I worked in the political process a decade ago developing "Consituent Managment Systems" to log, and respond to correspondence and calls from the field. I can say, they do listen, and do review their own statistics on responses from the field.
They do not however have an unlimited budget to engage in endless dialog and debate with every vocal person in their district. Nor would I support raising taxes to give them that budget.
Assuming responsibility for this problem, also implies that the entity also assume legal liability for the problems created as well should the efforts fail in the future. While it all sounds good to claim that the ISP's are responsible for filtering for certain classes of evil packets, should they accept the responsibility they also must accept the liabilities should their efforts fail sometime in the future.
Most, if not all, ISP's have strict legal liability disclaimers about their customers activities - used to defend themselves against all 3rd parties that might litigate against their customers actions, or inactions. The legal/business side of any ISP would be wary to set the stage claiming to take responsibility for the actions of packets originating from customer owned/managed facilities. Once they start down that road, then all sorts of claims can be made that they are responible for filtering all kinds of evil packets, including as some might suggest - porn, pirate copyrighted material, all types of virus and trojan outbreaks,... and a long list down a controversial slope.
Cable/DSL modems owned/leased/managed/operated by end users should contain any network required manadated filtering to facilitate the mandate that every customer is responsible for packets originating from their facility - intended or not.
If all these devices were proper NAT devices, and filtered/firewalled well known ports
which are generally associated with server functions typically not allowed under many of the service plans un-skilled customers subscribe to, then we could see the total number of exposed machines drop by 95% in a few months. The remaining machines would not number enough to realistically mount DDOS attacks of the magnitude we have seen this last month.
The ISP doesn't need to filter - it just needs to mandate that it's customers do - or risk disconnection. In this case, making firmware patches available for the cable/dsl modems, and setting a deadline for deployment.
A big portion of the other 90% are untalented elitists that build their job security by tearing the talented down to their size by nit picking every fault. This constant bickering sends the really good into constant fits of proving their worth all the time, or they just get PD about it and totally ignore the miss-placed constant negative crap from the ranks... sometimes it gets really hard to recognize Constructive Criticism, from the constant....
When it comes to negitivity bringing down a team, my experience is that most of it comes from the little people unhappy with their own skills.
That said, there are also a lot of PD's that need a very serious attitude adjustment.
Funny - I did it for a while as an undergrad - and we were very resourceful. Most schools I've visited make a buck go a long way - more than most places in industry.
Stated is the Max penalty for that class of crime,
what he is really subject to is completely dependent on the Jury decision to 1st Convict, and 2nd Award. Research Computational Cycles charged to any project at a major university (or typical corporation by MIS dept) are fully burdened and ouch a bit. In this case I can well imagine that those resources could have been used by a paying research project had the machines been conscripted into a distributed cluster envirionment instead. With holding the resources to boost personal stats is theft. Had he enrolled the stats under the school name a lot less could be said.
You have to remember many Russians are so upset
about Mir taking the dive, the there is a strong
group that wants to have a Russian-Only Mir-II just to show they don't need to continue contribution to the basic common good in the ISS program. It will probably be more military than science:(
No - WE ALL are responsible for the nature of our government and the nature of the compromises that produce our laws. Lobbying is NOT about money - it's about making your voices heard - thru associations (IE EFF) and personal contact (IE Write/Call your representatives) to make sure your voice counts. If you sit on your hands and say nothing, they it's assumed you are amongst the countless that could care less and are willing to accept the results of those with stronger oppinions.
For the record, the definition of lobby; lobbying is: to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and esp. members of legislative body on legislation; to attempt to influence or sway (as a public offical) toware a desired action.
That isn't about money, it's about voters and votes.
I think the core issue is to focus on PD to get past the distrust that is the fundmental basis in ALL the licenses. People generally live up to the expecations placed on them, if it's fundmentally clear the environment is one of mutual respect and trust, then that is likely to be the resulting environment. If everyone approches if from a perspective of distrust - then every disagreement and misunderstanding will only fuel additional distrust. The issue isn't which license is better, but rather they all are bad from this fundmental perspective.
It's fundamental to acknowledge that not only have big businesses (like HP, IBM, SGI, and Sun) become a core resource in the OSS as corporations, but that those businesses employees in general respresent a signficant portion of the OSS movement individual members. Businesses are collective voices - to claim that businesses are bad is to imply their employees are bad. The employees of businesses that support OSS, are responsible for that support, and that should be heralded as a GOOD thing. Continuing the FSF mantra that business and their money grubbing employees are all bad is a farse that is completely derisive for the OSS community.
No - the rest of the argument stands alone, dispite our differences on the degree of control RMS/FSF may have.
My position that we need to choose our partners and allies carefully is not without merit on it's own. Here the RMS/FSF relationship is in the way of fully embracing new OSS partners like HP, IBM, SGI and Sun and the thousands of their employee's they have that share OSS goals.
Nor does that position in anyway lessen the value of the argument that Bob's leadership toward the PD movement allows is to move forward toward TRUE OSS Freedom.
Nothing fishy about deciding to abandon an org who's continuing principles are counter productive, in fact border on anarchist, and completely go against the basic free market values capitalitic values held by most in the Open Source movement.
This is an old conflict in the Open Source community - reflect on Eric Raymond's comments starting at the top of page 206 in "The Cathedral & The Bazaar". What Bob offers in the Public Domain theory of Open Source is completely FREE using the FSF definition - and much more free than GPL. It suggests that our new OSS partners, like HP, SGI, IBM, Sun, and others are no longer the enemy - but they are US including thousands of developers that share the OSS vision.
The anit-business model inherited from RMS/FSF needs to be abandoned, and Bob leads the way using a PD alternative to GPL.
