The court has issued an injunction directing Napster to block the sharing of specific music files after we receive appropriate notice from the copyright holders
So it's not blanket blocking.
That notice must include the following information: the work's title; the name of the featured recording artist performing it; the name(s) of one or more files containing the work available through Napster's file-sharing service; and certification that the rightsholder owns or controls the rights to the work they want excluded.
So the 'full CD signature' is not supplied. But then Napster is track based rather than album based (actually I suppose really it's file based).
CDDB gets used by ripping programs to name the mp3s when they are taken from the CD in the first place, so that information is available then.
What Napster will be doing is working on the principle that the CDDB track name database is a big old list for working out what rippers would have named files.
But, come on, how much encryption and "security layers" can you hide in a 300 KB windows executable ?
You're obviously quite young. Otherwise you'd remember the 'Home Computers' of the 1980's. Typically an 8k or 16k ROM would hold an entire OS and programming language.
Of course that was when an OS was an OS and not an OS, a GUI, various applications, sandwich toaster, cuddly toy...
"Another problem with many crypto offerings is that they can leave you vulnerable to forensic-grade tools that can pull data from supposedly deleted files, including the temporary files that your e-mail application uses as a placeholder for the message before it's encrypted. It seems to me that the only way to get a truly secure solution is to write a mail application that has the encryption built in at the most fundamental level, so that even if temporary files are recovered, they may be rendered useless. "
Actually I was talking about someone who's an 'IT professional' but has no knowledge at all of what they are trying to support. I spent an hour on the phone to a guy who knew no Unix and no DBA skills - it should've taken 5 minutes.
But that's the extreme.
Our support contracts are based on the assumption of a suitably qualified and trained (possibly self-trained) DBA being available. Why? Because we're not supposed to be training over the phone, neither are we remote DBAs for that site. Both of these are services we provide but not via phone support.
Having said that we rarely enforce this. If a customer has a system down he really doesn't deserve to be told that he isn't qualified enough to speak to us. But once it's back up I might recommend a training course or spending time in the manuals.
A little honesty goes a long way. If I get a call which begins "Look I really don't know anything about this but the DBA's on holiday and the MD's on my back" - I'll be much more inclined to be forgiving than to Mr Nasty who phones up and pretends to know more than he does. It shouldn't be that way I know - all customers should be treated equally - but it's human nature.
Seriously - if it can't write to a filesystem it needs to write to what should the RDBMS do? There are 2 options - one is to stall all writes until someone spots the error message and takes action - the other is to exit completely. In the first the system would appear to 'hang' - in the second to 'crash'.
Generally speaking I think that the best design is to try to keep the system up for as long as possible - so you should 'hang' - but as soon as there's a risk to database integrity you have to shutdown. Sometimes you just can't guarantee the data integrity anymore (because of lack of resource) and you have to deliberately crash.
The answer to your non-rhetorical, non-flame question;) is that to a certain extent we do and to a certain extent we shouldn't have to.
We do notify the user in the sense that we give a meaningful error message. We have error messages that say things like "Couldn't write file X - check disc space and permissions" and we still get calls from people who haven't checked either.
Let's also distinguish between end-users and IT staff. The expectation is that I am dealing with IT staff not end-users. A high-end RDBMS is a complex technical product which requires some administration. So I would hope to be speaking to technically competent people. People who know how to interpret straight-forward error messages.
You see there is a learning curve to proper administration of an RDBMS. I think a lot of people think you can take that learning curve away by good interface design to your tools. You can't you can only reduce it. And in fact the more you hide the underlying complexity the more you discourage people learning the concepts they will one day need.
But another point about all this is where do you want all the error-prevention? A lot of the features and architecture in any decent RDBMS is about making sure your data is consistent. An awful lot of prevention happens behind the scenes that the user is never aware of. But that prevention is focussed primarily on safe-guarding the data - not necessarily on preventing all errors. So if your filesystem fills up the database processes might fail - when you restart them your database will be consistent. Trust me that's a major reason why people buy high-end RDBMS's.
I work in Support for an RDBMS vendor. And before I did that I was a DBA for several years.
