>While the tech community can stand to be more
>political, I think the mainstream business
>community even more desperately needs to get
>technical.
There's a nice commentary on how it is difficult to separate social from technical concerns. [link]. Perhaps that should be extended to the economic space as well.
What Verisign is trying to do is simple, enclose the entire DNS space. One solution in rejecting their governance is to support alternative domains ([AlterNIC]) but in some ways this is akin to a poison pill defense in that you're likely to get instability until an oliopoly forms.
Practically I doubt whether profit-oriented entity is willing to give up their fee from the assignment of names. I just hope an enlightened successor to Postel steps forward.
>When I've done these deals in the past, the >purchaser either gets the associated IP rights >as part of the deal, or a REALLY broad license >to them. From the looks of things, SCO didn't >even have the right to make copies of the stuff >it bought. That's completely incoherent from a >transactional point of view.
There's the interpretation that SCO is the copyright collection agent gaining a 5% commission on the Novell IP. Think of it as an Amazon affiliate who've decided to be more aggressive than the actual party. cf Disney and that UK children hopsital that held the rights to Peter Pan. Novell has apparently given a waiver to IBM so any risk of AIX being yanked are negligible... it does raise an interesting issue though. If a distribution channel (effectively what SCO) is litigating against functionally similar but non-derivative products how far does its reach extend?
>OTOH, a paralegal will try to discover what >things are true and what things aren't. It is >important to know the all the facts, even if all >those facts are not presented in court. This is >so the lawyer does not ask a question that might >lead to unwanted introdcution of evidence.
What is the role of a lawyer?... Advocacy (when acting as barrister in court).
They are the in the guise of hired guns. But the paralegal is manufacturing/loading the bullets (facts). In the modern-day trial by litigation (adversial approach as compared with European inquisitional), shootouts require both the {issue, question} of {facts, law}. IP is particularly complex in that you also toss in contracts/licensing and sometimes anti-competition/pro-business policy. Given that you're trying to convince intelligent but not necessarily expert people/judges, attempting to do a snow job on the facts to obfuscate the real questions can backfire. If people were persuaded by the clarity of arguments rather than the legal procedures, I suspect there would be less litigation. A good paralegal can supply pertinent background that can help experienced lawyers guage the likelihood of success and thus advise their clients accordingly.
As far as I'm aware, the South Australian Software Procurement Bill was voted down (at least the one introduced in June) after pressure from the business software sector which didn't want preferences (ie status quo). Budgetwise, the ACT does not have impact on federal spending
> So, in addition to deleting the original file from his computer, the seller will first have to: [various steps to isolate account]
This is worthwhile investigating as from a legal standpoint, property law requires that not only the _choses in possession_ (a legal term covering personal moveable chattels)be delivered but that the means for excluding others be also passed over. Compare this with a key+lock metaphor.
_Actual delivery_ assumes that not only the key is handed over, but the right to change the locks is also given. Note that this is quite different to _symbolic delivery_ (cf wooden key at 21st which symbolises the removal of the detriment of adult supervision). The biggest problem is _constructive delivery_ (such as P2P) where the object is copied but could be removed due to cache.
Whilst I'm not familiar with US jurisdiction, I have been eyeballing the Australian Digital Agenda review (basically the DCMA that the US arm-twisted the rest of the world to adopt via TRIPS) and IMHO the notion of property in the digital age need some careful handling in order not to infringe on statuatory rights (don't bug me... complain to your legislature about Eldred). However, it seems that a clear description of how the iTune can be wrapped and deteched could prove an interesting case of enabling flexibility in exchanging 3rd-party IP (effectively a pointer + hyperlink wrapped in revocable attributes) whilst obeying the law.
... where access to the customer is being treated and fungible (and thus marketable). I can point to a whole string of court cases starting with CompuServe v Cyber Promotions, Ebay v Bidder's Advantage, Intel v Hamadi, etc which have basically ruled that companies who "own" the infrastrcuture for communications effectively are private networks (think cable) and courts are relunctant to impose common-carrier, anti-competition or even anti-competition rules on them. Companies are not stupid, if they can't get lock in one way, they'll try another legit mechanism and in effect, vertically coordinate their services (software, middleware, skinware = GUI/web layout, tangleware = EULA + legal entanglements) to capture business.
