Hint: moderators: "blah blah fud blah", along with the post in general, implies sarcasm, or an attempt at humor, not flamebait. If you think the post's overrated, mark it "overrated", but READ a post through before you moderate it.
This forum does not need half-assed moderators, and frankly, I'd trust Sig11 to moderate my comments much more fairly than whatever thoughtless, faceless cretin marked him down as "flamebait".
We are the Individualists. You will be assimilated. Resistance means that you're a conformist!
So be like us, since we are the Individuals!
I was on the verge of deciding not to be an individualist, but now this article has convinced me that individualism is "cool" and that everyone else is doing it!
Make me an individualist, too! Where do I sign up?
Compare with Archimedes Plutonium, former Dartmouth dishwasher, who insists that the universe is a Big Plutonium Atom.
Hehehehehehe...
That guy cracks me up. He keeps posting to alt.religion.kibology (IIRC) and Kibo keeps coming up with the most fiendishly hillarious quips to make him even madder (in both senses of the word)...
I would have hoped that the GPL could [propagate] on its own, not through utilizing the force of government in the form of a patent.
Why not? The GPL utilizes the force of the government in the form of copyright. If not for that, it would be unenforceable. This just gives it more teeth. Also, in your scenario, the FSF couldn't sue you for patent infringement (it's not their patent), but the patent holder could. No amount of circumventing the copyright (i.e. the GPL'ed code) can negate the fact that your hypothetical BSD code infringes on his patent.
Let's think about this for a moment, shall we? BSD-style licenses allow proprietary derivatives to be made (like Kerberos!!). The patent license does not. Nor does the GPL. If the patent license were extended to all "open source" software, then placing it under the BSD license would be just as restrictive as the GPL, which would remove the whole point of doing it in the first place!
Unless, that is, you wanted commercial derivatives to be available when the patent expired. At which point Microsoft [or the largest surviving fragment thereof] sues your favorite website for keeping posts of their versions of your BSD-style source code.
These 19 patents certainly don't hurt for open source. And I don't mean to disparage BSD licenses entirely, since many such projects get quickly "embraced" by business (TCP/IP, Apache, ummm... Kerberos), but when they get "extended" you're powerless.
Your sig, "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it.", is quite appropriate for this thread. Did you pick it out for this occasion or is it just a lucky coincidence?:)
Which means, in effect, that the DMCA can be used to accidentally censor stuff that doesn't even pretend to violate it.
There goes any pretense of "constitutionality" in that bill.
(Here's a hint, Kongre$$: any bill prompted by a vocal minority lobby, and containing a four-letter acronym (COPA, DMCA), probably is gonna get thrown out by the Supreme Court. Know why? Because you're 535 of the country's most stupid, ignorant, greedy, hypocritical and unethical people, that's why!
I suggest that we of the/. community look into exactly which legislators passed these despicable bills and do everything we can to prevent their re-election.
"Looks like an industry consortium headed by Quilted Northern, Charmin', and America OnthejohndammitI'llberightout! are working on getting a printing system developed for your home restroom. Seems like they're joining forces with American Sewer and Septic, Inc. (AS&S) to do so. I could see some interesting uses with this and Microsoft Force-Feedback Low-Flush Toilet(TM)."
I can think of a few situations where this would be messy and impractical, but it looks like Throne Room-printing (bane of WebToilet users) may soon be the bane of everyone who doesn't own a chamberpot or outhouse. Think of how badly inkjet blots would spread on 2-ply paper!
Critics shook their heads in shame today, cryptically muttering that this is the stupidest development since the ill-fated "TV Printers" promoted by Hewlett-Packard.
CEO Vladimir Foonly of EuroBidet, AG, slammed the consortium's efforts, saying that this was "a giant step backwards in the quest for a paper-free oriface."
The article mentions OSHA inspections, but apparently they couldn't levy very much in the way of fines because they had no conclusive scientific evidence that the chemicals they found are linked to various workplace health hazards.
And if it ain't computer-related, geeks like us will find a way to make it so. We'll replace any menial tasks with robots and add to the growing number of disgruntled proletariat.
