It is surprising that this decision seems to exclude other free licenses such as the BSD. Does this mean that they wont use things like Mozilla (isnt it the NPL?) and FreeBSD? What did they find objectionable about the other licenses?
First, you are I think confusing two separate issues.
1) Open Source software will be used by government wherever possible. This definition includes a superset of free software, and especially includes FreeBSD, Mozilla, the NPL, and other licenses in addition to the GPL.
2) Software developed for the government must be GPLed. Their reasoning is probably something along the lines that public moneys, funding public projects (like government-written, or government funded software) shouldn't be appropriated for personal gain, especially by foreign monopolies that will embrace, extend, and ultimately seek to destroy a competing product.
Not an unreasonable stance for them to take, actually.
The article isn't entirely clear, but from my reading it appears that the government will use free software and open source software wherever possible (of whatever licenses they deem appropriate), proprietary software where they must, but any software developed for the government (presumably by contract, perhaps at times even by government personnel) will be GPLed, with its freedom and accessiblity to the public thereby protected for the duration of the copyright. A damn fine idea IMHO.
Re:The Constitution doesn't need amending
on
Want Freedom?
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· Score: 2
Congref shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the pref; or the right of the people peaceably to afemble, and to petition the government for a redref of grievances.
Yeah, but back in the mid nineteenth, when we almost adopted German as our language of government, it could have read:
Cöngreß shäll make nö law respecting än estäblishment öf religiön, or pröhibiting the free exercise thereöf; or äbridging the freedöm öf speech, ör öf the preß; ör the right öf the peöple peäceäbly to äßemble, änd tö petition the gövernment för a redreß öf grievänces.
But then, I'd rather just see it all written out in cuniform anyway...something like a big muzzle with a red circle around it and a line through it, or maybe a picture of Ashcroft's face with the same.
The notion that Einstein was a God Fearing Christian is demonstrably a myth, one that is being deliberately, maliciously, and with profound intellectual dishonestly promoted by the religious right.
It ranks up their with their tendency to characterize Hitler, and Naziism, as an athiest regime when in fact Hitler, and most of the Nazis, were devoutly Christian.
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein in Albert Einstein: The Human Side
His references to God (playing dice) etc. were metaphorical, not literal, as anyone who has read any of Einstein's works can trivially observe.
Then I guess that means Jan "The Man" Reno can't get AIDS.
No, but Dick "Stalin in Training" Chaney sure can, and since he's been bending most of America over about a year now, there's a good chance the rest of us over here will bet it too. Our only hope is that he keeps reaming us out with the erstwhile Bill of Rights, rather than his own appendage, but I don't think thats something any of us can count on.
Isn't a sign of the times... and of our continuing infantilism that our political views are expressed through games?
No.
It is no more infantile than scratching crude pictures on paper mocking politicians or political events.
We call those political cartoons, and they are a venerated way of making exactly the same kinds of sardonic, and sometime crass, criticisms of public policies and public politicians. The flash games described here are exactly the same thing, printed in a new medium (the interactive internet as opposed to the passive, one-way old media).
Games and programming in general are obviously speech deserving of "at least the same protections as the print media" to paraphrase the supreme court's opinion in their ruling which overturned the SCA. Things like this are invaluable in driving that point home in terms even non-tech savvy, but non-whored-out-to-the-media-cartels judges can understand. In other words, it won't sway Kaplan, but it will likely sway the supreme court, and it is there opinions which count.
Clearly today's royalty mess is largely the fault of people who implemented and used MP3 encoding many years before Ogg/Vorbis even existed. If they all just would have had enough forsight to forsee this coming, and instead of MP3, use nothing at all and wait for Ogg/Vorbis, then we all woulda been better off.
Yes, we would be. Most of my music collection is in OggVorbis format, and was encoded as such over three years ago. Yes, it was beta, but it worked, and the music remains compatible with today's production release ogg players. Would I get better quality if I reencoded it today? Probably, but I'm no hurry to do so, because for my purposes it works fine.
There was and remains no excuse for people, having been warned and warned and warned again, to have pushed and used MP3 format anytime in the last three years. The only reason, of course, is shortsightedness. Even the hardware vendors could have had flashable chips, upgrading to the current code as it was released.
Instead people ignored the warnings, wrote off those who promoted OggVorbis as 'purists', 'freedom fanatics' and what have you, and now are paying the consiquences. Excuse me if I don't cry a river for them.
BTW, it still remains to be seen if ogg/vorbis truely does not violate any patents.
It remains to be seen of the UNIX 'ls' command does not violate any patents. Using a laser pointer to play with your cat violates a patent.
I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, but teaching at the university level is one hell of a lot easier than teaching at the high school or elementary school level, even if you don't have your graduate students teach your courses.
College students are adults, and generally behave as such (at least while in the classroom).
High school and grade school kids, while great people individually, tend to become absolute monsters in a group. A grade school or high school teacher is not just a teacher, they are a baby sitter and often a surragate parent, among numerous other things.
All the university professor has to do is teach a subject, grade some exams, and publish a paper now and then. It may be hard work, but it is nothing compared to the hell most public school teachers go through.
Teaching elementary or high school may not be the hardest job in the world, but its a damn site harder than teaching at a university.
As for spelling, when slashdot impliments a spelling checker in this kludgy FORM field we all have to type in, our spelling will improve. In the meantime typos will happen, and during a quick rant that probably wasn't even proofed before it was posted, it is to be expected. Only a fool would thing it representative of the person's teaching (or other) qualifications.
3. Hence, the patent license for free (as in beer) MP3 decoders is not compatible with the GPL;
The GPL has a specific clause that deals with patents, which basically says the GPL makes no warranty with respect to patents and it is up to the user to know and adhere to any patents valid within the jurisdiction where they are using or distributing the code. If the code is in violation of a patent and cannot be distributed within the terms of the GPL, then you cannot distribute the code within the jurisdicition where the patent is granted.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
In the case of a software, or mathetmatical, patent like mp3, the GPL is likely to hold, and be valid, for all of the code including the mp3 algorithm itself throughout most of the world.
Only in the United States, and perhaps some portions of Europe, will commercial use of the code that would otherwise be within the limits set by the GPL be incompatible, so most of the world is free to use the code within the constraints of the GPL.
OTOH the GPL doesn't require one to charge for the software, so I'm not certain it is incompatible even in those less fortunate parts of the world where software and business-method patents have insinuated themselves into the law, though I agree it certainly might be.
It's hard to see Thomson as the bad guys here. Rather, the fault lies with those who slapped a GPL on top of their MP3 player-programs, without considering the legal restrictions
The fault lies with Frauenhofer for changing the licensing terms, in effect, changing the rules of the game midstream. It is a sleazy thing for them to do, no matter how anyone spins it.
