Come now, just because the UN wants to take a more active role, doesn't mean it should. I have more faith in the people and companies who maintain the internet (Cogent and Level 3 included) now than I do to any government--who are always less accountable than private organizations [Examples: UN Oil for Food Program, Government response to Hurricane Katrina] I don't want to have to rely on the government to respond to my request, they may not reply when I call.
It can be difficult to get problems fixed if a customer of Uunet doesn't open a ticket with them. Why not enlist the help of the target site and have them open a ticket?
Rather ask some statistics professor, why not view the original and ask yourself whether or not it is objective.
While I have heard many people call the WSPQ biased, I have yet to have anyone point out any better test. Until then, it is still less biased than no test at all.
A more interesting question would be.. "If you were the publisher of a widely distributed newspaper in New York City would you be morally obligated to run a notice on the front page about the genetic toxin/innoculant in order that people who may be potentially be adversely affected can properly institute defensive action and who could hypotetically take actions that could injure other people (like dropping a nuclear bomb on your office just to be sure nobody else gets a hold of your toxin)?"
I don't believe intent can righteously be decided save for specific instances.
I think full disclosure in any and all cases is the only moral choice to make.
I think your example of SARW is far too hypothetical be a good example, in my opinion.
Relative to patents I accede to your point, save that all of Microsoft's patent lawsuits are history relative to the current players in the market: Apple, Red Hat, Be, Inc, IBM, etc.
Apple settled out of court of their own free will.
I am unaware of any recent suits naming any of competitors by Microsoft in the near past.
Patents are another issue which currently can't be tried in any court (public or private) I am aware of.
Perhaps you should start a court service and hold Microsoft to trial in it, then at least that issue and no others would be reasonably tried (hopefully they would be judged on a moral basis and not by popular vote).
My statement should be taken in opposition to the post "Gore seems to have some balls.", although it is posted as a subsequent comment rather than a response to the above post.
I can make neither heads nor tails regarding your comment about a black man sitting at a lunch counter, perhaps you could expound further to illustrate your point.
I will also add that the last paragraph was part of my editing notes that I included in error to avoid loosing many minutes of typing to Microsoft 95/IE 4.0 instability before fatal error occured.
I (and many people) use tools that they think are wrong for the job, the example of MS Windows 95 being one of them in this case.
My employer is free to correct this error in the future. They do not need VP Gore's help in this or any other regard.
I have no doubt that they will change in the future for no other reason other than this instability.
The OS software market doesn't need the government 'helping' the market out, Microsoft does the job far better than the DOJ ever could.
I do not trust the government to make choices in my best interest. The government is out for its own best interest regardless of its putative stated interests.
To answer your question please provide a real world example. In my opinion Microsoft is not an example of this behavior.
No company can 'enforce' anything on any other person unless they can use government or the mafia to coerce that person.
I no of no examples of software firms that can compel any other company to purchase their product. Microsoft is a fine example of this (in my opinion). Other companies can and do provide other operating systems that compete with Windows. I am free to buy BeOS, Linux or OpenBSD to run on my computer if I wish. I don't dispute that Microsoft may attempt to propagate inaccurate information (through third parties] that their OS is better than the competition. I hold that their attempts to poison the information well are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.
The ability people choose to buy (or not buy) Microsoft products free from government coercion one way or the other is effective choice. Government intervention the very definition of no effective choice. If government says I shouldn't buy Windows NT I shouldn't have to pay $10 more because Microsoft has to pay for a defense against the vampires at the Justice department, this reduces my effective choice.
I also do not wish to pay $10 less due to government oppression of their competition, should the Justice Department decide that Red Hat Software looks looks small enough to run their protection racket game on them and accuse them of 'monopoly practices'. Ridiculous you say?
I don't know. As any Free Software advocate can tell you, that is such a hypothetical and contrived question in the year 1999 that there probably isn't an answer that makes sense.
However, my position is that the Microsoft is in a competitive market where all participants have the ability to make decisions free of coercion.
While I imagine Microsoft does accept certain subsidies (property tax abatements and the like) I personally don't think that their competitors are under any disadvantage attibutable to any alleged "monopoly".
I don't think is is fruitful to debate my libertarianess but I will state my committment to the following statement...