24x7 support is never to provide bug fixes. It's to give you emergency help to get your system back up when it's down. The timeframes for most bug fixes are days if you're lucky. 24x7 means that there's someone at the end of the phone who has the experience and confidence to talk you through getting your system back.
9 times out of 10 it's not that difficult either because there are a limited number of options open to you. Usually you'll be restoring a back-up or undoing a configuration change that had unexpectedly disastrous results.
As a DBA the nice thing about that kind of support call was there was someone to share the heat. When the production systems crashed - as all systems do on occasion - there would probably be 3 or 4 managers standing behind my desk asking me when it was going to be back. It was great to be able to say "I'm on the phone to Support now"
As for the "user error" response - it does happen I'm afraid but let me say this. I get so many calls from people who are supposedly IT professionals who have no clue at all that it's real hard to stay un-cynical - but I try. But I also make sure that I get them to check the simple things first. Sometimes people hear that as patronizing or me blaming them but it's not - it's a troubleshooting procedure. I know for a fact that for every guy who's offended by me asking if any of the filesystems are 100% - there's two who haven't checked it. (And 5 others who just say no and we move on.) Believe me we'll quickly get to the non-trivial problems if that's what it is.
I'm not saying all support is wonderful but I know ours is pretty good. I'm not saying Open Source support is bad either. I do think just having the source is not enough though. You need someone with the time and skill to actually do something with that source - whether that's in-house or a 3rd party. Also most problems I encounter don't require bug-fixes - just knowledge of the DBMS configuration and commands.
I think looking at the quality of available support is an important factor in choosing an RDBMS. Availability is usually not a factor on a commercial RDBMS - but quality may be.
Having said that I think features is probably a bigger factor. From what I've seen so far the available Open Source offerings are still playing catch-up on features.
Access was an RDBMS - it's not it's a GUI tool. It can use the JET DBMS, SQL Server, various flat file formats and other ODBC sources.
If you're the DBA and you've been given the responsibility of implementing the data storage at your company, you should be the one who decides what system is used.
Maybe - but as I said Access is not about 'data storage' it's about GUI applications. Most people assume using Access forces you use a Microsoft DBMS but it doesn't.
I've been a DBA for a long time (>10 years) but I never got to dictate which GUI tool the developers used. Come to that I never got to dictate what RDBMS we used either. I had a say but not the only say.
You speak from the point of view of someone who has one Linux box running his application. You download, compile and run.
What about if you're a large corporation? If your app is going to run on all of your many servers - do you really want to have to compile for each? If you want to run it on most of your thousands of desktops - you absolutely don't want to re-compile for each.
My point is that even if you have the source - distributing binary code is extremely useful if not essential.
If you follow the links and read the details you'll discover that a company that makes a computer compatible with the PDP-10 is funding this work. In other words they want to sell their hardware and they need more software and they think having a C compiler might help.
That doesn't sound so crazy to me. Even if it is - it's their money.
I agree he wants to change the law - but I also think he supports breaking it.
In http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html RMS says
"As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright."
In other words if someone asks me for a copy of Windows 2000 or Quake III or that $5million bespoke business application I'm using - then it's wrong not to give them a copy.
Ok so he goes on to say that in order to "live an upright life openly with pride" a person should use free software to avoid having to copy copyrighted software. However the message is clear -it's not only ok to break copyright, it's wrong not to if someone asks you.
At the end of the day the thing which continues to leave RMS at the extreme end of the argument, is the fact that he thinks there should be only one model for software development and distribution - an Open one. It is wrong to make proprietary software at all. There should only be Open/Free software.
This is where I fundamentally disagree with him. I see Open software as one of the possible models, a very good one for certain types of software. He sees it as the only way.
Going back to your original point I think I'm still closer to agreeing with Meyer than you. Part of what Meyer was saying was that the whole "skewed ethical perspective" thing tends to result in people justifying things which they otherwise would not.
The clear case in point here is the issue of breaking software copyright. RMS believes that it is wrong not to copy software if it will help someone out. In other words he believes that the issue of Free Software is so important that it justifies breaking the law.
Meyer does not think so - neither do I. However whether you agree or not the point is that there is a relevance between RMS's "skewed ethical perspective" and the arguments surround Free Software.
Contrast this with what Meyer does to ESR - whose views on gun control have no real relevance to Free Software. Meyer tries to use them nonetheless to discredit him - which is very unfair.
