It sure seems that ESR is trying to avoid the real issue of intellectual property. I think it astounding that he considers it on par with other peoperty rights. This is like saying slavery was just another property right. In fact, ESR is an expert on the foundation of property in modern society. One might conclude that he is just trying to kiss booty to large corporations who can't stomach the thought that copyrights and patents are not really a property right. What he does scares me. There were many huge commercial enterprises that embraced slavery as a property right too, it didn't matter how big they were, they destined them selves to swallow a bitter pill.
YES, the bigger problem is "intellectual property"
on
Do Patents Still Work?
·
· Score: 1
sorry about above. HTML formatted.....
2. We cannot just tinker with these systems, but must treat them with profound respect (even if they are broken) because huge amounts of money and acclaim could end up going to people who don't deserve them, while innovators who do deserve them could get screwed.
You could not be further from the truth, the problem is the concept of "intellectual property" is flawed at the very core. All the other painfull side effects we see are just symptoms of that core belief. It reminds me of the people who saw that the institution of slavery as just needing minor tinkering to patch up the flaws while blatently ignoring the fact that it is inhumane and barbaric by it's very nature.
Ironically, they called slavery a property right, but it wasn't - it was a controll on human behavior for the sake of maintaining status quo wealth that was unsustainable over the long term. The same is true of patents, they controll what I can do with resources I have even though nothing I do will take from other peoples resources. It might deprive others of a monopoly, but sorry that isn't a right.
Patents are a lie, innovation has been progressing at a steady state for over 10000 years with and without them. And they don't take into account the naturally progressive inter-dependent nature of technology. While GM may only be days behind on a safety device, if Ford patents it first they may lock them out for 20 years while statistacally more people die in GM cars. While a pharmacutical may know of a potentially promising simple cure, the board decides to focus their research on a more risky cure with lots of harsh side-effects because it can be patented. Patents literally cause people to needlessly die.
I for one, am sick and tired of discussions questioning if patents should or shouldn't exist rather than figuring out what we need to do to get rid of them. They are not a property, but a controll. They are not an incentive, but an inhibitor. As technology becomes more important, it is only a matter of time before this beast we created will rage out of controll to the point that either we or it must die.
YES, the bigger problem is "intellectual property"
on
Do Patents Still Work?
·
· Score: 1
2. We cannot just tinker with these systems, but must treat them with profound respect (even if they are broken) because huge amounts of money and acclaim could end up going to people who don't deserve them, while innovators who do deserve them could get screwed. You could not be further from the truth, the problem is the concept of "intellectual property" is flawed at the very core. All the other painfull side effects we see are just symptoms of that core belief. It reminds me of the people who saw that the institution of slavery as just needing minor tinkering to patch up the flaws while blatently ignoring the fact that it is inhumane and barbaric by it's very nature. Ironically, they called slavery a property right, but it wasn't - it was a controll on human behavior for the sake of maintaining status quo wealth that was unsustainable over the long term. The same is true of patents, they controll what I can do with resources I have even though nothing I do will take from other peoples resources. It might deprive others of a monopoly, but sorry that isn't a right. Patents are a lie, innovation has been progressing at a steady state for over 10000 years with and without them. And they don't take into account the naturally progressive inter-dependent nature of technology. While GM may only be days behind on a safety device, if Ford patents it first they may lock them out for 20 years while statistacally more people die in GM cars. While a pharmacutical may know of a potentially promising simple cure, the board decides to focus their research on a more risky cure with lots of harsh side-effects because it can be patented. Patents literally cause people to needlessly die. I for one, am sick and tired of discussions questioning if patents should or shouldn't exist rather than figuring out what we need to do to get rid of them. They are not a property, but a controll. They are not an incentive, but an inhibitor. As technology becomes more important, it is only a matter of time before this beast we created will rage out of controll to the point that either we ot it must die.