"We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market."
I probably have to state my philosophical definition of individual includes those joint endevors including corporations.
I do not per se support or oppose Microsoft. I do however oppose each and every effort of government to punish businesses who have been indicted of nothing except victimless crimes such as 'monopoloy practices'.
If they have committed an actual crime or fraud upon someone, let that person or business come forward and swear out an oath or affadivit against Microsoft.
Allowing government to create actions combined with extensive government business operations (such as the highways) to oppress individuals and businesses is a large problem in and of itself. It leads to organized highway robbery (speeding tickets), the subjugation of citizens to government and a host of other afflictions.
I fear no monopoly save that of government and I hold that no monopoly can exist save those perpetuated by the fist of government.
Adam Smith's unseen hand can take care of software buyers far better (and a darn sight cheaper) than paying for the new age gestapo agents at antitrust.
Microsoft and its tactics are all competing organizations need. BeOS, FreeBSD and Linux don't need the help of the USG to sell their product
That VP Gore should wish to be involved is no surprise at all. He can play either add his bat to those wielded by the government enforcers or (if Microsoft can meet his price) he can call them off and instruct them to agree to a lesser punishment more agreeable to Microsoft. Sounds like an example of good cop/bad cop to me.
What more does the average voter expect from a Demopublican with no principles?
Maybe next time voters will vote Libertarian and endorse a society where people's right to buy (or not to buy) software of their choice is respected.
Maybe I'm just slow, but I don't see how or why a lawyer can perform acts that a person cannot (legally). If a lawyer acts as a proxy, then he is only performing acts on behalf of his principal, just like an agent would. I don't deny that lawyers often commit illegal acts but I don't see what permits them to do so. Are they not subject to the same laws as everyone else? I think they should be.
Not that I doubt the charlatans most people call congressman would pass a law saying that.
Do you perchance work for the Committee for the Prevention of Unauthorized Practice of Shystering?
Re:Stranger than fiction - Neal Stephenson's "The
on
RoboFly
·
· Score: 1
Why, the people (characters) in the book seemed to manage OK. It is not as if one can turn back the technology clock - it only goes forward (save macro-war).
Besides being so old school, why not spend the time and energy everyone else seems to think would be so well spent on patent applications, non-disclosure agreements and related shenanigans (and the related fees for attorney time) on developing the idea?
I would like to recommend that your friend spend his (or her) time locating someone (be it a VC, senior accountant, regular business or ?) who can join with him and develop and bring to market the concept involved.
Even better, as the tool runs on Linux, why not make it open source and pursue compensation by achievement instead of flogging the sick horse of reward by scarcity of closed source knowledge, secondly reducing the value of your friends device to business by creating it as a proprietary item? Your friend is already out front by thinking up the concept and if he is good enough to think up this idea, he is probably the best person to develop the idea even if, through disclosure, the whole world knows about it.
VA Linux Systems sells machines and will make money because they take the same parts that other companies have available, but people people (and more often businesses) buy their Linux computers because of the value add they provide by knowing more about what works and what doesn't than anyone else and provide better linux support than other computer producers who now install Linux on their computers, not because they have a patent on ways to implement Linux on PCs.
The concept is the same regardless of whether of the idea in question is hardware or software.
Reading ESR's The Magic Cauldron should get him started on the right road.
Quote from the VA Linux web site... " There were no matches for patent found on www.valinux.com."
The converse of number 3 would be either improve the reliability of network storage (something large and small companies still need to work on), improve the reliability of network backup and differential network storage.
Or maybe improving the perception of storage reliability as perception is more important that actuality in many situations.
Indeed, since he is already guilty by reason of being arrested isn't he? This reasoning gone astray is why drug property siezures are out of control, the enforcers start out saying that it will only be used against kingpins, but in reality I see a lot more Nissan Sentras than Ferrari 308s on the DEA auction list.
On your inferred question about liability issues such as politicians/bureacrats targeting you because of internet issues:
It is the responsibility of the governing board (and the school staff) of the school or school district to 'protect' students from harm, although I've seen a few disclaimer forms around that sound like schools disclaim any monetary claim to safety (physical or otherwise) on behalf of students.
Contact Netday96 and get with helping those children out (if they are in public school you better bet they need help, it is government school after all).