However, I agree with you that a large portion of the blame falls squarely on those who promote and use MP3 instead of unencumbered alternatives like OggVorbis. We knew from the history of GIF and others that this is the sort of behavior one can expect from the kind of people who would seek to patent and restrict knowledge to begin with, so it should really come as no surprise that they have remained true to their nature and done this, and anyone who was surprised, or caught flat-footed by it, has demonstrated an incredible lack of vision and foresight (not to mention understanding of recent historical events a la' the GIF LZW patent).
At the same time, though, we see the "Red Hat = Microsoft?" articles and the subtle opposition to anything that is 'tainted' by capitalism (sinister OSDN [not that it isn't a keiretsu], etc.) I've since decided that open source people are simply disinclined toward business
That would be an erroneous conclusion.
A more accurate (though not necessarilly 100% correct, since it is difficult to know what 100% correct is in the context of so many diverse people) conclusion would be that
OSS (and Free Software) enthusiasts are a diverse bunch of people, and among them are included some few who dislike any 'taint' of commericalism.
I am very inclined toward business (and quite good at it, if the last few years' tax returns are to be believed), and that doesn't stop me from being accused of zealotry or anti-commercial sentiments when, in fact, my sentiments are anti-monopoly, not anti-business, as are the sentiments of anyone who understands how a free market and competition are supposed to work.
Since copyright grants a 95 year (or life+75 year) government enforced monopoly, this means I come down firmly on the side of Free Software, both philosophically and, based on a great deal of bad experience with proprietary software, practically. But this has more to do with the problems inherent in having a vendor with authority over aspects of your business, and the power to coerce one's business into taking actions not in your best interests (but theirs instead), and having that power over you backed by a government gun, that it does with any "anti-commerical" sentiment.
There are others, quite likely the majority of Open Source and Free Software enthusiasts, who are much deeper in the pro-business camp than I, so I suspect your characterization really describes only a tiny, if outspoken, minority of people who use and advocate free software and open source.
That if you don't like Google... then you shouldn't use Google. Duh. Why the holy crusade? If you think Altavista or hell, Netscape Search meets your needs, then use it. Why do people find it necessary to attack everything instead of being constructive.
I think, to be quite blunt, that this is a crock of shit.
One of the most important things in a civil society are the checks and balances critcism offers on any service, any government, any individual, indeed, any endeavor undertaken. These checks and balances, and the importance of public criticism, because of vastly greater importance when the perceptions and lives of many people are impacted.
This is true whether one is criticizing GNU, Linux, Richard Stallman, our corporate masters in the form of George Bush, Enron, WorldComm, Microsoft, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, or whomever else happens to be in the hotseat at any given time.
If Google really were stacking their search results, criticism and a 'holy crusade' as you so snidely put it, would be a very important counterbalance in offsetting the corruption and distortion inherent in such a thing, particularly given how trusted Google is.
I disagree with the guys criticism, for what it is worth, and am an ardent user of Google. But I agree whole heartedly with the need for such criticism to keep the likes of Google honest, and to call them on the carpet when they do something shady or wrong (like they did when the caved to the Cult of Scientology's pressure to censor the search results revealing critics of that particular organization).
This "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" is a fine creed for slaves or submissive corporate drones, but it has no place at all in the marketplace of intellectual thought or debate.
Now, on the other hand, if you'd like to argue for civil discourse instead of flame fests and random insults, I will be the first to add my voice to yours, but lest we forget, civil discourse can and must include criticism, sometimes vehement criticism. Indeed, such can often be the most important civil discourse being conducted.
For example, making backups of your software or music files. At least then you can guarantee copies of the original you own and prevent multi-generational copies of copies.
That is still a bad idea. If and when your master disk gets scratched, damaged, or lost you won't be able to make a backup of the only existing copy you've made.
The correct use of this technology is serializing each copy of the software, so that the program / song can be associated with a real, living person, or at least their credit card number. This doesn't necessarilly require watermarking, nor does it mean a determined copyright violator can't do the digital equivelent of 'filing off the serial numbers', but filing off the serial numbers is more difficult to justify than making backup copies or moving the copies to different media, and a law disallowing the removal of serial numbers is a hell of a lot more palitable than a law disallowing the circumvention of copy prevention technology in order to back up the software you paid good money for.
Serializing software did more to stop widespread software copying than any of the attempted, and since discarded, copy prevention schemes ever did. Yes, you still have warez dudes (and you will always have such, no matter what you do), but the willingness of every Tom, Dick, and Harry to share their software illegally went out the window the first time they saw their name associated with a product serial number, and hasn't been back since.
As others have noted, we've been down this path before, and it remains a technological sink hole and dead end. It will never be effective, it will never work regardless of how draconian the laws or how pervasive the spyware and enforcementware becomes.
What is particularly silly is that a solution has already been found and used, and found to be effective, and these idiots still can't grasp it.
Perhaps after they've spent another billion on these snake-oil salesmen they'll start to 'get it', but somehow, based on past idiocy, I'm not holding my breath.
But in practice, we're just not seeing all the innovation that you would expect. The classic examples are always cited--Perl, gcc, Emacs, Apache, the Linux kernel--but for a model that's supposed to be so superior, the success stories are fewer than you'd expect.
Differentiating between innovative creations and innovate uses of technology is semantic nonsense. Even in the purest act of creation, in which you create a new program that does something no one ever thought to do before, you are still making innovative use of the underlying technology, including the hardware, the operating system, the compiler, and any number of libraries.
In house software for trading systems, for accounting systems, for real estate analysis, or for any other purpose, are no less creative for being in house, and no less innovative. And in many cases, what makes it possible for an average, non-wealthy person to do, is Free Software.
All users may not be developers, but every developer on the planet is by definition also a user of technology. The GPL is as much about user freedom as it is developer freedom, and the success stories may be uncomfortable to those of you who like to advocate a return to proprietary bondage, but they are no less real or potent for that.
I've read lots of papers like this, going back to Eric Raymond's rants. And you know, it sounds great on paper. It really does. And I love the idea of the GPL...ut for a model that's supposed to be so superior, the success stories are fewer than you'd expect.
That is because you are looking in the wrong places for your "success stories." You are wondering why some GPLed mapping program hasn't unseated Microsoft's Streetsmart, or why program X under the GPL so resembles commercial program Y (though often it is program Y which mimicks the GPLed program X... much of OS X's eye candy can be traced back to the first program to ever use images in window decorations and borders: Rastorman's enlightenment, but I digress).
