Read the article. He wasn't arrested for speaking his mind. He was arrested for defacing websites and trying to hack into DOD computers. This whole thing has absolutely nothing to do with Free Speech.
The difference is, modern Americans have the right to participate in government. The Colonists did not. I'm not saying he should have kept his mouth shut, but the fact is that he wasn't arrested for opening it! He was arrested for defacing websites and trying to hack into DOD computers.
[Then]
You're allowed to participate in the Gvmt if you're a friend of the King.
The King had very little to do with it, given that Parliament was well established by that time. Colonists had no representation in Parliament, and thus no say in how or why they were taxed. Please, study your history.
Zapatistas? Oh, the ones who are being supressed with the US "drug interdiction" aid we're giving Mexico? The ones who haven't seen much improvement in their lifestyle?
Funny, none of the Zapatista Generals or former Zapatista "Hostages" I spoke to when I was playing benefit shows for them seemed to feel that way. They all felt things were going pretty well, and expressed amusement at the Mexican governments stillborn attempts to intimidate them and turn the whole thing into a violent conflict.
FYI, any member of the Zapatista movement can claim the title of General (it's sort of an inside joke) and the "hostages" are usually asked (not forced) to help with the chores (such as grinding cornmeal) and then invited to diner. They are, above all, a cultural revival movement, and they raise awareness by asking wealthy tourists to join them in their everyday tasks.
However, the Zapatista movement is very much a work in progress, and whether their tactics will be successful remains to be seen. President Fox does seem to be implementing some of the societal changes the Zapatistas have been pushing for, though, so I think it's a bit soon to write them off.
There are some examples of non-revolution style reforms, but they're by far the minority, and the actual change is usually not that great. Blacks will say that MLK changed the system, but that it still has vast problems for blacks in general. There were many who thought that revolution would have been better.
The thing about non-violent reform, and the main reason it's so rarely used, is that it's slow; and a side effect of that is that many of the changes that happen aren't readily apparent, indeed some are so gradual that they aren't really noticed at all. Certainly we have a ways to go, but I'd be interested in hearing the complaints of anyone who thinks we aren't headed in the right direction.
I'd also be interested in hearing how, exactly, a revolution would have made things better. I've known plenty of people who've believed that, but when pressed all they were able to produce were Marxist utopian pipedreams of socialist anarchy. While I admit the ideas put forth in the Communist Manifesto are very enticing, you have to be in serious denial to ignore the fact that every Communist Revolution has resulted in a Totalitarian regime based on systematic abuse of the populus. The basic problem is that there will always be some asshole who thinks he should be in charge, and he will always be able to find some idiots to back him up.
Basically, I think our country is screwed. It may be the best around, but still, it's a 6/10. I would like to see a more honest and responsive system.
I agree. As Mark Twain once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others".
Show me this majority that thinks the Bush administration is hiding things on Enron. I haven't heard anything from them.
The millions of people who want campaign finance reform obviously don't want it enough, or politicians would be voted out for opposing it. Money may grease the wheels, but it's still the vote of the common man that puts them in office.
Gordon Smith? His staff sucks and he doesn't care about his constituency. You should vote against him in the next ellection. Tell everyone you know about your experience and try to get them to vote against him, too. Find out what parades and such he's going to be in and go to them so you can heckle him. (That's my Dad's favorite hobby. His target of choice is Wally Herger.) I make it a point to vote against incumbents unless I can think of something specific that they've done that really impressed me. Change is good, and should always be pursued unless there is a good reason not to. It's the good reason that will bite you in the ass, though, especially if you haven't properly weighed the pros and cons. That's why a Democracy without a well educated populace is dangerous and inflamatory.
Sure those with money often have more influence, but so do people who belong to Labor Unions and other organizations like the ACLU, EPIC, and other PACs (not all of them are corporate-owned, you know).
How about the one our founders thought should apply. One vote, one person.
This is a commonly held perception, but it is obviously false. If the Founding Fathers truely felt that way there wouldn't be an Electoral College. I used to think the EC was BS and should be done away with, but I read a mathematical analysis of it a year or 2 ago that changed my mind. Non- and Semi-proportional representation is actually a very important and necessary part of our political system. It's one of the main things that keeps the majority from trampling all over the minority.
