Reading this article about attempts to get connectivity all-across Canada reminds me of the reports by the guy who proposed doing the same thing in Israel. You can use old, cheap 486 boxes running linux with inexpensive 100mb network cards to act as routers and since everyone in Israel has to do military service you have the unused labor, they can be running the wires all over the country and putting up the boxes in places. The only costs would be for the cables and that's not much. Run this stuff everywhere and you'd give internet access everywhere in the country. (But, of course, since it would also give it to the palestinians and maybe they wouldn't be kept in the dark and thus continue to be treated the way the U.S. treated negroes in the 1940s they didn't like the idea)
Based on what I am reading from the copy of the policy, essentially what the university wants is the ability to use or republish the student's work without having to get permission or pay royalties, i.e. creating a printed volume of disserations, university press republication, copying off of microfilm, etc.
Given what is being specified here, using the GPL for a software program or an open-content license would seem to be in the same spirit as what they supposedly are trying to do here.
If the intent is honestly what is printed in the referenced web page then that would be compatible with the GPL etc. (Whether there are ulterior motives beyond what is written in the policy is a question I'm not going to ask.)
In the United States, when someone starts a corporation, they file some paperwork with the Secretary of State of some state. For small companies or ones that are usually just operating locally - for example, a doctor incorporating his/her practice or a small business becoming large enough to need some of the benefits of incorporating, the state that they are incorporating in is usually the one that they are operating in.
If your business gets large enough you might need to become a public organization or you want to fend off takeover attempts you'll often re-incorporate in Delaware or possibly Nevada.
As long as the name chosen for the corporation is not being used by someone else and you pay the fees, the corporation will be issued a charter and it is now legally in operation.
That these are granted routinely does not override the fact that one still needs to ask permission of the government to incorporate, and that the government can, in some cases, refuse this permission and may, in egregious instances, revoke the permission which had been granted.
As it stands, if you fail to file a tax return to that state and/or pay the fees for the corporation the next year, the corporate charter will automatically be cancelled.
This is what is being referred to as the "death penalty" for corporations.
If the people who operate the corporation fail to perform certain acts, or in some cases violate certain laws as a corporation, one of the penalties that can be imposed is loss of charter. In effect, the corporation reverts to an "unincorporated organization" or a "partnership." Or it is simply liquidated and its assets, minus any liabilities, are redistributed back to the stockholders, if any.
In really bad cases, the (Federal) government confiscates everything (The brokerage firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert's liquidation after Ivan Boesky comes to mind; the customer accounts - probably worth several billion dollars as assets - were given away to another firm; the stockholders were never compensated for the value of their customer lists) and as a result the stockholders are ripped off by the Government even though they are innocent of wrongdoing.
Microsoft requires in certain cases that some of its software - Patches and Service Packs for some products come to mind - only be used on a licensed copy of a Microsoft Operating Systems. So the answer is that yes, they can require it. I suspect it probably would be upheld too, based on the kind of crap the courts are allowing.
The lessons of history teach us - if anyone ever learns the lessons that history teaches us - that nobody ever learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Where large companies purchase software (especially the stuff requiring a yearly renewal) they will in some cases require that the vendor place the source code to the product in escrow with a third party, that in the event of the vendor's closure, discontinuance of the product or bankruptcy, customers will be issued a copy of the source code to the software with right to use internally. Smaller customers may not have the leverage to require this but it is worth asking about.
The real issue is - or should be - whether an ordinary user can accomplish whatever tasks they are attempting to use the system for. If that user can get their desktop uses of their computer to work and work without excessive hassle or having to have excessive knowledge about how to make the operating system or applications work, and provides a reasonably standard Graphical User Interface then the system qualifies as a desktop-quality operating system.
(I include a GUI because that is the standard for computing today; before the Macintosh or more likely Windows 3.1, that was not mandatory.)
The alleged confusion probably comes from rabid OS worshippers who consider their chosen desktop and OS as the ordained by the One True Church of God(TM) and anything else coming from a Trap of Satan, to be ridiculed as heresy, and any praise of same as blasphemy.
Make no mistake about it, decisions about operating systems rank up there with some people on the level of what religion they should be (Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc.), and for some, which OS or Window Manager as being what denomination they should belong to (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Sunni, Druze, etc.)
For some people their choice of OS (and window manager, if they are using X) can be more significant to them than the question of which church is the One True Church of God(TM).
