So complain when the government starts filtering. For crying out loud, a slippery slope normally has to have some justification.
How is, companies cannot perform QoS based on the the two endpoints of what they are serving (unless the provide the last mile to one of two said endpoints) going to lead to filtering?
Despite all the flaws of the US tort system, it does provide a strong financial incentive for things like pacemakers to be designed robustly.
Using the tort system to prevent danger is pretty flawed. We can just take the dangerously unqualified pacemakers and stick them in people without families? And what most families want is the ability to monetize death.
The tort system is good at repairing financial harm, but there are many harms that money cannot remedy. That's why we have government regulations.
And while BSD-style licenses are great for those who want to give away code, I don't think it's worth abandoning the advantages of Copyleft just to avoid the stick issue of what exactly constitutes a derivative work.
I recently fell in love with the MPL license. I work with proprietary software. I don't mind fixing bugs/adding features to a small part of the code I'm working on not core to my value add, but I cannot use GPL code. So, in other words, I'm willing to release my changes to one set of source files/one side of the API, but not both sides. And that's the line where I think it makes the most sense.
The fraudulent story was aired and the reporters sued. The courts said that the FOX affiliate was justified in terminating the reporters, and that refusing to lie in a news report was not a protected activity. That pretty much implies that lying in a news report is a protected activity.
The FOX affiliate may have been justified in firing them, but that hardly means lying in a news report is a protected activity. Absent whistleblower protections (which tend to be pretty specific in scope), I believe that failure to perform your job is a fireable offense.
The fact they have no legal recourse against being fired does not imply that the action the FOX affiliate took was protected. If the lie had been damaging as opposed to exculpatory (that the company polluted when it did not), the company would have had a cause of action against the news station.
How is it not? You can develop and distribute apps without begging for permission,
And you can develop apps for your iPhone for a fairly small cash outlay. And distribute it to 99 people without going through the app store. Or just distribute the source and let them build it themselves. Sheesh, I mean you claim the Android is open, but the iPhone either requires Apple's approval or to make it open source.
Free speech doesn't allow you to make up lies about people... we have slander and libel laws. Saying "Some people say Rupert Murdock has sex with farm animals" and claiming that's news, as opposed to saying "Rupert Murdock has sex with farm animals" and that being libel is ridiculous. Especially since, using the first amendment to protect sources, the "Some people" in the first example are forever anonymous.
Glenn Beck has the right to say whatever he wants. But can we agree that he shouldn't be able to couch what he says in a disclaimer that no one pays attention to to avoid the legal consequences of lying?
And if he wants to avoid those consequences, can we get him to say that those are his opinions, and not news?
The FCC is a member of the executive branch, so will be influenced by whatever president is in office, right?
Somewhat, but not like most federal agencies. It's a quasi-autonomous agency (like the Fed), in that once appointed you cannot be removed for your five-year term (short of impeachment). The Senate has to confirm appointments. Also, no more than 60% can belong to any one political party.
But you are right... how dare we leave regulation up to the internet to simply whoever happens control the presidency and the Senate. I mean, we should let a magic eight ball run it!
Can you give me an example of government regulation that did not end up favoring entrenched incumbents in the industry more than potential competitors or consumers?
The Superfund cleanup projects. Breaking up Standard Oil. The limitations on media homogenization.
Why should any legal process ever cost this much? It's obscene and I doubt the costs actually represent the real value of the process...
Because the upfront costs are too high to bear, so they agree to do it for free if they lose, or a percentage if they win. In essence, we insure very good lawyers can work for poorer people by allowing them to invest (via sweat equity) in the outcome of a case. It's usually capped at 33% to avoid the lawyers taking too much advantage of their clients.
Or, you can just pay a lawyer by the hour. But it's likely to take quite a bit of cash (at $200/hr, fairly cheap for a lawyer, that's still $400,000 per man year).
Even if the guy's chance of prevailing is only 10%, the downside risk is absolutely gigantic for Zuckerberg, AND for the venture capital guys that have put up a lot of money for Facebook.
The VCs should be fine. I mean, they bought X% of Facebook from Facebook. That is, they diluted the previous owners. Now, maybe if this guy wins his case, he can say Zuckerberg couldn't have made that deal with the VCs and try to squirm out of it, but I don't know if that case would go anywhere.
The investment firms who bought Facebook stock from Zuckerberg might be pretty screwed though.