Yes history is repeating itself, but not like you think. It reminds me of the people who foolishly thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states. To be frank, they were sorry souls, who didn't understand the unreconcilable nature and core differences that would tear apart a nation and pit brogher against brother. If they only understood from the beginning, things would have been soooo much less painfull.
I don't mean to be rude, but after explaining I'm sure you'll understand. I've worked with SCO (various versions of Openserver and 3.x) in hundreds of retail chains from 2 store outlets, to 1500 store enterprises. A few years ago when I pointed out that Linux was more reliable/stable/busisness ready than SCO I was mocked, harassed, ignored, laughed at, fought with, and basically treated like shit from SCO people and people they had frankly decieved in the busisness community. So at this point I wander what took you so long, why should I deal with you after all that, and if I couldn't have a public apology for an outrageous and condensending atitude I've endured for a good few years because of SCO's inability to deal with Linux and Open Source and honest measurable facts.
A while ago I herd ESR talking about how he supported 'intellectual property' because he's a libertarian and he believes in property rights. This really chapped me, because he is an expert on the foundation of property rights and surely must know that 'intellectual property' is no more a capitalistic natural-law property right than slavery was.
In fact his appeasement reminds me of the people who thought the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states. It's outrageous, and if anyone would/could call him on it - I thought it would be you, but at least to my ears you seem to be strangely silent about it all. Why?
BTW: I know you hate the term 'intellectual property' because you don't like mixing copyrights and patents. Sorry, but I still think it is appropiate in this context.
I wouldn't say it's like 1929 yet. The information age is still making a measurable impact on productivity, commerce, and efficiency. I would say it's more like the panic of 1857, where people didn't understand what the industrial revolution was all about and invested in all sorts of strange factories with strange busisness models that could not hold up profit. No doubt, there alot of dot.com companies out there who have unfloatable busisness models today that are going to be under the heat with the threat of higher interest rates and inflation.
It might not be all that bad. Temporary cycles are good, mild inflation keeps people from hoarding money, and mild recessions discourage excessive debt. Of course I've never trusted central federal authorities like the fed to make free market decisions, but this fed-reserve is seasoned with the fear of inflation and the fear of depressions, so I think they'll do OK - at least to the extent of preventing major disasters. So much ability to screw up in one centralized place is sort of scary though, and foolish monitary policy IMHO.
nanotech is the ultimate culmination of the industrial revolution and the comming information age combined. EG - That instead of ordering that new auto part from the dealer - you will be able to buy some cheap raw materials and micro assemble it at home. If you want that latest processor, fine just download the specs, and nano assembly program and assemble it with your nanobots of various types bought for pennies on the dollar per pound. The same is true with pharmacuticals, and all sorts of other chemichals.
this will cause quite a stir because it will be a pull away from the large scale factories that we think of anytime we think of the production of physical goods - and it will make centralized controll of patents or forceing your way into markets because of cost of scale impossible. This pull will be gradual at first and then harsh later on. It will be from large companies, to mid size companies, to small companies to individuals.
if you wanted to build a house, you might dump 10 tons of wood pulp in the yard, download "house" specs, and dump a bucket of nanobots in the yard. After that it would be automatic. (possibly with the addition of some type of fuel or power source)
if you found you had colon cancer, you might download the colon cancer spec, and inject 10cc's of nanosolution in your blood stream. Or perhaps your spine was ripped to shreads in an auto accident and you need it to be carefully cleaned up and reassembled.
nanotech may also bring warfare to a new level - allowing micro nuclear assembly on a grand scale, or targeted nano dust attacks.
it would also possibly be a boon to space activity. it could be cheaply shot into orbit and self repair/arragne into sattelites, space stations, etc with much more impact resistance and fault tolerance.
Well, there is - but you forefit it when leaves your private life to the public eye. After that there is no recourse but to controll people based off of perceptions of how much they are indebted to you for releasing that knowledge by "your" standard. Noone, but the individual who benefits has the right to make that judgement, lest we revert back to "laws of the mind" mentality.