You do acknowledge the real problem, but it isn't money. Nor is it our political system. The problem is apathy, and it runs deep. Not just the apathy that keeps people from getting off their butts every other year to spend 10 minutes at the poles, but apathy towards educating ourselves to the things that are happening in the world. It's true that some Americans wouldn't care what Union Carbide is doing in Bhopal, but I bet the vast majority would care if they had ever heard about it, even though most of them wouldn't have the first clue about what they could do to rectify the situation.
Apathy is also what keeps you buying Levi and Nike products. If you really cared that your Nikes are made by physically, mentally, and sexually abused Vietnamese women make $0.20/hour, you would seek out the various catalogs offering guilt-free clothing made from humanely harvested wool from free-range sheep, organically grown cotton and hemp, and recycled rubber by adequately-compensated craftsmen. But it's easier to just go to Footlocker and then point your finger hoping nobody notices what you're wearing on your feet, so that's what you do.
Which brings me to another common problem in America; lack of personal responsibility. As long as you keep buying Nike shoes, all your anti-corporate rhetoric is just that; hollow words from a whiner trying to blame everyone else for a problem he created and continues to perpetuate. As long as you keep buying Nike shoes, those Vietnamese women will continue to be exploited.
This reminds me of a story about Ghandi:
A woman came to see him, child in tow. "Please tell my child not to eat sugar" the woman said. Ghandi told the woman to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later, the woman brought her child again. Ghandi looks at the kid and says: "Don't eat sugar." The woman is stunned. "That's it? I had to go for two weeks just for that?" "You see," says Ghandi, "Two weeks ago, *I* ate sugar."
If you're going to climb up on a soapbox, you should first make sure you have a leg to stand on.
And what do you call the Boston Tea Party? These were the people who became the founding fathers of our nation (provided we're both US citizens) and they found vandalism an acceptable response.
Once again, an example of a situation where the people prevented from participating in their government. If you study your history again you'll find that the rallying cry was not "No Taxation", but rather "No Taxation Without Representation". If you want to prove me wrong, show me a situation where the people were allowed to participate in their government and violent revolution produced an improvement.
I agree that our current situation is fscked up, and that our government does some really bad things, but anyone who believes that violent revolution will improve the situation is far more naive than I, and anyone who doesn't believe that they can peacably influence the system simply lacks the patience and dedication to do it. If it really wasn't possible, we would have had a revolution by now.
Dr. Martin Luther King was certainly not a rich man, and yet I don't think anyone can deny that he was able to affect broad and sweeping change in the system. And how about that migrant farm worker guy whos name I can never quite remember? (Che Guaverra? That's what's stuck in my head anyway) For some historical and international examples, how about the Zapatistas? Ghandi? Moses?
It takes Influence to affect change, and money is just the easiest way to get it.
I agree that everyone should already know this, but apparently they don't. If they did I wouldn't have had to make so many posts pointing it out. There are a lot of people around here that don't seem to hear anything else after someone cries "Free Speech".
Once again, he wasn't arrested for anti-government speech. He was arrested for defacing web sites and trying to break into DoD computers, both of which are most definately crimes. This really has nothing to do with Free Speech. It's a script kiddie who's tryig to make himself seem like something more by crying "Help, help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!"
I do appreciate an informative post though. Thanks.
Yes, calling for the overthrow of the government is a right under the Constitution. That might even be a relevant fact if he were actually arrested for his beliefs. He wasn't, though. He was arrested for defacing websites and trying to hack into some DoD computers, neither of which are rights granted by the Constitution.
Totalitarian regimes like every single example you give don't have a built in mechanism for affecting change, and so in those cases violent action may be necessary. However, the US is not a totalitarian regime. It is a republic, and has the mechanisms for affecting change peacably built into the core of it's political structure.
As for peaceful revolutions, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are India (Ghandi) and the Zapatistas (which is still in progress).
And yes, you have the freedom to advocate change AND the freedom to have change IF you can convice enough people that they want your change also. You DO NOT have the right to break other laws and vandalize other peoples property in the name of your protected speech.
This is about a hacker that got caught and is trying to drum up sympathy because he's a "revolutionary". This is not about free speech, this is about vandalism.
