Just because its not state or federal doesnt mean I can't get fucked over by it. I saw a lot of discussion about this at the Philadelphia Mayoral debates (an event I Tech'ed for), and I did not like what I heard.
Just because a politician speaks against something, doesn't mean they are advocating banning it. There are a lot of things that I think are rotten in society, and probably so do you, but that's a different thing than believing there should be a law against it.
I realize that reasonable people can disagree on this, but that's not the same thing. Certain drugs can cause immediate mental breakdown, and cause a danger to others. There is a case to made that certain drugs should be illegal.
you cannot install hidden cameras (as a security system)
Reference? As far as I know, that is not illegal, unless you're using them to spy on others (like, recording movies of having sex with someone, and then selling the movie).
some places certain activities with your spouce are not legal.
Well, first of all, that's not at the state or federal level, as I specified. Yes, there are going to be wacky local laws, but 1) they are not enforced, and 2) if they were, they would be struck down by higher courts.
So in practical terms, there is very little that is forbidden in your own home. And usually the only restrictions are when you are violating the rights of others.
However, I have seen politicians who want to outright ban game violence, since most stores do nothing to enforce the ratings levels.
Could you provide a reference? Bottom line, you can't, because it has never happened (at least, at the state or federal level, I'm sure there might be some wacky local politician somewhere...)
I realize that this issue is important to many Slashdotters, but I wish we could have a little more reason and less emotion on these issues. Banning stuff in your own home never has and never will be a serious threat in the USA.
One of your drivers under Win/2000 is destabilizing the system. I don't if it's a CODEC or what, but that is one obnoxious piece of software. Kick whoever is running QA in the butt.
Here's a specific recommendation: I received a bunch of.rm files with the ends lopped off. That causes RealPlayer to lock up, barf, and generally fall apart. RealPlayer is very, very brittle when it comes to getting invalid data. Do some testing by taking some movies and throw some garbage in them, and see what happens.
- Yawn - pedantism is pretty boring. You know what I mean. The term "Linux" also means "the group of distributions that use the Linux kernel and include many open source packages".
I agree that the problem is in the open source packages, but so what? That's the place to blame in almost EVERY operating system, Windows included.
If you want it stated that "open source programs have nothing to brag about when it comes to security", then fine.
But none of this rhetorical nonsense matters one iota to the fact that the security under Linux operating systems has not been very good. Sorry to break it to you.
All you need is a few ipchains or iptables lines to make a box almost totally secured.
That's like saying that you can make a box totally secure by turning it off. Are the Linux services so riddled with security holes that you have to actually block all access to them?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes, as you point out.
Call me crazy, but I want a system that allows me to use ALL the services I want to use without fear of being cracked. Would you cut Microsoft the same slack if they came out with an advisory saying "in order to make a Windows machine secure, block all Internet services" as you advocate for Linux boxes?
You could also sell them on security and reliability, areas in which IIS simply falls on its face.
Linux has nothing to brag about when it comes to security. As for reliability, Linux perhaps had an advantage over NT/4, but not over Win/2000. On the other hand, if they want reliability, Linux is possibly the poorest version of Unix. I personally would use AIX, but just about any of the commercial unixes blows Linux away.
Are you talking about those clamshell things with calculator-y keyboards exemplified by the Sharp Wizards, or are you talking about the Casio Zoomer?
Sorry, you're right, I was talking about the Sharp Wizard, not the Casio. I had one of the Wizards. I agree that the Palm has a better form factor than the Wizard, but I would say that the Wizard was fairly efficient at what it did.
My point is not that the Wizard is comparable to the Palm (the Palm is superior in just about every way), but that at the time it was practical and useful, and sold fairly well.
If that's your reason for preferring the GPL, then more power to you. However, the purpose of the GPL (at least as far as my understand of RMS' motives go) is not about ending "exploitation". You may want to read his reasoning. It's much more sophisticated than that.
violations of our privacy, destruction of our right to free speech...
