I don't think so. I think that instead there would be a hell of a lot less legislation. Since there would be no full-time "government" per se, people wouldn't have lots of time to come up with this kind of spam legislation.
Ummm... If slashdot is any indicator, we could anticipate reveiwing lots of Natalie Portman bills, and petitions for more hot grits.
As far as our legislators not being experts goes, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Laws get complicated because contingencies tend to pop up around essentially simple ideas, just as in programming. I can explain the concept of Z-buffered rasterization in 5 minutes. So why is my rendering engine 5875 lines of code? Contingencies. Loopholes. Accomodations. And it *still* isn't exactly the way I want it.
Most people believe they have more important things to do than improve the government because that's true.
For example: your boss's decisions have a much greater and direct impact on your life than most of the president's decisions. Consequentally, most people spend a lot more time trying to improve their careers than they do trying to improve the government.
This is not to say that government is not important. However, by turning the chores of government over to specialists who make it their life's work to improve the government we allocate resources much more effectively. Try to imagine a govt. where *everybody* had to spend 2 hours a day reading proposed legislation. Society would rapidly becomed bogged down as time was diverted from things like education, medicine, healthy exercise, etc...
I can't say too many times how a lot of us could benefit from reading and re-reading basic economic theory. What we have here is a suggestion that we should violate the law of comparative advantage. If I remember correctly, the law is that people should specialize in what they do best, because that will maximize the efficiency of the economy.
This, BTW, is why the founding fathers made the US a republic, and not a straight democracy.
Likewise, most people don't mess around with Open Source because they have better things to do. I've had conversations with people where it took me 10 minutes just to explain the difference between binary and source. Such people are not stupid. In fact, they've made the very wise decision not to waste their time on persuits for which they are not suited. What if Linus Torvalds had to help with graphic layout for the Transmeta website as part of his job? Would that be a proper use of his resources?
Not all software companies support the UCITA. In fact, if any of them have any brains, few will support it except the big ones.
Reason: all software companies depend on other vendors' software (compilers, etc.) Without legal means of assuring a minimum level of functioning and reliability, a software company will be on very unstable ground.
This makes a very good point. In the zeal to screw others, we often screw ourselves.
...Yet another slashdot article on some super storage technology to be available Real Soon Now. I guess we were due for one of these.
I don't want to see anything about this ever again unless it's in the following form: Company X has this device and medium that can store this much. It costs Y $$$. You can order it directly from www.CompanyX.com.
Didn't IBM write their logo out in dot-matrix, where the dots were atoms? I think that was five years ago too. Unfortunately, I don't have the link. It wasn't very exciting then either.
Yes!!!! That would rule. If anything makes me drop Windows as a development platform, it will be the cost of the compiler. I have already stuck with 4.0, and have decided that I'm going to try and hold off until they start supporting 64-bit processors. The latest version is sweet but I just can't afford it.
To the guy who suggested Cygwin, I have two words: Cygwin blows. The fully integrated debugging and visual development you get with MS development tools can't be beat. The thought of running a "let's pretend we're Unix" thingy on top of Win32 is just very unsatisfying. If I'm going to run *NIX, I'm going to run *NIX, and if I'm going to run Win*, I'm running Win*. I want none of this half-n-half crap.
Now, if there were an IDE for *NIX that was considerably cheaper than MS's, I'd be a lot more eager to spend more time with *NIX.
The guy who said that MS might get charged with bundling again had an interesting point, but doesn't Sun already bundle a compiler with Solaris? In doing this, MS would just be bringing itself into line with what is common practice in the *NIX world.
In fact, they took away the power to manipulate bitmaps in Win3.x. They had to release a patch, called WinG. So by all means re-write BSD, Linux, etc... to have vector functions, but don't take away the bitmap access. Some of us need it.
This doesn't strike me as an either/or proposition. Sure, go ahead and write the whole OS so that scaleable vector functions are available. Give us bitmap functions also for those of us who still want and need them. Remember how MS had to scramble to release the WinG patch so that Win3.x programmers could access bitmaps directly? Let's not go through that again.
