"Many journalists, parents, educators and politicians chose to blame the Net and computer games rather than face the much more complex and unwelcome messages coming from Littleton."
Well said.
"Some of these stories from Slashdot.org ultimately were broadcast via MSNBC.com, ABCnews.com and Cnn.com and NPR and are being quoted in influential newspapers; they continue to circulate. Sunday, the San Jose Mercury reprinted "Voices From the Hellmouth" on the front page of its opinion section..."
That's a refreshing change. Shashdot is usually quoting those sources, rather than the other way around. Maybe we'll start to see a shift here as Slashdot slowy starts to become a first tier news outlet. Then again, maybe not. (?)
Anyway, good luck to you geeks that are still in school. Been there, done that.
...and I liked it. At first it was a little confusing looking but I was surprised at how fast I was able to input text after only a few minutes of playing with it. I don't have a Palm Pilot, so I'm not sure how "grafiti" works, otherwise I'd voice a comparison. Oh well.
Kudos to the QuickWiting folks for daring to try something new like this. I like it.
1) Localization. It is hard to fully "harness the power of the internet" when the project is specific to one country, state, or city. I'm not going to get involved in Italian legal issues, nor do I think many Brazilian internet users are interested in AnyState USA's legal issues.
2) Where's the reward? Even it is just bragging rights, development of open source software carries rewards that I can't find in the legal model.
3) Too many different opinions. Software opinions can usually be resolved by deciding what is technically correct, or what gets the job done. Legal issues seem to be much more difficult to get a group to come to agreement.
It's probably worth a try, but it really don't see this one catching on or lasting very long.
I'm not sure exactly what was meant by "bottom of the barrel", but I'm guessing that it didn't refer to you specifically. I think the point is that when a journalist uses anonymous comments posted on slashdot (and we are ALL anonymous) it seems like a lot of filler or bottom of the barrel reporting.
When people are quoted in news stories, it is usually because they have some relation to the story. (Mr. X's attorney said... Witness Y saw... Spokesperson Z felt that...) Otherwise, little value is added, other than reporting what the general feeling about an event is. If that is the case, then I think the reporter should report the anonymous quote is representative and not authoritative in any way.
It seemed pretty strict with the requirements and there was a really interesting little quote that said, "If Gore 2000 selects your material for use on our website we will contact you with further legal requirements. "
It may be "Open Source", but I doubt it meets the requirements for " Free Software" (as mentioned earlier today.)
I had the chance to listen to ESR give a three hour lecture a couple of weeks ago, and I was very impressed. Like him or hate him, he is NOT a fool. He is a smart man and has done a lot to promote good feelings between suits (gasp!) and hackers.
ESR, take all the time off that you need. The community will be fine, we always have been and always will be.
I see your point. No law exists to require libraries/schools to filter (censor) material. In fact, Freedom of Speech would seem to preclude any such law. (Again, if your wife knows differently, I too would be interested in knowing that.) There are laws against selling/showing sexually explicit material to minors-- even if they ask for it. (And rightfully so, IMHO)
Now, here comes the grey area...
What about, rather than actually showing or selling sexually explicit material to minors, someone gives them access to that material? For example, the porno magazines are placed along side other magazines (not the comics) in a store. A strip club that never checks ID's? A vending machine at the mall that sells XXX videos? In each of these cases, a smart lawyer (or maybe even a dumb one) could get the store/club/vendor in a lot of trouble. I can't see any difference btween the library's situation and the ones I've described above. The real question isn't whether or not a store/club/vendor/library could get in trouble it is *should* they get in trouble for those things?
That's why the filter was there. Libraries felt (and rightfully so) that they could get in trouble when some litigation-loving-parent or value-oriented-organization sued them if they they didn't take some steps to prevent inappropriate access by minors.
You may go back to the argument that it isn't society's responsibility to filter, it is the parents responsibility. That may be partly correct, but it isn't very realistic. (I have a 1.5 year old son, and it is all I can do to keep him from eating dirt and marbles. I can only image how hard it will be to keep a constant eye on him when he turns 9 or 13.) I personally think society must bear some of the burden of supporting its own standards and values. If enough people feel that sexually explicit material is dangerous enough to pass laws to regulate it. Then enough people should feel comfortable when some filters are put in place help keep those laws. I don't mind being ID'd to buy beer or guns, nor would I mind having to use a special room at the library to get unrestricted internet access (or whatever the solution might be).