Mechanized manual labor and birthrate reduction (similar to China's controversial [in the U.S.] one-child policy). That way, anyone who didn't have the skills or desire necessary for a "good" (whatever that means) job could kick back and be an artist, poet, playwright, or civic volunteer, and live off government money. For the first time in history, the wealthy couldn't complain about the poor getting a "free ride", since their own prosperity is derived from the labor of robots, and "work" would no longer be a mandatory ordeal.
The arts would flourish, life would be better for most people, and the stress and grueling pace of modern life would all but disappear.
These puny judges and their weak "justice" program will be no match for my Army of Robotic Brazilian Mecha-Criminals...
They'll coordinate their cyber-thuggery with the help of a Linux-based distributed supercomputer, the GNU Robot-Enhancing Network Doing Evil with Linux, or G.R.E.N.D.E.L. (Some pundits say that "Beowulf" slaughters G.R.E.N.D.E.L., but that's just a myth!)
Ultimately, the Brazilian rent-a-judges will be overwhelmed by this evil, mechanized horde. The robots will win the war. Soon Rio de Janeiro will lose its status as the world's safest city!!
I just wish more companies would USE regional addresses. I work for a railway with a discrete regional presence. We have customers outside that region, but only because they do business within that region. But we bought a *.com domain address. Another example is Chapters books. When they introduced their web service, they were doing the interviews circuit pointing out that they were "an all-Canadian alternative" while using the *.com address that implies a generic multinational. (They later fixed this. Chapters.com still works, but all their advertising and internal links go via chapters.ca, making the "I am Canadian" implication explicit)
Maybe. But how long will a successful business stay local?
Besides, the abuses of the current DNS system are sickening.
I'm talking about something completely different.
For example, all the addresses in the current system would become synonymous with the "old Net".
In the superset, addresses might not even use the same "machine.domain.TLD"syntax that the current DNS system does. (I am reminded of a similar project to use multinational character sets in a superset of DNS.)
"It's nearly impossible to pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing evidence of this 'pushback,' this raging
debate -- Are we changing too rapidly? Developing technolgies we can't control? Overwhelming ourselves?"
Maybe we're changing too slowly. Maybe these reactionaries are dragging us back, keeping us from reaching our potential.
On the other hand, maybe we're going at the right speed, but in the wrong direction. Large corporations now believe they "own" the Internet. That's not progress. That's one step short of owning us.
One thing we definitely need, IMO, is a superset of the current domain name system, more flexible, semi-decentralized and used on a voluntary basis. Although it'd get weird if we had to connect to a distant server if our local DNS doesn't support it. Of course, eventually, demand would make it nearly ubiquitous. And it'd be a thorn in the side of Big Money. Maybe more restrictions on commercial abuse^H^H^H^H^Hactivity could be made.
Well, first of all there's [hey, look at the bird out the window!] the fact that [I wonder if Janie will go out with me] it's hard to [I should upgrade my computer] differentiate between [how come this mind interface keeps making all my programs barf and die?] deliberate thought [hmm... what will I have for breakfast today?] and those annoying [I'm a little teapot, short and stout...] little background thoughts. [I'm hungry. Why isn't this page loading faster? What's the meaning of life? Why do we have ten fingers instead of sixteen? Where did I put my keys? What was that sudden popping noise in the back of my head?]
If 99% of Europeans were matriarchically descended from one of seven women...
(Scene opens with armored mercenary on horseback approaching a stone castle retrofitted out of the decaying hulk of the abandoned steel husk of an office building. Camera pans, giving audience a breathtaking view of the barren, wrecked skyline of a post-apocalyptic American metropolis.)
Guard (steel spear glinting as he shouts): "Halt! Who goes there? Know ye that this place be the realm of the descendents of Bertha the Bountiful. If thou be a son of Agnes the Prolific, begone from here, lest we slay thee!"
Mercenary: "Good soldier! Stay thine blade, for I, too am of the Tribe of Bertha!"
Guard (in stupid, low grunting Superbowl-commercial voice): "Whazzuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!"
Mercenary pulls a flintlock pistol from his belt, cocks the hammer, and fires at Guard, killing him instantly. Audience cheers.