OK people, you see one cockroach and then your skin starts to itch, and you think a roach might be crawling on you. It's not. Just because these sites got DoSed doesn't mean your site is getting DoSed.
Yes, MS copied MSDOS from CP/M and the GUI from Apple. I didn't mean they got there first with the idea, but that they got there first in establishing a relationship with the PC hardware manufacturers.
I don't think I've ever heard people say Linux is good for WP. What I usually hear is that it's good as a server. I know that's how I treat all the *NIX--If I want a server, I run *NIX. If I want desktop stuff I run Win. If I need to develop for *NIX, I telnet/ssh into it from Win.
Even if Linux becomes just as easy to use as Win, that's not easy enough. Why? Because the easiest system to use is the one you already know how to use.
What will make Linux dominate? In the short run, nothing. Open Source tends less to innovate, and more to emulate. So when the OS becomes a commodity product with little room for innovation, the Linux price point (0) will then drive people to Linux. This is already starting to happen.
Of course, when the OS is totally commoditized people will care as much about which OS they use as they do now about what kinds of circuits are in their TV sets. Not even geeks will care by then. Commodity products are boring. Hopefully something new and exciting will come along to replace the OS as something for geeks to work on. It will be nice too if that something is difficult to emulate so that the true innovators can have time to make money on it before people copy it.
Yeah, but when the product is totally free, this is a lot more difficult. Remember the old Saturday Night Live bit about the First National Change Bank?
This was a bank that did nothing but make change for people. The funniest part was when they asked the CEO how they made money. His answer: Volume.
That was a joke, people. I never thought we would actually see people trying to do that for real.
"No person shall . . . offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology . . . that--- "(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]; "(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]; or "(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act].''10
Now, it occurs to me that if the promoters of DeCSS had emphasized their intent *only* to permit DVD play on Linux, and had posted disclaimers that the software should not be used for the purpose of violating copyright, they would have a pretty good case.
But that's not what happened. Instead they all bragged about beating the system. As a result of that, they have no case.
When you are surfing the green on a timed street, you are really riding a pocket of green that moves at N miles per hour. These pockets of green are moving through a sea of red. If you go too fast, you will slam into the red.
Now we just have to wait for the day when there is so much GPL code floating around that any CS student who cracks a book will be unable to write software without GPLing it.
I suggested a hookup with SETI when the first article about the polar landing signal came out. As several others have pointed out, SETI client makes a lot more sense because it's already designed to ferret out faint signals amidst background noise.
I suppose I should look at this as yet another reason to ignore Slashdot and get back to work.
Amen brother! I've always prefaced my criticisms of the Open Source community with the fact that I don't really have a problem with them. I simply don't want Open Source philosophy being enacted into law. It's unnecessary anyway because the movement is thriving as it is.
And in fact, I even think there are some noble aspirations in the free software movement. But the day they start ramming it down my throat is the day it loses that nobility.
...but if the FSF registers a large number of patents for technologies that ought not to be patentable, we will be faced with the following scenario:
Everybody who writes software will either have to close their source and pray there is never a subpoena, or everybody will have to GPL. All other Open Source licenses will whither away.
If a closed-source developer pisses off the wrong people, they will charge him on suspicion of patent violation. Because so many of the patents will be for obvious technology, it will be really easy for them to find violations, and virtually impossible for anyone to avoid violation.
Knock! knock! This is the police. Open up! We're hear to liberate your software for the glorious people's revolution.
The article indicated they were looking for really faint signals amidst the background noise, and that it might take them several days. They should hook up with SETI!
I for one would be really psyched if SETI popped up and told me it was going to process polar lander signals. At least we know it's out there somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think so. I think that instead there would be a hell of a lot less legislation. Since there would be no full-time "government" per se, people wouldn't have lots of time to come up with this kind of spam legislation.
Ummm... If slashdot is any indicator, we could anticipate reveiwing lots of Natalie Portman bills, and petitions for more hot grits.
As far as our legislators not being experts goes, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Laws get complicated because contingencies tend to pop up around essentially simple ideas, just as in programming. I can explain the concept of Z-buffered rasterization in 5 minutes. So why is my rendering engine 5875 lines of code? Contingencies. Loopholes. Accomodations. And it *still* isn't exactly the way I want it.
