If your superior officer gives you an order, you follow it. If his superior officer gave him an order, he is following it. and so on and so on all the way up to the president.
It's true that the military is trained to follow orders. However, their oaths are not to the President or Congress. The military is sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the same as the President and Congress are. Now I'm not saying that any of these groups aren't above bending the rules if they can get away with it. But we're a long way from the military slavishly following blatantly treasonous orders from the President (especially this President - he's not highly regarded in military circles, in case you hadn't noticed).
The president has unlimited power for his term in office. He has the power to FIRE the people who can remove him from office via constitutional channels. He can even suspend the constitution.
If the President can fire the people who can remove him from office, do you really think we would have had a near-impeachment a few months ago? Congress can remove the President, and the President couldn't do anything to stop them. Now that the independent counsel law has expired, the President could fire anyone appointed by the Attorney General to investigate him, but the independent counsel law didn't exist when Nixon was president and he was still impeached. A President who fires someone because they are investigating on behalf of Congress is going to be more likely to be impeached, not less.
The President definitely cannot suspend the Constitution. Yes, the President can declare martial law, and I suppose a really bad apple could try to take over the country by doing so. But even that use of force would not suspend the Constitution - in fact, I'm not sure how any group could suspend the Constitution. I suppose it could be done by a constitutional amendment, but that would require the agreement of both Congress and the states.
Do not fool yourself. Learn the constitution and the laws.
Can we say "Hyper Inflation"?? That could cause as many problems as a bank collapse. Wouldn't you just love a mexican economy, go to the market for bread in the morning because it will be more expensive if you go in the afternoon....
It's not quite that simple. They aren't just printing money to have more money in the economy - that would cause inflation. They are printing currency to cover the amount of money that is already in the economy. All of these bills get distributed through the Federal Reserve system so that if there is a bank run, people can easily convert their "virtual" money (the numbers you see on your bank account) into hard (well, paper really) currency. But if there isn't a bank run, they'll probably end up destroying the extra bills that were printed, or saving them for the next time that this might be a problem. So the worst case scenario is that we all have lots of $$$ under our mattresses, but prices should stay about the same.
I agree with many of the points of the article, but disagree with some others. As other posts have pointed out, the author's previous articles take an opposite viewpoint from this one, so perhaps he is just painting the two extremes that the Linux community has available.
Users will never need to know Unix to use Linux for the masses. I agree that it is important that a casual user not have to understand Unix to use a Linux system. There has to be at least one bulletproof point'n'click interface which maps fairly closely to the established GUIs that new users will be familiar with: Win 95/98 and/or Mac. Note that this is for the casual user - a CLI should still be available for the user if they want to explore more of the capabilities of their system, or if a more advanced user needs to use the system for something.
Common system tasks will be automated. Automating common system tasks is a good idea too - the problem is that a network OS has a lot of system tasks that have to be running for 'net connectivity, and knowing which ones to run is non-trivial. People criticize Redhat for setting up too many daemons to run at installation. In a certain sense, they have automated these system tasks, so that the user doesn't have to set up inetd manually. The tradeoff is that this may make the box less secure. I'm not sure how much of the administration you can safely take out of the user's hands without making dangerous assumptions about their planned use of the system. Of course, the casual user probably won't be installing Linux on their own anyway, so maybe this isn't as much of a problem. As far as common system tasks like mounting a floppy, etc., these should be automated from the point of view of the casual user.
No multiple distributions or window managers. I don't know about this one. I think it would be safe to say that within one large installation (corporate office, university computer lab, etc.) the distro and WM choice should be consistent, so that users don't have a learning curve to use each other's machines. I don't see why we have to restrict choice when providing Linux to the individual consumers, though. Right now home users are running DOS, Win 3.1, 95, and 98, and MacOS. They already have a learning curve to use each other's machines. What will probably happen is that most Linux users will end up installing Redhat and using the default WM, and that will end up being the consistent look and feel for casual Linux users. I don't think it's necessary to remove the choice of other distros or WMs for this to happen. I politely disagree that flexibility is a fault; forcing too much flexibility on a casual user is a problem, but not providing flexibility for the advanced user is a bigger mistake.
My biggest complaint with this article was this: it isn't a mistake for the window manager screenshots to show multiple applications running at once - that's the whole point of a WM, isn't it? If the user is only supposed to run one thing at a time, then they might as well be running DOS. Sure, most users still only run one or two things at a time, but that's exactly the reason that WM screenshots should show many things running. A new user can look at that and realize that their computer is more powerful than they had expected, even if they don't recognize everything that is running. This is a powerful feature even for casual users, not something that should remain the province of Linux gurus.
Re:the article already discredited itself...
on
Microsoft Janus
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· Score: 3
Actually, this quote isn't by the author of the article but is attributed to "One VAR". It's the Anonymous Coward of journalism, in this case probably someone who has an interest in Linux being seen as a toy OS. This article wasn't so much written as pieced together out of quotes from Microsoft and mostly unidentified industry sources.
And this is all really going to ship 60-120 days after the release of Win2k? Most customers will still be waiting for the first Win2k Service Pack at that point, as explained at the end of the article. Janus sounds like the same old vaporware to me.
Granted, as others here are sure to point out, this probably wasn't intended to be a humorous piece. Any article which contains It is, declares one Microsoft executive, "the most important program ever written." can get a laugh out of me, however. Microsoft: we're nothing if not overweening.
Well, for one thing anti-virus companies can probably come out with a detection method for BO2k more quickly if they have the source of the trojan available. This qualifies as a fix to me.
In the larger sense, maybe Microsoft can come up with some fixes to their security system so that an attacker can't run an invisible trojan like this in the first place, or at least can't make it so undetectable. In this case also, BO2k source code is going to help rather than hurt.
Back Orifice is a trojan that exploits the *user* not the OS as all trojans do.
Well, in a sense all trojans have to exploit the user, right? By definition a trojan is non-self-propagating; the user has take action before the trojan can run on a system, as opposed to a virus or worm which are proactive in acquiring system resources. BO2k also seems to be exploiting the OS in the sense that the OS allows it to be made undetectable (by the user).
I would like to see cDc members arrested and prosecuted for terrorism.
I'm not sure that cDc are terrorists any more than people who manufacture fertilizer, fuel oil, or big trucks, for example (at least in this particular case - I'm not an expert on their past history). People who use BO2k to break into systems that don't belong to them should definitely feel the full penalty of the law, of course.
