That's okay. You're entitled to your opinion, no matter what the facts are. (In other words, I intend to dissect your post into little itsy bitsy worthless pieces).
Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate...
Who says that ttyp0 is cybersquatting? According to his article, the website is offering services of a valid nature to Purdue students.
He's not attempting to sell the domain name and make money on it, and finally,
I disagree that domain name squatting was ever regarded as completely appropriate, even "four to five years ago or something like that"
My point being, that cybersquatting is not anything remotely like what is going on here.
The second part of your post implies that anything to do with the word Compaq (for example) is trademarked, which may or may not be true. However, ttyp0 checked, and clearly states not only that "I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers"." but also that "I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University."So on this point, again, the website owner has made efforts to completely obey the law.
This leads to my final dissection of your post, in which you say "...something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it." That is correct. Except that the name Purdue isn't trademarked, just "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers. Which means that your final point ("They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.") doesn't hold up to reality.
The bottom line is, if the University wanted the word "Purdue" trademarked, they should have done it years ago. Since they didn't, they don't have the legal right to challenge PURDUEONLINE.COM's right to exist.
Agreement with your complaint. Most of the sites I have written have been fully tested only on versions of "the big two", but I never purposefully excluded any other browsers or coded pages "viewed better" on a specific browser.
May I make a polite suggestion to ANY person who writes or is learning to write HTML? First go to the web site at http://www.anybrowser.org and read why it makes sense and how to code for the greatest variety of browsers out there.
For that to be possible the server would have to be able to make a distinction between the different browsers and apply the right transformations
Been there done that, and it's just not that hard. Part of the HTTP request header includes the name of the browser making the request, so it is common for sites that make use of templating engines and database back ends to serve a different page based on which browser is making the call, and whether various modules are installed.
What might not be obvious is that what we're really talking about is different levels of HTML compliance more than which browser. Yes, it takes a little more work, but it's not rocket science, and these techniques widen the audience for any given site.
Whew!! For a minute there I thought we were facing the imminent destruction of planet earth by extremely angry SEBs (Superpowerful Extraterristrial Beings)
"They think they bought my what???? Why those irritating little humans. I'll just have to teach them a lesson in humility..."
What a great resource!! None of the search engines (Infoseek, AltaVista, Google, etc.) came up with it, so I'd suggest that other interested/. readers bookmark the Thomas page.
I'm going to look to see if anyone else has done it, and if not, I will post the text of HR 3028 in another post.
I hate to side with the Clinton administration on anything, but after reading the ACM statement, I wholeheartedly agree that this law favors the big corporations and is a bad idea. By the way, I am going to re-include the link within the proper tags so that other/. readers can click to it directly. Here it is:
Unfortunately I have not been able to locate an on-line version of the bill, and so I can't talk to the specifics other than what the news wires have carried. If anyone finds the text post it here, so we can all look at it.
Anyway, with the regular caveat that "I am not a lawyer (IANAL)... I think I am with the majority on the idea that "cybersquatting" is bad, however, I don't think that there is really an effective legal remedy to the problem. Here's why:
Because the courts have generally held that parody is a protected form of free speech, some or all of this law may in fact be unconstitutional.
Leaving it to the courts doesn't necessarily work either, because often, the side with the most legal $ wins.
Calling a domain name "intellectual property" is deceptive as well, because in reality, a domain name is just an "advertising cover" for an IP address.
This leaves the gray area of trademark infringement as the only valid area of law that I can think of which covers the problem.
The only thing that I can think of that might work is for the domain registrars to include a provision in their registration documents for binding arbitration in the event of a contested domain name. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this would mostly take the issue out of the courts, and seems like it would be a useful remedy for the majority of the "cybersquatting" problems which might come up in the future. (I don't know how this would apply to previously registered domains, unless it was made a requirement upon renewel of the registration)
Most of the commentary thus far has focused on the aspects of "copying" DVD movies, etc. But from where I sit, the issue of decoding seems much more related to having the ability to install a DVD drive in the PC and play an encoded disk on the computer, but under Linux, not Windows, etc.
BTW, I do not claim to know anything about DVD other than it has massive storage capacities compared to CD-ROM, so go easy on the flamethrowers, and teach me instead, okay?
