labor? that's like a couple of hours max (including installation of Win98SE with a good speed CD drive) which is fuck all. Sure, if you go by major dealer rates it's a lot, but anyone can build their own machine really. You, sir, are a fucking retard
hahaha nice troll. While it is true that I can build my own machine like this and write my own software, it takes both time and money. While the money required to purchase the parts is significantly less than the amount they're charging for it, I would lose much more of my money by spending time putting it all together.
Your time clearly is worth nothing. Troll for the Troll.
Well I am not a nerd, nor do I reguard it as something to be proud of. That said, whether it has built in LAN or not is practically irrelevant. If you're an employed nerd, you might realize that your time is actually worth something. If I have to spend a couple hours putting this thing together to match its quality, then I've lost a significant amount of money.
So that's about 288 USD parts, if we accept your quoted prices as being market. But you're ignoring ethernet and probably a few other things (e.g., wireless remote). Plus labor to assemble it and install software. Plus support. Plus software development for their UI. Plus profit (god forbid anyone take a little risk and expect that). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Do you really want to compete with someone who has access and permission to use everything you do, but you don't have access or permission for any of their stuff?
Well this point is really OT from my initial point [ that the FSF cannot say that information can never be property, but then try to enforce the GPL. ]. However, the only way your argument makes any sense is if you see Open Source to be an end into itself. I, and I believe most developers, simply do not start from this point of view. When I develop such software, I am aiming for the greatest good and/or my own edification, not to grow Open Source's marketshare for its own sake. The way I see it, when you release software under BSD you are every bit as likely to acquire future open contributions as you would under the GPL. Those that are willing to make contributions of their time for free are going to do it regardless, by and large. The GPL only ensures that closed source cannot take advantage of the code base. In other words, Open Source's gain under the GPL is only relative, not absolute.
Under a BSD-style license, if customers would rather spend 50 dollars more on proprietary extensions, then that is the greater good. If, however, the closed source additions simply crap it up, it's rather unlikely that people will buy in large numbers. Thus the propreitary line will die and become irrelevant. In other words, I believe allowing the free market, of sorts, to handle this is a far better method of contributing to this world.
If you want to give away a million dollars, do you throw it into the street, or do you carefully consider who to give it to and what conditions to put on it? Is it wrong to give a million dollars to a university to build a new library?
The difference is that this is not a zero sum game and that the money is finite, whereas my code can be used towards multiple ends at one time without wearing away at it. If I allow my code to be thrown in the "street", so what? Some incompetent coders my screw their modifications up. Other competent developers in Open and Closed Source can still make the most of my code.
But the other 99% of the world - non-programmers - end up with more proprietary bugware and less working free software.
Firstly, relatively little of this code was ever based in Open Source. Secondly, you're making an assumption that I disagree with, that Open Source is an inherantly better process than Closed Source. Thirdly, that, as I alluded to above, you are presuming that consumers are irrational and therefore incapable choosing the better product.
If you want to do the greatest good, focuse on the largest number.
I fully agree that it is your right to put conditions on your product. However, the fact of the matter is that this right descends from the same exact principles that proprietary software does. RMS and other parts of the OSS movement attack it, but they like to ignore their stake in it (even if it is misguided). That's my point.
That said, I do not believe that a GPL-style license is really necessary to prevent free software developers from being "ripped" off. What, precisely, is the harm of someone borrowing your code and not publishing their modifications? You and your buddies can still share your code every bit as well. You've not lost out financially. It seems to me that if you're going to give a gift to society at large, that it should be more in the style of the BSD license. Not only is that gift is more free without restrictions (by definition), but it can also do the greatest good. (e.g., Open AND Closed Source developers benefit)
They didn't. They just didn't use that code or got permission.
I didn't say they did. However, if you know, then why don't you know which particular method? Did they do both depending on the particular contributor?
I fail to see how the proprietary software community can claim that they should be able to use anything the open source community puts out, but we can't use anything of theirs. If the author didn't give you permission to copy it in that way, then you don't have permission, proprietary or open source.
I, and probably virtually everyone in the so-called "proprietary software community", have no problem with Open Source people dictating the terms of their license. After all, one should be entitled to the product of their own mind. Whether they want to keep it for themselves, share the source, dictate the license, charge for it, or whatever, that is up to the creator.