Most people believe they have more important things to do than improve the government because that's true.
For example: your boss's decisions have a much greater and direct impact on your life than most of the president's decisions. Consequentally, most people spend a lot more time trying to improve their careers than they do trying to improve the government.
This is not to say that government is not important. However, by turning the chores of government over to specialists who make it their life's work to improve the government we allocate resources much more effectively. Try to imagine a govt. where *everybody* had to spend 2 hours a day reading proposed legislation. Society would rapidly becomed bogged down as time was diverted from things like education, medicine, healthy exercise, etc...
I can't say too many times how a lot of us could benefit from reading and re-reading basic economic theory. What we have here is a suggestion that we should violate the law of comparative advantage. If I remember correctly, the law is that people should specialize in what they do best, because that will maximize the efficiency of the economy.
This, BTW, is why the founding fathers made the US a republic, and not a straight democracy.
Likewise, most people don't mess around with Open Source because they have better things to do. I've had conversations with people where it took me 10 minutes just to explain the difference between binary and source. Such people are not stupid. In fact, they've made the very wise decision not to waste their time on persuits for which they are not suited. What if Linus Torvalds had to help with graphic layout for the Transmeta website as part of his job? Would that be a proper use of his resources?
Not all software companies support the UCITA. In fact, if any of them have any brains, few will support it except the big ones.
Reason: all software companies depend on other vendors' software (compilers, etc.) Without legal means of assuring a minimum level of functioning and reliability, a software company will be on very unstable ground.
This makes a very good point. In the zeal to screw others, we often screw ourselves.
...Yet another slashdot article on some super storage technology to be available Real Soon Now. I guess we were due for one of these.
I don't want to see anything about this ever again unless it's in the following form: Company X has this device and medium that can store this much. It costs Y $$$. You can order it directly from www.CompanyX.com.
Didn't IBM write their logo out in dot-matrix, where the dots were atoms? I think that was five years ago too. Unfortunately, I don't have the link. It wasn't very exciting then either.
Yes!!!! That would rule. If anything makes me drop Windows as a development platform, it will be the cost of the compiler. I have already stuck with 4.0, and have decided that I'm going to try and hold off until they start supporting 64-bit processors. The latest version is sweet but I just can't afford it.
To the guy who suggested Cygwin, I have two words: Cygwin blows. The fully integrated debugging and visual development you get with MS development tools can't be beat. The thought of running a "let's pretend we're Unix" thingy on top of Win32 is just very unsatisfying. If I'm going to run *NIX, I'm going to run *NIX, and if I'm going to run Win*, I'm running Win*. I want none of this half-n-half crap.
Now, if there were an IDE for *NIX that was considerably cheaper than MS's, I'd be a lot more eager to spend more time with *NIX.
The guy who said that MS might get charged with bundling again had an interesting point, but doesn't Sun already bundle a compiler with Solaris? In doing this, MS would just be bringing itself into line with what is common practice in the *NIX world.
In fact, they took away the power to manipulate bitmaps in Win3.x. They had to release a patch, called WinG. So by all means re-write BSD, Linux, etc... to have vector functions, but don't take away the bitmap access. Some of us need it.
This doesn't strike me as an either/or proposition. Sure, go ahead and write the whole OS so that scaleable vector functions are available. Give us bitmap functions also for those of us who still want and need them. Remember how MS had to scramble to release the WinG patch so that Win3.x programmers could access bitmaps directly? Let's not go through that again.
Hmm...now if they could just work out asteroid mining, we'd be doing fine.
No, now if we could just work out asteroid diversion, then we'd be fine. Keep those things away from me!
D'oh! Moderate me -1, Asleep at the switch.
Listed as a current associate:
Intellectual Property Office, Republic of China
I didn't even know that existed. What's it like working there? Maybe it's like this:
Hello IPOPRC, how may I help you?
Yes, I just got a copy of this new Disney film, is it OK if I dub a million copies and sell them for $2/piece in Hong Kong?