Is it legal?... yes Is it proper?... debateable Is it worthwhile?... depends on the customer whether they cna get satisfaction for service
Perhaps you should write a little letter to your fair-trading rep or competition commissioner requesting investigation into unfair trading practices based on their market power to exclude future competitors (say ASPs).
... create levels of distrust... it takes just a couple of hitchdrivers going whacko (admittedly probably overdramaticsed by media) that people be hesitant to stop and pick up strangers. Often our preception (of fears) is stronger than reality (esp crime statistics). It's a good idea encouraging social capital... I just wonder how easy it is in a big anonymous city where people don't give a damn.
Further philosophical-economic developments Bentham - private property on utilitarian grounds - no natural right but state should create such a right because it is advantageous to society to do so
Hardin - tragedy of commons + Coase Theorem - where too many people abusing a resource, create property rights to enable Coasian bargining as easy/cheap as possible (witness only a few major open source licenses = GPL, BSD, Apache, Artistic and rest are variants)
Radin - Very modern thoughts on contested commodities when it relates to personhood. Things like reputation and inalienable rights. The GPL is some ways a reflection of RMS principles and MS shared-source of Bill Gate... I seriously doubt whether these forms of IP (tangible ideas expressed in legal language) are fungible.
Locke was correct for tangible property as monetarised labor but what do you call a grassroot movement that people spend time/energy in promoting?
... in that the concept of employment for life seems to be disappearing (along with corporate loyalty). If medium-term contracts are the norm for non-core technical work, then professional societies are the logical repository of skills/knowledge/ethics rather than code which is effectively leased (despite all claims of IP). The problem is that for guys, their identity is tied up much more with their role... of which job function plays a major part. How to handle uncertainty, especially with job insecurity in a rapid transition as many white collar jobs disappear under computer automation? This is a big issue in that highly skilled people have probably been underpricing their talents in not factoring in the loss of any pension (especially given the risky behaviour by many corporations) nor any trade practices restrictions (non-compete clauses).
I'd just like to point out the National Office of Information Economy Interim Report on Spam
National Office of Information Economy, The Spam Problem and How it can be Countered - Interim Report, Aug 2002, [pdf]
While it is tempting to legislate Unsolicited Bulk Email out of existance (e.g. EU eCommerce directives), I think it might be better in the long-term for the governments to recognise the quasi-tribunal measures the private sector is establishing (SPEWS, RBL, etc). There's a test case in Perth at the moment (http://t3-v-mcnicol.org) which the government could take note of and if it gets to the appeal stage, might lead to de jure recognition of SPEWS and other abatement measures.
Not sure whether it is an urban legend or not but apparently some scientists were studying primate social patterns. They took the lowest social ranking individual (who was continually being beaten up by the alpha-males) and taught him how to operate a complex machine that produced food and reintroduced him back into the pack.
Guess what?... they stopped beating up on him... but still treated him as low-monkey on the social totem pole....:-(
Any resemblance and extrapolation to human society is completely unsupported... can anyone find the web link to this experiment?
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at governments decreeing security by fiat (cough*CLipper*cough). Companies have recognised that risk management is key to avoiding many of the problems (e.g. middle office to vet orders/inventory/accounts) yet they consider hiring sysadmins who hold paper certificates as a panacea for electronic security? If you are vitally concerned with information security (e.g. trade secrets), then it is incumbant on cultivating the right culture and habits (logging off away from desk). It might be feasible to leave houses unlocked in small towns where everyone knows everyone else (social sanctions in shunning property violation offenses) but we have deadbolts, invisible IDs and security guards in cities. Similarly security is mainly a systematic process of educating users in using keys (PGP), selecting secureable devices (OpenBSD) or hiring suitable external expertise. Just expecting a single silver bullet of replacing an OS (no matter how good/badly secure it is perceived to be) seems to be on the order of Caute v the tide.
... but isn't this a symptom of people multiplexing application protocols over a single port (e.g. SOAP)? It might be a quick and easy way to tunnel pass the sysops but it doesn't allow much in the way of discrimination.
It used to be that you could distinguish stuff (e.g. file magic numbers) which were fairly reliable but with internet application interfaces (cf web page as software contracts) what would be the mechanism to monitor/restrict/block and thus assert control?
