I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but there is no evidence concerning the divine origins of the human bible. For an observation to be considered as evidence it has to be independently reproducible or otherwise verifiable. If such evidence were found we would all know about it and believe me I would be very interested. Third-hand accounts of supposed eyewitness testimony many years after the event are not 'evidence'.
Organisms transmit their biological characteristics to their offspring. That is why your children look like you, and that is why selective breeding of domestic animals has been successfully practised for millennia. Genetics has even become an applied science at the molecular level. To deny the validity of this theory is to deny the evidence of your own eyes. It isn't even worthy of debate. By the way, the 'father' of genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a monk.
Natural selection merely states the obvious fact that those organisms who produce no offspring having died young or having been unable to win a mate, will not transmit their biological characteristics to the next generation. Natural selection certainly was and continues to be a major factor in the way species evolve, because ultimately it is only a description of this obvious and observable fact about population dynamics. By the way, Charles Darwin was a deeply religious man throughout his whole life. If you really read his writings you would know this.
I don't deny the possibility of God's existence. I'm not even going to argue about the likelihood (or not) of His Direct and Personal Intervention in the evolution of species on this planet as it would take up too much space. Let's just agree that it can't be ruled out. But whether he did or didn't intervene, evolution would still have happened by the ebb and flow of population dynamics modulated by changing environmental conditions (like climate) and spiked by the very occasional random mutation. We know from common experience and experiment that all these things happen and we also know that when they do they affect the shape of successive generations.
Where does that leave God in terms of a role in evolution? As a 'God of the Gaps'. I don't have any particular philosophical difficulty with that although some do. But throughout history, as these gaps in our knowledge have been progressively illuminated by new discoveries the God of the Gaps has like the darkness been steadily driven away.
At the end of the day I doubt I can convince you because the only line of reasoning that can sustain a viewpoint like yours is a closed and circular one that denies all experience and all logic. But think on this:
There is an epistemological viewpoint that the 'truth' of any theory cannot be regarded as an absolute because we can never know everything there is to know, and some as-yet-unknown fact may just be lurking around the corner waiting to overturn the applecart of that particular theory. Therefore we can only evaluate theories in terms of how useful they are - not merely in providing an explanation of our observations, which could be a false explanation - but in terms of whether they allow us to make accurate predictions of that which is not yet known directly, and in terms of whether the theory can be applied to create new useful technologies.
The scientific community admits that the theories of evolution and the origin of life on Earth are not yet complete. However what is 'known' about them is enough to be usefully applied in selective breeding, genetic engineering and the treatment of genetic diseases. Moreover paleontology has been assembled into a successful and mostly self-consistent picture of biological history. Gaps and a few inconsistencies in the model at any given time do not invalidate the usefulness of the whole theory as long as most of its predictions continue to be in agreement with new discoveries.
What useful predictions and tricks can you or anyone else do with your 'theory'? You can't answer that, can you!
That is the real difference between a a community operating under careful peer review to develop a theory based on solid evidence, and a horde of self-deluded halfwits with a book of ancient fairy stories. Between fact, and fantasy.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
a better solution than banning guns (which those kids probably weren't "allowed" to have anyway, and see what that accomplished),
Oh how typical. It seems that there are people brought up in your culture who are completely unable to think from any other perspective than 'guns are good'.
Why don't you try reasoning for once.
(1) In any society there is always a small proportion of lunatics and wired misfits.
(2) A lunatic with empty hands or even with a knife is dangerous but a lunatic with a gun is an order of magnitude more dangerous in terms of the number of people he can kill before he is forced to stop.
(3) If guns are generally available in society, anyone will be able to get one if they want to; the law just means they have to steal one or buy one illegally.
Therefore - and for the hard of thinking, it really is this simple - if you make guns generally available then you will always see atrocities like this.
For the even more stupid who maintain that all the students should have been armed as a matter of self defence - and I know there are Americans who say things like that - how many students do you suppose would have been killed or injured in that school in the last five years due to accidents, grudge shootings and spontaneous gun battles?
Its time America grew up a bit and realised it's not the Wild West any more. People living in cities have to live by civilised rules, and walking around armed to the teeth is not civilised by any stretch of the imagination.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Yes, that's probably why you don't think everything about the mind can be explained in terms of neural networks.
Let me just point out to you that current computer models of neural networks are not quite the same as animal brains. Computer connection machines like neural networks are all synchronous and therefore deterministic. They are actually Turing machines. However animal brains are asynchronous and chaotic, not deterministic. They are not Turing machines and may therefore compute things that Turing machines may not compute.