Anyway, there is a fine line here between too much and too little. It needs to be watched closely by everyone.
"In libraries, we don't need a policy of what can and cannot be viewed. This is censorship, pure and simple."
Yes, but the U.S. has laws that REQUIRE censorship of some things to minors. The rule of law (however bad that law might be) is what U.S. citizens live under. If you have objections to the law, change the law-- don't attack the people who are trying to cornform.
Now, in all fairness, the libraries might also be over-stepping their responsibilities. But lets be realistic, THERE ARE NO PERFECT FILTERS! I'm sorry that they have chosen one that is appearently so poor but no matter what filter they use, it will have false positives and let some junk through. Sorry, but for now this is a fact of life.
"If you want to prevent your child from viewing anything you find objectionable, I suggest you hold your child's hand and restrict, TV, books, movies, school, as well as anything else found outside your home."
Agreed. Parents need to do more of this.
"I realize that might be much work..."
That's an understatement. To put it more correctly, I would say something like, "I realize that this is impossible in many cases...". Look, parents need to do better, but society also has a resposibility here. Also long as society believes that things like pronography, tabacco, guns, etc... are harmful to children, there need to be controls on them. That's what the filtering software was, a control. (Maybe a bad one, but afniv hasn't pointed that out yet.)
"By instituting a filter, you are instituting censorship. It is absolutely impossible to filter objectionable material without filtering non-objectinable material at the same time."
True, but dont forget that this is censorship that is mandated by U.S. law. Without trying to stop kids from accessing porno they can be held liable when one does.
"Don't forget, there are many non-objectionable site that use XXX. There will eventually be 10 web sites for the Super Bowls with XXX in it."
True.
"Also, how is one supposed to know if a filtered site is really not objectionable to whatever institution so that it can be brought to the IT manager's attention? That would preclude some unfiltered method of looking at web pages which would make filtering web pages useless."
Very good point. I can quickly think of several possible solutions, but none are very realistic or will work very well.
Anyway, my whole point is that you are you are attacking the wrong people. It isn't the people that put these filters into place that are the problems. (I'm sure that having these filters costs them a lot of money and time. Undoubtably, it would be easier for them not to have to filter.) The real problems are in the laws that force "censorship" of porno from kids. The real problems are in the parents who leave their children unsupervised in dangerous places like libraries and schools. The real problems are in the parents who sue libraries where little Suzy saw a XXX picture. The real problems are with society's values as a whole.
Anyway, this idea scares the living tar out of me! If I ever really had to have such a device implanted though, I want Linus to write the kernel and not Bill.:-)
First let me say that I own a copy of the BeOS and enjoy it immensly. I am NOT trying to slam Be.
With that said, I feel there is a problem with Gasse's "proof". If vendors do not take him up on his offer to pre-install the BeOS free on their machine it does NOT PROVE THAT MS HAS A STANGLEHOLD MONOPOLY. The reasons is simple. 1) BeOS is still coming up to speed. It wasn't until the release of rev 4 a few months ago that Be even supported SCSI. Many still don't have drivers. Much of the OS is still under development. This is not the sort of thing that I would feel confident putting on machines that I sold. (P.S. To its credit I've never seen the BeOS crash!)
2) It takes more than just software.Sales, support, training, infrastructures, etc... all need to get up to speed if a company were to offer the BeOS on machines. Even if it is completely unsupported, it still takes time and energy to sell it with the right hardware and to put it on the drive.
I feel these are two perfectly logical reasons for not taking Gasse up on his offer. I know that these aren't the only reasons, and that the single biggest reason is probably MS fear, but I AM saying that there are other reasons not to run right out and adopt the BeOS.
Even though I don't think this will "prove" anything, I hope this stunt brings attention to MicroSloths unfair business techniques. I hope that vendors take it serious and begin offering the BeOS. I hope to see fair OS competition in my lifetime. Until then, way to Be!