However, while they may have the right, it is hypocritical to claim that ideas cannot be property and can be shared without any cost to the creator and then turn around and say that there some be an exception in their own case. If it's truely FREE, in every sense in the word, then I should be ALLOWED to take the source and do whatever I want with it, including releasing a derivative proprietary product and keeping my modifications to myself. You may not like it and you're free to protest it, but it should be within my rights, at least if the OSS people are to be consistent. It may be consistent with for them to object to the copyright law that protects the proprietary product, but that's a distinctly seperate issue.
While I'm not familiar with the particulars of TuxRacer's development, you can hardly say that the 3rd party developers were "shut out." Ok, maybe the company that owns the commercial version of TuxRacer copied the GPL code without the explicit consent of the 3rd party coders (although, from my understanding, there were VERY few of them...what's more it's possible that they simply excluded these patches from their code), however nothing has been taken from them. I fail to see how the Open Source community can claim that knowledge can be shared without dimming your own and then turn around and claim that some knowledge simply should not be shared, because you do not like the way it is used.
I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone that has lived in Afghanistan for the past decade would find Microsoft's fate significant, never mind important, to their lives. Hmmm, better quality software OR your family/village/life/house/way of life. There is just no comparison between the two. What's more besides personal interest, if the rest of the region finds it of little concern (e.g., little/no media coverage), it's unlikely to reach that individual.
Pretty good for whom? Globally speaking your opinion is in the minority. A small minority.
Says who? Sure, some people hate us (e.g., a certain part of the Arab world), but this also ignores the hoardes of immigrants that seek entry into the US each year, legal and illegal, the many supporters of the US abroad, the popularity of our culture (you can deny it all you want), and many other factors.
Even if you accept this, that the US is unpopular, it's NOT a popularity contest. Doing the right thing isn't always the most popular thing, before or after the fact. After all, most of these foreigners are the "lowest common denominator" that you're so ready to dismiss. What's more, they lack perspective and basic knowledge of US domestic policy that I, or even the average American, has. They also do not have the same interests that the US has.
Motivation? You can fit most of the worlds billionaire CEO's and powerful politicians in one big room. They're job is like a combination of Monopoly and Risk. Look at Bin Laden's investments, and those of the Bush families, follow the campaign contributions and cabinet appointments. Look at Afghanistan on a map, or forget the map, look at it on a Risk board. The Public is just another piece on the board. It's still their game.
Yet another irrational plea.
The only 2 ways you can think US foreign policy is "on a whole, pretty good" is to have an average or lower IQ and believe what you're spoon fed, OR be a US citizen and have very jingoistic beliefs. Oops, and there is also self-delusion.
Or maybe I've actually taken the time to study it with some depth without some bipolar view of the world.
This seems to be the crux of the argument. Although it's an unimaginative, generalized, non-statement, it still manages to smack of very low expectations.
Quite the opposite. I know what it means to lead and I believe that the kind of criticism that many of these critics engage in is destructive, not constructive. It's very easy to sit back and take potshots when you yourself are not actually making decisions that you can be held accountable for.
Defending the rights of minorities is the hallmark of a republic. When I was in school my professor explained the difference between a democracy and a republic this way. A democracy is a lynching of a black man by ten white men. Ten votes for, one vote against. In a republic lynching is not acceptable because the right of minories are not up for vote.
Talk about twisting the truth. Listen, there is a difference between a member of group A standing up and saying that group B should not be discriminated against, because it might eventually come around to group A; and representatives of this government following procedures laid forth in our republic to make certain non-essential information unavailable. This is not about the majority incrementally crushing the rights of the few.
you are kidding me right? Is it your position that the US policymakers never shaft their own people? How many examples of this would it take to convince you that the US policymakers reoutinely shaft their own people?
Ahem, nice way to cut out the rest of my quote..."for its own sake". You want to argue that they're out to screw us, then give me a plausible motive. Otherwise, I highly suggest that not paint them as evil and instead come at it from the approach that you think their policy, while properly motivated, is misguided.
All they need to get elected is a bunch of money. Most americans are sheep and will vote for whoever the TV says to.
You know, I'm not a sheep. I'm educated, I'm a free-thinker, and I follow politics and world news regularly. Yet I happen to think that US policy is, on a whole, pretty good. Are there some flaws and occassional injustices? Sure, but on the whole there's not much more that can be done systematically.
The simple fact of the matter, that many radicals on slashdot do not grasp, is that most Americans are pretty content with the leadership and abhor the ideas espoused by those fringe groups such as the Green Party. They're not too stupid to grasp what is relevant to them.
Btw, I always find it ironic how those that claim to be interested in the masses show such utter lack of respect for them.
