signing away and just what the control given will mean.
Or the short version:
As long as a device solves a problem to the user, that's what the device should restrain itself to do.
I humbly suggest that a device that also spies on you, censors you and ties you to a monopoly should restrain itself a bit more. And do what the user wants, not what serves its corporate masters.
And _this_ is what happens when overpaid grammar/semantics-distinction-nazis sit around and have nothing to do. They're acting busy by going out and sending fixes to random people.
Keeping the money that you earned and worked for is cheating...
Only true if you did not in any form, directly or indirectly, benefit from society. Say, by ever buying anything that used any sort of public infrastructure (and benefitting from the reduced price).
"Money you earned and worked for" is not as simple a term as you might think - tied in with that work and its value are layers upon layers of additional worth, all stemming from the society you live in. Society is not robbing you - even if you paid 90%, you would still be getting a bargain, compared to how you much you and your time is worth sans society.
Yeah, people are miserable by choice. It has nothing to do with the draw of the genetic lottery, or how wages have no relation to the value you create, or how a banking collapse can throw you into the street, or that prison labour is such a good deal for companies they throw money behind tough-on-crime morons. No sir. They all chose that for themselves, the wretches. Not like you, who was wise and intelligent enough to chose not to do [please insert life crisis brought on by a thousand factors that you chose to fixate on].
A free market gives you some choices. A whole lot of irrelevant ones to both the rich and the poor (MacDonalds or Burger King shitty job, or Apple or Google luxury products with embedded spying). And it allows some people and companies to get a billion fold more influential than any person, and far more important than the wishes of the electorate. Capitalism turns democracy into a sad joke...
Capitalism, on the other hand, has been tried. It is not working, and never have (I know it's great for growth and accumulation of wealth - it just sucks at liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness).
Bogus claim. If you're going to define Communism is purist theoretical terms and claim it's a system that's never been implemented, then you have to acknowledge that that pure capitalism, as in totally free market, has never really been tried, either.
First of all, we have tried capitalist systems that are pretty darn close to the pure theoretical construct. Not so with communism. That said, you are right that the argument is not that straightforward.
Of course we have to correct for a lot of variables, but unfettered capitalism - when we have come close to it - has not been a success. More people live squalid, miserable lives in the US than in Denmark, and the US is a sight more purely capitalistic than Denmark. That's one data point better, and if we start adding up all the old models in the US were train monopolies ran the parts of government they cared for and ran over everyone else, we have two. I am sure you could find a few examples that run the other way, but I do not think you will find a trend.
But the main attack against capitalism is of course just pure sense - money will accumulate, enough money will be able to buy more power than the electorate, capitalism leads to corporatism, etc. etc. Basic stuff...
Have a look at what Marx wanted. He wanted to be able to farm in the morning, go hunting in the afternoon, exchange ideas and write papers in the evening or just do none of it as pleased his fancy with no looking ahead as to what was needful beyond the moment. He wasn't a communist, he was an anarchist.
Actually, he was an anarchist who believed that there should be some ownership - but that the model should be communal, where all workers owned the modes of production. So, yeah, he was a communist, really.
He was not, however, a Stalinist, or a Leninist, or a fascist, and did not believe that the 'power elite controls the modes of production' was the way to go (though he wrote about it as a revolutionary stage towards communism).
People (especially in America, sorry) have this weird assumptions that they know Marx, communism and socialism, from what they saw Lenin, Stalin and their breed of fascism do. You may as well argue that monarchy does not work because the nazis were bad people.
Capitalism, on the other hand, has been tried. It is not working, and never have (I know it's great for growth and accumulation of wealth - it just sucks at liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness).
I do not know for sure if the implementation here is of that nature, but instead of freaking out over the idea of this being done, I'd rather give thought to doing it properly.
You are right to address the knee-jerk reaction of outrage, but personally, I would rather this was not done at all. At all.
Censorship, whether by a government, their easily-bought/persuaded cronies, the copyright lobby or a company with their own reasons, is just a basically bad idea. I oppose any attempt to open the door to it, or create legal or technical infrastructure which supports it on principle (another beast than a knee-jerk, I believe). I am willing to be shown that there are special cases and exceptions, but until someone has shown me a good reason police needs unsupervised power to shut down the no. 1 media of the masses at will, I am sticking to my principle of free speech.
It's snake oil, pure and simple. Snake oil meaning, it HAS been studied in this area, and it doesn't work. Time to move on.
Spoken like a true believer in Science.
Some of us would never go further than saying that so far the claimed benefits of the tea have not been reproducible under laboratory conditions. That is about as far as anyone who uses the scientific method can go. Persons who go beyond that are generally invoking Science as a God Substitute: some kind of Almighty Authority.
No. Persons who do not go from "not reproducible" to "no reason to give this any more credence than tinfoil hats" are failing to use science/common sense as a basis for making rational decisions. This is not about science substituting god - it is about science complementing common sense and helping you make better decisions. If you still believe in X does Y, when X has been shown, using the best scientific methods, not to do Y, then you have the problem. The guy who is ready to move on from X, he has a pretty good crasp of reality and is using science exactly right.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL only exists to fix the insanity that is copyrighted code. Better not code was copyrighted, sure. But since can can be copyrighted, better as much of it as possible is held in common trust, to be shared and used among those who are willing to set their improvements free.