Sure does. Essentially the slashdot effect is a legitimate D.O.S. attack. That can hurt almost any OS if it isn't set up to avoid it or if the hardware just underneath just can't do what it is asked to do. In this case, a pentium 66 (w/8MB RAM?) is NOT a top-o-the-line machine. I doubt NT would have done much better on the same hardware, or Solaris, or AIX or...
Anyway, I guess I'll have to read the details later. They've been slashdotted again. Did anyone NOT see this one coming?
Quicken and Games are the ONLY reasons that I keep windows 95 around. As soon as I'm satisfied with a Linux money manager and Linux games are consistently released I'm MS OS FREE!
I might even be able to buy the hardware for my next system without Windbloze pre-installed. That will truely be a day to celebrate.
Yeah, yeah. You're right, but that doesn't mean we have to sit back quietly and let them struggle through this alone. If things aren't working well, let's raise a voice and get some changes made.
A previous post mentions the idea of having industry specific patent groups. That sounds workable. Maybe we need to start putting more people onto the research of patents and charge companies money if they try to patent something with obvious prior art. Maybe patents could be done away with completely. Maybe we could...
This point is, the USPO is working hard and I'm trying to understand everything they have to keep track of but I'm also in favor of changing a system that obviously isn't working very well. I hope I don't sound like I'm whining. The fact is, I'm pretty frustrated.
-Derek
P.S. Hey, I just had a thought. The blame also rests with microsoft. Who can really say that MS didn't try to pull a sneaky one here? Is there any way the wwwc can pressure them to release the patent?
JonK wrote "The computer morphs. It's transformed into something organic, something personal, an extension of you and what you want to do, rather than a piece of equipment you use but never really understand. Over time, and with patience, it will do what you want it to do, rather than what they tell you you should want it to do."
This is a beautiful paragraph that describes why I'm getting into Linux. I'm sorry to hear about all this guy has had to deal with but, hey, sometimes life is that way. Besides, we can't have all Linux-feel-good articles on this site.
...For a second there I thought this article was going to say that it was renamed to windowmaker2000. Hehehehe. Anyway, sorry for the lame post, I'm just trying to blow off steam after reading about that SightSound patent.
You mean the "stability" angle alone isn't going to do it for them? (read with a sarcastic tone.)
Come on MS, that's how you compete in a free marketplace! You INNOVATE! Make a better product or sell a comparable one for cheaper.
I wonder what they would put into their products if it weren't for competitiors like Linux, WordPerfect, Intuit, Netscape and others... IMHO, not much.
Any "information" product can (and I believe will) run into this same "MP3" type of dilema sooner or later. Take books for example, when e-books start to become more popular I'll bet you see publishers facing the same kind of free distribution (a.k.a. pirating) problems that the music industry now has. How about movies? term papers? software? magazines? etc....
The point is, if you own or sell an information product then you had better start to think about how the internet will affect your business. U.S. Governments are even beginning to have problems with some freedom of information laws. Government institutions have records that have always been open to the public but were rarely looked because they required an inconvenient trip to the courthouse. All of a sudden, these records cause all kinds of commotion when they are posted on the internet and instantly available to millions. The software industry has been facing the "MP3" problem for years and just recently seems to be getting a handle on things.
I don't claim to have the best answers but I can at least recognize the situation before it hits me in the face.
Good luck you big record label types. You'll need it.
It's the smart people they write the labels for. It isn't to warn dumb people about potential dangers, it is to warn smart (and greedy) people that they will not be liable in court. So don't even try to sue them, no matter how you use their product.
Slashdot Mirror
"Many journalists, parents, educators and politicians chose to blame the Net and computer games rather than face the much more complex and unwelcome messages coming from Littleton."
Well said.
"Some of these stories from Slashdot.org ultimately were broadcast via MSNBC.com, ABCnews.com and Cnn.com and NPR and are being quoted in influential newspapers; they continue to circulate. Sunday, the San Jose Mercury reprinted "Voices From the Hellmouth" on the front page of its opinion section..."
