There's groups like the EFF, sites like Chilling Effects, and individual blogs like NYCL's, news aggregators like Slashdot, magazines like Wired, and many others... I can only begin a list of the categories, let alone the sites themselves.
Groklaw has been a rallying point for part of the online civil discourse, but it's not the only one. Perhaps the community that has grown around Groklaw can keep using it as a touchstone, as they shift their own emphasis to other parts of the web, but that doesn't need Pamela's continued engagement and daily involvement, does it?
Wow, how dare he answer the question asked!
on
FreeBSD 7.1 Released
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· Score: 1
Good god, he was asked a question, and he answered it. It wasn't even a question about code, it was a question about funding... and he has a real point. The only way I was able to get one company I worked at to contribute ANYTHING to OpenBSD or FreeBSD was by writing up purchase requests for media and shepherding them through channels.
Also, that quote does not carry Theo's tone of voice. From my experience with him, I would guess that he was laughing all the way through that last sentence... it comes out as a rant in print but that's not how he sounds in person.
They've been charging 30c to upgrade from 128k AAC with DRM to 256k AAC without DRM since they first introduced the program in May 2007. They originally ALSO charged 30c more for the higher bit rate DRM-free songs, but dropped that in October 2007.
My Libretto was rated for 8 hours with the fat battery pack, but I never got more than 5-6 hours. That was still enough to keep me from having to join the tethered geeks near the wall at conferences, but only because I had two batteries and could leave one charging in my room... then swap it out at the lunch break and before the evening sessions.
Not to mention that you don't want to risk a non-removable "iBattery" turning into something like this like my original Macbook Pro's did.
The reason copyright is in trouble is that very few need copyright, while most people would gain if copyright disappeared.
If that was actually the case, then copyright should be eliminated.
[Congress shall have the power] To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; -- US Constitition, Article 1, Section 8
That doesn't read "To reward authors and inventors for their work", it reads "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". If copyright can not benefit the public at large by promoting the progress of science and useful arts then it should be abolished.
Personally, I don't believe that to be the case... copyright law needs to be amended, I believe, but not abolished... but I guess that makes me an arch-conservative on Slashdot.:)
The problem is that the scam involves links not coming from quasi-strangers, but potentially people you trust.
Address mining from spamware and malware has been using this technique in email spams, worms, and botnet-driven scams for a decade. It's been used by IM worms for at least three years. This isn't new and shouldn't be news.
In both cases all but the most obtuse individuals are unlikely to be taken in by the same phishing message twice. The situation we're talking about isn't merely spam, it's an unexpected message ostensibly from a friend containing a phishing link or malware and it depends on the familiarity of the source getting you to drop your guard.
Going back to my original comment, people should already be on guard against this kind of thing.
Address mining using malware (viruses, botnets) has been a regular part of email spam for years. It comes in and out of fashion, but it's been over a decade since it's been possible to treat unsolicited links and attachments even from people you know as "safe".
I've at times had to block entire countries from my SMTP server at the IP level because just handling the first level filtering for spam was costing me as much as $750 a month in traffic surcharges.
People don't see the amount of spam out there, but it still has a cost... not only in direct costs (bandwidth, servers, man-hours) but also in things like lost and ignored mail.
The reaction to piano rolls by sheet music companies was just as unthinking and out of proportion to the threat as the reaction to every subsequent advance in recording and distribution technology. There were congressional hearings where they demanded that piano rolls be banned, that sheet music companies be given the right to control the sales of reproduction technology, and so on.
The same scenario was played out for audio recordings, radio, and so on down the line, except that eventually the renegades (the recording industry) became the establishment...
I have used both Rosetta and Graffiti on my Newton, and Transcriber (which was derived from Rosetta) and Microsoft's emulation of Graffiti on the Pocket PC, and both the original Graffiti and Microsoft's version wins hands down over Rosetta/Transcriber.
Graffiti was a shorthand character recognizer that used unique single-stroke glyphs rather than attempting to emulate the form of individual characters as Jot (which is now bundled with PalmOS as Graffiti II) does, and Microsoft's original character recognizer did. It takes more work to learn, but it is faster and more efficient than any handwriting recognizer on a small screen.
Xerox developed a completely unrelated single-stroke character recognizer called Unistroke, at about the same time as Jef Hawkins developed Graffiti. They patented it and sued Palm over Graffiti, and despite the fact that Hawkins' original thesis that led to Graffiti predated Xerox' patent application Palm eventually caved in and replaced Graffiti with Jot.
So far as I know, Xerox has not sued Microsoft over their character recognizer. Whether they licensed the patent or whether Microsoft was just too much to take on, I don't know.
If Apple does turn the Touch into a Tablet, I would be MUCH more interested in it if they included the equivalent of Graffiti instead of merely licensing Rosetta/Transcriber again.
Didn't they have a mohole digger in one of Thunderbird 2's pods? Release the pressure on the magma chamber slowly and discover The Hood is behind the whole thing as a bonus!
Slashdot Mirror
There's groups like the EFF, sites like Chilling Effects, and individual blogs like NYCL's, news aggregators like Slashdot, magazines like Wired, and many others... I can only begin a list of the categories, let alone the sites themselves.
Groklaw has been a rallying point for part of the online civil discourse, but it's not the only one. Perhaps the community that has grown around Groklaw can keep using it as a touchstone, as they shift their own emphasis to other parts of the web, but that doesn't need Pamela's continued engagement and daily involvement, does it?
Good god, he was asked a question, and he answered it. It wasn't even a question about code, it was a question about funding... and he has a real point. The only way I was able to get one company I worked at to contribute ANYTHING to OpenBSD or FreeBSD was by writing up purchase requests for media and shepherding them through channels.