For most people, some version of the Number of the Beast from Redmond serves their purpose. (95, 95 OSR 1, 98, 98 SE etc.)
A tiny minority pray at the cathedral of St. Jobs. (Let us pray using only one button because we worship the Macintosh above all others.)
About an equal number as the followers of the food of Adam and Eve believe in Linux and X and will have no other gods before them.
The rest worship with some of the lesser cults such as BSD, BE, the Amiga and several thousand other less known cults.
As a result, if you're not of their church, you're an infidel.
I settled this question some six years ago when I wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Washington City Paper when I pointed out in response to an article about people watching for visitors from other worlds
A non-human entity has no rights whatsoever. Full stop. You can place it into the same class as non-threatened species of insects, rodents or plants. If a visitor from another world or an alien invader came here from outer space, anyone could kill them or take them as souveniers or pets without any legal obligation.
Since they are not of any class of protected animal, the rules regarding mistreatment of animals do not apply. (Anyone ever been arrested for torturing or killing rats or cockroaches?)
Since they are not human beings, there are no
'human rights' available to them; they can be treated as property of someone, they can be sold or given to someone and destroyed at the pleasure of their owner.
A non-human extraterrestrial has no rights at all.
A trademark "identifies a work in interstate commerce". It is not necessary to register a trademark but doing so provides certain benefits. But if you don't register it, you have to be able to show first use since - with the exception of certain pre-registrations for proposed use - only the first party to use a mark has the right to register it.
Even if you don't sell the item, you can still register a trademark to identify the item. If one is distributing something it is arguable for these purposes that they are "in commerce" even if the price being charged is zero.
(These are the rules in the U.S. Some other countries make the first to register a mark the owner even if they never use it.)
Also, even if two marks are very similar or even the same, there is only a right to exclude another if there is a possibility that people would be confused as to the source of the goods which the mark covers. If there is no possibility of confusion, there is no right to exclude use by someone else in a non-confusing manner
I believe that Watchtower is a trademark for the free publication given away by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, yet the magazines are free. They also issue a magazine called "Awake". The First Church of Christ, Scientist has registered their church seal (they use the (R) symbol by it). So just because one doesn't charge for the item doesn't mean one can't register a trademark for it.
The biggest issue probably is the $250.00 that it costs to register a trademark in the U.S. If one isn't sure, you could always register the name of the product with your state's trademark office for less; this wouldn't provide federal protection but would provide proof of a date of prior use if the issue ever came up.
It is my understanding that we could have the close equivalent of HDTV with current equipment simply by changing broadcasting from interlaced transmission (each signal sends every odd scan line then comes back and sends every even scan line) to non-interlaced. No new channel space, no expensive hardware and so on and so forth.
The problem being that in order to verify a specific location you would need
a "secure" GPS unit (secure in the way the motion picture companies would want a secure DVD player, i.e. one that cannot be tampered with) so that the address would be guaranteed as accurate
a nonrepudiable identification of the user (a means by which if you are identified as the person using the above device and it cannot be faked) and
a means to guarantee that the user issuing the identification above is in fact the person whom that ID was issued to, e.g. a biometric id such as fingerprints or retinal patterns.
Unless you get all three it's possible to forge a claimed location.
If they were serious about really encouraging people to try and crack this, they'd offer $100,000 or more. Or let's just be glad they didn't think of that. You can get a lot of fairly bright people to walk away from 10K, but a six-figure bounty might be extremely hard to ignore.
In the previous article, a user is quoted as saying,
Unhappy Windows User asks: "An
article on AltaVista states that Microsoft will "fight to the death anything that threatens its intellectual property". The article states that, by keeping APIs closed, Microsoft has an advantage over other software vendors such as Corel. But how exactly would disclosing the source code be a threat to IP?
What the article actually said was,
Throughout its edits of the DOJ proposal, Microsoft tried to draw a distinction between external APIs (which the company is willing to give away and already often does) and internal APIs (which it is fighting tooth and nail to keep under wraps).
I don't think that there was an issue of distributing source code, it was over the exposing of internal and unpublished APIs.
There are possible reasons which it is reasonable and legitimate not to want to release certain APIs. For one thing, the code to handle it may be lower quality or a "hack" put together to solve a problem and might not be adequately tested.
