I had the same problem with an ODBC error for my post. I finally tracked it down to the script not accepting certain types of characters (after trying to submit my post about ten times with slightly different variants). I had written my post in OpenOffice, which has inserted things like a dash which was ascii 150 in addition to dashs of ascii 45. I don't think it likes smart quotes either. I had to write a little Python script to diagnose this.
The first time I tried to submit my comments and got the error message I had this horribly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized under current newly passed laws (patriot act?), the Justice department might try to prosecute me as a terrorist for generating an error message on their computers. But I decided to proceed with my post of a recently written "MicroSlaw Satire" anyway, thinking they would probably come out the worse on the publicity side for such a prosecution, and probably any such overly broad law should be overturned anyway. It was a perfect example of how a proprietary set of software was preventing me from making my opinion heard, because if I could have looked at the script I could have fixed it, or at least more easily been able to determine what it considered acceptable input. And obviously, in general, a CGI script should not generate such a cryptic error message for information typed in a text input box, even if it wants to otherwise reject the input.
"When we stop believing in Democracy is when it stops working." -- Star Wars, Episode II
Here is the script, in case it is useful:
# license GPL
text = open("MicroSlaw.txt").read()
chars = {} last1 = 0 last2 = 0 last3 = 0 last4 = 0 last5 = 0 for c in text:
if ord(c) in chars.keys():
chars [ord(c)] = chars [ord(c)] + 1
else:
chars [ord(c)] = 1
if ord(c) == 150 or ord(c) == 45:
print ord(c), last1 + last2 + last3 + last4 + last5
last1 = last2; last2 = last3; last3 = last4
last4 = last5; last5 = c
for c in range(0, 256):
if c in chars.keys():
print c, chr(c), chars[c]
Just posted this to: http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_for m.cfm
My comments are in the form of this satire I just wrote:
Transcript of April 1, 2016 MicroSlaw Presidential Speech (Before final editing prior to release under standard U.S. Government for-fee licensing under 2011 Fee Requirements Law)
My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary. The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software and media content has long been privatized to great economic success. Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster, that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates, music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a similar approach to law.
There are many reasons for the value of proprietary law. You all know them since you have been taught them in school since kindergarten as part of your standardized education. They are reflected in our most fundamental beliefs, such as sharing denies the delight of payment and cookies can only be brought into the classroom if you bring enough to sell to everyone. But you are always free to eat them all yourself of course! [audience chuckles knowingly]. But I think it important to repeat such fundamental truths now as they form the core of all we hold dear in this great land.
First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.
MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in cost, not free as in freedom.
In any case, why would you want to pay public servants like those old time -- what were they called? -- Senators? Representatives? -- around $145K a year out of public funds just to make free laws? Laws are made far more efficiently, inexpensively and, I assure you, justly, by large corporations like MicroSlaw. Such organizations need the motivation of micropayments for application, discussion or reference of their laws to stay competitive. MicroSlaw needs to know who discusses what law and when they do so, each and every time, so they can charge fairly for their services and thus retain their financial freedom to innovate. And America is all about financial freedom, right! [Audience applause].
And why should your hard earned tax dollars go to pay public citizens to sit on juries and render open justice when things could be done so much more quickly and cheaply by commercial organizations working behind closed doors? Why, with free law each and every one of you might have to take time out of your busy schedules to sit in a court room and decide the guilt or innocence of a peer!
And why pay a judge's salary out of taxes, such has been proposed? Judges clearly should be compensated on a royalty basis by anyone referencing decisions a judge produces. This encourages judges to swiftly produce more decisions as well as decisions that big legal corporations like MicroSlaw want to cite more often, which is good for the economy.
Top law schools would have to shut their doors if most law was not proprietary, as who would pay $100,000 up front to join a profession where initiates release their work mainly into the public domain? Obviously there would no longer be any legal innovation without private laws requiring royalties when discussed, since who would spend their time writing new laws when there is no direct financial return on their investment?
And of course, lawyers will not be paid well without earning royalties on private laws, since if they can't sell all royalty rights to their legal work directly to large corporations, how will they make a decent living? Why, even if public money is spent on developing laws, say, at universities, it is clear such laws will not be respected, further developed, or widely distributed unless somebody owns those laws too and so can make money from selling access to them. It's beyond me why people sometimes act like there could be a spirit of volunteerism in this great land of ours after all the effort we have put into stamping that out, such as by making it illegal to help someone for free. Also, since the Internet had to be shut down early in this administration to prevent children from viewing pornography without paying, distribution of new information will always be expensive.
Each lawyer out there should remember to uphold the current proprietary legal system, because you too may win the law lottery and become as rich and famous as the founder of MicroSlaw -- but only if you start with a trust fund! [Indulgent audience laughter]
I know some lawyers out there are concerned about being replaced by the lawyers most major law corporations are now importing from India and China. Let me assure you, this does not threaten your livelihood, because there is currently a lawyer shortage restricting our economic growth, and those Indian and Chinese lawyers have extensive resumes indicating years of experience developing U.S. laws. For you business people out there, it is also my understanding those imported lawyers make model workers because they can't easily change jobs. Thus I have supported removing all restrictions on bringing over such imported lawyers, in an effort to stimulate economic growth in this fair land of ours.
[Inaudible shouted question] Citizenship? Naturally we would not want to offer such imported lawyers any form of citizenship when they come over because they are not Americans -- that should be obvious enough. We're hoping they go back to where they came from after we are done with them, since there are always eager workers in another country we can later exploit at lower wages, I mean provide economic enhancement opportunities for. Besides, dammit, have you seen the color of their skin?
[Inaudible shouted question] Ageism? I remind everyone here that, obviously, as has been conclusively shown by studies MicroSlaw itself has so charitably funded, older American lawyers can not be retrained to know about new laws, so I implore all lawyers as patriots to plan to learn a new profession after age thirty-five so you do not become a burden on your beloved country.
[Inaudible shouted question] Prisons? There are only a million Americans behind bars for copyright infringement so far. No one complained about the million plus non-violent drug offenders we've had there for years. No one complained about the million plus terrorists we've got there now, thanks in no small part to a patriotic Supreme Court which after being privatized upheld that anyone who criticizes government policy in public or private is a criminal terrorist. Oops, I shouldn't have said that, as those terrorists aren't technically criminals or subject to the due process of law are they? Well it's true these days you go to prison if you complain about the drug war, or the war on terrorism, or the war on infringers of copyrights and software patents -- so don't complain! [nervous audience laughter] After all, without security, what is the good of American Freedoms? Benjamin Franklin himself said it best, those who don't have security will trade in their freedoms.
I'm proud to say that the U.S. is now the undisputed world leader in per capita imprisonment, another example of how my administration is keeping us on top. Why just the other day I had the U.N. building in New York City locked down when delegates there started talking about prisoner civil rights. Such trash talk should not be permitted on our soil. It should be obvious that anyone found smoking marijuana, copying CDs, or talking about the law without paying should face a death penalty from AIDS contracted through prison rapes -- that extra deterrent make the system function more smoothly and helps keep honest people honest. That's also why I support the initiative to triple the standard law author's royalty which criminals pay for each law they violate, because the longer we keep such criminals behind bars, especially now that bankruptcy is also a crime, the better for all of us. That's also why I support the new initiative to make all crimes related to discussing laws in private have a mandatory life sentence without parole. Mandatory lifetime imprisonment is good for the economy as it will help keep AIDS for spreading out of the prison system and will keep felons like those so called fair users from competing with honest royalty paying Americans for an inexplicably ever shrinking number of jobs.
Building more prisons... [Aside to aid who just walked up and whispered in the president's ear: What's that? She's been arrested for what again? Well get her off again, dammit. I don't care how it looks; MicroSlaw owes me big time.]
Sorry about that distraction, ladies and gentlemen. Now, as I was saying, building more prisons is good for the economy. It's good for the GNP. It's good for rural areas. Everyone who matters wins when we increase the prison population. People who share are thieves plain and simple, just like people who take a bathroom break without pausing their television feed and thus miss some commercials are thieves. Such people break the fundamental social compact between advertisers and consumers which all young children are made to sign. And let me take this opportunity to underscore my administration's strong record on being tough on crime. MicroSlaw's system for efficient production of digitized legal evidence on demand is a key part of that success. So is the recent initiative of having a camera in every living room to catch and imprison those not paying attention when advertising is on television, say by making love or even talking. Why without such initiatives, economic analysts at MicroSlaw assure me that the GNP would have decreased much more than it has already. Always remember that ditty you learned in kindergarten, Only criminals want privacy, because a need for privacy means you have something evil to hide.
[Inaudible shouted question] Monopolies? Look, nothing is wrong with being a monopoly. It's our favorite game, isn't it? Sure, we might slap somebody on the wrist now and then [winks] but everyone in America aspires to be a monopolist, so why not just have more of them? Why not let every creative lawyer be their own little monopolist permanently on some small piece of the law. It's the American way; it's the will of the people.
Look, these questions are getting annoying. The next person who asks a question will have their universal digital passport suspended immediately via video face recognition! [Hush from crowd.] Or at least, someone who looks like you will! [General relieved laughter.]
Here is the bottom line. If all law was not proprietary, lawmaking corporations like MicroSlaw wouldn't be able to make as much money as they do the way they are currently doing it. So the economy would further collapse, plunging the U.S. into an even worse recession than the one we are in now, which, as experts have shown, is the legacy of all the illegal software and media copying in the late 1990s. Look, we've already cut all nonessential government programs like Head Start, monitoring water quality, researching alternate energy, and improving public health. Free law would mean a further reduction of tax revenues and we would have to make tough choices about reducing spending on essential things like developing better weapons of mass destruction, imprisoning marijuana users, propping up oppressive regimes, and promoting unfunded mandates like higher school testing standards. I assure you, these priorities will never change as long as I am president, and I will always make sure we have money for such essential government functions, whatever that takes. So I urge you to never support the creation of free law, which might undermine such basic government operations ensuring your security, and further, to turn in anyone found advocating such.
By the way, I am proud to announce government homeland security troops are successfully retaking Vermont even as we speak. Troops will soon be enforcing federal school standards there with all necessary force. Their number one priority will be improving the curriculum to help kids understand why sharing is morally wrong. Too bad we had to nuke Burlington before they would see the light, har, har, [weak audience laughter] but you can see how messed up their education system must have been to force us to have to do that. And have no fear, any state that threatens the American way of life in a similar fashion will be dealt with in a similar way. I give you my word as an American and as your president sworn to uphold your freedom to live the American lifestyle we have all grown accustomed to recently, and MicroSlaw's freedom to define what that lifestyle is to their own profit.