Anyway, here's why I ask. Early next year I will be part of a project involved in the gathering and indexing of large amounts of art (primarily paintings), then publishing it via DVD, similar to how CD-ROM titles are published now.
While the practical part of me knows the answer (win-doze), the programmer side of me says, if it won't play back under Linux, what's the point? Comments invited...
In simple terms, they have a fairly high state income tax, and the property taxes in the Portland area are horrible, which subsidizes alot of the rest of the state. Not counting taxes on gasoline and vehicles which are truly outrageous.
Finally, it doesn't hurt that the most heavily populated areas of Oregon enjoys fairly comfortable weather year round, and (IIRC) a fairly low crime rate.
When my family moved to the Midwest, our percentage of spendable income to wages went up by about 10% just in the reduction in taxes, even though where I live now has sales tax on basically everything ('though at a lower rate on food.)
Wired almost gets it right. Kudos to /. again
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Like other posters/readers, etc. I think that/. does a much better job of depth reporting and analysis than Wired, Salon, etc. and that Rob is just being a little too humble when he says that/. isn't all that deep.
Numerous examples come to mind:
When an "Ask Slashdot" question gets going, often a new project or project direction will open up, improving Linux and Open Source in the process.
When a video card mfr or other board maker gets feedback from the screaming Linux masses via/. that we'd love to use their product -- if only it was Linux compatible...
When a new kernel, security item, or OS product is released for testing,/. often tips us off, and we all go bang the heck out of the code, resulting in fast bug detection.
When quasi- and various- governmental agencies screw up,/. blows the whistle and we nail them with the Slashdot Effect.
A more "mainsteam" f's up a story --/. not only gets the corrections (via more clued in posters), we often submit replies to the mainstream media which ofter lucid, well thought out counterpoints to the original articles.
Finally, we compete with the Beast From Redmond by making sure that other OS's and technologies get adequate, honest reporting.
Not bad for (as Wired puts it) "a three-person web site" in the middle of Michigan, eh? It used to be "....news at 11 (p.m.)...." IMHO what we're seeing here is....
Slashdot--- the future of interactive journalism...why the hell wait 'til 11!!
...would have to be absolutely mind-blowingly incredible.
(IMHO)Well, it is. I've used the C/c++ tools from Borland and had great success, going from all the way back to their original Turbo C compiler up through the C++ Builder, which is Borland's C++ version of Delphi. Remember, these tools have been going toe to toe with M$'s Visual toolsets for years, with a high percentage of developers preferring the Borland/Inprise tools.
Within the realm of the C++ and the Delphi products, the real question is more which set of GUI components will be supported, i.e., Gnome, KDE, X, or perhaps a new set of components from Borland(?).
In any event, the cost of delivering first class letters sent by ordinary joes/janes is substantially subsidized by bulk rate mail
,
so to the extent people send e-mail instead of first class postal mail, the government is actually farther ahead by a few pennies.
The last I read about this (which I admit is early 1997), the exact opposite is true, which is that 1st Class and priority mail essentially subsidize the delivery of bulk e-mail (or at least the junk mail end of things), with other bulk rate mailings for business (zip sorted, 500 piece or larger) somewhere around the breakeven point.
Anyway, I don't want to get in a pissing match about statistics, but am wondering if you could point me to your sources of information so that I can update my knowledge base.
I am not so qualified on the Linux side of the fence in terms of NFS, X-Servers, etc., but I used Exceed in a previous assignment, and let me tell you, it saved several projects from going down the tubes. In fact, when the NT client software failed (which it did on regular occasions, we used Exceed (on NT machines and Win95 machines) to prove that the problem wasn't in the database or middleware layers.
My thoughts are that this is a very positive direction for Caldera to pursue in terms of gaining "brain trust", with the addenda that I hope that this results in more code for the rest of us to use, and not just a locked proprietary solution.
Agreement on overstretching. I was actually referring specifically to the fact that Linux was released under the GPL., as opposed to the more recent proliferation of "open source licenses" (e.g., Netscape, Apple, Jikes, et. al).