He WAS investigated and then arrested for hacking. There is no way to know if he has guns other than to search his house. Without a physical search you can only tell if he owns REGISTERED guns. Dumbass.
The goverment may want to watch over him to see if he actually attempts violence, which is not protected, but it dosen't give them the right to arrest him.
That is exactly my point. The kid advocates violence against the government, spreads his message through vandalism, and then whines about federal agents busting into his house with guns and confiscating the tools he used to commit said acts of vandalism. The fact that those tools were also used to host protected speach is totally irrelevant, and this whole thing about being silenced for his opinions is a strawman. He hacked and he got caught. It's that simple. He admits that he did it and that he knew it was illegal when he did it.
IMHO, his opinions only had 2 effects on the situation:
1. His web site drew attention to him, and probably helped link him to hacks he is being arrested for.
2. It raised the potential threat level in the eyes of those conducting the raid, thus the guns and armor. They had no way of knowing for certain that he wasn't better armed than they and ready to go out in a blaze of glory.
He got arrested for breaking the law. The fact that he broke the law in a misguided attempt to disseminate otherwise protected speech does not make this a Free Speech issue.
How can someone advocate violent overthrow of the government and expect the government to look the other way? There are better ways to affect change if you don't like the way things are going, and they're built into the Constitution! Being a punk myself, I used to hang out with a lot of anti-corporate anarchists and this has always been my main disagreement with them (second is the irony that the vast majority are smokers and thus enslaved to the tobacco industry, but that's a whole other issue).
Reading the Newsbytes article, I can't help but come to the conclusion that this kid is just another one of those moronic LA "Bring It All Down"(TM) punks, totally oblivious to the fact that The Man is the only thing keeping the skinheads from beating the crap out of him and stealing the oxblood 20-eye Doc Martins his mom bought him for his birthday.
Sorry, that turned into more of a rant than I thought it would.
...because we trust TRUSTe, MSN, and DoubleClick so much already! (Sorry, ePrivacy, never heard of ya, but if you actually cared about privacy you wouldn't be pimping spam)
Seriously, how have these companies reached the conclusion that they themselves are trusted by the general public?
And did it ever occur to them that maybe the reason I don't join Sarah's Work At Home Porn Pyramid for my Free Penis Pump is because I'm not interested?
The BBB seems like a fraud, but it's actually a fairly effective agency (at least it is in CA). I don't know what the penalties are, but every time my wife has filed a complaint she has had someone in upper management kissing her ass within 2 business days, practically falling over themselves to make her happy.
I think this page gives some good insight into their business model. Basically, Publisher (not free) pays for developement, and thus gets all the new features first. Once development is paid for the features get rolled into Creator (free). I think this sort of model is an excellent way to run a project like this, as long as no one gets greedy. The developers are paid, and therefore more motivated to do the "less sexy" jobs, and all the hardware and software necessary to develope a truely cross-platform package are acquired without relying on donations.
how it will be able to fool my old silver top-loading non-macrovision VCR into not recording? I could see achieving that by either sending out a digital (which my TV can't decode) or high resolution (which my TV can't display) signal. Either way, this thing is useless to me anyway. Seriously, why would I want this?
The only place I could see this being of any use at all is in video studios for technophobes, where the ease of queing up tape would be handy. Compared to a hard-drive based non-linear editing suite, though, this is a short trip to hell.
We are currently in the arbitration process and trying to resolve this matter under the MPAA guidelines
I think we all know how the MPAA feels about fair use, and arbitration is extralegal, so the results are rarely about the law. It really comes down to who bought the arbiters.
It's up to Outlook to be compliant to e-mail formats. If it is, it should be able to read it.
I have to agree, but Outlook being compliant with email formats is only part of the problem. If you have a paragraph that starts with the word 'begin', everything after 'begin' will be unreadable. I think it has to do with poor design in Windows scripting, since the bug doesn't seem to effect me. I keep Windows scripting disabled, especially in Outlook, but it's turned on by default and most people don't know enough to turn it off even after some Outlook script virii have nearly brought the internet to it's knees.