And exactly what do those issues have to do with the GPL or software for that matter? If you think you are in some privileged place to see them, you are sadly mistaken. In any case, those issues are much grayer than you seem to think. Listening to Slashdot, you would think the US was 1 minute away from a police state.
reducing our profession to little more than whoring ourselves out to the highest bidder.
Versus what? "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability"?
The GPL was created because of shortcomings in the BSD, artistic, and public licensing schemes where corporations could take your code without asking you. [...] Compare it to the Microsoft Windows NT EULA, and reflect on it.
If you selfishly want your code only used in certain ways, then more power to you. Personally, I've released code as a public service, and don't care how it gets used. The point isn't that the code is freer than EULA-gized programs, the point is that it's less free than other licenses.
You might find the GPL isn't so bad afterall.
Actually, I haven't given you my opinion of whether the GPL is good or bad, only that it's has less freedom than other licenses. As far as my sig goes, it just amuses me to draw a parallel between two issues that the typical slashdotter would feel diametrically opposite. And yet, that's what the GPL is all about -- "legislating" morality.
The GPL isn't about granting new freedom; it's about preserving what little we have left.
Here's one of my favorite (paraphrased) quotes. Think about how it applies to the GPL: "Without economic freedom, all other freedoms are just an intellectual exercise."
In fact, thanks for reminding my of that quote. Maybe I'll make that my next sig when I get tired of this one.
But I ask you - what freedom does the GPL take away? [...] Obviously, you get even more [freedom] with other licenses, you're not restricted from doing anything at all to material in the public domain.
Exactly. You answered your own question. A less restrictive license grants more freedom than a more restrictive license. $20 and $500 are both charitable, but one is more charitable than the other.
...black people didn't used to be offended by being called "niggers", but they are now, and it's being changed. How many people were protesting when it was first introduced is irrelevant.
Agreed. And the criminal population that the media refers to as "hackers" don't mind being called "hackers". It's only the non-criminal ones that object.
Put it this way. What if the Italian population objected to Mafia members being referred to as "Italians"? And you had a bunch of people who get up and say, "Look, we know that much of the mafia is made up of Italians, but those people don't represent us. Therefore, we want you to start calling them 'Crimalians'". How far do you think it would get?
Don't get so ahead of yourself.. it says "depreciated" not changed. From the dictionary...
Errrr, the word is "deprecated" not "depreciated". The definition is:
deprecate (dpr-kt)
1. To express disapproval of; deplore.
2. To belittle; depreciate.
You'll note that it does use "depreciate" as part of the definition, but they are different words. [as the footnote notes, unfortunately people like you have confused them so often that they are getting mixed up. Somewhat ironic, considering the subject matter.]
One again, the definition was changed. I don't understand why you argue this simple point. Should I insert a definition of changed?First, age is irrelevant and you are being discriminatory and elitist by saying that my age somehow has a relationship to my ability to argue.
Of course it does (uh, duh). Is a ten year old better able to argue concepts than a five year old? It's not a question of intelligence, it's a question of knowledge and experience. The older you are, the more time you have had to accumulate knowledge. That is obviously going to affect your ability to evaluate facts and circumstances. And obviously, we are talking about generalities and not specifics (i.e., a 40 year old is not always more knowledgeable than a 20 year old).
hacker originally meant "someone who makes furniture with an axe".
Irrelevent, since we are talking about the original sense of the word in the context of computers, which is the sense of the word that the media is using.
I'm going to stop replying now, as you seem to be intent on chasing your tail and offering little or nothing in the way of new insight on the matter. There's nothing new to discuss here.
No problem. It doesn't make you any less wrong, though.
There is no democracy, no majority, nothing like that.
Heck, if can't argue the point, then argue semantics. It was a metaphor. The point is that words mean what a communicator and a communicatee define them to mean. If agreement reaches sufficient levels, then it is placed in the dictionary.
