There's no difference between someone posting to a weblog and someone posting to a web page. They're the same thing. The medium, the method of transmission, isn't the issue. The issue is the information that you post. If you violate an NDA, you've violated an NDA. The medium you used to convey that information to other people is beside the point. Ditto if you knowingly publish false and disparaging information about someone on you website, or calling into to talk radio, etc. Even if it's clearly labelled opinion, you're subject to legal action.
U.S. persons have the free speech rights on the Web as they do anywhere else. And the same responsibilities.
The laws and Constitutional guarantees regarding free speech concern themselves with speech, not the medium by which that speech is transmitted. Knowingly posting lies about someone on your weblog is equivalent to posting the same lies in an ad you bought in your local newspaper. Or a commercial on TV. Or splashing it on a billboard next to the Interstate.
The fact that the Internet uses different technology that radio, TV, newspapers, etc., doesn't mean the rules have changed.
That's one of the lamest, most ill informed, statements I've ever seen on Slashdot (...think about that.)
The data you post to a web site that is under your control is just that, under your control. Your assertion that you are not liable for illegal material that you collected and placed on a server that is owned by someone else is fatuous. You're renting space on that server, and you're responsible for what you put in that space.
And don't get to cute about imagining you can post pseudonymously or anonymously and evade responsibility. Your IP address points right back to you. Any prosecutor worth his/her salt can get a warrant compelling your ISP to trace that info and identify the person who made the post. (Happens a lot to AOL in the Loudoun County, Virginia, courts.)
Distance Between Spacefaring Worlds?
on
Starcraft
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· Score: 2
You know, no matter how you run those numbers, I keep wondering why anyone would bother to visit us, even if they could? What's here for them?
That's particularly so if we assume that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. Given that, I'd be interested in seeing some speculation on the average distance between spacefaring worlds. Great distances between these worlds would dampen chances for discovery, much less travel.
Re:Something had to have happened ...
on
Starcraft
·
· Score: 2
Heh...what happened is a lot of people saw a chance to pick up some cash...
Freedom without innovation doesn't do users any good. I use whatever software I like, whether is is free or commercial. There's no reason why I should limit myself. If you're willing to limit your choices -- "FREE is more important that innovative" -- because of adherence to a development model, then that's your decision. I don't agree. My interest is in using better software; the free software movement gives me free knock-offs of software I can easily afford to buy. E.g., why use Gimp if I can buy PhotoShop? Why OpenOffice when I can buy Office? Etc., etc.
I've no problem with the principles of software developers who adhere to free/open source beliefs. But there is no necessary connection between adherence to that ideology and original ideas for desktop consumer software.
I respect what the FSF is trying to do (although that is taking a much broader perspective than this Darwin versus Apple snit). However, I don't believe they can demonstrate that their efforts have increased the amount of innovative and useful software available to users, whether that software is proprietary or free.
GNU -- in intent and in reality -- is a rewrite of the basic Unix toolset. Commendable, but not innovative, and certainly of no use to the typical computer user. (By my definition, anyone who makes the effort to learn Unix is not typical.)
Ditto Linux, et al. Commendable, yes. Have they fostered the development of original software? Perhaps, if you view the computing world from inside a server. But, if you're a desktop user with no interest in the ideology driving the free software movement, you'll see that Linux has fostered software that mimics proprietary software -- KDE, Gnome, Gimp, the OS itself, etc. All useful, but not original and not especially innovative.)
Note that I'm not arguing that the commercial software world has been any more innovative. They haven't. But, then, the free/open source software community isn't really pushing them, either.
People who actually use computers are done a great disservice by this kind of petty political bickering. It's the open source equivalent of Microsoft's marketing gimmicks: Just noise that wastes my time.
Some developers appear to be so isolated from the real world of computing that they are convinced that users care about all this trumped up ideological puffery about licensing. As a current Apple user (and a former Linux user), I don't care. What I want is better, more innovative software. Yapping about licensing schemes doesn't get me better software, proprietary or free. These developers should stop pretending to be lawyers and start developing.