You pick out 3 bad points from an article of nearly 12,000 words - ignoring the rest which on the whole is a well thought constructive criticism of some aspects of OSS advocacy. Then you simplify even these points to deliberately twist and ridicule the article.
Whether we like it or not one of the most effective ways to make money out of software - is to make it closed source and sell it.
I disagree I think you'll find that most programmers get paid for developing custom software for various companies (like banks, airlines etc), software which is never sold but only used by the company that funded the development.
Selling shrink-wrapped software like shoes only works for very few large companies (like MS).
Actually I meant 'sell' in the broader sense. The emphasis in that sentence was intended to be on 'closed source'.
Ok so the average programmer does not sell shrinked-wrapped software, he sells his labour to generate software. But that doesn't substantially alter my argument.
The type of bespoke software developed for banks and airlines (which according to you is what most programmers get paid for) is exactly the type of software that is most unsusceptible for Open Source. This is both because the benefits of Open Source are most evident when the software is most generic - but also because the banks and airlines are usually reluctant to share the source with their competitors.
he rails against ESR for (of all things) his stance on guns
You know I thought at that point he was going way off topic. But then he went on to develop it and it kinda made sense.
I believe Meyer's point about ESR and gun control was that it demostrated ESR's lack of 'ethical perspective'. That someone could see Proprietary Software as such an evil, whilst supporting the self-evidently (to Meyer) evil US gun laws - is evidence of the kind of warped ethical perspective Meyer feels that Open Source advocates are guilty of.
Unfortunately I think Meyer slips into the trap of criticising the cause by criticising the people who support it. Something he himself warns against in the article.
Still to ignore the otherwise thought-provoking article because of this - would be to follow him into that trap
There seem to have been several comments along the lines of "Meyer doesn't get it - it's free as in speech, not free as in beer".
Actually I think he does get it - he's just addressing another issue. He's looking at whether it is a valid thing for a software developer to make money out of the software he develops.
Whether we like it or not one of the most effective ways to make money out of software - is to make it closed source and sell it. Yes you can make money sell services - support etc. Yes you can make money distributing software. But you can also make money selling the software itself.
There is a fundamental irony in the use of the word freedom in all the GNU/FSF advocacy texts. I am a programmer. They want to deny me the freedom to choose the way in which I make money from my skills. I can be paid for writing software provided it is Open Source, I can be paid for supporting/fixing Open Source software. But I cannot be paid for writing closed source software.
Presumably the same people believe that no actor should receive payment unless his work will be free to view. Or that a writer can only receive money for his work if he writes for a free publication
This attitude is even more remarkable when you consider that certain pieces of software are extremely unsusceptible to the Open Source model. Don't forget that much bespoke business software has in effect, business process logic embedded into the design. Such business processes might well be part of the competitive advantage one company has over another. Opening up your source in a case like this could be highly damaging. In short there are situations where Open Source is the wrong choice for software.
Such a radical restriction of freedom - requiring that I only write OSS - requires very good justification. Unfortunately I do not believe that such a justification can be found. None of the benefits which come from Open Source Software are lost if it has to co-exist in a world which also allows Closed Source, Copyrighted software.
Perhaps its because Copyright has always been the dominant model that OSS has had to assert it's opposite characteristics strongly in order to make itself heard. But hopefully this won't obscure the fact that both models can and should continue to live cheerfully side-by-side
Same thing goes within the free software world, btw. You don't ask Miguel de Icaza to be fair towards KDE; you're just thankful he's making GNOME better.
On the contrary - I expect exactly that. I expect that GNOME's 'betterness' to be based on its own merits - if it is then there is no need to be unfair to KDE. Such unfairness then becomes ethically repugnant
By the way - I am replying to this using orabidoo's own example. I have no knowledge of Miguel de Icaza's attitude towards the KDE project, and have no desire to malign his character
Slashdot Mirror
From the napster site.
The court has issued an injunction directing Napster to block the sharing of specific music files after we receive appropriate notice from the copyright holders
So it's not blanket blocking.
That notice must include the following information: the work's title; the name of the featured recording artist performing it; the name(s) of one or more files containing the work available through Napster's file-sharing service; and certification that the rightsholder owns or controls the rights to the work they want excluded.