Microsoft before DOS was mostly more IBM contracts. Their first ever product was a BASIC compiler for Big Blue
Their first product was a BASIC compiler that IBM bought, sure. But it was selling to other people before IBM became involved. Besides, selling to IBM is a good business model.
. Gates was bankrolled by his father and so was Microsoft.
Initially, but Microsoft was in the black before DOS.
The companies contracts with IBM kept it afloat before and after DOS and those only happened because of his wealthy father's connections.
I thought his mother's connections. She was the one who served on various boards.
Bill Gates is no rags to riches story.
Not him personally... but intergenerationally, yeah. His father did the rags to riches journey. He did the riches to OMG so much money story. One generation just doesn't go rags to Bill Gates wealth.
He sold IBM a system that didn't exist, that wasn't clever, it was fraud.
After CP/M sent them packing. And it's only fraud if he claimed it existed when he sold it. It's not uncommon to sell a client software, and only make it after they sign a contract.
I'm not saying he lifted him up from his bootstraps. But that shouldn't diminish what he was able to accomplish.
If Bill Gates hadn't gotten lucky working with IBM, he would have started another company and been successful, although maybe not to the same degree.
Microsoft was doing okay without DOS. Not anything like what they became with it, but Microsoft, and MS-Basic would have at least left Gates comfortable.
Gates was able to build a strong enough business to await a good opportunity. And then seize it. As a person, I respect him.
if you are a typical american you are happy living with the weight of contracted financial burdons.
$530 for a no-contract smart phone isn't expensive
But contracts cut both ways. And it is expensive for me, because my 2 year plan is cheaper than anything currently on the market. Because I've been renewing the same plan again and again. Every 2 years I get a new phone.
I don't mind borrowing money to buy something or paying up front, depending on which is a better deal. But the N1 failed people like me in that, since the subsidized phone was free/cheap, the N1 had to be $400 better. And it wasn't.
The browser is responsible for issuing the HTTP requests, rendering what it can, calling plugins for what it can't, and so forth. Why should the browser download the flash blob, load the renderer, and then have the renderer check a blacklist and allow or refuse rendering of the object?
Because that blob calls 800 other flash files from around the web. The biggest problem is one flash file including cross-domain other-flash. And Macromedia used to understand that and forbid it. Then, the content producers got it from Adobe.
In that case good luck. I offered a solution, not every solution will handle every use case.
Leaving aside that you called it "the solution", it doesn't count as a solution if it doesn't work. And your solution simply fails on most use cases. But beyond that, it was pretty arrogant.
It fails when the software doesn't exist, it fails when the user interaction model is too different from the old thing it is replacing. I want F/OSS to succeed - but that really means that someone has to take steps to make it pallitable, not merely insist it would be great.
The sad truth is, except for server applications administered by technical people, most F/OSS is not business ready.
If you have to use a specific application to do some task, you had better hope that company survives forever, cause they have you by the short and curlies.
Or that you have a source escrow account set up. Or that your license says in the event of dissolution of the supplier you gain infinite licenses. Or, well, there are numerous ways of handling this.
When was it served on a story that did well and when was it served on a story that nobody saw? How can we stop putting our ad on your boring stories and only put it on the stories that people like?
I tend to agree with most of your analysis, but this is the heart of the problem. Cable channel umbrella companies fixed this by telling last-mile providers "if you want ESPN, you have to carry these 18 less-popular channels too." Which, for me, means I have to buy ESPN... on the other hand, the channels I want exist.
Does that mean that no one deserves fortune either? Or if people deserve things because of actions they take, if someone deserves fortune because they worked hard, doesn't that suggest that the lazy and ignorant deserve misfortune?
Fortune is due to many things, the actions you take are but one aspect. Therefore, it is a flawed assumption that fortune is something you deserve solely because of the actions you take.
Also, there is a difference between rewarding someone for contributing to society (aka, earning a fortune through cleaning windows and saving money) and punishing them. One is sharing the benefits of their effort with them. The other is going out of your way to hurt them. If people weren't evil bastards, there would be no need for the JS security model. But they are. So, the bastards have to be stopped, because they make life worse for everyone around them. In the physical world we give some people guns and tell them to go stop the bastards. In the electronic world, the technically proficient have to stop them. It's simple specialization of labor.
Why is what you're saying any different from me saying "I can take anyone's stuff I want, and people who are too lazy and weak to protect it deserve the misfortune of me taking it."?
2. 24 years is a little excessive for fraud. Make the guy repay his debts and some. I guess people think that as long as we aren't executing people we are being humane in the care of criminals. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be stuck in jail for that period of time?