Guard (lacking the decency to just DIE): "Lo! I am sped! Dead am I! I am made as dust by the treacherous asp! Gone am I from this mortal coil! I am---"
Mercenary: "Why won't you DIE??!"
(Mercenary dismounts, then proceeds to kick Guard till he falls dead, and more importantly, silent. Audience cheers.)
Mercenary: Never underestimate the 1% descended from Jane Doe the Probably-Just-a-Rounding-Error-In-Our-Calculations !
Mercenary proceeds to singlehandedly storm the castle, raping and pillaging, stealing treasure, weapons, and office supplies.
I can't believe this! Congress just gave the extra bandwidth for HDTV to broadcasters for free with no strings attached, and trusted them to use it only for HDTV, then sat there dumbfoundedly as they (gasp!)... used it for other purposes!
#ifdef DRIPPING_SARCASM
Hmm... let's see. While we're at it, why not give small children handguns to protect themselves from child abuse! It's not like they'd come up with other ways to use them!
Why not give North Korea large supplies of plutonium? I'm sure they'll only use it to make cheap electric power, and maybe recharge their flux-capacitors!
Why not release criminal psychopaths from the asylums and give them hammers and chainsaws? I'm sure they'll use their newfound freedom and tools strictly to build houses for the homeless!
Why not give Microsoft a tiny slap on the wrist and let it off the hook? I'm sure it'll use its world domination exclusively to promote Quality $oftware(TM)!
Why not elect 535 random politicians to Congress and expect them to make smart decisions! I'm sure they won't use their power to... to... gee, what is it that they get done, anyway?
Oh, that's right. They improve our viewing experience to ensure that C-SPAN comes in digital crystal-clarity. Can't have our elected representatives lookin' shabby in Lo-Rez, can we?
" Microsoft Reader prevents the free exchange of information by preventing the sharing of e-books, the same type of sharing you might do with a paper book that you own."
So, what's to prevent you from sharing your e-book? If there's a friend you trust enough to lend your PDA, then there's nothing to keep you from physically transfering the device from your hand to his, letting him read any e-books contained therein, and returning it to you when he's done.
"Well since RedHat is located in North Carolina, they most likely got tired of it after being exposed to it on a daily basis."
I laughed my ass off when I read this one... rare is the comment that is both funny and insightful yet still languishes at (Score: 1). It's too bad moderators almost never cull through yesterday's news...:-(
What'll they think up next? Streaming video over coaxial cable?
Nah. Sooner or later, somebody would create a magnetic storage medium to "archive" this streaming video and then the entertainment industry will go bankrupt!
The joke's on anyone who relies on streaming media to protect their "intellectual property", since the only thing keeping users from saving a more permanent copy is reliance on proprietary client software that doesn't allow users to do that.
So, how long until the MPAA files an injunction against "unauthorized" programmers of TCP/IP stacks and hard disk manufacturers for distributing tools whose only real (wink, wink) purpose is the unauthorized copying of M*ramax films?
Maybe they'll get lucky and the government will classify movies as "munitions" to prevent Bambi and The Sound of Music from falling into enemy hands.
Slashdot Mirror
Hint: moderators: "blah blah fud blah", along with the post in general, implies sarcasm, or an attempt at humor, not flamebait. If you think the post's overrated, mark it "overrated", but READ a post through before you moderate it.
This forum does not need half-assed moderators, and frankly, I'd trust Sig11 to moderate my comments much more fairly than whatever thoughtless, faceless cretin marked him down as "flamebait".
So be like us, since we are the Individuals!
I was on the verge of deciding not to be an individualist, but now this article has convinced me that individualism is "cool" and that everyone else is doing it!
Make me an individualist, too! Where do I sign up?
Why not? The GPL utilizes the force of the government in the form of copyright. If not for that, it would be unenforceable. This just gives it more teeth. Also, in your scenario, the FSF couldn't sue you for patent infringement (it's not their patent), but the patent holder could. No amount of circumventing the copyright (i.e. the GPL'ed code) can negate the fact that your hypothetical BSD code infringes on his patent.