"Free" Windows preloads certainly hurt anyone trying to sell a PC OS, but I'm not sure that IBM had anything to gain by giving away OS/2 at no cost. A "loss leader" implies that customers will come back and buy another of your products. IBM really had no other products to sell into the OS/2 space, at least into the consumer space.
In addition to Microsoft's fair and unfair competition, IBM failed to realize that a consumer OS won't sell unless you also create a compelling environment (apps and services) for customers to buy into. Microsoft has done that, and Apple has done that; even Linux has done that for its little sliver of the market. IBM, however, marketed an OS whose claim to fame was that it could run a competitor's products.
As someone who used versions 2,3, and 4 of OS/2, I can say it sure would have been nice to see IBM put at least a little bit of energy into the OS. But, the fact is that OS/2 has never been as critical to IBM's success as Window's is to Microsoft. IBM is a much larger, much different kind of company than Mirosoft. OS/2 is just one of thousands of products, not by any means a core IBM product. It's easy to imagine an IBM without OS/2, but not a Microsoft without Windows.
Well said. Apparently, the "editors" are busy watching Japanese cartoons.
Seriously, if they want to make this place a haven for college sophomores, I wish they'd be explicit about it. I'm getting tired of wading through crap like this. This guy's not the first guy to be ripped off for small change. If he hasn't lived long enough to know how to handle it, why should we care?
Geez, no need to wait for VA to go belly up. Just put together some code to key on about 6 keywords and write some boilerplate verbiage to use over and over again to to set up the piecees and we'd see a substantial improvement in editorial quality around here.
The reason NASA keeps trying to sell the ISS as a research platform is because they -- and Congress -- lack the imagination and courage to lay out an honest plan to build a capability to travel in space. And, by "travel", I don't mean going around in circles in Earth orbit.
The science hook, in any case, invariably fails because, short of finding giant Clarkeian monoliths floating in space, the research that is done is yawningly invisible to everyone but the participants.
Science will happen in space, just as science happened when the aircraft industry built a global capability in the 30's and 40's. Remember, this, though, PanAm didn't start flying paying passengers across oceans for research purposes.
Yep, me. It's an assertion of a defensible opinion. There's simply no reason to expect Windows or the Mac to disappear, no matter what happens in the Linux camp.
I was aware, but chose to ignore, the implications of using the word "selling". In the broader sense, however, anyone interested in finding an audience for the software they've developed is engaged in "selling" that software, even if the give it away.
The wider desktop audience, I think, perceives the acquisition of software as a "buying" and "selling" experience, that is, a market transaction. I doubt that an inward-looking development model geared to the needs of ideologically motivated developers will foster products desktop users really want.
Not to be a naysayer, but in 12 years Linux has managed to gain only a few percentage points worth of the desktop market. Users really don't care, don't know, and have no reason to be aware of the development model used to create their software.
In all probability, Linux will never replace Windows, or even the Mac, on the desktop. It can, however, carve out a viable slice of the market if the Linux community delivers attractive, innovative, easy-to-use software with capabilities that users want but cannot find elsewhere. By and large, this hasn't happened yet.
And, it will not happen if too many Linux developers continue to imagine that their development model is what they're selling. It isn't.
Shuttle missions are less frequent and more expensive than orignally intended. I think it is fair to call the project a success only if we acknowledge that the shuttle's objectives have been scaled back.
We have less lift capability today than we did more than 30 years ago. While I agree that NASA, or any othe agency or country, is unlikely to launch fission-powered rockets from Earth, the Moon provides a safe location for their assembly and launch. An honest and reasonable plan would see us -- it doesn't have to be NASA -- commit to returning to the Moon with that objective in mind. Of course, that doesn't negate the need to develop propulsion technologies that can move payloads on the order of hundreds of tons across planetary distances in a few weeks, rather than hundreds of pounds in a few years.
Re: worldwide communications -- This is, I think, a matter of definition. Mail and the telegraph enabled global communication early in the 19th century. The spread of new Earth-bound communication technologies will be driven by economic, not techological, factors.
