One should also remember that a free market isn't free anymore if government power is subverted.
We have a word for government dictation of markets. Communism.
And I would say that a market that is state dominated on paper is every bit as communist as one where the government has been taken over by corporate interests.
If Charter ever starts blocking my outbound DNS and tries to FORCE me to use their servers for lookups I'm cutting off my internet access.
Forced gatekeeping of DNS is not only abusive, but it is only a short step away from censorship. Your ISP being the only way to look up domain names makes it very convenient for the government to enforce censorship.
At first it would probably just be "zomg think of the children" but I'm not holding my breath for it to stay at that level.
How about ISPs that start lawsuits against cities wanting to build their own municipal fiber network, then keeping them tied up in court while they build their own network?
Customers aren't the only ones filing "stupid" lawsuits.
Which means that if they suck you don't have to do business with them.
I avoid them because I prefer pure DNS, but I don't despise them because they don't force you to use them.
Your ISP on the other hand is the gatekeeper between your computer and the rest of the internet. They have omnipotent power to fuck with your traffic as they damn please. MY ISP, charter, interferes with NXDOMAIN responses, so I use google's DNS. Fortunately, they don't also block outbound DNS like my college's wireless does.
In theory competition would make them think twice about it but thanks to the monopoly infested internet access market they have no incentive to be reasonable.
Hell, Monticello even tried to be nice and make it a public utility that multiple ISPs could compete for service over.
TDS sued them and got the construction bonds locked up in escrow, and even more sinister, while they had the city hogtied in court they went out and built the network themselves, using the lawsuit as nothing more than a stalling tactic while they went out and hogged the market for themselves.
The city wound up winning the lawsuit but thanks to being hogtied at the starting gate they never had a chance to even win the race.
It's akin to the tortoise winning the race by accusing the hare of using steroids, and while the hare's being detained by the referees getting a blood test the tortoise is already on the track plodding along. By the time the hare finally gets to run the track the tortoise has already crossed the finish line.
I wonder how many evil points you get for abusing legal process to stifle competition?
Continuing the property analogy of domain registrars being landlords, you could say that spamming is a lease violation, and the consequences could be like getting evicted.
On the other hand, the potentially estoppel inducing evidence that Sun's CEO endorsed it has conveniently poofed off of the intertubes. Right on the eve of the trial, no less.
In theory, copyrights cannot stop independent innovation.
If something's patented, you can't copy it period. However, copyright will prevent copying but if you do your own engineering clean room style, you're safe.
Using the law as an excuse for your misdeeds only works if you're not also lobbying the crap out of the government to bend said laws to your advantage.
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Without copyright, you couldn't stop someone from sharing your code FOR you, either.
GPL only exists because of copyright in the first place, both as a source of necessity as well as where it gets its effectiveness from.
Without copyright, the GPL would be both useless, and superfluous.
In order to close development you need to own the copyrights, not the patents.
Patents only make other people gun-shy about contributing.
Kinda like MS's hyperv dump.
They are willfully harming others in the process of helping themselves, and doing so when they have a choice not to.
I'd call that evil.
One should also remember that a free market isn't free anymore if government power is subverted.
We have a word for government dictation of markets. Communism.
And I would say that a market that is state dominated on paper is every bit as communist as one where the government has been taken over by corporate interests.
it's such a good idea that ISPs will sue to stop it. (TDS v. Monticello I think)
When a greedy corporation starts putting legal shells in its shotguns, you know you're onto something.
It's fraud if you lie about it.
There's also a potential tort of intentional interference with contractual relations.
If Charter ever starts blocking my outbound DNS and tries to FORCE me to use their servers for lookups I'm cutting off my internet access.
Forced gatekeeping of DNS is not only abusive, but it is only a short step away from censorship. Your ISP being the only way to look up domain names makes it very convenient for the government to enforce censorship.
At first it would probably just be "zomg think of the children" but I'm not holding my breath for it to stay at that level.
Indeed.
404 errors come from web servers, not DNS servers.
If a DNS lookup fails you don't even get as far as a 404.
A 404 is knocking on the door and nobody being home.
NXDOMAIN is not even finding the house.
How about ISPs that start lawsuits against cities wanting to build their own municipal fiber network, then keeping them tied up in court while they build their own network?
Customers aren't the only ones filing "stupid" lawsuits.
OpenDNS is opt in.
Which means that if they suck you don't have to do business with them.
I avoid them because I prefer pure DNS, but I don't despise them because they don't force you to use them.
Your ISP on the other hand is the gatekeeper between your computer and the rest of the internet. They have omnipotent power to fuck with your traffic as they damn please. MY ISP, charter, interferes with NXDOMAIN responses, so I use google's DNS. Fortunately, they don't also block outbound DNS like my college's wireless does.
In theory competition would make them think twice about it but thanks to the monopoly infested internet access market they have no incentive to be reasonable.
Hell, Monticello even tried to be nice and make it a public utility that multiple ISPs could compete for service over.
TDS sued them and got the construction bonds locked up in escrow, and even more sinister, while they had the city hogtied in court they went out and built the network themselves, using the lawsuit as nothing more than a stalling tactic while they went out and hogged the market for themselves.
The city wound up winning the lawsuit but thanks to being hogtied at the starting gate they never had a chance to even win the race.
It's akin to the tortoise winning the race by accusing the hare of using steroids, and while the hare's being detained by the referees getting a blood test the tortoise is already on the track plodding along. By the time the hare finally gets to run the track the tortoise has already crossed the finish line.
I wonder how many evil points you get for abusing legal process to stifle competition?
Continuing the property analogy of domain registrars being landlords, you could say that spamming is a lease violation, and the consequences could be like getting evicted.
Attaching an IP to the domain and opening up a web server could be implied invitation.
This would fall under the "sad but true" category for me.
I avoid Facebook on principle.
Hey Geohot, how does it feel to be working for Facebook now?
They'll just bribe the police to arrest you.
They patented it to make sure nobody else could.
Everyone just has an implied license.
Unfortunately the patent establishment will never let your idea fly.
What needs to happen is loser pays.
Then you won't be afraid to stand up for yourself if you know that you'll get a full refund if you win.
On the other hand, the potentially estoppel inducing evidence that Sun's CEO endorsed it has conveniently poofed off of the intertubes. Right on the eve of the trial, no less.
No, Google put in a giant bid, more than any of the other competitors *individually* did.
They lost because everyone hates their guts and ganged up on them by forming a joint company and pooling their resources.
In theory, copyrights cannot stop independent innovation.
If something's patented, you can't copy it period. However, copyright will prevent copying but if you do your own engineering clean room style, you're safe.
Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.
Using the law as an excuse for your misdeeds only works if you're not also lobbying the crap out of the government to bend said laws to your advantage.