But look at it this way - if cDc can write a trojan like this, then how do you know that a similar trojan doesn't already exist? If BO2k can do what they say it can on NT, then there's no way to be sure that other trojans aren't already doing the same things. I don't know that this is the case, but no one can prove that it isn't - remember, the security loophole that allows BO2k to run undetectably is already present; cDc didn't create it just so they could write BO2k. Hopefully all the coverage of BO2k will result in the quick release of security tools that will uncover it as well as other trojans of the same sort, and will also lead to Microsoft making some changes to their security model so that trojans like BO2k are less likely to run or are less likely to run undetectably.
Well, if I wanted an undetectable remote-administration tool for an NT network, this sounds like a great tool. You pointed out attributes of BO2k: the user isn't alerted on boot or when the tool is running. These aren't necessarily bad things; it just depends on what you are using BO2k for. In some cases these would be features. The AC is right - this is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Using it for evil should be against the law, of course, but it is that attacker who is in the wrong, not the tools they use.
Well, it doesn't cause consumer confusion if you are the Ford Bread company (I made that one up), the Ford Advertising Agency (I think this is real), or if your name happens to be Ford Prefect:) In the non-Internet world, you can have the same name as long as you aren't in the same market. I don't have any problem with corporations suing over domains that are deliberately intended to cause consumer confusion - for example, if I happened to get ford.com and put up a realistic car sales site which happened to sell my cheap Ford lookalikes. But I don't agree with companies that bring suits against sites which are clearly not causing any consumer confusion - veronica.org, ajax.org, and so on. In that case there is no consumer confusion - you can tell immediately that this isn't the site you wanted, and you retype the name and leave.
It doesn't have anything to do with whether it's "commercial" code or not - Redhat has been selling GPL'd code for quite a while now. As long as Amiga supplies the source code to any GPL'd software they use (including the kernel) and obeys the other terms of the GPL, they should be OK.
That was sort of funny, but I think ESR has a little bit of a double standard going on here. This article doesn't mention it, but the source for Back Orifice is supposed to be released as well. If BO2k is open-sourced as promised, then not only will there be more chances to collaborate to make it more destructive, but there will also be more chances for security-minded administrators (and shouldn't they all be?) to fix their systems before they are attacked, rather than waiting on Microsoft to figure out what the exploit is and issue a fix.
Maybe ESR can argue that the effects of the BO2k release will be entirely negative (which I'm not sure I agree with), but he should be happy that at least the source is also going to be provided.
Thanks for trying to explain, but your arguments don't hold water.
If the webserver does not have a Telnet server running, a hacker can't get to a command prompt and fish around. Telnet services can be disabled on Unix, but then there's no ability to remotely administer the system.
I'll agree that if telnetd or some other terminal access daemon isn't running, then you can't remote admin the system. This would be the case for both NT and Unix - no remote access daemon accepting connections means no remote admin capability. But if both NT and Unix have remote access available (through telnet, ssh, whatever NT uses, etc ) then what makes Unix more crackable? It seems to me that if NT allows an admin to connect remotely, there's no reason that a cracker couldn't do the same thing (assuming they cracked the admin password). This could happen for Unix too, I'll admit, but you are arguing that Unix is less secure, not that the two are of equal security (which I would argue also, but I'm staying on-topic today). What are the specific differences between NT and Unix remote admin mechanisms that make Unix easier to crack?
NT's security functions are more granular. It isn't a simple matter of getting root privledges and the-game-is-over as is the case with the Unix security model.
I'm not an NT admin, so maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't NT have an Administrator account which has essentially root privileges? If your "granular" security mechanisms prevent an Administrator from making certain changes to the system, then really your box is unmaintainable. Somebody has to have privileges over the entire system, otherwise you couldn't install new stuff, etc. But if an Administrator can make any necessary change to the system, then a cracked Administrator account is no different from a root compromise under Unix.
As I said, I'm not an NT admin, so I'm honestly curious as to exactly why Unix is less secure. That hasn't been my experience, so if you can list specific differences between the Unix and NT security mechanisms which make Unix less secure, let's hear them. So far, it sounds like NT and Unix have functionally similar remote admin security systems, barring buffer overflow exploits and so forth.
I don't see how simply being easier to remote admin automatically makes Unix easier to crack. An unsecured Unix box is easy to crack, obviously, but just because Unix has more remote-admin options doesn't automatically less secure. Please list some specific examples of how this works, as I'm curious.
It shall be unlawful for any person to use a computer or computer network without authority and with the intent to do any of the following: [snip]
Thus you would have to prove that Microsoft intended to cause the computer trespass, and that they used the network without authority. Not really applicable to the normal way Windows is installed.
On the plus side, Slashdotting a site is still legal, because there is no intent to bring down the site. Also, IANAL but I would expect that running a web server that is openly available on the 'net would mean that you grant the authority to the public to use that machine and network for the purposes of download.
It's sarcasm, people (although Bob Dole was a Grade-A war hero, POW, and so forth). You know how I can tell? Dante correctly spelled and boldfaced the titles of both books.
It isn't the porn filtering that bothers me, it's the federally-imposed filtering of a public information source. The companies who write filtering software have proven time and time again that they don't just filter porn - they filter educational information about birth control and human sexuality, discussion sites that they don't like the tone of, and even sites which are anti-filtering software. It's that last one that really bugs me - it doesn't bother me a whole lot if my local community filters porn in the library, but don't take away my access to sites just because they threaten Net Nanny's profits.
Also, that was a really cheap shot about homeless people. Don't you think they have more important things to worry about than surfing for porn? All the homeless people I've run into in a library were there because it was warm and indoors, not because it was a porn-haven. We might as well say: "people that post to Slashdot must have nothing else to do, so they are probably all researching porn at work (or school) right now".
I don't mean to fire off a flame at you, so please don't take this that way - I just feel a good rant coming on about the whole issue.
Whilst some people are going to scream "free speech", these computers are library resources and the library is free to decide what they get used for.
If this was what Mrs. Dole was supporting, then I couldn't agree more. The problem is that the local libraries aren't going to have those choices if the federal government calls the shots on filtering. And when you think about it, a national standard for what is filterable is going to upset as many people as the current situation. Some people still won't feel that the federal filtering standard is restrictive enough, others will feel that it is too restrictive, and some people are just opposed to federal intervention at the local level (a position you would expect a Republican candidate for president to take, but that's a different argument).
