Maybe what this guy did was wrong...He did break into Intel's system, and that is naturally a great worry to Intel.
But to slap a felony on him is obserd. He didn't hurt anyone...felonies should be reserved for serious violent crimes, like bank robbery, assault, rape, murder, etc.
This should be on par with a traffic infraction, like speeding. In fact, it should carry a less severe penalty than speeding -- him breaking into a system poses no physical threat to anyone, unlike speeding, which can endanger people's lives.
Ok, maybe I was misaken about PGP. I've heard about an encryption system which encrypts something using an unsolvable mathematical puzzle. PGP, apparently, simply multiplies things a lot such that its impossible for current computers to factor them.
Well, if we did have quantum computers, we coudld just encrypt with quantum computers, and encrypt that much more, such that even a quantum computer couldn't decrypt.
Firstly, the Lindows name helps consumers, so MS is going to have trouble getting anything buy on the "it confuses consumers" line. 99% of all consumers have heard of Windows and have heard of Linux...hence, it is only natural that when they year Lindows, they will think "a Linux compatable with Windows". Consumers have rights too, not just corporations. In fact, as I see trademark -- and all other intellectual property laws -- defined, it was created to help consumers differentiate between products easily. A trademark applies to the SPECIFIC WORD or piece or logo.
Furthermore, MS has no cause to gripe -- they shouldn't have ever gotten a trademark on the name "Windows" in the first place. Every GUI uses Windows, yet somehow MS got this generalized trademark which is a generality for every GUI in existence...one of their basis' for unfair competition.
I don't feel one bit sorry for companies that "trademark" every day words used, and then later gripe when someone encroaches a little -- i.e., Windows, Apple, etc.
Trademark laws need to be irradicated as we know them. But the concept may for consumer benefit -- trademark is the one form of intellectual property which is OK, if applied correctly. But its being misapplied today. Trademarks should not be looked at as "a right a company has to wield a word or logo". They should be looked at as tools by which consumers can easily differentiate between various brands.
On the other hand, perhaps the elimination of trademarks would be a good thing for consumers. Trademarks are what keep monopolies in business and prevent upcoming businesses from starting up. People buy IBM computers just by the name...but no one would buy a Sys computer by the name, despite the fact that Sys computers are superior to most anything else on the market.
Trademarks evoke a bunch of ridiculous fallacies, which are commonly seen and avoided in other situations. Trademark is a "attack the messenger, not the message" type thing. Its like when Michael Jordan -- love him though most of us do -- advertises Hanes. So what? A famous person likes Hanes. That says nothing about their superiority over other underwear. Or its like when you hear two people speaking on TV, and one of them is a politician everyone's heard of, while another is some guy you've never heard. Despite what they're saying, people will agree with the well-known politician.
My point is, ideas, products, statements, etc, should be judged on their merits alone -- not on who came up with them (in the case of ideas), who makes them (in the case of products), or who says them (in the case of statements). Trademarks reinforce lazy thinking, whereby we judge things based mostly on their sponsor, and not on their merits.
The downsides of the possible onset of quantum computers are:
(1) Any government agent could crack your encryption...after all, a quantum computer could crack a fifteen thousand letter password in like two seconds. (of course, not for PGP, since it is based on unsolvable algaebraic formuli)
(2) This means that programmers will take this as an excuse to write even sloppier code and put in even more unnecessary features that we don't want and don't need.
Here's a way to get around this. They say they offer refunds, even for opened CDs. That's a smart decision by them, because if they didn't, lawsuits would force them to eventually. So here's how you can get music EVEN MORE FREE than before:
1. Buy the CD from the store.
2. Open it up and see if it works on your computer.
3a. If it does not work on your computer. You can try calling their hotline, see if there's anything you can do. Don't give out any personal information unless absolutely required. Do what they say, and then see if it works. Regardless of whether or not it works, don't tell them. If it works, proceed to step 3b. If it doesn't work, return it as defective to get your refund.
3b. If it works, play the songs on your computer. Since it has "rip" protection, you need to make a copy of it using another method: direct recording of the exact sound-output from your soundcard. If you have a SoundBlaster, you can use Creative Record to record the sound-output in pure digital form. This bypasses their "rip-proection" scheme, and it produces results just as high quality as a pure WAV rip. (note, the output file will be a WAV).
4. Do this for all of the tracks on the song. It'll take a little finesse to get it to start and stop recording exactly when the song starts and stops -- you don't want to cut off anything, but you also don't want to have any more "silent sound" than necessary.
5. Save a copy of this WAV file onto your hard drive. You always want to have a pure copy of the original, so that later on, when better MP3/WMA/OGG compression comes out, you can recompress.
6. Compress the WAV file using either OGG, WMA, or MP3. If you use MP3, you should probably do MP3Pro, the new program. The demo program is free. You can probably find warez of the full MP3Pro program. If you use WMA, you'll have to use the wma8eutil command that you d/l from MS. If you use OGG, you'll have to use the oggenc command.
7. Offer the files on LimeWire and Kazaa.
8. Now, you should have been able to do all this in a day, right? I can do it in less than an hour, if I want to. So, once your done with that, and you have your original WAV files copied to your HD, you make a copy of the CD using Adaptec CD Copier -- if the CD will allow it. If not, no problem, you have the perfect-quality WAV on your HD and can put it on a CD-RW...you also have the high-quality MP3/WMA/OGG encoded files.
9. Now that you've derived all possible value out of this CD, its useless too you. Why should you keep it? You shouldn't. You should return it to the store you bought it from, and say it was defective and wouldn't play on your CD-player -- after all, they do say that it doesn't play on some CD players. The store has no choice but to give you your money back.
Congratulations, you've just: (1) Got a free original CD that can play on a CD player at no cost to yourself (assuming you could copy the CD) -- if not, you can simply use Adaptec Audio-CD Maker to put the WAVs on the CD as tracks; (2) Gotten perfect quality WAV files for the music; (3) Gotten good quality WMA/MP3/OGGs for the music, which you can put on a CD-RW to be played on an MP3-player; (4) Distributed these files to the world. Life is good.
DISCLAIMER. This article is not a role-model article. It is not even serious. Its a comical release. Some of the things mentioned in this article could cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at home...
Windows, Unix, Mac OSX, BeOS, Amiga SDK, and QNX
on
MacOSX Vs BeOS ShootOut
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, I agree...ultimately, you can't effectively compete against Windows if you want to make money. They own developers -- hardware people ONLY write drivers for Windows...same for software developers. Yea, they make drivers for other OS' too, but those come out second, and they are usually second rate. Same with software. I'm not an advocate of Windows -- this is just a consequent fact of the fact that MS is an illegal monopoly. Solution? Break the company up into a million pieces, open source their software, and prevent anyone with the name Bill Gates from owning a business.
Ok, that said...let me talk about the features of an OS that are important...I'll take it from the lowest level to the highest.
1. Functionality -- how much stuff your OS can do...i.e., how many operations/manipulations of data, ways to do things, etc.
2. Performance -- when something is operating, how long does it take? How long is load time? Boot time? What about the memory footprint in RAM?
3. Size -- how large is it? Smaller for the same functionality is better. Obviously, smaller progs tend to load and run faster, so this ties into performance.
4. Stability -- this one's pretty obvious. Does it crash or doesn't it? How often does it crash, and how difficult or easy is it to crash it.
5. Security -- related but distinct from stability. How secure can an OS keep your files? i.e., encryptions, permissions, access levels, file sharing, etc.
6. User interface -- this one's composed of several categories. Its not just ease of use, as some Macphiles would have you believe. Ease of use is important. It should also be pretty, so long as the prettyness contributes to making it easier to use & understand (anything beyond that is wasteful). But furthermore, it should allow you to get things done fast. Power features, shortcuts, etc. This is where having a command line and being able to do everything from a keyboard comes in handy. Max OSX may be easy to use, but many tasks are repetitive, and people don't want to constantly have to use the mouse.
7. Compatability -- How much software/hardware/user support does your OS have? This is where M$ gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out of their head.
8. Of course, their is availability. This is where Linux gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out. Having something freely available and such that any can see the code is a great benefit. BeOS doesn't get hit as hard, b/c it has a limited version available free of cost (though no source code). M$ doesn't get hit at all -- no fault in their operating system hinders them or costs them money.