That "very small" number is between 9.2 and 16.7 percent in the US
That number is, shall we say, very debatable. Even the infamous study back in the 40s (which looked at prison populations, yeah there's a good reference) only pegged it at 10%. There as a huge study done more recently that put it at 2-4%. My gut feeling is that is much more accurate.
But of course, that is totally beside the point. The "very small number" refers to the number of people who were openly gay when the term was introduced.
that definition is depreciated - the correct term is cracker.
Exactly my point. Thank you for agreeing. The definition was changed.
determine that heated debates over this existed as early as 1996...
I know a teenager or early twentysomething like yourself might find this hard to believe, but 1996 is quite recent. 1990 is also quite recent.
This position is easily rebuffed by the simple fact that you can call yourself anything you want.
What do you want? The "old" definition backs up the media. The hackers themselves back up the media. Guess what? The "pro-choice" people used to call themselves the "pro-abortion movement". They decided that was too politically sensitive (although more accurate) and decided to call themselves by the "friendlier" term. The media will generally call you what you call yourself.
Congratulations, you have successfully and completely missed the point. And having missed it, you are frustrated and take out your frustration by insulting me.
No one is *forced* to GPL anything.
No one ever said they were.
Adultery is not illegal in most sane parts of the world. Immoral in some quarters, sure, but illegal?
The question of whether adultery is in fact illegal is totally irrelevent to my sig.
Here it is, in a nutshell. I am drawing a parallel between the restrictions put on code use through THE USE of the GPL and the motivations of trying to make adultery illegal. The GPL advocates always use "freedom" and "morality" as the basis of their argument. However, since use of GPL code is restricted in various ways, that is a restriction on freedom. However, the GPL advocate would answer that the restriction is good, because the usage of the code is more "moral" in the sense that modifications to the code must be returned to the community, and it encourages other code to be released as GPL.
This is the same argument that could be made of making adultery illegal. Sure, you would be putting restrictions on people's personal freedom. However, that would be balanced with a net increase of morality since the incidence of one partner betraying the trust of the other partner, in violation of the terms of their relationship, would decrease.
I leave it to you to figure out whether one or the other is a good idea.
massive processing power required for a whole body suite however.
I don't know... you could do it the same way the human body does it. Have a higher density of sensors at the critical places (like finger tips) and low density sensors elsewhere. Also, you would probably use some algorithms to aggregate individual pressure points into a 2D pattern.
Sure. It's a restriction on your ability to take freedoms away from others.
Oh? Exactly how does using GPL code in a closed source product prevent others from using that code however they want? In other words, in what way are their freedoms "taken away" by my behavior?
We defined this set of jargon, and it's up to US, not THEM to determine its use.
Wrong. As someone pointed out, language is an evolving thing. Words are meant for communication, and majority rules when it comes to communication. A very small group of people decided that "gay" means "homosexual". Did they have the "authority" to do that? No, but now that it's entered popular usage, then that is one of the primary definitions.
The other way you're totally wrong is in the definition of "hacker". Sorry, but one of the sense of "hacker" IS "someone who break security". It's only recently that people have decided that they don't like the criminal aspect to that behavior, and so are trying to chop off that definition and place it into "cracker".
In any case, you'll note that the people are are cracking systems refer to themselves as hackers, so the media is simply calling them what they call themselves.
i dont get your sig. how does the gpl result in a net loss of individual freedom.
Because you are restricted in what you can do with GPL source code, such as using it in a closed source project or even using it in open source software with an incompatible license. That's a restriction on your personal freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
frustrated that by the time I post this will have been moderated up as "interesting" instead of down as flamebait
Yeah, I guess all differences of opinion from your should be considered flamebait.
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Just because its not state or federal doesnt mean I can't get fucked over by it. I saw a lot of discussion about this at the Philadelphia Mayoral debates (an event I Tech'ed for), and I did not like what I heard.
Just because a politician speaks against something, doesn't mean they are advocating banning it. There are a lot of things that I think are rotten in society, and probably so do you, but that's a different thing than believing there should be a law against it.