I think all of the/. community wishes that people would just stick with the GPL (and LGPL), because that's what got us this far in the first place, however, (IMHO) this press release is still good news. Here's my logic:
One of the reasons Win 3.1X became useful was that it was fairly simple to install, especially compared to the later (bloated) Win9x and WinNT installs.
Another step towards Win 3.1.x stability was when they finally were able to communicate with Novell Network file servers (although it took stealing code from Novell to do it, (AFAICT) the main reason W4WkGrp and WinNT's network code stabilized as early as it did).
Easy install and "network access" (which was already there, just not NKFS)== the perception by average users that they can migrate to this "new" OS without being a tech guru or the danger of being left with an expensive paperweight until a highly paid tech guru fixes the mess.
Finally, assuming that Caldera is intelligent enough to release the code under any sort of acceptable "Open Source License", the concepts inside the code can be understood, improved, etc., and spread to the wider Linux community -- which makes it immune to single company subversion in my book.
...if we react quickly and appropriately. A bit later in this post, I am including links for the web addresses for the members of the U.S. Senators on the finance committee.
Now then, I realize that much of this e-mail will never be seen by the Senators, but the noise on the mail servers will be. That said, however, don't even begin to think about sending flames to these addresses. These are not the people we want to alienate -- these are the ones who can prevent Senator Hollings mistake from ever seeing the legislative light of day, e.g., killing it before it even has a chance to breathe. So if you are going to write, clarity and sanity counts, vulgarity and rants don't!!
Here's the addresses for the Senate Finance Committee Members:
I've got a bookmark to their page and am very interested, but haven't had much extra time in the way of doing an evaluation.
So I'm posting this question (and may even do an "Ask Slashdot") here: does anybody have performance figures, independent evaluations, experience that they would like to share?
Best written post I've seen in a long while, as it goes straight to the core of the "M$ wants to take over the world" vs. the struggle for "code freedom" led by Linux and others.
People who need to leverage existing legacy applications using tech such as Java, CORBA, EJBs, etc are the people who need such 'bloated app server'
Hate to rain on your parade, but Java, Corba, EJB's, etc. have nothing to do with the bloat in app servers. And they are not tools for accessing legacy applications, they are tools for more easily creating effective middle layers between the back end databases and the users.
Consider this: I could have a Java Application, a C++ application, a VB application, and even Perl/CGI applications running over the 'net all communicating with an ORB (Object Request Broker) at the same time, and have the ORB process the requests as an application server - transparently to all of the users.
The first sentence should have read: Simply put, an application server is a translator between HTML requests and a back end business application (usually a database).
Simply put, an application server is a translator between HTML requests and (a back end business application (usually a database). My guess is that this definition doesn't really answer your question, so, let me offer a progression which may help you understand where the "web server" ends, and the "application server" begins.
No frills Web Server: can serve static HTML pages, images and links.
Web Server + basic CGI: adds basic forms processing
Web Server + Advanced CGI, or Extensions and database on the same machine (such as Apache's mod-perl to mySql): complex applications including database access, etc.) In this example, mod-perl is actually functioning as an "application server" with Apache being the web server.
Web Server with extensions such as mod perl (or the NSAPI, ISAPI, etc.) with the database on a separate machine: complex applications, etc. This would be a true "application server", like NAS.
Finally, there are extremely high end systems such as Bluestone's SapphireWeb or IBM's Web Sphere where multiple numbers of machines are linked together; there can be multiple HTTP servers, multiple application servers, and even multiple RDBMS layers.
I haven't moved up to the 2.2X kernels yet, and am curious what the avg. line count for a full build (including a browser and a GUI) compared to M$'s -- 30 million lines in W2K? (I suppose if W2kK is supposed to blur the distinction between the server and the desktop, we ought to include Apache as well, to be fair)
Great satire does not rely nearly exclusively on obscenity and vulgarity for comedic effect.
Great satire has an obvious and focused target-- around which the story is focused. From what I've read, the writers of South Park simply chose to be equal opportunity offenders.
Great satire holds up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn. AFAICT, South park merely parades the vices, and ridicules and scorns anything opposed to those same vices.
Great satire (2nd webster's definition) involves using trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.
So unless you call standing up for one's beliefs a "vice" or "folly", I have trouble calling the S.P. movie a satire.