So, in conclusion, a body of legal knowledge free for all to review and discuss would be the death of the American dream. Remember, people who discuss law in private without paying royalties are pirates, not friends. Thus I encourage you all to report to MicroSlaw or your nearest homeland security office anyone talking about laws or sharing legal knowledge in other than an approved fashion and for a fee. Always remember that nursery school rhyme, there is money for you in turning in your friends too.
God Bless! This is a great country! [Wild audience applause.]
Addendum -- March 4, 2132 -- Freeweb article 2239091390298329372384 Archivists have just now recovered the above historic document from an antique hard disk platter (only 10 TB capacity!) recently discovered in the undersea exploration of a coastal city that before global warming had been called Washingtoon, D.C.. It is hard for a modern sentient to imagine what life must have been like in those dark times of the early 21st Century before the transition from a scarcity worldview to a universal material abundance worldview. It is unclear if that document was an actual presidential speech or was intended as satire, since most digital records from that time were lost, and the Burlington crater has historically been attributed to a Cold Fusion experiment gone wrong. In any case, this document gives an idea of what humans of that age had to endure until liberty prevailed.
Copyright 2002 Paul D. Fernhout Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
I think a key point of the "Free as in Freedom" book was the description
of the concept of the GPL as codifying a hacker culture of sharing.
Certainly the GPL has been an effective and appropriate response to what Richard Stallman apparently saw as essentially the
destruction of the MIT AI Lab (and elsewhere) as an academic home for
cooperative sharing and collaborative construction. However, it is
unfortunate Sam Williams in the book does not touch on the significance
of the Bayh-Dole act of 1980 which perhaps unintentionally helped
destroy the university culture of sharing in many other places than the
MIT AI lab at about the same time.
See an article called 'The Kept University' from the Atlantic Monthly:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.ht m
Perhaps it was not entirely coincidental the AI lab exodus happened
shortly after this law was passed (prior to the act there was not as
much incentive for universities to withhold information or make special
deals with companies directly). In a future edition, relating Richard Stallman's
efforts to that larger legal context of the 1980 Bayh-Dole might be
interesting (I didn't remember it mentioned and the Bayh-Dole act isn't
in the index).
Of course, since the book is under the Gnu Free Documentation License, I guess anyone could make that change -- but then there would need to be somewhere to post updates -- like Savannah?
Wish I had known about this myself sooner as I just spent many hours the last few days dealing with USB ports on an abit motherboard with an onboard VIA chipset which I couldn't get to talk properly to USB peripherals (Scanner, Modem). It was a strange problem as everything would seem to be OK yet the computer couldn't communicate reliably for any length of time with the USB peripherals. I had returned one scanner thinking it was the problem with that scanner's drivers (sorry, Staples). After an hour of phone tech support trying to get a USB scanner working with the usual reinstalls and registry munging (again, sorry to waste your time, Epson!), the tech suggested getting an USB card to replace the onboard VIA ones as nothing else seemed to work. Taking that advice (after finding out similar advice here http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/16674.html and from related links there and trying other simple workarounds), I just bought a PCI USB card with an alternate chip set (NEC) to replace the onboard ones on the abit motherboard (KT7A-RAID). New card (SSIG USB 2.0 Adapter) works great and gives me USB 2.0 as well.
Simulation of Chaordic Processes project
on
Simulating Societies
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I started a project on Savannah a couple of weeks ago to create simulations of chaordic organizations and processes under the GPL License.
The word "chaordic" is used
as
defined by Dee Hock (the person behind VISA) at http://www.chaordic.org and in his book "Birth of
the Chaordic Age", which is essentially processes at the boundary between CHAos and ORDer and the social implications for how to design effective and responsive organizations for a dynamic society. The focus will be specially on computer simulations
to
support part of the goal defined here
http://www.chaordic.org/who_hist.html#FourCond
of: "Development of visual and physical models of chaordic organizations
so
that people have something to examine, experiment with, and compare to
existing organizations. The models must contain the ethical and
spiritual
dimensions generally lacking in current models. In addition, computer
simulations will need to be created to allow people to quickly see how
clarity of purpose and principles allow institutions to self-organize,
evolve over decades, and link in new patterns for an enduring
constructive
society."
People are invited to join the mailing list if they want at this page http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/ simulchaord-discuss
if you want to contribute to project related discussions or submit
snippets of code (with the understanding contributions will be archived
and can be incorporated into the project under the GPL license). I have been posting some artificial life links there related to modelling social systems to get things started -- one of the first was a link to the Atlantic Monthly article discussed in this Slashdot thread. For now, I am using
use the list to record my own musings on related simulation issues
including design, architecture, and use cases. I will also be posting my experiences as I try to create such simulations. Feel free to lurk for a while or chime in.
The main project page is here:
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/simulchaord/
Cooperative development of releases of code is hosted on Savannah using
CVS although I haven't yet put up any content (files or homepage) besides what's archived in the mailing list.
At the moment I am looking at using Swarm http://www.swarm.org as the base -- although I may just use Python instead -- or even use both for different aspects.
The problem with current talk about License Management originating from old style industry is it focuses on denying rights -- "you can't copy this". What we need is a License Management system that upholds rights -- saying "you can copy this, and you can make derived works". That entails essentially building a license into each creative work, and making that license be machine readable so that tools can be used to exclude proprietary works. It is a big problem with creating new digital works when you don't easily know which of the various digital items you may have collected over time (like sound files or pieces of text) can be used in a derived work. To the extent Lessig's "Creative Commons" helps with this, I support it.
BTW, there was a brief experiment done by a shareware author (Colin Messitt)... A copy of the article is here (google version)
I read Colin Messitt's experiment results years back when we were deciding on whether or how to release two of our projects under the shareware marketing method. Here are two problems I have with his analysis:
1. At the time of his experiment, receiving printed documentation for registering a shareware application was a big incentive to register. His program lets you easily print out a windows help file. So, to an extent, his target audience would include people who might not otherwise register shareware. So his registration ration (crippled vs. uncrippled) results may be distorted by that.
2. He writes that he made around 34K for a few days programming work. Taking that claim at face value, we are talking about registration of a fairly simple application. So, it is not clear that given human psychology, one can apply his logic to registration rates of more sophisticated applications.
Based on those two issues, it is not clear to me how strong a case one can make for crippling of sophisticated applications marketed to a general audience.
In our case, we released two products marketed as shareware which were essentially fully functional with minor nags or inconveniences. One has received close to five hundred registrations; the other has received closer to only five registrations. What is the 100X difference? The one being registered simply meets an unfilled niche that is used sometimes in business (3D plant models). The other meets a niche which was already filled and is mainly personal entertainment (interactive fiction).
The successes people point to like WinZip or PaintShop Pro I think also reflect this -- they are applications that are heavily used in potentially money making type settings (even if they are also used in other ones). Also, they are of very high quality for what they do, and were early in their categories (windows based zipping and windows sophisticated painting).
I would agree with your other point that a nag, like a lock, helps keep honest people honest. Also, I'd say that making registration as easy as possible is also a big issue.
The thing about shareware marketing is that it is a business. And like any business it comes with its share of headaches. For example, one major competitor tried to usurp our trademark and also take our good will and registered the name of our product as a dot.com domain and pointed it at their website -- costing us thousands in legal fees to deal with this, and is still not completely resolved. So, from painful experience, I'd worry a little more about dishonest competition and little less about dishonest customers.
Still, we may move to a different approach. We find the current one very demanding in terms of having to always check email each day to handle registrations relative to the return (making vacations difficult), and also we don't like the notion of making people feel bad about themselves if they use the product and don't register, so we may move more to a more voluntary registration system if we continue to charge at all. However, there is no question that bringing in some money via registrations is a good thing, allowing us to spend more time improving the product. If we could increase our registration revenue by a factor of ten through whatever methods, we could devote a full time person to the product.
By the way, on pricing, at $20 and then $40, users still continue to tell us we are priced too cheaply. So the registration price that can be charged does depend a lot on the value perceived.
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the world's first electronic digital computer. It was built by John Vincent Atanasoff
and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937-42. It incorporated several major innovations in computing
including the use of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, parallel processing, and separation of memory and
computing functions.
On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared
the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer --
the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC.
Building on your calculations, assuming it takes 39 days now to do the simulation, and assuming (big if) the simulation was of one second of real-time, 39days * 24hrs/day * 60min/hr * 60sec/min = 3369600 seconds to run now. So when according to Moore's law will computers be about three million times faster than in 2020?
That is approximately: 2^x = 3369600 x ~= 22 22 doublings * 18 months / doubling = 33 years. So, building on your analysis that following Moore's law we can do this in 20 years taking 39 days on a home computer, in another 30 years we can do this in real time. So by about 2050, video games can have very realistic nuclear explosions (at the quantum level).
If anyone can do such simulations in realtime at home in 2050, then one possible outcome has to be that any government or large organization or wealthy individual can fairly easily design (and then make) such devices -- or ones even more advanced (smaller, easier to assemble, etc.). Einstein warned, "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." My feeling is one way to transcend the threat of everyone being able to quickly destroy using nuclear or other weapons is to create the means where everyone can create even faster than, just like duckweed in a pond keeps growing even as fast as ducks eat it. That means true defense requires a sustained investment in advanced manufacturing technology and organizing manufacturing knowledge(including self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore.) We must accept that such things aren't pipe dreams -- they are absolute necessities (as is a simultaneous focus on reducing the causes of war such as injustice, want, and ignorance).
I don't mind spending money on defense -- I just want to see the money spent well on defending against true threats to human survival -- want, ignorance, injustice, corruption, "love of money", and weapons of mass destruction (whoever controls them at the moment -- like the Russian Mafia?). We are over 50 years beyond the creation of nuclear weapons; the defense department should be willing to think at least another 50 years ahead. The defense department is instructed by Congress to win wars and in the long term this strategy will fail because of technological amplification swamping the biosphere's capacity to support humans (such as through Moore's law leading to every home computer being a nuclear weapons design station in 2050 or sooner). I want to see a defense department that learns how to transcend wars and thus be able to truly defend all of humanity.
Would not it take at least as much courage to transcend wars as to win them? Our armed forces have no short supply of courage, and so perhaps there is hope.
One of the problems with this sort of weapons design work is it is too exciting for technically minded people to easily resist doing it. See for example:
Ted Taylor: Confessions of a nuclear weapons design addict. We need alternative technical projects that are even more exciting and cost even more (shameless plug for OSCOMAK!)
Of course, according to Moravec and Kurzweil and Vinge, AI will be rampant before then and we will be passing through the AI singularity -- another cause for hope or despair about transcending nuclear war depending on your perspective.