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well, if they ban the sale of it, its gonna be pretty damn hard for me to get it in the first place, to play in my own home
Again, show me a reference to a state or federal politician that has talked about outright banning of the sale of a game.
You're starting to believe too much of the shrill nonsense on Slashdot. Live in reality, not Slashdot fantasy.
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You cannot take certain drugs
I realize that reasonable people can disagree on this, but that's not the same thing. Certain drugs can cause immediate mental breakdown, and cause a danger to others. There is a case to made that certain drugs should be illegal.
you cannot install hidden cameras (as a security system)
Reference? As far as I know, that is not illegal, unless you're using them to spy on others (like, recording movies of having sex with someone, and then selling the movie).
some places certain activities with your spouce are not legal.
Well, first of all, that's not at the state or federal level, as I specified. Yes, there are going to be wacky local laws, but 1) they are not enforced, and 2) if they were, they would be struck down by higher courts.
So in practical terms, there is very little that is forbidden in your own home. And usually the only restrictions are when you are violating the rights of others.
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However, I have seen politicians who want to outright ban game violence, since most stores do nothing to enforce the ratings levels.
Could you provide a reference? Bottom line, you can't, because it has never happened (at least, at the state or federal level, I'm sure there might be some wacky local politician somewhere...)
I realize that this issue is important to many Slashdotters, but I wish we could have a little more reason and less emotion on these issues. Banning stuff in your own home never has and never will be a serious threat in the USA.
--
One of your drivers under Win/2000 is destabilizing the system. I don't if it's a CODEC or what, but that is one obnoxious piece of software. Kick whoever is running QA in the butt.
Here's a specific recommendation: I received a bunch of .rm files with the ends lopped off. That causes RealPlayer to lock up, barf, and generally fall apart. RealPlayer is very, very brittle when it comes to getting invalid data. Do some testing by taking some movies and throw some garbage in them, and see what happens.
And can't you make it a little less bulky?
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Stop using the idiotic non-word "alot". If that was on your resume, it would go straight into my trash can. Yes, grammar and spelling count.
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What's wrong with Forrest Gump? If you thought that was a bad movie, then you basically didn't get it.
Or is it just popular movies that you dislike?
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Linux is a kernel. [...]
- Yawn - pedantism is pretty boring. You know what I mean. The term "Linux" also means "the group of distributions that use the Linux kernel and include many open source packages".
I agree that the problem is in the open source packages, but so what? That's the place to blame in almost EVERY operating system, Windows included.
If you want it stated that "open source programs have nothing to brag about when it comes to security", then fine.
But none of this rhetorical nonsense matters one iota to the fact that the security under Linux operating systems has not been very good. Sorry to break it to you.
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In other news, Steve Jobs announced that, compared to the Colossus, the G4 is "twice as fast" using standard 1944 Bytemark benchmarks.
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Oh, well, as long as we have anecdotal evidence, that's all the proof we need!
More proof that Slashdot is not the place to go for objective information (but I try).
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All you need is a few ipchains or iptables lines to make a box almost totally secured.
That's like saying that you can make a box totally secure by turning it off. Are the Linux services so riddled with security holes that you have to actually block all access to them?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes, as you point out.
Call me crazy, but I want a system that allows me to use ALL the services I want to use without fear of being cracked. Would you cut Microsoft the same slack if they came out with an advisory saying "in order to make a Windows machine secure, block all Internet services" as you advocate for Linux boxes?
--
You could also sell them on security and reliability, areas in which IIS simply falls on its face.
Linux has nothing to brag about when it comes to security. As for reliability, Linux perhaps had an advantage over NT/4, but not over Win/2000. On the other hand, if they want reliability, Linux is possibly the poorest version of Unix. I personally would use AIX, but just about any of the commercial unixes blows Linux away.
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Are you talking about those clamshell things with calculator-y keyboards exemplified by the Sharp Wizards, or are you talking about the Casio Zoomer?
Sorry, you're right, I was talking about the Sharp Wizard, not the Casio. I had one of the Wizards. I agree that the Palm has a better form factor than the Wizard, but I would say that the Wizard was fairly efficient at what it did.