Copyrights are about coercing people th think that a given piece of information has the same value that you think it should have. It is morally no different than coercing beople to believe the same religion that you do. It's no wonder Hollywood has so many over-inflated ego's while people like Linus who has been over 100000 times more productive for society do not.
The use (and acquiring) of information depends on expenditure of time, so it is also a limited good. Just to be nitpicky.
Actually, thats a good point. and IMHO one reason why open-source is so successfull. The limits in supply are no logner artifically created by governments and coorporations upholding copyrights and patents, but rather by the natural limits of human time, effort, and thought.
If someone can make their factory 10% more efficient by writing a program that controlls flow, then natural market forces will create a demand for a person who can do that wether the companies can copy each other's code or not. Another point, today a mathematician can crunch more numbers 10000 mathematicians fifty years ago, but notice that hasn't wiped out the demand for matehmaticians. The same is true with open source. Linux being free has not wiped out the demand for programmers, but has actually increased it as people seek to have new desires and demands met.
For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
Look, economics is about the study of supply and demand. Unlike physical property, information has no natural limits on supply or demand - I can copy all I want and it will not deprive you of the original work. Copyrights are an artifical limitor, created by the government. You should be very carefull of this lest you start to believe that slave ownership was a property right just because the government said it was.
There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
It is to the extent that it does not deprive others of the same resource. How about a 5 yearolds sense of what rights they wish the had, may even think they have, but really dont.
Even without FreeNet - I could post a slanderous unsigned note on a tree and it would likely be incredibly difficult to trace back to me. Now, why should public institutions undo that kind of privacy just because the internet is different. In terms of the way we're expected to treat others - nothing's changed, just the technology we do it with.
If thats what you think about it, then perform concerts or stuff like that and make money that way. Of course never mind the ethics of the plantation masters who thought that slaves were their property because they put THOUSANDS of DOLLARS into buying them, and YEARS of effort into training them. Of course, anybody with half a brain knew that slavery wasn't about incentive, or property, but about controll on other peoples behavior. (hint)
FreeNet is its own protocool, but does not have a standard TCP/IP port (I don't know to what extent this has been implemented yet). This makes censorship an order of magnitude more difficult because it would half to monitor the actual content of each packet passed.
Saying that we created this battle is like saying that blackes caused the civil war. The simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with a small group of eliete people trying to make a profit, but trying to make it at the expense of other individual liberties is unaccepatble at any cost.
With AOL and even CISCO, copyrights and patents are being used as leverage to controll peoples behavior, the information they're exposed to, and the way they use that knowledge. The real answer is to get rid of copyrights and patents, but this does not mean that the "plantation masters" hold no responsibility for their actions. We need to get them under controll asap at any cost - lest we face consequences previous generations did.
These days truely do remind me of the 1850's where people thought the industrial revolution was about using inventions like the cotton gin to expand slavery to the western territories and maximize gain from it. In a way, the same is true today, they think the internet is about leveraging vast copyright empires rather than the unowned uncontrolled free flow of information.
If history is any indicatior, they will not learn until it is too late, and the consequences will be unbearable. Which is why we really do need to oppose copyrights at any cost. As we already know, the consequences of these beliefs in the 1860's was the US civil war. It came about at a time when we were just developing modern industrial warfare, without having devised defenses yet. Many consider it the "bloodiest" war in history, and it lost more lives for America than WW1 and WW2 combined.
After all, in the 1850's they said that slavery was a property right, but it wasn't - it was simply a controll on human behavior as is intellectual property today. They said that we have no incentive to grow this great cotton crop without slavery as they say there is no incentive to innovate without intellectual property today. They said that we put effort into importing and training slaves, so therefore we deserve to own them and today they say that we put effort into these informational works so therefore we are entitled to controll how you use them. They even claimed that slavery was the reason for Americas great economic success as they claim that intellectual property is today. Of course slavery had to be right, because so many noble, intelligent, and prestigious men did busisness in it. Yes it is amazing how history repeats itself, but it gets better.... After all to them, the industrial revolution was not about industry but about the cotton gin and using it to leverage, grow, and extend their slave plantations as never seen before. One would think that the cotton gin would have been used to minimize slavery, but beeing so greedy it wasn't. Today they think that the internet is about extending these massive intellectual property mega-corporations like time-warner to leverage it's control in every home. Of course one would think that the internet would encourage them to share information more freely, but them being greedy it doesn't.