You are mixing up privacy with truth. No one says you have to reveal your credit card number to me. But stating a false one rarely serves any purpose other than fraud. And imagine if the phone book, rather than simply suppressing unlisted phone numbers, listed them with false information, so you could not trust anything you found in it.
You entirely miss the point. You said the truth is always good, acting as if there is no reason to ever not to share the truth openly. Meanwhile, you insist on making a special class of information that SHOULD be hidden, you call it "privacy." Yet you're unwilling to make reasonable accomodation for a far more important issue: self defence.
With this statement, you tell me I cannot trust anything you say. If you're going to say something, tell the truth, otherwise say nothing, if it's none of my business. If it is my business, like a flaw in a product I'm about to purchase from you, then you should say it, and truthfully. That is, if you are an honorable person. (Perhaps I am unusual in that respect; if I sell someone a used car I just cannot feel good about myself unless I disclose its known problems.)
Quite the opposite in fact. I'm a very ethical person, but I am mature and thoughtful enough to admit of the truth that every reasonable person arrives at when forced. Furthermore, this does not mean that I'm any more likely to lie about things that should not be lied about. For instance, with my product, if I were to lie about its flaws, I would be hurting an innocent person. I would also be ruining my credibility as a business person (which is priceless). Thus, I would never lie about such a thing.
However, in a time of war, I might be willing to create disinformation, knowing that despite our best efforts the enemy will get ahold of the various truths, but that I can make these truths all the less dangerous to us by dilluting it with lies/misinformation. Again, here we can proceed rationally, considering the costs and the benefits of telling the truth or lieing.
Furthermore, it means very little for you to say that you'd never lie, because I have no way of knowing that you're sincere or even if you've thought of all the significant eventualities that might force you to reconsider. What's more, given my life experience, I'm far more likely to trust a person that I consider to be frank with me (e.g., not an idealist), than a person that declares themselves to be "pure" in its various forms.
In any event, you miss the point. If you allow for some truths not to be told (or even to be forcefully REMOVED--e.g., your name from a database), you simply cannot say that you are absolutely for the free flow of information, be it the truth or not.
As for the rest, they were a direct response and explanation to the points you addressed. What other answer did you expect?
My point was that I do not wish to argue the same point twice. However, I might have expected some substantial support for an argument that runs contrary to the majority of expert, military, congressional, and executive opinion. I fail to see how it can be reasonably argued that the casual citizen has a substantial interest in, say, the structural design of every nuclear powerplant in the country, yet this same information is easily had by a terrorist group. This kind/quality/quantity of information doesn't grow on trees, it's either released by government decree or it's taken by a sophisticated intelligence gathering apparatus. In other words, the cost of exercising reasonable controls on the flow of information to the public is nominal/non-existent in the vast majority of cases and the benefit (increased security) is substantial. Unless you have something further to add, there's just not much more to discuss.
As for the specific example of CNN and the Gulf war, CNN did admit to the spreading of disinformation on purpose.
The reason according to them was to boost morale for the alies and to lower it for the enemy.
Media is to report objectivly the truth and not be an instrument of propaganda.
Since that admittance the credibility of named news network has hit bottom.
Prove this. The rest of what you said is just a rehash of the argument that I addressed.
This, in my mind, is their distinction. Telling lies is never
good. Knowing the truth is always good.
Well that doesn't include commercial speech, which is regulated in far more ways than just to tell the "truth". [Or how aobut, something I didn't mention before, the growth of privacy laws.] Furthermore, we have no laws that simply say you cannot lie. In fact, I'm sure the ACLU would get very upset if such a law were to be passed.
Lastly, how can you say telling the "truth" is always good. Your credit card number, home address, and phone number are the "truth". Yet if I posted them all on slashdot I know you'd be upset. Likewise, if I were to publish Bush's secret service itenerary and the weaknesses of his security detail, most reasonable Americans would be rightfully upset.
Lies are not always bad and the truth is not always good. Like most subjects, absolute behavior can be very dangerous and harmful.
Ok, you're asking for examples of data that's being restricted that shouldn't be? How about the moves to block access to data about chemical hazards in communities? (see, e.g. this testimony [house.gov])
Ok, that's one specific issue. However, if you actually bother to read your own link, it becomes quite clear that this lady is very much opposed to previously excessively open system. For example:
"Washington can no longer afford to hand any interested individual a road map to the chemical calamities they could cause with the toxic materials located in communities nationwide. Some would argue that the milk has already been spilled.Well, the quicker a decision is made to close the reading rooms and keep both them and the website permanently shuttered, the better. Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency should purge its website of other data that might aid and abet terrorists plots to sabotage chemical plants.Such information would still be made available to citizens through the appropriate local venues, but it would not be delivered to aspiring terrorists on an Internet silver platter."