That alone, IMHO, justifies any personal vendetta. Couple that with the fact that anyone not using Outlook has recieved, from Outlook users, unreadable garbage exactly like what is produced in Outlook with the 'begin' bug, and I have to back the guy up.
He's not asked to limit his transmissions to outlook, and unless he has a desperate reason to post in a way that screws outlook up (other than personal vendetta), he's deliberately limiting his transmissions away from that subset, rather than rebelling against having to do the opposite.
He does freely admit that there is a juvenile, personal vendetta, aspect to it. He isn't limiting his transmissions away from that subset, just the contents of those transmission. I see it as a protest, simply raising awareness of a very subtle part of MS' Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy.
The calendar sharing features of Outlook are compelling to management types. I personally don't care for it, and I think it produces a lot of unneccessary network traffic, but I don't know of any other client that has that feature. At least not at the small business level that I'm at. For that reason alone, management may be justified in chosing Outlook.
People needing this feature, though, are unlikely to want to read the crackmonkey mailing list.
The thing I do like about Outlook BTW is the Contacts list. I think that's very well done, especially the integration, and again, I don't know of another client that has something comparable. I have to admit that I haven't really looked, either.
But if it's *your* lock, and it's *your* shed, you can go and pick it all day long, and then you can invite a bunch of friends over for a BBQ, and entertain them by picking it, and then discuss the finer arts of picking it with them. *That's* not illegal.
I've actually done exactly that.
IIRC, your assesment of the possible crimes is correct, but IANAL. I think that in that case you would be charged with B&E. The Breaking is evident, and the entry would likely be assumed.
BTW in CA, it's legal to own lockpicks, but it's not legal to carry them unless you're a licensed locksmith. I believe most states have similar laws.
This post is in reply to your "exclude microsoft users" post, and the attitude in the article exemplified by this quote: ``It's true that I run a mailing list that does not allow posting from Windows users. Many people complain about this, but in my mind I see it as no different than a restaurant or dance hall having a dress code.''It raises the bar for entry to the list, and ensures that users really want to be there.
There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list, as well as a certain degree of technical acumen.
This is a technical mailing list which is not intended for newbies or trolls. The idea is not to exclude MS users, but to exclude those who don't have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the discussion. Would you also accuse a Subaru owners club of discriminating against Ford owners?
He goes on to explain his stance, and even to answer your charges:
there is the mistaken impression that I am somehow discriminating against a whole class of people by writing e-mail that Outlook refuses to read. I see this as a curious by-product of American culture, whereby your consumer tastes somehow create a ready-made cultural identity for you. There are a great many FREELY AVAILABLE mailers (for Windows, even) that are capable of reading plain-text messages.
Outlook is merely a tool, and it has many freely available alternatives, any of which can read messages containing lines that begin with the word 'begin'. Would you say that my company, because our building only has stairs and ramps, discriminates against those who prefer to use elevators? I could just as easily argue that Outlook descriminates against people who would like to share their Pascal source code.
I've been using Unix-based mailers for well over a decade. I've been mailed countless illegible attachments from Windows users over the past ten years. It's immature of me, I know, but to some degree turnabout is fair play.
In other words, he's merely pointing out to those who might otherwise be unaware, how MS is limiting their freedom!
The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that outlook-centric subset. If I were to post all of my messages in Russian, even fewer people on the Tron list would be able to understand them; but would there then be an uproar demanding my removal from the list?
This one is aimed squarely at you. What is more elitist? Requiring readers to use any email program other than Outlook? Or requiring that all email be readable using Outlook?
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This is not a Free Speech issue.
You're allowed to participate in the Gvmt if you're a friend of the King.
The King had very little to do with it, given that Parliament was well established by that time. Colonists had no representation in Parliament, and thus no say in how or why they were taxed. Please, study your history.
Zapatistas? Oh, the ones who are being supressed with the US "drug interdiction" aid we're giving Mexico? The ones who haven't seen much improvement in their lifestyle?
Funny, none of the Zapatista Generals or former Zapatista "Hostages" I spoke to when I was playing benefit shows for them seemed to feel that way. They all felt things were going pretty well, and expressed amusement at the Mexican governments stillborn attempts to intimidate them and turn the whole thing into a violent conflict.