I think a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to draw it.
Aren't you glad we have politicians to do the thinking for us? I don't see why this line has to be drawn at the national level, rather than local.
You make some good points about the dangers of overactive Linux advocacy, but I'll disagree with you on one point: doing the computing thing for a living does not mean that you can type up a paper and browse the web with the hood of your box welded shut. You don't see Formula-1 drivers who do the driving thing for a living keep their hoods welded shut, do you? Sure, a racing pro doesn't change every tire or spark plug (they've got a pit crew for that) but they have to have a good understanding of what hardware is under the hood and what tradeoffs can be made in order to get the most out of it. Professional drivers who never think about what's under the hood (or on the axles, etc.) won't make much of a living at it.
So it should be with computer writers - if the computing thing is your living, then you should at least be able to discuss the pros and cons of the innards of a system even if you are reviewing it for those who don't need all the details. Just because his audience may not need to get under the hood doesn't mean that an author can't mention that there is more to the story - like the IP address of your ISP. And if you only do the computing thing for a living in Windows, then why are you reviewing Linux? You don't see Formula-1 drivers taking a spin at a NASCAR race, for example - if you are an expert on only one type of system, your opinion of a different system isn't any more reliable than the average guy on the street. I would certainly agree that this author does the writing thing for a living, but saying that he does the computing thing for a living is a stretch.
Perhaps, while you are creating your new law, you would take the time to spell "Beowulf" correctly? I usually avoid spelling corrections (although lord that's difficult some days) but if you're going to call someone a "dumbass" and a "moron" then perhaps you should be concerned with how you appear as well.
A "field for competition" would seem to be a right held by MS competitors. And a free market is a market without gov't interference.
Not quite - MS also has a right to an even playing field. In this regard there is no difference between MS and any software company. And a market without any government interference is going to be full of monopoly pretty quickly in most cases. Businesses are not people; they are allowed to exist and do business at the sufferance of the government and ultimately the citizens. Government needs to broker disputes between businesses just like it does between people, and it also needs to make sure that business doesn't take unfair advantage of the citizens who allow business to take place. If you don't agree that some amount of government regulation is necessary, then I don't think that either of us are going to convince the other.
Netscape has a right to write and distribute their browser. They have not been prevented from doing so.
They were prevented when MS made deals with OEMs only if they did not include Netscape on their desktop, for example. Since when should MS be dictating anything like that to OEMs - they are clearly using their dominance in the Windows market (which the OEMs are dependent on, because there is a monopoly) to increase their dominance in the browser market. Sure, anybody can download and install Netscape, but we both know that those actions are beyond many users. Microsoft was smart to try to get onto the startup screen; their only mistake was using their Windows monopoly to do it. If Microsoft had made the case for IE solely on the basis of the features and cost of IE, then there would be one less argument against them.
So a clever lawyer can find actions by pretty much any successful company that can be twisted into a "combination in restraint of trade," just as you can arrest pretty much any individual that "does bad things."
I'll agree that a good lawyer could make it look like that, but that doesn't make it so. It is the court's job to determine whether a combination in restraint of trade really occurred, just as it is with any other trial. Sometimes laws are found to be so vague that they are unenforceable and are thrown out of court - for example, some Internet censorship laws meet this fate. Anti-trust laws can suffer the same fate if the courts think that they are too vague, but this has not happened yet. Therefore, the court system feels that there is enough specific information in the law to divide companies into two classes of illegal monopolists and legal ones.
Courts usually follow precedents, but they also sometimes break precedents and decide that a whole new class of actions is illegal. When that happens, a bunch of businesses will suddenly find themselves criminals, despite the fact that what they did was legal when they did it.
There are two different issues here. You normally cannot be held accountable for actions you took which were legal when you did them. Nobody has changed the wording of the anti-trust laws behind Microsoft's back, and even if that had occurred they would not be legally accountable for their (now illegal) actions that were made before the law was changed.
On the other hand, you make a good point that the interpretation of the law can change, so that at one time someone may be found to have followed the law and later a different person may be found to have broken it for doing the exact same thing. Unfortunately this could happen with any law; for example (and I use this only as an example, I don't want to argue about this here) the laws concerning abortion continue to be reinterpreted and sometimes completely thrown out by the courts (Roe v. Wade, etc). Three things affect reinterpretations such as this:
the amount of vagueness in the original law which allows for reinterpretation
the more accumulated precedents, the less likely a drastic reinterpretation
public opinion changes over time as to what is actually a crime (not a major factor in this issue)
You argue that the anti-trust laws are too vague, to which I can only reply that they have not been vague enough to be thrown out by the courts yet. I say yet, because there really hasn't been a huge number of past antitrust cases for precedent in the U.S. The law has only been on the books about 100 years and there certainly hasn't been one case a year since then, has there? This isn't much of a precedent compared to murder cases, for example. So it is possible that the interpretation of the law will change. However, the DOJ attorneys have done fairly well at showing that MS actions fit into what the laws and the prior precedents describe as illegal behavior. It is to the disadvantage of the DOJ to try to set a new precedent; it is much easier to bring a case under the current interpretation of the law because the courts really don't want to reinterpret if they can avoid it.
It is the job of Congress to clearly spell out what is and is not illegal, and if they don't they are creating an opportunity for oppression.
It would be wonderful if Congress could do that now, and it would have been astonishing if Congress 100 years ago had made provisions in the antitrust laws for the kind of business deals which companies are making today. However, business isn't static and so the interpretation of the law must also change to keep up. If the laws become too out of date, they will be thrown out by the courts or updated by Congress.
It's not that I'm necessarily in favor of vague laws, but rather laws which don't have to be revised every time there's a new way of doing business. The antitrust laws are more detailed than just "combinations in restraint of trade", but they don't need to describe every possible action that you could take, just like a law about murder doesn't describe every way you could kill someone. All that matters is you did it, you knew you were doing it, and you had every intention of bringing about the outcome that occurred. Here's a hint: if you negotiate with OEMs and the public on a basis of the price, quality, and features of your product, you're usually doing OK. If you negotiate on the basis of fear of your competition, your strength in other markets, and deals that are "too good to be true", then you might have some problems. I can't believe that one of the richest companies in the world doesn't have enough lawyers to tell them that bribing OEMs not to include Netscape might be over the edge.