The internet has suddenly exposed the distribution mechanism wide open. Historically it was easier popping down to the music store rather than advertising for the music you wanted. The sale of old CDs/vinyls through auction sites such as eBay means that what the major studios/distributors throught of as consumable good suddenly becomes a capital good. This is the difference between lease v sale and it is impossible to radically change the pricing least the consumers revolt. Attempts so far to move towards a licensing model (a la software) have been resisted by courts (cough*DVD*cough) and experiments in alternative protected media formats indicate dawning awareness that their knowledge in the retail distribution channel is at risk.
Digital Rights Management (or restrictions for the cynical) is a mechanism for asserting their traditional control which has been weakened by P2P and parallel importing. This is a logical business decision but I suspect that defending back catalogs means less attention being devoted to new services. Why can't people mix tracks to accompany their video handhelds? Why don't people dub skits to satirise stupid commercials? Why don't people create new GC sequences of Doom-like spoofs?
Hopefully we will be entertained by novel and innovative forms of media rather than being bombarded with rehashed old forms.
... when things goes wrong? If you view software as a service, then someone along the line has to make a decision to deploy it. Usually it is some sysadmin who ultimately is responsible for the smooth running of the who ball-of-string (ignoring any CTO stupidity). IMHO that is why they like ftp/http/app-get in that it is a conscious decision to review and vet any new release.
On the other hand, if you are offering automagic updates (a la MS) then I hope the software contract indicates what happens if things goes wrong. The actual mechanism (whether JavaBeans,.BET, or ASP) becomes a side issue when lawsuits are flying, especially for any mission-critical software (cf backbone router flash-upgrades).
(tort is the legal action against harm within common law jurisdictions). Let's consider a future where individuals have wireless wheelchair, interacting with their environment (like doors/cars/etc). How do you prevent individuals being careless (cf case of leaving a concrete block on road for car to hit)?
Courts (in torts against trespass to chattels w.r.t. deciding spam cases) have rules that having an electronic signal impacting on the computer system is sufficient to be "in contact". Now extend this to a generic wireless world and you can see the potential combinations of potential problems. If my wireless car activates someone elses' garage leading to a theft then are you liable? Medical instrumentation are a major concern, as are anything which records ownership (cf person entering building with wireless and downloading trade secrets).
Wireless will change how we interact provided we can sort out how social responsibilities and obligations are partitioned.
Note that this was a case where the company brought the initial action and the court was correct in ruling that there was insufficient evidence. The day when you are not allowed to legitimately complain about inappropriate netiquette (note that Washington state has some statutes on how not to spam people on an opt-out list) is the day when we might as well log off and retreat to the desert.
What is a much harder process is for the individual to bring a suit against a spammer. Various tort actions (based on trespass to chattel) have succeeded but the prohibitive cost for individuals to assemble and argue their case makes this course viable only for deep-pocketed ISPs (who tend to bear a disproportionate share of the cost of wasted bandwidth).
To solve the problem requires much more than legal maneouvers. Fundamentally the internet mail architecture has structural weaknesses and until schemes such as IM2000 (http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html) are implemented, spammers will always have an economic incentive in socialising the costs and privatising the benefits.
revs and horse-power if you use the car engine analogy. Just because it can get higher cycles per second doesn't mean it does "useful" work. In fact, thermodynamically speaking, you can probably measure the efficiency of a chip by its heat dissipation.
The problem is that Intel is stuck in a marketing problem of its own design in that by going all-out for Moore's Law they've emphasised the internal clock frequency rather than the system efficiency (think memory latency). Not much use if you've got a super-charger if the fuel lines can't keep up (one reason why SGI still excels at bandwidth intensive tasks despite the lower clock speed).
Any law is basically a set of rules that citizens agree to abide by. By that definition, the GPL is a law. A number of specialised legal thinking is occuring to consider how to handle the various issues.... see for example in Australia
We can apply certain principles of contract law and even tort, but ultimately, the unique economics of information services require somewhat different approach than matter-based products. For example, how do you price risk? Are the CreativeCommons an orthogonal set of "rights"? How does one detect and punish fraud (a big concern given the antics of Enwrong and WorldCon).
When the lawyers start getting their IP infringed upon, I'd like to see how they start to react:-).