Sorry - distribution is the consolidation of about 70 major wholesale outlets, that control just over 3/4 the total sales thru a two/three tiered distribution system. Those channels are not owned by the labels, but do have entangling contracts regarding shelf space and access rights that are less than competitive from the view point of smaller labels.
What is scary about the internet is the total loss of distribution control and piracy that goes with it.
Time writes "The bottom line is that the GPL itself is not trying to hijack anyone's efforts. The FSF may attempt to use it to that end, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the GPL itself. Just because patents are, on occasion, misused doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the intent of giving the creators of IP a way to protect it temporarily."
GPL is just a license, with explict terms, and has no motives. However, since RMS does have strong stated motives, controls much of the core IP in the Free Software movement, is strongly pressing to abandon/revoke LGPL with the explict goal of removing proprietary software applications (read as any non-GPL source or binary application) from the Linux platform which he seems to consider "his" - THEN this is not an idle concern or mis-percived threat, and it would take a year or more to replace GCC and related tools after RMS/FSF decided to close the door to non-GPL code.
I personally think that Linux is dead long term without the support of major applications vendors that have no reason to release their entire business assets to GPL. The only way to make a singificant impact on the Microsoft business model, is by not waving anti-IP hate propaganda in front of small businesses noses. There is a lot of rancor against Microsofts legal right to protect it's IP from piracy that we all know is rampant - but compared to the out right anti-business bashing of RMS/FSF and wholesale condemnation of free market principles thru explict plans to destroy IP rights, Microsofts actions are very mild and non-agressive in comparison.
In life we have to carefully choose our alliances - in the choice that RMS/FSF forces, Gates/MS is a saint since they mostly do what they need to do protect their own percieved rights. RMS/FSF on the otherhand, controls the rights of donated work of a huge number of people that largely may be unaware or even disagree with core public policy issues RMS/FSF demand. Gates is accountable to the market, and will compromise to retain that market. RMS refuses to accept the basic tenents of civilized democracy - compromise and individual rights are out of the question.
The original stated goals of Free access to software are much better served thru the declartion of Public Domain Rights. That policy advances the state of the art better, by including big business into the partnership. The donations that HP, SGI and Sun have made to the public good greatly advance the art and the public good. Embracing the RMS/FSF propaganda against businesses only serves to drive a wedge between important "Non-Evil" business partners that share our long term goals and provide the jobs that advance the state of the art.
I think we need to embrace Bob's public domain foundation, the great work it is doing with grants and public policy, and move major portions of core IP out of GPL and into the public domain. As consumers we have the ability to effectively boycot businesses that take without contributing their share - WE can control their customers perception of them in the market, not them - we may not be able to break a poor partner, but we certainly can make those that pull their share by supporting both their products and their business.
RedHat has been an excellent partner in this movement - we need to support and reward that, dispite the rancor of the RMS/FSF/Debian leadership against their different views regarding the role of businesses and IP rights in the Free Software movement.
Ok - for those unable to connect the dots and follow an argument to it's
expected conclusion, we will re-examine FSF goals:
First, a brief [edited] version their definition of:
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is not
free or semi-free. Its
use, redistribution or modification is prohibited,
or requires you to
ask for permission, or is restricted so much
that you effectively
can't do it freely.
The Free Software Foundation follows the rule
that we cannot install
any proprietary program on our computers except
temporarily for the
specific purpose of writing a free replacement
for that very program.
Aside from that, we feel there is no possible
excuse for installing a
proprietary program.
We don't insist that users of GNU, or contributors
to GNU, have
to live by this rule. It is a rule we
made for ourselves. But
we hope you will decide to follow it too.
The clear message is that all Proprietary Developers are not only unwelcome,
but it is in the best interests of the FSF/GPL community not to support
anything but Free Software. Furthermore, the stated objective is
to kill all non-free linux based software. Since grass roots linux projects
in several major UNIX iron companies are to promoting replacing the existing
UNIX products, the end goal is domination of the non-Microsoft market with
linux and the long term removal of all competitive UNIX based products.
The choice for independent applications developers is to port to Microsoft,
or be forced to accept GPL and source release your product since the RMS
goal is clearly stated in "Why you should not use the Library GPL for your
next library" which would make it impossible to link proprietary software
to run a Free Software OS platform. It also forces people who have released
software purely into the public domain, to adopt the highly restrictive
GPL terms, if the application is to be linked with libraries on a Free
Software OS platform. Somehow one has to really question why it is
necessary to abandon the true freedom of "Public Domain" to give away your
PD application for use on a GPL'ed OS by accepting the much more restrictive
GPL terms.
So while you might claim "I'm really am getting tired of saying this,
but no-one is forcing anyone to release their code under the GPL." the
clear stated goal is to keep replacing/killing non-GPL options until none
are left, and then use the change in library terms to force the rest to
GPL, or completely leave the UNIX/Linux community - including completely
Public Domain applications which are completely unrestricted open source
and license free.
It seems the real intent here is to force everyone that can't wait for
a mercy check from their user base to pay their rent onto Microsoft Platforms.
The real intent is keep all the niche application developers that need
software licenses for revenue to pay their employees, off Linux and on
Microsoft platforms. And at the same time promote a revisionist view of
software ownership so that Wine users will continue to pirate windoze applications
that nobody in the Free Software community is willing to write. I don't
know why Microsoft is complaining, business is being forced into their
market.
As for the openly hostile assertion that I'm out to steal something
from the GPL community - get a life. I have three kids and a wife
to support, and have enough common sense to completely avoid the Linux
trap, despite RedHat's invitation for for-profit application porting to
their distribution. RMSand FSF have completely failed to deliver
on their claim that the user community has an obligation to support Free
Software Developer - my kids are hungry today, and I'm not stupid enough
to believe RMS and FSF that if I GPL my living, that the user community
will support them. I have delivered public domain source in the past, and
will in the future - but I will probably never deliver a line of GPL'd
source. I believe in the Freedom to program, including to make a living,
and GPL is not FREE.