What you are ignoring are the tens of thousands of small firms, like my own, like the dozen's a friend of mine consults for, and thousands of others around the world, who have used free software (GNU/Linux in particular) to build their infrastructure, their inhouse software, and their business out from under the everpresent heal of Microsoft, Sun, or Apple (though the latter has become a kinder master of late than the other two, it nevertheless remains a master). The success stories you are ignoring range from the traders I work for, who earn a sizable chunk of money thanks in no small part to GNU/Linux's superiority over their competitor's infrastructrue, to Pengiun Airlines, to Wallmart, to BMW, to the German government, the Chinese Government, the Brazilian government, and others too numerous to list, all of whome are able to run their IT infrastructure on their own terms, within their own budgets, and free from the coerced upgrades and chronic, forced obsolescence of their software and their hardware at the hands of their operating system vendor, as is chronically the case for anyone subject to Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and yes, even kinder, gentler Apple.
That is where you will find the innovation and the flourishing of the technology more than anywhere else, amongst the users which have been liberated by the Freedoms expounded upon by the Free Software Foundation, people like myself and many, many others who have been able to flourish even during these difficult times, thanks primarilly to the GPL and the user's freedoms which it helps to guarentee.
Freedoms that allow us to run our businesses and earn a living, without being subject to the whims and deprivations of a copyright cartel or a convicted monopolist.
Patents and copyrights are about making money, NOT fostering innovation.
Very true, but the excuse for patents and copyrights, and the economic and cultural harm such informational and intellectual monopolies cause, is the mistaken notion that they are intended to, or in fact do, "foster innovation." As we've seen demonstrated very clearly in the software industry, and as we've seen evidence of in other areas of endeavor, these government mandated monopolies do not foster innovation or progress... so their very excuse for existing, and for granting such privelege to so few, is itself a farce.
Which is something the average joe is only now, slowly, becoming aware of.
Do you have some substantive arguments, or do you just call names? Are you referring to Michael Powell? Substantiate your arguments. Don't call names.
RTFA (Read the fucking article)
But Powell, backed by the Baby Bells and the cable companies, has rejected these forward-looking solutions in favor of a simplistic mantra of "deregulation." "Deregulation is a critical ingredient to facilitate competition," Powell announced when he was nominated last year. But Powell's brand of deregulation protects the Baby Bells and cable companies from competition in the illogical hope that they will invest in new technology to improve transmission. Far from increasing competition, it will reinforce the trend toward monopoly.
Alas for all of us...
t first, Powell's deregulatory crusade was largely rhetorical, but this year he began to take action. In February, Powell, who enjoys a three-to-one majority on the FCC, announced a "proposed rulemaking" on "telephone-based broadband." According to the FCC's decision, telephone-based broadband services are "information services, with a telecommunications component, rather than telecommunications services." The distinction sounds semantic, but it has profound legal implications. According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telecommunications services have to grant open access to their facilities, but information services do not. By defining telephone broadband as an information service--a designation originally intended for content providers like LexisNexis--the FCC removed it from regulation, allowing the Baby Bells to ban other ISPs from transmitting over their lines.
The next month Powell struck again--getting his majority to declare that cable-based broadband was "an interstate information service" and not either a "telecommunication service" or a "cable service." Here again, by defining cable broadband as an information rather than a telecommunication service, Powell permitted cable to ban other providers from using their lines. Moreover, by defining cable as an "interstate" information service rather than a "cable service," he removed it from any local regulation over prices and service.
But of course, ultimate the leapard has shown his spots, and shown himselfs as the corporate whore he really is
Lately, as deregulation has been discredited by scandal, Powell has openly espoused the end to which deregulation was the means. In an interview last month with The Wall Street Journal, Powell admitted that he favored major (supposedly innovation-spurring) consolidations in the telecommunications industry along the same lines of those the defense industry underwent in the '90s. During the '90s the defense industry was reduced from about a dozen to three giant firms [...] Defense firms contract primarily with a single buyer, the U.S. government, which enjoys substantial leverage over them. They are thus intrinsically subject to government oversight. Phone and cable monopolies, by contrast, contract with millions of unorganized consumers who, in the absence of a vigilant FCC, can't exert much influence over them.
Falling behind in telecom technology won't just mean American consumers have to wait for affordable broadband service. It will mean, as Powell himself argues, that the telecom industry will likely remain in the doldrums--and perhaps keep the overall economy there with it.
See how easy that was? Of course, instead of clicking on the link to my comment, you could have clicked on the link to the article itself the first time, and saved yourself the trouble.
Comparing something like this in the US to Japan and Korea doesn't make any sense at all. They have much less space to deal with, and a far smaller rural population. The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
I live in downtown Chicago. Out of my window I can see ground zero ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ the Sears Tower, which is a short 5-10 minute walk away. I am in the heart of the financial district, probably the most connected part of the city.
I cannot get decesnt Broadband, and believe me, with the demise of Sprint ION and my soon-to-go-away 8mbit ADSL service, I've been looking.
RCN? Crappy broadband service, flakey network, connections which crawl during peak hours.
Ameritech? The less said the better... the idiots can't even distinguish between static and dynamic IP addresses.
XO? Covad? Not bad, but to get circuits analogous to the 128 kbit service I had years ago costs $80... the same as the 1.5 Mbit SDSL I had from another ISP three years ago.
With the demise of so many DSL providors, Sprint being the latest, affordable, quality DLS or broadband simply doesn't exist, and the reason is exactly as the article states: SBC Ameritech and their ability to use their last mile monopoly to fuck with the market, thanks to that corporate slut at the FCC, Colin Powell's son.
Broadband is less available now, in one of America's largest cities, than it was just a couple of year ago, and what is more, it is less avaiable here, in the heart of Chciago, than it is in typical rural portions of Western Canada, as numerous people fortunate enough to live north of our borders have pointed out several times in this thread already.
Nepotism, cronyism, and George W. Bush are who we have to thank for this fiasco more than anyone else, and I for one hold those corrupt, evil fucks personally responsible.
We as a community of users are still not being good advocates. It's more than advocacy - it's basic manners and the ability to communicate.
While I agree with your comment, and the quote you cited, 100%, I think it should be pointed out that, by last count, there are between 10 and 30 million GNU/Linux users. Given the large population of the 'community' (which is analogous to the population of New York or Mexico City) it shouldn't be too surprising that there are boisterous idiots somewhere in the crowd, nor should a rational person associate the behavior of a few such idiots with the population at large.
Unfortunately, one of the weaknesses of the human psyche is to associate unusual (especially negative) behavior of a few members of a minority group, such as GNU/Linux users, with the entire group while at the same time ignoring the same type of behavior among just as many (proportionally) members of a majority group.
This means that Windows users who behave similarly (and there are plenty of those) will not be associated with Windows users, while GNU/Linux users who do so will affect the repuation of the whole group. It isn't rational, or accurate, but it is nevertheless real. Just ask any black person in America who has had to contend with stereotypes vis-a-vis crime or loitering, while the exact same behavior is ignored in the majority (white) population. They are victims of exactly the same flaw in the human psyche (though other factors, such as prejudice and racism, do exist to exacerbate the problem, so the comparison isn't perfect). Pick any other racial/ethnic mixture, anywhere else in the world, and the same phenomenon exists. The interesting thing is that the mind draws such patterns irrespective of racial or ethnic prejudices (a relative of mine worked on a study regarding this very topic, and the results remained the same when distinctly non-prejudicial conditions were applied, things distinguishable but having nothing to do with ethnicity or economic status. Very interesting stuff actually, but I digress).