My wife and I have tried to have a company to make educational simulations http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com such as our free (GPL) garden simulator http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/.
After close to ten years of trying, we have found it so far to be unprofitable, for many reasons. Some are personal issues like we're both designers and coders more than marketers and networkers, and we don't have PhDs (in part from wanting to do more simulations vs. doing math proofs or experiments). In general, the educational software market collapsed around 1996, which also included a big consolidation of major players.
The general issues applicable to any such effort to make educational simulations include:
* money spent on education is mainly spent on teachers and buildings,
* successful companies in education spend over 90% of funds on advertising, packaging and sales, not content development,
* parents spending money on software tend to buy that which immediately promises increased test scores not increased insight,
* a lot of flashy science suddenly appears very incomplete and sketchy when you try to actually build a simulation based on it (one of the big values of simulation IMHO),
* the real world is very complex, and simple simulations may teach the wrong things,
* the public code available to use in simulations (from government labs) is often poorly written and takes a major investment to make useable even when the science may be good,
* it is difficult to meet a good educational design goal of having open ended models a community can comment on and improve without essentially becoming open source or free software, and yet funding agencies generally expect any grant proposal to include a plan to produce a revenue stream and so to be completely proprietary and thus a grant proposal that says code will be written and given away doesn't do as well as one that says code will be written and kept proprietary (silly, but mainly true, got the letter from NSF to prove it),
* historically, people who did computer simulation work couldn't get PhDs (since most PhD programs seek to produce experimentalists or mathematicians, again we both have the scars to prove it) and it is difficult to get educational support or appear credible without one, and
* all the standard issues of innovative education being to an extent subversive (like getting people to think for themselves and ask questions) and that colliding with a funding system with mainly other priorities.
There are some obvious exceptions like Maxis (which got in at the right time and focuses on games and consulting), however when you consider the potential for computers and the billions spent on education, the number of comprehensive educational simulations which are used in practice is small. There are a lot of labors of love out there, but whether most people can support themselves on such is a different question. (We get by on mostly unrelated consulting.) These sorts of simulations can take a lot of time to do well (our free garden simulator took six person-years and is only a shadow of what we wanted to do). To do it right, you have to make something that is both a robust program (on a variety of platforms) and is also good educational science. There are few people who can do both, and so in general it takes a large team and much expense. The dollars just aren't there so far for lots of really good simulations, in large part reflecting an entrenched world view in academia (which staffs government funding agencies) that prizes experiment and mathematical proofs over simulation. (The military has historically been an exception to this.) All are needed and useful when done well, and they can all work together in synergistic ways. Maybe this report will help change things for the better. In general, things are improving in terms of academia accepting simulations (driven for cost reasons more than anything) and people who are in academia right now have less trouble doing simulation focused research.
As a caveat, one thing we have discovered is that generally the people who write a comprehensive educational simulation learn more about a subject then those who use the simulation. So having students construct a simulation may be a more useful educational experience than just using one.
The OSCOMAK concept (Open Source Community on Manufacturing Knowledge) is intended to be useful in that direction. Essentially, the idea is to create a shared database of manufacturing recipes (which include wear and failure probabilities) and use those to make manufacturing webs. I have an example of using such recipes in a simple simulation on the web site. The project really hasn't gotten off the ground though (mostly for not having the time to pursue it much).
Here is another way to think of things: your "payment" for running vegan.com is all the other free content you have access to (like slashdot, personal web pages, etc.).
While it takes a while to get directly into this theme (building up essential background), the last two thirds of the book deals with the conflict between a post-scarcity culture and a relic population from a scarcity culture who lay claim to the post-scarcity culture and its land and infrastructure. The elite of the scarcity culture uses all sorts of rhetoric (reminds one of the MPAA or RIAA) to justify an attempt to take over the post-scarcity culture (including rationalizing the use of weapons of mass destruction to enforce scarcity). Very prescient for a novel written around 1982.
As a historical parallel, the outcome in the book makes me wonder what the outcome of the European invasion of the Americas would have been like if the Europeans hadn't had a chance to use biological weapons of mass destruction (such as blankets laced with smallpox) against the more sharing oriented Native Americans.
http://thewinds.arcsnet.net/arc_features/newworld/ weapons_of_destruction1.html
Beyond respect, my "payment" for putting free content on the web is in a way all the other free content people put up. When you look at it that way, any "investment" in free content is returned a million times.
From a letter I sent the Soros Institute about a year ago (probably lost in the deluge of email they must get):
I don't know if you have such a position (or if one would call it
exactly a "Fellow"), but I'd like to be a sort-of Soros Fellow based
around New York City who is also an Information Technology staff member.
Essentially, I'd like to wander around the Open Society Institute (as
well as the larger Soros Foundations Network) and create and deploy
"open source" technology for knowledge management and digital libraries
(including open content) to help other Soros Foundations Network staff
do their jobs better, while at the same time make available that
technology outside the Soros Foundations Network under open source
licenses (and integrate back in community generated improvements as
well). I'd naturally be happy to instead be a more conventional Soros
Fellow who just works on some Digital Library projects of my own design
(I have a couple in mind) but I think helping with Soros Foundations
Network's immediate knowledge management needs (or at least the subset
shared by others) would serve as inspiration to create all sorts of
wonderful things over the long term, which other foundations and other
individuals might find of great usefulness -- and the hope is perhaps
they might even improve on them a little in the process and share those
improvements back to us.
While I know any foundation would not match private sector pay, what
would interest me most in working with the Soros Foundations Network and
get my full-time (plus some) devotion to it is if my employment
agreement ensured all software I developed for the foundation could be
released under an open source license of my choice or into the public
domain. Also, I'd want to talk about open content licensing issues in
regards to any large work undertaken in the digital library space. That
would help me weave together various threads of my life into a whole
cloth. Currently I work for six to eighteen months at a time doing
proprietary work for clients, and then take some time to work on my own
projects. In both cases I end up a little too isolated for being the
most productive I could be.
Here is my perspective on the issues of our day and what I think I can
help with at the foundation. You may find this of interest even if we do
not work together in the future.
Due to continuing exponential growth of computer chip manufacturing
capability (predicted by Moore's law), computers are predicted to be a
million times bigger in capacity, faster in speed, or smaller in size
(pick one at a time for a constant price) within the next couple of
decades. However, exponential growth in technological capacity is also
occurring in a variety of fields besides computing. Technologies for
power generation, CAD/CAM, materials, nanotechnology, communications,
positioning, robotics, artificial intelligence, transportation,
biotechnology, and collaboration are all increasing on their own
exponential curves. That growth is also interacting with the exponential
changes in computing and the other fields in a synergetic way. Cars that
drive themselves are just one example of a technology around the corner
that will change the face of society -- something only made possible by
several of these trends coming together. We are heading for an age of
abundance (although the future is still far from assured given
continuing risks from arms races in part driven also by technological
imperatives). Raymond Kurzweil's latest web site makes the issues clear:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/
And it also makes clear how there are both opportunities and dangers:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=2
When I audited a course in Soviet Politics [snipped] around 1984, one idea bounced around was that because the
Soviet Union was highly centralized, if they did decide to switch to a
democratic capitalist model, they could do it overnight. Yet, nothing
was further from the truth when Gorbachev actually started Perestroika a
few years later -- because old ways of doing things, old habits, old
customs, old relationships, and old world views were slow to change.
Now, fifteen years after the initiation of Perestroika, that area and
its economy is still in disarray, and the people living there as well as
their environment have suffered greatly as a result.
The same may well be true of Western society as we transition into this
age of abundance made possible by all this technological advancement.
In the age of the internet, many of the old competitive ways of doing
things such as obtaining local benefits while passing on external costs
no longer make much sense (if they ever did), yet the new ways are still
forming, like the chaordic vision of organization advocated by Dee Hock.
http://www.chaordic.org/
As we move into this age, "gift" economies may take center stage, such
as the gift economy behind Linux and much of the interesting content on
the internet.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbroo k/
The realization is still slow to dawn that we as a society now know
enough and have enough potential wealth to have plenty of each of
nature, technology and society for everyone. Perhaps that was always
true and we had just forgotten it.
Buckminster Fuller
http://www.bfi.org/
brought this issue up decades ago as "Design Science", but such ideas
are at odds with a lifetime of conditioning to believe in an economy of
scarcity, and so they move very slowly. People are still caught in
thinking we must choose between countryside, gadgetry, or humanity. We
can have all of these things -- if we use the knowledge we already
possess in a collaborative way to reconcile issues of self interest with
the greater good through innovative practices. Perhaps not all conflicts
can be resolved, but many of the basic life-support ones about adequate
water, minimal food, clean air, decent shelter, livable communities,
conserved biodiversity, and innovative education can. To do so requires
that we include this upcoming transition to an age of abundance in our
thinking about economic policy, foreign affairs, and domestic political
issues. It also requires preserving the digital commons in terms of free
access to basic information about the essentials of life (and how to
make them). The OSCOMAK project
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak
was a step in that direction, but I have not had enough time to develop
it. I would hope I could continue to pursue it in some way in
conjunction with the Soros Foundations Network, since for example such
information might help developing nations bootstrap their economies.
What excites me about working with the Soros Foundations Network is that
I would be involved with people who care about such things, and we could
all be working to make similar things happen together, all made possible
by far-sighted gifts from George Soros.
As the Soros Foundations Network moves forward, I would like to play a
role helping articulate a vision and strategy that balances these three
aspects (nature, technology, society) amidst the upcoming potential of
prosperity made possible by advanced information systems and other
products of the exponential growth of technology. I would also like to
help create the information systems that the foundations network itself
uses for internal communications, internal education, and external
communications. These systems could be built using an open source
collaborative model allowing the Soros Foundations Network's own needs
for knowledge management to create another gift for humanity in terms of
freely available tools for collaboration and knowledge management,
leveraging the work of existing collaborative communities where
possible, and adding to them where there are special needs.
For example, why shouldn't each on-the-go Soros Foundations Network
staffer have (if they desire) a belt-worn wearable computer and tri-band
cell phone to keep them in touch with the network's digital library from
anywhere in the world? The hardware exists pretty much off-the-shelf for
this
http://www.xybernaut.com/
and will only continue to get better. The software is still something to
be wrestled with though, and that is a challenge I would relish.
Similarly, why shouldn't the Soros Foundations Network have a situation
room with hundreds of display screens monitoring world issues, the
progress of grants, and the initiatives of other foundations? Again, the
relatively affordable hardware for such a room exists now off-the-shelf
-- the software is the main issue.
http://www.unigraf.fi/PAGES/multiscr/videowall.htm
These are the sorts of things I would like to create for the Soros
Foundations Network and, if done primarily as open source, for the
world.