However, computer neural networks can serve as a useful and illustrative schematic model of how some low-level structures (cell assemblies) in "wet" neural networks do operate. This much has been proven experimentally. Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
I agree wholeheartedly with you that open and proprietary models of software development can and must coexist. But then I never disputed it in the first place. The rest of your reply was (IMO) uninformed drivel. Astonishingly, though you write with apparent confidence, almost everything you said is factually incorrect and, moreover, displays your complete ignorance of the wider issues involved. In fact I wondered if perhaps you don't read too well because you variously ignored and misinterpreted what I really said.
Right, that's the end of the flame. Now as to the reasons why.
I was angry about the Star Wars trailer because I didn't find out I couldn't play it until after I'd downloaded all 25 Megabytes. In the UK we pay for each minute spent online. Not to mention loss of bandwidth for other purposes while I was downloading it. Do you get it now? What would it have cost the publisher to put up a small warning about compatibility?
It's irrelevant whether we are talking about incompatibility with Linux, Windows or last year's whizbang mobile phone. If a given platform is widely used and the users of that platform might have some expectation - from past experience - of being able to play the movie then the publisher has a moral responsibility to avoid misleading those users into wasting their bandwidth.
Also your implication that it's OK for minorities to be badly treated in the service of the majority is - apart from any dubious ethical foundation - just plain irrelevant. How would the majority have been inconvenienced by publishing a warning about the file format? They would not. But your attitude suggests that even this small gesture would be too much to endure in the service of a commercially unimportant minority. That worries me. If you plan to treat minorities systematically in this fashion then it indeed does become a question of human rights.
With regard to technology dominance, there's no doubt the Sorenson codec is a wonderful piece of work. But it took five years of R&D and probably millions of dollars to develop. Where does that leave us?
Well it certainly doesn't leave Linux users in the same position as Quicktime 2.0 users, as you mischievously imply. Quicktime 2.0 users can just upgrade for free. Linux users don't even have a commercial alternative that will run on their platform because Apple and Microsoft control that technology. You seem to have failed to grasp this essential point.
And if it took Sorenson so long to develop this codec it's not as if the open source community can just up and replace it just like that. If it takes even two years to do it, OK so it's not then a 'perpetual monopoly' but still a lot of damage could be done to all other platforms' market position as a result. And that is just plain unacceptable, even under US Law. Don't forget that is exactly why Microsoft is on trial right now.
If Apple and Microsoft are allowed to keep this technology to themselves then they will eventually own most of the internet. But the internet is too important to allow any single company or cartel to dominate its evolution or control access to all its content. The reason for the growth of the internet is precisely because the protocols it uses are all open standards. Without that level playing field it would never have spread so far because the cost of entry would have been too high for most suppliers and consumers. Internet protocols must remain free or we will lose the internet.
I remind you of Vinid Vallipolil's remark in the Halloween memos about the commoditisation of protocols. This is exactly what Microsoft would like to do in order to wrest control back from the people. Don't forget Bill Gates already tried to supplant the internet with MSN. There's nothing to say he won't try it again if he thinks he can get away with it.
In closing, you implied that open source developers unwittingly support a Wintel duopoly by coding predominantly for Intel. It seems as if you are just trying to make controversy. In fact, Linux and GNU software runs on a wider range of CPU architectures than any other software I can think of. And I can't at the moment think of any modern CPU architecture for which GNU/Linux software isn't either already available or under development.
In any case I really don't see any evidence that open source supporters or even Microsoft supporters in general have a problem with Intel's market position. Those who dislike Intel's products are free to use AMD for example without even sacrificing binary compatibility.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
I do agree with you about the mindless flame wars and the knee-jerk My-OS-right-or-wrong advocacy of many teen posters. I also sympathize with you over your status as unwitting flame target.
However your article, as I hope many people will point out to you, was missing one vital point: the Mindcraft study was methodologically flawed to the point of being completely invalid. The NT box was properly set up and tuned and the Linux box was not. In such studies you have to compare like with like as far as is possible; and having failed to do that, for Mindcraft to present their conclusions in the manner they did was inexcusable. Under the circumstances, one is left wondering about their supposed impartiality.
It may well be that all Microsoft has left to fight with is propaganda. But their bank balance is so huge, and propaganda is so demonstrably effective that they can certainly do a lot of damage to any competitor's credibility. Surely you can see that the victims of this propaganda will feel a crushing sense of unfairness.
In this case it is entirely understandable that there was considerable anger from the Linux community. And your article, in omitting to mention the central vital fact of the whole issue, does little to pour oil on troubled waters.
Regards,
Ralph Clark
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
It's not as simple as you pretend. This codec issue isn't just about free as in free beer. It's about open vs. proprietary.