A couple of last things: why should I pay even one red cent to the maker's of an offensive movie, when they could have spent the same amount of money making something without the obscenity, vulgarity, etc.? As to my friends, yes, I explained why I wouldn't go, because there isn't much I would consider hilarious. Funny thing is, I didn't blow my credibility -- something about not having to stand in the s--- to smell it and move away, if you catch my drift.
You asked How do you know, without having seen the movie, that it is as bad as the review said it is? You may notice that I have never said it was a "bad" movie. I merely state (and restate and restate) that I don't condone vulgarity, obscenity, and bigotry by paying money to those who continue to serve it up in the media. And that I'm uncomfortable when people bash other people with beliefs different from their own.
Finally, I don't thing that the majority of/. readers or writers are bigots. But if I had stayed silent, I would have been tacitly agreeing with the few that are.
RE: Did you stand up for the Christians in HS?
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Yes. And my Jewish friends, and the African Americans, the people from Latin America, and a few others. No, I didn't stand up for the evils perpetrated by the Crusaders, because as far as I can tell, the whole political/religious framework back then was an inextricably combined, corrupt mess that had little to do with Christ's message and everything to do with worldly power and totalitarian control.
Slashdot Mirror
Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate...
- Who says that ttyp0 is cybersquatting? According to his article, the website is offering services of a valid nature to Purdue students.
- He's not attempting to sell the domain name and make money on it, and finally,
- I disagree that domain name squatting was ever regarded as completely appropriate, even "four to five years ago or something like that"
My point being, that cybersquatting is not anything remotely like what is going on here.The second part of your post implies that anything to do with the word Compaq (for example) is trademarked, which may or may not be true. However, ttyp0 checked, and clearly states not only that "I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers"." but also that "I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University."So on this point, again, the website owner has made efforts to completely obey the law.
This leads to my final dissection of your post, in which you say "...something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it." That is correct. Except that the name Purdue isn't trademarked, just "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers. Which means that your final point ("They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.") doesn't hold up to reality.
The bottom line is, if the University wanted the word "Purdue" trademarked, they should have done it years ago. Since they didn't, they don't have the legal right to challenge PURDUEONLINE.COM's right to exist.
May I make a polite suggestion to ANY person who writes or is learning to write HTML? First go to the web site at http://www.anybrowser.org and read why it makes sense and how to code for the greatest variety of browsers out there.
Been there done that, and it's just not that hard. Part of the HTTP request header includes the name of the browser making the request, so it is common for sites that make use of templating engines and database back ends to serve a different page based on which browser is making the call, and whether various modules are installed.
What might not be obvious is that what we're really talking about is different levels of HTML compliance more than which browser. Yes, it takes a little more work, but it's not rocket science, and these techniques widen the audience for any given site.
Whew!! For a minute there I thought we were facing the imminent destruction of planet earth by extremely angry SEBs (Superpowerful Extraterristrial Beings)
"They think they bought my what???? Why those irritating little humans. I'll just have to teach them a lesson in humility..."
Next thing ya'know, KABOOM!!
...joke mode OFF...
I'm going to look to see if anyone else has done it, and if not, I will post the text of HR 3028 in another post.
http://www.acm.org/usacm/trademark.html
Thanks for the excellent reference.
Anyway, with the regular caveat that "I am not a lawyer (IANAL)... I think I am with the majority on the idea that "cybersquatting" is bad, however, I don't think that there is really an effective legal remedy to the problem. Here's why:
- Because the courts have generally held that parody is a protected form of free speech, some or all of this law may in fact be unconstitutional.
- Leaving it to the courts doesn't necessarily work either, because often, the side with the most legal $ wins.
- Calling a domain name "intellectual property" is deceptive as well, because in reality, a domain name is just an "advertising cover" for an IP address.
- This leaves the gray area of trademark infringement as the only valid area of law that I can think of which covers the problem.
The only thing that I can think of that might work is for the domain registrars to include a provision in their registration documents for binding arbitration in the event of a contested domain name. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this would mostly take the issue out of the courts, and seems like it would be a useful remedy for the majority of the "cybersquatting" problems which might come up in the future. (I don't know how this would apply to previously registered domains, unless it was made a requirement upon renewel of the registration)Comments anyone?