IANAL either, but I'm pretty sure that you have to inform someone you are recording them - otherwise why would customer service tell me that I am being recorded? Probably there is a loophole for law-enforcement wearing a wire undercover and so forth. However, I can't point to the specific law on this, so I can't prove my point at all.
Perhaps your coworker was OK as long as he didn't record what he heard. After all, he was just doing his job on the phone lines, it's not like he was wiretapping those people. Wouldn't he be in contempt of court if he refused to testify, though? I know that priests, doctors, and lawyers can't be forced to divulge what they hear on the job but I didn't know that it extended to telco line workers.
I meant "need" in the sense of "what is necessary in order to use this code for my own project." In that case you do require certain rights in order to use someone else's code, otherwise you are committing a copyright violation. Of course there isn't a need to use other people's code the same way that we have a need for food and water.
I don't want others to use my code unless it is under the terms under which the code was licensed to them. Likewise, I certainly don't want to use someone else's code unless it is under the terms under which their code was licensed for my use. If I don't have the rights under their license to modify their code, use it in my project, and distribute it, then I guess I can't use that code. Note that this isn't the same as using their code in any way I want - for example, depending on their choice of license I can't change the copyright information, the license, the list of contributors, etc.
I doubt that I'm going to be able to change your mind since you refer to "enslaved projects", but here goes. Licensing your project with the GPL means that you believe in the values that the FSF espouses. These include availability and reusability of source code, higher quality source code (because it's available and reusable), and more GPL'd code. It's this last part that people refer to as "enslaved". The FSF (of which I am not a member, by the way) believes in the GPL enough that they set up the GPL to encourage more GPL'd code. Whether you like the GPL or not seems mostly to depend on whether you think the ends of the GPL justify the means of the GPL. If you don't agree with that, then I suppose the GPL is not for you.
Who is being coerced here? I don't see any grumbling over on linux-kernel, or on freshmeat, or any place else where GPL'd software is being created. These people don't seem to be chafing, they seem to be happy to be writing GPL'd code. And there are plenty of projects which aren't GPL'd whose participants aren't complaining. Nobody is coercing them to write GPL'd code either, and they are happy.
The only people that seem to be grumbling are folks who want to use GPL'd code in non-GPL'd projects. I'm sorry if those folks don't like their alternatives, but the GPL doesn't come no-strings-attached. The authors of GPL'd code have specified the licensing terms of their code, and if you don't want to use that license, you certainly have alternatives. You may not have other zero-cost alternatives; RMS never promised you a rose garden. If the GPL'd code that you want to use is so well done that it is a difficult decision not to use it, then perhaps there is more merit to the GPL approach than you are allowing yourself to consider.
You are assuming that someone who writes some code and "gives it away to the world" is somehow more moral because they chose to contribute their code without being asked and without asking for anything in return. In other words they contributed to a charity - they saved other people time and money out of the goodness of their heart. Good for them, but the goal of the GPL is not to encourage charity but to encourage higher quality software with available and reuseable source code. The author of GPL'd code is also providing their source code out of the goodness of their heart (after all, they didn't have to GPL) and they may not receive anything back at all either. But that author knows that their code will stay free and will be provided to anyone who receives software which includes it. In that way, they have given much more to the end user than your developer, because everyone who receives the software must be given the code and will be able to learn from it and improve it. Authors of GPL'd code are making a free moral choice the same as your developer, but since they feel that the GPL reflects their values, they have chosen to GPL their code.
GPL'd code isn't off-limits if you are creating a product. Plenty of people create products with GPL'd code - RedHat, for example. Now if it isn't a GPL'd product that you are creating, then you may have some problems.
Your hypothetical developer doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, as long as he is willing to help out other developers by making his code GPL'd the same way that those developers helped him out originally. But this doesn't force that developer to do anything, it just allows them the choice: spend time reinventing the wheel, or else use GPL'd code and contribute a little back to the GPL code base which you are graciously allowed to use by its authors.
This way, the GPL will prevent the reinventing of whatever your developer is working on - since he has to GPL in order to use other GPL'd code (saving him time), later on someone else can use his code (saving them time). Net result: increased code reuse, faster cycle time, and code quality improves more quickly, which is what RMS and the Free Software Foundation wanted in the first place.
I'm not sure that the rights of MS competitors are exactly the issue here. It's more a question of ensuring a level playing field for competition and encouraging a free market, rather than deciding exactly who has a right to do something. Microsoft's actions don't just attack their specific competitors, they also destroy the free market and reduce consumer choice, which is bad. It doesn't really matter if IE or Netscape wins the browser war, but the winner should prevail because they offer a better browser and the consumer preferred it, not because they are made by the OS manufacturer. So in a certain sense the Sherman Act recognizes a "right" to a free market for all competitors in that market. But this is just as much Microsoft's right as it is Netscape's right. No one has a special right to write a browser for Windows, but everyone should have an equal opportunity in the market to distribute their browser and let the market pick the best one.
Your second argument has a very good point: if Apple is doing the same thing, why aren't they being prosecuted? The answer to that is twofold:
If Apple is acting illegally to create a monopoly, then it should indeed be prosecuted. I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to, so I'm afraid I can't come up with an example here. Apple allows other OSs (LinuxPPC) to run on its hardware, so that isn't a problem. If (for example) they had the hardware check on boot to make sure that the disk contains MacOS x.x, then that might be an attempt to build a monopoly. If you have an example I would be happy to discuss it.
Certain actions are only in restraint of trade if you already have a monopoly. That is, it's illegal to use your monopoly in one market to force yourself into another market. But it's not illegal (and is in fact highly difficult) to use your non-monopoly in one market to force yourself into another market. Yes, the laws are different for monopolies vs. non-monopolies, but as I said before we are interested in preverving a free market above all, and if you want to be a monopoly then you need to ensure that the market is still open to potential competitors. This holds monopolies to a higher standard. If you don't want to hold yourself to that standard, then you will likely end up a regulated monopoly, like the power company.