Fraud, then he jumped bail and then he insulted the judges intelligence and lied to the court. 24 years for all three.
The only places where I personally have seen open-source be woefully lacking is in the engineering fields
Or software development (developing for Windows/OSX while on Linux?). Or video editing. Or 3D modeling. Or graphic design.
You're right in that I only focused on the client side of things... obviously OSS is great for the server-side. But all the examples you brought up seem to be either server-side or rely on in-house software.
Most general business and IT-oriented tasks have a capable open-source commercially backed component. Managers and others who don't "get" FOSS think "Free? I'm not getting anything, because I'm not blindly throwing money at a vendor!"
Actually, the biggest problem is that people already know how to use the non-F/OSS. Photoshop maintains it's dominance because most of the good graphics designers use it, and so most shops use it, and so most schools teach it, and so most good graphics designers use it...
The cost of training vs. forking over money to Adobe means that Adobe gets paid.
And that's without going into if GIMP really is everything a graphics designer needs. It's everything I need, but I am not a graphics designer.
If it is not free or simply licensed, just do not use it.
If your word processing and checking your e-mail, fine. But some of us have real jobs. Jobs that require using the same tools as your customers, or simply access to specific applications.
Slashdot Mirror
So complain when the government starts filtering. For crying out loud, a slippery slope normally has to have some justification.
How is, companies cannot perform QoS based on the the two endpoints of what they are serving (unless the provide the last mile to one of two said endpoints) going to lead to filtering?
Craps has a non-zero edge, it's just very small. Or did you find a Casino where the "Don't Pass" line pays on a 12?
Using the tort system to prevent danger is pretty flawed. We can just take the dangerously unqualified pacemakers and stick them in people without families? And what most families want is the ability to monetize death.
The tort system is good at repairing financial harm, but there are many harms that money cannot remedy. That's why we have government regulations.
I recently fell in love with the MPL license. I work with proprietary software. I don't mind fixing bugs/adding features to a small part of the code I'm working on not core to my value add, but I cannot use GPL code. So, in other words, I'm willing to release my changes to one set of source files/one side of the API, but not both sides. And that's the line where I think it makes the most sense.
The FOX affiliate may have been justified in firing them, but that hardly means lying in a news report is a protected activity. Absent whistleblower protections (which tend to be pretty specific in scope), I believe that failure to perform your job is a fireable offense.
The fact they have no legal recourse against being fired does not imply that the action the FOX affiliate took was protected. If the lie had been damaging as opposed to exculpatory (that the company polluted when it did not), the company would have had a cause of action against the news station.
And you can develop apps for your iPhone for a fairly small cash outlay. And distribute it to 99 people without going through the app store. Or just distribute the source and let them build it themselves. Sheesh, I mean you claim the Android is open, but the iPhone either requires Apple's approval or to make it open source.
Free speech doesn't allow you to make up lies about people... we have slander and libel laws. Saying "Some people say Rupert Murdock has sex with farm animals" and claiming that's news, as opposed to saying "Rupert Murdock has sex with farm animals" and that being libel is ridiculous. Especially since, using the first amendment to protect sources, the "Some people" in the first example are forever anonymous.
Glenn Beck has the right to say whatever he wants. But can we agree that he shouldn't be able to couch what he says in a disclaimer that no one pays attention to to avoid the legal consequences of lying?
And if he wants to avoid those consequences, can we get him to say that those are his opinions, and not news?
Somewhat, but not like most federal agencies. It's a quasi-autonomous agency (like the Fed), in that once appointed you cannot be removed for your five-year term (short of impeachment). The Senate has to confirm appointments. Also, no more than 60% can belong to any one political party.
But you are right... how dare we leave regulation up to the internet to simply whoever happens control the presidency and the Senate. I mean, we should let a magic eight ball run it!
The Superfund cleanup projects. Breaking up Standard Oil. The limitations on media homogenization.
Because the upfront costs are too high to bear, so they agree to do it for free if they lose, or a percentage if they win. In essence, we insure very good lawyers can work for poorer people by allowing them to invest (via sweat equity) in the outcome of a case. It's usually capped at 33% to avoid the lawyers taking too much advantage of their clients.
Or, you can just pay a lawyer by the hour. But it's likely to take quite a bit of cash (at $200/hr, fairly cheap for a lawyer, that's still $400,000 per man year).
