I think it's because the majority of/. already considered "Linux" to be the whole ball of wax long before the unwashed masses were involved. Besides, the unwashed masses are just as likely to call it "Redhat" as they are to call it "Linux" and I'm sure we would correct them.:)
re: Hacker. So, it isn't really hypocrisy, but the definition of "hacker" is probably changing. If so, the/. community will just be dragged kicking and screaming. I, for one, will be screaming too.
Yeah, I understand that. However, the same still holds true that the distros can call themselves whatever they want. RMS can call his distro whatever he wants to call it.
I personally think he's wrong in believing that this course will get him anything but grief. I think he's marketing up the wrong tree, so to speak. The people that use and support GNU tools already know what they are and what they stand for.
re: What Linux is. The name "Linux" is exactly whatever the majority believes it to be. It's the unfortunate thing about names and identifiers. Currently, when someone says Linux I would guess most people think of a full distro.
Thanks for the counterpoint though, -Paul (Really wish I could downgrade this post... not sure it deserves a two and I'd rather not have it downgraded for me.)
I'm about to release some software in the next few months and I had originally considered GPLing it. Now I'm not so sure.
I would hate to have it become really popular and then have someone start dictating what its name should be. It's just silly and definitely not what I would consider to be totally free. Besides, just because you tack one thing to something else doesn't necessarily mean that they are magically going to share popularity or acheive codependent mindshare. It's just as likely that the unwashed masses would simply become indifferent to the GNU abbreviation.
Names aren't supposed to describe everything that's inside something. It's not even supposed to necessarily describe all of the phylosophical intents of something. Otherwise, our names would be very strange: DNA/Paul, Procreate/Paul, or somesuch.
The point is that a name is an identifier and as such only needs to be unique. Linux is just as good a name as any other as long as there isn't something else called Linux. Giving one thing too many different identifiers will only dilute understanding.
Really, to properly represent the "cry for understanding" how many qualifiers should we include? Linus'sUnixlikeKernelWithGNUandBSDpiecesCanRunXW indowsAndIsFreelyDistributable/Linux
It is a free country and everything you said is true.
However, what makes me frustrated is that every wierd thing MS has ever done suddenly becomes the norm. Users just eventually accept that this is the way things are supposed to be. MS has been moving towards a subscription based pricing model for a long time and I only see this as another step towards that goal.
re:Databases. In the cases of Oracle, Sybase, etc... their software is fairly specific. The chances of having a seriously fatal bug are fairly rare, and if you are a large enough customer they will usually send you patches anyway. Charging for an upgrade makes a little more sense in this case. Many customers won't upgrade and others will. It just depends on how it affects the bottom line. Some deals like these are still done on a handshake. It is viewed like an almost custom "service" in that case. For a service, you expect to keep paying.
In the case of Windows, this is a little more intangible. A user will upgrade because there is a momentum that has been created. There is almost no relationship between cost and revenue other than a manufactured marketing message. MS is trying to make people think of the OS as a service. This is a little scary.
It is a free country and if they can get away with it then fine. I again have to wonder how far their cockiness will take them.
The fact that they've been promissing a free upgrade only to turn around and charge for it is also a little frustrating. I know at least a few people that only upgrade to Win98 because they knew a patch was forthcoming. The worst part is that they now just shrug and say, "Oh well." This means that this idea is already starting to feel normal to some people.
If they didn't have monopoly status, then I'm sure none of use would care at all. It is, after all, a free country. I can say, though, that it would be more fun to watch if I wasn't sitting right smack in the middle of it.
Whereas it wasn't as obvious with Windows 4.1^H^H^H98, it is now pretty obvious here where their pricing model is going. To some of us this comes as no big surprise because we've been saying it all along. To others of us we don't care anyway because we never paid for an MS OS anyway. (And no, I'm not referring to pirating.) This is bound to surprise at least a few MS advocates in the world.
I just have to wonder if their cockiness will eventually be their downfall or will it just continue to work in their favor because they are who they are.
Conspiracy theorists will of course say that this is just an excuse to obtain peoples' personal information since it looks like Win 98.1 can only be bought through their web site. This means that they will be able to associate your name, address, and credit card number to your system GUID. Theoretically, they could also use this information to build a huge database of any web sites you've visited that use Link Exchange (since they own that too). Is MS going to become the largest marketer of personal data?