The whole issue would more of a moot point if only government government got out of the education business. The government school system purpetuates nothing so well as mediocrity and bloated bureacracy.
I'll add that I've been very happy working with an agency Tek Systems for more than a year.
My agency initially contacted me more than two years ago when I was working at an ISP. I was happy with where I worked but when my recruiter asked me, "Would you mind if I kept in touch with you?", of course I said yes. I was happy working there in the middle of a bunch of bandwidth with interesting Sun Micro Ultra 1's around (nice in their time) learning anything I cared too. Even though I enjoyed working there, it was very nice having someone checking in once a month to see if I needed help and ask how I was doing. Six months later after they had burned through 3 million dollars of venture capital money with nothing to show for it, they fired 1/3'rd of the staff and didn't keep most of the staff informed as to what the future held for us (Half of the remaining staff didn't stay long thereafter). At that time the answer to my recruiter changed from "I'm happy" to "I'm not happy anymore". Long story-short, I'm now earning 80% more than I did then and my recruiter takes me out to lunch every month, checks to see am happy and when the assignment I'm working on for no longer fits my idea of what I want to do, they go out and find an assignment where I can do what I enjoy doing. I would say it is entirely impossible for any organization other than an agency to do what my agency has done for me. They certainly care more about me than any company or human resources department has. I appreciate my agency and have no desire do place myself on the mercy of any companies compassion (show me one that thinks they can afford one these days.) I feel far better trusting in the enlightened selfishness implicit in the agency paradigm than I do for any other arrangement.
Slashdot Mirror
Come now, just because the UN wants to take a more active role, doesn't mean it should. I have more faith in the people and companies who maintain the internet (Cogent and Level 3 included) now than I do to any government--who are always less accountable than private organizations [Examples: UN Oil for Food Program, Government response to Hurricane Katrina] I don't want to have to rely on the government to respond to my request, they may not reply when I call.
It can be difficult to get problems fixed if a customer of Uunet doesn't open a ticket with them. Why not enlist the help of the target site and have them open a ticket?
I vote to save the satellites. If I had to choose between telescopes (radio or otherwise) and (satellite) cellphones, I pick cellphones.
Rather ask some statistics professor, why not view the original and ask yourself whether or not it is objective.
While I have heard many people call the WSPQ biased, I have yet to have anyone point out any better test. Until then, it is still less biased than no test at all.
Rather than push one person's idea of what Libertarianism is, visit the Libararian Party web site and read it at the source.
A more interesting question would be.. "If you were the publisher of a widely distributed newspaper in New York City would you be morally obligated to run a notice on the front page about the genetic toxin/innoculant in order that people who may be potentially be adversely affected can properly institute defensive action and who could hypotetically take actions that could injure other people (like dropping a nuclear bomb on your office just to be sure nobody else gets a hold of your toxin)?"
I don't believe intent can righteously be decided save for specific instances.
I think full disclosure in any and all cases is the only moral choice to make.
I think your example of SARW is far too hypothetical be a good example, in my opinion.
Relative to patents I accede to your point, save that all of Microsoft's patent lawsuits are history relative to the current players in the market: Apple, Red Hat, Be, Inc, IBM, etc.
Apple settled out of court of their own free will.
I am unaware of any recent suits naming any of competitors by Microsoft in the near past.
Patents are another issue which currently can't be tried in any court (public or private) I am aware of.
Perhaps you should start a court service and hold Microsoft to trial in it, then at least that issue and no others would be reasonably tried (hopefully they would be judged on a moral basis and not by popular vote).
In any case two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to punish the perpetrators of the patent system perhaps you should buy a copy of Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom and ponder the suggestions
found within its pages.
My statement should be taken in opposition to the post "Gore seems to have some balls.", although it is posted as a subsequent comment rather than a response to
the above post.
I can make neither heads nor tails regarding your comment about a black man sitting at a lunch counter, perhaps you could expound further to illustrate your point.
I will also add that the last paragraph was part of my editing notes that I included in error to avoid loosing many minutes of typing to Microsoft 95/IE 4.0 instability before fatal error occured.
I (and many people) use tools that they think are wrong for the job, the example of MS Windows 95 being one of them in this case.