Of course we don't want a law to "punish people who do bad things." That is an over generalization of what I said. Throughout U.S. history the courts have interpreted the laws (as is their function under the Constitution) and they will continue to do so. This history of case law and decisions sets a precedent, and the precedent is taken into account in future cases and as new laws are written. In some cases there are arbitrary laws, but they are refined over time by the precedents set by trials such as this one and as new laws are enacted as a result of those trials. If the law is too arbitrary, it will be thrown out by the courts, but at least so far the courts seem to feel that the anti-trust laws are constitutional and thus that the law is not too arbitrary for a law-abiding corporate citizen to follow correctly.
You have a point as far as intent goes. Although in some trials intent is a significant mitigating factor, you are correct that it isn't necessarily one here. This is because normally intent matters when a crime could have been committed accidentally, or it could have been committed in cold blood with malice aforethought. However, I don't see how Microsoft could have accidentally taken the actions that we've heard about during the trial, or how Microsoft could have taken those actions believing that they would be in the best interests of free trade. Their intent was to use their desktop OS monopoly to become a monopoly in the web browser market, they abused their monopoly power to act in the restraint of trade, and they knew they were doing it. So in a way their intentions are the important factor here, because if they didn't have intentions to act illegally, they wouldn't have just accidentally done so, and we wouldn't be having a trial.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true that the military is trained to follow orders. However, their oaths are not to the President or Congress. The military is sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the same as the President and Congress are. Now I'm not saying that any of these groups aren't above bending the rules if they can get away with it. But we're a long way from the military slavishly following blatantly treasonous orders from the President (especially this President - he's not highly regarded in military circles, in case you hadn't noticed).
If the President can fire the people who can remove him from office, do you really think we would have had a near-impeachment a few months ago? Congress can remove the President, and the President couldn't do anything to stop them. Now that the independent counsel law has expired, the President could fire anyone appointed by the Attorney General to investigate him, but the independent counsel law didn't exist when Nixon was president and he was still impeached. A President who fires someone because they are investigating on behalf of Congress is going to be more likely to be impeached, not less.
The President definitely cannot suspend the Constitution. Yes, the President can declare martial law, and I suppose a really bad apple could try to take over the country by doing so. But even that use of force would not suspend the Constitution - in fact, I'm not sure how any group could suspend the Constitution. I suppose it could be done by a constitutional amendment, but that would require the agreement of both Congress and the states.
Perhaps you should have taken your own advice.
It's not quite that simple. They aren't just printing money to have more money in the economy - that would cause inflation. They are printing currency to cover the amount of money that is already in the economy. All of these bills get distributed through the Federal Reserve system so that if there is a bank run, people can easily convert their "virtual" money (the numbers you see on your bank account) into hard (well, paper really) currency. But if there isn't a bank run, they'll probably end up destroying the extra bills that were printed, or saving them for the next time that this might be a problem. So the worst case scenario is that we all have lots of $$$ under our mattresses, but prices should stay about the same.
I agree with many of the points of the article, but disagree with some others. As other posts have pointed out, the author's previous articles take an opposite viewpoint from this one, so perhaps he is just painting the two extremes that the Linux community has available.
Users will never need to know Unix to use Linux for the masses. I agree that it is important that a casual user not have to understand Unix to use a Linux system. There has to be at least one bulletproof point'n'click interface which maps fairly closely to the established GUIs that new users will be familiar with: Win 95/98 and/or Mac. Note that this is for the casual user - a CLI should still be available for the user if they want to explore more of the capabilities of their system, or if a more advanced user needs to use the system for something.
Common system tasks will be automated. Automating common system tasks is a good idea too - the problem is that a network OS has a lot of system tasks that have to be running for 'net connectivity, and knowing which ones to run is non-trivial. People criticize Redhat for setting up too many daemons to run at installation. In a certain sense, they have automated these system tasks, so that the user doesn't have to set up inetd manually. The tradeoff is that this may make the box less secure. I'm not sure how much of the administration you can safely take out of the user's hands without making dangerous assumptions about their planned use of the system. Of course, the casual user probably won't be installing Linux on their own anyway, so maybe this isn't as much of a problem. As far as common system tasks like mounting a floppy, etc., these should be automated from the point of view of the casual user.
No multiple distributions or window managers. I don't know about this one. I think it would be safe to say that within one large installation (corporate office, university computer lab, etc.) the distro and WM choice should be consistent, so that users don't have a learning curve to use each other's machines. I don't see why we have to restrict choice when providing Linux to the individual consumers, though. Right now home users are running DOS, Win 3.1, 95, and 98, and MacOS. They already have a learning curve to use each other's machines. What will probably happen is that most Linux users will end up installing Redhat and using the default WM, and that will end up being the consistent look and feel for casual Linux users. I don't think it's necessary to remove the choice of other distros or WMs for this to happen. I politely disagree that flexibility is a fault; forcing too much flexibility on a casual user is a problem, but not providing flexibility for the advanced user is a bigger mistake.
My biggest complaint with this article was this: it isn't a mistake for the window manager screenshots to show multiple applications running at once - that's the whole point of a WM, isn't it? If the user is only supposed to run one thing at a time, then they might as well be running DOS. Sure, most users still only run one or two things at a time, but that's exactly the reason that WM screenshots should show many things running. A new user can look at that and realize that their computer is more powerful than they had expected, even if they don't recognize everything that is running. This is a powerful feature even for casual users, not something that should remain the province of Linux gurus.
Actually, this quote isn't by the author of the article but is attributed to "One VAR". It's the Anonymous Coward of journalism, in this case probably someone who has an interest in Linux being seen as a toy OS. This article wasn't so much written as pieced together out of quotes from Microsoft and mostly unidentified industry sources.
And this is all really going to ship 60-120 days after the release of Win2k? Most customers will still be waiting for the first Win2k Service Pack at that point, as explained at the end of the article. Janus sounds like the same old vaporware to me.
Granted, as others here are sure to point out, this probably wasn't intended to be a humorous piece. Any article which contains It is, declares one Microsoft executive, "the most important program ever written." can get a laugh out of me, however. Microsoft: we're nothing if not overweening.
(first submission!)
Well, for one thing anti-virus companies can probably come out with a detection method for BO2k more quickly if they have the source of the trojan available. This qualifies as a fix to me.
In the larger sense, maybe Microsoft can come up with some fixes to their security system so that an attacker can't run an invisible trojan like this in the first place, or at least can't make it so undetectable. In this case also, BO2k source code is going to help rather than hurt.