Or the "no, you shouldn't know about security holes in your operating systems" that MS is using the current scare to push?
While this is totally OT and while I'm no fan of MS, you're misrepresenting the facts. There is a difference between being aware that holes exist and being essentially given the tools to trivially hit millions of people with it.
Trusting people in power to "just do the right thing" without any oversight is incredibly foolish. Even if the current people are as pure as the driven snow, all it takes is one bad guy in a position of authority, and we're screwed.
Did I say give them carte blanche? No, I never said or implied such a thing. What I did say, and will affirm, is that I have no reason to believe that they are out to screw us for the sake of screwing us. This is not the same thing. Furthermore, I believe these specific acts to be not only reasonable, but quite necessary. Your expert does too, at least in her domain.
Secondly, that's my point, that we CAN say that some information should not be so readily published without being pushed ANY closer to a Nazi regime. [In other words, you're contradicting yourself, at least by implication that we should NOT publish the President's motorcade details.] Thirdly, what stops us is the same thing that would allow us, should we choose to do so, to stop this action in the first place: our Legislative, Executive, and Judicial process.
Well, the press is hardly where one turns for reliable information.
Ex. CNN has on several occations made it clear that they are bias in reporting news.
When it comes to opinions and late breaking news, sure, they get a lot of it wrong. However, when it comes to basic facts when they're not vieing for who can be first, it's pretty accurate.
As a non-US citizen I have had no problem what-so-ever to get hold of whatever information I have been interested (regarding US, US-companies etc.). (Note I'm NOT a terrorist, just a regular Joe who, like anyone else, have the need to know things related to what I do).
By your governments decision to yank stuff from your public info. houses (libraries, public service houses et al) I see that the only the loosers are the american public. This will not affect one bit from where I get my information.
I assume the same is true for anyone looking to cause harm as well!
And what of this has changed one iota for you? Libraries still exist. Financial information on companies still exists (very much so). We're talking about very specific and detailed information that a very small part of the population can even claim to have the most remote of interest in.
As someone else said, this feels like your government is taking maximum opportunity of a tragic incident to restrict your way of life and further convert your great nation into a totalitary police- / corporate ruled state.
Oh please. Why? Justify your belief in reasoning that US policymakers are out to shaft its own people, rather that being motivated for the same reasons that I'm arguing for (e.g., the defence of Americans and other people). What do they gain by unreasonably restricting actual rights other than gaining the hate of certain interest groups? If this were say, no "hate speech" against Corporations, that might be one thing. But oppression for its own sake...? Gimme a break. These people need to get re-elected.
Your rights? Is it your right, for instance, to know the exact path and time of the Presidents limo for the next year? How about its weaknesses?
Can you at least admit the possibility that some information is a FAR greater threat to our collective rights than its absence? It's not at all a stretch to assert that this kind of information exists, even the most brazen free speech advocates have seen the wisdom of moderation of some restrictions during times of war and in other cases.
We limit your right to yell fire. We limit commercial speech. We limit your right to speak intentional lies about people (e.g., slander/libel laws). All are generally recognized to be in the public's best interest. Why is it any less legitimate to not allow the public 100% free and open access to sensitive and detailed information? Many of the supposed harms inflicted by these acts are not necessarily harms at all. For instance, I've heard the argument that students of engineering need to know the principles involved in building a dam. Fine, but they don't need to know exactly the structural weaknesses of particular sites, or who would die if it were, or the schedules of security. Their needs can be met without significantly putting the public at threat. Where there is significant intersection, it's at least reasonable to put some controls on that information.
If you have particular grievances, fine, then enumerate them. You're reacting to one extreme (e.g., the scenario depicted in F451) by going to another extreme. It may be true that some legitimate information may be temporarily unavailable, but it may require substantial time to sort through all of it to make those distinctions, in the mean time, terrorists can have their way with us. Cost/Risk vs Benefit...it simply doesn't compute with the vast majority of the information listed.
While it is true that the terrorists may be able to access particular information if they try hard enough, there is a lot to be said for making sensitive and detailed information harder to get to. For instance:
A) By making each piece of sensitive information harder to get to, you make it exponentially more time consuming to query FROM vast realms of it. e.g., if the terrorists wanted to know the exact engineering specifications used for all the nuclear plants around the country to look for a particularly weak design.