My point is not that the Wizard is comparable to the Palm (the Palm is superior in just about every way), but that at the time it was practical and useful, and sold fairly well.
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Where's Jeff Hawkins? He's arguably the inventor of the first practical PDA.
Apparently you never used any of the early Casios. The Palm is definitely not the first "practical" PDA.
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... or Charles Manson ...
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We're tired of being exploited by big business.
If that's your reason for preferring the GPL, then more power to you. However, the purpose of the GPL (at least as far as my understand of RMS' motives go) is not about ending "exploitation". You may want to read his reasoning. It's much more sophisticated than that.
violations of our privacy, destruction of our right to free speech...
And exactly what do those issues have to do with the GPL or software for that matter? If you think you are in some privileged place to see them, you are sadly mistaken. In any case, those issues are much grayer than you seem to think. Listening to Slashdot, you would think the US was 1 minute away from a police state.
reducing our profession to little more than whoring ourselves out to the highest bidder.
Versus what? "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability"?
The GPL was created because of shortcomings in the BSD, artistic, and public licensing schemes where corporations could take your code without asking you. [...] Compare it to the Microsoft Windows NT EULA, and reflect on it.
If you selfishly want your code only used in certain ways, then more power to you. Personally, I've released code as a public service, and don't care how it gets used. The point isn't that the code is freer than EULA-gized programs, the point is that it's less free than other licenses.
You might find the GPL isn't so bad afterall.
Actually, I haven't given you my opinion of whether the GPL is good or bad, only that it's has less freedom than other licenses. As far as my sig goes, it just amuses me to draw a parallel between two issues that the typical slashdotter would feel diametrically opposite. And yet, that's what the GPL is all about -- "legislating" morality.
The GPL isn't about granting new freedom; it's about preserving what little we have left.
Here's one of my favorite (paraphrased) quotes. Think about how it applies to the GPL: "Without economic freedom, all other freedoms are just an intellectual exercise."
In fact, thanks for reminding my of that quote. Maybe I'll make that my next sig when I get tired of this one.
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But I ask you - what freedom does the GPL take away? [...] Obviously, you get even more [freedom] with other licenses, you're not restricted from doing anything at all to material in the public domain.
Exactly. You answered your own question. A less restrictive license grants more freedom than a more restrictive license. $20 and $500 are both charitable, but one is more charitable than the other.
--
Agreed. And the criminal population that the media refers to as "hackers" don't mind being called "hackers". It's only the non-criminal ones that object.
Put it this way. What if the Italian population objected to Mafia members being referred to as "Italians"? And you had a bunch of people who get up and say, "Look, we know that much of the mafia is made up of Italians, but those people don't represent us. Therefore, we want you to start calling them 'Crimalians'". How far do you think it would get?
Don't get so ahead of yourself.. it says "depreciated" not changed. From the dictionary...
Errrr, the word is "deprecated" not "depreciated". The definition is:
You'll note that it does use "depreciate" as part of the definition, but they are different words. [as the footnote notes, unfortunately people like you have confused them so often that they are getting mixed up. Somewhat ironic, considering the subject matter.]
One again, the definition was changed. I don't understand why you argue this simple point. Should I insert a definition of changed?First, age is irrelevant and you are being discriminatory and elitist by saying that my age somehow has a relationship to my ability to argue.
Of course it does (uh, duh). Is a ten year old better able to argue concepts than a five year old? It's not a question of intelligence, it's a question of knowledge and experience. The older you are, the more time you have had to accumulate knowledge. That is obviously going to affect your ability to evaluate facts and circumstances. And obviously, we are talking about generalities and not specifics (i.e., a 40 year old is not always more knowledgeable than a 20 year old).
hacker originally meant "someone who makes furniture with an axe".
Irrelevent, since we are talking about the original sense of the word in the context of computers, which is the sense of the word that the media is using.