Well, in a sense all trojans have to exploit the user, right? By definition a trojan is non-self-propagating; the user has take action before the trojan can run on a system, as opposed to a virus or worm which are proactive in acquiring system resources. BO2k also seems to be exploiting the OS in the sense that the OS allows it to be made undetectable (by the user).
I'm not sure that cDc are terrorists any more than people who manufacture fertilizer, fuel oil, or big trucks, for example (at least in this particular case - I'm not an expert on their past history). People who use BO2k to break into systems that don't belong to them should definitely feel the full penalty of the law, of course.
But look at it this way - if cDc can write a trojan like this, then how do you know that a similar trojan doesn't already exist? If BO2k can do what they say it can on NT, then there's no way to be sure that other trojans aren't already doing the same things. I don't know that this is the case, but no one can prove that it isn't - remember, the security loophole that allows BO2k to run undetectably is already present; cDc didn't create it just so they could write BO2k. Hopefully all the coverage of BO2k will result in the quick release of security tools that will uncover it as well as other trojans of the same sort, and will also lead to Microsoft making some changes to their security model so that trojans like BO2k are less likely to run or are less likely to run undetectably.
Well, if I wanted an undetectable remote-administration tool for an NT network, this sounds like a great tool. You pointed out attributes of BO2k: the user isn't alerted on boot or when the tool is running. These aren't necessarily bad things; it just depends on what you are using BO2k for. In some cases these would be features. The AC is right - this is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Using it for evil should be against the law, of course, but it is that attacker who is in the wrong, not the tools they use.
Well, it doesn't cause consumer confusion if you are the Ford Bread company (I made that one up), the Ford Advertising Agency (I think this is real), or if your name happens to be Ford Prefect :) In the non-Internet world, you can have the same name as long as you aren't in the same market. I don't have any problem with corporations suing over domains that are deliberately intended to cause consumer confusion - for example, if I happened to get ford.com and put up a realistic car sales site which happened to sell my cheap Ford lookalikes. But I don't agree with companies that bring suits against sites which are clearly not causing any consumer confusion - veronica.org, ajax.org, and so on. In that case there is no consumer confusion - you can tell immediately that this isn't the site you wanted, and you retype the name and leave.
It doesn't have anything to do with whether it's "commercial" code or not - Redhat has been selling GPL'd code for quite a while now. As long as Amiga supplies the source code to any GPL'd software they use (including the kernel) and obeys the other terms of the GPL, they should be OK.
That was sort of funny, but I think ESR has a little bit of a double standard going on here. This article doesn't mention it, but the source for Back Orifice is supposed to be released as well. If BO2k is open-sourced as promised, then not only will there be more chances to collaborate to make it more destructive, but there will also be more chances for security-minded administrators (and shouldn't they all be?) to fix their systems before they are attacked, rather than waiting on Microsoft to figure out what the exploit is and issue a fix.
Maybe ESR can argue that the effects of the BO2k release will be entirely negative (which I'm not sure I agree with), but he should be happy that at least the source is also going to be provided.
Thanks for trying to explain, but your arguments don't hold water.
I'll agree that if telnetd or some other terminal access daemon isn't running, then you can't remote admin the system. This would be the case for both NT and Unix - no remote access daemon accepting connections means no remote admin capability. But if both NT and Unix have remote access available (through telnet, ssh, whatever NT uses, etc ) then what makes Unix more crackable? It seems to me that if NT allows an admin to connect remotely, there's no reason that a cracker couldn't do the same thing (assuming they cracked the admin password). This could happen for Unix too, I'll admit, but you are arguing that Unix is less secure, not that the two are of equal security (which I would argue also, but I'm staying on-topic today). What are the specific differences between NT and Unix remote admin mechanisms that make Unix easier to crack?
I'm not an NT admin, so maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't NT have an Administrator account which has essentially root privileges? If your "granular" security mechanisms prevent an Administrator from making certain changes to the system, then really your box is unmaintainable. Somebody has to have privileges over the entire system, otherwise you couldn't install new stuff, etc. But if an Administrator can make any necessary change to the system, then a cracked Administrator account is no different from a root compromise under Unix.
As I said, I'm not an NT admin, so I'm honestly curious as to exactly why Unix is less secure. That hasn't been my experience, so if you can list specific differences between the Unix and NT security mechanisms which make Unix less secure, let's hear them. So far, it sounds like NT and Unix have functionally similar remote admin security systems, barring buffer overflow exploits and so forth.
I don't see how simply being easier to remote admin automatically makes Unix easier to crack. An unsecured Unix box is easy to crack, obviously, but just because Unix has more remote-admin options doesn't automatically less secure. Please list some specific examples of how this works, as I'm curious.
A more complete quote:
Thus you would have to prove that Microsoft intended to cause the computer trespass, and that they used the network without authority. Not really applicable to the normal way Windows is installed.
On the plus side, Slashdotting a site is still legal, because there is no intent to bring down the site. Also, IANAL but I would expect that running a web server that is openly available on the 'net would mean that you grant the authority to the public to use that machine and network for the purposes of download.
You really should get an account here - I wish more people would have the opportunity to read such a well-reasoned and well-written post.
It's sarcasm, people (although Bob Dole was a Grade-A war hero, POW, and so forth). You know how I can tell? Dante correctly spelled and boldfaced the titles of both books.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
It isn't the porn filtering that bothers me, it's the federally-imposed filtering of a public information source. The companies who write filtering software have proven time and time again that they don't just filter porn - they filter educational information about birth control and human sexuality, discussion sites that they don't like the tone of, and even sites which are anti-filtering software. It's that last one that really bugs me - it doesn't bother me a whole lot if my local community filters porn in the library, but don't take away my access to sites just because they threaten Net Nanny's profits.
Also, that was a really cheap shot about homeless people. Don't you think they have more important things to worry about than surfing for porn? All the homeless people I've run into in a library were there because it was warm and indoors, not because it was a porn-haven. We might as well say: "people that post to Slashdot must have nothing else to do, so they are probably all researching porn at work (or school) right now".
I don't mean to fire off a flame at you, so please don't take this that way - I just feel a good rant coming on about the whole issue.
If this was what Mrs. Dole was supporting, then I couldn't agree more. The problem is that the local libraries aren't going to have those choices if the federal government calls the shots on filtering. And when you think about it, a national standard for what is filterable is going to upset as many people as the current situation. Some people still won't feel that the federal filtering standard is restrictive enough, others will feel that it is too restrictive, and some people are just opposed to federal intervention at the local level (a position you would expect a Republican candidate for president to take, but that's a different argument).