B) By making information harder to come by, we can up the ante by forcing the terrorists as a GROUP, to become more sophisticated/educated. e.g., the size of the effort rules out the few top level people, but the scope/difficult rules out the average ignorant terrorist.
C) By making information harder to come by, we can make the act of looking for that information much riskier. For instance, rather than merely having to go online or to any public library (anonymously), they must go to a few enumerated locations and risk being spotted and/or creating a trail after the fact.
D) By clamping the flow of information, we can force the terrorists to work with far many more unknowns.
Lastly, these various elements play off each other greatly. Just as widespread efficiencies in capitalist markets have allowed for expontentially more efficient production, so to can this widespread "inefficiency" make it vastly harder for the terrorists to get _all_ the intelligence that they need.
The Press uses your same argument in defence of some of their more questionable publications. Besides being a disingenious assertion, it very much under-estimates the value of good intelligence. Intelligence is even more important for the terrorists in many ways, because they need to make their relatively few resources stretch much further. The further they stretch, the more they expose themselves and the fewer manhours they can devote to actual acts of terrorism.
Btw, I would not at all be surprised, for instance, if Saddam Hussain got more worthwhile intelligence from the likes of CNN (e.g., troup movements, morale, technology, etc) in the comfort of his bedroom than he did from his entire intelligence service during the Gulf War. The Press can use their apparent legitimacy to get DIRECT, NEAR REAL TIME, and RISKLESS (for the enemy) access to top level officials; whereas with proper controls in place this kind of intelligence would require a capable intelligence agency with significant resources.
Well, I asked, and they didn't make it available in any form for several months.
Well besides the fact that I think this product and this company are destined for nothing but absolute failure, lighten up.
Who really cares if they release it or not? Sure, it's technically part of the GPL and it's within the right of the public, but it still seems to me that some people are just out to whine. Their value added, insofar as the kernel and hardware goes, is probably almost zip (judging by what i've seen). It's the applications that they actually "did" something with, but even there.... looks downright mediocre.
Furthermore, this company JUST released this product, did they not? According to the GPL a company is not obliged to release their sourcecode, unless they DISTRIBUTE it. In other words, if they just started distributing this past week, it's still reasonable for them to take awhile longer to reply.
The palm m505 is so hopelessly overpriced that these things have to potential to sell well. I've been a plam user from the start but I'm looking for an alternative. Let's just hope the usual open source tilt towards completely ignoring any kind of marketing doesn't haunt DA.
Yes, the Palm m505 is expensive. However, you're comparing Apples and Oranges. You can buy a PalmIIIxe or Palm105 for less than 150 and these are very much equivelanet to what this Linux DA company is offering. What's more, these come with very well designed software products for both the Handheld, PC, and the Conduit (the layer that syncs). Not to mention a zillion 3rd party software applications and hardware addons.
This is just the current state too. We know that Palm is doing all this in an economically viable way, whereas Linux DA may not be and probably is not. In other words, with Palm the continued support and development is pretty much a sure thing...Linux DA on the other hand.....will likely be forced to fold very shortly.
I've got an Ispiron 8k with the 15" XGA screen and I run at 1600x1200. It's _very_ crisp and bright. Not only do I tolerate this setting, but I much prefer it because it's what I'm used to working with. Having to switch resolutions for docked/road configurations is a pain in the butt (e.g., less space than you're used to, desktop icons get cluttered, etc)
Not for me. When I'm plugged into my docking station, I get all the conveniences of a PC (e.g., monitor, keyboard, mouse) AND the portability. The only difference between this and most people's gaming rigs is that my HD runs a bit slower, but besides that there's nothing "sucky" about it. That's what I want. Anyways, that's the beauty of the free market. You don't have to like it, as long as there is a sufficient number of people like myself (they are), then it will be made.
Not necessarily. I've got a GeForce2 Go in my laptop. Besides the fact that it runs desktop applications a good deal better at 1600x1200, I often play games on it (either Docked or hooked up to an external K/V/M).
It really is nice to be able to do _everything_ on one computer and to be able to carry that computer where ever you go (e.g., work, home, beach house, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Your time clearly is worth nothing. Troll for the Troll.
Well I am not a nerd, nor do I reguard it as something to be proud of. That said, whether it has built in LAN or not is practically irrelevant. If you're an employed nerd, you might realize that your time is actually worth something. If I have to spend a couple hours putting this thing together to match its quality, then I've lost a significant amount of money.