FYI, any member of the Zapatista movement can claim the title of General (it's sort of an inside joke) and the "hostages" are usually asked (not forced) to help with the chores (such as grinding cornmeal) and then invited to diner. They are, above all, a cultural revival movement, and they raise awareness by asking wealthy tourists to join them in their everyday tasks.
However, the Zapatista movement is very much a work in progress, and whether their tactics will be successful remains to be seen. President Fox does seem to be implementing some of the societal changes the Zapatistas have been pushing for, though, so I think it's a bit soon to write them off.
There are some examples of non-revolution style reforms, but they're by far the minority, and the actual change is usually not that great. Blacks will say that MLK changed the system, but that it still has vast problems for blacks in general. There were many who thought that revolution would have been better.
The thing about non-violent reform, and the main reason it's so rarely used, is that it's slow; and a side effect of that is that many of the changes that happen aren't readily apparent, indeed some are so gradual that they aren't really noticed at all. Certainly we have a ways to go, but I'd be interested in hearing the complaints of anyone who thinks we aren't headed in the right direction.
I'd also be interested in hearing how, exactly, a revolution would have made things better. I've known plenty of people who've believed that, but when pressed all they were able to produce were Marxist utopian pipedreams of socialist anarchy. While I admit the ideas put forth in the Communist Manifesto are very enticing, you have to be in serious denial to ignore the fact that every Communist Revolution has resulted in a Totalitarian regime based on systematic abuse of the populus. The basic problem is that there will always be some asshole who thinks he should be in charge, and he will always be able to find some idiots to back him up.
Basically, I think our country is screwed. It may be the best around, but still, it's a 6/10. I would like to see a more honest and responsive system.
I agree. As Mark Twain once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others".
The millions of people who want campaign finance reform obviously don't want it enough, or politicians would be voted out for opposing it. Money may grease the wheels, but it's still the vote of the common man that puts them in office.
Gordon Smith? His staff sucks and he doesn't care about his constituency. You should vote against him in the next ellection. Tell everyone you know about your experience and try to get them to vote against him, too. Find out what parades and such he's going to be in and go to them so you can heckle him. (That's my Dad's favorite hobby. His target of choice is Wally Herger.) I make it a point to vote against incumbents unless I can think of something specific that they've done that really impressed me. Change is good, and should always be pursued unless there is a good reason not to. It's the good reason that will bite you in the ass, though, especially if you haven't properly weighed the pros and cons. That's why a Democracy without a well educated populace is dangerous and inflamatory.
Sure those with money often have more influence, but so do people who belong to Labor Unions and other organizations like the ACLU, EPIC, and other PACs (not all of them are corporate-owned, you know).
How about the one our founders thought should apply. One vote, one person.
This is a commonly held perception, but it is obviously false. If the Founding Fathers truely felt that way there wouldn't be an Electoral College. I used to think the EC was BS and should be done away with, but I read a mathematical analysis of it a year or 2 ago that changed my mind. Non- and Semi-proportional representation is actually a very important and necessary part of our political system. It's one of the main things that keeps the majority from trampling all over the minority.
You do acknowledge the real problem, but it isn't money. Nor is it our political system. The problem is apathy, and it runs deep. Not just the apathy that keeps people from getting off their butts every other year to spend 10 minutes at the poles, but apathy towards educating ourselves to the things that are happening in the world. It's true that some Americans wouldn't care what Union Carbide is doing in Bhopal, but I bet the vast majority would care if they had ever heard about it, even though most of them wouldn't have the first clue about what they could do to rectify the situation.
Apathy is also what keeps you buying Levi and Nike products. If you really cared that your Nikes are made by physically, mentally, and sexually abused Vietnamese women make $0.20/hour, you would seek out the various catalogs offering guilt-free clothing made from humanely harvested wool from free-range sheep, organically grown cotton and hemp, and recycled rubber by adequately-compensated craftsmen. But it's easier to just go to Footlocker and then point your finger hoping nobody notices what you're wearing on your feet, so that's what you do.
Which brings me to another common problem in America; lack of personal responsibility. As long as you keep buying Nike shoes, all your anti-corporate rhetoric is just that; hollow words from a whiner trying to blame everyone else for a problem he created and continues to perpetuate. As long as you keep buying Nike shoes, those Vietnamese women will continue to be exploited.