The internet also makes possible a fine grained sort of collaboration
which was never practical before (such as through using threaded email
lists or discussion sites like http://www.slashdot.org/ ). Such
collaborations might help in advancing the Open Society Institute's
mission. Yet such collaborations produce new legal issues (or, more
correctly, put new twists on old ones). There is a related paper my wife
and I wrote that talks about clear licensing as a way to promote
collaboration which I will be presenting for the SSI Conference on Space
Manufacturing in Princeton the beginning of next week. I'd be happy to
send a copy after the conference is over if it is of any interest. It
touches on some of the broader non-technical issues that directly effect
how IT can be used for the common good.
Unfortunately, it seems many non-profits (including schools) see the
internet as a potential profit center for selling information (whether
that is realistic is a different issue). To that end they prevent others
from making derived works from their materials (as a byproduct of
restricting copying to create artificial scarcity), which in turn limits
fine-grained collaboration to improve technical artifacts. So, there is
much to be worked through here in terms of the bigger picture.
While large corporations can play a role in developing such technology
(just wave money in front of them), they aren't exactly going to be out
front cheer leading and inventing the open source information tools an
open society needs (since there are many other short-term profitable
things they can focus on, typically involving financing by people with
proprietary interests in information management). Yet, as individuals,
many of the people in such organizations would love to work on such
projects and could make convincing pitches to management if given half a
chance and a shred of economic justification. And many other individuals
outside such organizations will give freely of their spare time to help
make such efforts happen.
Leading by example is almost always a good idea. As Alan Kay said, "the
best way to predict the future is to invent it". If we are to have an
open society, we need to invent open technology to go with it. Somebody
has to make that technology. This is an area the Soros Foundations
Network can play a leadership role while at the same time helping
achieve its other goals through open source efforts.
As I tried to bring up in this gnu.misc.discuss thread from May:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=bc4138180 3b7e0c0&rnum=1
in order for free software or open source content to be developed easily and with fewer legal issues, given the laws as they are now, we need good audit trails regarding free licenses tracking the source of contributions to a package. A DRM used to preserve freedom by tracking the free licenses downloaded or newly created content was under could help us all to create more free content, because it would make licensing (and attribution) easier to deal with. In short, a system where the free license automatically followed around the media or code would make free content easier to handle and redistribute (as opposed to keeping free licenses in seperate files not directly associated with the content which require extra handling steps and which are not easily machine readable). (Note: this is not to be in favor of restrictive DRM's as usually designed by media companies because those make much "fair use" of media impossible).
Given the choice of having the NSA/FBI read my e-mail, and having more terrorist attacks
like those on 9/11, I would gladly concede a bit of my privacy.
You imply that having the government reading your and everyone else's email will greatly reduce these attacks. That is an unsupported assertion and likely false (especially if terrorists know email is heavily monitored). So you would likely give up your privacy for nothing. Worse, by supporting extensive government monitoring of your actions you risk creating an even stronger police state (with selective enforcement of laws at the whim of those in power) and you risk corrupt government officials or employees using knowledge about you gained through such extensive one-way surveillance for private criminal gain or to satisfy a perverse need to interfere in other people's lives. Note that other laws are simultaneously being proposed to increase government secrecy -- so the monitoring is all one way, thus increasing government power while decreasing government accountability.
The best way to reduce terrorism is to reduce poverty, ignorance, and injustice worldwide that provides support for extremists in movements which leads to the creation of terrorists through cycles of violence (most would-be-terrorists otherwise might just be isolated sociopathic individuals in a society wealth enough to humanely deal with them). For more background: http://www.zmag.org/reactionscalam.htm
[The airline pilot said over the PA:] "Sometimes a potential
hijacker will announce
that he has a bomb. There
are no bombs on this
aircraft and if someone
were to get up and make
that claim, don't believe
him. If someone were to
stand up, brandish
something such as a
plastic knife and say, 'This
is a hijacking' or words to
that effect, here is what
you should do:
"Every one of you
should stand up and immediately throw things
at that person -- pillows, books, magazines,
eyeglasses, shoes -- anything that will throw
him off balance and distract his attention. If he
has a confederate or two, do the same with
them. Most important: get a blanket over him,
then wrestle him to the floor and keep him
there. We'll land the plane at the nearest
airport and the authorities will take it from
there."
"Remember, there will be one of him and
maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of
you. Now, since we're a family for the next
few hours, I'll ask you to turn to the person
next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a
little about yourself and ask them to do the
same."
As you point out, none of the proposed laws seem likely to stop this specific type of attack and all edge us further towards a police state. I'm not saying I advocate this, but I wanted to present for discussion an idea with historical American roots that might stop that specific attack (despite knowing some people will severly flame it). Perhaps less security is the answer instead of more? Of the four planes hijacked, the only one that didn't hit a target was the one where the citizens were informed, able to communicate privately, and able to mount an effective counterattack with weapons training (one passenger had Judo training). Not to argue for vigilanty justice here, but what if we eliminated almost all airport security (allowing all concealed hand weapons onboard aircraft, although still sniffing for common explosives) and made sure all Americans could communicate securely (a right to an encrypted cell phone)? This particular terrorist attack would never happen again since it would be quite likely American passengers might be carrying concealed weapons and could communicate and coordinate their resistance, and given what happened, no hijacker could have any expectation of being believed if they said no one would get hurt if people cooperated. Perhaps it might even be a requirement a certain percentage of passengers take weapons and encrypted phones on board planes (with such handed out by flight attendants if the ratio is too low?). That may sound farcical, but we need to think more deeply about these issues before going with a knee jerk "more security" solution.
Would we rather give up civil liberties in hopes moving further towards a police state might prevent a recurrence of hijackings or would we rather rely on citizen initiative in crisis and accept that occasionally weapons accidents or crimes will happen (and individuals will pay for them)? Which would one rather trust in the long term -- a police state or armed and communciating citizens? Remember, ultimately a policeperson is just a trained and armed and communciating citizen (although part of a hierarchy instead of a network). [Again -- I'm not pushing this proposal -- I just offer it for discussion of pros and cons since no one else seems to be proposing less "security" as the answer. Personally I'd rather see more high speed rail, more sensible US foreign policy, and more aid for impoverished nations.]
It is quite possible the foreign policy being mapped out right now by
Bush administration officials as a response to the WTC attack will
effect the course of world peace and civil liberties (including those
related to privacy and communications) for decades to come. For those slashdotters wanting more background, Z Magazine has many interesting
articles on the reasons why so many around the world hate the United
States and what the US could do about that. In order to have a real
solution to the problem of terrorism we must address the real causes --
and the causes include poverty, child abuse, warfare, intolerance,
racism, injustice, and hypocrisy. This article written by Doug
Morris posted there is particularly interesting -- a speech President
Bush could give if he has the wisdom and courage to stand up for
peace instead of simply continuing the cycle of bloodshed. Morris's
article begins:
St. Augustine said that "hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and
courage. Anger at the way things are, and
courage to struggle to create things as they should be." These acts
perpetrated against humanity today were acts
of anger at the way things are. They were not courageous acts, but
horrendous atrocities, acts of anger laced
with hate. Our first response must be support and compassion for the
victims, and families and friends of the
victims. But, in addition, we should ask ourselves "what conditions
led these fellow humans to develop such
anger and hatred, led them to commit such abominably inhumane acts,
and why was it directed at these
particular targets in the United States?"
Morris goes on to list his estimates of the non-American bodycount of various US military interventions and proposes
essentially Bucky Fuller's world game
proposal of spending a fraction of the US military budget to make
the world a happy and healthier place less likely to spawn terrorists.
Thanks for the great letter template. Here is how I modified it based on my concerns, before sending it off just now to my two sentators, congressperson, and the president. By the way here is two links one can use to find elected officials from a zip code: http://congress.nw.dc.us/c-span/elecmail.html http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Dear XYZ,
Like you, I am aggrieved at the tragic loss of life resulting from the
horrendous events of September 11, 2001. Every American has been touched
by this trauma which will linger forever in the memory of our nation.
Though I want to see the perpetrators of these acts brought to justice,
I must beg you not to compromise American civil liberties in your
pursuit of justice. The loss of American citizens' ability to move and
communicate freely and their right to privacy would be a greater
casualty than the thousands killed Tuesday morning, considering how many
millions of Americans have already died defending those freedoms
throughout our country's history. In the end, reduction of civil liberty
will not prevent a repetition of such disasters -- only a worldwide
attention to the root causes of terrorism (like poverty, warfare,
injustice, child abuse, intolerance, and racism) can do that.
Benjamin Franklin said that those who give up necessary liberties for
security deserve neither security nor freedom. I must echo his
sentiment. Do not allow our sacred rights of freedom of speech, privacy,
association or movement to be abridged in the coming days of difficult
choices. America's enemies hate us in part because we are a free and
open society, and they fear the potential that that represents. Do not
give them the victory they cannot themselves win by destroying the core
of our society, our beloved liberties.
Much research and development work in the US is subsidized directly or indirectly with public money from federal, state, or charitable sources. For example, in a June 19th, 2001 article "Corporate cash in university labs" in the Christian Science Monitor, according to the National Science Foundation, $27.5 billion was spent on US university research in 1998, broken down as:
58.2% Federal,
7.3% state and local,
7.6% Industry,
19.6% Universities, and
7.3% other (including non-profits or foundations).
So, over 65% of the money is clearly from public sources (perhaps as must as 92% might be public and charitable funds), and less than 10% is clearly from private industry sources. If all that money was spent directly on open source or free results we would have an enormous amount of freely useable software and content.
However, the thinking in Washington and likely among foundations seems to be that research and development results without owners are useless, won't be enhanced without someone having a monopoly, and the researchers won't be motivated to do a good job without proprietary ownership of the end product -- and thus it is better to have twice as much proprietary stuff than ten or a hundred times as much free content. Thus most of the results are allowed to be made proprietary and are allowed to be owned by the partner institution or company. Clearly, the success of GNU/Linux disproves the notion that software and content needs to be proprietary to be useful or to attract motivated developers. And clearly if only proprietary products were made, generic drugs out of patent (even aspirin) would not be made or sold -- yet they are.
"Cost sharing" is the smart sounding phrase in Washington. As I see it, the proprietary money introduced by "cost sharing" doesn't double the useful results; instead the proprietary money contaminates all the results. And it means that a software developer interested in working in the public interest on free software can't go to work at a university or non-profit without extreme caution, because chances are that organization will seek to control their work so it can be sold. This is leading to major conflicts of interest at public universities as research results produced using public funds are withheld to create an artificial scarcity in hopes of making more money for the university or the sponsors. Most non-profits have also jumped on this idea of raising money by selling licenses for copyrights or patents produced using tax-exempt charitable donations.