Realists know that this probably isn't going to happen. An NT server could never handle the data load we are talking about. I seriously doubt that MS would actually pay Sun Microsystems money for one of their huge data mining machines. Imagining the internal psychological struggle that Bill must be going through on that one is sort of funny.
Anyway, I don't want this to turn into a Jon Katz article so I'll stop now while I'm ahead.
"A consumer toy designed to sell will do what is necessary to make the customer happy."
Then why did my tamagotchi (sp?) die? Because it was part of the experience for which I paid.
I think it's interesting that something grossly simpler than a robotic dog could evoke any kinds of feelings at all. Yet, after feeding and taking care of my "virtual pet" for several weeks, I did feel bad when it got sick and died. It defied my internal logic and made me feel a little silly, but that still doesn't change the way I felt.
I see a robotic dog as being no different than a doll. In some cases it may be better; If I beat a doll it doesn't even have the oppurtunity to give negative feedback.
I think that IP hating started by people being fed up with the abuses. Todays definition of IP is _way_ too encompassing.
I'm more of an IP moderate. Software copyright, yes. Software patents, almost always no. The rare cases where software patents are appropriate just doesn't justify their existence.
Star Wars copyright, yes. Star Wars patent, no. Essentially the same thing.
If your business's productivity is based on a specific set of packages that can't be easily replaced with similar packages then you take on a great _risk_ by using proprietary software. Not to mention that timed licenses are just dumb and even more risky.
However, the business didn't give up its _freedom_. There is nothing stopping it from switching to GNU tools today. It may incur an expense doing so, but that's because it failed to skate unscathed through a risky venture.
I too like not having to worry about restrictions being placed on me by other people. When I _choose_ a software package this is an important consideration. As long as there is a choice then I can evaluate the software based on whatever criteria I choose.
It is not a question of freedom (in the true sense) though. No more than it would be for me to consider my television "unfree" because they don't provide me a book of detailed schematics.
Of course, now we are starting to get into the differences between proprietary software and proprietary interfaces. That is the topic of a whole different discussion and is, in my opinion, the real issue.
Just because I buy proprietary software doesn't mean I'm giving up any freedoms. I can always go get a different piece of software tommorrow if I choose.
One could argue that I give up _some_ of my freedom because I am more inclined to stay with the program I start with... and that likelihood only increases for things like operating systems, development frameworks, application servers, etc.. However, you could also argue that I give up some of my freedoms by going out and getting a job. I now have to be somewhere for a certain amount of time every day and can no longer stay home and play with my lego.
That doesn't mean that I've given up my freedom though. I can still quit!
Life is all about these kinds of compromises.
It is not as black and white an issue as RMS believes.
AC: "It's a machine. It will never be happy to see you, it will never feel 'good' or enjoy 'praise', it will just go through the algorithms that makes you think it did."
And are we really sure that these aren't just complex algorithmic responses from an analog computer?
Is my dog really happy to see me? Or is he just brown-nosing for the alpha male? Is what we think is "happiness" in our dogs just an evolution conditioned response to keep the dog alive?
Seriously, April Fools jokes are funny the same way that practical jokes are. Funny to everyone but the one fooled. The more sadistic you are, the more funny it is.
The fun isn't really the "punch-line" anyway; It's the construction. Some April Fools jokes are just stupid. The best ones are the ones that appeal to our most gullible qualities. The kind that in retrospect seem so obvious but that at the time had us hooked good.
This is one of my favorites: "I read an article yesterday that modern grammarians are meeting to vote on whether or not they should change the spelling of the word gullible. It seems that a good deal of them think it should actually be spelled gullibull from now on."
When you can catch someone with this one it's classic.
Yeah, I'm surprised that shoplifters don't try to get away with, "But the display just looked so enticing... it was almost begging me to steal it. It's the store's fault for making it look so good that I had to steal it."
Hmmm... I'm sure someone will now post a link to a story where a thief actually tried this ploy.
Several years ago my wife wanted internet access. Since she was not that computer savy I used one of the numerous AOL disks we were using as coasters and setup an account for her.