For another, once an API gets published and known, if code that is created relying on those APIs is not to be broken by changes made to them, it means the API must be frozen; any new changes require developing a new API
Even if the intent was to allow release of the source code, it is possible to do so without hurting the value of the (proprietary) program in question. In many cases, there are a number of applications - including some shareware programs - where you either get source code or get it by paying an additional fee. IBM would often sell certain Mainframe system programs with source code. In fact, a proposal to go to OCO (Object Code Only) licenses on these programs was met with severe opposition from customers because they could not be sure they would be able to customize the applications to fit local needs. IBM had promised to provide "exits" (the equivalent of callback functions) to provide certain features. But that doesn't guarantee you can be compatible with the program or know if you have to change something to fix a problem. It might be asked why did they want to do that (or why don't they leave things the way they are)?.
In Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond The Sunsetit was asked,
Whenever someone asks, 'Why don't they?' [or why do they] the answer is almost always, 'money'.
It was suggested the reason for moving to OCO was so IBM could make more sales of its own security product for CICS, instead of third-party companies making money selling security add-ons for IBM's programs.)
A proprietary program can be open source, meaning you do get the source with it or you only get it if you pay extra (pace the Bell Labs Unix license in which a source-code license - except for certain academic customers - cost an arm, a leg and part of the hip and shoulder).
If your product's comes with source code, you can't suddenly jack up the price to stratospheric levels once the customer is locked into the product, as has happened in at least one reported case involving a licensee of the Windows 95 source who it is said saw its fees for source code access go up by many times the original figure because they allegedly did something Microsoft didn't like or because MS decided they could impose huge raises in source license fees.
What has changed in the case of what is being done in the general Open Source market is that the programs being released may be sold or transferred by anyone.
In case you didn't notice, he's at Oxford, University which is in the U.K. Great Britain does not have free speech in the sense that the U.S. does, (it is merely a custom, it is not protected in law) and I think Oxford is a private university meaning even if it was in the U.S., the rules on free speech would not apply.
I can hardly say I blame them.... I don't think that the administration should be under any imperative to check up on allegations before they act.
Hmm, so if some student accuses another student of assault, or rape, or theft, or cheating, the administration should suspend the person accused immediately without bothering to even investigate the matter, see if the complaint makes any sense, or is more than groundless.
In fact, I think they've done the right thing by pulling the page immediately. That may not make most people happy, but it would certainly keep them out of legal hot water. Once the page is down, *then* they can go back and do more research and see what is really going on. (Not that this has happened in this case, but it sounds like a good idea.)
If they use the same guidelines, if anyone accused a student of anything serious, the university should suspend the student and bar them from classes first, then bother to check and see if the accusation has any grounds at all. (Then again, perhaps most universities go that way anyway.)
Newspapers have certain advantages which other media cannot match.
Newspapers are semi-permanent as opposed to other media. Articles on radio or TV are gone as soon as they are broadcast unless recorded. An article on a website can be removed or no longer be available unless someone has been to that page and saved it, which doesn't guarantee the copy is accurate because the copy could have been tampered with. If you didn't get to that web page before it disappeared you'll never know what it said.
One can go to archives of old newspapers as I point out in the next item; since most web pages are copyrighted one cannot (except under fair use) make copies of them for on-line archival purposes.
A newspaper is printed and becomes a matter of public record. Back issues are often kept as archives in the stacks at the public library in that city and perhaps other cities. In smaller cities the newspaper itself keeps its old copies around for archival purposes ("newspaper morgue"). In many cities, newspapers are routinely microfilmed, which means you can go back and look up a newspaper from 30, 40, 50 to as much as 200 or more years ago. (I have seen a microfilm of The London Times dating from the 1700s, it may even have been Volume 1, Number 1).
As was pointed out in George Orwell's 1984 the government - or anyone with an agenda - can change whatever is around if there are not permanent originals that can be maintained. Does anyone believe the People's Republic of China wouldn't change historical records if they could? Unless there are originals which can not be changed without leaving a trace, history and human memory is subject to change anytime those who want to do so
Newspapers are printed on paper; you can carry a newspaper / magazine around and read it anywhere, outdoors, in dim light, even where there is no electricity.
Newspapers are inexpensive. Yes you can get internet access at some public libraries, even the poorest library or most ordinary families can afford a subscription to the local newspaper. This is even more critical for newspapers in third-world countries where the average person can barely afford food. Newspapers would be available to even the poor in those countries at (I presume) public libraries, whereas Internet access might be horrendously expensive or unavailable
You can purchase a newspaper for small change from vendors and machines.