With most significant movie clip content now being released exclusively as Sorenson-codec Quicktime files, the only people who have access to this material are Windows and Mac users. To add insult to injury, the sites which carry these files never even provide a warning that the files may be unplayable on some systems. As a Linux user I was rightfully incensed when after downloading the 24MB second trailer of Star Wars Episode 1, I found that it was unplayable. Also Mark Podlipec's xanim web page states that Apple won't let Sorenson license the codec for xanim. So the exclusive licencing deal between Apple and Sorenson means that there is no prospect of a suitable player materialising in the foreseeable future either unless Apple releases a fully supported QuickTime for Linux. To date, they've shown no interest in doing so.
As bandwidth improves, streaming video content will become more and more significant in it's impact on the evolution of the Internet. One unfortunate side effect of the free market you seem to revere so much is that the Microsoft/Apple coalition's stranglehold on the dominant streaming video codec effectively prevents any other system such as Linux from competing in the multimedia and home/leisure markets. This is monopoly, and if left unrectified will necessitate US government intervention yet again. Of course by the time that happens it could all be too late - other OS's will no longer have any share of this market.
The massively powerful and flexible medium that the Internet is today has only taken shape because it has always run on open protocols. If we don't want to see all non-mainstream systems forced into obsolescence we must resist strenuously any attempt to commoditize those protocols.
I have asked Diane Gartner at the IACT to set up a petition in order to raise awareness of this matter, and she's agreed to pursue the matter when time permits. In the meantime I ask all of you who are interested to demand an explanation from Apple and Sorenson, and to pressure all content providers (such as Lucasfilm for instance) to provide all video clips in a format which is accessible to everybody. Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Internet Censorship for Children
on
ShutUp Software
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· Score: 1
Jon,
You must be some kind of idiot. I'm being charitable; many other people would surely brand you as an evil man.
Most educated adults in the Western world are probably libertarians to some degree but very few would advocate total freedom to do as one wants. The usual term for that kind of society is 'anarchy'. Anarchy is undesirable because unfortunately total freedom to do as one wishes denies the freedom of others. Therefore society must define in law what constitutes a reasonable exercise of freedom, in order to protect us all from those who would exercise their will at our expense. Some forms of censorship are used benignly for such a purpose. To brand all censorship as bad is to deny the validity of the above line of reasoning.
I apologise to other readers for stating the obvious but you, Jon, seem to have missed this vital point.
I agreed with the main thread of your argument perhaps because I have yet to encounter any material on the Internet which offends me personally to such a degree that I cannot bear to see it.
However my children (aged 4 and 5) are not so thick-skinned as I, and moreover there are some things I would not wish them to see even if it was so alien to them that they could not understand it. This is my inalienable moral right as a parent, to protect my children from whatever I deem harmful to them. No-one can take that right away from me, not you, not society, not the government, no-one. I would defend this right with my last breath.
I therefore reserve the right to restrict my children's access to the Internet. Much of the pornography on the net is in my view certainly unsuitable for children of that age. I am not talking about nudity per se, but I do have a responsibility to ensure that they are not exposed to pictures of oral sex, vaginal or anal penetration or sadomasochism. If they are to be allowed to roam the internet without constant supervision then blocking software is vitally necessary.
You have frequently criticised the use of this type of software and have even specifically advocated access to the internet for children without any restrictions. To the best of my knowledge you have never qualified this argument with exceptions relating to the age or maturity of the children or to the type of material. From my point of view that makes you (and anyone else who thinks the same as you) either a naive fool, an irresponsible lunatic or an evil pervert.
I've never complained about your style of writing and I've never blocked your posts (or indeed anyone else's). I've even sympathised with you for all the verbal kickings you've had for no apparent reason other than the fact that some adolescent onanists think it's fashionable to flame Jon Katz just for a laugh.
But I don't think I'll bother to read your articles in future because your constant repetition of this stupid and offensive message about uncensored access for children only taints everything else you have to say with a complete lack of credibility. Whether or not I use Slashdot's filtering features to achieve this is beside the point.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
I like you. You're a nice guy. Zico isn't however. If you click on his 'user info' and read all the posts he's made you'll see what I mean. Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Virtually every post you have ever made to Slashdot has been to praise Microsoft or to criticize Linux or to criticize Netscape. I see you've started criticizing Corel as well now.
Given that the vast majority of Slashdot readers and posters who hold opinions on these subject are pro-Free/Open Source, you don't really belong here at all. You're not 'one of us'. So why do you come here? All your posts have been negative, attacking the basic tenets of the community which this site serves, so it can't be for fun unless you are a very hostile, bitter person who thrives on conflict.
There are only two explanations I can think of that don't require you to be severely maladjusted. You're either a Microsoft employee under orders to spread FUD on slashdot or else you own a large number of Microsoft shares and are extremely worried about the imminent disappearance of your fortune.