I have to disagree. The Space Shuttle is a politically compromised vehicle with no place to go. It has failed to live up to its promise of reliable, cheap and frequent access to orbit. The capability to build and sustain a permanent human presence in Earth orbit should have come in the context of creating infrastructure to support missions to explore and exploit the Moon, Mars and the rest of the Solar System. Lacking the vision and the courage to actually commit to going someplace, we have instead conjured up the ISS, an expensive dead-end that appears to be little more than a more polished version of Mir.
While scientific research is a major and obvious component of space exploration, it is not and should not be the major motivation. Space exploration and exploitation should be driven by familiar human drives of wealth, power, greed, curiosity, freedom, etc., that have always sustained human expansion.
The greatest contribution the scientific and engineering community could make to space exploration right now is the development of propulsion technology that provides at least an order of magnitude increase in lift and speed capability. We aren't going anywhere as long as we're dependent on wimpy chemical rockets.
You're right. I call that both theft and immoral. It's also an example of short-sighted packaging on the part of U2's label, who stand to make even more money if they find a way to sell individual tracks. In fact, most of the noise about copying and P2P filesharing would go away if the record companies would get a semblance of a clue and start using the web as a distribution medium, instead of running from it in panic.
It is common here to link theft to removing a physical object, to, as you put it, deplete the supply by one without paying for it. The assertion is often used an an attempt to nullify theft of intellectual property: That argument states that there is no theft since the supply is not reduced.
Theft is the acquisition of something -- physical or intellectural property -- without permission. If you shoplift a CD, that's theft, because you have acquired something without permission of the owner. That you "depleted the supply" is an effect of your theft, but it is not the theft itself.
Likewise, if you acquire a copy of intellectual property without the permission of the property's owner, you have engaged in theft. The fact that the supply is not "depleted" by your action does not nullify the theft.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no difference between someone posting to a weblog and someone posting to a web page. They're the same thing. The medium, the method of transmission, isn't the issue. The issue is the information that you post. If you violate an NDA, you've violated an NDA. The medium you used to convey that information to other people is beside the point. Ditto if you knowingly publish false and disparaging information about someone on you website, or calling into to talk radio, etc. Even if it's clearly labelled opinion, you're subject to legal action.
U.S. persons have the free speech rights on the Web as they do anywhere else. And the same responsibilities.
The laws and Constitutional guarantees regarding free speech concern themselves with speech, not the medium by which that speech is transmitted. Knowingly posting lies about someone on your weblog is equivalent to posting the same lies in an ad you bought in your local newspaper. Or a commercial on TV. Or splashing it on a billboard next to the Interstate.
The fact that the Internet uses different technology that radio, TV, newspapers, etc., doesn't mean the rules have changed.
That's one of the lamest, most ill informed, statements I've ever seen on Slashdot (...think about that.)
The data you post to a web site that is under your control is just that, under your control. Your assertion that you are not liable for illegal material that you collected and placed on a server that is owned by someone else is fatuous. You're renting space on that server, and you're responsible for what you put in that space.
And don't get to cute about imagining you can post pseudonymously or anonymously and evade responsibility. Your IP address points right back to you. Any prosecutor worth his/her salt can get a warrant compelling your ISP to trace that info and identify the person who made the post. (Happens a lot to AOL in the Loudoun County, Virginia, courts.)
You know, no matter how you run those numbers, I keep wondering why anyone would bother to visit us, even if they could? What's here for them?
That's particularly so if we assume that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. Given that, I'd be interested in seeing some speculation on the average distance between spacefaring worlds. Great distances between these worlds would dampen chances for discovery, much less travel.
Heh...what happened is a lot of people saw a chance to pick up some cash...
Freedom without innovation doesn't do users any good. I use whatever software I like, whether is is free or commercial. There's no reason why I should limit myself. If you're willing to limit your choices -- "FREE is more important that innovative" -- because of adherence to a development model, then that's your decision. I don't agree. My interest is in using better software; the free software movement gives me free knock-offs of software I can easily afford to buy. E.g., why use Gimp if I can buy PhotoShop? Why OpenOffice when I can buy Office? Etc., etc.