Linux and BSD (yes, I know these are DIFFERENT...don't go nuts). These OS' have a great concept behind them -- that the source code should be available for all to see and analyze, and modify on. This also happens to make them free;-). This is an ideal we should aspire to b/c it produces more knowledgeable users, and keeps them more informed and more empowered. These OS' also happen to have great power/functionality, as well as enoromous customizability. So, summing it up, Linux and BSD are all about giving the USER CHOICE. They also happen to have some very good code, as well as stability/security, and *decent* performance in typical day-to-day desktop uses, as well as great performance for networking.
On to the great Satan, Microsoft Windows. This is an OS which is a prime example of mediocracy and slovenlyness. Most things are OK, some are terrible. MS is all about standards -- that's why its so successful. More simply put, MS is about "popularity". Every hardware vendor makes makes drivers for MS and every software company makes software for MS. As long as this continues, and no other OS' get this kind of support, MS will invariably dominate. The main reason ppl don't switch from MS is because: (1) They've spend hundreds of dollars on Windows games like Descent and Tomb Raider, and don't want to waste that; (2) They have lots of MS software, and don't want to waste that; (3) They want to be able to get all the latest, greatest, and best hardware, which they can always do with MS.
Now, onto the Max OSX. Its all about ease of use. Very easy to use (though annoying not having a right click, and little keyboard menu support). Though easy to use, it is slow -- things open slow, and getting things done is slow, b/c EVERYTHING has to be done with the mouse, or almost so. Very poor performance. Its BSD-core, so good security and stability, if you configure it so. Not too much functionality -- by this, I mean, you can't customize it to your choosing. Very little User control. Apple RAMS their UI down your throat and you better like it or else (cause if you don't, and try to offer programs for modifying MaxOSX's appearance/features on the net, Apple will sue you).
Now, onto three of my favorite proof-of-point OS' in terms of performance: BeOS, Amiga SDK, and QNX. Let me summarize the specialties of each before I treat them all as one cummulative OS. BeOS -- very fast, great for graphics, great file system, fast load-time, boot time, etc. Amiga SDK -- same story as BeOS, but crossplatform and offers interestingly fast VP Assembly code, w/c is crossplatform. Apparently, code runs at near-native speeds once loaded; also, progs written in VP Assembly (w/c is like Java in cross-platformedness) load faster, b/c there is "less" stuff to load from the hard drive, and more CPU transformation (dynamic compilation) of code...CPU much faster than HD, so as far as loading, better to load less and have to "dynamically compile" it than to have to load larger thing to start w/ but not transform it. QNX -- prime example of minimalism: truely, an Orwellian OS in terms of efficiency. No unneeded junk. Now, let me summarize the advantages of these OS: namely, performance performance performance. They boot up quicker than Windows, UNIX, or MacOSX (though QNX is a "UNIX"). Programs load faster on them, tasks are performed faster, and their memory footprint is smaller.
So, what is it the USER really needs?
(1) An OS w/ the PERFORMANCE of BeOS/Amiga/QNX. Fast boot time, fast run time, fast load time, small memory footprint. This comes down to fine tuning and revolutionary thinking in terms of file-systems, algorithms, etc etc. You also need cross-platform code like VP Assembly, w/c can run faster than native code, and w/c can load faster due to less "information" on the HD, w/c needs to be transformed into binary code by the CPU dynamically.
(2) An OS w/ the POWER, FUNCTIONALITY, and CUSTOMIZABILITY of the UNIXs. In Linux/BSD/IRIX/etc, you have enormous power. Everything is customizable. You can customize your browser to selectively ignore certain images on web-sites, etc. Vast array of commands to perform repetitive tasks quickly (such as replacing all instances of ": " in a file with a TAB.
(3) An OS with the EASE OF USE of MacOSX. "Prettyness" is a secondary concern. Prettyness is only something they add to it to make it look better to OEMs. The main concern is to make the interface very intuitive, as well as quick to use. MacOSX tends to be very intuitive, but not very quick to use...you have to drag your mouse to do everything.
(4) An OS with the SOFTWARE SUPPORT, HARDWARE SUPPORT, and general INTERCOMPATABILITY as Windows. As said before, all software companies support Windows, as do all Hardware companies. For software, solutions like Wine may easy to pain for games who already have hundreds of games. But for Hardware? You need to sell companies on that, or make the drivers yourself. How do you sell companies on it? Well, you convince them that b/c your OS is so mean and lean, their product will perform v. fast on it, w/c makes it look good...this only tends to work for gaming and 3D developing software companies, though. But for other companies, doesn't quite have the same effect -- so you have to make it yourself, until your OS becomes popular enough.
What apps, outside of games and 3D progs, do you need? Well, I'll tell you what progs I usually use every day. (1) E-mail prog; (2) Internet browser; (3) Word-processor; (4) Spreadsheet; (5) Database; (6) Drawing/graphics program; (7) Media-viewing program (something that can play ALL kinds of sounds, show ALL kinds of images, and play ALL kinds of videos); (8) Encoders; (9) FileSharing prog; (10) Antivirus; (11) Various scientific utilities. This comes to 11 -- ELEVEN -- programs that I use regularly.
Is itr really that hard for people to come up with 11 GOOD programs which accomidate people's everyday needs? I wouldn't think so.
So, hows all this to be accomplished? Well, I think we start out with the IDEA behind Linux/BSD: you need a free and openly available source code. This gives uers control, and insures a project is immortalized. Maybe you even start out with the BSD or Linux OS?
But, I think thats too difficult. Like BeOS, we need to start from scratch. Our aspirations need to be towards excellence and nothing less. Linux' file system -- while more efficient than Windows and MacOSX -- simply could not be worked to be made as efficient as BeOS'. Granted, Linux has a lot of good things -- OpenSource, and many many useful commands. We shouldn't abandon any of the many many UNIX commands. But we should abandon the Linux file system...in fact, we should abandon all file systems.
It needs to be a clean break -- sometimes, a house is so infested by termites that the only solution is to tear it down and build another house. It won't be easy, and it won't come fast. It certainly won't provide a viable solution for many years...but good things come over time. The pyradmids took lifetimes to build (well, one lifetime of a pharoh, many lifetimes of the avg. Egyptian citizen, since they lived shortly). A good opertaing system may take decades to build -- and that's just to get to the core OS.
But, if you want your efforts to be worthwhile, you have to bite the bullet on one thing -- cross compatability. You need to develop on top of a code which can be run unaltered on any platform, now and in the future. That means something like Amiga SDK's VP Assembly. This does mean a performance hit in terms of run-time once somethings open -- generalized code will never run as quick as a finely-optimized piece of Asm. But it will load faster -- as its basically stored as a smaller executable, which is then translated dynamically. So you optimize the "machine" as much as possible to speed up translation and then bite the bullet on that. This is the only way you'll ever have time to really work on some fundamentals of the file-system and OS, w/o falling vastly behind and finding out your OS can't run on the latest CPU.
Then, you take it one step at a time. First, you plan out the entire system...find new revolutionary ways to make code smaller, more efficient...to make the file system quicker, for example. Of course, to give the user maximal customizability, you need to try to make everything modular. This also makes your OS faster down the line, b/c it can call and load only functions w/c are needed.
Then you proceed logically, first building a solid foundation before building atop it. You don't add new an unnecessary features to a program until you've resolved stability/security issues, as well as performance issues; you also focus firstly on improving performance. Chances are, your prog has all the critical features. LimeWire, for example, doesn't need any more features: it needs to be streamlined. Finally, when adding features -- only add needed and useful features. Don't add features just to "impress people" or make it "look cooler". Add features which are really needed.
If you want an example, lets take MS Word. MS Word had all the features it *needed* in Word 98. Now, MS is just adding new features to impress OEMS. What they really should be doing is making the program smaller, making it run and load faster. Furthermore, they don't need to make it any "easier" to use. It had a simple help system, operated by indexes and contents -- that was great. And a decent menuing and button system. Why did they need to add those stupid office assistants? Only justification, promotion. Dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. What Word really needs, from MY experience, is faster load times and faster run-times for operations. It also needs more power-shortcuts. Making legends or equations in MS Word is an excercize in "CTRL +"ing or "CTRL SHFIT +"ing...and that's if your an "expert".