Let's think about this for a moment, shall we? BSD-style licenses allow proprietary derivatives to be made (like Kerberos!!). The patent license does not. Nor does the GPL. If the patent license were extended to all "open source" software, then placing it under the BSD license would be just as restrictive as the GPL, which would remove the whole point of doing it in the first place!
Unless, that is, you wanted commercial derivatives to be available when the patent expired. At which point Microsoft [or the largest surviving fragment thereof] sues your favorite website for keeping posts of their versions of your BSD-style source code.
These 19 patents certainly don't hurt for open source. And I don't mean to disparage BSD licenses entirely, since many such projects get quickly "embraced" by business (TCP/IP, Apache, ummm... Kerberos), but when they get "extended" you're powerless.
Your sig, "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it.", is quite appropriate for this thread. Did you pick it out for this occasion or is it just a lucky coincidence? :)
Moderators: Please chuck a point or so of "Insightful" at this guy. (He also makes the sensible point about the ACs, period.)
(Hopefully Mr. TheCarp will find it in his heart not to sue me for quoting him without permission! ;-)
Rule of thumb: "fair use" is exactly what it sounds like.
There goes any pretense of "constitutionality" in that bill.
(Here's a hint, Kongre$$: any bill prompted by a vocal minority lobby, and containing a four-letter acronym (COPA, DMCA), probably is gonna get thrown out by the Supreme Court. Know why? Because you're 535 of the country's most stupid, ignorant, greedy, hypocritical and unethical people, that's why!
I suggest that we of the /. community look into exactly which legislators passed these despicable bills and do everything we can to prevent their re-election.
I can think of a few situations where this would be messy and impractical, but it looks like Throne Room-printing (bane of WebToilet users) may soon be the bane of everyone who doesn't own a chamberpot or outhouse. Think of how badly inkjet blots would spread on 2-ply paper!
Critics shook their heads in shame today, cryptically muttering that this is the stupidest development since the ill-fated "TV Printers" promoted by Hewlett-Packard.
CEO Vladimir Foonly of EuroBidet, AG, slammed the consortium's efforts, saying that this was "a giant step backwards in the quest for a paper-free oriface."
The article mentions OSHA inspections, but apparently they couldn't levy very much in the way of fines because they had no conclusive scientific evidence that the chemicals they found are linked to various workplace health hazards.
Mechanized manual labor and birthrate reduction (similar to China's controversial [in the U.S.] one-child policy). That way, anyone who didn't have the skills or desire necessary for a "good" (whatever that means) job could kick back and be an artist, poet, playwright, or civic volunteer, and live off government money. For the first time in history, the wealthy couldn't complain about the poor getting a "free ride", since their own prosperity is derived from the labor of robots, and "work" would no longer be a mandatory ordeal.
The arts would flourish, life would be better for most people, and the stress and grueling pace of modern life would all but disappear.
In theory.
They'll coordinate their cyber-thuggery with the help of a Linux-based distributed supercomputer, the GNU Robot-Enhancing Network Doing Evil with Linux, or G.R.E.N.D.E.L. (Some pundits say that "Beowulf" slaughters G.R.E.N.D.E.L., but that's just a myth!)
Ultimately, the Brazilian rent-a-judges will be overwhelmed by this evil, mechanized horde. The robots will win the war. Soon Rio de Janeiro will lose its status as the world's safest city!!
Mwa ha ha ha ha ha! Victory is mine!
Yep, that's right. This is the last time I ever pirate one of their songs!
Maybe. But how long will a successful business stay local?
Besides, the abuses of the current DNS system are sickening.
I'm talking about something completely different.
For example, all the addresses in the current system would become synonymous with the "old Net".
In the superset, addresses might not even use the same "machine.domain.TLD"syntax that the current DNS system does. (I am reminded of a similar project to use multinational character sets in a superset of DNS.)
Oh, wait.
Maybe we're changing too slowly. Maybe these reactionaries are dragging us back, keeping us from reaching our potential.
On the other hand, maybe we're going at the right speed, but in the wrong direction. Large corporations now believe they "own" the Internet. That's not progress. That's one step short of owning us.