After this experience I have one piece of advice that I give women that are about to sign up with AOL or a similar service: Use a manly sounding nickname.
It was crazy... she couldn't even sign on to check her mail without all of these messages popping up from strange guys asking her what she was up to. She was almost completely turned off to the internet from this experience.
Needless to say, we canceled the account and I just let her run through my dedicated line. She may not have all of the fancy(?) features of an AOL, but she can check her e-mail and browse the net in peace.
If you haven't read it then you should. As humorous as it is, sometimes it is dead-on accurate. I wish I had it here at work so that I could quote it directly, but to summarize:
To be an effictive manager you should move your department or reorganize every four or five months. This will simulate activity without actually doing anything that might later be considered a failure. In fact, it will be impossible to be considered a success and according to Dogbert, success is bad too.
When a manager succeeds then their name will be fresh in their boss's mind. This is dangerous because when it comes time to downsize the managers name will be the first one their boss thinks of.
I think they are following the handbook to the letter...
One could argue that trademark infringement is trademark infringement no matter what the medium is. I'm sure company XYZ would get sort of upset if I hand painted their logo on the side of my office building just for fun and it would be their right to sue me. So I would take it down and probably pay no more than the cost of the paint thinner.
Domain names are similar. If I grab companyXYZ.com then I am essentially painting their name on the side of an internet building. If it's their trademark then they have the right to make me take it down and I'm out the money for the paint (err... payment to NSOL).
Ignorance of whether or not the name is trademarked is really no excuse. I hate to say that because it does make life a little harder, but the same thing would happen if I started selling T-shirts that said "Life Stinks" only to find out that another company trademarked it. Only, in that case they can actually probably sue me for damages since I was making money from their name. Most likely they would just make me stop selling them and I would lose all the money I spent printing the shirts.
As for getting domain names in a judgement, you would probably have a hard time assigning a value to that domain name. If the domain name is trademarked then I'm sure their are already legal means to determine the value associated with a trademark.
If a person does get sued over domain name "ownership" it would be tough to get a big settlement unless the infringement was fairly obvious. Damages would result from a perceived dilution of the product/company name. In cases where the name was fairly obscure it would be tough to prove any significant dilution.
Anyway, I'm off to go see if my domain name is trademarked by someone.:)
Concerning the privacy issues... I've always personally felt that ubiquity is the one way to handle that. The reason people can track that data today is that it is a handlable problem.
The government could track us today without the internet if they had enough people working for them to stand on every street corner. This just isn't going to happen.
When there are billions of people on the internet everyday it will become much easier to blend into the noise. There will be companies that will sell information about us, just like today with telemarketing phone lists, etc.. But the amount of correlation that goes on today within the internet domain just wouldn't be possible.
Also, as bandwidth propagates it will be harder to find exactly what point of entry was used to connect. This further supports a user's anonymity.
Sure, over time technology will improve and people will be easier to track... but the way things go everything else will advance as well. Tracking one person will always be easy just like today. If the government really wanted to watch one person then they will.
Watching everyone, probably not.
As long as we are aware that abuses are possible, and as long as we are vigilant in our lookout for these abuses, then it will be highly unprofitable to be "caught" abusing the system. If company XYZ tracks our info and company ABC advertises that they don't... who will you buy from?
-Paul (I can't believe how much the SNL ratio has already improved for me. Great job Rob!)
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if they still have to pay for Windows for every machine even if it isn't installed. I wouldn't put it past citizen Gates to swing a royalties deal like that.
I supported it too. Will you vote for me? I won't claim to have invented it, but I always thought it was a good idea... and I was always against CDA and son of CDA. So that makes me better than Gore, right?
It really has nothing to do with ISPs. It has to do with reciprocal payments that phone companies must pay each other to use each others equipment/lines. The only "ISPs" it actually affects are the ones that are also phone companies and it only affects them in that their deal isn't as sweet as it was before.
It's amazing how many knee-jerk reactions a "news" posting like this can generate on slashdot. Rob even seemed to get a little knee-jerky himself. I am usually more impressed with his style then that. I am disappointed.
Partisan or not, I think Clinton was on trial because everywhere they looked in his life something was dirty. Everytime they squeezed some piece of his life, mud came out. Therefore, they assumed, there must be something illegal going on here that we can prove.