You do not have to be pro-copyright, to be pro-enforcement of the tool that is battling the ills of copyrighted code. When we decide that math was a stupid thing to try to legally magic-wand into products anyway, there will be no GPL to enforce.
Anything that exists as a string og 1 and 0's (or any matrix of formal signs) is information. Not all entertainment is information, but the entertainment which has been codified as information is, unsurprisingly, information.
Don't get me wrong - I am all for improving the justice system, fair laws, etc. etc.
I am just not a fan of trusting either. Especially not the lawmakers - as they are a single point of failure, and easily (and already) bought.
I would rather live in a world where any and all regimes (however legitimate, fair, corrupt or not they may be) will need to secure me, my cooperation and my property before they can listen in on my conversations, check what I do on my computer or strip away my anonymity.
...that is what Moglen et al have been saying all along: don't trust the lawmakers and people in power to make you free. Guarantee your freedoms one by one, by building them - free speech, anonymity, etc. can be engineered!
Nonsense.
"Upon request", as you say. "Courts". Ie. within a legal framework, subject to rights, seizure and eventually your own compliance.
The danger we are trying to avert, is the disappearance of the need for those things. Of course the evildoers can always get a death squad or a court order - but they cannot automatically spy on everyone and aggregate the results, nor keep us from doing and saying what we want.
That, not immunity from due process, is what we are looking for.
http://blog.windfluechter.net/archives/988-Johan-Schlueter-Child-pornography-is-great.html
Insightful? More like troll - but a couple of other people at least seem to feel the need for a serious answer...
Microsoft is a repeat offender of FUD and EEE tactics. Just to mention the tip of the iceberg.
Facebook owns the largest sociological database in existence, and they are selling its usage to the highest bidder.
Google is trying to take over the web, while have pioneered the FB business model.
So in this case, current PATENT law is not hurting innovation at all. It's doing even less wrt t copyright.
Uhm. So, because Apple and HTC have big enough war-chests of patents, departments of lawyers on call and huge investments and budgets set aside for these situations, we're fine? I agree that Apple and HTC are fine, but I am not sure I am fine with those things being a requisite for being allowed to innovate...
Google just doesn't understand why people want to use social networking sites and what people want.
Google is not out to give you what you want. They are out to change what you want. They might fail with you, but you are not their entire user segment. They are going to make search social. Have people log in, in order to use their hugely popular services (gmail, maps, etc.), then add all our usage data to their search servers, enabling better, and more importantly, new areas of search.
They may be a late comer to the SN business, but they are not out to "compete too late" (that would be Microsoft's business plan). They are out to change, not just social networking, but the web.
I would assume that this excerpt from the Google Terms of Service (Section 2.3):
- You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google
Means that you are not even allowed to do a Google search (using their website without accepting their terms)...
Anyone better informed?
I haven't RTFA, but the instant question is: So what?
Censorship. Surveillance. Monopolies.
We are using these devices to think! We should control them, or others will control us.
Home analogy time:
Own your home - you decide the furniture, the security, etc. You live in privacy and freedom. You have to find and call a locksmith or other craftsmen you trust if anything goes wrong, or maybe you can fix it yourself or know a friend. You pay a "normal" market price.
Rent a flat - most contracts will let you decide furniture, security, etc. You live in as much privacy and freedom as the lease lets you. Your landlord have most responsibilities when something goes wrong. You pay above market price for these services and the home.
Rent a flat, in an insane, dystopian world where noone cares about their rights - your landlord decides your furniture (ads everywhere), the security level that fits his business plan. He watches your every move and sells this information, you are not allowed to have conversations that political or monetary power has demanded or paid him to suppress. Your landlord has no responsibilities, and only performs enough work on the flat to make you stay. You pay the absolute maximum price because there are two or three landlords in the world who have no interest in a pricing war.
We have traditional rights in our homes, better legal protection, and the technology behaves differently in this sphere. So the above is ludicrous. Except when it comes to software. Then intelligent, educated people suddenly cannot see what sort of rights they are signing away and just what the control given will mean.
Or the short version:
As long as a device solves a problem to the user, that's what the device should restrain itself to do.
I humbly suggest that a device that also spies on you, censors you and ties you to a monopoly should restrain itself a bit more. And do what the user wants, not what serves its corporate masters.
And _this_ is what happens when overpaid grammar/semantics-distinction-nazis sit around and have nothing to do. They're acting busy by going out and sending fixes to random people.
Keeping the money that you earned and worked for is cheating...
Only true if you did not in any form, directly or indirectly, benefit from society. Say, by ever buying anything that used any sort of public infrastructure (and benefitting from the reduced price).