So the 'full CD signature' is not supplied. But then Napster is track based rather than album based (actually I suppose really it's file based).
CDDB gets used by ripping programs to name the mp3s when they are taken from the CD in the first place, so that information is available then.
What Napster will be doing is working on the principle that the CDDB track name database is a big old list for working out what rippers would have named files.
But, come on, how much encryption and "security layers" can you hide in a 300 KB windows executable ?
You're obviously quite young. Otherwise you'd remember the 'Home Computers' of the 1980's. Typically an 8k or 16k ROM would hold an entire OS and programming language.
Of course that was when an OS was an OS and not an OS, a GUI, various applications, sandwich toaster, cuddly toy...
From the article...
"Another problem with many crypto offerings is that they can leave you vulnerable to forensic-grade tools that can pull data from supposedly deleted files, including the temporary files that your e-mail application uses as a placeholder for the message before it's encrypted. It seems to me that the only way to get a truly secure solution is to write a mail application that has the encryption built in at the most fundamental level, so that even if temporary files are recovered, they may be rendered useless. "
Anyone know of clients like that?Assuming of course that US law is involved at all. The poster's name is VirtualUK.
Actually I was talking about someone who's an 'IT professional' but has no knowledge at all of what they are trying to support. I spent an hour on the phone to a guy who knew no Unix and no DBA skills - it should've taken 5 minutes.
But that's the extreme.
Our support contracts are based on the assumption of a suitably qualified and trained (possibly self-trained) DBA being available. Why? Because we're not supposed to be training over the phone, neither are we remote DBAs for that site. Both of these are services we provide but not via phone support.
Having said that we rarely enforce this. If a customer has a system down he really doesn't deserve to be told that he isn't qualified enough to speak to us. But once it's back up I might recommend a training course or spending time in the manuals.
A little honesty goes a long way. If I get a call which begins "Look I really don't know anything about this but the DBA's on holiday and the MD's on my back" - I'll be much more inclined to be forgiving than to Mr Nasty who phones up and pretends to know more than he does. It shouldn't be that way I know - all customers should be treated equally - but it's human nature.
What do you do instead?
Seriously - if it can't write to a filesystem it needs to write to what should the RDBMS do? There are 2 options - one is to stall all writes until someone spots the error message and takes action - the other is to exit completely. In the first the system would appear to 'hang' - in the second to 'crash'.
Generally speaking I think that the best design is to try to keep the system up for as long as possible - so you should 'hang' - but as soon as there's a risk to database integrity you have to shutdown. Sometimes you just can't guarantee the data integrity anymore (because of lack of resource) and you have to deliberately crash.
The answer to your non-rhetorical, non-flame question ;) is that to a certain extent we do and to a certain extent we shouldn't have to.
We do notify the user in the sense that we give a meaningful error message. We have error messages that say things like "Couldn't write file X - check disc space and permissions" and we still get calls from people who haven't checked either.
Let's also distinguish between end-users and IT staff. The expectation is that I am dealing with IT staff not end-users. A high-end RDBMS is a complex technical product which requires some administration. So I would hope to be speaking to technically competent people. People who know how to interpret straight-forward error messages.
You see there is a learning curve to proper administration of an RDBMS. I think a lot of people think you can take that learning curve away by good interface design to your tools. You can't you can only reduce it. And in fact the more you hide the underlying complexity the more you discourage people learning the concepts they will one day need.
But another point about all this is where do you want all the error-prevention? A lot of the features and architecture in any decent RDBMS is about making sure your data is consistent. An awful lot of prevention happens behind the scenes that the user is never aware of. But that prevention is focussed primarily on safe-guarding the data - not necessarily on preventing all errors. So if your filesystem fills up the database processes might fail - when you restart them your database will be consistent. Trust me that's a major reason why people buy high-end RDBMS's.
I work in Support for an RDBMS vendor. And before I did that I was a DBA for several years.
24x7 support is never to provide bug fixes. It's to give you emergency help to get your system back up when it's down. The timeframes for most bug fixes are days if you're lucky. 24x7 means that there's someone at the end of the phone who has the experience and confidence to talk you through getting your system back.