I'm going to stop replying now, as you seem to be intent on chasing your tail and offering little or nothing in the way of new insight on the matter. There's nothing new to discuss here.
No problem. It doesn't make you any less wrong, though.
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There is no democracy, no majority, nothing like that.
Heck, if can't argue the point, then argue semantics. It was a metaphor. The point is that words mean what a communicator and a communicatee define them to mean. If agreement reaches sufficient levels, then it is placed in the dictionary.
That "very small" number is between 9.2 and 16.7 percent in the US
That number is, shall we say, very debatable. Even the infamous study back in the 40s (which looked at prison populations, yeah there's a good reference) only pegged it at 10%. There as a huge study done more recently that put it at 2-4%. My gut feeling is that is much more accurate.
But of course, that is totally beside the point. The "very small number" refers to the number of people who were openly gay when the term was introduced.
that definition is depreciated - the correct term is cracker.
Exactly my point. Thank you for agreeing. The definition was changed.
determine that heated debates over this existed as early as 1996...
I know a teenager or early twentysomething like yourself might find this hard to believe, but 1996 is quite recent. 1990 is also quite recent.
This position is easily rebuffed by the simple fact that you can call yourself anything you want.
What do you want? The "old" definition backs up the media. The hackers themselves back up the media. Guess what? The "pro-choice" people used to call themselves the "pro-abortion movement". They decided that was too politically sensitive (although more accurate) and decided to call themselves by the "friendlier" term. The media will generally call you what you call yourself.
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Congratulations, you have successfully and completely missed the point. And having missed it, you are frustrated and take out your frustration by insulting me.
No one is *forced* to GPL anything.
No one ever said they were.
Adultery is not illegal in most sane parts of the world. Immoral in some quarters, sure, but illegal?
The question of whether adultery is in fact illegal is totally irrelevent to my sig.
Here it is, in a nutshell. I am drawing a parallel between the restrictions put on code use through THE USE of the GPL and the motivations of trying to make adultery illegal. The GPL advocates always use "freedom" and "morality" as the basis of their argument. However, since use of GPL code is restricted in various ways, that is a restriction on freedom. However, the GPL advocate would answer that the restriction is good, because the usage of the code is more "moral" in the sense that modifications to the code must be returned to the community, and it encourages other code to be released as GPL.
This is the same argument that could be made of making adultery illegal. Sure, you would be putting restrictions on people's personal freedom. However, that would be balanced with a net increase of morality since the incidence of one partner betraying the trust of the other partner, in violation of the terms of their relationship, would decrease.
I leave it to you to figure out whether one or the other is a good idea.
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massive processing power required for a whole body suite however.
I don't know... you could do it the same way the human body does it. Have a higher density of sensors at the critical places (like finger tips) and low density sensors elsewhere. Also, you would probably use some algorithms to aggregate individual pressure points into a 2D pattern.
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Sure. It's a restriction on your ability to take freedoms away from others.
Oh? Exactly how does using GPL code in a closed source product prevent others from using that code however they want? In other words, in what way are their freedoms "taken away" by my behavior?
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Hmm. You're wrong in two different ways!
We defined this set of jargon, and it's up to US, not THEM to determine its use.
Wrong. As someone pointed out, language is an evolving thing. Words are meant for communication, and majority rules when it comes to communication. A very small group of people decided that "gay" means "homosexual". Did they have the "authority" to do that? No, but now that it's entered popular usage, then that is one of the primary definitions.
The other way you're totally wrong is in the definition of "hacker". Sorry, but one of the sense of "hacker" IS "someone who break security". It's only recently that people have decided that they don't like the criminal aspect to that behavior, and so are trying to chop off that definition and place it into "cracker".
In any case, you'll note that the people are are cracking systems refer to themselves as hackers, so the media is simply calling them what they call themselves.
--
i dont get your sig. how does the gpl result in a net loss of individual freedom.
Because you are restricted in what you can do with GPL source code, such as using it in a closed source project or even using it in open source software with an incompatible license. That's a restriction on your personal freedom.
--