Also, that quote does not carry Theo's tone of voice. From my experience with him, I would guess that he was laughing all the way through that last sentence... it comes out as a rant in print but that's not how he sounds in person.
Oh, I hadn't noticed this, in all the other flaming and innuendo:
I applaud the people over at Amazon (and everyone else selling music without DRM) for doing it first.
eMusic has been selling DRM-free for a long time, but no major labels.
Apple introduced iTunes Plus in May 2007, with their EMI catalog, the first major label to go DRM-free.
Amazon followed up with the their MP3 service in September 2007, with EMI and Universal.
That said, Apple is also now charging...
NOW charging?
They've been charging 30c to upgrade from 128k AAC with DRM to 256k AAC without DRM since they first introduced the program in May 2007. They originally ALSO charged 30c more for the higher bit rate DRM-free songs, but dropped that in October 2007.
My Libretto was rated for 8 hours with the fat battery pack, but I never got more than 5-6 hours. That was still enough to keep me from having to join the tethered geeks near the wall at conferences, but only because I had two batteries and could leave one charging in my room... then swap it out at the lunch break and before the evening sessions.
Not to mention that you don't want to risk a non-removable "iBattery" turning into something like this like my original Macbook Pro's did.
Every cell-phone from entry-level to smart phone has a removable battery, why is there this trend to prevent that?
My old iPaq didn't, and of course the iPhone doesn't.
I hereby dub it "the iBattery syndrome".
I'm glad my original Macbook Pro didn't have an iBattery, or else it would have been trashed when my battery swelled out of its case.
The reason copyright is in trouble is that very few need copyright, while most people would gain if copyright disappeared.
If that was actually the case, then copyright should be eliminated.
That doesn't read "To reward authors and inventors for their work", it reads "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". If copyright can not benefit the public at large by promoting the progress of science and useful arts then it should be abolished.
Personally, I don't believe that to be the case... copyright law needs to be amended, I believe, but not abolished... but I guess that makes me an arch-conservative on Slashdot. :)
I suddenly had an image of some hastily drawn Scott Adams contraption hurling Elbonians into meteoric reentry to generate thrust.
The problem is that the scam involves links not coming from quasi-strangers, but potentially people you trust.
Address mining from spamware and malware has been using this technique in email spams, worms, and botnet-driven scams for a decade. It's been used by IM worms for at least three years. This isn't new and shouldn't be news.
That's a hell of a backhoe that can dig a hole in a sealed steel and concrete box buried ten feet underground.
Even a whole SPOOL of fiber wouldn't summon up a backhoe that big.
In both cases all but the most obtuse individuals are unlikely to be taken in by the same phishing message twice. The situation we're talking about isn't merely spam, it's an unexpected message ostensibly from a friend containing a phishing link or malware and it depends on the familiarity of the source getting you to drop your guard.
Going back to my original comment, people should already be on guard against this kind of thing.
Address mining using malware (viruses, botnets) has been a regular part of email spam for years. It comes in and out of fashion, but it's been over a decade since it's been possible to treat unsolicited links and attachments even from people you know as "safe".
I've at times had to block entire countries from my SMTP server at the IP level because just handling the first level filtering for spam was costing me as much as $750 a month in traffic surcharges.
People don't see the amount of spam out there, but it still has a cost... not only in direct costs (bandwidth, servers, man-hours) but also in things like lost and ignored mail.
The reaction to piano rolls by sheet music companies was just as unthinking and out of proportion to the threat as the reaction to every subsequent advance in recording and distribution technology. There were congressional hearings where they demanded that piano rolls be banned, that sheet music companies be given the right to control the sales of reproduction technology, and so on.
The same scenario was played out for audio recordings, radio, and so on down the line, except that eventually the renegades (the recording industry) became the establishment...
You can no longer innocently follow a link because some quasi-stranger tweeted it to you without being wary
Let me fix that for you:
You can't innocently follow a link because some quasi-stranger tweeted it to you without being wary
Why would you, or anyone, have ever assumed otherwise?
Go check the site, they don't release anything for public download unless it was published before 1923.
The sites listed in the article only contain music that is out of copyright, from rolls published before 1923.
And then what happens when we get plunged into another ice age because of something?You are Larry Niven and I claim my backyard nuke.
Breeding butterflies to control the weather?
You are James P Hogan and I claim my thinly disguised creationism.
Wouldn't that be Ganiforming?
I guess we're going to learn how to terraform other planets by starting out with this one.
Because we have to.
Microsoft is about control.
I have used both Rosetta and Graffiti on my Newton, and Transcriber (which was derived from Rosetta) and Microsoft's emulation of Graffiti on the Pocket PC, and both the original Graffiti and Microsoft's version wins hands down over Rosetta/Transcriber.
Graffiti was a shorthand character recognizer that used unique single-stroke glyphs rather than attempting to emulate the form of individual characters as Jot (which is now bundled with PalmOS as Graffiti II) does, and Microsoft's original character recognizer did. It takes more work to learn, but it is faster and more efficient than any handwriting recognizer on a small screen.
Xerox developed a completely unrelated single-stroke character recognizer called Unistroke, at about the same time as Jef Hawkins developed Graffiti. They patented it and sued Palm over Graffiti, and despite the fact that Hawkins' original thesis that led to Graffiti predated Xerox' patent application Palm eventually caved in and replaced Graffiti with Jot.
So far as I know, Xerox has not sued Microsoft over their character recognizer. Whether they licensed the patent or whether Microsoft was just too much to take on, I don't know.
If Apple does turn the Touch into a Tablet, I would be MUCH more interested in it if they included the equivalent of Graffiti instead of merely licensing Rosetta/Transcriber again.
Didn't they have a mohole digger in one of Thunderbird 2's pods? Release the pressure on the magma chamber slowly and discover The Hood is behind the whole thing as a bonus!