What is probably most interesting about Bob Young and his role as the Chairman
of "The Center for the Public Domain", is that his basic philosophy on
business and Intellectual Property (IP) Rights is almost completely opposed
to that of Richard M. Stallman (RMS) and the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
It's also interesting that in the interview he did not credit either RMSor
FSF. It's also important that at the Center's web site, there is
a wonderfully balanced set of links to many other organizations dealing
with IP policy and the internet. This is a critical must read
for a balanced view of the problem. The following quote from the beginning
of Bob's interview shows a carefully thought out framework for examining
IP rights (while carefully avoiding critical comment against FSF positions):
Unfortunately the evolution of intellectual property law taking
place is potentially harmful for future generations of innovators and creators.
We recognized this as the single greatest threat to the future of Open
source . We concluded funding a non-profit organization to address this
issue from the innovators perspective was the most effective thing we could
do for the community who had contributed so much to our success, hence
the Center for the Public Domain.
This is a thorny one. As a businessman (and a great fan of Adam Smith
- the 19th century Scottish philosopher/economist) I'm all in favor of
the benefits that society at large gains from active competition in for-profit
free markets.
As such copyrights and patents are good things. Of course too much of
a good thing no longer is a good thing. Too little vitamin D and you'll
get bone diseases, too much will kill you. The problem we have today is
that intellectual property law expansion now includes copyright terms for
the life of the author plus 70 years and patents that can now cover business
methods, genetic sequences, or broad ideas, not just inventions.
Without patents the drug companies would not have done the research
to create the aids drugs in the first place so the whole issue would be
moot. But clearly it is not in anyone's interest including the drug companies
to charge so much for their product that their consumers (patients) cannot
afford them. So they need to figure out how to charge less (in Africa -
a lot less) in markets where the consumers cannot afford the regular price.
What is not said, is that without patents and other IP protections, computer
companies would not have done the research and development necessary for
the rapid advancement of the art we have enjoyed for the last 20 years.
Should those protections be significantly reduced, or revoked, advancement
will likely slow to a crawl and we will be stuck at this technology point
for many years to come.
For those that have followed Red Hat, only a portion of their product
offerings are purely Free Software and available on the web for download
without purchase. RedHat has freely embraced a balanced business
model mixing both proprietary software sales and Free Software. This
business policy is in direct opposition to others views however.
The Stallman position, mirrored by associates at the FSF, presents a
radically different view which frequently denies ownership of IP as a right,
and certainly casts those the differ in a rather poor light. Let us just
say that while Bob Young's position is pretty much middle of the road,
and reflects a careful well thought out balance, the RMS and FSF position
is anything but moderate (First of two quotes from sections of "Why Software
Should Be Free" by RMS):
How Owners Justify Their Power
Those who benefit from the current system where programs are property
offer two arguments in support of their claims to own programs: the emotional
argument and the economic argument.
The emotional argument goes like this: ``I put my sweat, my heart, my
soul into this program. It comes from me, it's mine!''
This argument does not require serious refutation. The feeling of attachment
is one that programmers can cultivate when it suits them; it is not inevitable.
Consider, for example, how willingly the same programmers usually sign
over all rights to a large corporation for a salary; the emotional attachment
mysteriously vanishes. By contrast, consider the great artists and artisans
of medieval times, who didn't even sign their names to their work. To them,
the name of the artist was not important. What mattered was that the work
was done--and the purpose it would serve. This view prevailed for hundreds
of years.
The economic argument goes like this: ``I want to get rich (usually
described inaccurately as `making a living'), and if you don't allow me
to get rich by programming, then I won't program. Everyone else is like
me, so nobody will ever program. And then you'll be stuck with no programs
at all!'' This threat is usually veiled as friendly advice from the wise.
Last time I checked, what makes our society truly free, is the ability
of authors to independently develop works and sell to the highest bidder.
It doesn't really matter if we do that on a project by project freelance
basis, or by choice of employers, or starting and running our own business.
Otherwise we would all be working below minimum wage for a couple large
corporations, or in the grand view of the RMSplan - on government
funded grants (which by RMS is where all R&Dreally belongs).
It's not clear how we would fund that government however.
Some how there is this feeling that we spend 4-6 years of our lives,
and $30-200K of our families assets for College to work for nothing or
below minimum wage once we get out. And that anyone that sacrifices
to develop a great idea, should get a pat on the back and his picture in
paper.
The entire RMSargument against ownership of software (and all
other IP) is based upon two theory's which differ greatly from current
practice:
1) Authors, artists, performers, programmers, engineers, architects,
business managers, and other job positions that produce intangible work
products do so solely for the love of their trade and no other compensation
is necessary or justified regardless of the value of the work product.
2) Once R&D IP has been produced it belongs to society, no matter
what the cost in labor or real dollars to produce it.
In the RMSworld, once you design anything, it's expected that you
turn over the plans to the great world society and allow anyone to produce
your design without compensation for your design labor and costs.
He does consider it proper however to sell ADDITIONAL services, if needed,
to those manufacturing your designs. This eliminates wasted duplicate effort
(otherwise known as competition) and many evils associated with gaining
wealth from the capitalistic system.
What Do Users Owe to Developers?
There is a good reason for users of software to feel a moral obligation
to contribute to its support. Developers of free software are contributing
to the users' activities, and it is both fair and in the long term interest
of the users to give them funds to continue.
However, this does not apply to proprietary software developers, since
obstructionism deserves a punishment rather than a reward.
We thus have a paradox: the developer of useful software is entitled
to the support of the users, but any attempt to turn this moral obligation
into a requirement destroys the basis for the obligation. A developer can
either deserve a reward or demand it, but not both.