How can this situation and the accompanying mindset be changed? Essentially, how can the situation be changed so that all copyrights or patents produced by research and development funded in whole or in part by government or charitable funds are put into the public domain or under an open source or free software license allowing free use and the creation and distribution of derived works?
Forth code is interpreted when a program is loaded and that process typically defines more static code that can then be run. However, this can makes Forth code harder to tokenize and handle in a development environment -- since you can't know the meaning of a later chunk of Forth code without evaluating the earlier part -- since the earlier part may have redefined how parsing of the later part is done. Essentially, any chunk of text in a program can be arbitrarily parsed by earlier defined words. Other languages with macro preprocessors (like C) have some of the same issues, however Forth does this spectacularly, essentially allowing a Forth program to totally redefine how subsequent parts of the program are interpreted (such as for parsing custom little languages defining data structures). Do you consider this a major strength or weakness of the Forth language, compared to languages that have a less extensible syntax (like Smalltalk). How did you think of it? Can you tell us of any especially novel or surprising ways this capability has been used?
Slashdot Mirror
I liked your essay.
I had the same problem with an ODBC error for my post. I finally tracked it down to the script not accepting certain types of characters (after trying to submit my post about ten times with slightly different variants). I had written my post in OpenOffice, which has inserted things like a dash which was ascii 150 in addition to dashs of ascii 45. I don't think it likes smart quotes either. I had to write a little Python script to diagnose this.
The first time I tried to submit my comments and got the error message I had this horribly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized under current newly passed laws (patriot act?), the Justice department might try to prosecute me as a terrorist for generating an error message on their computers. But I decided to proceed with my post of a recently written "MicroSlaw Satire" anyway, thinking they would probably come out the worse on the publicity side for such a prosecution, and probably any such overly broad law should be overturned anyway. It was a perfect example of how a proprietary set of software was preventing me from making my opinion heard, because if I could have looked at the script I could have fixed it, or at least more easily been able to determine what it considered acceptable input. And obviously, in general, a CGI script should not generate such a cryptic error message for information typed in a text input box, even if it wants to otherwise reject the input.
"When we stop believing in Democracy is when it stops working." -- Star Wars, Episode II
Here is the script, in case it is useful:
# license GPL
text = open("MicroSlaw.txt").read()
chars = {}
last1 = 0
last2 = 0
last3 = 0
last4 = 0
last5 = 0
for c in text:
if ord(c) in chars.keys():
chars [ord(c)] = chars [ord(c)] + 1
else:
chars [ord(c)] = 1
if ord(c) == 150 or ord(c) == 45:
print ord(c), last1 + last2 + last3 + last4 + last5
last1 = last2; last2 = last3; last3 = last4
last4 = last5; last5 = c
for c in range(0, 256):
if c in chars.keys():
print c, chr(c), chars[c]
Just posted this to:r m.cfm
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_fo
My comments are in the form of this satire I just wrote:
Transcript of April 1, 2016 MicroSlaw Presidential Speech
(Before final editing prior to release under standard U.S. Government
for-fee licensing under 2011 Fee Requirements Law)
My fellow Americans. There has been some recent talk of free law by
the General Public Lawyers (the GPL) who we all know hold un-American
views. I speak to you today from the Oval Office in the White House to
assure you how much better off you are now that all law is proprietary.
The value of proprietary law should be obvious. Software is essentially
just a form of law governing how computers operate, and all software
and media content has long been privatized to great economic success.
Economic analysts have proven conclusively that if we hadn't passed laws
banning all free software like GNU/Linux and OpenOffice after our
economy began its current recession, which started, how many times must
I remind everyone, only coincidentally with the shutdown of Napster,
that we would be in far worse shape then we are today. RIAA has
confidently assured me that if independent artists were allowed to
release works without using their compensation system and royalty rates,
music CD sales would be even lower than their recent inexplicably low
levels. The MPAA has also detailed how historically the movie industry
was nearly destroyed in the 1980s by the VCR until that too was banned
and all so called fair use exemptions eliminated. So clearly, these
successes with software, content, and hardware indicate the value of a
similar approach to law.
There are many reasons for the value of proprietary law. You all know
them since you have been taught them in school since kindergarten as
part of your standardized education. They are reflected in our most
fundamental beliefs, such as sharing denies the delight of payment and
cookies can only be brought into the classroom if you bring enough to
sell to everyone. But you are always free to eat them all yourself of
course! [audience chuckles knowingly]. But I think it important to
repeat such fundamental truths now as they form the core of all we hold
dear in this great land.
First off, we all know our current set of laws requires a micropayment
each time a U.S. law is discussed, referenced, or applied by any person
anywhere in the world. This financial incentive has produced a large
amount of new law over the last decade. This body of law is all based on
a core legal code owned by that fine example of American corporate
capitalism at its best, the MicroSlaw Corporation.
MicroSlaw's core code defines a legal operating standard or OS we
can all rely on. While I know some GPL supporters may be painting a rosy
view of free law to the general public, it is obvious that any so
called free alternative to MicroSlaw's legal code fails at the start
because it would require great costs for learning about new so-called
free laws, plus additional costs to switch all legal forms and court
procedures to the new so called free standard. So free laws are really
more expensive, especially as we are talking here about free as in
cost, not free as in freedom.
In any case, why would you want to pay public servants like those old
time -- what were they called? -- Senators? Representatives? --
around $145K a year out of public funds just to make free laws? Laws are
made far more efficiently, inexpensively and, I assure you, justly, by
large corporations like MicroSlaw. Such organizations need the
motivation of micropayments for application, discussion or reference of
their laws to stay competitive. MicroSlaw needs to know who discusses
what law and when they do so, each and every time, so they can charge
fairly for their services and thus retain their financial freedom to
innovate. And America is all about financial freedom, right! [Audience
applause].
And why should your hard earned tax dollars go to pay public citizens to
sit on juries and render open justice when things could be done so much
more quickly and cheaply by commercial organizations working behind
closed doors? Why, with free law each and every one of you might have
to take time out of your busy schedules to sit in a court room and
decide the guilt or innocence of a peer!
And why pay a judge's salary out of taxes, such has been proposed?
Judges clearly should be compensated on a royalty basis by anyone
referencing decisions a judge produces. This encourages judges to
swiftly produce more decisions as well as decisions that big legal
corporations like MicroSlaw want to cite more often, which is good for
the economy.
Top law schools would have to shut their doors if most law was not
proprietary, as who would pay $100,000 up front to join a profession
where initiates release their work mainly into the public domain?
Obviously there would no longer be any legal innovation without private
laws requiring royalties when discussed, since who would spend their
time writing new laws when there is no direct financial return on their
investment?
And of course, lawyers will not be paid well without earning royalties
on private laws, since if they can't sell all royalty rights to their
legal work directly to large corporations, how will they make a decent
living? Why, even if public money is spent on developing laws, say, at
universities, it is clear such laws will not be respected, further
developed, or widely distributed unless somebody owns those laws too and
so can make money from selling access to them. It's beyond me why people
sometimes act like there could be a spirit of volunteerism in this great
land of ours after all the effort we have put into stamping that out,
such as by making it illegal to help someone for free. Also, since the
Internet had to be shut down early in this administration to prevent
children from viewing pornography without paying, distribution of new
information will always be expensive.
Each lawyer out there should remember to uphold the current proprietary
legal system, because you too may win the law lottery and become as rich
and famous as the founder of MicroSlaw -- but only if you start with a
trust fund! [Indulgent audience laughter]
I know some lawyers out there are concerned about being replaced by the
lawyers most major law corporations are now importing from India and
China. Let me assure you, this does not threaten your livelihood,
because there is currently a lawyer shortage restricting our economic
growth, and those Indian and Chinese lawyers have extensive resumes
indicating years of experience developing U.S. laws. For you business
people out there, it is also my understanding those imported lawyers
make model workers because they can't easily change jobs. Thus I have
supported removing all restrictions on bringing over such imported
lawyers, in an effort to stimulate economic growth in this fair land of
ours.
[Inaudible shouted question] Citizenship? Naturally we would not want to
offer such imported lawyers any form of citizenship when they come over
because they are not Americans -- that should be obvious enough. We're
hoping they go back to where they came from after we are done with them,
since there are always eager workers in another country we can later
exploit at lower wages, I mean provide economic enhancement
opportunities for. Besides, dammit, have you seen the color of their
skin?
[Inaudible shouted question] Ageism? I remind everyone here that,
obviously, as has been conclusively shown by studies MicroSlaw itself
has so charitably funded, older American lawyers can not be retrained to
know about new laws, so I implore all lawyers as patriots to plan to
learn a new profession after age thirty-five so you do not become a
burden on your beloved country.
[Inaudible shouted question] Prisons? There are only a million Americans
behind bars for copyright infringement so far. No one complained about
the million plus non-violent drug offenders we've had there for years.
No one complained about the million plus terrorists we've got there now,
thanks in no small part to a patriotic Supreme Court which after being
privatized upheld that anyone who criticizes government policy in public
or private is a criminal terrorist. Oops, I shouldn't have said that, as
those terrorists aren't technically criminals or subject to the due
process of law are they? Well it's true these days you go to prison if
you complain about the drug war, or the war on terrorism, or the war on
infringers of copyrights and software patents -- so don't complain!
[nervous audience laughter] After all, without security, what is the
good of American Freedoms? Benjamin Franklin himself said it best,
those who don't have security will trade in their freedoms.
I'm proud to say that the U.S. is now the undisputed world leader in per
capita imprisonment, another example of how my administration is keeping
us on top. Why just the other day I had the U.N. building in New York
City locked down when delegates there started talking about prisoner
civil rights. Such trash talk should not be permitted on our soil. It
should be obvious that anyone found smoking marijuana, copying CDs, or
talking about the law without paying should face a death penalty from
AIDS contracted through prison rapes -- that extra deterrent make the
system function more smoothly and helps keep honest people honest.
That's also why I support the initiative to triple the standard law
author's royalty which criminals pay for each law they violate, because
the longer we keep such criminals behind bars, especially now that
bankruptcy is also a crime, the better for all of us. That's also why I
support the new initiative to make all crimes related to discussing laws
in private have a mandatory life sentence without parole. Mandatory
lifetime imprisonment is good for the economy as it will help keep AIDS
for spreading out of the prison system and will keep felons like those
so called fair users from competing with honest royalty paying
Americans for an inexplicably ever shrinking number of jobs.
Building more prisons... [Aside to aid who just walked up and whispered
in the president's ear: What's that? She's been arrested for what
again? Well get her off again, dammit. I don't care how it looks;
MicroSlaw owes me big time.]