That's a refreshing change. Shashdot is usually quoting those sources, rather than the other way around. Maybe we'll start to see a shift here as Slashdot slowy starts to become a first tier news outlet. Then again, maybe not. (?)
Anyway, good luck to you geeks that are still in school. Been there, done that.
-Derek
...and I liked it. At first it was a little confusing looking but I was surprised at how fast I was able to input text after only a few minutes of playing with it. I don't have a Palm Pilot, so I'm not sure how "grafiti" works, otherwise I'd voice a comparison. Oh well.
Kudos to the QuickWiting folks for daring to try something new like this. I like it.
-Derek
Here's why...
1) Localization. It is hard to fully "harness the power of the internet" when the project is specific to one country, state, or city. I'm not going to get involved in Italian legal issues, nor do I think many Brazilian internet users are interested in AnyState USA's legal issues.
2) Where's the reward? Even it is just bragging rights, development of open source software carries rewards that I can't find in the legal model.
3) Too many different opinions. Software opinions can usually be resolved by deciding what is technically correct, or what gets the job done. Legal issues seem to be much more difficult to get a group to come to agreement.
It's probably worth a try, but it really don't see this one catching on or lasting very long.
-Derek
I'm not sure exactly what was meant by "bottom of the barrel", but I'm guessing that it didn't refer to you specifically. I think the point is that when a journalist uses anonymous comments posted on slashdot (and we are ALL anonymous) it seems like a lot of filler or bottom of the barrel reporting.
When people are quoted in news stories, it is usually because they have some relation to the story. (Mr. X's attorney said... Witness Y saw... Spokesperson Z felt that...) Otherwise, little value is added, other than reporting what the general feeling about an event is. If that is the case, then I think the reporter should report the anonymous quote is representative and not authoritative in any way.
-Derek
Did you check out the link (directly under the OPEN SOURCE paragraph) about the legal issues.
http://www.algore2000.com/g etinvolved/legal_notice.html
It seemed pretty strict with the requirements and there was a really interesting little quote that said, "If Gore 2000 selects your material for use on our website we will contact you with further legal requirements. "
It may be "Open Source", but I doubt it meets the requirements for " Free Software" (as mentioned earlier today.)
With MS's awesome legal power he would probably stick it to the fledgling LinusSoft and insist that it be called Stallman/LinusSoft!
-Derek
P.S. Actually, I do appreciate RMS and all he does. Just having a little fun.
Thanks for all the hard work.
I had the chance to listen to ESR give a three hour lecture a couple of weeks ago, and I was very impressed. Like him or hate him, he is NOT a fool. He is a smart man and has done a lot to promote good feelings between suits (gasp!) and hackers.
ESR, take all the time off that you need. The community will be fine, we always have been and always will be.
Thanks again,
-Derek
I see your point. No law exists to require libraries/schools to filter (censor) material. In fact, Freedom of Speech would seem to preclude any such law. (Again, if your wife knows differently, I too would be interested in knowing that.) There are laws against selling/showing sexually explicit material to minors-- even if they ask for it. (And rightfully so, IMHO)
Now, here comes the grey area...
What about, rather than actually showing or selling sexually explicit material to minors, someone gives them access to that material? For example, the porno magazines are placed along side other magazines (not the comics) in a store. A strip club that never checks ID's? A vending machine at the mall that sells XXX videos? In each of these cases, a smart lawyer (or maybe even a dumb one) could get the store/club/vendor in a lot of trouble. I can't see any difference btween the library's situation and the ones I've described above. The real question isn't whether or not a store/club/vendor/library could get in trouble it is *should* they get in trouble for those things?
That's why the filter was there. Libraries felt (and rightfully so) that they could get in trouble when some litigation-loving-parent or value-oriented-organization sued them if they they didn't take some steps to prevent inappropriate access by minors.
You may go back to the argument that it isn't society's responsibility to filter, it is the parents responsibility. That may be partly correct, but it isn't very realistic. (I have a 1.5 year old son, and it is all I can do to keep him from eating dirt and marbles. I can only image how hard it will be to keep a constant eye on him when he turns 9 or 13.) I personally think society must bear some of the burden of supporting its own standards and values. If enough people feel that sexually explicit material is dangerous enough to pass laws to regulate it. Then enough people should feel comfortable when some filters are put in place help keep those laws. I don't mind being ID'd to buy beer or guns, nor would I mind having to use a special room at the library to get unrestricted internet access (or whatever the solution might be).