Perhaps I'm being cynical but I see this as a scaled-up variant of the Intel tactics mentioned in a previous/. article. As claimed, in order for Intel to dominate the high-volume business/consumer market, they had to do a form industry consortium against IBM's microchannel and open up the specs (competitive advantage only to manufacturers) so that all the value accumulated on their CPUs and the architecture could not be limited by the I/O bus (which can be scaled in higher mainframe systems of course).
In a similar way, the PC-centric world would like cheap unexpensive pipes to people's home and commoditise the bandwidth providers. Naturally the entrenched cable guys prefer seeing services centralised on their heavily controlled servers and demanding gatekeeper fees for access to their "customers". Which IMHO creates this Goliath v Gozilla tussle between the two camps. One wonders where the hapless "owned" customer feels about this supposedly beneficial outcome of creative destruction of capitalism.
It's hard to be an umpire (supposedly the US gov) when the two groups are playing by different rules with the cable guys demarcating their turf and the rest trying scorched earth tactics to dig their swimming pool (so-called liquid market).
... is to use the IrDA with say an Agenda VR3 with GSM modem/phone (e.g. Voxson). This should allow people to type up a decent set of notes/minutes, then use the Linux PDA as a blog input system. The AlphaSmart is cheaper than losing a laptop and doesn't have the power consumption (their claim is a month with 3 AAA batteries). The disadvantage is that the LCD display ix only 4x40 characters.
The AlphaSmart 3000 also has what they call Applets (downloadable) which you can purchase separately from their web site. In theory, if someone figured out the USB protocol, they could hack in either emacs or vi bindings (or even Nedit if really dedicated). You can see the Mac legacy in their use of command keys (navigation is not as smooth as it could be).
In summary, a interesting device to hack and extend if people are so interested.
Slashdot Mirror
>political, I think the mainstream business
>community even more desperately needs to get
>technical.
There's a nice commentary on how it is difficult to separate social from technical concerns. [link]. Perhaps that should be extended to the economic space as well.
What Verisign is trying to do is simple, enclose the entire DNS space. One solution in rejecting their governance is to support alternative domains ([AlterNIC]) but in some ways this is akin to a poison pill defense in that you're likely to get instability until an oliopoly forms.
Practically I doubt whether profit-oriented entity is willing to give up their fee from the assignment of names. I just hope an enlightened successor to Postel steps forward.
LL
>When I've done these deals in the past, the
... it does raise an interesting issue though. If a distribution channel (effectively what SCO) is litigating against functionally similar but non-derivative products how far does its reach extend?
>purchaser either gets the associated IP rights
>as part of the deal, or a REALLY broad license
>to them. From the looks of things, SCO didn't
>even have the right to make copies of the stuff
>it bought. That's completely incoherent from a
>transactional point of view.
There's the interpretation that SCO is the copyright collection agent gaining a 5% commission on the Novell IP. Think of it as an Amazon affiliate who've decided to be more aggressive than the actual party. cf Disney and that UK children hopsital that held the rights to Peter Pan. Novell has apparently given a waiver to IBM so any risk of AIX being yanked are negligible
LL
>OTOH, a paralegal will try to discover what
... Advocacy (when acting as barrister in court).
>things are true and what things aren't. It is
>important to know the all the facts, even if all
>those facts are not presented in court. This is
>so the lawyer does not ask a question that might
>lead to unwanted introdcution of evidence.
What is the role of a lawyer?
They are the in the guise of hired guns. But the paralegal is manufacturing/loading the bullets (facts). In the modern-day trial by litigation (adversial approach as compared with European inquisitional), shootouts require both the {issue, question} of {facts, law}. IP is particularly complex in that you also toss in contracts/licensing and sometimes anti-competition/pro-business policy. Given that you're trying to convince intelligent but not necessarily expert people/judges, attempting to do a snow job on the facts to obfuscate the real questions can backfire. If people were persuaded by the clarity of arguments rather than the legal procedures, I suspect there would be less litigation. A good paralegal can supply pertinent background that can help experienced lawyers guage the likelihood of success and thus advise their clients accordingly.