Of course, proof became a very frustrating thing to find. (It's amazing the number people that were to be questioned that met with fatal accidents or killed themselves.)
However it was motivated, I think the trial was a result of just trying to pin something that would stick onto a man that, based on their appraisal, surely must be guilty of a whole bunch of things. Sort of an Al Capone thing.
Sex was just a convenient/inconvenient label to put on it that was able to further split the issue down party lines. If this had been a jury trial I wonder how it would have gone?
In the end, public opinion was formed more by just being tired of hearing about it than anything else. I have friends, both demicrat and republican, that didn't want him impeached just so we didn't have to see/read about it anymore. It really is sad what the media has done to the public.
As for lying being acceptable under certain circumstances, well, I think that's a poor excuse. There are much better ones. Or maybe we should ammend the oath to be, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, unless it's something I don't want my wife to know about."
I mean, we have all of these geek minds available, surely someone can come up with a workable plan on stopping this sort of nonsense. This is an issue that continually causes me to grumble. Software patents are bad news. Concept patents are worse. They serve no _useful_ purpose that copyright does not.
I know, I know, I'm singing to the choir on this one. It's just that within such a large group of people with so many large "movements" (OSI, Linux, GNU, etc.) that we should be able to get organized and fight this somehow. These abuses are only going to get worse before they get better.
I would take this project on myself except I am so poorly organized when it comes to these types of things. I can barely keep my own coding projects moving along at a decent pace... but I would definitely find some time to get involved if someone else were to organize it.
Slashdot Mirror
Write it this way:
#include
int main(
int argc,
char **argv
)
{
printf(
"H"
"e"
"l"
"l"
"o"
","
" "
"w"
"o"
"r"
"l"
"d"
"."
"\n"
);
return 0;
}
I think you would be almost three times as productive this way.
-Paul
(This message was not intended for the sarcasm impaired.)
Heh. Sort of.
/. already considered "Linux" to be the whole ball of wax long before the unwashed masses were involved. Besides, the unwashed masses are just as likely to call it "Redhat" as they are to call it "Linux" and I'm sure we would correct them. :)
/. community will just be dragged kicking and screaming. I, for one, will be screaming too.
I think it's because the majority of
re: Hacker. So, it isn't really hypocrisy, but the definition of "hacker" is probably changing. If so, the
Yeah, I understand that. However, the same still holds true that the distros can call themselves whatever they want. RMS can call his distro whatever he wants to call it.
I personally think he's wrong in believing that this course will get him anything but grief. I think he's marketing up the wrong tree, so to speak. The people that use and support GNU tools already know what they are and what they stand for.
re: What Linux is. The name "Linux" is exactly whatever the majority believes it to be. It's the unfortunate thing about names and identifiers. Currently, when someone says Linux I would guess most people think of a full distro.
Thanks for the counterpoint though,
-Paul (Really wish I could downgrade this post... not sure it deserves a two and I'd rather not have it downgraded for me.)
I'm about to release some software in the next few months and I had originally considered GPLing it. Now I'm not so sure.
W indowsAndIsFreelyDistributable/Linux
I would hate to have it become really popular and then have someone start dictating what its name should be. It's just silly and definitely not what I would consider to be totally free. Besides, just because you tack one thing to something else doesn't necessarily mean that they are magically going to share popularity or acheive codependent mindshare. It's just as likely that the unwashed masses would simply become indifferent to the GNU abbreviation.
Names aren't supposed to describe everything that's inside something. It's not even supposed to necessarily describe all of the phylosophical intents of something. Otherwise, our names would be very strange: DNA/Paul, Procreate/Paul, or somesuch.
The point is that a name is an identifier and as such only needs to be unique. Linux is just as good a name as any other as long as there isn't something else called Linux. Giving one thing too many different identifiers will only dilute understanding.
Really, to properly represent the "cry for understanding" how many qualifiers should we include?
Linus'sUnixlikeKernelWithGNUandBSDpiecesCanRunX
It is a free country and everything you said is true.