Anyway, there is a fine line here between too much and too little. It needs to be watched closely by everyone.
-Derek
"In libraries, we don't need a policy of what can and cannot be viewed. This is censorship, pure and simple."
Yes, but the U.S. has laws that REQUIRE censorship of some things to minors. The rule of law (however bad that law might be) is what U.S. citizens live under. If you have objections to the law, change the law-- don't attack the people who are trying to cornform.
Now, in all fairness, the libraries might also be over-stepping their responsibilities. But lets be realistic, THERE ARE NO PERFECT FILTERS! I'm sorry that they have chosen one that is appearently so poor but no matter what filter they use, it will have false positives and let some junk through. Sorry, but for now this is a fact of life.
"If you want to prevent your child from viewing anything you find objectionable, I suggest you hold your child's hand and restrict, TV, books, movies, school, as well as anything else found outside your home."
Agreed. Parents need to do more of this.
"I realize that might be much work..."
That's an understatement. To put it more correctly, I would say something like, "I realize that this is impossible in many cases...". Look, parents need to do better, but society also has a resposibility here. Also long as society believes that things like pronography, tabacco, guns, etc... are harmful to children, there need to be controls on them. That's what the filtering software was, a control. (Maybe a bad one, but afniv hasn't pointed that out yet.)
"By instituting a filter, you are instituting censorship. It is absolutely impossible to filter objectionable material without filtering non-objectinable material at the same time."
True, but dont forget that this is censorship that is mandated by U.S. law. Without trying to stop kids from accessing porno they can be held liable when one does.
"Don't forget, there are many non-objectionable site that use XXX. There will eventually be 10 web sites for the Super Bowls with XXX in it."
True.
"Also, how is one supposed to know if a filtered site is really not objectionable to whatever institution so that it can be brought to the IT manager's attention? That would preclude some unfiltered method of looking at web pages which would make filtering web pages useless."
Very good point. I can quickly think of several possible solutions, but none are very realistic or will work very well.
Anyway, my whole point is that you are you are attacking the wrong people. It isn't the people that put these filters into place that are the problems. (I'm sure that having these filters costs them a lot of money and time. Undoubtably, it would be easier for them not to have to filter.) The real problems are in the laws that force "censorship" of porno from kids. The real problems are in the parents who leave their children unsupervised in dangerous places like libraries and schools. The real problems are in the parents who sue libraries where little Suzy saw a XXX picture. The real problems are with society's values as a whole.
Borg!
:-)
Anyway, this idea scares the living tar out of me! If I ever really had to have such a device implanted though, I want Linus to write the kernel and not Bill.
-Derek
Some interesting thoughts.
That is all I have to say about that.
-Derek
Or so they say...
-Derek
Easy killer.
-Derek
First let me say that I own a copy of the BeOS and enjoy it immensly. I am NOT trying to slam Be.
With that said, I feel there is a problem with Gasse's "proof". If vendors do not take him up on his offer to pre-install the BeOS free on their machine it does NOT PROVE THAT MS HAS A STANGLEHOLD MONOPOLY. The reasons is simple.
1) BeOS is still coming up to speed. It wasn't until the release of rev 4 a few months ago that Be even supported SCSI. Many still don't have drivers. Much of the OS is still under development. This is not the sort of thing that I would feel confident putting on machines that I sold. (P.S. To its credit I've never seen the BeOS crash!)
2) It takes more than just software.Sales, support, training, infrastructures, etc... all need to get up to speed if a company were to offer the BeOS on machines. Even if it is completely unsupported, it still takes time and energy to sell it with the right hardware and to put it on the drive.
I feel these are two perfectly logical reasons for not taking Gasse up on his offer. I know that these aren't the only reasons, and that the single biggest reason is probably MS fear, but I AM saying that there are other reasons not to run right out and adopt the BeOS.