You do not need several hundred to several thousand dollars worth of computer equipment, a telephone line and an internet access account to read a newspaper.
One can use old newspapers for various utility purposes such as lining birdcages, emergency toilet paper, wrapping china for packing or fish for sale, and other things where inexpensive paper is useful.
Once someone pays for a subscription to a newspaper or magazine (or buys a copy at a newsstand or newsrack) you own the issue, you can give away or sell it or archive it. Some news web sites such as The Wall Street Journal require payment to use which means you have to continuously pay for use of the electronic edition.
Newspapers can be used in places where electronic devices would not be suitable.
Over the last 50 years of computer technology many formats have become obsolete, in some cases there is huge amounts of data on old media which has been irretrievably lost because the reading devices are no longer made. Does anyone still use paper tape, dectape, "washing-machine" sized disk drives, 8" diskette drives? Have you noticed the "drying up" of mag tape and 5 1/2" disk drives? As I implied, one can read 200-year-old newspapers because it requires no sophisticated technology other than eyeballs.
Slashdot Mirror
Reading this article about attempts to get connectivity all-across Canada reminds me of the reports by the guy who proposed doing the same thing in Israel. You can use old, cheap 486 boxes running linux with inexpensive 100mb network cards to act as routers and since everyone in Israel has to do military service you have the unused labor, they can be running the wires all over the country and putting up the boxes in places. The only costs would be for the cables and that's not much. Run this stuff everywhere and you'd give internet access everywhere in the country. (But, of course, since it would also give it to the palestinians and maybe they wouldn't be kept in the dark and thus continue to be treated the way the U.S. treated negroes in the 1940s they didn't like the idea)
Based on what I am reading from the copy of the policy, essentially what the university wants is the ability to use or republish the student's work without having to get permission or pay royalties, i.e. creating a printed volume of disserations, university press republication, copying off of microfilm, etc.
Given what is being specified here, using the GPL for a software program or an open-content license would seem to be in the same spirit as what they supposedly are trying to do here.
If the intent is honestly what is printed in the referenced web page then that would be compatible with the GPL etc. (Whether there are ulterior motives beyond what is written in the policy is a question I'm not going to ask.)
If your business gets large enough you might need to become a public organization or you want to fend off takeover attempts you'll often re-incorporate in Delaware or possibly Nevada.
As long as the name chosen for the corporation is not being used by someone else and you pay the fees, the corporation will be issued a charter and it is now legally in operation.
That these are granted routinely does not override the fact that one still needs to ask permission of the government to incorporate, and that the government can, in some cases, refuse this permission and may, in egregious instances, revoke the permission which had been granted.
As it stands, if you fail to file a tax return to that state and/or pay the fees for the corporation the next year, the corporate charter will automatically be cancelled.
This is what is being referred to as the "death penalty" for corporations.
If the people who operate the corporation fail to perform certain acts, or in some cases violate certain laws as a corporation, one of the penalties that can be imposed is loss of charter. In effect, the corporation reverts to an "unincorporated organization" or a "partnership." Or it is simply liquidated and its assets, minus any liabilities, are redistributed back to the stockholders, if any.
In really bad cases, the (Federal) government confiscates everything (The brokerage firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert's liquidation after Ivan Boesky comes to mind; the customer accounts - probably worth several billion dollars as assets - were given away to another firm; the stockholders were never compensated for the value of their customer lists) and as a result the stockholders are ripped off by the Government even though they are innocent of wrongdoing.
Microsoft requires in certain cases that some of its software - Patches and Service Packs for some products come to mind - only be used on a licensed copy of a Microsoft Operating Systems. So the answer is that yes, they can require it. I suspect it probably would be upheld too, based on the kind of crap the courts are allowing.
The lessons of history teach us - if anyone ever learns the lessons that history teaches us - that nobody ever learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Where large companies purchase software (especially the stuff requiring a yearly renewal) they will in some cases require that the vendor place the source code to the product in escrow with a third party, that in the event of the vendor's closure, discontinuance of the product or bankruptcy, customers will be issued a copy of the source code to the software with right to use internally. Smaller customers may not have the leverage to require this but it is worth asking about.
(I include a GUI because that is the standard for computing today; before the Macintosh or more likely Windows 3.1, that was not mandatory.)