My employer is free to correct this error in the future. They do not need VP Gore's help in this or any other regard.
I have no doubt that they will change in the future for no other reason other than this instability.
The OS software market doesn't need the government 'helping' the market out, Microsoft does the job far better than the DOJ ever could.
I do not trust the government to make choices in my best interest. The government is out for its own best interest regardless of its putative stated interests.
To answer your question please provide a real world example. In my opinion Microsoft is not an example of this behavior.
No company can 'enforce' anything on any other person unless they can use government or the mafia to coerce that person.
I no of no examples of software firms that can compel any other company to purchase their product. Microsoft is a fine example of this (in my opinion). Other companies can and do provide other operating systems that compete with Windows. I am free to buy BeOS, Linux or OpenBSD to run on my computer if I wish. I don't dispute that Microsoft may attempt to propagate inaccurate information (through third parties] that their OS is better than the competition. I hold that their attempts to poison the information well are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.
The ability people choose to buy (or not buy) Microsoft products free from government coercion one way or the other is effective choice. Government intervention the very definition of no effective choice. If government says I shouldn't buy Windows NT I shouldn't have to pay $10 more because Microsoft has to pay for a defense against the vampires at the Justice department, this reduces my effective choice.
I also do not wish to pay $10 less due to government oppression of their competition, should the Justice Department decide that Red Hat Software looks looks small enough to run their protection racket game on them and accuse them of 'monopoly practices'. Ridiculous you say?
I don't know. As any Free Software advocate can tell you, that is such a hypothetical and contrived question in the year 1999 that there probably isn't an answer that makes sense.
Indeed I am caught out having not read TWON in full.
However, my position is that the Microsoft is in a competitive market where all participants have the ability to make decisions free of coercion.
While I imagine Microsoft does accept certain subsidies (property tax abatements and the like) I personally don't think that their competitors are under any disadvantage attibutable to any alleged "monopoly".
I don't think is is fruitful to debate my libertarianess but I will state my committment to the following statement...
"We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market."
I probably have to state my philosophical definition of individual includes those joint endevors including corporations.
I do not per se support or oppose Microsoft. I do however oppose each and every effort of government to punish businesses who have been indicted of nothing except victimless crimes such as 'monopoloy practices'.
If they have committed an actual crime or fraud upon someone, let that person or business come forward and swear out an oath or affadivit against Microsoft.
Allowing government to create actions combined with extensive government business operations (such as the highways) to oppress individuals and businesses is a large problem in and of itself. It leads to organized highway robbery (speeding tickets), the subjugation of citizens to government and a host of other afflictions.
I fear no monopoly save that of government and I hold that no monopoly can exist save those perpetuated by the fist of government.
How many votes condoning violence upon Microsoft does it take to make it right?
Adam Smith's unseen hand can take care of software buyers far better (and a darn sight cheaper) than paying for the new age gestapo agents at antitrust.
Microsoft and its tactics are all competing organizations need. BeOS, FreeBSD and Linux don't need the help of the USG to sell their product
That VP Gore should wish to be involved is no surprise at all. He can play either add his bat to those wielded by the government enforcers or (if Microsoft can meet his price) he can call them off and instruct them to agree to a lesser punishment more agreeable to Microsoft. Sounds like an example of good cop/bad cop to me.
What more does the average voter expect from a Demopublican with no principles?
Maybe next time voters will vote Libertarian and endorse a society where people's right to buy (or not to buy) software of their choice is respected.
First cigarettes, now software, what next?
Maybe I'm just slow, but I don't see how or why a lawyer can perform acts that a person cannot (legally). If a lawyer acts as a proxy, then he is only performing acts on behalf of his principal, just like an agent would. I don't deny that lawyers often commit illegal acts but I don't see what permits them to do so. Are they not subject to the same laws as everyone else? I think they should be.
I still maintain that even a lawyer can't turn unlawful contduct into lawful conduct by their very presense.
If the act is illegal it is illegal for a lawyer too or for a person and a lawyer, or two lawyers for that matter.
A pox on monopoly lawyers and my pity for the people who are duped into using them.
Oh yeah? And what law says so?
Not that I doubt the charlatans most people call congressman would pass a law saying that.
Do you perchance work for the Committee for the Prevention of Unauthorized Practice of Shystering?