Ah well I guess that makes you maladjusted after all... Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Beg pardon? The UK's not politically stable you say! What planet are you living on exactly? I've been living in the UK for 36 years and I can tell you _nothing_ ever changes here. It's one of the most conservative, backward-looking nations on the planet, even more so than the US in many respects. Heaven knows what your definition of stability is.
Both you AC and John Campbell are clueless. The arrogance of you people always amazes me. What the hell makes you think you understand the precise mechanism behind such a complex sociological phenomenon?
The reality is that hackers and the net (and everything else in the world) invented each other in a complex feedback loop of cause and effect and the effects of the effects. To claim that one could have existed in a currently recognisable form without the other is patently ludicrous.
Could someone explain this to me? I tried to read it but I think my brain just melted.
Are they talking about an author's modification being released under both NPL and GPL, or about the whole modified Mozilla package being released under both NPL and GPL?
What does releasing under the two different licences simultaneously mean anyway? In real terms?
This is no big deal. There have been cheap clone Sparc machines available from third party manufacturers for many years, eg. from Hamcom in Germany and their sister company Transtec in the UK. They can provide specifications similar to Sun's own machines but for a lot less money.
There is absolutely NOTHING to worry about. Bear with me here.
What you say makes a lot of sense, as do the remarks by many people that DNS is no good really anyway.
On the face of it, it does appear as if public ownership of the internet is threatened as greedy corporations and power-hungry governments take over. But it is doomed to fail just as attempts at external censorship are doomed.
Many people have heard it said that the Internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it. This is precisely because the protocols on which it is based were designed (here I'm talking specifically about IP, TCP and UDP) to be adaptable so the old ARPANET network could survive partial destruction from, say, a nuclear strike.
But the adaptability of those protocols also makes it possible to write any higher level protocol you like to sit on top of it. For example, IP tunnelling for virtual private networking: encrypted IP sitting on top of IP.
My point is, if the people don't like what happens to DNS, and even if the IETF is disbanded or declawed or otherwise rendered useless, then the _people_ will devise some other means of translating IP addresses, in exactly the same way that a whole new universe of open source software has come into being. Somebody will write a new address translation protocol and thousands of servers around the world will be set up (initially by enthusiasts alone) to answer lookup requests coded in that protocol. Before long it will be the dominant name resolution protocol and DNS will be obsolete.
The genie is already out of the bottle and those assholes on the WIPO will soon find it's too late to stop us now. Power to the people! Heh Heh Heh!
Linking to that virtualcrack page was incredibly stupid and irresponsible. Do you really think it's funny? I wouldn't have complained about a joke referring to cannabis, but Crack cocaine is an extremely addictive drug which destroys people's lives. There is _nothing_ funny about it. Making jokes about it only helps to make it seem more acceptable to those who haven't wised up about hard drugs yet.
As a publisher, you have a responsibility to draw a line between what is funny and what is just plain offensive. If you don't then people will just stop visiting your site. Do you really want your site blocked by parents concerned about their children?
There is a great drive now to push Linux out onto the desktop. Moreover Linux plus GNOME or KDE is fundamentally technically superior to Windows by virtue of being designed carefully from the ground up with the knowledge of all the mistakes in microcomputer and minicomputer OS design over the past twenty years. Sure GNOME and KDE are still immature but they are still only about a year old. Where the hell was Windows when it was a year old?
Technical superiority under the hood will not win the desktop directly, but the concomitant stability, security and performance benefits are already proving themselves.
It's not easy to extrapolate forward, but given the current rate of development it is almost unthinkable that Linux could fail to equal Windows by every criterion of usability within three years, even if the size of the developer pool doesn't expand from where it is now. And yet as more and more people are still piling in to contribute to Open Source projects, it could happen in even less time than that.
The sheer potential of Linux is not even the only important factor. Microsoft can't even manage their own code base any more! Windows 98 was a flop. NT 2000 has slipped yet again. More and more people are getting completely pissed off with their computers glitching, crashing and locking up several times a day. It's clear that it is beyond Microsoft's capability to rectify this situation or they would have at least shown some signs of attempting to do so.
I'm not saying that Linux machines are devoid of the odd software problem but in my experience it is rather less serious, even with fully-loaded systems. Right now, on the Linux system I'm sitting at this minute I am running 72 different processes, and the 20 windows I have open are three or four layers deep. If I ever tried to do that on Win95 it would grind to halt or die! On this system there isn't even any performance degradation. Given that as a starting point, its obvious Linux will beat Windows on every criterion in a very short time. The only difference that mitigates against that is Microsoft's marketing clout. And even with a public composed of frightened sheep, Microsoft can only go on peddling the same tired old lies for so long.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but there is no evidence concerning the divine origins of the human bible. For an observation to be considered as evidence it has to be independently reproducible or otherwise verifiable. If such evidence were found we would all know about it and believe me I would be very interested. Third-hand accounts of supposed eyewitness testimony many years after the event are not 'evidence'.