This reminds me of a story about Ghandi:
A woman came to see him, child in tow.
"Please tell my child not to eat sugar" the woman said.
Ghandi told the woman to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later, the woman brought her child again. Ghandi looks at the kid and says: "Don't eat sugar."
The woman is stunned. "That's it? I had to go for two weeks just for that?"
"You see," says Ghandi, "Two weeks ago, *I* ate sugar."
If you're going to climb up on a soapbox, you should first make sure you have a leg to stand on.
Once again, an example of a situation where the people prevented from participating in their government. If you study your history again you'll find that the rallying cry was not "No Taxation", but rather "No Taxation Without Representation". If you want to prove me wrong, show me a situation where the people were allowed to participate in their government and violent revolution produced an improvement.
I agree that our current situation is fscked up, and that our government does some really bad things, but anyone who believes that violent revolution will improve the situation is far more naive than I, and anyone who doesn't believe that they can peacably influence the system simply lacks the patience and dedication to do it. If it really wasn't possible, we would have had a revolution by now.
Dr. Martin Luther King was certainly not a rich man, and yet I don't think anyone can deny that he was able to affect broad and sweeping change in the system. And how about that migrant farm worker guy whos name I can never quite remember? (Che Guaverra? That's what's stuck in my head anyway) For some historical and international examples, how about the Zapatistas? Ghandi? Moses?
It takes Influence to affect change, and money is just the easiest way to get it.
I do appreciate an informative post though. Thanks.
As for peaceful revolutions, the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are India (Ghandi) and the Zapatistas (which is still in progress).
And yes, you have the freedom to advocate change AND the freedom to have change IF you can convice enough people that they want your change also. You DO NOT have the right to break other laws and vandalize other peoples property in the name of your protected speech.
This is about a hacker that got caught and is trying to drum up sympathy because he's a "revolutionary". This is not about free speech, this is about vandalism.
That is exactly my point. The kid advocates violence against the government, spreads his message through vandalism, and then whines about federal agents busting into his house with guns and confiscating the tools he used to commit said acts of vandalism. The fact that those tools were also used to host protected speach is totally irrelevant, and this whole thing about being silenced for his opinions is a strawman. He hacked and he got caught. It's that simple. He admits that he did it and that he knew it was illegal when he did it.
IMHO, his opinions only had 2 effects on the situation:
1. His web site drew attention to him, and probably helped link him to hacks he is being arrested for.
2. It raised the potential threat level in the eyes of those conducting the raid, thus the guns and armor. They had no way of knowing for certain that he wasn't better armed than they and ready to go out in a blaze of glory.
He got arrested for breaking the law. The fact that he broke the law in a misguided attempt to disseminate otherwise protected speech does not make this a Free Speech issue.
"This is Los Angeles after all. We always go in to protect ourselves. We don't go in with slingshots," said McLaughlin.
The guy was advocating violent overthrow of the government. How did they know he wasn't armed to the teeth and ready to go out in a blaze of glory?
Your right to swing your fist ends at my face.
How can someone advocate violent overthrow of the government and expect the government to look the other way? There are better ways to affect change if you don't like the way things are going, and they're built into the Constitution! Being a punk myself, I used to hang out with a lot of anti-corporate anarchists and this has always been my main disagreement with them (second is the irony that the vast majority are smokers and thus enslaved to the tobacco industry, but that's a whole other issue).
Reading the Newsbytes article, I can't help but come to the conclusion that this kid is just another one of those moronic LA "Bring It All Down"(TM) punks, totally oblivious to the fact that The Man is the only thing keeping the skinheads from beating the crap out of him and stealing the oxblood 20-eye Doc Martins his mom bought him for his birthday.
Sorry, that turned into more of a rant than I thought it would.
Seriously, how have these companies reached the conclusion that they themselves are trusted by the general public?
And did it ever occur to them that maybe the reason I don't join Sarah's Work At Home Porn Pyramid for my Free Penis Pump is because I'm not interested?
I think this page gives some good insight into their business model. Basically, Publisher (not free) pays for developement, and thus gets all the new features first. Once development is paid for the features get rolled into Creator (free). I think this sort of model is an excellent way to run a project like this, as long as no one gets greedy. The developers are paid, and therefore more motivated to do the "less sexy" jobs, and all the hardware and software necessary to develope a truely cross-platform package are acquired without relying on donations.