I've no problem with the principles of software developers who adhere to free/open source beliefs. But there is no necessary connection between adherence to that ideology and original ideas for desktop consumer software.
I respect what the FSF is trying to do (although that is taking a much broader perspective than this Darwin versus Apple snit). However, I don't believe they can demonstrate that their efforts have increased the amount of innovative and useful software available to users, whether that software is proprietary or free.
GNU -- in intent and in reality -- is a rewrite of the basic Unix toolset. Commendable, but not innovative, and certainly of no use to the typical computer user. (By my definition, anyone who makes the effort to learn Unix is not typical.)
Ditto Linux, et al. Commendable, yes. Have they fostered the development of original software? Perhaps, if you view the computing world from inside a server. But, if you're a desktop user with no interest in the ideology driving the free software movement, you'll see that Linux has fostered software that mimics proprietary software -- KDE, Gnome, Gimp, the OS itself, etc. All useful, but not original and not especially innovative.)
Note that I'm not arguing that the commercial software world has been any more innovative. They haven't. But, then, the free/open source software community isn't really pushing them, either.
People who actually use computers are done a great disservice by this kind of petty political bickering. It's the open source equivalent of Microsoft's marketing gimmicks: Just noise that wastes my time.
Some developers appear to be so isolated from the real world of computing that they are convinced that users care about all this trumped up ideological puffery about licensing. As a current Apple user (and a former Linux user), I don't care. What I want is better, more innovative software. Yapping about licensing schemes doesn't get me better software, proprietary or free. These developers should stop pretending to be lawyers and start developing.
"Free" Windows preloads certainly hurt anyone trying to sell a PC OS, but I'm not sure that IBM had anything to gain by giving away OS/2 at no cost. A "loss leader" implies that customers will come back and buy another of your products. IBM really had no other products to sell into the OS/2 space, at least into the consumer space.
In addition to Microsoft's fair and unfair competition, IBM failed to realize that a consumer OS won't sell unless you also create a compelling environment (apps and services) for customers to buy into. Microsoft has done that, and Apple has done that; even Linux has done that for its little sliver of the market. IBM, however, marketed an OS whose claim to fame was that it could run a competitor's products.
When you launch a Windows app in OS/2, it launches Windows inside a virtual DOS box, then runs your app. It's real Windows 3.1 code, not an emulation.
As someone who used versions 2,3, and 4 of OS/2, I can say it sure would have been nice to see IBM put at least a little bit of energy into the OS. But, the fact is that OS/2 has never been as critical to IBM's success as Window's is to Microsoft. IBM is a much larger, much different kind of company than Mirosoft. OS/2 is just one of thousands of products, not by any means a core IBM product. It's easy to imagine an IBM without OS/2, but not a Microsoft without Windows.
Not true. OS/2 is at release 4, originally released in 1995, well after the release of Windows 3.1
>> Where is the adult supervision at Slashdot?
Well said. Apparently, the "editors" are busy watching Japanese cartoons.
Seriously, if they want to make this place a haven for college sophomores, I wish they'd be explicit about it. I'm getting tired of wading through crap like this. This guy's not the first guy to be ripped off for small change. If he hasn't lived long enough to know how to handle it, why should we care?
Geez, no need to wait for VA to go belly up. Just put together some code to key on about 6 keywords and write some boilerplate verbiage to use over and over again to to set up the piecees and we'd see a substantial improvement in editorial quality around here.
The reason NASA keeps trying to sell the ISS as a research platform is because they -- and Congress -- lack the imagination and courage to lay out an honest plan to build a capability to travel in space. And, by "travel", I don't mean going around in circles in Earth orbit.
The science hook, in any case, invariably fails because, short of finding giant Clarkeian monoliths floating in space, the research that is done is yawningly invisible to everyone but the participants.
Science will happen in space, just as science happened when the aircraft industry built a global capability in the 30's and 40's. Remember, this, though, PanAm didn't start flying paying passengers across oceans for research purposes.