So that's about 288 USD parts, if we accept your quoted prices as being market. But you're ignoring ethernet and probably a few other things (e.g., wireless remote). Plus labor to assemble it and install software. Plus support. Plus software development for their UI. Plus profit (god forbid anyone take a little risk and expect that). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Under a BSD-style license, if customers would rather spend 50 dollars more on proprietary extensions, then that is the greater good. If, however, the closed source additions simply crap it up, it's rather unlikely that people will buy in large numbers. Thus the propreitary line will die and become irrelevant. In other words, I believe allowing the free market, of sorts, to handle this is a far better method of contributing to this world.
The difference is that this is not a zero sum game and that the money is finite, whereas my code can be used towards multiple ends at one time without wearing away at it. If I allow my code to be thrown in the "street", so what? Some incompetent coders my screw their modifications up. Other competent developers in Open and Closed Source can still make the most of my code.
Firstly, relatively little of this code was ever based in Open Source. Secondly, you're making an assumption that I disagree with, that Open Source is an inherantly better process than Closed Source. Thirdly, that, as I alluded to above, you are presuming that consumers are irrational and therefore incapable choosing the better product.
What does this mean precisely?
I fully agree that it is your right to put conditions on your product. However, the fact of the matter is that this right descends from the same exact principles that proprietary software does. RMS and other parts of the OSS movement attack it, but they like to ignore their stake in it (even if it is misguided). That's my point.
That said, I do not believe that a GPL-style license is really necessary to prevent free software developers from being "ripped" off. What, precisely, is the harm of someone borrowing your code and not publishing their modifications? You and your buddies can still share your code every bit as well. You've not lost out financially. It seems to me that if you're going to give a gift to society at large, that it should be more in the style of the BSD license. Not only is that gift is more free without restrictions (by definition), but it can also do the greatest good. (e.g., Open AND Closed Source developers benefit)
No, I'm confusing nothing. Idea == ANYTHING, not just a high level concept. In this case, I was referring to code.
I, and probably virtually everyone in the so-called "proprietary software community", have no problem with Open Source people dictating the terms of their license. After all, one should be entitled to the product of their own mind. Whether they want to keep it for themselves, share the source, dictate the license, charge for it, or whatever, that is up to the creator.
However, while they may have the right, it is hypocritical to claim that ideas cannot be property and can be shared without any cost to the creator and then turn around and say that there some be an exception in their own case. If it's truely FREE, in every sense in the word, then I should be ALLOWED to take the source and do whatever I want with it, including releasing a derivative proprietary product and keeping my modifications to myself. You may not like it and you're free to protest it, but it should be within my rights, at least if the OSS people are to be consistent. It may be consistent with for them to object to the copyright law that protects the proprietary product, but that's a distinctly seperate issue.
While I'm not familiar with the particulars of TuxRacer's development, you can hardly say that the 3rd party developers were "shut out." Ok, maybe the company that owns the commercial version of TuxRacer copied the GPL code without the explicit consent of the 3rd party coders (although, from my understanding, there were VERY few of them...what's more it's possible that they simply excluded these patches from their code), however nothing has been taken from them. I fail to see how the Open Source community can claim that knowledge can be shared without dimming your own and then turn around and claim that some knowledge simply should not be shared, because you do not like the way it is used.
I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone that has lived in Afghanistan for the past decade would find Microsoft's fate significant, never mind important, to their lives. Hmmm, better quality software OR your family/village/life/house/way of life. There is just no comparison between the two. What's more besides personal interest, if the rest of the region finds it of little concern (e.g., little/no media coverage), it's unlikely to reach that individual.
Even if you accept this, that the US is unpopular, it's NOT a popularity contest. Doing the right thing isn't always the most popular thing, before or after the fact. After all, most of these foreigners are the "lowest common denominator" that you're so ready to dismiss. What's more, they lack perspective and basic knowledge of US domestic policy that I, or even the average American, has. They also do not have the same interests that the US has.
Yet another irrational plea.
Or maybe I've actually taken the time to study it with some depth without some bipolar view of the world.
Quite the opposite. I know what it means to lead and I believe that the kind of criticism that many of these critics engage in is destructive, not constructive. It's very easy to sit back and take potshots when you yourself are not actually making decisions that you can be held accountable for.