BTW, I do not claim to know anything about DVD other than it has massive storage capacities compared to CD-ROM, so go easy on the flamethrowers, and teach me instead, okay?
Anyway, here's why I ask. Early next year I will be part of a project involved in the gathering and indexing of large amounts of art (primarily paintings), then publishing it via DVD, similar to how CD-ROM titles are published now.
While the practical part of me knows the answer (win-doze), the programmer side of me says, if it won't play back under Linux, what's the point? Comments invited...
Finally, it doesn't hurt that the most heavily populated areas of Oregon enjoys fairly comfortable weather year round, and (IIRC) a fairly low crime rate.
When my family moved to the Midwest, our percentage of spendable income to wages went up by about 10% just in the reduction in taxes, even though where I live now has sales tax on basically everything ('though at a lower rate on food.)
Numerous examples come to mind:
- When an "Ask Slashdot" question gets going, often a new project or project direction will open up, improving Linux and Open Source in the process.
- When a video card mfr or other board maker gets feedback from the screaming Linux masses via
/. that we'd love to use their product -- if only it was Linux compatible... - When a new kernel, security item, or OS product is released for testing,
/. often tips us off, and we all go bang the heck out of the code, resulting in fast bug detection. - When quasi- and various- governmental agencies screw up,
/. blows the whistle and we nail them with the Slashdot Effect. - A more "mainsteam" f's up a story --
/. not only gets the corrections (via more clued in posters), we often submit replies to the mainstream media which ofter lucid, well thought out counterpoints to the original articles. - Finally, we compete with the Beast From Redmond by making sure that other OS's and technologies get adequate, honest reporting.
Not bad for (as Wired puts it) "a three-person web site" in the middle of Michigan, eh? It used to be "....news at 11 (p.m.)...." IMHO what we're seeing here is....Slashdot--- the future of interactive journalism...why the hell wait 'til 11!!
(IMHO)Well, it is. I've used the C/c++ tools from Borland and had great success, going from all the way back to their original Turbo C compiler up through the C++ Builder, which is Borland's C++ version of Delphi. Remember, these tools have been going toe to toe with M$'s Visual toolsets for years, with a high percentage of developers preferring the Borland/Inprise tools.
Within the realm of the C++ and the Delphi products, the real question is more which set of GUI components will be supported, i.e., Gnome, KDE, X, or perhaps a new set of components from Borland(?).
The last I read about this (which I admit is early 1997), the exact opposite is true, which is that 1st Class and priority mail essentially subsidize the delivery of bulk e-mail (or at least the junk mail end of things), with other bulk rate mailings for business (zip sorted, 500 piece or larger) somewhere around the breakeven point.
Anyway, I don't want to get in a pissing match about statistics, but am wondering if you could point me to your sources of information so that I can update my knowledge base.
My thoughts are that this is a very positive direction for Caldera to pursue in terms of gaining "brain trust", with the addenda that I hope that this results in more code for the rest of us to use, and not just a locked proprietary solution.
Agreement on overstretching. I was actually referring specifically to the fact that Linux was released under the GPL., as opposed to the more recent proliferation of "open source licenses" (e.g., Netscape, Apple, Jikes, et. al).
- One of the reasons Win 3.1X became useful was that it was fairly simple to install, especially compared to the later (bloated) Win9x and WinNT installs.
- Another step towards Win 3.1.x stability was when they finally were able to communicate with Novell Network file servers (although it took stealing code from Novell to do it, (AFAICT) the main reason W4WkGrp and WinNT's network code stabilized as early as it did).
- Easy install and "network access" (which was already there, just not NKFS)== the perception by average users that they can migrate to this "new" OS without being a tech guru or the danger of being left with an expensive paperweight until a highly paid tech guru fixes the mess.
- Finally, assuming that Caldera is intelligent enough to release the code under any sort of acceptable "Open Source License", the concepts inside the code can be understood, improved, etc., and spread to the wider Linux community -- which makes it immune to single company subversion in my book.
Comments?Now then, I realize that much of this e-mail will never be seen by the Senators, but the noise on the mail servers will be. That said, however, don't even begin to think about sending flames to these addresses. These are not the people we want to alienate -- these are the ones who can prevent Senator Hollings mistake from ever seeing the legislative light of day, e.g., killing it before it even has a chance to breathe. So if you are going to write, clarity and sanity counts, vulgarity and rants don't!!