Let me check... (shuffling papers) yes no problem with that. (click).
OK people, you see one cockroach and then your skin starts to itch, and you think a roach might be crawling on you. It's not. Just because these sites got DoSed doesn't mean your site is getting DoSed.
Yes, MS copied MSDOS from CP/M and the GUI from Apple. I didn't mean they got there first with the idea, but that they got there first in establishing a relationship with the PC hardware manufacturers.
I don't think I've ever heard people say Linux is good for WP. What I usually hear is that it's good as a server. I know that's how I treat all the *NIX--If I want a server, I run *NIX. If I want desktop stuff I run Win. If I need to develop for *NIX, I telnet/ssh into it from Win.
MS dominates because it got their first. Period.
Even if Linux becomes just as easy to use as Win, that's not easy enough. Why? Because the easiest system to use is the one you already know how to use.
What will make Linux dominate? In the short run, nothing. Open Source tends less to innovate, and more to emulate. So when the OS becomes a commodity product with little room for innovation, the Linux price point (0) will then drive people to Linux. This is already starting to happen.
Of course, when the OS is totally commoditized people will care as much about which OS they use as they do now about what kinds of circuits are in their TV sets. Not even geeks will care by then. Commodity products are boring. Hopefully something new and exciting will come along to replace the OS as something for geeks to work on. It will be nice too if that something is difficult to emulate so that the true innovators can have time to make money on it before people copy it.
Yeah, but when the product is totally free, this is a lot more difficult. Remember the old Saturday Night Live bit about the First National Change Bank?
This was a bank that did nothing but make change for people. The funniest part was when they asked the CEO how they made money. His answer: Volume.
That was a joke, people. I never thought we would actually see people trying to do that for real.
Quote from the ruling:
"No person shall . . . offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology . . . that--- "(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]; "(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act]; or "(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act].''10Now, it occurs to me that if the promoters of DeCSS had emphasized their intent *only* to permit DVD play on Linux, and had posted disclaimers that the software should not be used for the purpose of violating copyright, they would have a pretty good case.
But that's not what happened. Instead they all bragged about beating the system. As a result of that, they have no case.
Here's a simpler way to look at it:
When you are surfing the green on a timed street, you are really riding a pocket of green that moves at N miles per hour. These pockets of green are moving through a sea of red. If you go too fast, you will slam into the red.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Now we just have to wait for the day when there is so much GPL code floating around that any CS student who cracks a book will be unable to write software without GPLing it.
...GPL all your code. Yeah, that'll work.
Oh, wait a second. Maybe they actually want to make money on the software. Nevermind.
In the meantime, physicists are also pursuing the idea of creating "acoustical black holes" (dumb holes),
It's already been done: Courtney Love and her band.
I suggested a hookup with SETI when the first article about the polar landing signal came out. As several others have pointed out, SETI client makes a lot more sense because it's already designed to ferret out faint signals amidst background noise.
I suppose I should look at this as yet another reason to ignore Slashdot and get back to work.
Amen brother! I've always prefaced my criticisms of the Open Source community with the fact that I don't really have a problem with them. I simply don't want Open Source philosophy being enacted into law. It's unnecessary anyway because the movement is thriving as it is.
And in fact, I even think there are some noble aspirations in the free software movement. But the day they start ramming it down my throat is the day it loses that nobility.
...but if the FSF registers a large number of patents for technologies that ought not to be patentable, we will be faced with the following scenario:
Everybody who writes software will either have to close their source and pray there is never a subpoena, or everybody will have to GPL. All other Open Source licenses will whither away.
If a closed-source developer pisses off the wrong people, they will charge him on suspicion of patent violation. Because so many of the patents will be for obvious technology, it will be really easy for them to find violations, and virtually impossible for anyone to avoid violation.
Knock! knock! This is the police. Open up! We're hear to liberate your software for the glorious people's revolution.
The article indicated they were looking for really faint signals amidst the background noise, and that it might take them several days. They should hook up with SETI!
I for one would be really psyched if SETI popped up and told me it was going to process polar lander signals. At least we know it's out there somewhere.
'nuff said.