However, what makes me frustrated is that every wierd thing MS has ever done suddenly becomes the norm. Users just eventually accept that this is the way things are supposed to be. MS has been moving towards a subscription based pricing model for a long time and I only see this as another step towards that goal.
re:Databases. In the cases of Oracle, Sybase, etc... their software is fairly specific. The chances of having a seriously fatal bug are fairly rare, and if you are a large enough customer they will usually send you patches anyway. Charging for an upgrade makes a little more sense in this case. Many customers won't upgrade and others will. It just depends on how it affects the bottom line. Some deals like these are still done on a handshake. It is viewed like an almost custom "service" in that case. For a service, you expect to keep paying.
In the case of Windows, this is a little more intangible. A user will upgrade because there is a momentum that has been created. There is almost no relationship between cost and revenue other than a manufactured marketing message. MS is trying to make people think of the OS as a service. This is a little scary.
It is a free country and if they can get away with it then fine. I again have to wonder how far their cockiness will take them.
The fact that they've been promissing a free upgrade only to turn around and charge for it is also a little frustrating. I know at least a few people that only upgrade to Win98 because they knew a patch was forthcoming. The worst part is that they now just shrug and say, "Oh well." This means that this idea is already starting to feel normal to some people.
If they didn't have monopoly status, then I'm sure none of use would care at all. It is, after all, a free country. I can say, though, that it would be more fun to watch if I wasn't sitting right smack in the middle of it.
Whereas it wasn't as obvious with Windows 4.1^H^H^H98, it is now pretty obvious here where their pricing model is going. To some of us this comes as no big surprise because we've been saying it all along. To others of us we don't care anyway because we never paid for an MS OS anyway. (And no, I'm not referring to pirating.) This is bound to surprise at least a few MS advocates in the world.
I just have to wonder if their cockiness will eventually be their downfall or will it just continue to work in their favor because they are who they are.
Conspiracy theorists will of course say that this is just an excuse to obtain peoples' personal information since it looks like Win 98.1 can only be bought through their web site. This means that they will be able to associate your name, address, and credit card number to your system GUID. Theoretically, they could also use this information to build a huge database of any web sites you've visited that use Link Exchange (since they own that too). Is MS going to become the largest marketer of personal data?
Realists know that this probably isn't going to happen. An NT server could never handle the data load we are talking about. I seriously doubt that MS would actually pay Sun Microsystems money for one of their huge data mining machines. Imagining the internal psychological struggle that Bill must be going through on that one is sort of funny.
Anyway, I don't want this to turn into a Jon Katz article so I'll stop now while I'm ahead.
-Paul (pspeed@progeeks.com)
Just trying to find out...
"A consumer toy designed to sell will do what is necessary to make the customer happy."
Then why did my tamagotchi (sp?) die? Because it was part of the experience for which I paid.
I think it's interesting that something grossly simpler than a robotic dog could evoke any kinds of feelings at all. Yet, after feeding and taking care of my "virtual pet" for several weeks, I did feel bad when it got sick and died. It defied my internal logic and made me feel a little silly, but that still doesn't change the way I felt.
I see a robotic dog as being no different than a doll. In some cases it may be better; If I beat a doll it doesn't even have the oppurtunity to give negative feedback.
Interesting discussion though.
I think that IP hating started by people being fed up with the abuses. Todays definition of IP is _way_ too encompassing.
I'm more of an IP moderate. Software copyright, yes. Software patents, almost always no. The rare cases where software patents are appropriate just doesn't justify their existence.
Star Wars copyright, yes. Star Wars patent, no. Essentially the same thing.
If your business's productivity is based on a specific set of packages that can't be easily replaced with similar packages then you take on a great _risk_ by using proprietary software. Not to mention that timed licenses are just dumb and even more risky.
However, the business didn't give up its _freedom_. There is nothing stopping it from switching to GNU tools today. It may incur an expense doing so, but that's because it failed to skate unscathed through a risky venture.
I too like not having to worry about restrictions being placed on me by other people. When I _choose_ a software package this is an important consideration. As long as there is a choice then I can evaluate the software based on whatever criteria I choose.
It is not a question of freedom (in the true sense) though. No more than it would be for me to consider my television "unfree" because they don't provide me a book of detailed schematics.
Of course, now we are starting to get into the differences between proprietary software and proprietary interfaces. That is the topic of a whole different discussion and is, in my opinion, the real issue.