9 times out of 10 it's not that difficult either because there are a limited number of options open to you. Usually you'll be restoring a back-up or undoing a configuration change that had unexpectedly disastrous results.
As a DBA the nice thing about that kind of support call was there was someone to share the heat. When the production systems crashed - as all systems do on occasion - there would probably be 3 or 4 managers standing behind my desk asking me when it was going to be back. It was great to be able to say "I'm on the phone to Support now"
As for the "user error" response - it does happen I'm afraid but let me say this. I get so many calls from people who are supposedly IT professionals who have no clue at all that it's real hard to stay un-cynical - but I try. But I also make sure that I get them to check the simple things first. Sometimes people hear that as patronizing or me blaming them but it's not - it's a troubleshooting procedure. I know for a fact that for every guy who's offended by me asking if any of the filesystems are 100% - there's two who haven't checked it. (And 5 others who just say no and we move on.) Believe me we'll quickly get to the non-trivial problems if that's what it is.
I'm not saying all support is wonderful but I know ours is pretty good. I'm not saying Open Source support is bad either. I do think just having the source is not enough though. You need someone with the time and skill to actually do something with that source - whether that's in-house or a 3rd party. Also most problems I encounter don't require bug-fixes - just knowledge of the DBMS configuration and commands.
I think looking at the quality of available support is an important factor in choosing an RDBMS. Availability is usually not a factor on a commercial RDBMS - but quality may be.
Having said that I think features is probably a bigger factor. From what I've seen so far the available Open Source offerings are still playing catch-up on features.
Access was an RDBMS - it's not it's a GUI tool. It can use the JET DBMS, SQL Server, various flat file formats and other ODBC sources.
If you're the DBA and you've been given the responsibility of implementing the data storage at your company, you should be the one who decides what system is used.
Maybe - but as I said Access is not about 'data storage' it's about GUI applications. Most people assume using Access forces you use a Microsoft DBMS but it doesn't.
I've been a DBA for a long time (>10 years) but I never got to dictate which GUI tool the developers used. Come to that I never got to dictate what RDBMS we used either. I had a say but not the only say.
I think you'll find that's just a popular saying not a Bible verse
You speak from the point of view of someone who has one Linux box running his application. You download, compile and run.
What about if you're a large corporation? If your app is going to run on all of your many servers - do you really want to have to compile for each? If you want to run it on most of your thousands of desktops - you absolutely don't want to re-compile for each.
My point is that even if you have the source - distributing binary code is extremely useful if not essential.
It's at least possible that the same person made both posts. Different boards, different names, same person - it's at least possible.
I think synpax deserves at least the benefit of the doubt - innocent until proven guilty.
To all those who asked "Why?" -
If you follow the links and read the details you'll discover that a company that makes a computer compatible with the PDP-10 is funding this work. In other words they want to sell their hardware and they need more software and they think having a C compiler might help.
That doesn't sound so crazy to me. Even if it is - it's their money.
Such a question would take us closer to the root of what time actually is.
"Time is an illusion, Lunchtime doubly so" - Douglas Adams
Oh and by the way it's Occam (no H)
I agree he wants to change the law - but I also think he supports breaking it.
In http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html RMS says
"As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright."
In other words if someone asks me for a copy of Windows 2000 or Quake III or that $5million bespoke business application I'm using - then it's wrong not to give them a copy.
Ok so he goes on to say that in order to "live an upright life openly with pride" a person should use free software to avoid having to copy copyrighted software. However the message is clear -it's not only ok to break copyright, it's wrong not to if someone asks you.
At the end of the day the thing which continues to leave RMS at the extreme end of the argument, is the fact that he thinks there should be only one model for software development and distribution - an Open one. It is wrong to make proprietary software at all. There should only be Open/Free software.
This is where I fundamentally disagree with him. I see Open software as one of the possible models, a very good one for certain types of software. He sees it as the only way.
Going back to your original point I think I'm still closer to agreeing with Meyer than you. Part of what Meyer was saying was that the whole "skewed ethical perspective" thing tends to result in people justifying things which they otherwise would not.
The clear case in point here is the issue of breaking software copyright. RMS believes that it is wrong not to copy software if it will help someone out. In other words he believes that the issue of Free Software is so important that it justifies breaking the law.