LL
As far as I'm aware, the South Australian Software Procurement Bill was voted down (at least the one introduced in June) after pressure from the business software sector which didn't want preferences (ie status quo). Budgetwise, the ACT does not have impact on federal spending
LL
> So, in addition to deleting the original file from his computer, the seller will first have to:
... complain to your legislature about Eldred). However, it seems that a clear description of how the iTune can be wrapped and deteched could prove an interesting case of enabling flexibility in exchanging 3rd-party IP (effectively a pointer + hyperlink wrapped in revocable attributes) whilst obeying the law.
[various steps to isolate account]
This is worthwhile investigating as from a legal standpoint, property law requires that not only the _choses in possession_ (a legal term covering personal moveable chattels)be delivered but that the means for excluding others be also passed over. Compare this with a key+lock metaphor.
_Actual delivery_ assumes that not only the key is handed over, but the right to change the locks is also given. Note that this is quite different to _symbolic delivery_ (cf wooden key at 21st which symbolises the removal of the detriment of adult supervision). The biggest problem is _constructive delivery_ (such as P2P) where the object is copied but could be removed due to cache.
Whilst I'm not familiar with US jurisdiction, I have been eyeballing the Australian Digital Agenda review (basically the DCMA that the US arm-twisted the rest of the world to adopt via TRIPS) and IMHO the notion of property in the digital age need some careful handling in order not to infringe on statuatory rights (don't bug me
LL
... see http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html
> only solution to eliminating SPAM is to develop a completely new architecture
Take a look at DJB's im2000 concept
http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html
LL
Look at DJB's ideas
http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html
Goal is to make the sender responsible for storage (and implicitly communications which is public-key encrypted).
LL
... where access to the customer is being treated and fungible (and thus marketable). I can point to a whole string of court cases starting with CompuServe v Cyber Promotions, Ebay v Bidder's Advantage, Intel v Hamadi, etc which have basically ruled that companies who "own" the infrastrcuture for communications effectively are private networks (think cable) and courts are relunctant to impose common-carrier, anti-competition or even anti-competition rules on them. Companies are not stupid, if they can't get lock in one way, they'll try another legit mechanism and in effect, vertically coordinate their services (software, middleware, skinware = GUI/web layout, tangleware = EULA + legal entanglements) to capture business.
... yes ... debateable ... depends on the customer whether they cna get satisfaction for service
Is it legal?
Is it proper?
Is it worthwhile?
Perhaps you should write a little letter to your fair-trading rep or competition commissioner requesting investigation into unfair trading practices based on their market power to exclude future competitors (say ASPs).
LL
... create levels of distrust ... it takes just a couple of hitchdrivers going whacko (admittedly probably overdramaticsed by media) that people be hesitant to stop and pick up strangers. Often our preception (of fears) is stronger than reality (esp crime statistics). It's a good idea encouraging social capital ... I just wonder how easy it is in a big anonymous city where people don't give a damn.
LL
Locke - labor as property is only the first step.
... I seriously doubt whether these forms of IP (tangible ideas expressed in legal language) are fungible.
Further philosophical-economic developments
Bentham - private property on utilitarian grounds - no natural right but state should create such a right because it is advantageous to society to do so
Hardin - tragedy of commons + Coase Theorem - where too many people abusing a resource, create property rights to enable Coasian bargining as easy/cheap as possible (witness only a few major open source licenses = GPL, BSD, Apache, Artistic and rest are variants)
Radin - Very modern thoughts on contested commodities when it relates to personhood. Things like reputation and inalienable rights. The GPL is some ways a reflection of RMS principles and MS shared-source of Bill Gate
Locke was correct for tangible property as monetarised labor but what do you call a grassroot movement that people spend time/energy in promoting?
LL
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/mprivacy.pdf
... this presumes marketdroids have imagination and are risk-takers.
Marketing Privacy: A Solution for the Blight of Telemarketing (and Spam and Junk Mail)
Ian Ayres and Matthew Funk
Naw
LL
... in that the concept of employment for life seems to be disappearing (along with corporate loyalty). If medium-term contracts are the norm for non-core technical work, then professional societies are the logical repository of skills/knowledge/ethics rather than code which is effectively leased (despite all claims of IP). The problem is that for guys, their identity is tied up much more with their role ... of which job function plays a major part. How to handle uncertainty, especially with job insecurity in a rapid transition as many white collar jobs disappear under computer automation? This is a big issue in that highly skilled people have probably been underpricing their talents in not factoring in the loss of any pension (especially given the risky behaviour by many corporations) nor any trade practices restrictions (non-compete clauses).