In any event I find your comment to be 100% dead on, but in fairness we should keep in mind just how large the community has grown, and just how inevitable it is that a group that size will contain a number of jackasses. Most importantly it should be emphesized (and probably reemphesized everytime this comes up) just how non-representative such behavior really is.
JVCs Open Licensing v. Sony's Obstinance the Key
on
Why VHS Was Better
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· Score: 5, Insightful
here's [urbanlegends.com] a link that might help you. Essentially, Beta was first and had most of the innovations, but VHS won out overall. Betas quality was, as everyone will state, better but the record time and lack of pre-recorded media helped to kill it.
Pre-recorded media wasn't a factor until long after the VHS-Beta battle was over. Almost no one was buying movies back then... the big rage was the ability to record your own movies and material, directly off the television transmission.
The urbanlegends link portrays one perspective (and is quoted as an authority, although in truth it is no more authoritative than any other perspective), however, other early players in the consumer video market have argued a much different perspective.
At any given point in time, Beta was noticably better than VHS in features/quality (recording length excepted, although almost no one uses the 8 hour super-slow really-crappy record mode that I know), so saying "VHS caught up" really sidesteps the entire question of why VHS won, given that at any point in the battle VHS was on the losing side of the "technically better" argument.
What really killed Beta, according to some players at the time, was Sony's asinine licensing, or rather, the lack thereof, in direct contrast to JVC's willingness to license VHS to pretty much anyone willing to write a check. The entire event is very analogous to Apple undercutting other power-pc manufacturers, or Sun undercutting other sparc manufacturers, Sony was very stringent in who they would license Beta to.
The result was that there were four or five competing VHS brands, against Sony's Beta. Consumers correctly perceived a competitive market on the one hand, and a Sony proprietary market on the other, and as they did with Intel vs. Everyone else (remember, Intel allowed for competing motherboard and computer manufacturers, IBM notwithstanding), consumers went for the format that had clear competition.
The other factor of having multiple VHS manufacturers is the perception that VHS was already a standard catching on, while Sony was the sole promoter of Beta. Whether consumers chose VHS because they saw competition, or because they perceived it as having caught on (since there was competition), or simply because of price, the fact remains that the deciding factor was licensing and the presence of multiple vendors, not the quality of the underlying format.
In a sense that could be called 'marketing', but more correctly VHS's success is attributable to its 'licensing.'
One of the things is, as mentioned in another post, that there is way too much interference from badly constructed appliances and household electrical goofups like badly connected power outlets.
None of that is, IMHO, a showstopper.
Contrary to the myths expounded by Hollywood and the RIAA, the lackluster adoption of broadband isn't the lack of "content" (the illogic of their arguments demonstrate this when, with the next breath, the proclaim massive losses due to copyright violated "content" being actively traded on the very same internet).
Broadband/DSL is being actively sabataged by the baby bells in the US and quite possibly by similiar entities elsewhere in the world. These people own the last mile of copper, connecting that mostly unused glass network to your home. It is this monopoly that the FCC was supposed to regulate, but has chosen not to despite the law requiring them to, and it is this monopoly that must be broken for the internet, and broadband/DSL, to thrive.
If the interference problems were a result of the electrical infrastructure (bad substations, bad transformers, crappy power lines, etc.) then we'd have a problem. But if it is a result of bad home wiring, noisy appliances, or what have you, then the problem is emminently solvable, and the approach still a very valid solution to the Last Mile Monopoly.
Simply put, the data receiver could be placed adjascent to the home's power coupling, prior to the current entering the home (with all of its noise appliances and crappy wiring). The data could then be sent throughout the home on standard cat5 or cat7, or wireless, sans the interference everyone keeps worrying about.
Granted, you lose the ability to use any old outlet as a data port, but that is a small price to pay for getting data without dealing with either the baby bell monopolies or the cable monopolies, and that is where the real value lies.
Speaking as one who is about to lose their excellent Sprint 8Mbit down/1 Mbit up DSL service because of the local Ameritech Last Mile Monopoly and the FCC's willful negligence in enforcing the law, anything that puts those fucking assholes out of business, or even competes on a level playing field, is Good News(tm) regardless.
I used to point new linux users to Red Hat/Mandrake/SuSe but no longer... If the beginner is even a little bit computer savvy, I wouldnt have any problem in recommending an install of Woody
I agree 100%, though I am an ex-Debian, now Gentoo user.
For new users that just want something that works, the distro I recommend depends on whether I will be doing the installation, they will be doing the installation, or we will be doing it together.
What is more, the distro I choose depends on whether they have interest in learning GNU/Linux, or just want a working computer to do X with.
If I'm doing the installation, OR if we're doing it together and they have an interest in learning GNU/Linux, I will give them Gentoo, despite its manual installation. I have had very positive feedback from that, the most negative of which was "It's an auful lot of cryptic typing, but the install documents tell you what to do and it works every time!" while the most positive feedback I got was "It might be a lot of work, but now I feel I really understand what's making my computer tick!"
If they are doing the install, or we are doing it together and they just want a machine that works, I will typically give them Mandrake (though knoppix is looking like a good choice these days) so they aren't scared off by the install. Mandrake autodetects nearly every piece of hardware I've thrown at it, which is the one thing missing from both Debian and Gentoo IMHO.
My sister's husband is the only person I've ever encountered who tried GNU/Linux and chose to go back to Windows (because of some stupid game he was addicted to), and it amuses me to no end how much trouble that has caused him.
No one eh? You're the only person who "get's it" eh? Come on.
Then why was I the only one to my knowledge to post that observation, despite doing so late in the discussion? Is everyone else who has made that observation too terrified to speak out?
Much of slashdot is aware of the mental engineering going on around us.
That is probably true, yet I posted late in the thread and was AFAIK the first to broach the theme from that perspective. True, I generally browse at +2, so perhaps others who pointed out what I see to be rather obvious were modded down into oblivion, but frankly that would surprise me.
Everyone was saying 'well, I don't thing that's really accurate', but no one seemed to be adding 2 and 2 together and comming up with 4, hence my comment.
Re: your comments on propoganda, I agree 100%. Unfortunately, when the same propaganda riffs are used again and again, there really is no excuse for even the stupidest among us not to notice and realize something is amiss. Alas, even that degree of common sense seems to be missing all too frequently.
AOL retains it's customer base by convincing the customer that it IS the internet. The average AOL user hears internet and thinks AOL.
