For crying out loud, let companies have some rights, okay?
Ah yes, corporate America, that abused underclass of the 21st century, every day working hard for their customers and getting nothing in return.
get real!
These corporate monopolies deliver crappy service while making huge profits secure in the knowledge that there customers have nowhere else to go, and you want me to feel sorry for them when their attitude is exposed for all to see? not likely.
So, when you work for a local factory and discover that it is polluting the surrounding area causing children to grow up with crippling illnesses and birth defects, and you discover some documents that can prove this, you are in the wrong for publicising that fact because of copyright law?!
It sometimes amazes me how the average IQ of Slashdot readers has dropped in the past 12 months.
As someone who has lived in London for the past year I am afraid I can't allow your piece of NRA propeganda to go unquestioned. If you think that flooding London with weapons is likely to improve the crime situation (which is no more "out of control" than in any other large city) then you are sorely mistaken. Did you know that more police in the US are shot by their own weapon? I resent you justifying your personal need for a lethal penis substitute in terms of it helping the crime situation.
To any Americans relieved that the UK too is capable of insane legislation, note carefully that UK citizens have had the ability to appeal to the European court of Human Rights - and soon directly to their own courts. It would seem that the American government doesn't think that Americans are humans, since they have not incorporated human rights into their law. Witness the value of this as RIPA is killed in the UK. Witness how there is nothing in US law to prevent the same thing being introduced in the US (the constitution is circumvented on a daily basis and is basically retreating on almost every issue - note the DMCA Vs the 1st Amendment).
It is true that fuzzy searching has not yet been implemented - although searching by song title, artist, and album are possible using "subspaces", a mechanism present in our recent 0.3 release. I recently posted a proposal for this to the Freenet mailing-list and I think some guys are working on it.
The underlying Freenet architecture should actually be quite a good fuzzy-searching system, it is just that we have not got around to enabling that functionality yet as we have been concentrating on getting the underlying architecture right.
Nope, I didn't learn Java at University, I learned it on an internship with 3Com Corp. The reasons for our choice of Java are spelt out in the FAQ (simplicity, portability, good networking support), but there is a C++ version called WhiteRose in the works as we speak.
I see, so instead of developing this in an Open Source environment, it should have been developed behind closed doors without public scrutiny until we had finalized the release?
Forgive me if I don't share your enthusiasm for this approach.
Quantum theory also provides a solution to this. Quantum cryptography allows the transmission of information so securely that you can *guarantee* that nobody is listening in - making it irrelevant whether they are using a quantum computer or not. I am unsure whether this will allow anything analogous to public/private key cryptography, although given that there are ways to prove that you know how to do something, without revealing what that thing is (see section on digital cash in "Applied Cryptography"), perhaps there is an answer.
Ok, why is Python better than Perl? Well you start off by cheating - "Firstly, dismiss syntax issues". No, I don't think I will. Sure you could write a front end to Perl that would make it just like Python, after all, they are both Turing machines, but that doesn't mean there is no difference. You sit someone familiar with neither Perl or Python down in front of two moderately complicated computer programs, and see which one they figure out first.
As for Scheme, that is largely a syntax issue too. Scheme, and Lisp, were great when they were first invented - "hey, look at these cool new linked-lists, let's build a language around them", but we have moved on from there. Scheme's syntax is designed for computers, not people.
You may not have used all three languages, but I have. Try out Python, you will see my point.
The only thing that I find strange is why people even consider using a language other than Python. Ok, if you have spent ages learning that %$&*|!@ in Perl is actually a fully fledged operating system then I can understand why you might be irritated that there is now a less painful way to do scripting, but that really shouldn't be everyone else's problem. It further never ceases to amaze me when people continue to push languages like Scheme (Sawfish - nice WM, shame about the scripting language!), it strikes me that they are grinding an axe back from when they were in University and someone made them learn Lisp. Well if they had to do it, then everyone who wants to use their software would damn well have to too!
Is this flamebait? Oh sorry, I forgot that dissenting thought isn't allowed on Slashdot.
If those American companies want to trade in the EU then the EU does have a say in what they can and can't do. If they don't like it, then they can just stop trading in the EU - simple.
If this type of thing is permitted to continue then we risk creating a society where, instead of rewarding creativity, it is demonised. And why? So that those who lack the wit to adapt don't have to.
Ian Clarke.
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Re:this sums up the slashdot journalistic ethos
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You might be content to have your opinions pre-formed for you, but personally I would rather hear the facts and then come to my own conclusions. Just because most printed media is incapable of impartiality does not mean that we can not strive to be better than them.
As far as I can see, this is what Infrasearch hope to do, except they expect people like eBay to help them to do it by giving Infra access to their database!
Does anyone else think that they will have their work cut out for them?
For the most part Python is one of my favourite languages, however I do feel that the Object Orientated abilities draw far too much from C++, and consequently seem like a bit of an afterthought (since OO was, quite literally, an afterthought with C/C++). I think, though, that many people give Java a hard time purely because it is cool to do so. I, for one, think Java is the best language available - it is carefully thought out, and with new JIT technologies it is much faster than Python. Its implementation of OO is also much more natural IMHO.