LL
I'd just like to point out the National Office of Information Economy Interim Report on Spam
National Office of Information Economy,
The Spam Problem and How it can be Countered - Interim Report, Aug 2002,
[pdf]
While it is tempting to legislate Unsolicited Bulk Email out of existance (e.g. EU eCommerce directives), I think it might be better in the long-term for the governments to recognise the quasi-tribunal measures the private sector is establishing (SPEWS, RBL, etc). There's a test case in Perth at the moment (http://t3-v-mcnicol.org) which the government could take note of and if it gets to the appeal stage, might lead to de jure recognition of SPEWS and other abatement measures.
LL
Need to find that reference ...
... they stopped beating up on him ... but still treated him as low-monkey on the social totem pole .... :-(
... can anyone find the web link to this experiment?
Not sure whether it is an urban legend or not but apparently some scientists were studying primate social patterns. They took the lowest social ranking individual (who was continually being beaten up by the alpha-males) and taught him how to operate a complex machine that produced food and reintroduced him back into the pack.
Guess what?
Any resemblance and extrapolation to human society is completely unsupported
LL
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at governments decreeing security by fiat (cough*CLipper*cough). Companies have recognised that risk management is key to avoiding many of the problems (e.g. middle office to vet orders/inventory/accounts) yet they consider hiring sysadmins who hold paper certificates as a panacea for electronic security? If you are vitally concerned with information security (e.g. trade secrets), then it is incumbant on cultivating the right culture and habits (logging off away from desk). It might be feasible to leave houses unlocked in small towns where everyone knows everyone else (social sanctions in shunning property violation offenses) but we have deadbolts, invisible IDs and security guards in cities. Similarly security is mainly a systematic process of educating users in using keys (PGP), selecting secureable devices (OpenBSD) or hiring suitable external expertise. Just expecting a single silver bullet of replacing an OS (no matter how good/badly secure it is perceived to be) seems to be on the order of Caute v the tide.
LL
... but isn't this a symptom of people multiplexing application protocols over a single port (e.g. SOAP)? It might be a quick and easy way to tunnel pass the sysops but it doesn't allow much in the way of discrimination.
It used to be that you could distinguish stuff (e.g. file magic numbers) which were fairly reliable but with internet application interfaces (cf web page as software contracts) what would be the mechanism to monitor/restrict/block and thus assert control?
LL
The internet has suddenly exposed the distribution mechanism wide open. Historically it was easier popping down to the music store rather than advertising for the music you wanted. The sale of old CDs/vinyls through auction sites such as eBay means that what the major studios/distributors throught of as consumable good suddenly becomes a capital good. This is the difference between lease v sale and it is impossible to radically change the pricing least the consumers revolt. Attempts so far to move towards a licensing model (a la software) have been resisted by courts (cough*DVD*cough) and experiments in alternative protected media formats indicate dawning awareness that their knowledge in the retail distribution channel is at risk.
Digital Rights Management (or restrictions for the cynical) is a mechanism for asserting their traditional control which has been weakened by P2P and parallel importing. This is a logical business decision but I suspect that defending back catalogs means less attention being devoted to new services. Why can't people mix tracks to accompany their video handhelds? Why don't people dub skits to satirise stupid commercials? Why don't people create new GC sequences of Doom-like spoofs?
Hopefully we will be entertained by novel and innovative forms of media rather than being bombarded with rehashed old forms.
LL
... when things goes wrong? If you view software as a service, then someone along the line has to make a decision to deploy it. Usually it is some sysadmin who ultimately is responsible for the smooth running of the who ball-of-string (ignoring any CTO stupidity). IMHO that is why they like ftp/http/app-get in that it is a conscious decision to review and vet any new release.
.BET, or ASP) becomes a side issue when lawsuits are flying, especially for any mission-critical software (cf backbone router flash-upgrades).
On the other hand, if you are offering automagic updates (a la MS) then I hope the software contract indicates what happens if things goes wrong. The actual mechanism (whether JavaBeans,
LL
(tort is the legal action against harm within common law jurisdictions). Let's consider a future where individuals have wireless wheelchair, interacting with their environment (like doors/cars/etc). How do you prevent individuals being careless (cf case of leaving a concrete block on road for car to hit)?