Just because I buy proprietary software doesn't mean I'm giving up any freedoms. I can always go get a different piece of software tommorrow if I choose.
One could argue that I give up _some_ of my freedom because I am more inclined to stay with the program I start with... and that likelihood only increases for things like operating systems, development frameworks, application servers, etc.. However, you could also argue that I give up some of my freedoms by going out and getting a job. I now have to be somewhere for a certain amount of time every day and can no longer stay home and play with my lego.
That doesn't mean that I've given up my freedom though. I can still quit!
Life is all about these kinds of compromises.
It is not as black and white an issue as RMS believes.
AC: "It's a machine. It will never be happy to see you, it will never feel 'good' or enjoy 'praise', it will just go through the algorithms that makes you think it did."
Please specifically define the terms/phrases:
"be happy"
"feel good"
"enjoy praise"
And are we really sure that these aren't just complex algorithmic responses from an analog computer?
Is my dog really happy to see me? Or is he just brown-nosing for the alpha male? Is what we think is "happiness" in our dogs just an evolution conditioned response to keep the dog alive?
Are we sure?
And British humor is sooo cerebral. :)
Spam spam spam eggs and spam.
Seriously, April Fools jokes are funny the same way that practical jokes are. Funny to everyone but the one fooled. The more sadistic you are, the more funny it is.
The fun isn't really the "punch-line" anyway; It's the construction. Some April Fools jokes are just stupid. The best ones are the ones that appeal to our most gullible qualities. The kind that in retrospect seem so obvious but that at the time had us hooked good.
This is one of my favorites: "I read an article yesterday that modern grammarians are meeting to vote on whether or not they should change the spelling of the word gullible. It seems that a good deal of them think it should actually be spelled gullibull from now on."
When you can catch someone with this one it's classic.
Heh, someone had to do it. :)
Yeah, I'm surprised that shoplifters don't try to get away with, "But the display just looked so enticing... it was almost begging me to steal it. It's the store's fault for making it look so good that I had to steal it."
Hmmm... I'm sure someone will now post a link to a story where a thief actually tried this ploy.
Several years ago my wife wanted internet access. Since she was not that computer savy I used one of the numerous AOL disks we were using as coasters and setup an account for her.
After this experience I have one piece of advice that I give women that are about to sign up with AOL or a similar service: Use a manly sounding nickname.
It was crazy... she couldn't even sign on to check her mail without all of these messages popping up from strange guys asking her what she was up to. She was almost completely turned off to the internet from this experience.
Needless to say, we canceled the account and I just let her run through my dedicated line. She may not have all of the fancy(?) features of an AOL, but she can check her e-mail and browse the net in peace.
If you haven't read it then you should. As humorous as it is, sometimes it is dead-on accurate. I wish I had it here at work so that I could quote it directly, but to summarize:
To be an effictive manager you should move your department or reorganize every four or five months. This will simulate activity without actually doing anything that might later be considered a failure. In fact, it will be impossible to be considered a success and according to Dogbert, success is bad too.
When a manager succeeds then their name will be fresh in their boss's mind. This is dangerous because when it comes time to downsize the managers name will be the first one their boss thinks of.
I think they are following the handbook to the letter...
One could argue that trademark infringement is trademark infringement no matter what the medium is. I'm sure company XYZ would get sort of upset if I hand painted their logo on the side of my office building just for fun and it would be their right to sue me. So I would take it down and probably pay no more than the cost of the paint thinner.
:)
Domain names are similar. If I grab companyXYZ.com then I am essentially painting their name on the side of an internet building. If it's their trademark then they have the right to make me take it down and I'm out the money for the paint (err... payment to NSOL).
Ignorance of whether or not the name is trademarked is really no excuse. I hate to say that because it does make life a little harder, but the same thing would happen if I started selling T-shirts that said "Life Stinks" only to find out that another company trademarked it. Only, in that case they can actually probably sue me for damages since I was making money from their name. Most likely they would just make me stop selling them and I would lose all the money I spent printing the shirts.
As for getting domain names in a judgement, you would probably have a hard time assigning a value to that domain name. If the domain name is trademarked then I'm sure their are already legal means to determine the value associated with a trademark.