While I can't speak for everyone unhappy with copyright, but supportive of the GPL, my view is that sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. If there was no copyright, then there would be little need for the GPL, but there is copyright so we have a right to protect ourselves using any means nescessary, even copyright itself. Think about peacekeepers - ultimately their aim is to eradicate violence, but in order to achieve this they must use violence or the thread of violence themselves. It is simply being pragmatic, not hypocritical.
I know that this is talking around the topic, but I have always been puzzled as to why a "flamebait" rating is negative on SlashDot. Surely this is just inviting people to mark down anything contraversial or likely to provoke debate? Isn't debate what sites like SlashDot are largely about?
And here we see the hypocrasy spelt out - it is obvious that posting a story about a flamefest is inviting the flamefest to spread onto/. Personally I think that is a good thing - but perhaps Rob & Co should decide whether heated debate is or isn't desired on/.
The problem is that a link is just a piece of information telling you where you can find something - it is the web browser that gives the illusion that the content is stored on the server which provides the hyperlink. If you accept that linking to illegal material should also be illegal then you are opening a pandora's box of problems that have major implications for free speech. It would ultimately make it illegal to tell anybody anything which may allow them to commit a crime! I have visions of computer science lecturers being jailed for giving students the skills to crack computer systems and such like!
You either know something nobody else does (unlikely), or you don't know what you are talking about (more likely). How do you propose someone could (realistically) break Freenet's anonymity?
...is a strange way to spend your time without being paid for it. If they think that copyright enforcement is the new "Free Speech Online" (I am just waiting for their ribbon - I wonder whether people will have to pay to display it?) then they really have failed to see the direction things are going.
One of the questions I am often asked about Freenet is what I would do if someone placed my medical record on to the system, or something else which I consider personal. This question forced me to adopt a rather strange view-point. That is, I don't think it will be possible to have privacy in the information age, the best we can hope for is that nobody (not even our government) will have privacy, ie. that we will all be equally exposed. I can see a time a few years down the line when people will have cameras looking out of their bedroom windows, monitoring and recording everyone who goes past, and selling this information to companies who will collate this information, and allow people to cheaply query their database much like Yahoo ("where was my girlfriend last night?" "where was the prime minister last night?" etc).
Most people would recoil in horror from this idea, but consider what kind of a society would result from this... we may not have a choice in the matter.
It is clear that nothing we say or do will change their opinion, however they have expressed a willingness to modify the site in subtle ways in response to our suggestions. I think it is better to exploit this by taking advantage of their gesture, rather than simply continuing to flame them (which won't help our case), or ignoring it completely (which definitely won't help our case). It is all very well saying "this is so evil I don't want to have anything to-do with it", but that won't change anything, zealotry rarely does. We need to think within their mentality - what changes would they be willing to make, which still fits within their world-view? It is much easier to change something by being part of it, rather than standing on the outside and shouting abuse at them.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, corporate America, that abused underclass of the 21st century, every day working hard for their customers and getting nothing in return.
get real!
These corporate monopolies deliver crappy service while making huge profits secure in the knowledge that there customers have nowhere else to go, and you want me to feel sorry for them when their attitude is exposed for all to see? not likely.
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It sometimes amazes me how the average IQ of Slashdot readers has dropped in the past 12 months.
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The underlying Freenet architecture should actually be quite a good fuzzy-searching system, it is just that we have not got around to enabling that functionality yet as we have been concentrating on getting the underlying architecture right.
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Forgive me if I don't share your enthusiasm for this approach.
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As for Scheme, that is largely a syntax issue too. Scheme, and Lisp, were great when they were first invented - "hey, look at these cool new linked-lists, let's build a language around them", but we have moved on from there. Scheme's syntax is designed for computers, not people.
You may not have used all three languages, but I have. Try out Python, you will see my point.
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Is this flamebait? Oh sorry, I forgot that dissenting thought isn't allowed on Slashdot.
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Ian Clarke.
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Does anyone else think that they will have their work cut out for them?
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I think, though, that many people give Java a hard time purely because it is cool to do so. I, for one, think Java is the best language available - it is carefully thought out, and with new JIT technologies it is much faster than Python. Its implementation of OO is also much more natural IMHO.
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And here we see the hypocrasy spelt out - it is obvious that posting a story about a flamefest is inviting the flamefest to spread onto /. Personally I think that is a good thing - but perhaps Rob & Co should decide whether heated debate is or isn't desired on /.
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If you accept that linking to illegal material should also be illegal then you are opening a pandora's box of problems that have major implications for free speech. It would ultimately make it illegal to tell anybody anything which may allow them to commit a crime! I have visions of computer science lecturers being jailed for giving students the skills to crack computer systems and such like!
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I don't, however, think that what these guys are doing is wrong - but anyone who gets caught-out by it only has themselves to blame.
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Most people would recoil in horror from this idea, but consider what kind of a society would result from this... we may not have a choice in the matter.
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