Organisms transmit their biological characteristics to their offspring. That is why your children look like you, and that is why selective breeding of domestic animals has been successfully practised for millennia. Genetics has even become an applied science at the molecular level. To deny the validity of this theory is to deny the evidence of your own eyes. It isn't even worthy of debate. By the way, the 'father' of genetics, Gregor Mendel, was a monk.
Natural selection merely states the obvious fact that those organisms who produce no offspring having died young or having been unable to win a mate, will not transmit their biological characteristics to the next generation. Natural selection certainly was and continues to be a major factor in the way species evolve, because ultimately it is only a description of this obvious and observable fact about population dynamics. By the way, Charles Darwin was a deeply religious man throughout his whole life. If you really read his writings you would know this.
I don't deny the possibility of God's existence. I'm not even going to argue about the likelihood (or not) of His Direct and Personal Intervention in the evolution of species on this planet as it would take up too much space. Let's just agree that it can't be ruled out. But whether he did or didn't intervene, evolution would still have happened by the ebb and flow of population dynamics modulated by changing environmental conditions (like climate) and spiked by the very occasional random mutation. We know from common experience and experiment that all these things happen and we also know that when they do they affect the shape of successive generations.
Where does that leave God in terms of a role in evolution? As a 'God of the Gaps'. I don't have any particular philosophical difficulty with that although some do. But throughout history, as these gaps in our knowledge have been progressively illuminated by new discoveries the God of the Gaps has like the darkness been steadily driven away.
At the end of the day I doubt I can convince you because the only line of reasoning that can sustain a viewpoint like yours is a closed and circular one that denies all experience and all logic. But think on this:
There is an epistemological viewpoint that the 'truth' of any theory cannot be regarded as an absolute because we can never know everything there is to know, and some as-yet-unknown fact may just be lurking around the corner waiting to overturn the applecart of that particular theory. Therefore we can only evaluate theories in terms of how useful they are - not merely in providing an explanation of our observations, which could be a false explanation - but in terms of whether they allow us to make accurate predictions of that which is not yet known directly, and in terms of whether the theory can be applied to create new useful technologies.
The scientific community admits that the theories of evolution and the origin of life on Earth are not yet complete. However what is 'known' about them is enough to be usefully applied in selective breeding, genetic engineering and the treatment of genetic diseases. Moreover paleontology has been assembled into a successful and mostly self-consistent picture of biological history. Gaps and a few inconsistencies in the model at any given time do not invalidate the usefulness of the whole theory as long as most of its predictions continue to be in agreement with new discoveries.
What useful predictions and tricks can you or anyone else do with your 'theory'? You can't answer that, can you!
That is the real difference between a a community operating under careful peer review to develop a theory based on solid evidence, and a horde of self-deluded halfwits with a book of ancient fairy stories. Between fact, and fantasy.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
a better solution than banning guns (which those kids probably weren't "allowed" to have anyway, and see what that accomplished),
Oh how typical. It seems that there are people brought up in your culture who are completely unable to think from any other perspective than 'guns are good'.
Why don't you try reasoning for once.
(1) In any society there is always a small proportion of lunatics and wired misfits.
(2) A lunatic with empty hands or even with a knife is dangerous but a lunatic with a gun is an order of magnitude more dangerous in terms of the number of people he can kill before he is forced to stop.
(3) If guns are generally available in society, anyone will be able to get one if they want to; the law just means they have to steal one or buy one illegally.
Therefore - and for the hard of thinking, it really is this simple - if you make guns generally available then you will always see atrocities like this.
For the even more stupid who maintain that all the students should have been armed as a matter of self defence - and I know there are Americans who say things like that - how many students do you suppose would have been killed or injured in that school in the last five years due to accidents, grudge shootings and spontaneous gun battles?
Its time America grew up a bit and realised it's not the Wild West any more. People living in cities have to live by civilised rules, and walking around armed to the teeth is not civilised by any stretch of the imagination.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Yes, that's probably why you don't think everything about the mind can be explained in terms of neural networks.
Let me just point out to you that current computer models of neural networks are not quite the same as animal brains. Computer connection machines like neural networks are all synchronous and therefore deterministic. They are actually Turing machines. However animal brains are asynchronous and chaotic, not deterministic. They are not Turing machines and may therefore compute things that Turing machines may not compute.
However, computer neural networks can serve as a useful and illustrative schematic model of how some low-level structures (cell assemblies) in "wet" neural networks do operate. This much has been proven experimentally.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I agree wholeheartedly with you that open and proprietary models of software development can and must coexist. But then I never disputed it in the first place. The rest of your reply was (IMO) uninformed drivel. Astonishingly, though you write with apparent confidence, almost everything you said is factually incorrect and, moreover, displays your complete ignorance of the wider issues involved. In fact I wondered if perhaps you don't read too well because you variously ignored and misinterpreted what I really said.