Meyer does not think so - neither do I. However whether you agree or not the point is that there is a relevance between RMS's "skewed ethical perspective" and the arguments surround Free Software.
Contrast this with what Meyer does to ESR - whose views on gun control have no real relevance to Free Software. Meyer tries to use them nonetheless to discredit him - which is very unfair.
Let ME see if I've got this straight...
You pick out 3 bad points from an article of nearly 12,000 words - ignoring the rest which on the whole is a well thought constructive criticism of some aspects of OSS advocacy. Then you simplify even these points to deliberately twist and ridicule the article.
I disagree I think you'll find that most programmers get paid for developing custom software for various companies (like banks, airlines etc), software which is never sold but only used by the company that funded the development.
Selling shrink-wrapped software like shoes only works for very few large companies (like MS).
Actually I meant 'sell' in the broader sense. The emphasis in that sentence was intended to be on 'closed source'.
Ok so the average programmer does not sell shrinked-wrapped software, he sells his labour to generate software. But that doesn't substantially alter my argument.
The type of bespoke software developed for banks and airlines (which according to you is what most programmers get paid for) is exactly the type of software that is most unsusceptible for Open Source. This is both because the benefits of Open Source are most evident when the software is most generic - but also because the banks and airlines are usually reluctant to share the source with their competitors.
RatFinkhe rails against ESR for (of all things) his stance on guns
You know I thought at that point he was going way off topic. But then he went on to develop it and it kinda made sense.
I believe Meyer's point about ESR and gun control was that it demostrated ESR's lack of 'ethical perspective'. That someone could see Proprietary Software as such an evil, whilst supporting the self-evidently (to Meyer) evil US gun laws - is evidence of the kind of warped ethical perspective Meyer feels that Open Source advocates are guilty of.
Unfortunately I think Meyer slips into the trap of criticising the cause by criticising the people who support it. Something he himself warns against in the article.
Still to ignore the otherwise thought-provoking article because of this - would be to follow him into that trap
RatFinkThere seem to have been several comments along the lines of "Meyer doesn't get it - it's free as in speech, not free as in beer".
Actually I think he does get it - he's just addressing another issue. He's looking at whether it is a valid thing for a software developer to make money out of the software he develops.
Whether we like it or not one of the most effective ways to make money out of software - is to make it closed source and sell it. Yes you can make money sell services - support etc. Yes you can make money distributing software. But you can also make money selling the software itself.
There is a fundamental irony in the use of the word freedom in all the GNU/FSF advocacy texts. I am a programmer. They want to deny me the freedom to choose the way in which I make money from my skills. I can be paid for writing software provided it is Open Source, I can be paid for supporting/fixing Open Source software. But I cannot be paid for writing closed source software.
Presumably the same people believe that no actor should receive payment unless his work will be free to view. Or that a writer can only receive money for his work if he writes for a free publication
This attitude is even more remarkable when you consider that certain pieces of software are extremely unsusceptible to the Open Source model. Don't forget that much bespoke business software has in effect, business process logic embedded into the design. Such business processes might well be part of the competitive advantage one company has over another. Opening up your source in a case like this could be highly damaging. In short there are situations where Open Source is the wrong choice for software.
Such a radical restriction of freedom - requiring that I only write OSS - requires very good justification. Unfortunately I do not believe that such a justification can be found. None of the benefits which come from Open Source Software are lost if it has to co-exist in a world which also allows Closed Source, Copyrighted software.
Perhaps its because Copyright has always been the dominant model that OSS has had to assert it's opposite characteristics strongly in order to make itself heard. But hopefully this won't obscure the fact that both models can and should continue to live cheerfully side-by-side
RatFinkSame thing goes within the free software world, btw. You don't ask Miguel de Icaza to be fair towards KDE; you're just thankful he's making GNOME better.
On the contrary - I expect exactly that. I expect that GNOME's 'betterness' to be based on its own merits - if it is then there is no need to be unfair to KDE. Such unfairness then becomes ethically repugnant
By the way - I am replying to this using orabidoo's own example. I have no knowledge of Miguel de Icaza's attitude towards the KDE project, and have no desire to malign his character
This isn't true for the UK or the US