AND OH GOD HOW there were always those fools who thought that the slave states could peacifully get along with the free states, and that those today who think that the GPL can peacefully exist in a world with intellectual property. They are wrong and will pay as dearly.
Well, back then, it was only a matter of time before things hit the fan and war broke out. But BEWARE - the US civil war was one of the bloodiest in the history of the world and lost more lives for America than both WW1 and WW2 combined. This was directly because the industrial revolution was just bringing about new technologies like the machine gun and gas weapons, but society had not developed defenses for them yet. Yes for those of you who uphold in intellectual property, history has taught us that we should not try to compromize and hold no bars back in terms of simply "putting you out of busisness". Today we can know on faith that history, technology, and ethics are on our side. I just pray that you'll get it, before you get it, but if history is any indication you won't change until it's too late.
This is just an example of patent monopolies overtaking copyright monopolies. Either way, the end consumer is screwed out of having a choice in the technologies they deal with. Patent monopolies are shorter term, but can not be legally reverse engineered. So don't be supprised if there will be great pressure to make patents last longer.
theres a big difference, with all the others - if you had a problem with them after you spent a million on their crap - you were pretty much stuck with them. With open source - all that is different.
If I'm over-enthuastic, it's cause I'm fed up with all the crap from other OS vendors. I've worked with SCO, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, DGUX, and APUX. Oh yeah, lets not forget NT and the standard daily reboot. I've seen a lot of false promises and a lot of hype, alot of bloatware and alot of bull from sales people. Like it or not, Linux is it, because it's not about Linux but about controll and not being forced into one vendors stupid design and/or management decisions.
Why does all unix have to be Linux? It's about the right thing for the job and having a choice. If all we have is Linux then there really isn't much of a choice anymore. As long as the different unices (and hopefull windows too) all work together by following standards then we can all use the os we like or need for the job.
But that's the point, Linux gives you a choice, Solaris and NT don't. I would have no problems with MS or SUN if their stuff was truly open-source. But by coercing it they are not only locking everyone else out, but locking the door their own future too. They can't grow in a competitive manner this way, they will be left behind like I said. Don't you get it - closed source is the path to closed standards.
Also, why does Sun have bend to the wills of the slashdot community? They are doing rather well right now, and their Ultras are selling like crazy (even though it would be nice to get a Ultra 5 with SCSI disks:). Solaris 8 ships with a cd full of gnu stuff, you can buy a Ultra workstation with Redhat Linux from Sun directly, and they have released a utility to run Linux x86 things on Solaris x86. There are more ways to work with the free software community than by just tacking their os software under the gpl or bsd license.
Sun does not half to bend for the slashdot community, but they do for the facts. Bigger people have fallen harder than SUN, the mere fact that their CD's have a bunch of GNU stuff is almost an acknowledgement of where they are being forced to go.
I use Linux every day myself (not to mention Solaris and *BSD), but Linux isn't a replacement for Solaris with it's good multi cpu support and ability to hot patch the kernel (just to name a few things).
Lunux isn't a replacement for Solaris now, but it will be.;) It's simply a more competitive paradigm.
There is a place for everything, and for linux to 'win' others unices don't have to 'lose.'
Agreed, not if they go GPL. If they win or loose is their choice.
Lots of Money. I'm sure that's the case with Microsoft too. But the simple fact is that "Lots of Money" simply does not guarantee a secure future in this business. They'll get squeezed out on the OS innovations just like they already have been with Java. Competitors like IBM are already getting ahead of there here.