Aren't you glad we have politicians to do the thinking for us? I don't see why this line has to be drawn at the national level, rather than local.
You make some good points about the dangers of overactive Linux advocacy, but I'll disagree with you on one point: doing the computing thing for a living does not mean that you can type up a paper and browse the web with the hood of your box welded shut. You don't see Formula-1 drivers who do the driving thing for a living keep their hoods welded shut, do you? Sure, a racing pro doesn't change every tire or spark plug (they've got a pit crew for that) but they have to have a good understanding of what hardware is under the hood and what tradeoffs can be made in order to get the most out of it. Professional drivers who never think about what's under the hood (or on the axles, etc.) won't make much of a living at it.
So it should be with computer writers - if the computing thing is your living, then you should at least be able to discuss the pros and cons of the innards of a system even if you are reviewing it for those who don't need all the details. Just because his audience may not need to get under the hood doesn't mean that an author can't mention that there is more to the story - like the IP address of your ISP. And if you only do the computing thing for a living in Windows, then why are you reviewing Linux? You don't see Formula-1 drivers taking a spin at a NASCAR race, for example - if you are an expert on only one type of system, your opinion of a different system isn't any more reliable than the average guy on the street. I would certainly agree that this author does the writing thing for a living, but saying that he does the computing thing for a living is a stretch.
Perhaps, while you are creating your new law, you would take the time to spell "Beowulf" correctly? I usually avoid spelling corrections (although lord that's difficult some days) but if you're going to call someone a "dumbass" and a "moron" then perhaps you should be concerned with how you appear as well.
This spelling flame contains no tyops :)
A "field for competition" would seem to be a right held by MS competitors. And a free market is a market without gov't interference.
Not quite - MS also has a right to an even playing field. In this regard there is no difference between MS and any software company. And a market without any government interference is going to be full of monopoly pretty quickly in most cases. Businesses are not people; they are allowed to exist and do business at the sufferance of the government and ultimately the citizens. Government needs to broker disputes between businesses just like it does between people, and it also needs to make sure that business doesn't take unfair advantage of the citizens who allow business to take place. If you don't agree that some amount of government regulation is necessary, then I don't think that either of us are going to convince the other.
Netscape has a right to write and distribute their browser. They have not been prevented from doing so.
They were prevented when MS made deals with OEMs only if they did not include Netscape on their desktop, for example. Since when should MS be dictating anything like that to OEMs - they are clearly using their dominance in the Windows market (which the OEMs are dependent on, because there is a monopoly) to increase their dominance in the browser market. Sure, anybody can download and install Netscape, but we both know that those actions are beyond many users. Microsoft was smart to try to get onto the startup screen; their only mistake was using their Windows monopoly to do it. If Microsoft had made the case for IE solely on the basis of the features and cost of IE, then there would be one less argument against them.
So a clever lawyer can find actions by pretty much any successful company that can be twisted into a "combination in restraint of trade," just as you can arrest pretty much any individual that "does bad things."
I'll agree that a good lawyer could make it look like that, but that doesn't make it so. It is the court's job to determine whether a combination in restraint of trade really occurred, just as it is with any other trial. Sometimes laws are found to be so vague that they are unenforceable and are thrown out of court - for example, some Internet censorship laws meet this fate. Anti-trust laws can suffer the same fate if the courts think that they are too vague, but this has not happened yet. Therefore, the court system feels that there is enough specific information in the law to divide companies into two classes of illegal monopolists and legal ones.
Courts usually follow precedents, but they also sometimes break precedents and decide that a whole new class of actions is illegal. When that happens, a bunch of businesses will suddenly find themselves criminals, despite the fact that what they did was legal when they did it.
There are two different issues here. You normally cannot be held accountable for actions you took which were legal when you did them. Nobody has changed the wording of the anti-trust laws behind Microsoft's back, and even if that had occurred they would not be legally accountable for their (now illegal) actions that were made before the law was changed.
On the other hand, you make a good point that the interpretation of the law can change, so that at one time someone may be found to have followed the law and later a different person may be found to have broken it for doing the exact same thing. Unfortunately this could happen with any law; for example (and I use this only as an example, I don't want to argue about this here) the laws concerning abortion continue to be reinterpreted and sometimes completely thrown out by the courts (Roe v. Wade, etc). Three things affect reinterpretations such as this:
You argue that the anti-trust laws are too vague, to which I can only reply that they have not been vague enough to be thrown out by the courts yet. I say yet, because there really hasn't been a huge number of past antitrust cases for precedent in the U.S. The law has only been on the books about 100 years and there certainly hasn't been one case a year since then, has there? This isn't much of a precedent compared to murder cases, for example. So it is possible that the interpretation of the law will change. However, the DOJ attorneys have done fairly well at showing that MS actions fit into what the laws and the prior precedents describe as illegal behavior. It is to the disadvantage of the DOJ to try to set a new precedent; it is much easier to bring a case under the current interpretation of the law because the courts really don't want to reinterpret if they can avoid it.
It is the job of Congress to clearly spell out what is and is not illegal, and if they don't they are creating an opportunity for oppression.
It would be wonderful if Congress could do that now, and it would have been astonishing if Congress 100 years ago had made provisions in the antitrust laws for the kind of business deals which companies are making today. However, business isn't static and so the interpretation of the law must also change to keep up. If the laws become too out of date, they will be thrown out by the courts or updated by Congress.
It's not that I'm necessarily in favor of vague laws, but rather laws which don't have to be revised every time there's a new way of doing business. The antitrust laws are more detailed than just "combinations in restraint of trade", but they don't need to describe every possible action that you could take, just like a law about murder doesn't describe every way you could kill someone. All that matters is you did it, you knew you were doing it, and you had every intention of bringing about the outcome that occurred. Here's a hint: if you negotiate with OEMs and the public on a basis of the price, quality, and features of your product, you're usually doing OK. If you negotiate on the basis of fear of your competition, your strength in other markets, and deals that are "too good to be true", then you might have some problems. I can't believe that one of the richest companies in the world doesn't have enough lawyers to tell them that bribing OEMs not to include Netscape might be over the edge.