Only to some degree. I know a number of people who use AOL, and most of the "internet" they spend their time on (the World Wide Web) isn't on AOL. Of course, their tastes are... esoteric. But then, so are the tastes of 99% of the people in the world, in one subject or another.
AOL is suffering from the fact that the Time-Warner portion of the company has ousted most of the leadership of the AOL side of the company. In other words, the old Media Moghuls have taken over the AOL side of the company, and it shows in both their thinking and their behavior. It shouldn't be any surprise, in that light, that AOL is persuing the 'dream' of becoming a big cable company... that is the only thing the media whores running AOL-Time-Warner these days can see within their small minds.
It should also be no surprise that such a strategy will prove disasterous, should the internet survive. Unfortunately, the very same people are in Washington lobbying and purchasing legislation that will eliminate the internet as we know it, and replace it with something that represents the Home Shopping Network and Interactive TV more than it will the internet as we know it today. Should they succeed, this strategy will no longer be inane, it will be inspired. Inspired by the destruction of the last vestige of free thought and freedom of expresson in America, whose demise they will have orchestrated and profited from handsomely.
Gives new meaning to the song "Burn Hollywood Burn" doesn't it?
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It is surprising that this decision seems to exclude other free licenses such as the BSD. Does this mean that they wont use things like Mozilla (isnt it the NPL?) and FreeBSD? What did they find objectionable about the other licenses?
First, you are I think confusing two separate issues.
1) Open Source software will be used by government wherever possible. This definition includes a superset of free software, and especially includes FreeBSD, Mozilla, the NPL, and other licenses in addition to the GPL.
2) Software developed for the government must be GPLed. Their reasoning is probably something along the lines that public moneys, funding public projects (like government-written, or government funded software) shouldn't be appropriated for personal gain, especially by foreign monopolies that will embrace, extend, and ultimately seek to destroy a competing product.
Not an unreasonable stance for them to take, actually.
The article isn't entirely clear, but from my reading it appears that the government will use free software and open source software wherever possible (of whatever licenses they deem appropriate), proprietary software where they must, but any software developed for the government (presumably by contract, perhaps at times even by government personnel) will be GPLed, with its freedom and accessiblity to the public thereby protected for the duration of the copyright. A damn fine idea IMHO.
Congref shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the pref; or the right of the people peaceably to afemble, and to petition the government for a redref of grievances.
Yeah, but back in the mid nineteenth, when we almost adopted German as our language of government, it could have read:
Cöngreß shäll make nö law respecting än estäblishment öf religiön, or pröhibiting the free exercise thereöf; or äbridging the freedöm öf speech, ör öf the preß; ör the right öf the peöple peäceäbly to äßemble, änd tö petition the gövernment för a redreß öf grievänces.
But then, I'd rather just see it all written out in cuniform anyway...something like a big muzzle with a red circle around it and a line through it, or maybe a picture of Ashcroft's face with the same.
It ranks up their with their tendency to characterize Hitler, and Naziism, as an athiest regime when in fact Hitler, and most of the Nazis, were devoutly Christian.
His references to God (playing dice) etc. were metaphorical, not literal, as anyone who has read any of Einstein's works can trivially observe.
Then I guess that means Jan "The Man" Reno can't get AIDS.
No, but Dick "Stalin in Training" Chaney sure can, and since he's been bending most of America over about a year now, there's a good chance the rest of us over here will bet it too. Our only hope is that he keeps reaming us out with the erstwhile Bill of Rights, rather than his own appendage, but I don't think thats something any of us can count on.
Isn't a sign of the times... and of our continuing infantilism that our political views are expressed through games?
No.
It is no more infantile than scratching crude pictures on paper mocking politicians or political events.
We call those political cartoons, and they are a venerated way of making exactly the same kinds of sardonic, and sometime crass, criticisms of public policies and public politicians. The flash games described here are exactly the same thing, printed in a new medium (the interactive internet as opposed to the passive, one-way old media).
Games and programming in general are obviously speech deserving of "at least the same protections as the print media" to paraphrase the supreme court's opinion in their ruling which overturned the SCA. Things like this are invaluable in driving that point home in terms even non-tech savvy, but non-whored-out-to-the-media-cartels judges can understand. In other words, it won't sway Kaplan, but it will likely sway the supreme court, and it is there opinions which count.
Clearly today's royalty mess is largely the fault of people who implemented and used MP3 encoding many years before Ogg/Vorbis even existed. If they all just would have had enough forsight to forsee this coming, and instead of MP3, use nothing at all and wait for Ogg/Vorbis, then we all woulda been better off.
Yes, we would be. Most of my music collection is in OggVorbis format, and was encoded as such over three years ago. Yes, it was beta, but it worked, and the music remains compatible with today's production release ogg players. Would I get better quality if I reencoded it today? Probably, but I'm no hurry to do so, because for my purposes it works fine.
There was and remains no excuse for people, having been warned and warned and warned again, to have pushed and used MP3 format anytime in the last three years. The only reason, of course, is shortsightedness. Even the hardware vendors could have had flashable chips, upgrading to the current code as it was released.
Instead people ignored the warnings, wrote off those who promoted OggVorbis as 'purists', 'freedom fanatics' and what have you, and now are paying the consiquences. Excuse me if I don't cry a river for them.
BTW, it still remains to be seen if ogg/vorbis truely does not violate any patents.
It remains to be seen of the UNIX 'ls' command does not violate any patents. Using a laser pointer to play with your cat violates a patent.
BTW, I have taught too, at the university level.
I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, but teaching at the university level is one hell of a lot easier than teaching at the high school or elementary school level, even if you don't have your graduate students teach your courses.
College students are adults, and generally behave as such (at least while in the classroom).
High school and grade school kids, while great people individually, tend to become absolute monsters in a group. A grade school or high school teacher is not just a teacher, they are a baby sitter and often a surragate parent, among numerous other things.
All the university professor has to do is teach a subject, grade some exams, and publish a paper now and then. It may be hard work, but it is nothing compared to the hell most public school teachers go through.
Teaching elementary or high school may not be the hardest job in the world, but its a damn site harder than teaching at a university.
As for spelling, when slashdot impliments a spelling checker in this kludgy FORM field we all have to type in, our spelling will improve. In the meantime typos will happen, and during a quick rant that probably wasn't even proofed before it was posted, it is to be expected. Only a fool would thing it representative of the person's teaching (or other) qualifications.
The GPL has a specific clause that deals with patents, which basically says the GPL makes no warranty with respect to patents and it is up to the user to know and adhere to any patents valid within the jurisdiction where they are using or distributing the code. If the code is in violation of a patent and cannot be distributed within the terms of the GPL, then you cannot distribute the code within the jurisdicition where the patent is granted.