I believe that an ethical developer faced with this paradox must act
so as to deserve the reward, but should also entreat the users for voluntary
donations. Eventually the users will learn to support developers without
coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television
stations.
While Linux distributions show a clear success on the backs of millions
of hours of unpaid effort, and some commercial support of certain projects,
the clear and obvious result of the last 7 years of Free Software development
is that few users have showered their developers with dollars. Nor
have the Linux Distribution sales been equitably shared in the development
community - with the vast majority developers represented in the major
Linux distributions receiving nothing for there work. Clearly the
RMS model for supporting programmers isn't working, other than proving
a very large number of people do this strictly as a labor of love.
Linux distributions have however contributed to our societies well being
by transferring millions of dollars of retail distribution sales in to
our communities to help provide retail and distribution jobs for unskilled
and teenage workers that might otherwise require government assistance.
Maybe we pay programmers by giving them part-time retail jobs?
It's not clear that anything is changing in the market to suggest that
programmers will get paid for Free Software work at level to make even
a poverty level income. The RedHat business model on the other hand
is producing jobs for a few of these developers. The emergence of Linux
and it's popularity has caused the loss of better than 10,000 UNIXrelated
development and support jobs world wide as proprietary UNIXdevelopment
environments have been shut down over the last 10 years. Microsoft
has hired many of those developers, a few now have similar jobs supporting
Microsoft and Linux products in shops that used to have their own UNIX
teams. The trend is clearly that Free Software doesn't pay, and that
trend will surely over time sharply cut the number of industry jobs and
engineering graduates. With fewer programmers getting paid for UNIX/Linux
work - colleges will be forced to train for the environments that their
graduates will be seeking jobs. In the long term this works strongly to
lock in the Microsoft monopoly, and hold Free Software Linux to a minority
position. While Free Software projects have access to a glut of programmers
with Unix/Linux trained skills today - the long term trend will follow
jobs. Unless the Free Software groups can create jobs, it's unlikely
that the momentum borrowed from the previously proprietary UNIX market
is enough to establish a long term critical mass of both talent and customers.
The key to a a long term solution and success, is a balanced moderation
- a compromise - that benefits our society as a whole. Both radically increasing
or eliminating IP protections is almost certainly going to cast us into
a technological dark age where dollars are withdrawn from research and
investment without protections to guarantee that businesses can recover
the investments during product life cycles. The withdrawal of funds will
certainly slow product evolution and cut R&Djobs. With the lack
of jobs, few people will enter those disciplines in college, and over time
the industry seriously risks loss of critical mass to even sustain the
current technology level.
Bob offers a business model solution between RedHat and the Public
Domain initiative. We need to leave the anti business FSF/GPL behind as
a failed experiment that creates few jobs in the industry, and even fewer
jobs in our society, as compared to proprietary alternatives. Mixing
proprietary and Public Domain initiatives not only has a better chance
of creating jobs and pushing technology forward, but it creates prosperity
in our society as a whole by providing retail sector jobs which create
cash flow and consumers for the technology advancement and production.
I should have noted, that piracy of recordings has the largest effect of cutting revenues in the retail distributions system, and the large loss jobs in that sector. Since most of these people are marginally trained/educated - they are most likely to end up needing state support, which means a high demand on tax dollars, and less services from goverment.
In short, it probably also means less availble jobs for students and teens as well, and many of their parents.
The fallacy in this argument is that they recording industry DOES NOT GET 95% of the purchase price of a CD. The vast majority of the funds are claimed by the manufacturing and distribution system and turn into wages for many people with marginal education and skills. When it's all said and done, the recording industry gets less than 4% of most titles after expenses.
The majority of the funds are claimed by the retail distribution chain and retail outlets as markup. On the whole, most retailers run with less than a 15% net margin, after expenses - with the money turning it wages, utilities, leases, flooring interest, advertising, and a host of other expenses.
While the inefficiency of our capitalist distribution system might seem alarming - it does work better that most other alternatives that other societies have tried. - and manages to keep a vast majority of our poorly educated and trained labor force employed in retail, and off state supporting incomes.
The entire fear behind GPL, is that someone will take your work and make a killing from it. Without IP rights, the publishers stroll the gallery tossing a few pennies here and there, then publish the collected works for a good profit. If there are no IP rights, then there is no GPL protection which is based on the existance of IP as a right.
The problem is not GPL, but the RMS and FSF stated position that IP is not a right. The question that the clueless taking that position have yet to offer an answer for, is if they are worried about someone taking their works and making money from it, just how is it that denial of IP ownership as a right is going to solve that problem? The whole reason in the first place for IP rights, is to KEEP CORPORATIONS from stealing and profiting from the little guys work. RMS and FSF have failed to logically offer a solution to the problem - reverting back 700 years just makes it worse.
There are NO rights in society, except for those we collectively agree to. 29,000 years ago as man evolved, the only right was kill or be killed, for
food or property.
Some couple hundred years ago it was agreed that artists, authors, inventors, and others that used intellectual efforts to create works for the public good should be rewarded for that effort. Our society as a whole accepts, and largely accepts, that as a right - those that don't, can find other contries with a society that agrees with them in this area (and probably not others).
Not everyone agrees, and are free to lobby to change the law of our society - they are not free to selectively pick and choose which laws they car to accept and enforce - that is the nature of our association. Play by the rules, or go elsewhere. Violate MY rights, as we have has a society agreed, then face societies judgement.
Certain totalitarian governments are controlled by individuals that believe it's their right to kill, rob, rape, or harm anyone they choose. And by *their* laws they not only have the right, but the freedom to do so. I prefer our societies, dispite the compromises we sometimes have to make - as a much better tradeoff.