Even though I don't think this will "prove" anything, I hope this stunt brings attention to MicroSloths unfair business techniques. I hope that vendors take it serious and begin offering the BeOS. I hope to see fair OS competition in my lifetime. Until then, way to Be!
-Derek
Sure does. Essentially the slashdot effect is a legitimate D.O.S. attack. That can hurt almost any OS if it isn't set up to avoid it or if the hardware just underneath just can't do what it is asked to do. In this case, a pentium 66 (w/8MB RAM?) is NOT a top-o-the-line machine. I doubt NT would have done much better on the same hardware, or Solaris, or AIX or ...
Anyway, I guess I'll have to read the details later. They've been slashdotted again. Did anyone NOT see this one coming?
-Derek
Quicken and Games are the ONLY reasons that I keep windows 95 around. As soon as I'm satisfied with a Linux money manager and Linux games are consistently released I'm MS OS FREE!
I might even be able to buy the hardware for my next system without Windbloze pre-installed. That will truely be a day to celebrate.
-Derek
Yeah, yeah. You're right, but that doesn't mean we have to sit back quietly and let them struggle through this alone. If things aren't working well, let's raise a voice and get some changes made.
A previous post mentions the idea of having industry specific patent groups. That sounds workable. Maybe we need to start putting more people onto the research of patents and charge companies money if they try to patent something with obvious prior art. Maybe patents could be done away with completely. Maybe we could...
This point is, the USPO is working hard and I'm trying to understand everything they have to keep track of but I'm also in favor of changing a system that obviously isn't working very well. I hope I don't sound like I'm whining. The fact is, I'm pretty frustrated.
-Derek
P.S. Hey, I just had a thought. The blame also rests with microsoft. Who can really say that MS didn't try to pull a sneaky one here? Is there any way the wwwc can pressure them to release the patent?
Hmmmm. enough rambling....
JonK wrote "The computer morphs. It's transformed into something organic, something personal, an extension of you and what you want to do, rather than a piece of equipment you use but never really understand. Over time, and with patience, it will do what you want it to do, rather than what they tell you you should want it to do."
This is a beautiful paragraph that describes why I'm getting into Linux. I'm sorry to hear about all this guy has had to deal with but, hey, sometimes life is that way. Besides, we can't have all Linux-feel-good articles on this site.
That is all.
-Derek
I've never seen an NT kernel patched the day after it was released. Too bad really, 'cause it needed one.
-Derek
P.S. It took me a day to recover from the blue screens of service pack 4!!
...For a second there I thought this article was going to say that it was renamed to windowmaker2000. Hehehehe. Anyway, sorry for the lame post, I'm just trying to blow off steam after reading about that SightSound patent.
-Derek
You mean the "stability" angle alone isn't going to do it for them? (read with a sarcastic tone.)
Come on MS, that's how you compete in a free marketplace! You INNOVATE! Make a better product or sell a comparable one for cheaper.
I wonder what they would put into their products if it weren't for competitiors like Linux, WordPerfect, Intuit, Netscape and others... IMHO, not much.
-Derek
Any "information" product can (and I believe will) run into this same "MP3" type of dilema sooner or later. Take books for example, when e-books start to become more popular I'll bet you see publishers facing the same kind of free distribution (a.k.a. pirating) problems that the music industry now has. How about movies? term papers? software? magazines? etc....
The point is, if you own or sell an information product then you had better start to think about how the internet will affect your business. U.S. Governments are even beginning to have problems with some freedom of information laws. Government institutions have records that have always been open to the public but were rarely looked because they required an inconvenient trip to the courthouse. All of a sudden, these records cause all kinds of commotion when they are posted on the internet and instantly available to millions. The software industry has been facing the "MP3" problem for years and just recently seems to be getting a handle on things.
I don't claim to have the best answers but I can at least recognize the situation before it hits me in the face.
Good luck you big record label types. You'll need it.
-Derek
It's the smart people they write the labels for. It isn't to warn dumb people about potential dangers, it is to warn smart (and greedy) people that they will not be liable in court. So don't even try to sue them, no matter how you use their product.
Get it?
-Derek