Courts (in torts against trespass to chattels w.r.t. deciding spam cases) have rules that having an electronic signal impacting on the computer system is sufficient to be "in contact". Now extend this to a generic wireless world and you can see the potential combinations of potential problems. If my wireless car activates someone elses' garage leading to a theft then are you liable? Medical instrumentation are a major concern, as are anything which records ownership (cf person entering building with wireless and downloading trade secrets).
Wireless will change how we interact provided we can sort out how social responsibilities and obligations are partitioned.
LL
Note that this was a case where the company brought the initial action and the court was correct in ruling that there was insufficient evidence. The day when you are not allowed to legitimately complain about inappropriate netiquette (note that Washington state has some statutes on how not to spam people on an opt-out list) is the day when we might as well log off and retreat to the desert.
What is a much harder process is for the individual to bring a suit against a spammer. Various tort actions (based on trespass to chattel) have succeeded but the prohibitive cost for individuals to assemble and argue their case makes this course viable only for deep-pocketed ISPs (who tend to bear a disproportionate share of the cost of wasted bandwidth).
To solve the problem requires much more than legal maneouvers. Fundamentally the internet mail architecture has structural weaknesses and until schemes such as IM2000 (http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html) are implemented, spammers will always have an economic incentive in socialising the costs and privatising the benefits.
LL
revs and horse-power if you use the car engine analogy. Just because it can get higher cycles per second doesn't mean it does "useful" work. In fact, thermodynamically speaking, you can probably measure the efficiency of a chip by its heat dissipation.
The problem is that Intel is stuck in a marketing problem of its own design in that by going all-out for Moore's Law they've emphasised the internal clock frequency rather than the system efficiency (think memory latency). Not much use if you've got a super-charger if the fuel lines can't keep up (one reason why SGI still excels at bandwidth intensive tasks despite the lower clock speed).
LL
Any law is basically a set of rules that citizens agree to abide by. By that definition, the GPL is a law. A number of specialised legal thinking is occuring to consider how to handle the various issues .... see for example in Australia
s p# opensrc
:-).
http://www.law.qut.edu.au/research/conference.j
We can apply certain principles of contract law and even tort, but ultimately, the unique economics of information services require somewhat different approach than matter-based products. For example, how do you price risk? Are the CreativeCommons an orthogonal set of "rights"? How does one detect and punish fraud (a big concern given the antics of Enwrong and WorldCon).
When the lawyers start getting their IP infringed upon, I'd like to see how they start to react
LL
Perhaps I'm being cynical but I see this as a scaled-up variant of the Intel tactics mentioned in a previous /. article. As claimed, in order for Intel to dominate the high-volume business/consumer market, they had to do a form industry consortium against IBM's microchannel and open up the specs (competitive advantage only to manufacturers) so that all the value accumulated on their CPUs and the architecture could not be limited by the I/O bus (which can be scaled in higher mainframe systems of course).
In a similar way, the PC-centric world would like cheap unexpensive pipes to people's home and commoditise the bandwidth providers. Naturally the entrenched cable guys prefer seeing services centralised on their heavily controlled servers and demanding gatekeeper fees for access to their "customers". Which IMHO creates this Goliath v Gozilla tussle between the two camps. One wonders where the hapless "owned" customer feels about this supposedly beneficial outcome of creative destruction of capitalism.
It's hard to be an umpire (supposedly the US gov) when the two groups are playing by different rules with the cable guys demarcating their turf and the rest trying scorched earth tactics to dig their swimming pool (so-called liquid market).
LL
... is to use the IrDA with say an Agenda VR3 with GSM modem/phone (e.g. Voxson). This should allow people to type up a decent set of notes/minutes, then use the Linux PDA as a blog input system. The AlphaSmart is cheaper than losing a laptop and doesn't have the power consumption (their claim is a month with 3 AAA batteries). The disadvantage is that the LCD display ix only 4x40 characters.
The AlphaSmart 3000 also has what they call Applets (downloadable) which you can purchase separately from their web site. In theory, if someone figured out the USB protocol, they could hack in either emacs or vi bindings (or even Nedit if really dedicated). You can see the Mac legacy in their use of command keys (navigation is not as smooth as it could be).
In summary, a interesting device to hack and extend if people are so interested.
LL