"Money you earned and worked for" is not as simple a term as you might think - tied in with that work and its value are layers upon layers of additional worth, all stemming from the society you live in. Society is not robbing you - even if you paid 90%, you would still be getting a bargain, compared to how you much you and your time is worth sans society.
...this is what Marx was writing about, really. Apart from more people noticing the trend, this is not news.
And yeah, the basic question then becomes who will be allowed to benefit from the increased production... Sound familiar?
Sound like Erewhon. Purge the machines that think!
You know, this seems like the standard corporate-bashing, 'you're not an IT-guy like me, you'll never 'get it', knee-jerk response...
But seeing how most companies behave, it seem about right (apart from Apple and Google, who do seem to put UI design on the agenda).
Yeah, people are miserable by choice. It has nothing to do with the draw of the genetic lottery, or how wages have no relation to the value you create, or how a banking collapse can throw you into the street, or that prison labour is such a good deal for companies they throw money behind tough-on-crime morons. No sir. They all chose that for themselves, the wretches. Not like you, who was wise and intelligent enough to chose not to do [please insert life crisis brought on by a thousand factors that you chose to fixate on].
A free market gives you some choices. A whole lot of irrelevant ones to both the rich and the poor (MacDonalds or Burger King shitty job, or Apple or Google luxury products with embedded spying). And it allows some people and companies to get a billion fold more influential than any person, and far more important than the wishes of the electorate. Capitalism turns democracy into a sad joke...
Capitalism, on the other hand, has been tried. It is not working, and never have (I know it's great for growth and accumulation of wealth - it just sucks at liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness).
Bogus claim. If you're going to define Communism is purist theoretical terms and claim it's a system that's never been implemented, then you have to acknowledge that that pure capitalism, as in totally free market, has never really been tried, either.
First of all, we have tried capitalist systems that are pretty darn close to the pure theoretical construct. Not so with communism. That said, you are right that the argument is not that straightforward.
Of course we have to correct for a lot of variables, but unfettered capitalism - when we have come close to it - has not been a success. More people live squalid, miserable lives in the US than in Denmark, and the US is a sight more purely capitalistic than Denmark. That's one data point better, and if we start adding up all the old models in the US were train monopolies ran the parts of government they cared for and ran over everyone else, we have two. I am sure you could find a few examples that run the other way, but I do not think you will find a trend.
But the main attack against capitalism is of course just pure sense - money will accumulate, enough money will be able to buy more power than the electorate, capitalism leads to corporatism, etc. etc. Basic stuff...
Have a look at what Marx wanted. He wanted to be able to farm in the morning, go hunting in the afternoon, exchange ideas and write papers in the evening or just do none of it as pleased his fancy with no looking ahead as to what was needful beyond the moment. He wasn't a communist, he was an anarchist.
Actually, he was an anarchist who believed that there should be some ownership - but that the model should be communal, where all workers owned the modes of production. So, yeah, he was a communist, really.
He was not, however, a Stalinist, or a Leninist, or a fascist, and did not believe that the 'power elite controls the modes of production' was the way to go (though he wrote about it as a revolutionary stage towards communism).
Mod up!
People (especially in America, sorry) have this weird assumptions that they know Marx, communism and socialism, from what they saw Lenin, Stalin and their breed of fascism do. You may as well argue that monarchy does not work because the nazis were bad people.
Capitalism, on the other hand, has been tried. It is not working, and never have (I know it's great for growth and accumulation of wealth - it just sucks at liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness).
I do not know for sure if the implementation here is of that nature, but instead of freaking out over the idea of this being done, I'd rather give thought to doing it properly.
You are right to address the knee-jerk reaction of outrage, but personally, I would rather this was not done at all. At all.
Censorship, whether by a government, their easily-bought/persuaded cronies, the copyright lobby or a company with their own reasons, is just a basically bad idea. I oppose any attempt to open the door to it, or create legal or technical infrastructure which supports it on principle (another beast than a knee-jerk, I believe). I am willing to be shown that there are special cases and exceptions, but until someone has shown me a good reason police needs unsupervised power to shut down the no. 1 media of the masses at will, I am sticking to my principle of free speech.
Dirty pic alert!
It's snake oil, pure and simple. Snake oil meaning, it HAS been studied in this area, and it doesn't work. Time to move on.
Spoken like a true believer in Science.
Some of us would never go further than saying that so far the claimed benefits of the tea have not been reproducible under laboratory conditions. That is about as far as anyone who uses the scientific method can go. Persons who go beyond that are generally invoking Science as a God Substitute: some kind of Almighty Authority.
No. Persons who do not go from "not reproducible" to "no reason to give this any more credence than tinfoil hats" are failing to use science/common sense as a basis for making rational decisions. This is not about science substituting god - it is about science complementing common sense and helping you make better decisions.
If you still believe in X does Y, when X has been shown, using the best scientific methods, not to do Y, then you have the problem. The guy who is ready to move on from X, he has a pretty good crasp of reality and is using science exactly right.
If it works for you, even if it's a placebo effect, I guess it worked.
...the placebo effect worked, that is...
It was Gibson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippa_(a_book_of_the_dead)