The only place I could see this being of any use at all is in video studios for technophobes, where the ease of queing up tape would be handy. Compared to a hard-drive based non-linear editing suite, though, this is a short trip to hell.
We are currently in the arbitration process and trying to resolve this matter under the MPAA guidelines
I think we all know how the MPAA feels about fair use, and arbitration is extralegal, so the results are rarely about the law. It really comes down to who bought the arbiters.
I have to agree, but Outlook being compliant with email formats is only part of the problem. If you have a paragraph that starts with the word 'begin', everything after 'begin' will be unreadable. I think it has to do with poor design in Windows scripting, since the bug doesn't seem to effect me. I keep Windows scripting disabled, especially in Outlook, but it's turned on by default and most people don't know enough to turn it off even after some Outlook script virii have nearly brought the internet to it's knees.
That alone, IMHO, justifies any personal vendetta. Couple that with the fact that anyone not using Outlook has recieved, from Outlook users, unreadable garbage exactly like what is produced in Outlook with the 'begin' bug, and I have to back the guy up.
He's not asked to limit his transmissions to outlook, and unless he has a desperate reason to post in a way that screws outlook up (other than personal vendetta), he's deliberately limiting his transmissions away from that subset, rather than rebelling against having to do the opposite.
He does freely admit that there is a juvenile, personal vendetta, aspect to it. He isn't limiting his transmissions away from that subset, just the contents of those transmission. I see it as a protest, simply raising awareness of a very subtle part of MS' Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy.
People needing this feature, though, are unlikely to want to read the crackmonkey mailing list.
The thing I do like about Outlook BTW is the Contacts list. I think that's very well done, especially the integration, and again, I don't know of another client that has something comparable. I have to admit that I haven't really looked, either.
I've actually done exactly that.
IIRC, your assesment of the possible crimes is correct, but IANAL. I think that in that case you would be charged with B&E. The Breaking is evident, and the entry would likely be assumed.
BTW in CA, it's legal to own lockpicks, but it's not legal to carry them unless you're a licensed locksmith. I believe most states have similar laws.
There are two ways, actually, that one can meet the crackmonkey mailing list dress code. One is to simply use Free Software, and not use a mailer that requires you to accept a license that makes you promise not to share with your friends. Another is to continue to use your Windows-based mailer, but hack the headers of your message so as not to betray your use of the software.
Both methods demonstrate an effort made to post to the list, as well as a certain degree of technical acumen.
This is a technical mailing list which is not intended for newbies or trolls. The idea is not to exclude MS users, but to exclude those who don't have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the discussion. Would you also accuse a Subaru owners club of discriminating against Ford owners?
He goes on to explain his stance, and even to answer your charges:
there is the mistaken impression that I am somehow discriminating against a whole class of people by writing e-mail that Outlook refuses to read. I see this as a curious by-product of American culture, whereby your consumer tastes somehow create a ready-made cultural identity for you. There are a great many FREELY AVAILABLE mailers (for Windows, even) that are capable of reading plain-text messages.
Outlook is merely a tool, and it has many freely available alternatives, any of which can read messages containing lines that begin with the word 'begin'. Would you say that my company, because our building only has stairs and ramps, discriminates against those who prefer to use elevators? I could just as easily argue that Outlook descriminates against people who would like to share their Pascal source code.
I've been using Unix-based mailers for well over a decade. I've been mailed countless illegible attachments from Windows users over the past ten years. It's immature of me, I know, but to some degree turnabout is fair play.
In other words, he's merely pointing out to those who might otherwise be unaware, how MS is limiting their freedom!
The folks using Outlook Express have locked themselves into a limited subset of the information that can flow over the Internet, and are blaming me personally for not limiting my transmissions to that outlook-centric subset. If I were to post all of my messages in Russian, even fewer people on the Tron list would be able to understand them; but would there then be an uproar demanding my removal from the list?
This one is aimed squarely at you. What is more elitist? Requiring readers to use any email program other than Outlook? Or requiring that all email be readable using Outlook?