As a final note, let me say that I rarely find programs sorely lacking in features. Most progs have plenty of features -- more than you need, in fact. What I do often find is progs that are bloated, huge, slow, and load slowly.
Look, they can make a ruling against a US citizen all they want. The fact is, they can't enforce it. US citizens live in the US, and their banks are in the US. There's nothing an Australian court can do to touch a US citizen in the US. Our courts already ruled that we do NOT enforce decisions made by other courts in other nations, and that US citizens don't have to abide by other nations laws while in the US.
That the case was dropped was clearly good. This guy doesn't have to go through that clearly unconstitutional/nonsensical rubbish.
But the case was dropped so he can testify against the company. This is not so good. ElComSoft is based in Russia. The US has NO RIGHT to try to exercise power or enforce its laws in OTHER nations. This is a violation of sovereignty, and it leads to disturbing possibilities that other nations will take this as a precedent to trial and charge our US citizens for "actions they committed in the US" that were legal in the US, but not legal in their country (i.e., if I went to China, they could, using this as precedence, trial me for criticizing the Chinese government while in the US).
Furthermore, how exactly does the US plan to put ElComSoft on trial? The company is in Russia, and the US govt has no means to enforce any punishment against the company. What the company did was legal in Russia, as was what Dmitry did was.
Furthermore, what he did her in America was also legal: explaining how his product works. Even had he advertised the program here and pointed people to a website where they could buy it, the law still shouldn't be able to touch him, if you think about sovereignty issues. The place where you can buy the product from is in Russia -- a "cyberspace" location on a server in Russia. The US has no jurisdiction over anything in other nations. Period. And you can't arrest people for pointing out where information can be obtained on the web, not even undert he DMCA (that only applies to hyperlinks to DeCSS; note, a recent court rulings have overturned the ban on DeCSS).
But it is nevertheless good that Dmitry is free and can go about as he pleases. I'm sure he's really looking forward to going back to Russia. Nothing like living in a broken down cobble in Siberia and eating a few crumbs of bread a day, then having to go to the Moscow hospital where surgical tools are rusted.
To really annoy these prissy companies that make their money by shoving banners and screen-wide ads down 28bps users' throats, create a script on your page which links to their page, extracts the useful text your interested in showing your viewers, places it in a box (with attributions) and removes all ads and unnecessary graphics as you deem. Better yet, create a script which logs automatically into a pay-for-subscription service (but without revealing the password).
That's nonsense. First of all, if he puts the book online under a public license or a free-BSD type license, any publisher can produce a binded version of it and distribute it as a book. Secondly, you naturally get a more massive distribution when materials are online free of charge.
If he cares so much about the affect intellectual property has on the enslavement of ideas, why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain, or under the GNU license for documents, or a BSD license for documents?
I've read several comments on slashdot, and gotten the impression that some people think such gene therapy would be "unfair" to those athletes who didn't use it, if they had to compete against those who did.
This is nonsense.
Really, all gene therapy does is alter someone's natural talent. No one really "deserves" what natural talent they have anyways. Did Einstein or Hawking "deserve" to be brilliant? Did Michael Jordan "deserve" to be gifted with natural athletic talent. The answer to these questions is, of course, a resounding no.
No one deserves what natural talents they have or do not have.
If I want to use gene therapy to allow myself to learn things quicker, or to heal quicker, or to live longer, that's my right: Its my body. Society shouldn't be able to tell people what they can and can't do with their own body.
Similarly, if an athlete wants to use gene-therapy to give himself a better endurance, that's his right. Sure, other athletes who don't do this will whine...that's their right too. Maybe sports leagues will set up rules for this, or even have separate leagues for players who do and don't use gene therapy; or maybe they'll let both play in the same league. After all, its really just another form of doing all you can to be the best you can be.
I realize that some people -- notably, religious nuts, and even some paranoid atheists -- are fearful of gene-therapy, genetic engineering, and cloning. I'm not. If there's a way to use gene therapy to make me live longer or obtain any other benefit I'd be glad to have, I'm all for it. As for genetic engineering(genetically engineering human beings before born), I'm not against that either. Yes, religious nuts say its playing god; some atheists say its messing with mother nature. I say its just another step in our quest for perfection. As for cloning, I'm not at all against that either, though I think no person from the past should be cloned, because they didn't have the opportunity to express their opinion one whether or not they wanted to be cloned. No one should be cloned against their will, so anyone who lived before cloning was possible shouldn't be cloned. This is my libertarian position on the issue. However, it is also in conflict with other libertarian values I have. For one thing, we can stomp our feet all we want and say we don't want this to happen: someone will do it. Period. And what are we going to do to the person who did it? What crime is that? Are we going to treat him or her like a common criminal, for creating a life? Hardly seems reasonable.
Information on how to do this can be obtained from Michael Holve's website article on the subject. If you want to really understand it, go to his website -- he has graphic illustrations along with the instruction:
www.everythingmac.org/articles/UpdateCDHack/
Note, that I am not hyperlinking this becaue I do not know how. Interestingly, according to a recent Appeals Court Decision, providing the text to a controversial website is OK, but hyperlinking to it is bad.
I suggest that you all go to this website, copy it to your hard drive, print it out, and scatter it accross the earth like DeCSS.
Moral stupidity. Morals have no place in the law. You Christian nutcases should stay in church babbling about impractical pie-in-the-sky nonsense which you can understand.
Apple sells you a CD which has more on it than they want to give to you mistakenly -- their fault, not yours. Once you've bought the CD, its yours -- short of using it as a disc to chop someones head off with, you can do whatever you want to/with the CD, as well as the information obtained off if it(at least on your computer). If you want to modify part of the CD or the program it creates, that's your right -- no different than if I buy a game and want to apply a patch to it to make it better. My right.
Apple has no right to abridge macfixit.com's right to freedom of speech. The website is telling people how to get around a potentially troublesome issue, which may pose problems for many of them.
Irrelevant of "why" the information is being distributed or used, macfixit has a right to do so. They have the right to point out flaws in software and provide workaround. Furthermore, they have the right to state what we know as being the truth, or their opinion regarding it, and a way to use it to one's advantage.
Finally, since when does a companies idiotic conduct protect them? Apple dropped the ball, so now they get to say, "No no, you can't tell other people how we dropped the ball or how they can pick it up"? I don't think so. This is just like the Prof. Felton case regarding SDMI. Its a legitimate criticism of a "technology" and an explanation of how to get around that technology: just like what Prof. Felton did with SDMI. If this goes to trial, it won't hold up.
Explanation, Hopes, Criticism, and Solutions
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
·
· Score: 1
In regards to explaining the decision of the court to dismiss the suit, I believe it was because no actual issue was presented before the court. Because the RIAA backed down, there was no tangible case to examine in which Felton's rights were being violated. As they know the DMCA is unconstitutional, this is likely to be the strategy of the RIAA: threaten people as much as possible with the DMCA, back down when they seriously challenge. That way, you can effectively scare people into obeying the DMCA, while not ever risking having the DMCA over-turned on grounds that it is unconstitutional.
I certainly hope that somehow, Felton's lawyers find a way to bring this case before a court. There are indeed constitutional issues at stake. Perhaps they could bring it to court regarding the chilling effect on Prof. Felton's free speech, that he has to fear that entities -- from RIAA and the SDMI to individual music companies -- may sue him retroactively. In any case, if Felton's lawyers cannot convince a judge that there is an actual tangible situation at stake, the case is likely to be dismissed; I sincerely hope this is not the case.
Now, I will divulge on a tangent issue relating the the insufficiency of our current legal system.
This, as I've mentioned before, is a major flaw in our system. Before a court can rule on the constitutionality of a law, an actual case must be before it. This means that someone's life must be on the line -- their money, or freedom -- before the issue is considered. This creates an unacceptable risk to the citizens of the US: if we are to overturn an unconstituional law, we must wait until someone violates it an puts their life on the line for a "test case." This clearly needs to be fixed. Any laws should be subject to constitutional challenge on a theoretical basis, irrelevant of whether or not a case is before the court. This is currently the system operating in Germany.