The clueless that claim to not be bound by a societies rules, have yet to learn about the value of that compromise. Maybe by being invited to move to someplace they think is better.
The service provided model falls down quickly with the amount of research and development required to get the first working version. The whole reason for licensing it to a large number of people is to spread the cost to the point that it is affordable to many more people. This is particulary important where no single person/company would be willing to pay for the entire development, just so everyone else could get it for free. - they why me question.
I doubt it's the name used to express the legal classification of the property that is the problem. The law of most nations, and court decisions supporting it, grant protection to specific works of authorship by class - novels, plays, music scores, music lyrics, etc. All of these, including authorship of programs fall into the classification of "Intellectual Property" which in the english language we assign the meaning of this specific string of letters in our alphabet to convey this concept of rights of authored works.
Now, at least in this society, we govern by mutually agreed laws thru the process of compromise. We do not allow anarchists to ignore the laws they do not like, and claim protection of the ones they require. We simply tell them to either obey all, get out, or accept the reactions of society if violated.
The rights in question, are a fundamental part of our society to *PREVENT* corporate abuse of individuals creative works. The act of claiming that they do not exist is CLUELESS, especially while claiming that the reason to revoke them is to gain protection from oppresive corporations. Before we abandon these IP laws, we need a replacement which protects individual authors/artists from the very abuses used to justify their revocation. It's pretty clueless to claim things will be better for everyone without IP laws.
To ignore them, to justify theft/piracy is completely unacceptable - and is a punishable act of lawlessness. Either play by all the rules, or negotiate a change in the rules, or go somewhere else that you feel is better. Everyone playing with their own rules is unacceptable anarchy.
Technology isn't there yet. I debug hardware/software/firmware for a living - it takes less than a few hours to crack or defeat nearly every authentication protection scheme I have met. Clip a logic analyzer to a cpu bus and watch the code path for *THE* "if statement" that decides success/fail, then patch the instruction to negate the test. Some software might require several patches, or many, where an inference tool to identify success/fail codes paths can be of a little help for the determined.
Someday, we might have CPU's which execute PK encrypted instructions streams, but that doesn't apply to the primary consumer computer systems in use today.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked in the political process a decade ago developing "Consituent Managment Systems" to log, and respond to correspondence and calls from the field. I can say, they do listen, and do review their own statistics on responses from the field.
They do not however have an unlimited budget to engage in endless dialog and debate with every vocal person in their district. Nor would I support raising taxes to give them that budget.
Assuming responsibility for this problem, also implies that the entity also assume legal liability for the problems created as well should the efforts fail in the future. While it all sounds good to claim that the ISP's are responsible for filtering for certain classes of evil packets, should they accept the responsibility they also must accept the liabilities should their efforts fail sometime in the future.
... and a long list down a controversial slope.
Most, if not all, ISP's have strict legal liability disclaimers about their customers activities - used to defend themselves against all 3rd parties that might litigate against their customers actions, or inactions. The legal/business side of any ISP would be wary to set the stage claiming to take responsibility for the actions of packets originating from customer owned/managed facilities. Once they start down that road, then all sorts of claims can be made that they are responible for filtering all kinds of evil packets, including as some might suggest - porn, pirate copyrighted material, all types of virus and trojan outbreaks,
Cable/DSL modems owned/leased/managed/operated by end users should contain any network required manadated filtering to facilitate the mandate that every customer is responsible for packets originating from their facility - intended or not.
If all these devices were proper NAT devices, and filtered/firewalled well known ports
which are generally associated with server functions typically not allowed under many of the service plans un-skilled customers subscribe to, then we could see the total number of exposed machines drop by 95% in a few months. The remaining machines would not number enough to realistically mount DDOS attacks of the magnitude we have seen this last month.
The ISP doesn't need to filter - it just needs to mandate that it's customers do - or risk disconnection. In this case, making firmware patches available for the cable/dsl modems, and setting a deadline for deployment.
A big portion of the other 90% are untalented elitists that build their job security by tearing the talented down to their size by nit picking every fault. This constant bickering sends the really good into constant fits of proving their worth all the time, or they just get PD about it and totally ignore the miss-placed constant negative crap from the ranks ... sometimes it gets really hard to recognize Constructive Criticism, from the constant ....
When it comes to negitivity bringing down a team, my experience is that most of it comes from the little people unhappy with their own skills.
That said, there are also a lot of PD's that need a very serious attitude adjustment.
Funny - I did it for a while as an undergrad - and we were very resourceful. Most schools I've visited make a buck go a long way - more than most places in industry.
Stated is the Max penalty for that class of crime, what he is really subject to is completely dependent on the Jury decision to 1st Convict, and 2nd Award. Research Computational Cycles charged to any project at a major university (or typical corporation by MIS dept) are fully burdened and ouch a bit. In this case I can well imagine that those resources could have been used by a paying research project had the machines been conscripted into a distributed cluster envirionment instead. With holding the resources to boost personal stats is theft. Had he enrolled the stats under the school name a lot less could be said.
Carry a pick set, without a lock smith license, and it is considered criminal intent in nearly every place I've ever been.
You have to remember many Russians are so upset about Mir taking the dive, the there is a strong group that wants to have a Russian-Only Mir-II just to show they don't need to continue contribution to the basic common good in the ISS program. It will probably be more military than science :(
Heck - one good lotto ticket :)
No - WE ALL are responsible for the nature of our government and the nature of the compromises that produce our laws. Lobbying is NOT about money - it's about making your voices heard - thru associations (IE EFF) and personal contact (IE Write/Call your representatives) to make sure your voice counts. If you sit on your hands and say nothing, they it's assumed you are amongst the countless that could care less and are willing to accept the results of those with stronger oppinions.