The alleged confusion probably comes from rabid OS worshippers who consider their chosen desktop and OS as the ordained by the One True Church of God(TM) and anything else coming from a Trap of Satan, to be ridiculed as heresy, and any praise of same as blasphemy.
Make no mistake about it, decisions about operating systems rank up there with some people on the level of what religion they should be (Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc.), and for some, which OS or Window Manager as being what denomination they should belong to (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Sunni, Druze, etc.)
For some people their choice of OS (and window manager, if they are using X) can be more significant to them than the question of which church is the One True Church of God(TM).
For most people, some version of the Number of the Beast from Redmond serves their purpose. (95, 95 OSR 1, 98, 98 SE etc.)
A tiny minority pray at the cathedral of St. Jobs. (Let us pray using only one button because we worship the Macintosh above all others.)
About an equal number as the followers of the food of Adam and Eve believe in Linux and X and will have no other gods before them.
The rest worship with some of the lesser cults such as BSD, BE, the Amiga and several thousand other less known cults.
As a result, if you're not of their church, you're an infidel.
A non-human entity has no rights whatsoever. Full stop. You can place it into the same class as non-threatened species of insects, rodents or plants. If a visitor from another world or an alien invader came here from outer space, anyone could kill them or take them as souveniers or pets without any legal obligation.
Since they are not of any class of protected animal, the rules regarding mistreatment of animals do not apply. (Anyone ever been arrested for torturing or killing rats or cockroaches?)
Since they are not human beings, there are no 'human rights' available to them; they can be treated as property of someone, they can be sold or given to someone and destroyed at the pleasure of their owner.
A non-human extraterrestrial has no rights at all.
Even if you don't sell the item, you can still register a trademark to identify the item. If one is distributing something it is arguable for these purposes that they are "in commerce" even if the price being charged is zero.
(These are the rules in the U.S. Some other countries make the first to register a mark the owner even if they never use it.)
Also, even if two marks are very similar or even the same, there is only a right to exclude another if there is a possibility that people would be confused as to the source of the goods which the mark covers. If there is no possibility of confusion, there is no right to exclude use by someone else in a non-confusing manner
I believe that Watchtower is a trademark for the free publication given away by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, yet the magazines are free. They also issue a magazine called "Awake". The First Church of Christ, Scientist has registered their church seal (they use the (R) symbol by it). So just because one doesn't charge for the item doesn't mean one can't register a trademark for it.
The biggest issue probably is the $250.00 that it costs to register a trademark in the U.S. If one isn't sure, you could always register the name of the product with your state's trademark office for less; this wouldn't provide federal protection but would provide proof of a date of prior use if the issue ever came up.
Paul Robinson postmaster@paul.washington.dc(deletethis).us
Dan Parisi, the guy who won for LockheedMartinSucks.com has already registered a "wiposucks.com".
It is my understanding that we could have the close equivalent of HDTV with current equipment simply by changing broadcasting from interlaced transmission (each signal sends every odd scan line then comes back and sends every even scan line) to non-interlaced. No new channel space, no expensive hardware and so on and so forth.
Unless you get all three it's possible to forge a claimed location.
Paul Robinson
If they were serious about really encouraging people to try and crack this, they'd offer $100,000 or more. Or let's just be glad they didn't think of that. You can get a lot of fairly bright people to walk away from 10K, but a six-figure bounty might be extremely hard to ignore.
There are possible reasons which it is reasonable and legitimate not to want to release certain APIs. For one thing, the code to handle it may be lower quality or a "hack" put together to solve a problem and might not be adequately tested.
For another, once an API gets published and known, if code that is created relying on those APIs is not to be broken by changes made to them, it means the API must be frozen; any new changes require developing a new API
Even if the intent was to allow release of the source code, it is possible to do so without hurting the value of the (proprietary) program in question. In many cases, there are a number of applications - including some shareware programs - where you either get source code or get it by paying an additional fee. IBM would often sell certain Mainframe system programs with source code. In fact, a proposal to go to OCO (Object Code Only) licenses on these programs was met with severe opposition from customers because they could not be sure they would be able to customize the applications to fit local needs. IBM had promised to provide "exits" (the equivalent of callback functions) to provide certain features. But that doesn't guarantee you can be compatible with the program or know if you have to change something to fix a problem. It might be asked why did they want to do that (or why don't they leave things the way they are)?.