Another unacceptable flaw in our laws permeates every law ever created: vagueness, or lack of clarity. Laws are vague and difficult to understand. This is because they were poorly thought out and what they mean is very debatable(i.e., DMCA), because they were simply worded poorely as all laws are, and/or because they are unnecessarily long and thus trying on the average person who tries to read them. To fix this, laws should have to be written in Orwellian fashion: minimal use of words, minimal use of long words, and clarity being the most important. There shoiuld be no "thou's", no "shalls", no "whereforths", no "whenceforths", no "thees", no "thys", no "said persons", or any of the other antiquated British bullshit that currently bloats our laws to obesity. Furthermore, the number of laws should be minimized, as should the length fo each law. In our current system, it is impossible for the average person to know every law. This is wrong. If people cannot possible know the laws, they cannot possibly be expected to obey them. The net sum of laws in any state should be able to fit in 20 pages of text.
Of course, the last major flaw in our current laws is, as briefly alluded to, their volume. Simply put, there are too many laws. Does there really need to be a law in Florida against fucking birds? Does there really need to be a law against prostitution or gambling? What about a law agaisnt sodomy? Or the laws against voluntary incest? These laws are completely unnecessary; they serve no purpose other than to propagate religious fanatacism.
So what I propose is this: (1) Minimize the length of all laws; (2) Maximize the clarity of all laws, eliminate words that cannot be understood by 90% of the population, and in no case, should there be any words longer than twenty characters in the law; (3) Minimize the number of laws by eliminating useless laws; (4) Allow courts to decide on the constitutionality of laws before an actual case is at stack: better yet, require that all laws passed be ran through a commission of experts on the constitution to determine their constitutionality, and lastly the Supreme Court.
The simple fact is, all intellectual proprty laws -- except perhaps trade secrets -- violate freedom of speech. They either create prior restrictions on free speech or impose harsh and unreasonable post-publication punishments for excercising the right to free speech.
As for trade-secrets, there's nothing wrong with a company keeping a secret. They have as much a right to do so as you or I do -- this falls under the right to privacy. However, just like you and I, their right to privacy is not protected at the expense of freedom of speech, except perhaps against the government. If I keep a private diary, that's a right I have protected under privacy-rigths. However, if I leave my diary in a park and someone transcibes it and publishes it, I have no cause for issuing grieviances. If I wanted to keep it private, I should have protected it better.
On the other hand, if someone steals my diary from a private place which I've secured, they still cannot be prevented from publishing it -- that would be prior restraint. If we're to have a concern for free speech, they also cannot be subject to personal liabilities: that would also have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. What they can be liable for is what they must have done to get a private diary that I have secured: for breaking into my house and stealing a piece of my property. My privacy rights may have been violated by this person, and he may be punished in respect to the violation itself; but not in respect to any speech he may want to say about my private affairs. He can be held liable in civil court for violating my right to privacy, intrinsic; no consideration of the effects of any speech he spoke may be considered. He is also, of course, criminally liable for breaking into my house and stealing my proprty.
GPL in general is good to ensure that all of the improvements made upon an open-sourced code are reintegrated back into the community code. This prevents forking by allowing all conflicting versions to be united into one if a standard is desired; it also allows for variability because anyone can make a variation.
BSD license is good to allow anyone to contribute to and improve open-sourced code, but does not require that the improvement be resubmitted back into the community pool. This allows for slightly quicker development when it comes to businesses being involved. However, it also leads to the possibility of unresovable forking. Look at what happened with the variations of UNIX; they forked in different proprietary directions, each fork unresolvable with its neighbor because everyone licensed their code under "can't touch this" mentality.
As another alternative license I've proposed, one may want to say: "Any modifications to this code may be distributed under any open-source license," with provisions to ensure that businesses don't use this as a way to make one version, release it under open source, then EULA updates.
The idea that people who rely on open-sourced code to make an improvement or product should have to resubmit that to the open-sourced pool is justified and reasonable: "If I can see farther than others, it is only because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants." The vast majority of accomplishments possible today, are possible because decades and centuries ago, people contributed to public knowledge openly. In deference to those contributions, progress made on the "back" of such contributions should be available for all of society.
"Public", BSD, GPL, and EULA Licenses: Comparison
on
Freedom or Power Redux
·
· Score: 1
Ok, I'm not going to go into the details of each license, let me just summarize all three. Please correct me if any of my simplifications grossly misrepresented reality.
Public domain -- any person can do anything they so desire with the program; no acknowledgements of authorship necessary(not a license). This ensures that people will be able to do whatever they want with code.
BSD license -- basically the same as Public domain, except for a few caveats. People have to attribute the author(s) of the program; any redistributions of the same code must abide by BSD license; modifications to the code may be distributed under any license, provided the original code is still BSD-licensed.
GPL -- many of the users freedoms are preserved; they can basically do whatever they want with the program, with the exception of a few re-licensing and distribution issues. Any publicly distributed modifications must be GPLed; any distribution of the code must obide by GPL; and the author(s) must be attributed.
EULA -- users have the right to use the program: little else. Except as granted by fair use and other exceptions, users have no right to redistribute, analyze the source, or even publicly distribute modifications. Given recent events, MS may modify the EULA to be even more restrictive, with the requirement that "MS Word not be used to produce any material of questionable integrity".
IP enthusiasts argue that EULA and variations give program-authors the most "freedom" or "power". This may be true for "original authors", but it gives secondary authors(i.e., people who want to modify an existing program: to make it better) no rights/power. I'd argue that it doesn't even give original authors much power, as it prevents them from accessing source code from which they may generate ideas; thus, reduces their ability to act as authors.
The BSD-license and the GPL-license are two different ways, from my POV, to achieve the same thing -- an open society in which ideas are open, and in which they cannot be controlled. It should be noted that these two licensing systems are means to an end, not ends in of themselves; neither is desireable as the end result. The desireable end result is that no IP system exists, thus there would be no need for GPL/BSD licenses to ensure that code remains free.
BSD license attempts to aid us towards this end by practicing it as much as possible, while ensuring that the original code remain covered under BSD-license. The idea behind BSD is "just make people redistribute under the same license" and don't force them to do anything else(except site credits); i.e., don't force them to redistribute code they created to modify your code in any particular license. This type of system offers full compatability with any other open-sourced project. The problem is, it also offers full compatability with closed-source projects. In other words, it can be a tool which can aid software companies in their ends of enslaving information, in that it can provide them with an idea upon which to work, and then close off the progress they've made. Precisely because BSD-license offers full compatability with any other effort under any license, it provides a potential tool to businesses. Thus, it is a license which offers much in terms of potential benefits(complete compatability with anything), but is also fairly risky(in that companies can use it to their ends).
GPL has taken another approach: allow people to do whateve they want with the code, provided that they redistribute under the GPL, and also distribute any modifications under the GPL. This prevents corporations from using GPLed code as a base upon which to make EULAed code: it thus eliminates that risk. But it also eliminates some benefits in that it is incompatable with many other open-source licenses. It is thus a lower risk, but lower potential benefit license.
So, choosing between GPL and BSD license is really a matter of risk v. benefit. Do you want to offer more potential freedom, at the risk that a corporation could use that freedom as a base to make code licensed such as users don't have freedom? Or do you want to offer more potential safety, at the cost of a little less freedom(but still more freedom than EULA)?
One possible compromose solution is to create an intermediate license, lets say the Open Source Compatable License(OSCL). This license would operate exactly like the GPL license in many respects. Redistributions would have to be under the OSCL. But, and precisely what differentiates the OSCL from the GPL, any modficiations made to the original code would not have to be distributed unde the OSCL. Rather, any modifications have to be distributed under any Open-source license. That is, the programmer modifying the original source code has the option to distribute that modification under the open-sourced code of his choice. This would ensure compatability with all other Open source licenses; however, it would cease to offer protection from corporate raiders after the initial program. I realize that this license, as I presented it, could easily be bypassed by corporations who want to raid my original software to build a closed-source system on top of; i.e., they make modifications to my program, release those modifications under the BSD license. Then, any additional modifications they make(i.e., version updates) could be licensed under EULA. Obviously, terms in the license would have to be added to prevent such.
Let me state again that the end is the elimination of the entire intellectual property system all-together -- at least,that's the ideal end. If that is not possible, then a secondary end should be drastically scaling back the IP system: i.e., reducing the power programmers can excercise over their users, and reducing the terms of copyright/patent/trademark/tradesecret protection to 5-10 years max. However, we should work towards the ideal end -- the elimination of IP altogether. Its barbaric to think that people can "own" ideas: this is what was done in the Middle Ages when the religious nuts owned religious ideas. In the ideal system of no-IP, no licenses would be needed, as no oone would be able to create a license which deprives any user of freedom regarding how they use their software.