For the record, the definition of lobby; lobbying is: to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and esp. members of legislative body on legislation; to attempt to influence or sway (as a public offical) toware a desired action.
That isn't about money, it's about voters and votes.
I think the core issue is to focus on PD to get past the distrust that is the fundmental basis in ALL the licenses. People generally live up to the expecations placed on them, if it's fundmentally clear the environment is one of mutual respect and trust, then that is likely to be the resulting environment. If everyone approches if from a perspective of distrust - then every disagreement and misunderstanding will only fuel additional distrust. The issue isn't which license is better, but rather they all are bad from this fundmental perspective.
It's fundamental to acknowledge that not only have big businesses (like HP, IBM, SGI, and Sun) become a core resource in the OSS as corporations, but that those businesses employees in general respresent a signficant portion of the OSS movement individual members. Businesses are collective voices - to claim that businesses are bad is to imply their employees are bad. The employees of businesses that support OSS, are responsible for that support, and that should be heralded as a GOOD thing. Continuing the FSF mantra that business and their money grubbing employees are all bad is a farse that is completely derisive for the OSS community.
No - the rest of the argument stands alone, dispite our differences on the degree of control RMS/FSF may have.
My position that we need to choose our partners and allies carefully is not without merit on it's own. Here the RMS/FSF relationship is in the way of fully embracing new OSS partners like HP, IBM, SGI and Sun and the thousands of their employee's they have that share OSS goals.
Nor does that position in anyway lessen the value of the argument that Bob's leadership toward the PD movement allows is to move forward toward TRUE OSS Freedom.
Nothing fishy about deciding to abandon an org who's continuing principles are counter productive, in fact border on anarchist, and completely go against the basic free market values capitalitic values held by most in the Open Source movement.
This is an old conflict in the Open Source community - reflect on Eric Raymond's comments starting at the top of page 206 in "The Cathedral & The Bazaar". What Bob offers in the Public Domain theory of Open Source is completely FREE using the FSF definition - and much more free than GPL. It suggests that our new OSS partners, like HP, SGI, IBM, Sun, and others are no longer the enemy - but they are US including thousands of developers that share the OSS vision.
The anit-business model inherited from RMS/FSF needs to be abandoned, and Bob leads the way using a PD alternative to GPL.
Sorry - distribution is the consolidation of about 70 major wholesale outlets, that control just over 3/4 the total sales thru a two/three tiered distribution system. Those channels are not owned by the labels, but do have entangling contracts regarding shelf space and access rights that are less than competitive from the view point of smaller labels.
What is scary about the internet is the total loss of distribution control and piracy that goes with it.
Time writes "The bottom line is that the GPL itself is not trying to hijack anyone's efforts. The FSF may attempt to use it to that end, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the GPL itself. Just because patents are, on occasion, misused doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the intent of giving the creators of IP a way to protect it temporarily."
GPL is just a license, with explict terms, and has no motives. However, since RMS does have strong stated motives, controls much of the core IP in the Free Software movement, is strongly pressing to abandon/revoke LGPL with the explict goal of removing proprietary software applications (read as any non-GPL source or binary application) from the Linux platform which he seems to consider "his" - THEN this is not an idle concern or mis-percived threat, and it would take a year or more to replace GCC and related tools after RMS/FSF decided to close the door to non-GPL code.
I personally think that Linux is dead long term without the support of major applications vendors that have no reason to release their entire business assets to GPL. The only way to make a singificant impact on the Microsoft business model, is by not waving anti-IP hate propaganda in front of small businesses noses. There is a lot of rancor against Microsofts legal right to protect it's IP from piracy that we all know is rampant - but compared to the out right anti-business bashing of RMS/FSF and wholesale condemnation of free market principles thru explict plans to destroy IP rights, Microsofts actions are very mild and non-agressive in comparison.
In life we have to carefully choose our alliances - in the choice that RMS/FSF forces, Gates/MS is a saint since they mostly do what they need to do protect their own percieved rights. RMS/FSF on the otherhand, controls the rights of donated work of a huge number of people that largely may be unaware or even disagree with core public policy issues RMS/FSF demand. Gates is accountable to the market, and will compromise to retain that market. RMS refuses to accept the basic tenents of civilized democracy - compromise and individual rights are out of the question.
The original stated goals of Free access to software are much better served thru the declartion of Public Domain Rights. That policy advances the state of the art better, by including big business into the partnership. The donations that HP, SGI and Sun have made to the public good greatly advance the art and the public good. Embracing the RMS/FSF propaganda against businesses only serves to drive a wedge between important "Non-Evil" business partners that share our long term goals and provide the jobs that advance the state of the art.
I think we need to embrace Bob's public domain foundation, the great work it is doing with grants and public policy, and move major portions of core IP out of GPL and into the public domain. As consumers we have the ability to effectively boycot businesses that take without contributing their share - WE can control their customers perception of them in the market, not them - we may not be able to break a poor partner, but we certainly can make those that pull their share by supporting both their products and their business.
RedHat has been an excellent partner in this movement - we need to support and reward that, dispite the rancor of the RMS/FSF/Debian leadership against their different views regarding the role of businesses and IP rights in the Free Software movement.
First, a brief [edited] version their definition of:
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is software that is not free or semi-free. Its
use, redistribution or modification is prohibited, or requires you to
ask for permission, or is restricted so much that you effectively
can't do it freely.
The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install
any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for the
specific purpose of writing a free replacement for that very program.
Aside from that, we feel there is no possible excuse for installing a
proprietary program.
We don't insist that users of GNU, or contributors to GNU, have
to live by this rule. It is a rule we made for ourselves. But
we hope you will decide to follow it too.