Ahem, nice way to cut out the rest of my quote..."for its own sake". You want to argue that they're out to screw us, then give me a plausible motive. Otherwise, I highly suggest that not paint them as evil and instead come at it from the approach that you think their policy, while properly motivated, is misguided.
You know, I'm not a sheep. I'm educated, I'm a free-thinker, and I follow politics and world news regularly. Yet I happen to think that US policy is, on a whole, pretty good. Are there some flaws and occassional injustices? Sure, but on the whole there's not much more that can be done systematically.
The simple fact of the matter, that many radicals on slashdot do not grasp, is that most Americans are pretty content with the leadership and abhor the ideas espoused by those fringe groups such as the Green Party. They're not too stupid to grasp what is relevant to them.
Btw, I always find it ironic how those that claim to be interested in the masses show such utter lack of respect for them.
Quite the opposite in fact. I'm a very ethical person, but I am mature and thoughtful enough to admit of the truth that every reasonable person arrives at when forced. Furthermore, this does not mean that I'm any more likely to lie about things that should not be lied about. For instance, with my product, if I were to lie about its flaws, I would be hurting an innocent person. I would also be ruining my credibility as a business person (which is priceless). Thus, I would never lie about such a thing.
However, in a time of war, I might be willing to create disinformation, knowing that despite our best efforts the enemy will get ahold of the various truths, but that I can make these truths all the less dangerous to us by dilluting it with lies/misinformation. Again, here we can proceed rationally, considering the costs and the benefits of telling the truth or lieing.
Furthermore, it means very little for you to say that you'd never lie, because I have no way of knowing that you're sincere or even if you've thought of all the significant eventualities that might force you to reconsider. What's more, given my life experience, I'm far more likely to trust a person that I consider to be frank with me (e.g., not an idealist), than a person that declares themselves to be "pure" in its various forms.
In any event, you miss the point. If you allow for some truths not to be told (or even to be forcefully REMOVED--e.g., your name from a database), you simply cannot say that you are absolutely for the free flow of information, be it the truth or not.
Lastly, how can you say telling the "truth" is always good. Your credit card number, home address, and phone number are the "truth". Yet if I posted them all on slashdot I know you'd be upset. Likewise, if I were to publish Bush's secret service itenerary and the weaknesses of his security detail, most reasonable Americans would be rightfully upset.
Lies are not always bad and the truth is not always good. Like most subjects, absolute behavior can be very dangerous and harmful.
"Washington can no longer afford to hand any interested individual a road map to the chemical calamities they could cause with the toxic materials located in communities nationwide. Some would argue that the milk has already been spilled.Well, the quicker a decision is made to close the reading rooms and keep both them and the website permanently shuttered, the better. Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency should purge its website of other data that might aid and abet terrorists plots to sabotage chemical plants.Such information would still be made available to citizens through the appropriate local venues, but it would not be delivered to aspiring terrorists on an Internet silver platter."
While this is totally OT and while I'm no fan of MS, you're misrepresenting the facts. There is a difference between being aware that holes exist and being essentially given the tools to trivially hit millions of people with it.
Did I say give them carte blanche? No, I never said or implied such a thing. What I did say, and will affirm, is that I have no reason to believe that they are out to screw us for the sake of screwing us. This is not the same thing. Furthermore, I believe these specific acts to be not only reasonable, but quite necessary. Your expert does too, at least in her domain.
Secondly, that's my point, that we CAN say that some information should not be so readily published without being pushed ANY closer to a Nazi regime. [In other words, you're contradicting yourself, at least by implication that we should NOT publish the President's motorcade details.] Thirdly, what stops us is the same thing that would allow us, should we choose to do so, to stop this action in the first place: our Legislative, Executive, and Judicial process.
And what of this has changed one iota for you? Libraries still exist. Financial information on companies still exists (very much so). We're talking about very specific and detailed information that a very small part of the population can even claim to have the most remote of interest in.
Oh please. Why? Justify your belief in reasoning that US policymakers are out to shaft its own people, rather that being motivated for the same reasons that I'm arguing for (e.g., the defence of Americans and other people). What do they gain by unreasonably restricting actual rights other than gaining the hate of certain interest groups? If this were say, no "hate speech" against Corporations, that might be one thing. But oppression for its own sake...? Gimme a break. These people need to get re-elected.
Your rights? Is it your right, for instance, to know the exact path and time of the Presidents limo for the next year? How about its weaknesses?
Can you at least admit the possibility that some information is a FAR greater threat to our collective rights than its absence? It's not at all a stretch to assert that this kind of information exists, even the most brazen free speech advocates have seen the wisdom of moderation of some restrictions during times of war and in other cases.