All the others are A) going to go away or B) be merged into Linux. Linux is simply a more competitive paradigm. When IBM, HP, SUN, DEC (Compaq) and every other PC, Computer embeded device run Linux - the market pressures to toss out the others will be enormous. They already are, sumoe people like Sun though just don't (want to) get it yet.
Slashdot Mirror
It sure seems that ESR is trying to avoid the real issue of intellectual property. I think it astounding that he considers it on par with other peoperty rights. This is like saying slavery was just another property right. In fact, ESR is an expert on the foundation of property in modern society. One might conclude that he is just trying to kiss booty to large corporations who can't stomach the thought that copyrights and patents are not really a property right. What he does scares me. There were many huge commercial enterprises that embraced slavery as a property right too, it didn't matter how big they were, they destined them selves to swallow a bitter pill.
sorry about above. HTML formatted .....
You could not be further from the truth, the problem is the concept of "intellectual property" is flawed at the very core. All the other painfull side effects we see are just symptoms of that core belief. It reminds me of the people who saw that the institution of slavery as just needing minor tinkering to patch up the flaws while blatently ignoring the fact that it is inhumane and barbaric by it's very nature.
Ironically, they called slavery a property right, but it wasn't - it was a controll on human behavior for the sake of maintaining status quo wealth that was unsustainable over the long term. The same is true of patents, they controll what I can do with resources I have even though nothing I do will take from other peoples resources. It might deprive others of a monopoly, but sorry that isn't a right.
Patents are a lie, innovation has been progressing at a steady state for over 10000 years with and without them. And they don't take into account the naturally progressive inter-dependent nature of technology. While GM may only be days behind on a safety device, if Ford patents it first they may lock them out for 20 years while statistacally more people die in GM cars. While a pharmacutical may know of a potentially promising simple cure, the board decides to focus their research on a more risky cure with lots of harsh side-effects because it can be patented. Patents literally cause people to needlessly die.
I for one, am sick and tired of discussions questioning if patents should or shouldn't exist rather than figuring out what we need to do to get rid of them. They are not a property, but a controll. They are not an incentive, but an inhibitor. As technology becomes more important, it is only a matter of time before this beast we created will rage out of controll to the point that either we or it must die.
2. We cannot just tinker with these systems, but must treat them with profound respect (even if they are broken) because huge amounts of money and acclaim could end up going to people who don't deserve them, while innovators who do deserve them could get screwed. You could not be further from the truth, the problem is the concept of "intellectual property" is flawed at the very core. All the other painfull side effects we see are just symptoms of that core belief. It reminds me of the people who saw that the institution of slavery as just needing minor tinkering to patch up the flaws while blatently ignoring the fact that it is inhumane and barbaric by it's very nature. Ironically, they called slavery a property right, but it wasn't - it was a controll on human behavior for the sake of maintaining status quo wealth that was unsustainable over the long term. The same is true of patents, they controll what I can do with resources I have even though nothing I do will take from other peoples resources. It might deprive others of a monopoly, but sorry that isn't a right. Patents are a lie, innovation has been progressing at a steady state for over 10000 years with and without them. And they don't take into account the naturally progressive inter-dependent nature of technology. While GM may only be days behind on a safety device, if Ford patents it first they may lock them out for 20 years while statistacally more people die in GM cars. While a pharmacutical may know of a potentially promising simple cure, the board decides to focus their research on a more risky cure with lots of harsh side-effects because it can be patented. Patents literally cause people to needlessly die. I for one, am sick and tired of discussions questioning if patents should or shouldn't exist rather than figuring out what we need to do to get rid of them. They are not a property, but a controll. They are not an incentive, but an inhibitor. As technology becomes more important, it is only a matter of time before this beast we created will rage out of controll to the point that either we ot it must die.
Yes history is repeating itself, but not like you think. It reminds me of the people who foolishly thought that the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states. To be frank, they were sorry souls, who didn't understand the unreconcilable nature and core differences that would tear apart a nation and pit brogher against brother. If they only understood from the beginning, things would have been soooo much less painfull.