In the case of a software, or mathetmatical, patent like mp3, the GPL is likely to hold, and be valid, for all of the code including the mp3 algorithm itself throughout most of the world.
Only in the United States, and perhaps some portions of Europe, will commercial use of the code that would otherwise be within the limits set by the GPL be incompatible, so most of the world is free to use the code within the constraints of the GPL.
OTOH the GPL doesn't require one to charge for the software, so I'm not certain it is incompatible even in those less fortunate parts of the world where software and business-method patents have insinuated themselves into the law, though I agree it certainly might be.
It's hard to see Thomson as the bad guys here. Rather, the fault lies with those who slapped a GPL on top of their MP3 player-programs, without considering the legal restrictions
The fault lies with Frauenhofer for changing the licensing terms, in effect, changing the rules of the game midstream. It is a sleazy thing for them to do, no matter how anyone spins it.
However, I agree with you that a large portion of the blame falls squarely on those who promote and use MP3 instead of unencumbered alternatives like OggVorbis. We knew from the history of GIF and others that this is the sort of behavior one can expect from the kind of people who would seek to patent and restrict knowledge to begin with, so it should really come as no surprise that they have remained true to their nature and done this, and anyone who was surprised, or caught flat-footed by it, has demonstrated an incredible lack of vision and foresight (not to mention understanding of recent historical events a la' the GIF LZW patent).
At the same time, though, we see the "Red Hat = Microsoft?" articles and the subtle opposition to anything that is 'tainted' by capitalism (sinister OSDN [not that it isn't a keiretsu], etc.) I've since decided that open source people are simply disinclined toward business
That would be an erroneous conclusion.
A more accurate (though not necessarilly 100% correct, since it is difficult to know what 100% correct is in the context of so many diverse people) conclusion would be that
OSS (and Free Software) enthusiasts are a diverse bunch of people, and among them are included some few who dislike any 'taint' of commericalism.
I am very inclined toward business (and quite good at it, if the last few years' tax returns are to be believed), and that doesn't stop me from being accused of zealotry or anti-commercial sentiments when, in fact, my sentiments are anti-monopoly, not anti-business, as are the sentiments of anyone who understands how a free market and competition are supposed to work.
Since copyright grants a 95 year (or life+75 year) government enforced monopoly, this means I come down firmly on the side of Free Software, both philosophically and, based on a great deal of bad experience with proprietary software, practically. But this has more to do with the problems inherent in having a vendor with authority over aspects of your business, and the power to coerce one's business into taking actions not in your best interests (but theirs instead), and having that power over you backed by a government gun, that it does with any "anti-commerical" sentiment.
There are others, quite likely the majority of Open Source and Free Software enthusiasts, who are much deeper in the pro-business camp than I, so I suspect your characterization really describes only a tiny, if outspoken, minority of people who use and advocate free software and open source.
That if you don't like Google... then you shouldn't use Google. Duh. Why the holy crusade? If you think Altavista or hell, Netscape Search meets your needs, then use it. Why do people find it necessary to attack everything instead of being constructive.
I think, to be quite blunt, that this is a crock of shit.
One of the most important things in a civil society are the checks and balances critcism offers on any service, any government, any individual, indeed, any endeavor undertaken. These checks and balances, and the importance of public criticism, because of vastly greater importance when the perceptions and lives of many people are impacted.
This is true whether one is criticizing GNU, Linux, Richard Stallman, our corporate masters in the form of George Bush, Enron, WorldComm, Microsoft, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, or whomever else happens to be in the hotseat at any given time.
If Google really were stacking their search results, criticism and a 'holy crusade' as you so snidely put it, would be a very important counterbalance in offsetting the corruption and distortion inherent in such a thing, particularly given how trusted Google is.
I disagree with the guys criticism, for what it is worth, and am an ardent user of Google. But I agree whole heartedly with the need for such criticism to keep the likes of Google honest, and to call them on the carpet when they do something shady or wrong (like they did when the caved to the Cult of Scientology's pressure to censor the search results revealing critics of that particular organization).
This "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" is a fine creed for slaves or submissive corporate drones, but it has no place at all in the marketplace of intellectual thought or debate.
Now, on the other hand, if you'd like to argue for civil discourse instead of flame fests and random insults, I will be the first to add my voice to yours, but lest we forget, civil discourse can and must include criticism, sometimes vehement criticism. Indeed, such can often be the most important civil discourse being conducted.
Move here and get a job, then! :)
:-)
Thanks for the invite! I just might take you up on that.
Calgary look really nice, and I love the mountains. [grin].
For example, making backups of your software or music files. At least then you can guarantee copies of the original you own and prevent multi-generational copies of copies.
That is still a bad idea. If and when your master disk gets scratched, damaged, or lost you won't be able to make a backup of the only existing copy you've made.
The correct use of this technology is serializing each copy of the software, so that the program / song can be associated with a real, living person, or at least their credit card number. This doesn't necessarilly require watermarking, nor does it mean a determined copyright violator can't do the digital equivelent of 'filing off the serial numbers', but filing off the serial numbers is more difficult to justify than making backup copies or moving the copies to different media, and a law disallowing the removal of serial numbers is a hell of a lot more palitable than a law disallowing the circumvention of copy prevention technology in order to back up the software you paid good money for.
Serializing software did more to stop widespread software copying than any of the attempted, and since discarded, copy prevention schemes ever did.
Yes, you still have warez dudes (and you will always have such, no matter what you do), but the willingness of every Tom, Dick, and Harry to share their software illegally went out the window the first time they saw their name associated with a product serial number, and hasn't been back since.
As others have noted, we've been down this path before, and it remains a technological sink hole and dead end. It will never be effective, it will never work regardless of how draconian the laws or how pervasive the spyware and enforcementware becomes.
What is particularly silly is that a solution has already been found and used, and found to be effective, and these idiots still can't grasp it.
Perhaps after they've spent another billion on these snake-oil salesmen they'll start to 'get it', but somehow, based on past idiocy, I'm not holding my breath.
But in practice, we're just not seeing all the innovation that you would expect. The classic examples are always cited--Perl, gcc, Emacs, Apache, the Linux kernel--but for a model that's supposed to be so superior, the success stories are fewer than you'd expect.
Differentiating between innovative creations and innovate uses of technology is semantic nonsense. Even in the purest act of creation, in which you create a new program that does something no one ever thought to do before, you are still making innovative use of the underlying technology, including the hardware, the operating system, the compiler, and any number of libraries.
In house software for trading systems, for accounting systems, for real estate analysis, or for any other purpose, are no less creative for being in house, and no less innovative. And in many cases, what makes it possible for an average, non-wealthy person to do, is Free Software.
All users may not be developers, but every developer on the planet is by definition also a user of technology. The GPL is as much about user freedom as it is developer freedom, and the success stories may be uncomfortable to those of you who like to advocate a return to proprietary bondage, but they are no less real or potent for that.