Sorry about that distraction, ladies and gentlemen. Now, as I was
saying, building more prisons is good for the economy. It's good for the
GNP. It's good for rural areas. Everyone who matters wins when we
increase the prison population. People who share are thieves plain and
simple, just like people who take a bathroom break without pausing their
television feed and thus miss some commercials are thieves. Such people
break the fundamental social compact between advertisers and consumers
which all young children are made to sign. And let me take this
opportunity to underscore my administration's strong record on being
tough on crime. MicroSlaw's system for efficient production of digitized
legal evidence on demand is a key part of that success. So is the recent
initiative of having a camera in every living room to catch and imprison
those not paying attention when advertising is on television, say by
making love or even talking. Why without such initiatives, economic
analysts at MicroSlaw assure me that the GNP would have decreased much
more than it has already. Always remember that ditty you learned in
kindergarten, Only criminals want privacy, because a need for privacy
means you have something evil to hide.
[Inaudible shouted question] Monopolies? Look, nothing is wrong with
being a monopoly. It's our favorite game, isn't it? Sure, we might slap
somebody on the wrist now and then [winks] but everyone in America
aspires to be a monopolist, so why not just have more of them? Why not
let every creative lawyer be their own little monopolist permanently on
some small piece of the law. It's the American way; it's the will of the
people.
Look, these questions are getting annoying. The next person who asks a
question will have their universal digital passport suspended
immediately via video face recognition!
[Hush from crowd.] Or at least, someone who looks like you will!
[General relieved laughter.]
Here is the bottom line. If all law was not proprietary, lawmaking
corporations like MicroSlaw wouldn't be able to make as much money as
they do the way they are currently doing it. So the economy would
further collapse, plunging the U.S. into an even worse recession than
the one we are in now, which, as experts have shown, is the legacy of
all the illegal software and media copying in the late 1990s. Look,
we've already cut all nonessential government programs like Head
Start, monitoring water quality, researching alternate energy, and
improving public health. Free law would mean a further reduction of
tax revenues and we would have to make tough choices about reducing
spending on essential things like developing better weapons of mass
destruction, imprisoning marijuana users, propping up oppressive
regimes, and promoting unfunded mandates like higher school testing
standards. I assure you, these priorities will never change as long as I
am president, and I will always make sure we have money for such
essential government functions, whatever that takes. So I urge you to
never support the creation of free law, which might undermine such
basic government operations ensuring your security, and further, to turn
in anyone found advocating such.
By the way, I am proud to announce government homeland security troops
are successfully retaking Vermont even as we speak. Troops will soon be
enforcing federal school standards there with all necessary force. Their
number one priority will be improving the curriculum to help kids
understand why sharing is morally wrong. Too bad we had to nuke
Burlington before they would see the light, har, har, [weak audience
laughter] but you can see how messed up their education system must have
been to force us to have to do that. And have no fear, any state that
threatens the American way of life in a similar fashion will be dealt
with in a similar way. I give you my word as an American and as your
president sworn to uphold your freedom to live the American lifestyle we
have all grown accustomed to recently, and MicroSlaw's freedom to define
what that lifestyle is to their own profit.
So, in conclusion, a body of legal knowledge free for all to review and
discuss would be the death of the American dream. Remember, people who
discuss law in private without paying royalties are pirates, not
friends. Thus I encourage you all to report to MicroSlaw or your
nearest homeland security office anyone talking about laws or sharing
legal knowledge in other than an approved fashion and for a fee. Always
remember that nursery school rhyme, there is money for you in turning
in your friends too.
God Bless! This is a great country! [Wild audience applause.]
Addendum -- March 4, 2132 -- Freeweb article 2239091390298329372384
Archivists have just now recovered the above historic document from an
antique hard disk platter (only 10 TB capacity!) recently discovered in
the undersea exploration of a coastal city that before global warming
had been called Washingtoon, D.C.. It is hard for a modern sentient to
imagine what life must have been like in those dark times of the early
21st Century before the transition from a scarcity worldview to a
universal material abundance worldview. It is unclear if that document
was an actual presidential speech or was intended as satire, since most
digital records from that time were lost, and the Burlington crater has
historically been attributed to a Cold Fusion experiment gone wrong. In
any case, this document gives an idea of what humans of that age had to
endure until liberty prevailed.
Copyright 2002 Paul D. Fernhout
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in
any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
This is a really good idea.
I think a key point of the "Free as in Freedom" book was the description of the concept of the GPL as codifying a hacker culture of sharing. Certainly the GPL has been an effective and appropriate response to what Richard Stallman apparently saw as essentially the destruction of the MIT AI Lab (and elsewhere) as an academic home for cooperative sharing and collaborative construction. However, it is unfortunate Sam Williams in the book does not touch on the significance of the Bayh-Dole act of 1980 which perhaps unintentionally helped destroy the university culture of sharing in many other places than the MIT AI lab at about the same time. See an article called 'The Kept University' from the Atlantic Monthly: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.ht m
Perhaps it was not entirely coincidental the AI lab exodus happened
shortly after this law was passed (prior to the act there was not as
much incentive for universities to withhold information or make special
deals with companies directly). In a future edition, relating Richard Stallman's
efforts to that larger legal context of the 1980 Bayh-Dole might be
interesting (I didn't remember it mentioned and the Bayh-Dole act isn't
in the index).
Of course, since the book is under the Gnu Free Documentation License, I guess anyone could make that change -- but then there would need to be somewhere to post updates -- like Savannah?
Wish I had known about this myself sooner as I just spent many hours the last few days dealing with USB ports on an abit motherboard with an onboard VIA chipset which I couldn't get to talk properly to USB peripherals (Scanner, Modem). It was a strange problem as everything would seem to be OK yet the computer couldn't communicate reliably for any length of time with the USB peripherals. I had returned one scanner thinking it was the problem with that scanner's drivers (sorry, Staples). After an hour of phone tech support trying to get a USB scanner working with the usual reinstalls and registry munging (again, sorry to waste your time, Epson!), the tech suggested getting an USB card to replace the onboard VIA ones as nothing else seemed to work. Taking that advice (after finding out similar advice here http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/16674.html and from related links there and trying other simple workarounds), I just bought a PCI USB card with an alternate chip set (NEC) to replace the onboard ones on the abit motherboard (KT7A-RAID). New card (SSIG USB 2.0 Adapter) works great and gives me USB 2.0 as well.
The word "chaordic" is used as defined by Dee Hock (the person behind VISA) at http://www.chaordic.org and in his book "Birth of the Chaordic Age", which is essentially processes at the boundary between CHAos and ORDer and the social implications for how to design effective and responsive organizations for a dynamic society. The focus will be specially on computer simulations to support part of the goal defined here http://www.chaordic.org/who_hist.html#FourCond of: "Development of visual and physical models of chaordic organizations so that people have something to examine, experiment with, and compare to existing organizations. The models must contain the ethical and spiritual dimensions generally lacking in current models. In addition, computer simulations will need to be created to allow people to quickly see how clarity of purpose and principles allow institutions to self-organize, evolve over decades, and link in new patterns for an enduring constructive society."
People are invited to join the mailing list if they want at this page http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/ simulchaord-discuss
if you want to contribute to project related discussions or submit
snippets of code (with the understanding contributions will be archived
and can be incorporated into the project under the GPL license). I have been posting some artificial life links there related to modelling social systems to get things started -- one of the first was a link to the Atlantic Monthly article discussed in this Slashdot thread. For now, I am using
use the list to record my own musings on related simulation issues
including design, architecture, and use cases. I will also be posting my experiences as I try to create such simulations. Feel free to lurk for a while or chime in.
Here is a page leading to the entire mailing list archives (aroudn twenty messages so far): http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/pipermail/simulch aord-discuss/
The main project page is here: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/simulchaord/ Cooperative development of releases of code is hosted on Savannah using CVS although I haven't yet put up any content (files or homepage) besides what's archived in the mailing list.
At the moment I am looking at using Swarm http://www.swarm.org as the base -- although I may just use Python instead -- or even use both for different aspects.
I started a thread on this issues about a year ago on gnu.misc.dicsuss. http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=bc4138180 3b7e0c0&rnum=1
I read Colin Messitt's experiment results years back when we were deciding on whether or how to release two of our projects under the shareware marketing method. Here are two problems I have with his analysis:
1. At the time of his experiment, receiving printed documentation for registering a shareware application was a big incentive to register. His program lets you easily print out a windows help file. So, to an extent, his target audience would include people who might not otherwise register shareware. So his registration ration (crippled vs. uncrippled) results may be distorted by that.
2. He writes that he made around 34K for a few days programming work. Taking that claim at face value, we are talking about registration of a fairly simple application. So, it is not clear that given human psychology, one can apply his logic to registration rates of more sophisticated applications.
Based on those two issues, it is not clear to me how strong a case one can make for crippling of sophisticated applications marketed to a general audience.
In our case, we released two products marketed as shareware which were essentially fully functional with minor nags or inconveniences. One has received close to five hundred registrations; the other has received closer to only five registrations. What is the 100X difference? The one being registered simply meets an unfilled niche that is used sometimes in business (3D plant models). The other meets a niche which was already filled and is mainly personal entertainment (interactive fiction).
The successes people point to like WinZip or PaintShop Pro I think also reflect this -- they are applications that are heavily used in potentially money making type settings (even if they are also used in other ones). Also, they are of very high quality for what they do, and were early in their categories (windows based zipping and windows sophisticated painting).
I would agree with your other point that a nag, like a lock, helps keep honest people honest. Also, I'd say that making registration as easy as possible is also a big issue.
The thing about shareware marketing is that it is a business. And like any business it comes with its share of headaches. For example, one major competitor tried to usurp our trademark and also take our good will and registered the name of our product as a dot.com domain and pointed it at their website -- costing us thousands in legal fees to deal with this, and is still not completely resolved. So, from painful experience, I'd worry a little more about dishonest competition and little less about dishonest customers.
Still, we may move to a different approach. We find the current one very demanding in terms of having to always check email each day to handle registrations relative to the return (making vacations difficult), and also we don't like the notion of making people feel bad about themselves if they use the product and don't register, so we may move more to a more voluntary registration system if we continue to charge at all. However, there is no question that bringing in some money via registrations is a good thing, allowing us to spend more time improving the product. If we could increase our registration revenue by a factor of ten through whatever methods, we could devote a full time person to the product.
By the way, on pricing, at $20 and then $40, users still continue to tell us we are priced too cheaply. So the registration price that can be charged does depend a lot on the value perceived.
http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml
From that page:
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the world's first electronic digital computer. It was built by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937-42. It incorporated several major innovations in computing including the use of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, parallel processing, and separation of memory and computing functions.