As a final note, someone earlier said that EULA does not deny any user their rights, because they voluntarily accepted the terms of the agreement, which restricted their rights to use/distribute/analyze the program. Nonsense. You cannot "sign off" on your rights legitimately. We long ago accepted that people cannot contract into slavery. The same applies here, for the same reasons.
----------
Point for Point Comments and criticism of O'Reilly
on
Freedom or Power Redux
·
· Score: 0, Insightful
Ok, I'm going to be rather harsh and criticize this point for point.
There's an old children's story I heard once...
Lets start out with O'Reilly's objectionable mentioning of the story regarding cows and butter. There's a reason he doesn't tell you the name of the story: that's because the story is racist, designed to make fun of African American people. The story basically details an African American boy going to get things for his mother each day and idiotically blundering in doing such simple things. The story was clearly desiged to imply that African American people are dumb.
My goal is to see as much good software created as possible, and for that to happen, we need a range of licensing models.
A simplified and stupid goal. What good is it to have "good software" if the vast majority of the public can't afford it? The goal should be to maximize the amount of good software the the public effectively has access to(that means, maximize the amount of good software that the average person will get). Progress is useless to society if it only helps the upper echelon of the rich. There are currently "treatments" for AIDS. Big freakin' deal. Only the richest 1% of people in America can afford AIDS treatment. Who cares? Zillions of tax-payer dollars were pumped into research for AIDS...the result: a "treatment" that is completely unavailable to the average person; only the richest of the rich benefit from tax-payer dollars spent on AIDS research. Don't expect that to change when a "cure" is found either.
The Slashdot moderator noted: "it's pretty clear that true freedom would not let one person control what another does with software."
This is just silly. The GPL absolutely controls what other people can do with software. Even the BSD license, which is very generous, places restrictions (e.g. attribution).
O'Reilly's assertion that "that's silly" is not backed up. Simply because GPL does express power over others, does not mean that people have the right to excercise power over others in the form of licensing. GPL is a licensing solution designed to work under the current system of IP, which does excercise some power over others, in order to prevent them from excercising power over others. I agree that GPL does excercise power over users; however, it is the only way under our current system to prevent those users from modifying the code, copyrighting it, and excercising undue power over others.
I'm a firm believer in the original goal of copyright law, which was to maximize progress in the useful arts.
Again, the same criticism applies. "Maximizing progress" is pointless. What you want to maximize is useful progress that the average public person benefits from. If progress in software means that you have to spend 1000 dollars for a single program, that progress is useless to the vast majority of us. Might as well not have it, resources are better spent on a cheaper alternative.
And I know that sometimes throwing something to the winds (i.e. releasing open source software) is the best way to maximize progress, while at others, placing restrictions on its distribution takes you further towards that goal.
Closing off ideas and placing restrictions on them is never the optimal way to increase progress; and it certainly is never the optimal way to increase useful progress(progress that the majority of the public can benefit from). Want a historical example? Lets see, lets compare the Modern age of "enlightenment" and the Ancient age, to the Middle Ages. In the ancient age, great scientific progress was made, as was mathematical progress and technological progress; the same in the modern age; furthermore, people's rights in each age were, relatively, well-respected. The Middle Ages: half a millenium of wars, torture, religious dictatorships, and zero progress. The only progress made during the middle ages was progress in killing and death. Ancient Mayan scripts were destroyed at the "ends" of the Middle Ages by visitors to America(this is technically not the "Middle Ages", but still an era under the control of religious idiocy and closed-mindedness). The medical scripts of Imhotep, the great Priest of Egypt, were destroyed at the onset of the Middle Ages...another wonder we can thank religion and closed-mindedness(including closing off ideas) for. Imhotep was the first real practitioner of medicine, even before Hippocrates. Thanks to the destruction of his work, medicine may have been set back centuries.
Well, I'm no attorney, but from what I've read about fari use, I'll try to explain it. As a disclaimer, I in no way support the current intellectual ownership system; I am simply pointing out how to use some of the crooked rules of that system to empower one's self.
Someone earlier implied that the only actions covered under fair use were "editorial and educational" actions. These are indeed covered, but are not the only actions covered. Fair use is basically any use of a copyrighted work/software that does not deprive the "owner" of his priviledges regarding the work/software (no, "copyrights" are not rights; the rights are listed in the Amendments to the constitution; I don't see the right to enslave information as one of those rights).
Lets take a simple example. Lets say that I purchase a book which is copyrighted. Lets say I transcribe this entire book word for word exactly and put it online as a website. I password-protect the website so that no-one can access it but myself and I tell no one the password. This is clearly fair use. In no way has the owner of the book been prevented from making a profit off of his work. I am simply doing this so that I can read that book from any location I so desire.
Lets modify that example. Lets say that I do as I did in the previous paragraph, except this time I also give the password(to view the site, not modify it) to other people who have bought the book and tell them to keep the password confidential. Again, clearly fair use by the same criteria.
Of course, in such a case, one could say that anyt individual I gave the password to could post it online and give it to the world, thus allowing anyone to view the book. This is true. However, if such happened, I would be at no fault; I cannot control the actions of other individuals. In such a case, the individuals who dispersed the password would be at fault(in the eyes of our current flawed idea-ownership system). They and they alone would be liable, while I would bear no liability. I could not have possibly controlled their actions, and I was only offering them access to a fair-use service which I had access to myself.
This is also a very simple scenario by which intellectual ownership could be undermined, and could be taken as a model for fighting against intellectual ownership. It is hard, if not impossible, to determine who let such a password leak. Someone I gave the password to could post it from a public computer, on a Yahoo! Club, newsgroup, message board, etc, leaving no trace. Once the password is known by others, and they use it, they can read the book; surely, many will copy the text and republish it on other web pages. Such will continue in a chain reaction.
Of course, as soon as I'm aware that people have obtained unauthorized access to the book, I may be legally obligated to change the password and re-inform all of my fair-use "customers" of the password change. However, by that time, it would already be too late. The entire book would have been copied by individuals and posted on other websites -- ideally, based in nations that disregard intellectual property laws. The information would spread around the world, and control of it by courts would be impossible.
This is much like the DeCSS decision. Did the court's ruling really have any significant impact on the dissemination of DeCSS? No, it did not. Even executable compilations of the code were available.
In the modern world, information moves at the speed of electrons, which is relatively near the speed of light. In the future, with fiber-optics, information will move at the speed of light. Courts and law-enforcement move about as fast as old people ****. There is no way for any court to control the dissemination of information post-publication.
RioVolt makes the best MP3 players -- they're rated the highest and their CD-MP3 players allow you to get more memory for your buck to store MP3's on. The CD-MP3 players bypass "digital rights management" and basically allow you memory for as many songs as you want -- all you need do is buy another CD-R or CD-RW. I personally use one CD-RW as a temporary storage place for songs I currently like; then I put the complete compilation of an artists songs on one CD-R or maybe two CD-R's. I have all the songs by Madonna on one CD-R, all the songs from Lords of Acid on one CD-R, and all the songs of Beethoven...well, that takes a few more CD-R's -- but you certainly can put all of his most notable works on one CD-R. Lets compare prices and options. Prices for MP3 players were taken from the parent-company's website, prices for one CD-R/RW were calculated from prices from 50 and 25 packs, respectively, from Amazon.com.
Thus, you save from $145 to $158 dollars by choosing RioVolt over Nomad. Its a no-brainer, regarding which product you should buy. Yes, Nomad allows you to alter the contents of your collection...so does RioVolt, if you use CD-RW's: and you'll still save 145 bucks.
Put another way, if you wanted to spend $350 dollars for an MP3-playing device and the memory/CD's to store MP3's on, you get:
(a) 20GB of storage space from Nomad
(b) 134GB to 290GB of storage space using RioVolt and 213CD-RW's or 425CD-R's, respectively.
This is not a practical comparison -- as few people want to carry around 425CD-R's, though some of the larger CD-booklets would let you do such. This is simply cost-analysis.