If a person does get sued over domain name "ownership" it would be tough to get a big settlement unless the infringement was fairly obvious. Damages would result from a perceived dilution of the product/company name. In cases where the name was fairly obscure it would be tough to prove any significant dilution.
Anyway, I'm off to go see if my domain name is trademarked by someone.
Good points.
Concerning the privacy issues... I've always personally felt that ubiquity is the one way to handle that. The reason people can track that data today is that it is a handlable problem.
The government could track us today without the internet if they had enough people working for them to stand on every street corner. This just isn't going to happen.
When there are billions of people on the internet everyday it will become much easier to blend into the noise. There will be companies that will sell information about us, just like today with telemarketing phone lists, etc.. But the amount of correlation that goes on today within the internet domain just wouldn't be possible.
Also, as bandwidth propagates it will be harder to find exactly what point of entry was used to connect. This further supports a user's anonymity.
Sure, over time technology will improve and people will be easier to track... but the way things go everything else will advance as well. Tracking one person will always be easy just like today. If the government really wanted to watch one person then they will.
Watching everyone, probably not.
As long as we are aware that abuses are possible, and as long as we are vigilant in our lookout for these abuses, then it will be highly unprofitable to be "caught" abusing the system. If company XYZ tracks our info and company ABC advertises that they don't... who will you buy from?
-Paul (I can't believe how much the SNL ratio has already improved for me. Great job Rob!)
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if they still have to pay for Windows for every machine even if it isn't installed. I wouldn't put it past citizen Gates to swing a royalties deal like that.
Probably not though.
I supported it too. Will you vote for me? I won't claim to have invented it, but I always thought it was a good idea... and I was always against CDA and son of CDA. So that makes me better than Gore, right?
:)
Me for president!
"Political Leader" is an oxymoron.
It's bad cause youins sounds ignant when you ain't speakin' to people that be usin' it the same as y'all.
All valid english based on much of this discussion, right?
I think there are differences between "common usage", "accepted usage", and "correct usage" in many cases. C'est la vie.
It really has nothing to do with ISPs. It has to do with reciprocal payments that phone companies must pay each other to use each others equipment/lines. The only "ISPs" it actually affects are the ones that are also phone companies and it only affects them in that their deal isn't as sweet as it was before.
It's amazing how many knee-jerk reactions a "news" posting like this can generate on slashdot. Rob even seemed to get a little knee-jerky himself. I am usually more impressed with his style then that. I am disappointed.
Partisan or not, I think Clinton was on trial because everywhere they looked in his life something was dirty. Everytime they squeezed some piece of his life, mud came out. Therefore, they assumed, there must be something illegal going on here that we can prove.
Of course, proof became a very frustrating thing to find. (It's amazing the number people that were to be questioned that met with fatal accidents or killed themselves.)
However it was motivated, I think the trial was a result of just trying to pin something that would stick onto a man that, based on their appraisal, surely must be guilty of a whole bunch of things. Sort of an Al Capone thing.
Sex was just a convenient/inconvenient label to put on it that was able to further split the issue down party lines. If this had been a jury trial I wonder how it would have gone?
In the end, public opinion was formed more by just being tired of hearing about it than anything else. I have friends, both demicrat and republican, that didn't want him impeached just so we didn't have to see/read about it anymore. It really is sad what the media has done to the public.
As for lying being acceptable under certain circumstances, well, I think that's a poor excuse. There are much better ones. Or maybe we should ammend the oath to be, "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, unless it's something I don't want my wife to know about."
I mean, we have all of these geek minds available, surely someone can come up with a workable plan on stopping this sort of nonsense. This is an issue that continually causes me to grumble. Software patents are bad news. Concept patents are worse. They serve no _useful_ purpose that copyright does not.
I know, I know, I'm singing to the choir on this one. It's just that within such a large group of people with so many large "movements" (OSI, Linux, GNU, etc.) that we should be able to get organized and fight this somehow. These abuses are only going to get worse before they get better.
I would take this project on myself except I am so poorly organized when it comes to these types of things. I can barely keep my own coding projects moving along at a decent pace... but I would definitely find some time to get involved if someone else were to organize it.
There must be something we can do,
-Paul