I don't mean to be rude, but after explaining I'm sure you'll understand. I've worked with SCO (various versions of Openserver and 3.x) in hundreds of retail chains from 2 store outlets, to 1500 store enterprises. A few years ago when I pointed out that Linux was more reliable/stable/busisness ready than SCO I was mocked, harassed, ignored, laughed at, fought with, and basically treated like shit from SCO people and people they had frankly decieved in the busisness community. So at this point I wander what took you so long, why should I deal with you after all that, and if I couldn't have a public apology for an outrageous and condensending atitude I've endured for a good few years because of SCO's inability to deal with Linux and Open Source and honest measurable facts.
A while ago I herd ESR talking about how he supported 'intellectual property' because he's a libertarian and he believes in property rights. This really chapped me, because he is an expert on the foundation of property rights and surely must know that 'intellectual property' is no more a capitalistic natural-law property right than slavery was.
In fact his appeasement reminds me of the people who thought the slave states could peacefully get along with the free states. It's outrageous, and if anyone would/could call him on it - I thought it would be you, but at least to my ears you seem to be strangely silent about it all. Why?
BTW: I know you hate the term 'intellectual property' because you don't like mixing copyrights and patents. Sorry, but I still think it is appropiate in this context.
I wouldn't say it's like 1929 yet. The information age is still making a measurable impact on productivity, commerce, and efficiency. I would say it's more like the panic of 1857, where people didn't understand what the industrial revolution was all about and invested in all sorts of strange factories with strange busisness models that could not hold up profit. No doubt, there alot of dot.com companies out there who have unfloatable busisness models today that are going to be under the heat with the threat of higher interest rates and inflation.
It might not be all that bad. Temporary cycles are good, mild inflation keeps people from hoarding money, and mild recessions discourage excessive debt. Of course I've never trusted central federal authorities like the fed to make free market decisions, but this fed-reserve is seasoned with the fear of inflation and the fear of depressions, so I think they'll do OK - at least to the extent of preventing major disasters. So much ability to screw up in one centralized place is sort of scary though, and foolish monitary policy IMHO.
nanotech is the ultimate culmination of the industrial revolution and the comming information age combined. EG - That instead of ordering that new auto part from the dealer - you will be able to buy some cheap raw materials and micro assemble it at home. If you want that latest processor, fine just download the specs, and nano assembly program and assemble it with your nanobots of various types bought for pennies on the dollar per pound. The same is true with pharmacuticals, and all sorts of other chemichals.
this will cause quite a stir because it will be a pull away from the large scale factories that we think of anytime we think of the production of physical goods - and it will make centralized controll of patents or forceing your way into markets because of cost of scale impossible. This pull will be gradual at first and then harsh later on. It will be from large companies, to mid size companies, to small companies to individuals.
if you wanted to build a house, you might dump 10 tons of wood pulp in the yard, download "house" specs, and dump a bucket of nanobots in the yard. After that it would be automatic. (possibly with the addition of some type of fuel or power source)
if you found you had colon cancer, you might download the colon cancer spec, and inject 10cc's of nanosolution in your blood stream. Or perhaps your spine was ripped to shreads in an auto accident and you need it to be carefully cleaned up and reassembled.
nanotech may also bring warfare to a new level - allowing micro nuclear assembly on a grand scale, or targeted nano dust attacks.
it would also possibly be a boon to space activity. it could be cheaply shot into orbit and self repair/arragne into sattelites, space stations, etc with much more impact resistance and fault tolerance.
just some thinghts. david
Copyrights are about coercing people th think that a given piece of information has the same value that you think it should have. It is morally no different than coercing beople to believe the same religion that you do. It's no wonder Hollywood has so many over-inflated ego's while people like Linus who has been over 100000 times more productive for society do not.
Actually, thats a good point. and IMHO one reason why open-source is so successfull. The limits in supply are no logner artifically created by governments and coorporations upholding copyrights and patents, but rather by the natural limits of human time, effort, and thought.