IANAL either, but I'm pretty sure that you have to inform someone you are recording them - otherwise why would customer service tell me that I am being recorded? Probably there is a loophole for law-enforcement wearing a wire undercover and so forth. However, I can't point to the specific law on this, so I can't prove my point at all.
Perhaps your coworker was OK as long as he didn't record what he heard. After all, he was just doing his job on the phone lines, it's not like he was wiretapping those people. Wouldn't he be in contempt of court if he refused to testify, though? I know that priests, doctors, and lawyers can't be forced to divulge what they hear on the job but I didn't know that it extended to telco line workers.
I meant "need" in the sense of "what is necessary in order to use this code for my own project." In that case you do require certain rights in order to use someone else's code, otherwise you are committing a copyright violation. Of course there isn't a need to use other people's code the same way that we have a need for food and water.
I don't want others to use my code unless it is under the terms under which the code was licensed to them. Likewise, I certainly don't want to use someone else's code unless it is under the terms under which their code was licensed for my use. If I don't have the rights under their license to modify their code, use it in my project, and distribute it, then I guess I can't use that code. Note that this isn't the same as using their code in any way I want - for example, depending on their choice of license I can't change the copyright information, the license, the list of contributors, etc.
I doubt that I'm going to be able to change your mind since you refer to "enslaved projects", but here goes. Licensing your project with the GPL means that you believe in the values that the FSF espouses. These include availability and reusability of source code, higher quality source code (because it's available and reusable), and more GPL'd code. It's this last part that people refer to as "enslaved". The FSF (of which I am not a member, by the way) believes in the GPL enough that they set up the GPL to encourage more GPL'd code. Whether you like the GPL or not seems mostly to depend on whether you think the ends of the GPL justify the means of the GPL. If you don't agree with that, then I suppose the GPL is not for you.
Who is being coerced here? I don't see any grumbling over on linux-kernel, or on freshmeat, or any place else where GPL'd software is being created. These people don't seem to be chafing, they seem to be happy to be writing GPL'd code. And there are plenty of projects which aren't GPL'd whose participants aren't complaining. Nobody is coercing them to write GPL'd code either, and they are happy.
The only people that seem to be grumbling are folks who want to use GPL'd code in non-GPL'd projects. I'm sorry if those folks don't like their alternatives, but the GPL doesn't come no-strings-attached. The authors of GPL'd code have specified the licensing terms of their code, and if you don't want to use that license, you certainly have alternatives. You may not have other zero-cost alternatives; RMS never promised you a rose garden. If the GPL'd code that you want to use is so well done that it is a difficult decision not to use it, then perhaps there is more merit to the GPL approach than you are allowing yourself to consider.
You are assuming that someone who writes some code and "gives it away to the world" is somehow more moral because they chose to contribute their code without being asked and without asking for anything in return. In other words they contributed to a charity - they saved other people time and money out of the goodness of their heart. Good for them, but the goal of the GPL is not to encourage charity but to encourage higher quality software with available and reuseable source code. The author of GPL'd code is also providing their source code out of the goodness of their heart (after all, they didn't have to GPL) and they may not receive anything back at all either. But that author knows that their code will stay free and will be provided to anyone who receives software which includes it. In that way, they have given much more to the end user than your developer, because everyone who receives the software must be given the code and will be able to learn from it and improve it. Authors of GPL'd code are making a free moral choice the same as your developer, but since they feel that the GPL reflects their values, they have chosen to GPL their code.
GPL'd code isn't off-limits if you are creating a product. Plenty of people create products with GPL'd code - RedHat, for example. Now if it isn't a GPL'd product that you are creating, then you may have some problems.
Your hypothetical developer doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, as long as he is willing to help out other developers by making his code GPL'd the same way that those developers helped him out originally. But this doesn't force that developer to do anything, it just allows them the choice: spend time reinventing the wheel, or else use GPL'd code and contribute a little back to the GPL code base which you are graciously allowed to use by its authors.
This way, the GPL will prevent the reinventing of whatever your developer is working on - since he has to GPL in order to use other GPL'd code (saving him time), later on someone else can use his code (saving them time). Net result: increased code reuse, faster cycle time, and code quality improves more quickly, which is what RMS and the Free Software Foundation wanted in the first place.
I'm not sure that the rights of MS competitors are exactly the issue here. It's more a question of ensuring a level playing field for competition and encouraging a free market, rather than deciding exactly who has a right to do something. Microsoft's actions don't just attack their specific competitors, they also destroy the free market and reduce consumer choice, which is bad. It doesn't really matter if IE or Netscape wins the browser war, but the winner should prevail because they offer a better browser and the consumer preferred it, not because they are made by the OS manufacturer. So in a certain sense the Sherman Act recognizes a "right" to a free market for all competitors in that market. But this is just as much Microsoft's right as it is Netscape's right. No one has a special right to write a browser for Windows, but everyone should have an equal opportunity in the market to distribute their browser and let the market pick the best one.
Your second argument has a very good point: if Apple is doing the same thing, why aren't they being prosecuted? The answer to that is twofold:
Of course we don't want a law to "punish people who do bad things." That is an over generalization of what I said. Throughout U.S. history the courts have interpreted the laws (as is their function under the Constitution) and they will continue to do so. This history of case law and decisions sets a precedent, and the precedent is taken into account in future cases and as new laws are written. In some cases there are arbitrary laws, but they are refined over time by the precedents set by trials such as this one and as new laws are enacted as a result of those trials. If the law is too arbitrary, it will be thrown out by the courts, but at least so far the courts seem to feel that the anti-trust laws are constitutional and thus that the law is not too arbitrary for a law-abiding corporate citizen to follow correctly.
You have a point as far as intent goes. Although in some trials intent is a significant mitigating factor, you are correct that it isn't necessarily one here. This is because normally intent matters when a crime could have been committed accidentally, or it could have been committed in cold blood with malice aforethought. However, I don't see how Microsoft could have accidentally taken the actions that we've heard about during the trial, or how Microsoft could have taken those actions believing that they would be in the best interests of free trade. Their intent was to use their desktop OS monopoly to become a monopoly in the web browser market, they abused their monopoly power to act in the restraint of trade, and they knew they were doing it. So in a way their intentions are the important factor here, because if they didn't have intentions to act illegally, they wouldn't have just accidentally done so, and we wouldn't be having a trial.