Here's the addresses for the Senate Finance Committee Members:
- Roth(DE)
- Moynihan NY)
- Chafee (RI)
- Baucus (MT)
- Grassley (IA)
- Rockefeller (WV)
- Hatch (UT)
- Breaux (LA)
- Murkowski (AK)
- Conrad (ND)
- Nickles (OK)
- Bob Graham (FL)
- Phil Gramm (TX)
- Bryan (NV)
- Lott (MS)
- Kerrey (NE)
- Jeffords (VT)
- Robb (VA)
- Mack (FL)
- Thompson(TN)
Note: this was a lot of hand typing, so if I messed up an URL, I apologize.The full list of pages and addresses can be found at: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm.
So I'm posting this question (and may even do an "Ask Slashdot") here: does anybody have performance figures, independent evaluations, experience that they would like to share?
Damn straight.
Best written post I've seen in a long while, as it goes straight to the core of the "M$ wants to take over the world" vs. the struggle for "code freedom" led by Linux and others.
Hate to rain on your parade, but Java, Corba, EJB's, etc. have nothing to do with the bloat in app servers. And they are not tools for accessing legacy applications, they are tools for more easily creating effective middle layers between the back end databases and the users.
Consider this: I could have a Java Application, a C++ application, a VB application, and even Perl/CGI applications running over the 'net all communicating with an ORB (Object Request Broker) at the same time, and have the ORB process the requests as an application server - transparently to all of the users.
Don't knock what you don't understand.
The first sentence should have read: Simply put, an application server is a translator between HTML requests and a back end business application (usually a database).
- No frills Web Server: can serve static HTML pages, images and links.
- Web Server + basic CGI: adds basic forms processing
- Web Server + Advanced CGI, or Extensions and database on the same machine (such as Apache's mod-perl to mySql): complex applications including database access, etc.) In this example, mod-perl is actually functioning as an "application server" with Apache being the web server.
- Web Server with extensions such as mod perl (or the NSAPI, ISAPI, etc.) with the database on a separate machine: complex applications, etc. This would be a true "application server", like NAS.
- Finally, there are extremely high end systems such as Bluestone's SapphireWeb or IBM's Web Sphere where multiple numbers of machines are linked together; there can be multiple HTTP servers, multiple application servers, and even multiple RDBMS layers.
Hope this helps.I meant to say
...numbers anyone?
Numbers, anyway
- Great satire does not rely nearly exclusively on obscenity and vulgarity for comedic effect.
- Great satire has an obvious and focused target-- around which the story is focused. From what I've read, the writers of South Park simply chose to be equal opportunity offenders.
- Great satire
- Great satire (2nd webster's definition) involves using trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly.
So unless you call standing up for one's beliefs a "vice" or "folly", I have trouble calling the S.P. movie a satire.holds up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn. AFAICT, South park merely parades the vices, and ridicules and scorns anything opposed to those same vices.
A couple of last things: why should I pay even one red cent to the maker's of an offensive movie, when they could have spent the same amount of money making something without the obscenity, vulgarity, etc.? As to my friends, yes, I explained why I wouldn't go, because there isn't much I would consider hilarious. Funny thing is, I didn't blow my credibility -- something about not having to stand in the s--- to smell it and move away, if you catch my drift.
You asked How do you know, without having seen the movie, that it is as bad as the review said it is? You may notice that I have never said it was a "bad" movie. I merely state (and restate and restate) that I don't condone vulgarity, obscenity, and bigotry by paying money to those who continue to serve it up in the media. And that I'm uncomfortable when people bash other people with beliefs different from their own.
Finally, I don't thing that the majority of /. readers or writers are bigots. But if I had stayed silent, I would have been tacitly agreeing with the few that are.
Yes. And my Jewish friends, and the African Americans, the people from Latin America, and a few others. No, I didn't stand up for the evils perpetrated by the Crusaders, because as far as I can tell, the whole political/religious framework back then was an inextricably combined, corrupt mess that had little to do with Christ's message and everything to do with worldly power and totalitarian control.