If someone can make their factory 10% more efficient by writing a program that controlls flow, then natural market forces will create a demand for a person who can do that wether the companies can copy each other's code or not. Another point, today a mathematician can crunch more numbers 10000 mathematicians fifty years ago, but notice that hasn't wiped out the demand for matehmaticians. The same is true with open source. Linux being free has not wiped out the demand for programmers, but has actually increased it as people seek to have new desires and demands met.
- For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
Look, economics is about the study of supply and demand. Unlike physical property, information has no natural limits on supply or demand - I can copy all I want and it will not deprive you of the original work. Copyrights are an artifical limitor, created by the government. You should be very carefull of this lest you start to believe that slave ownership was a property right just because the government said it was.- There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
It is to the extent that it does not deprive others of the same resource. How about a 5 yearolds sense of what rights they wish the had, may even think they have, but really dont.Even without FreeNet - I could post a slanderous unsigned note on a tree and it would likely be incredibly difficult to trace back to me. Now, why should public institutions undo that kind of privacy just because the internet is different. In terms of the way we're expected to treat others - nothing's changed, just the technology we do it with.
If thats what you think about it, then perform concerts or stuff like that and make money that way. Of course never mind the ethics of the plantation masters who thought that slaves were their property because they put THOUSANDS of DOLLARS into buying them, and YEARS of effort into training them. Of course, anybody with half a brain knew that slavery wasn't about incentive, or property, but about controll on other peoples behavior. (hint)
FreeNet is its own protocool, but does not have a standard TCP/IP port (I don't know to what extent this has been implemented yet). This makes censorship an order of magnitude more difficult because it would half to monitor the actual content of each packet passed.
Saying that we created this battle is like saying that blackes caused the civil war. The simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with a small group of eliete people trying to make a profit, but trying to make it at the expense of other individual liberties is unaccepatble at any cost.
With AOL and even CISCO, copyrights and patents are being used as leverage to controll peoples behavior, the information they're exposed to, and the way they use that knowledge. The real answer is to get rid of copyrights and patents, but this does not mean that the "plantation masters" hold no responsibility for their actions. We need to get them under controll asap at any cost - lest we face consequences previous generations did.
David
These days truely do remind me of the 1850's where people thought the industrial revolution was about using inventions like the cotton gin to expand slavery to the western territories and maximize gain from it. In a way, the same is true today, they think the internet is about leveraging vast copyright empires rather than the unowned uncontrolled free flow of information.
If history is any indicatior, they will not learn until it is too late, and the consequences will be unbearable. Which is why we really do need to oppose copyrights at any cost. As we already know, the consequences of these beliefs in the 1860's was the US civil war. It came about at a time when we were just developing modern industrial warfare, without having devised defenses yet. Many consider it the "bloodiest" war in history, and it lost more lives for America than WW1 and WW2 combined.
David
After all, in the 1850's they said that slavery was a property right, but it wasn't - it was simply a controll on human behavior as is intellectual property today. They said that we have no incentive to grow this great cotton crop without slavery as they say there is no incentive to innovate without intellectual property today. They said that we put effort into importing and training slaves, so therefore we deserve to own them and today they say that we put effort into these informational works so therefore we are entitled to controll how you use them. They even claimed that slavery was the reason for Americas great economic success as they claim that intellectual property is today. Of course slavery had to be right, because so many noble, intelligent, and prestigious men did busisness in it. ....
Yes it is amazing how history repeats itself, but it gets better
After all to them, the industrial revolution was not about industry but about the cotton gin and using it to leverage, grow, and extend their slave plantations as never seen before. One would think that the cotton gin would have been used to minimize slavery, but beeing so greedy it wasn't. Today they think that the internet is about extending these massive intellectual property mega-corporations like time-warner to leverage it's control in every home. Of course one would think that the internet would encourage them to share information more freely, but them being greedy it doesn't.