On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer -- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC.
39days * 24hrs/day * 60min/hr * 60sec/min = 3369600 seconds to run now.
So when according to Moore's law will computers be about three million times faster than in 2020? That is approximately:
2^x = 3369600
x ~= 22
22 doublings * 18 months / doubling = 33 years.
So, building on your analysis that following Moore's law we can do this in 20 years taking 39 days on a home computer, in another 30 years we can do this in real time. So by about 2050, video games can have very realistic nuclear explosions (at the quantum level).
If anyone can do such simulations in realtime at home in 2050, then one possible outcome has to be that any government or large organization or wealthy individual can fairly easily design (and then make) such devices -- or ones even more advanced (smaller, easier to assemble, etc.). Einstein warned, "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." My feeling is one way to transcend the threat of everyone being able to quickly destroy using nuclear or other weapons is to create the means where everyone can create even faster than, just like duckweed in a pond keeps growing even as fast as ducks eat it. That means true defense requires a sustained investment in advanced manufacturing technology and organizing manufacturing knowledge(including self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore.) We must accept that such things aren't pipe dreams -- they are absolute necessities (as is a simultaneous focus on reducing the causes of war such as injustice, want, and ignorance).
I don't mind spending money on defense -- I just want to see the money spent well on defending against true threats to human survival -- want, ignorance, injustice, corruption, "love of money", and weapons of mass destruction (whoever controls them at the moment -- like the Russian Mafia?). We are over 50 years beyond the creation of nuclear weapons; the defense department should be willing to think at least another 50 years ahead. The defense department is instructed by Congress to win wars and in the long term this strategy will fail because of technological amplification swamping the biosphere's capacity to support humans (such as through Moore's law leading to every home computer being a nuclear weapons design station in 2050 or sooner). I want to see a defense department that learns how to transcend wars and thus be able to truly defend all of humanity.
Would not it take at least as much courage to transcend wars as to win them? Our armed forces have no short supply of courage, and so perhaps there is hope.
One of the problems with this sort of weapons design work is it is too exciting for technically minded people to easily resist doing it. See for example: Ted Taylor: Confessions of a nuclear weapons design addict. We need alternative technical projects that are even more exciting and cost even more (shameless plug for OSCOMAK!)
Of course, according to Moravec and Kurzweil and Vinge, AI will be rampant before then and we will be passing through the AI singularity -- another cause for hope or despair about transcending nuclear war depending on your perspective.
The general issues applicable to any such effort to make educational simulations include:
* money spent on education is mainly spent on teachers and buildings,
* successful companies in education spend over 90% of funds on advertising, packaging and sales, not content development,
* parents spending money on software tend to buy that which immediately promises increased test scores not increased insight,
* a lot of flashy science suddenly appears very incomplete and sketchy when you try to actually build a simulation based on it (one of the big values of simulation IMHO),
* the real world is very complex, and simple simulations may teach the wrong things,
* the public code available to use in simulations (from government labs) is often poorly written and takes a major investment to make useable even when the science may be good,
* it is difficult to meet a good educational design goal of having open ended models a community can comment on and improve without essentially becoming open source or free software, and yet funding agencies generally expect any grant proposal to include a plan to produce a revenue stream and so to be completely proprietary and thus a grant proposal that says code will be written and given away doesn't do as well as one that says code will be written and kept proprietary (silly, but mainly true, got the letter from NSF to prove it),
* historically, people who did computer simulation work couldn't get PhDs (since most PhD programs seek to produce experimentalists or mathematicians, again we both have the scars to prove it) and it is difficult to get educational support or appear credible without one, and
* all the standard issues of innovative education being to an extent subversive (like getting people to think for themselves and ask questions) and that colliding with a funding system with mainly other priorities.
There are some obvious exceptions like Maxis (which got in at the right time and focuses on games and consulting), however when you consider the potential for computers and the billions spent on education, the number of comprehensive educational simulations which are used in practice is small. There are a lot of labors of love out there, but whether most people can support themselves on such is a different question. (We get by on mostly unrelated consulting.) These sorts of simulations can take a lot of time to do well (our free garden simulator took six person-years and is only a shadow of what we wanted to do). To do it right, you have to make something that is both a robust program (on a variety of platforms) and is also good educational science. There are few people who can do both, and so in general it takes a large team and much expense. The dollars just aren't there so far for lots of really good simulations, in large part reflecting an entrenched world view in academia (which staffs government funding agencies) that prizes experiment and mathematical proofs over simulation. (The military has historically been an exception to this.) All are needed and useful when done well, and they can all work together in synergistic ways. Maybe this report will help change things for the better. In general, things are improving in terms of academia accepting simulations (driven for cost reasons more than anything) and people who are in academia right now have less trouble doing simulation focused research.
As a caveat, one thing we have discovered is that generally the people who write a comprehensive educational simulation learn more about a subject then those who use the simulation. So having students construct a simulation may be a more useful educational experience than just using one.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak
Here is another way to think of things: your "payment" for running vegan.com is all the other free content you have access to (like slashdot, personal web pages, etc.).
Here is a link to a description of the book on the Author's web site: http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/voyage/baen99/tit lepage.shtml
While it takes a while to get directly into this theme (building up essential background), the last two thirds of the book deals with the conflict between a post-scarcity culture and a relic population from a scarcity culture who lay claim to the post-scarcity culture and its land and infrastructure. The elite of the scarcity culture uses all sorts of rhetoric (reminds one of the MPAA or RIAA) to justify an attempt to take over the post-scarcity culture (including rationalizing the use of weapons of mass destruction to enforce scarcity). Very prescient for a novel written around 1982.
As a historical parallel, the outcome in the book makes me wonder what the outcome of the European invasion of the Americas would have been like if the Europeans hadn't had a chance to use biological weapons of mass destruction (such as blankets laced with smallpox) against the more sharing oriented Native Americans. http://thewinds.arcsnet.net/arc_features/newworld/ weapons_of_destruction1.html
James P. Hogan is one of my favorite writers. I think his "Two Faces of Tomorrow" should be required reading for all AI researchers or even anyone working in the technology field. http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/twoface/baen97/ti tlepage.shtml
Beyond respect, my "payment" for putting free content on the web is in a way all the other free content people put up. When you look at it that way, any "investment" in free content is returned a million times.
I don't know if you have such a position (or if one would call it exactly a "Fellow"), but I'd like to be a sort-of Soros Fellow based around New York City who is also an Information Technology staff member. Essentially, I'd like to wander around the Open Society Institute (as well as the larger Soros Foundations Network) and create and deploy "open source" technology for knowledge management and digital libraries (including open content) to help other Soros Foundations Network staff do their jobs better, while at the same time make available that technology outside the Soros Foundations Network under open source licenses (and integrate back in community generated improvements as well). I'd naturally be happy to instead be a more conventional Soros Fellow who just works on some Digital Library projects of my own design (I have a couple in mind) but I think helping with Soros Foundations Network's immediate knowledge management needs (or at least the subset shared by others) would serve as inspiration to create all sorts of wonderful things over the long term, which other foundations and other individuals might find of great usefulness -- and the hope is perhaps they might even improve on them a little in the process and share those improvements back to us.
While I know any foundation would not match private sector pay, what would interest me most in working with the Soros Foundations Network and get my full-time (plus some) devotion to it is if my employment agreement ensured all software I developed for the foundation could be released under an open source license of my choice or into the public domain. Also, I'd want to talk about open content licensing issues in regards to any large work undertaken in the digital library space. That would help me weave together various threads of my life into a whole cloth. Currently I work for six to eighteen months at a time doing proprietary work for clients, and then take some time to work on my own projects. In both cases I end up a little too isolated for being the most productive I could be.
Here is my perspective on the issues of our day and what I think I can help with at the foundation. You may find this of interest even if we do not work together in the future.
Due to continuing exponential growth of computer chip manufacturing capability (predicted by Moore's law), computers are predicted to be a million times bigger in capacity, faster in speed, or smaller in size (pick one at a time for a constant price) within the next couple of decades. However, exponential growth in technological capacity is also occurring in a variety of fields besides computing. Technologies for power generation, CAD/CAM, materials, nanotechnology, communications, positioning, robotics, artificial intelligence, transportation, biotechnology, and collaboration are all increasing on their own exponential curves. That growth is also interacting with the exponential changes in computing and the other fields in a synergetic way. Cars that drive themselves are just one example of a technology around the corner that will change the face of society -- something only made possible by several of these trends coming together. We are heading for an age of abundance (although the future is still far from assured given continuing risks from arms races in part driven also by technological imperatives). Raymond Kurzweil's latest web site makes the issues clear: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ And it also makes clear how there are both opportunities and dangers: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=2
When I audited a course in Soviet Politics [snipped] around 1984, one idea bounced around was that because the Soviet Union was highly centralized, if they did decide to switch to a democratic capitalist model, they could do it overnight. Yet, nothing was further from the truth when Gorbachev actually started Perestroika a few years later -- because old ways of doing things, old habits, old customs, old relationships, and old world views were slow to change. Now, fifteen years after the initiation of Perestroika, that area and its economy is still in disarray, and the people living there as well as their environment have suffered greatly as a result.
The same may well be true of Western society as we transition into this age of abundance made possible by all this technological advancement. In the age of the internet, many of the old competitive ways of doing things such as obtaining local benefits while passing on external costs no longer make much sense (if they ever did), yet the new ways are still forming, like the chaordic vision of organization advocated by Dee Hock. http://www.chaordic.org/ As we move into this age, "gift" economies may take center stage, such as the gift economy behind Linux and much of the interesting content on the internet. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbroo k/
The realization is still slow to dawn that we as a society now know
enough and have enough potential wealth to have plenty of each of
nature, technology and society for everyone. Perhaps that was always
true and we had just forgotten it.
Buckminster Fuller http://www.bfi.org/ brought this issue up decades ago as "Design Science", but such ideas are at odds with a lifetime of conditioning to believe in an economy of scarcity, and so they move very slowly. People are still caught in thinking we must choose between countryside, gadgetry, or humanity. We can have all of these things -- if we use the knowledge we already possess in a collaborative way to reconcile issues of self interest with the greater good through innovative practices. Perhaps not all conflicts can be resolved, but many of the basic life-support ones about adequate water, minimal food, clean air, decent shelter, livable communities, conserved biodiversity, and innovative education can. To do so requires that we include this upcoming transition to an age of abundance in our thinking about economic policy, foreign affairs, and domestic political issues. It also requires preserving the digital commons in terms of free access to basic information about the essentials of life (and how to make them). The OSCOMAK project http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak was a step in that direction, but I have not had enough time to develop it. I would hope I could continue to pursue it in some way in conjunction with the Soros Foundations Network, since for example such information might help developing nations bootstrap their economies.