Lets go back to the analysis of how much you save by using RioVolt and an according # of CD-RW's to get to 20GB. If you use RioVolt and 32CD-RW's to get 20GB of memory, you save 145 dollars. But lets be a bit more accurate -- you can't carry around 32CD-RW's in your pocket: you need a CD-folder. A Steel CD case capable of holding 60CD's, costs 20 dollars. So you actually only save 125 dollars by choosing RioVolt and buying CD-RW's to get to 20GB. Now, would you rather walk around with one Nomad Jukebox, or with one RioVolt, one steel 60CD case, and 125 extra dollars in your pocket? Your choice.
P.S.: 125 dollars is enough to buy you one GeForce2 MX for your laptop.
----------
Globalization of ideas v. that of governments
on
Defining Globalism
·
· Score: 1
There are two types of globalization: (1) the globalization of ideas; (2) The globalization of governing authorities. One is a positive force for freedom of thought, while the other is a new and dangerous way in which the sovereignty of a nation's people may be usurped from them and translocated to a place half-way around the world from them.
The globalization of ideas, quite simply put, a good thing: both morally and technically. Because of hte globalization of ideas, no morality or ideal will go unchallenged, hence morals will be -- indeed are being -- thoroughly examined and argued over. This is best from a libertarianist or pragmatic point of view; moralities which have little relevance on to society will be deemed as optional, trivial, or unnecessary(i.e., laws against sodomy).
As for the globalization of governing authorities, this is a negative force which will serve to hinder progress and enforce the laws of one nation on another: to usurp the natural and rightful soveregnty that citizens have over their own government -- thus how their governed -- and translocate it to some central locus of power, which may formally or informally be known as "the capital of the world". This central locus of power may not have to be a physical place -- it could be an organization, such as NATO or the WTO.
The globalization of governing authorities is the government's answer to the globalization of ideas. Narrowing the issue down the the US, the government naturally fears intellectual globalization, as it means they have less ability to control people's actions. Namely, it means that government -- nor businesses -- can no longer control information, be it trade secrets, copyrights, patents, classified documents, trademarkers, or whatnot.
Naturally, the govenment wants to be able to control information: that's how you control how peoplle think. So the US government has been pushing particularly hard for globalization, particularly regarding intellectual property issues, in which the US has very strong protective laws, as opposed to the more libertarian laws in place in Russia.
Of course, globalization is not only a way upon which the US exerts power over the people's of other nations -- and over its own citizens actions in other nations, be those actions on-line or in physical place. Globalization is also a way in which the laws of other nations and court decisions of other nations may be forced upon US citizens. In a world of globalized governing authority, the decision ruling in France banning Yahoo! from selling nazi memorabilia would hold in the US.
In short, a world of globalized governing authority means that a citizen of one nation will be governed by the laws of every nation of the world, at least when they are appilcable(i.e., when online, when writing mail, when talking on the phone, etc etc). Such is clearly a crippling environment which would prevent people from acting in any way at all.
The globization of ideas, however, is a much more natural phenomena than the globalization of governing authorities. Indeed, it is the sole weapon with which to fight the globilization of governing authorities.
My feelings towards Hillary Rosen can be summarized as this:
Die bitch! Die you fucking bitch! You should have been in the WTC when it collapsed. You should have been in Afghanistan when we were bombing them. Your father should have pulled out on time so we don't have to deel with a bitch like you!
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe what this guy did was wrong...He did break into Intel's system, and that is naturally a great worry to Intel.
But to slap a felony on him is obserd. He didn't hurt anyone...felonies should be reserved for serious violent crimes, like bank robbery, assault, rape, murder, etc.
This should be on par with a traffic infraction, like speeding. In fact, it should carry a less severe penalty than speeding -- him breaking into a system poses no physical threat to anyone, unlike speeding, which can endanger people's lives.
Ok, maybe I was misaken about PGP. I've heard about an encryption system which encrypts something using an unsolvable mathematical puzzle. PGP, apparently, simply multiplies things a lot such that its impossible for current computers to factor them.
Well, if we did have quantum computers, we coudld just encrypt with quantum computers, and encrypt that much more, such that even a quantum computer couldn't decrypt.
Firstly, the Lindows name helps consumers, so MS is going to have trouble getting anything buy on the "it confuses consumers" line. 99% of all consumers have heard of Windows and have heard of Linux...hence, it is only natural that when they year Lindows, they will think "a Linux compatable with Windows". Consumers have rights too, not just corporations. In fact, as I see trademark -- and all other intellectual property laws -- defined, it was created to help consumers differentiate between products easily. A trademark applies to the SPECIFIC WORD or piece or logo.
Furthermore, MS has no cause to gripe -- they shouldn't have ever gotten a trademark on the name "Windows" in the first place. Every GUI uses Windows, yet somehow MS got this generalized trademark which is a generality for every GUI in existence...one of their basis' for unfair competition.
I don't feel one bit sorry for companies that "trademark" every day words used, and then later gripe when someone encroaches a little -- i.e., Windows, Apple, etc.
Trademark laws need to be irradicated as we know them. But the concept may for consumer benefit -- trademark is the one form of intellectual property which is OK, if applied correctly. But its being misapplied today. Trademarks should not be looked at as "a right a company has to wield a word or logo". They should be looked at as tools by which consumers can easily differentiate between various brands.
On the other hand, perhaps the elimination of trademarks would be a good thing for consumers. Trademarks are what keep monopolies in business and prevent upcoming businesses from starting up. People buy IBM computers just by the name...but no one would buy a Sys computer by the name, despite the fact that Sys computers are superior to most anything else on the market.
Trademarks evoke a bunch of ridiculous fallacies, which are commonly seen and avoided in other situations. Trademark is a "attack the messenger, not the message" type thing. Its like when Michael Jordan -- love him though most of us do -- advertises Hanes. So what? A famous person likes Hanes. That says nothing about their superiority over other underwear. Or its like when you hear two people speaking on TV, and one of them is a politician everyone's heard of, while another is some guy you've never heard. Despite what they're saying, people will agree with the well-known politician.
My point is, ideas, products, statements, etc, should be judged on their merits alone -- not on who came up with them (in the case of ideas), who makes them (in the case of products), or who says them (in the case of statements). Trademarks reinforce lazy thinking, whereby we judge things based mostly on their sponsor, and not on their merits.
The downsides of the possible onset of quantum computers are:
(1) Any government agent could crack your encryption...after all, a quantum computer could crack a fifteen thousand letter password in like two seconds. (of course, not for PGP, since it is based on unsolvable algaebraic formuli)
(2) This means that programmers will take this as an excuse to write even sloppier code and put in even more unnecessary features that we don't want and don't need.
Here's a way to get around this. They say they offer refunds, even for opened CDs. That's a smart decision by them, because if they didn't, lawsuits would force them to eventually. So here's how you can get music EVEN MORE FREE than before:
1. Buy the CD from the store.
2. Open it up and see if it works on your computer.
3a. If it does not work on your computer. You can try calling their hotline, see if there's anything you can do. Don't give out any personal information unless absolutely required. Do what they say, and then see if it works. Regardless of whether or not it works, don't tell them. If it works, proceed to step 3b. If it doesn't work, return it as defective to get your refund.
3b. If it works, play the songs on your computer. Since it has "rip" protection, you need to make a copy of it using another method: direct recording of the exact sound-output from your soundcard. If you have a SoundBlaster, you can use Creative Record to record the sound-output in pure digital form. This bypasses their "rip-proection" scheme, and it produces results just as high quality as a pure WAV rip. (note, the output file will be a WAV).
4. Do this for all of the tracks on the song. It'll take a little finesse to get it to start and stop recording exactly when the song starts and stops -- you don't want to cut off anything, but you also don't want to have any more "silent sound" than necessary.
5. Save a copy of this WAV file onto your hard drive. You always want to have a pure copy of the original, so that later on, when better MP3/WMA/OGG compression comes out, you can recompress.
6. Compress the WAV file using either OGG, WMA, or MP3. If you use MP3, you should probably do MP3Pro, the new program. The demo program is free. You can probably find warez of the full MP3Pro program. If you use WMA, you'll have to use the wma8eutil command that you d/l from MS. If you use OGG, you'll have to use the oggenc command.