Why, the people (characters) in the book seemed to manage OK. It is not as if one can turn back the technology clock - it only goes forward (save macro-war).
Besides being so old school, why not spend the time and energy everyone else seems to think would be so well spent on patent applications, non-disclosure agreements and related shenanigans (and the related fees for attorney time) on developing the idea?
I would like to recommend that your friend spend his (or her) time locating someone (be it a VC, senior accountant, regular business or ?) who can join with him and develop and bring to market the concept involved.
Even better, as the tool runs on Linux, why not make it open source and pursue compensation by achievement instead of flogging the sick horse of reward by scarcity of closed source knowledge, secondly reducing the value of your friends device to business by creating it as a proprietary item? Your friend is already out front by thinking up the concept and if he is good enough to think up this idea, he is probably the best person to develop the idea even if, through disclosure, the whole world knows about it.
VA Linux Systems sells machines and will make money because they take the same parts that other companies have available, but people people (and more often businesses) buy their Linux computers because of the value add they provide by knowing more about what works and what doesn't than anyone else and provide better linux support than other computer producers who now install Linux on their computers, not because they have a patent on ways to implement Linux on PCs.
The concept is the same regardless of whether of the idea in question is hardware or software.
Reading ESR's The Magic Cauldron should get him started on the right road.
Quote from the VA Linux web site...
" There were no matches for patent found on www.valinux.com."
The converse of number 3 would be either improve the reliability of network storage (something large and small companies still need to work on), improve the reliability of network backup and differential network storage.
Or maybe improving the perception of storage reliability as perception is more important that actuality in many situations.
And they are already paying people $250 to have it implanted in your hand!
http://www.idchip.com
Indeed, since he is already guilty by reason of being arrested isn't he? This reasoning gone astray is why drug property siezures are out of control, the enforcers start out saying that it will only be used against kingpins, but in reality I see a lot more Nissan Sentras than Ferrari 308s on the DEA auction list.
The Libertarian Party
I haven't seen any quotes from an excellent article on the Linux Journal website but this is worth reading.
The only fair thing to do is to teach the public how not to use Microsoft Word.
Question 1: www.netday96.com
Question 2: No, not that I wouldn't like to.
Question 3: Yes.
Question 4: www.netday96.com
On your inferred question about liability issues such as politicians/bureacrats targeting you because of internet issues:
It is the responsibility of the governing board (and the school staff) of the school or school district to 'protect' students from harm, although I've seen a few disclaimer forms around that sound like schools disclaim any monetary claim to safety (physical or otherwise) on behalf of students.
Contact Netday96 and get with helping those children out (if they are in public school you better bet they need help, it is government school after all).
The whole issue would more of a moot point if only government government got out of the education business. The government school system purpetuates nothing so well as mediocrity and bloated bureacracy.
P.S. Did I mention you should look up www.netday96.com?
I'll add that I've been very happy working with an agency Tek Systems for more than a year.
My agency initially contacted me more than two years ago when I was working at an ISP. I was happy with where I worked but when my recruiter asked me, "Would you mind if I kept in touch with you?", of course I said yes. I was happy working there in the middle of a bunch of bandwidth with interesting Sun Micro Ultra 1's around (nice in their time) learning anything I cared too. Even though I enjoyed working there, it was very nice having someone checking in once a month to see if I needed help and ask how I was doing. Six months later after they had burned through 3 million dollars of venture capital money with nothing to show for it, they fired 1/3'rd of the staff and didn't keep most of the staff informed as to what the future held for us (Half of the remaining staff didn't stay long thereafter). At that time the answer to my recruiter changed from "I'm happy" to "I'm not happy anymore". Long story-short, I'm now earning 80% more than I did then and my recruiter takes me out to lunch every month, checks to see am happy and when the assignment I'm working on for no longer fits my idea of what I want to do, they go out and find an assignment where I can do what I enjoy doing. I would say it is entirely impossible for any organization other than an agency to do what my agency has done for me. They certainly care more about me than any company or human resources department has. I appreciate my agency and have no desire do place myself on the mercy of any companies compassion (show me one that thinks they can afford one these days.) I feel far better trusting in the enlightened selfishness implicit in the agency paradigm than I do for any other arrangement.