One thing we definitely need, IMO, is a superset of the current domain name system, more flexible, semi-decentralized and used on a voluntary basis. Although it'd get weird if we had to connect to a distant server if our local DNS doesn't support it. Of course, eventually, demand would make it nearly ubiquitous. And it'd be a thorn in the side of Big Money. Maybe more restrictions on commercial abuse^H^H^H^H^Hactivity could be made.
After all, it is only semi decentralized. >:-)
Once it was broken
Then the astronauts fixed it
Put more Geeks In Space
[Brain overload. Core dumped.]
(Scene opens with armored mercenary on horseback approaching a stone castle retrofitted out of the decaying hulk of the abandoned steel husk of an office building. Camera pans, giving audience a breathtaking view of the barren, wrecked skyline of a post-apocalyptic American metropolis.)
Guard (steel spear glinting as he shouts): "Halt! Who goes there? Know ye that this place be the realm of the descendents of Bertha the Bountiful. If thou be a son of Agnes the Prolific, begone from here, lest we slay thee!"
Mercenary: "Good soldier! Stay thine blade, for I, too am of the Tribe of Bertha!"
Guard (in stupid, low grunting Superbowl-commercial voice): "Whazzuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!"
Mercenary pulls a flintlock pistol from his belt, cocks the hammer, and fires at Guard, killing him instantly. Audience cheers.
Guard (lacking the decency to just DIE): "Lo! I am sped! Dead am I! I am made as dust by the treacherous asp! Gone am I from this mortal coil! I am---"
Mercenary: "Why won't you DIE??!"
(Mercenary dismounts, then proceeds to kick Guard till he falls dead, and more importantly, silent. Audience cheers.)
Mercenary: Never underestimate the 1% descended from Jane Doe the Probably-Just-a-Rounding-Error-In-Our-Calculations !
Mercenary proceeds to singlehandedly storm the castle, raping and pillaging, stealing treasure, weapons, and office supplies.
#ifdef DRIPPING_SARCASM
Hmm... let's see. While we're at it, why not give small children handguns to protect themselves from child abuse! It's not like they'd come up with other ways to use them!
Why not give North Korea large supplies of plutonium? I'm sure they'll only use it to make cheap electric power, and maybe recharge their flux-capacitors!
Why not release criminal psychopaths from the asylums and give them hammers and chainsaws? I'm sure they'll use their newfound freedom and tools strictly to build houses for the homeless!
Why not give Microsoft a tiny slap on the wrist and let it off the hook? I'm sure it'll use its world domination exclusively to promote Quality $oftware(TM)!
Why not elect 535 random politicians to Congress and expect them to make smart decisions! I'm sure they won't use their power to... to... gee, what is it that they get done, anyway?
Oh, that's right. They improve our viewing experience to ensure that C-SPAN comes in digital crystal-clarity. Can't have our elected representatives lookin' shabby in Lo-Rez, can we?
God bless America®.
#endif
That is, until the Amish take over the world!
Mwa ha ha ha ha!
So, what's to prevent you from sharing your e-book? If there's a friend you trust enough to lend your PDA, then there's nothing to keep you from physically transfering the device from your hand to his, letting him read any e-books contained therein, and returning it to you when he's done.
Kind of like a paper book, isn't it?
"Well since RedHat is located in North Carolina, they most likely got tired of it after being exposed to it on a daily basis."
I laughed my ass off when I read this one... rare is the comment that is both funny and insightful yet still languishes at (Score: 1). It's too bad moderators almost never cull through yesterday's news... :-(
Nah. Sooner or later, somebody would create a magnetic storage medium to "archive" this streaming video and then the entertainment industry will go bankrupt!
So, how long until the MPAA files an injunction against "unauthorized" programmers of TCP/IP stacks and hard disk manufacturers for distributing tools whose only real (wink, wink) purpose is the unauthorized copying of M*ramax films?
Maybe they'll get lucky and the government will classify movies as "munitions" to prevent Bambi and The Sound of Music from falling into enemy hands.
Hey, it worked for cryptography, didn't it?
(I bitterly miss the opportunity to "emmalate three clickers" and "floormat" my hard disk... <sigh> those were the days... )