What excites me about working with the Soros Foundations Network is that I would be involved with people who care about such things, and we could all be working to make similar things happen together, all made possible by far-sighted gifts from George Soros.
As the Soros Foundations Network moves forward, I would like to play a role helping articulate a vision and strategy that balances these three aspects (nature, technology, society) amidst the upcoming potential of prosperity made possible by advanced information systems and other products of the exponential growth of technology. I would also like to help create the information systems that the foundations network itself uses for internal communications, internal education, and external communications. These systems could be built using an open source collaborative model allowing the Soros Foundations Network's own needs for knowledge management to create another gift for humanity in terms of freely available tools for collaboration and knowledge management, leveraging the work of existing collaborative communities where possible, and adding to them where there are special needs.
For example, why shouldn't each on-the-go Soros Foundations Network staffer have (if they desire) a belt-worn wearable computer and tri-band cell phone to keep them in touch with the network's digital library from anywhere in the world? The hardware exists pretty much off-the-shelf for this http://www.xybernaut.com/ and will only continue to get better. The software is still something to be wrestled with though, and that is a challenge I would relish. Similarly, why shouldn't the Soros Foundations Network have a situation room with hundreds of display screens monitoring world issues, the progress of grants, and the initiatives of other foundations? Again, the relatively affordable hardware for such a room exists now off-the-shelf -- the software is the main issue. http://www.unigraf.fi/PAGES/multiscr/videowall.htm
These are the sorts of things I would like to create for the Soros
Foundations Network and, if done primarily as open source, for the
world.
The internet also makes possible a fine grained sort of collaboration which was never practical before (such as through using threaded email lists or discussion sites like http://www.slashdot.org/ ). Such collaborations might help in advancing the Open Society Institute's mission. Yet such collaborations produce new legal issues (or, more correctly, put new twists on old ones). There is a related paper my wife and I wrote that talks about clear licensing as a way to promote collaboration which I will be presenting for the SSI Conference on Space Manufacturing in Princeton the beginning of next week. I'd be happy to send a copy after the conference is over if it is of any interest. It touches on some of the broader non-technical issues that directly effect how IT can be used for the common good.
Unfortunately, it seems many non-profits (including schools) see the internet as a potential profit center for selling information (whether that is realistic is a different issue). To that end they prevent others from making derived works from their materials (as a byproduct of restricting copying to create artificial scarcity), which in turn limits fine-grained collaboration to improve technical artifacts. So, there is much to be worked through here in terms of the bigger picture.
While large corporations can play a role in developing such technology (just wave money in front of them), they aren't exactly going to be out front cheer leading and inventing the open source information tools an open society needs (since there are many other short-term profitable things they can focus on, typically involving financing by people with proprietary interests in information management). Yet, as individuals, many of the people in such organizations would love to work on such projects and could make convincing pitches to management if given half a chance and a shred of economic justification. And many other individuals outside such organizations will give freely of their spare time to help make such efforts happen.
Leading by example is almost always a good idea. As Alan Kay said, "the best way to predict the future is to invent it". If we are to have an open society, we need to invent open technology to go with it. Somebody has to make that technology. This is an area the Soros Foundations Network can play a leadership role while at the same time helping achieve its other goals through open source efforts.
Low cost long range wireless devices handling distributed peer-to-peer content to ensure democracy:
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0754.html
Or how about supporting an open source community on manufacturing knowledge:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/index.htm
which relates to surviving Vernor Vinge's Singularity (Teilhard's Noosphere)
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html
Or just supporting more open source / free software educational simulations: http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/nsfprop.htm
Or support some other people's efforts:
Humanity Libraries Project
http://www.humaninfo.org/
Center for the Public Domain
http://www.centerpd.org/
[Disclaimer: I was one of the contractors on the IBM Personal Speech Assistant project; my name is in the acknowledgements in that document.]
As I tried to bring up in this gnu.misc.discuss thread from May:0 3b7e0c0&rnum=1
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=bc413818
in order for free software or open source content to be developed easily and with fewer legal issues, given the laws as they are now, we need good audit trails regarding free licenses tracking the source of contributions to a package. A DRM used to preserve freedom by tracking the free licenses downloaded or newly created content was under could help us all to create more free content, because it would make licensing (and attribution) easier to deal with. In short, a system where the free license automatically followed around the media or code would make free content easier to handle and redistribute (as opposed to keeping free licenses in seperate files not directly associated with the content which require extra handling steps and which are not easily machine readable). (Note: this is not to be in favor of restrictive DRM's as usually designed by media companies because those make much "fair use" of media impossible).
You imply that having the government reading your and everyone else's email will greatly reduce these attacks. That is an unsupported assertion and likely false (especially if terrorists know email is heavily monitored). So you would likely give up your privacy for nothing. Worse, by supporting extensive government monitoring of your actions you risk creating an even stronger police state (with selective enforcement of laws at the whim of those in power) and you risk corrupt government officials or employees using knowledge about you gained through such extensive one-way surveillance for private criminal gain or to satisfy a perverse need to interfere in other people's lives. Note that other laws are simultaneously being proposed to increase government secrecy -- so the monitoring is all one way, thus increasing government power while decreasing government accountability.
The best way to reduce terrorism is to reduce poverty, ignorance, and injustice worldwide that provides support for extremists in movements which leads to the creation of terrorists through cycles of violence (most would-be-terrorists otherwise might just be isolated sociopathic individuals in a society wealth enough to humanely deal with them). For more background: http://www.zmag.org/reactionscalam.htm
[The airline pilot said over the PA:] "Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him. If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say, 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect, here is what you should do:
"Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person -- pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes -- anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to the floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there."
"Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. Now, since we're a family for the next few hours, I'll ask you to turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and ask them to do the same."
Would we rather give up civil liberties in hopes moving further towards a police state might prevent a recurrence of hijackings or would we rather rely on citizen initiative in crisis and accept that occasionally weapons accidents or crimes will happen (and individuals will pay for them)? Which would one rather trust in the long term -- a police state or armed and communciating citizens? Remember, ultimately a policeperson is just a trained and armed and communciating citizen (although part of a hierarchy instead of a network). [Again -- I'm not pushing this proposal -- I just offer it for discussion of pros and cons since no one else seems to be proposing less "security" as the answer. Personally I'd rather see more high speed rail, more sensible US foreign policy, and more aid for impoverished nations.]
Morris goes on to list his estimates of the non-American bodycount of various US military interventions and proposes essentially Bucky Fuller's world game proposal of spending a fraction of the US military budget to make the world a happy and healthier place less likely to spawn terrorists.
http://congress.nw.dc.us/c-span/elecmail.html
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Dear XYZ,
Like you, I am aggrieved at the tragic loss of life resulting from the horrendous events of September 11, 2001. Every American has been touched by this trauma which will linger forever in the memory of our nation.
Though I want to see the perpetrators of these acts brought to justice, I must beg you not to compromise American civil liberties in your pursuit of justice. The loss of American citizens' ability to move and communicate freely and their right to privacy would be a greater casualty than the thousands killed Tuesday morning, considering how many millions of Americans have already died defending those freedoms throughout our country's history. In the end, reduction of civil liberty will not prevent a repetition of such disasters -- only a worldwide attention to the root causes of terrorism (like poverty, warfare, injustice, child abuse, intolerance, and racism) can do that.
Benjamin Franklin said that those who give up necessary liberties for security deserve neither security nor freedom. I must echo his sentiment. Do not allow our sacred rights of freedom of speech, privacy, association or movement to be abridged in the coming days of difficult choices. America's enemies hate us in part because we are a free and open society, and they fear the potential that that represents. Do not give them the victory they cannot themselves win by destroying the core of our society, our beloved liberties.
God Bless America,
NAME AND ADDRESS
Much research and development work in the US is subsidized directly or indirectly with public money from federal, state, or charitable sources. For example, in a June 19th, 2001 article "Corporate cash in university labs" in the Christian Science Monitor, according to the National Science Foundation, $27.5 billion was spent on US university research in 1998, broken down as:
58.2% Federal,
7.3% state and local,
7.6% Industry,
19.6% Universities, and
7.3% other (including non-profits or foundations).
So, over 65% of the money is clearly from public sources (perhaps as must as 92% might be public and charitable funds), and less than 10% is clearly from private industry sources. If all that money was spent directly on open source or free results we would have an enormous amount of freely useable software and content.
However, the thinking in Washington and likely among foundations seems to be that research and development results without owners are useless, won't be enhanced without someone having a monopoly, and the researchers won't be motivated to do a good job without proprietary ownership of the end product -- and thus it is better to have twice as much proprietary stuff than ten or a hundred times as much free content. Thus most of the results are allowed to be made proprietary and are allowed to be owned by the partner institution or company. Clearly, the success of GNU/Linux disproves the notion that software and content needs to be proprietary to be useful or to attract motivated developers. And clearly if only proprietary products were made, generic drugs out of patent (even aspirin) would not be made or sold -- yet they are.
"Cost sharing" is the smart sounding phrase in Washington. As I see it, the proprietary money introduced by "cost sharing" doesn't double the useful results; instead the proprietary money contaminates all the results. And it means that a software developer interested in working in the public interest on free software can't go to work at a university or non-profit without extreme caution, because chances are that organization will seek to control their work so it can be sold. This is leading to major conflicts of interest at public universities as research results produced using public funds are withheld to create an artificial scarcity in hopes of making more money for the university or the sponsors. Most non-profits have also jumped on this idea of raising money by selling licenses for copyrights or patents produced using tax-exempt charitable donations.
How can this situation and the accompanying mindset be changed? Essentially, how can the situation be changed so that all copyrights or patents produced by research and development funded in whole or in part by government or charitable funds are put into the public domain or under an open source or free software license allowing free use and the creation and distribution of derived works?
Forth code is interpreted when a program is loaded and that process typically defines more static code that can then be run. However, this can makes Forth code harder to tokenize and handle in a development environment -- since you can't know the meaning of a later chunk of Forth code without evaluating the earlier part -- since the earlier part may have redefined how parsing of the later part is done. Essentially, any chunk of text in a program can be arbitrarily parsed by earlier defined words. Other languages with macro preprocessors (like C) have some of the same issues, however Forth does this spectacularly, essentially allowing a Forth program to totally redefine how subsequent parts of the program are interpreted (such as for parsing custom little languages defining data structures). Do you consider this a major strength or weakness of the Forth language, compared to languages that have a less extensible syntax (like Smalltalk). How did you think of it? Can you tell us of any especially novel or surprising ways this capability has been used?