The clear message is that all Proprietary Developers are not only unwelcome, but it is in the best interests of the FSF/GPL community not to support anything but Free Software. Furthermore, the stated objective is to kill all non-free linux based software. Since grass roots linux projects in several major UNIX iron companies are to promoting replacing the existing UNIX products, the end goal is domination of the non-Microsoft market with linux and the long term removal of all competitive UNIX based products. The choice for independent applications developers is to port to Microsoft, or be forced to accept GPL and source release your product since the RMS goal is clearly stated in "Why you should not use the Library GPL for your next library" which would make it impossible to link proprietary software to run a Free Software OS platform. It also forces people who have released software purely into the public domain, to adopt the highly restrictive GPL terms, if the application is to be linked with libraries on a Free Software OS platform. Somehow one has to really question why it is necessary to abandon the true freedom of "Public Domain" to give away your PD application for use on a GPL'ed OS by accepting the much more restrictive GPL terms.
So while you might claim "I'm really am getting tired of saying this, but no-one is forcing anyone to release their code under the GPL." the clear stated goal is to keep replacing/killing non-GPL options until none are left, and then use the change in library terms to force the rest to GPL, or completely leave the UNIX/Linux community - including completely Public Domain applications which are completely unrestricted open source and license free.
It seems the real intent here is to force everyone that can't wait for a mercy check from their user base to pay their rent onto Microsoft Platforms. The real intent is keep all the niche application developers that need software licenses for revenue to pay their employees, off Linux and on Microsoft platforms. And at the same time promote a revisionist view of software ownership so that Wine users will continue to pirate windoze applications that nobody in the Free Software community is willing to write. I don't know why Microsoft is complaining, business is being forced into their market.
As for the openly hostile assertion that I'm out to steal something from the GPL community - get a life. I have three kids and a wife to support, and have enough common sense to completely avoid the Linux trap, despite RedHat's invitation for for-profit application porting to their distribution. RMSand FSF have completely failed to deliver on their claim that the user community has an obligation to support Free Software Developer - my kids are hungry today, and I'm not stupid enough to believe RMS and FSF that if I GPL my living, that the user community will support them. I have delivered public domain source in the past, and will in the future - but I will probably never deliver a line of GPL'd source. I believe in the Freedom to program, including to make a living, and GPL is not FREE.
>>Just what would a GPL license be, if copyright was revoked?
> unnecessary.
actually, impossible, as big corps would have the ability to steal all ex-IP and use as they pleased.
For those that have followed Red Hat, only a portion of their product offerings are purely Free Software and available on the web for download without purchase. RedHat has freely embraced a balanced business model mixing both proprietary software sales and Free Software. This business policy is in direct opposition to others views however.
The Stallman position, mirrored by associates at the FSF, presents a radically different view which frequently denies ownership of IP as a right, and certainly casts those the differ in a rather poor light. Let us just say that while Bob Young's position is pretty much middle of the road, and reflects a careful well thought out balance, the RMS and FSF position is anything but moderate (First of two quotes from sections of "Why Software Should Be Free" by RMS):
Last time I checked, what makes our society truly free, is the ability of authors to independently develop works and sell to the highest bidder. It doesn't really matter if we do that on a project by project freelance basis, or by choice of employers, or starting and running our own business. Otherwise we would all be working below minimum wage for a couple large corporations, or in the grand view of the RMSplan - on government funded grants (which by RMS is where all R&Dreally belongs). It's not clear how we would fund that government however.Some how there is this feeling that we spend 4-6 years of our lives, and $30-200K of our families assets for College to work for nothing or below minimum wage once we get out. And that anyone that sacrifices to develop a great idea, should get a pat on the back and his picture in paper.
The entire RMSargument against ownership of software (and all other IP) is based upon two theory's which differ greatly from current practice:
In the RMSworld, once you design anything, it's expected that you turn over the plans to the great world society and allow anyone to produce your design without compensation for your design labor and costs. He does consider it proper however to sell ADDITIONAL services, if needed, to those manufacturing your designs. This eliminates wasted duplicate effort (otherwise known as competition) and many evils associated with gaining wealth from the capitalistic system. While Linux distributions show a clear success on the backs of millions of hours of unpaid effort, and some commercial support of certain projects, the clear and obvious result of the last 7 years of Free Software development is that few users have showered their developers with dollars. Nor have the Linux Distribution sales been equitably shared in the development community - with the vast majority developers represented in the major Linux distributions receiving nothing for there work. Clearly the RMS model for supporting programmers isn't working, other than proving a very large number of people do this strictly as a labor of love. Linux distributions have however contributed to our societies well being by transferring millions of dollars of retail distribution sales in to our communities to help provide retail and distribution jobs for unskilled and teenage workers that might otherwise require government assistance. Maybe we pay programmers by giving them part-time retail jobs?It's not clear that anything is changing in the market to suggest that programmers will get paid for Free Software work at level to make even a poverty level income. The RedHat business model on the other hand is producing jobs for a few of these developers. The emergence of Linux and it's popularity has caused the loss of better than 10,000 UNIXrelated development and support jobs world wide as proprietary UNIXdevelopment environments have been shut down over the last 10 years. Microsoft has hired many of those developers, a few now have similar jobs supporting Microsoft and Linux products in shops that used to have their own UNIX teams. The trend is clearly that Free Software doesn't pay, and that trend will surely over time sharply cut the number of industry jobs and engineering graduates. With fewer programmers getting paid for UNIX/Linux work - colleges will be forced to train for the environments that their graduates will be seeking jobs. In the long term this works strongly to lock in the Microsoft monopoly, and hold Free Software Linux to a minority position. While Free Software projects have access to a glut of programmers with Unix/Linux trained skills today - the long term trend will follow jobs. Unless the Free Software groups can create jobs, it's unlikely that the momentum borrowed from the previously proprietary UNIX market is enough to establish a long term critical mass of both talent and customers.