Right, that's the end of the flame. Now as to the reasons why.
I was angry about the Star Wars trailer because I didn't find out I couldn't play it until after I'd downloaded all 25 Megabytes. In the UK we pay for each minute spent online. Not to mention loss of bandwidth for other purposes while I was downloading it. Do you get it now? What would it have cost the publisher to put up a small warning about compatibility?
It's irrelevant whether we are talking about incompatibility with Linux, Windows or last year's whizbang mobile phone. If a given platform is widely used and the users of that platform might have some expectation - from past experience - of being able to play the movie then the publisher has a moral responsibility to avoid misleading those users into wasting their bandwidth.
Also your implication that it's OK for minorities to be badly treated in the service of the majority is - apart from any dubious ethical foundation - just plain irrelevant. How would the majority have been inconvenienced by publishing a warning about the file format? They would not. But your attitude suggests that even this small gesture would be too much to endure in the service of a commercially unimportant minority. That worries me. If you plan to treat minorities systematically in this fashion then it indeed does become a question of human rights.
With regard to technology dominance, there's no doubt the Sorenson codec is a wonderful piece of work. But it took five years of R&D and probably millions of dollars to develop. Where does that leave us?
Well it certainly doesn't leave Linux users in the same position as Quicktime 2.0 users, as you mischievously imply. Quicktime 2.0 users can just upgrade for free. Linux users don't even have a commercial alternative that will run on their platform because Apple and Microsoft control that technology. You seem to have failed to grasp this essential point.
And if it took Sorenson so long to develop this codec it's not as if the open source community can just up and replace it just like that. If it takes even two years to do it, OK so it's not then a 'perpetual monopoly' but still a lot of damage could be done to all other platforms' market position as a result. And that is just plain unacceptable, even under US Law. Don't forget that is exactly why Microsoft is on trial right now.
If Apple and Microsoft are allowed to keep this technology to themselves then they will eventually own most of the internet. But the internet is too important to allow any single company or cartel to dominate its evolution or control access to all its content. The reason for the growth of the internet is precisely because the protocols it uses are all open standards. Without that level playing field it would never have spread so far because the cost of entry would have been too high for most suppliers and consumers. Internet protocols must remain free or we will lose the internet.
I remind you of Vinid Vallipolil's remark in the Halloween memos about the commoditisation of protocols. This is exactly what Microsoft would like to do in order to wrest control back from the people. Don't forget Bill Gates already tried to supplant the internet with MSN. There's nothing to say he won't try it again if he thinks he can get away with it.
In closing, you implied that open source developers unwittingly support a Wintel duopoly by coding predominantly for Intel. It seems as if you are just trying to make controversy. In fact, Linux and GNU software runs on a wider range of CPU architectures than any other software I can think of. And I can't at the moment think of any modern CPU architecture for which GNU/Linux software isn't either already available or under development.
In any case I really don't see any evidence that open source supporters or even Microsoft supporters in general have a problem with Intel's market position. Those who dislike Intel's products are free to use AMD for example without even sacrificing binary compatibility.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Paul,
I do agree with you about the mindless flame wars and the knee-jerk My-OS-right-or-wrong advocacy of many teen posters. I also sympathize with you over your status as unwitting flame target.
However your article, as I hope many people will point out to you, was missing one vital point: the Mindcraft study was methodologically flawed to the point of being completely invalid. The NT box was properly set up and tuned and the Linux box was not. In such studies you have to compare like with like as far as is possible; and having failed to do that, for Mindcraft to present their conclusions in the manner they did was inexcusable. Under the circumstances, one is left wondering about their supposed impartiality.
It may well be that all Microsoft has left to fight with is propaganda. But their bank balance is so huge, and propaganda is so demonstrably effective that they can certainly do a lot of damage to any competitor's credibility. Surely you can see that the victims of this propaganda will feel a crushing sense of unfairness.
In this case it is entirely understandable that there was considerable anger from the Linux community. And your article, in omitting to mention the central vital fact of the whole issue, does little to pour oil on troubled waters.
Regards,
Ralph Clark
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
It's not as simple as you pretend. This codec issue isn't just about free as in free beer. It's about open vs. proprietary.
With most significant movie clip content now being released exclusively as Sorenson-codec Quicktime files, the only people who have access to this material are Windows and Mac users. To add insult to injury, the sites which carry these files never even provide a warning that the files may be unplayable on some systems. As a Linux user I was rightfully incensed when after downloading the 24MB second trailer of Star Wars Episode 1, I found that it was unplayable. Also Mark Podlipec's xanim web page states that Apple won't let Sorenson license the codec for xanim. So the exclusive licencing deal between Apple and Sorenson means that there is no prospect of a suitable player materialising in the foreseeable future either unless Apple releases a fully supported QuickTime for Linux. To date, they've shown no interest in doing so.