In Robert Heinlein's To Sail Beyond The Sunsetit was asked,
It was suggested the reason for moving to OCO was so IBM could make more sales of its own security product for CICS, instead of third-party companies making money selling security add-ons for IBM's programs.)A proprietary program can be open source, meaning you do get the source with it or you only get it if you pay extra (pace the Bell Labs Unix license in which a source-code license - except for certain academic customers - cost an arm, a leg and part of the hip and shoulder).
If your product's comes with source code, you can't suddenly jack up the price to stratospheric levels once the customer is locked into the product, as has happened in at least one reported case involving a licensee of the Windows 95 source who it is said saw its fees for source code access go up by many times the original figure because they allegedly did something Microsoft didn't like or because MS decided they could impose huge raises in source license fees.
What has changed in the case of what is being done in the general Open Source market is that the programs being released may be sold or transferred by anyone.
Paul Robinson <postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>Paul Robinson <postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>
http://paul.washington.dc.us
Hmm, so if some student accuses another student of assault, or rape, or theft, or cheating, the administration should suspend the person accused immediately without bothering to even investigate the matter, see if the complaint makes any sense, or is more than groundless.
If they use the same guidelines, if anyone accused a student of anything serious, the university should suspend the student and bar them from classes first, then bother to check and see if the accusation has any grounds at all. (Then again, perhaps most universities go that way anyway.)
Paul Robinson postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us
http://paul.washington.dc.us
- Newspapers are semi-permanent as opposed to other media. Articles on radio or TV are gone as soon as they are broadcast unless recorded. An article on a website can be removed or no longer be available unless someone has been to that page and saved it, which doesn't guarantee the copy is accurate because the copy could have been tampered with. If you didn't get to that web page before it disappeared you'll never know what it said.
- One can go to archives of old newspapers as I point out in the next item; since most web pages are copyrighted one cannot (except under fair use) make copies of them for on-line archival purposes.
- A newspaper is printed and becomes a matter of public record. Back issues are often kept as archives in the stacks at the public library in that city and perhaps other cities. In smaller cities the newspaper itself keeps its old copies around for archival purposes ("newspaper morgue"). In many cities, newspapers are routinely microfilmed, which means you can go back and look up a newspaper from 30, 40, 50 to as much as 200 or more years ago. (I have seen a microfilm of The London Times dating from the 1700s, it may even have been Volume 1, Number 1).
- As was pointed out in George Orwell's 1984 the government - or anyone with an agenda - can change whatever is around if there are not permanent originals that can be maintained. Does anyone believe the People's Republic of China wouldn't change historical records if they could? Unless there are originals which can not be changed without leaving a trace, history and human memory is subject to change anytime those who want to do so
- Newspapers are printed on paper; you can carry a newspaper / magazine around and read it anywhere, outdoors, in dim light, even where there is no electricity.
- Newspapers are inexpensive. Yes you can get internet access at some public libraries, even the poorest library or most ordinary families can afford a subscription to the local newspaper. This is even more critical for newspapers in third-world countries where the average person can barely afford food. Newspapers would be available to even the poor in those countries at (I presume) public libraries, whereas Internet access might be horrendously expensive or unavailable
- You can purchase a newspaper for small change from vendors and machines.
- You do not need several hundred to several thousand dollars worth of computer equipment, a telephone line and an internet access account to read a newspaper.
- One can use old newspapers for various utility purposes such as lining birdcages, emergency toilet paper, wrapping china for packing or fish for sale, and other things where inexpensive paper is useful.
- Once someone pays for a subscription to a newspaper or magazine (or buys a copy at a newsstand or newsrack) you own the issue, you can give away or sell it or archive it. Some news web sites such as The Wall Street Journal require payment to use which means you have to continuously pay for use of the electronic edition.
- Newspapers can be used in places where electronic devices would not be suitable.
- Over the last 50 years of computer technology many formats have become obsolete, in some cases there is huge amounts of data on old media which has been irretrievably lost because the reading devices are no longer made. Does anyone still use paper tape, dectape, "washing-machine" sized disk drives, 8" diskette drives? Have you noticed the "drying up" of mag tape and 5 1/2" disk drives? As I implied, one can read 200-year-old newspapers because it requires no sophisticated technology other than eyeballs.
Paul Robinson <postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>http://paul.washington.dc.us