The key to a a long term solution and success, is a balanced moderation - a compromise - that benefits our society as a whole. Both radically increasing or eliminating IP protections is almost certainly going to cast us into a technological dark age where dollars are withdrawn from research and investment without protections to guarantee that businesses can recover the investments during product life cycles. The withdrawal of funds will certainly slow product evolution and cut R&Djobs. With the lack of jobs, few people will enter those disciplines in college, and over time the industry seriously risks loss of critical mass to even sustain the current technology level.
Bob offers a business model solution between RedHat and the Public Domain initiative. We need to leave the anti business FSF/GPL behind as a failed experiment that creates few jobs in the industry, and even fewer jobs in our society, as compared to proprietary alternatives. Mixing proprietary and Public Domain initiatives not only has a better chance of creating jobs and pushing technology forward, but it creates prosperity in our society as a whole by providing retail sector jobs which create cash flow and consumers for the technology advancement and production.
I should have noted, that piracy of recordings has the largest effect of cutting revenues in the retail distributions system, and the large loss jobs in that sector. Since most of these people are marginally trained/educated - they are most likely to end up needing state support, which means a high demand on tax dollars, and less services from goverment.
In short, it probably also means less availble jobs for students and teens as well, and many of their parents.
The fallacy in this argument is that they recording industry DOES NOT GET 95% of the purchase price of a CD. The vast majority of the funds are claimed by the manufacturing and distribution system and turn into wages for many people with marginal education and skills. When it's all said and done, the recording industry gets less than 4% of most titles after expenses.
The majority of the funds are claimed by the retail distribution chain and retail outlets as markup. On the whole, most retailers run with less than a 15% net margin, after expenses - with the money turning it wages, utilities, leases, flooring interest, advertising, and a host of other expenses.
While the inefficiency of our capitalist distribution system might seem alarming - it does work better that most other alternatives that other societies have tried. - and manages to keep a vast majority of our poorly educated and trained labor force employed in retail, and off state supporting incomes.
I strongly agree, as long as authors rights are not totally removed in the process.
The entire fear behind GPL, is that someone will take your work and make a killing from it. Without IP rights, the publishers stroll the gallery tossing a few pennies here and there, then publish the collected works for a good profit. If there are no IP rights, then there is no GPL protection which is based on the existance of IP as a right.
The problem is not GPL, but the RMS and FSF stated position that IP is not a right. The question that the clueless taking that position have yet to offer an answer for, is if they are worried about someone taking their works and making money from it, just how is it that denial of IP ownership as a right is going to solve that problem? The whole reason in the first place for IP rights, is to KEEP CORPORATIONS from stealing and profiting from the little guys work. RMS and FSF have failed to logically offer a solution to the problem - reverting back 700 years just makes it worse.
There are NO rights in society, except for those we collectively agree to. 29,000 years ago as man evolved, the only right was kill or be killed, for food or property.
Some couple hundred years ago it was agreed that artists, authors, inventors, and others that used intellectual efforts to create works for the public good should be rewarded for that effort. Our society as a whole accepts, and largely accepts, that as a right - those that don't, can find other contries with a society that agrees with them in this area (and probably not others).
Not everyone agrees, and are free to lobby to change the law of our society - they are not free to selectively pick and choose which laws they car to accept and enforce - that is the nature of our association. Play by the rules, or go elsewhere. Violate MY rights, as we have has a society agreed, then face societies judgement.
Certain totalitarian governments are controlled by individuals that believe it's their right to kill, rob, rape, or harm anyone they choose. And by *their* laws they not only have the right, but the freedom to do so. I prefer our societies, dispite the compromises we sometimes have to make - as a much better tradeoff.
The clueless that claim to not be bound by a societies rules, have yet to learn about the value of that compromise. Maybe by being invited to move to someplace they think is better.
The service provided model falls down quickly with the amount of research and development required to get the first working version. The whole reason for licensing it to a large number of people is to spread the cost to the point that it is affordable to many more people. This is particulary important where no single person/company would be willing to pay for the entire development, just so everyone else could get it for free. - they why me question.
I doubt it's the name used to express the legal classification of the property that is the problem. The law of most nations, and court decisions supporting it, grant protection to specific works of authorship by class - novels, plays, music scores, music lyrics, etc. All of these, including authorship of programs fall into the classification of "Intellectual Property" which in the english language we assign the meaning of this specific string of letters in our alphabet to convey this concept of rights of authored works.
Now, at least in this society, we govern by mutually agreed laws thru the process of compromise. We do not allow anarchists to ignore the laws they do not like, and claim protection of the ones they require. We simply tell them to either obey all, get out, or accept the reactions of society if violated.
The rights in question, are a fundamental part of our society to *PREVENT* corporate abuse of individuals creative works. The act of claiming that they do not exist is CLUELESS, especially while claiming that the reason to revoke them is to gain protection from oppresive corporations. Before we abandon these IP laws, we need a replacement which protects individual authors/artists from the very abuses used to justify their revocation. It's pretty clueless to claim things will be better for everyone without IP laws.
To ignore them, to justify theft/piracy is completely unacceptable - and is a punishable act of lawlessness. Either play by all the rules, or negotiate a change in the rules, or go somewhere else that you feel is better. Everyone playing with their own rules is unacceptable anarchy.
Technology isn't there yet. I debug hardware/software/firmware for a living - it takes less than a few hours to crack or defeat nearly every authentication protection scheme I have met. Clip a logic analyzer to a cpu bus and watch the code path for *THE* "if statement" that decides success/fail, then patch the instruction to negate the test. Some software might require several patches, or many, where an inference tool to identify success/fail codes paths can be of a little help for the determined.
Someday, we might have CPU's which execute PK encrypted instructions streams, but that doesn't apply to the primary consumer computer systems in use today.