As bandwidth improves, streaming video content will become more and more significant in it's impact on the evolution of the Internet. One unfortunate side effect of the free market you seem to revere so much is that the Microsoft/Apple coalition's stranglehold on the dominant streaming video codec effectively prevents any other system such as Linux from competing in the multimedia and home/leisure markets. This is monopoly, and if left unrectified will necessitate US government intervention yet again. Of course by the time that happens it could all be too late - other OS's will no longer have any share of this market.
The massively powerful and flexible medium that the Internet is today has only taken shape because it has always run on open protocols. If we don't want to see all non-mainstream systems forced into obsolescence we must resist strenuously any attempt to commoditize those protocols.
I have asked Diane Gartner at the IACT to set up a petition in order to raise awareness of this matter, and she's agreed to pursue the matter when time permits. In the meantime I ask all of you who are interested to demand an explanation from Apple and Sorenson, and to pressure all content providers (such as Lucasfilm for instance) to provide all video clips in a format which is accessible to everybody.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Jon,
You must be some kind of idiot. I'm being charitable; many other people would surely brand you as an evil man.
Most educated adults in the Western world are probably libertarians to some degree but very few would advocate total freedom to do as one wants. The usual term for that kind of society is 'anarchy'. Anarchy is undesirable because unfortunately total freedom to do as one wishes denies the freedom of others. Therefore society must define in law what constitutes a reasonable exercise of freedom, in order to protect us all from those who would exercise their will at our expense. Some forms of censorship are used benignly for such a purpose. To brand all censorship as bad is to deny the validity of the above line of reasoning.
I apologise to other readers for stating the obvious but you, Jon, seem to have missed this vital point.
I agreed with the main thread of your argument perhaps because I have yet to encounter any material on the Internet which offends me personally to such a degree that I cannot bear to see it.
However my children (aged 4 and 5) are not so thick-skinned as I, and moreover there are some things I would not wish them to see even if it was so alien to them that they could not understand it. This is my inalienable moral right as a parent, to protect my children from whatever I deem harmful to them. No-one can take that right away from me, not you, not society, not the government, no-one. I would defend this right with my last breath.
I therefore reserve the right to restrict my children's access to the Internet. Much of the pornography on the net is in my view certainly unsuitable for children of that age. I am not talking about nudity per se, but I do have a responsibility to ensure that they are not exposed to pictures of oral sex, vaginal or anal penetration or sadomasochism. If they are to be allowed to roam the internet without constant supervision then blocking software is vitally necessary.
You have frequently criticised the use of this type of software and have even specifically advocated access to the internet for children without any restrictions. To the best of my knowledge you have never qualified this argument with exceptions relating to the age or maturity of the children or to the type of material. From my point of view that makes you (and anyone else who thinks the same as you) either a naive fool, an irresponsible lunatic or an evil pervert.
I've never complained about your style of writing and I've never blocked your posts (or indeed anyone else's). I've even sympathised with you for all the verbal kickings you've had for no apparent reason other than the fact that some adolescent onanists think it's fashionable to flame Jon Katz just for a laugh.
But I don't think I'll bother to read your articles in future because your constant repetition of this stupid and offensive message about uncensored access for children only taints everything else you have to say with a complete lack of credibility. Whether or not I use Slashdot's filtering features to achieve this is beside the point.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I like you. You're a nice guy. Zico isn't however. If you click on his 'user info' and read all the posts he's made you'll see what I mean.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Virtually every post you have ever made to Slashdot has been to praise Microsoft or to criticize Linux or to criticize Netscape. I see you've started criticizing Corel as well now.
Given that the vast majority of Slashdot readers and posters who hold opinions on these subject are pro-Free/Open Source, you don't really belong here at all. You're not 'one of us'. So why do you come here? All your posts have been negative, attacking the basic tenets of the community which this site serves, so it can't be for fun unless you are a very hostile, bitter person who thrives on conflict.
There are only two explanations I can think of that don't require you to be severely maladjusted. You're either a Microsoft employee under orders to spread FUD on slashdot or else you own a large number of Microsoft shares and are extremely worried about the imminent disappearance of your fortune.
Ah well I guess that makes you maladjusted after all...
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
You're all just a bunch of juvenile flaming idiots. This was supposed to be about the cartoon! I wanted to talk about the cartoon! Waaa!
Beg pardon? The UK's not politically stable you say! What planet are you living on exactly? I've been living in the UK for 36 years and I can tell you _nothing_ ever changes here. It's one of the most conservative, backward-looking nations on the planet, even more so than the US in many respects.