7. Offer the files on LimeWire and Kazaa.
8. Now, you should have been able to do all this in a day, right? I can do it in less than an hour, if I want to. So, once your done with that, and you have your original WAV files copied to your HD, you make a copy of the CD using Adaptec CD Copier -- if the CD will allow it. If not, no problem, you have the perfect-quality WAV on your HD and can put it on a CD-RW...you also have the high-quality MP3/WMA/OGG encoded files.
9. Now that you've derived all possible value out of this CD, its useless too you. Why should you keep it? You shouldn't. You should return it to the store you bought it from, and say it was defective and wouldn't play on your CD-player -- after all, they do say that it doesn't play on some CD players. The store has no choice but to give you your money back.
Congratulations, you've just: (1) Got a free original CD that can play on a CD player at no cost to yourself (assuming you could copy the CD) -- if not, you can simply use Adaptec Audio-CD Maker to put the WAVs on the CD as tracks; (2) Gotten perfect quality WAV files for the music; (3) Gotten good quality WMA/MP3/OGGs for the music, which you can put on a CD-RW to be played on an MP3-player; (4) Distributed these files to the world. Life is good.
DISCLAIMER. This article is not a role-model article. It is not even serious. Its a comical release. Some of the things mentioned in this article could cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at home...
Well, I agree...ultimately, you can't effectively compete against Windows if you want to make money. They own developers -- hardware people ONLY write drivers for Windows...same for software developers. Yea, they make drivers for other OS' too, but those come out second, and they are usually second rate. Same with software. I'm not an advocate of Windows -- this is just a consequent fact of the fact that MS is an illegal monopoly. Solution? Break the company up into a million pieces, open source their software, and prevent anyone with the name Bill Gates from owning a business.
;-). This is an ideal we should aspire to b/c it produces more knowledgeable users, and keeps them more informed and more empowered. These OS' also happen to have great power/functionality, as well as enoromous customizability. So, summing it up, Linux and BSD are all about giving the USER CHOICE. They also happen to have some very good code, as well as stability/security, and *decent* performance in typical day-to-day desktop uses, as well as great performance for networking.
Ok, that said...let me talk about the features of an OS that are important...I'll take it from the lowest level to the highest.
1. Functionality -- how much stuff your OS can do...i.e., how many operations/manipulations of data, ways to do things, etc.
2. Performance -- when something is operating, how long does it take? How long is load time? Boot time? What about the memory footprint in RAM?
3. Size -- how large is it? Smaller for the same functionality is better. Obviously, smaller progs tend to load and run faster, so this ties into performance.
4. Stability -- this one's pretty obvious. Does it crash or doesn't it? How often does it crash, and how difficult or easy is it to crash it.
5. Security -- related but distinct from stability. How secure can an OS keep your files? i.e., encryptions, permissions, access levels, file sharing, etc.
6. User interface -- this one's composed of several categories. Its not just ease of use, as some Macphiles would have you believe. Ease of use is important. It should also be pretty, so long as the prettyness contributes to making it easier to use & understand (anything beyond that is wasteful). But furthermore, it should allow you to get things done fast. Power features, shortcuts, etc. This is where having a command line and being able to do everything from a keyboard comes in handy. Max OSX may be easy to use, but many tasks are repetitive, and people don't want to constantly have to use the mouse.
7. Compatability -- How much software/hardware/user support does your OS have? This is where M$ gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out of their head.
8. Of course, their is availability. This is where Linux gets to kick everyone else in the nuts until their eyes pop out. Having something freely available and such that any can see the code is a great benefit. BeOS doesn't get hit as hard, b/c it has a limited version available free of cost (though no source code). M$ doesn't get hit at all -- no fault in their operating system hinders them or costs them money.
Linux and BSD (yes, I know these are DIFFERENT...don't go nuts). These OS' have a great concept behind them -- that the source code should be available for all to see and analyze, and modify on. This also happens to make them free
On to the great Satan, Microsoft Windows. This is an OS which is a prime example of mediocracy and slovenlyness. Most things are OK, some are terrible. MS is all about standards -- that's why its so successful. More simply put, MS is about "popularity". Every hardware vendor makes makes drivers for MS and every software company makes software for MS. As long as this continues, and no other OS' get this kind of support, MS will invariably dominate. The main reason ppl don't switch from MS is because: (1) They've spend hundreds of dollars on Windows games like Descent and Tomb Raider, and don't want to waste that; (2) They have lots of MS software, and don't want to waste that; (3) They want to be able to get all the latest, greatest, and best hardware, which they can always do with MS.
Now, onto the Max OSX. Its all about ease of use. Very easy to use (though annoying not having a right click, and little keyboard menu support). Though easy to use, it is slow -- things open slow, and getting things done is slow, b/c EVERYTHING has to be done with the mouse, or almost so. Very poor performance. Its BSD-core, so good security and stability, if you configure it so. Not too much functionality -- by this, I mean, you can't customize it to your choosing. Very little User control. Apple RAMS their UI down your throat and you better like it or else (cause if you don't, and try to offer programs for modifying MaxOSX's appearance/features on the net, Apple will sue you).
Now, onto three of my favorite proof-of-point OS' in terms of performance: BeOS, Amiga SDK, and QNX. Let me summarize the specialties of each before I treat them all as one cummulative OS. BeOS -- very fast, great for graphics, great file system, fast load-time, boot time, etc. Amiga SDK -- same story as BeOS, but crossplatform and offers interestingly fast VP Assembly code, w/c is crossplatform. Apparently, code runs at near-native speeds once loaded; also, progs written in VP Assembly (w/c is like Java in cross-platformedness) load faster, b/c there is "less" stuff to load from the hard drive, and more CPU transformation (dynamic compilation) of code...CPU much faster than HD, so as far as loading, better to load less and have to "dynamically compile" it than to have to load larger thing to start w/ but not transform it. QNX -- prime example of minimalism: truely, an Orwellian OS in terms of efficiency. No unneeded junk. Now, let me summarize the advantages of these OS: namely, performance performance performance. They boot up quicker than Windows, UNIX, or MacOSX (though QNX is a "UNIX"). Programs load faster on them, tasks are performed faster, and their memory footprint is smaller.
So, what is it the USER really needs?
(1) An OS w/ the PERFORMANCE of BeOS/Amiga/QNX. Fast boot time, fast run time, fast load time, small memory footprint. This comes down to fine tuning and revolutionary thinking in terms of file-systems, algorithms, etc etc. You also need cross-platform code like VP Assembly, w/c can run faster than native code, and w/c can load faster due to less "information" on the HD, w/c needs to be transformed into binary code by the CPU dynamically.
(2) An OS w/ the POWER, FUNCTIONALITY, and CUSTOMIZABILITY of the UNIXs. In Linux/BSD/IRIX/etc, you have enormous power. Everything is customizable. You can customize your browser to selectively ignore certain images on web-sites, etc. Vast array of commands to perform repetitive tasks quickly (such as replacing all instances of ": " in a file with a TAB.
(3) An OS with the EASE OF USE of MacOSX. "Prettyness" is a secondary concern. Prettyness is only something they add to it to make it look better to OEMs. The main concern is to make the interface very intuitive, as well as quick to use. MacOSX tends to be very intuitive, but not very quick to use...you have to drag your mouse to do everything.
(4) An OS with the SOFTWARE SUPPORT, HARDWARE SUPPORT, and general INTERCOMPATABILITY as Windows. As said before, all software companies support Windows, as do all Hardware companies. For software, solutions like Wine may easy to pain for games who already have hundreds of games. But for Hardware? You need to sell companies on that, or make the drivers yourself. How do you sell companies on it? Well, you convince them that b/c your OS is so mean and lean, their product will perform v. fast on it, w/c makes it look good...this only tends to work for gaming and 3D developing software companies, though. But for other companies, doesn't quite have the same effect -- so you have to make it yourself, until your OS becomes popular enough.
What apps, outside of games and 3D progs, do you need? Well, I'll tell you what progs I usually use every day. (1) E-mail prog; (2) Internet browser; (3) Word-processor; (4) Spreadsheet; (5) Database; (6) Drawing/graphics program; (7) Media-viewing program (something that can play ALL kinds of sounds, show ALL kinds of images, and play ALL kinds of videos); (8) Encoders; (9) FileSharing prog; (10) Antivirus; (11) Various scientific utilities. This comes to 11 -- ELEVEN -- programs that I use regularly.