I've read lots of papers like this, going back to Eric Raymond's rants. And you know, it sounds great on paper. It really does. And I love the idea of the GPL...ut for a model that's supposed to be so superior, the success stories are fewer than you'd expect.
... much of OS X's eye candy can be traced back to the first program to ever use images in window decorations and borders: Rastorman's enlightenment, but I digress).
That is because you are looking in the wrong places for your "success stories." You are wondering why some GPLed mapping program hasn't unseated Microsoft's Streetsmart, or why program X under the GPL so resembles commercial program Y (though often it is program Y which mimicks the GPLed program X
What you are ignoring are the tens of thousands of small firms, like my own, like the dozen's a friend of mine consults for, and thousands of others around the world, who have used free software (GNU/Linux in particular) to build their infrastructure, their inhouse software, and their business out from under the everpresent heal of Microsoft, Sun, or Apple (though the latter has become a kinder master of late than the other two, it nevertheless remains a master). The success stories you are ignoring range from the traders I work for, who earn a sizable chunk of money thanks in no small part to GNU/Linux's superiority over their competitor's infrastructrue, to Pengiun Airlines, to Wallmart, to BMW, to the German government, the Chinese Government, the Brazilian government, and others too numerous to list, all of whome are able to run their IT infrastructure on their own terms, within their own budgets, and free from the coerced upgrades and chronic, forced obsolescence of their software and their hardware at the hands of their operating system vendor, as is chronically the case for anyone subject to Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and yes, even kinder, gentler Apple.
That is where you will find the innovation and the flourishing of the technology more than anywhere else, amongst the users which have been liberated by the Freedoms expounded upon by the Free Software Foundation, people like myself and many, many others who have been able to flourish even during these difficult times, thanks primarilly to the GPL and the user's freedoms which it helps to guarentee.
Freedoms that allow us to run our businesses and earn a living, without being subject to the whims and deprivations of a copyright cartel or a convicted monopolist.
Patents and copyrights are about making money, NOT fostering innovation.
... so their very excuse for existing, and for granting such privelege to so few, is itself a farce.
Very true, but the excuse for patents and copyrights, and the economic and cultural harm such informational and intellectual monopolies cause, is the mistaken notion that they are intended to, or in fact do, "foster innovation." As we've seen demonstrated very clearly in the software industry, and as we've seen evidence of in other areas of endeavor, these government mandated monopolies do not foster innovation or progress
Which is something the average joe is only now, slowly, becoming aware of.
RTFA (Read the fucking article)
Alas for all of us...
But of course, ultimate the leapard has shown his spots, and shown himselfs as the corporate whore he really is
See how easy that was? Of course, instead of clicking on the link to my comment, you could have clicked on the link to the article itself the first time, and saved yourself the trouble.
Comparing something like this in the US to Japan and Korea doesn't make any sense at all. They have much less space to deal with, and a far smaller rural population. The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected.
... the idiots can't even distinguish between static and dynamic IP addresses.
... the same as the 1.5 Mbit SDSL I had from another ISP three years ago.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
I live in downtown Chicago. Out of my window I can see ground zero ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ the Sears Tower, which is a short 5-10 minute walk away. I am in the heart of the financial district, probably the most connected part of the city.
I cannot get decesnt Broadband, and believe me, with the demise of Sprint ION and my soon-to-go-away 8mbit ADSL service, I've been looking.
RCN? Crappy broadband service, flakey network, connections which crawl during peak hours.
Ameritech? The less said the better
XO? Covad? Not bad, but to get circuits analogous to the 128 kbit service I had years ago costs $80
With the demise of so many DSL providors, Sprint being the latest, affordable, quality DLS or broadband simply doesn't exist, and the reason is exactly as the article states: SBC Ameritech and their ability to use their last mile monopoly to fuck with the market, thanks to that corporate slut at the FCC, Colin Powell's son.
Broadband is less available now, in one of America's largest cities, than it was just a couple of year ago, and what is more, it is less avaiable here, in the heart of Chciago, than it is in typical rural portions of Western Canada, as numerous people fortunate enough to live north of our borders have pointed out several times in this thread already.
Nepotism, cronyism, and George W. Bush are who we have to thank for this fiasco more than anyone else, and I for one hold those corrupt, evil fucks personally responsible.
We as a community of users are still not being good advocates. It's more than advocacy - it's basic manners and the ability to communicate.
While I agree with your comment, and the quote you cited, 100%, I think it should be pointed out that, by last count, there are between 10 and 30 million GNU/Linux users. Given the large population of the 'community' (which is analogous to the population of New York or Mexico City) it shouldn't be too surprising that there are boisterous idiots somewhere in the crowd, nor should a rational person associate the behavior of a few such idiots with the population at large.
Unfortunately, one of the weaknesses of the human psyche is to associate unusual (especially negative) behavior of a few members of a minority group, such as GNU/Linux users, with the entire group while at the same time ignoring the same type of behavior among just as many (proportionally) members of a majority group.
This means that Windows users who behave similarly (and there are plenty of those) will not be associated with Windows users, while GNU/Linux users who do so will affect the repuation of the whole group. It isn't rational, or accurate, but it is nevertheless real. Just ask any black person in America who has had to contend with stereotypes vis-a-vis crime or loitering, while the exact same behavior is ignored in the majority (white) population. They are victims of exactly the same flaw in the human psyche (though other factors, such as prejudice and racism, do exist to exacerbate the problem, so the comparison isn't perfect). Pick any other racial/ethnic mixture, anywhere else in the world, and the same phenomenon exists. The interesting thing is that the mind draws such patterns irrespective of racial or ethnic prejudices (a relative of mine worked on a study regarding this very topic, and the results remained the same when distinctly non-prejudicial conditions were applied, things distinguishable but having nothing to do with ethnicity or economic status. Very interesting stuff actually, but I digress).
In any event I find your comment to be 100% dead on, but in fairness we should keep in mind just how large the community has grown, and just how inevitable it is that a group that size will contain a number of jackasses. Most importantly it should be emphesized (and probably reemphesized everytime this comes up) just how non-representative such behavior really is.
here's [urbanlegends.com] a link that might help you. Essentially, Beta was first and had most of the innovations, but VHS won out overall. Betas quality was, as everyone will state, better but the record time and lack of pre-recorded media helped to kill it.
... the big rage was the ability to record your own movies and material, directly off the television transmission.
Pre-recorded media wasn't a factor until long after the VHS-Beta battle was over. Almost no one was buying movies back then
The urbanlegends link portrays one perspective (and is quoted as an authority, although in truth it is no more authoritative than any other perspective), however, other early players in the consumer video market have argued a much different perspective.