AND OH GOD HOW there were always those fools who thought that the slave states could peacifully get along with the free states, and that those today who think that the GPL can peacefully exist in a world with intellectual property. They are wrong and will pay as dearly.
Well, back then, it was only a matter of time before things hit the fan and war broke out. But BEWARE - the US civil war was one of the bloodiest in the history of the world and lost more lives for America than both WW1 and WW2 combined. This was directly because the industrial revolution was just bringing about new technologies like the machine gun and gas weapons, but society had not developed defenses for them yet. Yes for those of you who uphold in intellectual property, history has taught us that we should not try to compromize and hold no bars back in terms of simply "putting you out of busisness". Today we can know on faith that history, technology, and ethics are on our side. I just pray that you'll get it, before you get it, but if history is any indication you won't change until it's too late.
David
dmchr@netcom.com
Good bye and good riddance. They were too much of a WYSE ass anyhow. Oh, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.....
This is just an example of patent monopolies overtaking copyright monopolies. Either way, the end consumer is screwed out of having a choice in the technologies they deal with. Patent monopolies are shorter term, but can not be legally reverse engineered. So don't be supprised if there will be great pressure to make patents last longer.
theres a big difference, with all the others - if you had a problem with them after you spent a million on their crap - you were pretty much stuck with them. With open source - all that is different.
genome, beowoulf, bash, pre-installed and unlicensed compilers for C, C++ etc...
yade yade yada yourself....
If I'm over-enthuastic, it's cause I'm fed up with all the crap from other OS vendors. I've worked with SCO, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, DGUX, and APUX. Oh yeah, lets not forget NT and the standard daily reboot. I've seen a lot of false promises and a lot of hype, alot of bloatware and alot of bull from sales people. Like it or not, Linux is it, because it's not about Linux but about controll and not being forced into one vendors stupid design and/or management decisions.
- Why does all unix have to be Linux? It's about the right thing for the job and having a choice. If all we have is Linux then there really isn't much of a choice anymore. As long as the different unices (and hopefull windows too) all work together by following standards then we can all use the os we like or need for the job.
But that's the point, Linux gives you a choice, Solaris and NT don't. I would have no problems with MS or SUN if their stuff was truly open-source. But by coercing it they are not only locking everyone else out, but locking the door their own future too. They can't grow in a competitive manner this way, they will be left behind like I said. Don't you get it - closed source is the path to closed standards.- Also, why does Sun have bend to the wills of the slashdot community? They are doing rather well right now, and their Ultras are selling like crazy (even though it would be nice to get a Ultra 5 with SCSI disks
:). Solaris 8 ships with a cd full of gnu stuff, you can buy a Ultra workstation with Redhat Linux from Sun directly, and they have released a utility to run Linux x86 things on Solaris x86. There are more ways to work with the free software community than by just tacking their os software under the gpl or bsd license.
Sun does not half to bend for the slashdot community, but they do for the facts. Bigger people have fallen harder than SUN, the mere fact that their CD's have a bunch of GNU stuff is almost an acknowledgement of where they are being forced to go.- I use Linux every day myself (not to mention Solaris and *BSD), but Linux isn't a replacement for Solaris with it's good multi cpu support and ability to hot patch the kernel (just to name a few things).
Lunux isn't a replacement for Solaris now, but it will be.;) It's simply a more competitive paradigm.- There is a place for everything, and for linux to 'win' others unices don't have to 'lose.'
Agreed, not if they go GPL. If they win or loose is their choice.Lots of Money. I'm sure that's the case with Microsoft too. But the simple fact is that "Lots of Money" simply does not guarantee a secure future in this business. They'll get squeezed out on the OS innovations just like they already have been with Java. Competitors like IBM are already getting ahead of there here.
All the others are A) going to go away or B) be merged into Linux. Linux is simply a more competitive paradigm. When IBM, HP, SUN, DEC (Compaq) and every other PC, Computer embeded device run Linux - the market pressures to toss out the others will be enormous. They already are, sumoe people like Sun though just don't (want to) get it yet.