The VCs should be fine. I mean, they bought X% of Facebook from Facebook. That is, they diluted the previous owners. Now, maybe if this guy wins his case, he can say Zuckerberg couldn't have made that deal with the VCs and try to squirm out of it, but I don't know if that case would go anywhere.
The investment firms who bought Facebook stock from Zuckerberg might be pretty screwed though.
Their first product was a BASIC compiler that IBM bought, sure. But it was selling to other people before IBM became involved. Besides, selling to IBM is a good business model.
Initially, but Microsoft was in the black before DOS.
I thought his mother's connections. She was the one who served on various boards.
Not him personally... but intergenerationally, yeah. His father did the rags to riches journey. He did the riches to OMG so much money story. One generation just doesn't go rags to Bill Gates wealth.
After CP/M sent them packing. And it's only fraud if he claimed it existed when he sold it. It's not uncommon to sell a client software, and only make it after they sign a contract.
I'm not saying he lifted him up from his bootstraps. But that shouldn't diminish what he was able to accomplish.
Microsoft was doing okay without DOS. Not anything like what they became with it, but Microsoft, and MS-Basic would have at least left Gates comfortable.
Gates was able to build a strong enough business to await a good opportunity. And then seize it. As a person, I respect him.
In Adobe's defense, I want to embed fucking videos in everything.
But contracts cut both ways. And it is expensive for me, because my 2 year plan is cheaper than anything currently on the market. Because I've been renewing the same plan again and again. Every 2 years I get a new phone.
I don't mind borrowing money to buy something or paying up front, depending on which is a better deal. But the N1 failed people like me in that, since the subsidized phone was free/cheap, the N1 had to be $400 better. And it wasn't.
Because that blob calls 800 other flash files from around the web. The biggest problem is one flash file including cross-domain other-flash. And Macromedia used to understand that and forbid it. Then, the content producers got it from Adobe.
Why not? I can get a cheaper contract and get them to subsidize my phone! Yay, contracts that allow for infinite renewal!
Leaving aside that you called it "the solution", it doesn't count as a solution if it doesn't work. And your solution simply fails on most use cases. But beyond that, it was pretty arrogant.
It fails when the software doesn't exist, it fails when the user interaction model is too different from the old thing it is replacing. I want F/OSS to succeed - but that really means that someone has to take steps to make it pallitable, not merely insist it would be great.
The sad truth is, except for server applications administered by technical people, most F/OSS is not business ready.
Or that you have a source escrow account set up. Or that your license says in the event of dissolution of the supplier you gain infinite licenses. Or, well, there are numerous ways of handling this.
I tend to agree with most of your analysis, but this is the heart of the problem. Cable channel umbrella companies fixed this by telling last-mile providers "if you want ESPN, you have to carry these 18 less-popular channels too." Which, for me, means I have to buy ESPN... on the other hand, the channels I want exist.
Fortune is due to many things, the actions you take are but one aspect. Therefore, it is a flawed assumption that fortune is something you deserve solely because of the actions you take.
Also, there is a difference between rewarding someone for contributing to society (aka, earning a fortune through cleaning windows and saving money) and punishing them. One is sharing the benefits of their effort with them. The other is going out of your way to hurt them. If people weren't evil bastards, there would be no need for the JS security model. But they are. So, the bastards have to be stopped, because they make life worse for everyone around them. In the physical world we give some people guns and tell them to go stop the bastards. In the electronic world, the technically proficient have to stop them. It's simple specialization of labor.
Why is what you're saying any different from me saying "I can take anyone's stuff I want, and people who are too lazy and weak to protect it deserve the misfortune of me taking it."?
Fraud, then he jumped bail and then he insulted the judges intelligence and lied to the court. 24 years for all three.
Or software development (developing for Windows/OSX while on Linux?). Or video editing. Or 3D modeling. Or graphic design.
You're right in that I only focused on the client side of things... obviously OSS is great for the server-side. But all the examples you brought up seem to be either server-side or rely on in-house software.
Actually, the biggest problem is that people already know how to use the non-F/OSS. Photoshop maintains it's dominance because most of the good graphics designers use it, and so most shops use it, and so most schools teach it, and so most good graphics designers use it...
The cost of training vs. forking over money to Adobe means that Adobe gets paid.
And that's without going into if GIMP really is everything a graphics designer needs. It's everything I need, but I am not a graphics designer.
If your word processing and checking your e-mail, fine. But some of us have real jobs. Jobs that require using the same tools as your customers, or simply access to specific applications.
To be fair...
Most malware is WINE compatible.