We limit your right to yell fire. We limit commercial speech. We limit your right to speak intentional lies about people (e.g., slander/libel laws). All are generally recognized to be in the public's best interest. Why is it any less legitimate to not allow the public 100% free and open access to sensitive and detailed information? Many of the supposed harms inflicted by these acts are not necessarily harms at all. For instance, I've heard the argument that students of engineering need to know the principles involved in building a dam. Fine, but they don't need to know exactly the structural weaknesses of particular sites, or who would die if it were, or the schedules of security. Their needs can be met without significantly putting the public at threat. Where there is significant intersection, it's at least reasonable to put some controls on that information.
If you have particular grievances, fine, then enumerate them. You're reacting to one extreme (e.g., the scenario depicted in F451) by going to another extreme. It may be true that some legitimate information may be temporarily unavailable, but it may require substantial time to sort through all of it to make those distinctions, in the mean time, terrorists can have their way with us. Cost/Risk vs Benefit...it simply doesn't compute with the vast majority of the information listed.
While it is true that the terrorists may be able to access particular information if they try hard enough, there is a lot to be said for making sensitive and detailed information harder to get to. For instance:
A) By making each piece of sensitive information harder to get to, you make it exponentially more time consuming to query FROM vast realms of it. e.g., if the terrorists wanted to know the exact engineering specifications used for all the nuclear plants around the country to look for a particularly weak design.
B) By making information harder to come by, we can up the ante by forcing the terrorists as a GROUP, to become more sophisticated/educated. e.g., the size of the effort rules out the few top level people, but the scope/difficult rules out the average ignorant terrorist.
C) By making information harder to come by, we can make the act of looking for that information much riskier. For instance, rather than merely having to go online or to any public library (anonymously), they must go to a few enumerated locations and risk being spotted and/or creating a trail after the fact.
D) By clamping the flow of information, we can force the terrorists to work with far many more unknowns.
Lastly, these various elements play off each other greatly. Just as widespread efficiencies in capitalist markets have allowed for expontentially more efficient production, so to can this widespread "inefficiency" make it vastly harder for the terrorists to get _all_ the intelligence that they need.
The Press uses your same argument in defence of some of their more questionable publications. Besides being a disingenious assertion, it very much under-estimates the value of good intelligence. Intelligence is even more important for the terrorists in many ways, because they need to make their relatively few resources stretch much further. The further they stretch, the more they expose themselves and the fewer manhours they can devote to actual acts of terrorism.
Btw, I would not at all be surprised, for instance, if Saddam Hussain got more worthwhile intelligence from the likes of CNN (e.g., troup movements, morale, technology, etc) in the comfort of his bedroom than he did from his entire intelligence service during the Gulf War. The Press can use their apparent legitimacy to get DIRECT, NEAR REAL TIME, and RISKLESS (for the enemy) access to top level officials; whereas with proper controls in place this kind of intelligence would require a capable intelligence agency with significant resources.
Who really cares if they release it or not? Sure, it's technically part of the GPL and it's within the right of the public, but it still seems to me that some people are just out to whine. Their value added, insofar as the kernel and hardware goes, is probably almost zip (judging by what i've seen). It's the applications that they actually "did" something with, but even there.... looks downright mediocre.
Furthermore, this company JUST released this product, did they not? According to the GPL a company is not obliged to release their sourcecode, unless they DISTRIBUTE it. In other words, if they just started distributing this past week, it's still reasonable for them to take awhile longer to reply.
This is just the current state too. We know that Palm is doing all this in an economically viable way, whereas Linux DA may not be and probably is not. In other words, with Palm the continued support and development is pretty much a sure thing...Linux DA on the other hand.....will likely be forced to fold very shortly.
I've got an Ispiron 8k with the 15" XGA screen and I run at 1600x1200. It's _very_ crisp and bright. Not only do I tolerate this setting, but I much prefer it because it's what I'm used to working with. Having to switch resolutions for docked/road configurations is a pain in the butt (e.g., less space than you're used to, desktop icons get cluttered, etc)
Not necessarily. I've got a GeForce2 Go in my laptop. Besides the fact that it runs desktop applications a good deal better at 1600x1200, I often play games on it (either Docked or hooked up to an external K/V/M).
It really is nice to be able to do _everything_ on one computer and to be able to carry that computer where ever you go (e.g., work, home, beach house, etc).