...on a par with the usual juvenile Halloween vandalism. It's only impact will be to discredit the adults in the room.
That a Slashdot editor put down his comic book long enough to find this two-day old story so funny tells us a lot.
...enough said.
Yep, me. It's an assertion of a defensible opinion. There's simply no reason to expect Windows or the Mac to disappear, no matter what happens in the Linux camp.
I was aware, but chose to ignore, the implications of using the word "selling". In the broader sense, however, anyone interested in finding an audience for the software they've developed is engaged in "selling" that software, even if the give it away.
The wider desktop audience, I think, perceives the acquisition of software as a "buying" and "selling" experience, that is, a market transaction. I doubt that an inward-looking development model geared to the needs of ideologically motivated developers will foster products desktop users really want.
Not to be a naysayer, but in 12 years Linux has managed to gain only a few percentage points worth of the desktop market. Users really don't care, don't know, and have no reason to be aware of the development model used to create their software.
In all probability, Linux will never replace Windows, or even the Mac, on the desktop. It can, however, carve out a viable slice of the market if the Linux community delivers attractive, innovative, easy-to-use software with capabilities that users want but cannot find elsewhere. By and large, this hasn't happened yet.
And, it will not happen if too many Linux developers continue to imagine that their development model is what they're selling. It isn't.
Shuttle missions are less frequent and more expensive than orignally intended. I think it is fair to call the project a success only if we acknowledge that the shuttle's objectives have been scaled back.
We have less lift capability today than we did more than 30 years ago. While I agree that NASA, or any othe agency or country, is unlikely to launch fission-powered rockets from Earth, the Moon provides a safe location for their assembly and launch. An honest and reasonable plan would see us -- it doesn't have to be NASA -- commit to returning to the Moon with that objective in mind. Of course, that doesn't negate the need to develop propulsion technologies that can move payloads on the order of hundreds of tons across planetary distances in a few weeks, rather than hundreds of pounds in a few years.
Re: worldwide communications -- This is, I think, a matter of definition. Mail and the telegraph enabled global communication early in the 19th century. The spread of new Earth-bound communication technologies will be driven by economic, not techological, factors.
I have to disagree. The Space Shuttle is a politically compromised vehicle with no place to go. It has failed to live up to its promise of reliable, cheap and frequent access to orbit. The capability to build and sustain a permanent human presence in Earth orbit should have come in the context of creating infrastructure to support missions to explore and exploit the Moon, Mars and the rest of the Solar System. Lacking the vision and the courage to actually commit to going someplace , we have instead conjured up the ISS, an expensive dead-end that appears to be little more than a more polished version of Mir.
While scientific research is a major and obvious component of space exploration, it is not and should not be the major motivation. Space exploration and exploitation should be driven by familiar human drives of wealth, power, greed, curiosity, freedom, etc., that have always sustained human expansion.
The greatest contribution the scientific and engineering community could make to space exploration right now is the development of propulsion technology that provides at least an order of magnitude increase in lift and speed capability. We aren't going anywhere as long as we're dependent on wimpy chemical rockets.
You're right. I call that both theft and immoral. It's also an example of short-sighted packaging on the part of U2's label, who stand to make even more money if they find a way to sell individual tracks. In fact, most of the noise about copying and P2P filesharing would go away if the record companies would get a semblance of a clue and start using the web as a distribution medium, instead of running from it in panic.
It is common here to link theft to removing a physical object, to, as you put it, deplete the supply by one without paying for it. The assertion is often used an an attempt to nullify theft of intellectual property: That argument states that there is no theft since the supply is not reduced.
Theft is the acquisition of something -- physical or intellectural property -- without permission. If you shoplift a CD, that's theft, because you have acquired something without permission of the owner. That you "depleted the supply" is an effect of your theft, but it is not the theft itself.
Likewise, if you acquire a copy of intellectual property without the permission of the property's owner, you have engaged in theft. The fact that the supply is not "depleted" by your action does not nullify the theft.