Heaven knows what your definition of stability is.
Both you AC and John Campbell are clueless. The arrogance of you people always amazes me. What the hell makes you think you understand the precise mechanism behind such a complex sociological phenomenon?
The reality is that hackers and the net (and everything else in the world) invented each other in a complex feedback loop of cause and effect and the effects of the effects. To claim that one could have existed in a currently recognisable form without the other is patently ludicrous.
Could someone explain this to me? I tried to read it but I think my brain just melted.
Are they talking about an author's modification being released under both NPL and GPL, or about the whole modified Mozilla package being released under both NPL and GPL?
What does releasing under the two different licences simultaneously mean anyway? In real terms?
This is no big deal. There have been cheap clone Sparc machines available from third party manufacturers for many years, eg. from Hamcom in Germany and their sister company Transtec in the UK. They can provide specifications similar to Sun's own machines but for a lot less money.
There is absolutely NOTHING to worry about. Bear with me here.
What you say makes a lot of sense, as do the remarks by many people that DNS is no good really anyway.
On the face of it, it does appear as if public ownership of the internet is threatened as greedy corporations and power-hungry governments take over. But it is doomed to fail just as attempts at external censorship are doomed.
Many people have heard it said that the Internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it.
This is precisely because the protocols on which it is based were designed (here I'm talking specifically about IP, TCP and UDP) to be adaptable so the old ARPANET network could survive partial destruction from, say, a nuclear strike.
But the adaptability of those protocols also makes it possible to write any higher level protocol you like to sit on top of it. For example, IP tunnelling for virtual private networking: encrypted IP sitting on top of IP.
My point is, if the people don't like what happens to DNS, and even if the IETF is disbanded or declawed or otherwise rendered useless, then the _people_ will devise some other means of translating IP addresses, in exactly the same way that a whole new universe of open source software has come into being. Somebody will write a new address translation protocol and thousands of servers around the world will be set up (initially by enthusiasts alone) to answer lookup requests coded in that protocol. Before long it will be the dominant name resolution protocol and DNS will be obsolete.
The genie is already out of the bottle and those assholes on the WIPO will soon find it's too late to stop us now. Power to the people! Heh Heh Heh!
Ah...you're all just a bunch of crack heads. Maybe they should rename this site to crackdot.
LOL!!!
Anyway I thought offensive comments were supposed to be moderated. So much for that.
I'm still laughing at your reponses BTW. Fuck you too!
Linking to that virtualcrack page was incredibly stupid and irresponsible. Do you really think it's funny? I wouldn't have complained about a joke referring to cannabis, but Crack cocaine is an extremely addictive drug which destroys people's lives. There is _nothing_ funny about it. Making jokes about it only helps to make it seem more acceptable to those who haven't wised up about hard drugs yet.
As a publisher, you have a responsibility to draw a line between what is funny and what is just plain offensive. If you don't then people will just stop visiting your site. Do you really want your site blocked by parents concerned about their children?
I think you ought to offer an apology.
You're not thinking ahead.
There is a great drive now to push Linux out onto the desktop. Moreover Linux plus GNOME or KDE is fundamentally technically superior to Windows by virtue of being designed carefully from the ground up with the knowledge of all the mistakes in microcomputer and minicomputer OS design over the past twenty years. Sure GNOME and KDE are still immature but they are still only about a year old. Where the hell was Windows when it was a year old?
Technical superiority under the hood will not win the desktop directly, but the concomitant stability, security and performance benefits are already proving themselves.
It's not easy to extrapolate forward, but given the current rate of development it is almost unthinkable that Linux could fail to equal Windows by every criterion of usability within three years, even if the size of the developer pool doesn't expand from where it is now. And yet as more and more people are still piling in to contribute to Open Source projects, it could happen in even less time than that.
The sheer potential of Linux is not even the only important factor. Microsoft can't even manage their own code base any more! Windows 98 was a flop. NT 2000 has slipped yet again. More and more people are getting completely pissed off with their computers glitching, crashing and locking up several times a day. It's clear that it is beyond Microsoft's capability to rectify this situation or they would have at least shown some signs of attempting to do so.
I'm not saying that Linux machines are devoid of the odd software problem but in my experience it is rather less serious, even with fully-loaded systems. Right now, on the Linux system I'm sitting at this minute I am running 72 different processes, and the 20 windows I have open are three or four layers deep. If I ever tried to do that on Win95 it would grind to halt or die! On this system there isn't even any performance degradation. Given that as a starting point, its obvious Linux will beat Windows on every criterion in a very short time. The only difference that mitigates against that is Microsoft's marketing clout. And even with a public composed of frightened sheep, Microsoft can only go on peddling the same tired old lies for so long.