At any given point in time, Beta was noticably better than VHS in features/quality (recording length excepted, although almost no one uses the 8 hour super-slow really-crappy record mode that I know), so saying "VHS caught up" really sidesteps the entire question of why VHS won, given that at any point in the battle VHS was on the losing side of the "technically better" argument.
What really killed Beta, according to some players at the time, was Sony's asinine licensing, or rather, the lack thereof, in direct contrast to JVC's willingness to license VHS to pretty much anyone willing to write a check. The entire event is very analogous to Apple undercutting other power-pc manufacturers, or Sun undercutting other sparc manufacturers, Sony was very stringent in who they would license Beta to.
The result was that there were four or five competing VHS brands, against Sony's Beta. Consumers correctly perceived a competitive market on the one hand, and a Sony proprietary market on the other, and as they did with Intel vs. Everyone else (remember, Intel allowed for competing motherboard and computer manufacturers, IBM notwithstanding), consumers went for the format that had clear competition.
The other factor of having multiple VHS manufacturers is the perception that VHS was already a standard catching on, while Sony was the sole promoter of Beta. Whether consumers chose VHS because they saw competition, or because they perceived it as having caught on (since there was competition), or simply because of price, the fact remains that the deciding factor was licensing and the presence of multiple vendors, not the quality of the underlying format.
In a sense that could be called 'marketing', but more correctly VHS's success is attributable to its 'licensing.'
That's not a monopoly, right?
Not when it comes to last mile data delivery.
One of the things is, as mentioned in another post, that there is way too much interference from badly constructed appliances and household electrical goofups like badly connected power outlets.
None of that is, IMHO, a showstopper.
Contrary to the myths expounded by Hollywood and the RIAA, the lackluster adoption of broadband isn't the lack of "content" (the illogic of their arguments demonstrate this when, with the next breath, the proclaim massive losses due to copyright violated "content" being actively traded on the very same internet).
Broadband/DSL is being actively sabataged by the baby bells in the US and quite possibly by similiar entities elsewhere in the world. These people own the last mile of copper, connecting that mostly unused glass network to your home. It is this monopoly that the FCC was supposed to regulate, but has chosen not to despite the law requiring them to, and it is this monopoly that must be broken for the internet, and broadband/DSL, to thrive.
If the interference problems were a result of the electrical infrastructure (bad substations, bad transformers, crappy power lines, etc.) then we'd have a problem. But if it is a result of bad home wiring, noisy appliances, or what have you, then the problem is emminently solvable, and the approach still a very valid solution to the Last Mile Monopoly.
Simply put, the data receiver could be placed adjascent to the home's power coupling, prior to the current entering the home (with all of its noise appliances and crappy wiring). The data could then be sent throughout the home on standard cat5 or cat7, or wireless, sans the interference everyone keeps worrying about.
Granted, you lose the ability to use any old outlet as a data port, but that is a small price to pay for getting data without dealing with either the baby bell monopolies or the cable monopolies, and that is where the real value lies.
Speaking as one who is about to lose their excellent Sprint 8Mbit down/1 Mbit up DSL service because of the local Ameritech Last Mile Monopoly and the FCC's willful negligence in enforcing the law, anything that puts those fucking assholes out of business, or even competes on a level playing field, is Good News(tm) regardless.
I used to point new linux users to Red Hat/Mandrake/SuSe but no longer... If the beginner is even a little bit computer savvy, I wouldnt have any problem in recommending an install of Woody
I agree 100%, though I am an ex-Debian, now Gentoo user.
For new users that just want something that works, the distro I recommend depends on whether I will be doing the installation, they will be doing the installation, or we will be doing it together.
What is more, the distro I choose depends on whether they have interest in learning GNU/Linux, or just want a working computer to do X with.
If I'm doing the installation, OR if we're doing it together and they have an interest in learning GNU/Linux, I will give them Gentoo, despite its manual installation. I have had very positive feedback from that, the most negative of which was "It's an auful lot of cryptic typing, but the install documents tell you what to do and it works every time!" while the most positive feedback I got was "It might be a lot of work, but now I feel I really understand what's making my computer tick!"
If they are doing the install, or we are doing it together and they just want a machine that works, I will typically give them Mandrake (though knoppix is looking like a good choice these days) so they aren't scared off by the install. Mandrake autodetects nearly every piece of hardware I've thrown at it, which is the one thing missing from both Debian and Gentoo IMHO.
My sister's husband is the only person I've ever encountered who tried GNU/Linux and chose to go back to Windows (because of some stupid game he was addicted to), and it amuses me to no end how much trouble that has caused him.
No one eh? You're the only person who "get's it" eh? Come on.
Then why was I the only one to my knowledge to post that observation, despite doing so late in the discussion? Is everyone else who has made that observation too terrified to speak out?
Much of slashdot is aware of the mental engineering going on around us.
That is probably true, yet I posted late in the thread and was AFAIK the first to broach the theme from that perspective. True, I generally browse at +2, so perhaps others who pointed out what I see to be rather obvious were modded down into oblivion, but frankly that would surprise me.
Everyone was saying 'well, I don't thing that's really accurate', but no one seemed to be adding 2 and 2 together and comming up with 4, hence my comment.
Re: your comments on propoganda, I agree 100%. Unfortunately, when the same propaganda riffs are used again and again, there really is no excuse for even the stupidest among us not to notice and realize something is amiss. Alas, even that degree of common sense seems to be missing all too frequently.
AOL retains it's customer base by convincing the customer that it IS the internet. The average AOL user hears internet and thinks AOL.
... esoteric. But then, so are the tastes of 99% of the people in the world, in one subject or another.
... that is the only thing the media whores running AOL-Time-Warner these days can see within their small minds.
Only to some degree. I know a number of people who use AOL, and most of the "internet" they spend their time on (the World Wide Web) isn't on AOL. Of course, their tastes are
AOL is suffering from the fact that the Time-Warner portion of the company has ousted most of the leadership of the AOL side of the company. In other words, the old Media Moghuls have taken over the AOL side of the company, and it shows in both their thinking and their behavior. It shouldn't be any surprise, in that light, that AOL is persuing the 'dream' of becoming a big cable company
It should also be no surprise that such a strategy will prove disasterous, should the internet survive. Unfortunately, the very same people are in Washington lobbying and purchasing legislation that will eliminate the internet as we know it, and replace it with something that represents the Home Shopping Network and Interactive TV more than it will the internet as we know it today. Should they succeed, this strategy will no longer be inane, it will be inspired. Inspired by the destruction of the last vestige of free thought and freedom of expresson in America, whose demise they will have orchestrated and profited from handsomely.
Gives new meaning to the song "Burn Hollywood Burn" doesn't it?
This was a joke to the moderator challenged
You may have been joking, but the list (and your comment) are actually quite valid without the humor.
But of course, only criminals without connections are the ones who are really criminals, the others are merely "eccentric."