Is itr really that hard for people to come up with 11 GOOD programs which accomidate people's everyday needs? I wouldn't think so.
So, hows all this to be accomplished? Well, I think we start out with the IDEA behind Linux/BSD: you need a free and openly available source code. This gives uers control, and insures a project is immortalized. Maybe you even start out with the BSD or Linux OS?
But, I think thats too difficult. Like BeOS, we need to start from scratch. Our aspirations need to be towards excellence and nothing less. Linux' file system -- while more efficient than Windows and MacOSX -- simply could not be worked to be made as efficient as BeOS'. Granted, Linux has a lot of good things -- OpenSource, and many many useful commands. We shouldn't abandon any of the many many UNIX commands. But we should abandon the Linux file system...in fact, we should abandon all file systems.
It needs to be a clean break -- sometimes, a house is so infested by termites that the only solution is to tear it down and build another house. It won't be easy, and it won't come fast. It certainly won't provide a viable solution for many years...but good things come over time. The pyradmids took lifetimes to build (well, one lifetime of a pharoh, many lifetimes of the avg. Egyptian citizen, since they lived shortly). A good opertaing system may take decades to build -- and that's just to get to the core OS.
But, if you want your efforts to be worthwhile, you have to bite the bullet on one thing -- cross compatability. You need to develop on top of a code which can be run unaltered on any platform, now and in the future. That means something like Amiga SDK's VP Assembly. This does mean a performance hit in terms of run-time once somethings open -- generalized code will never run as quick as a finely-optimized piece of Asm. But it will load faster -- as its basically stored as a smaller executable, which is then translated dynamically. So you optimize the "machine" as much as possible to speed up translation and then bite the bullet on that. This is the only way you'll ever have time to really work on some fundamentals of the file-system and OS, w/o falling vastly behind and finding out your OS can't run on the latest CPU.
Then, you take it one step at a time. First, you plan out the entire system...find new revolutionary ways to make code smaller, more efficient...to make the file system quicker, for example. Of course, to give the user maximal customizability, you need to try to make everything modular. This also makes your OS faster down the line, b/c it can call and load only functions w/c are needed.
Then you proceed logically, first building a solid foundation before building atop it. You don't add new an unnecessary features to a program until you've resolved stability/security issues, as well as performance issues; you also focus firstly on improving performance. Chances are, your prog has all the critical features. LimeWire, for example, doesn't need any more features: it needs to be streamlined. Finally, when adding features -- only add needed and useful features. Don't add features just to "impress people" or make it "look cooler". Add features which are really needed.
If you want an example, lets take MS Word. MS Word had all the features it *needed* in Word 98. Now, MS is just adding new features to impress OEMS. What they really should be doing is making the program smaller, making it run and load faster. Furthermore, they don't need to make it any "easier" to use. It had a simple help system, operated by indexes and contents -- that was great. And a decent menuing and button system. Why did they need to add those stupid office assistants? Only justification, promotion. Dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. What Word really needs, from MY experience, is faster load times and faster run-times for operations. It also needs more power-shortcuts. Making legends or equations in MS Word is an excercize in "CTRL +"ing or "CTRL SHFIT +"ing...and that's if your an "expert".
As a final note, let me say that I rarely find programs sorely lacking in features. Most progs have plenty of features -- more than you need, in fact. What I do often find is progs that are bloated, huge, slow, and load slowly.
Look, they can make a ruling against a US citizen all they want. The fact is, they can't enforce it. US citizens live in the US, and their banks are in the US. There's nothing an Australian court can do to touch a US citizen in the US. Our courts already ruled that we do NOT enforce decisions made by other courts in other nations, and that US citizens don't have to abide by other nations laws while in the US.
That the case was dropped was clearly good. This guy doesn't have to go through that clearly unconstitutional/nonsensical rubbish.
But the case was dropped so he can testify against the company. This is not so good. ElComSoft is based in Russia. The US has NO RIGHT to try to exercise power or enforce its laws in OTHER nations. This is a violation of sovereignty, and it leads to disturbing possibilities that other nations will take this as a precedent to trial and charge our US citizens for "actions they committed in the US" that were legal in the US, but not legal in their country (i.e., if I went to China, they could, using this as precedence, trial me for criticizing the Chinese government while in the US).
Furthermore, how exactly does the US plan to put ElComSoft on trial? The company is in Russia, and the US govt has no means to enforce any punishment against the company. What the company did was legal in Russia, as was what Dmitry did was.
Furthermore, what he did her in America was also legal: explaining how his product works. Even had he advertised the program here and pointed people to a website where they could buy it, the law still shouldn't be able to touch him, if you think about sovereignty issues. The place where you can buy the product from is in Russia -- a "cyberspace" location on a server in Russia. The US has no jurisdiction over anything in other nations. Period. And you can't arrest people for pointing out where information can be obtained on the web, not even undert he DMCA (that only applies to hyperlinks to DeCSS; note, a recent court rulings have overturned the ban on DeCSS).
But it is nevertheless good that Dmitry is free and can go about as he pleases. I'm sure he's really looking forward to going back to Russia. Nothing like living in a broken down cobble in Siberia and eating a few crumbs of bread a day, then having to go to the Moscow hospital where surgical tools are rusted.
To really annoy these prissy companies that make their money by shoving banners and screen-wide ads down 28bps users' throats, create a script on your page which links to their page, extracts the useful text your interested in showing your viewers, places it in a box (with attributions) and removes all ads and unnecessary graphics as you deem. Better yet, create a script which logs automatically into a pay-for-subscription service (but without revealing the password).
That's nonsense. First of all, if he puts the book online under a public license or a free-BSD type license, any publisher can produce a binded version of it and distribute it as a book. Secondly, you naturally get a more massive distribution when materials are online free of charge.
If he cares so much about the affect intellectual property has on the enslavement of ideas, why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain, or under the GNU license for documents, or a BSD license for documents?
I've read several comments on slashdot, and gotten the impression that some people think such gene therapy would be "unfair" to those athletes who didn't use it, if they had to compete against those who did.
This is nonsense.
Really, all gene therapy does is alter someone's natural talent. No one really "deserves" what natural talent they have anyways. Did Einstein or Hawking "deserve" to be brilliant? Did Michael Jordan "deserve" to be gifted with natural athletic talent. The answer to these questions is, of course, a resounding no.
No one deserves what natural talents they have or do not have.
----------
If I want to use gene therapy to allow myself to learn things quicker, or to heal quicker, or to live longer, that's my right: Its my body. Society shouldn't be able to tell people what they can and can't do with their own body.
Similarly, if an athlete wants to use gene-therapy to give himself a better endurance, that's his right. Sure, other athletes who don't do this will whine...that's their right too. Maybe sports leagues will set up rules for this, or even have separate leagues for players who do and don't use gene therapy; or maybe they'll let both play in the same league. After all, its really just another form of doing all you can to be the best you can be.
I realize that some people -- notably, religious nuts, and even some paranoid atheists -- are fearful of gene-therapy, genetic engineering, and cloning. I'm not. If there's a way to use gene therapy to make me live longer or obtain any other benefit I'd be glad to have, I'm all for it. As for genetic engineering(genetically engineering human beings before born), I'm not against that either. Yes, religious nuts say its playing god; some atheists say its messing with mother nature. I say its just another step in our quest for perfection. As for cloning, I'm not at all against that either, though I think no person from the past should be cloned, because they didn't have the opportunity to express their opinion one whether or not they wanted to be cloned. No one should be cloned against their will, so anyone who lived before cloning was possible shouldn't be cloned. This is my libertarian position on the issue. However, it is also in conflict with other libertarian values I have. For one thing, we can stomp our feet all we want and say we don't want this to happen: someone will do it. Period. And what are we going to do to the person who did it? What crime is that? Are we going to treat him or her like a common criminal, for creating a life? Hardly seems reasonable.
Information on how to do this can be obtained from Michael Holve's website article on the subject. If you want to really understand it, go to his website -- he has graphic illustrations along with the instruction:
www.everythingmac.org/articles/UpdateCDHack/
Note, that I am not hyperlinking this becaue I do not know how. Interestingly, according to a recent Appeals Court Decision, providing the text to a controversial website is OK, but hyperlinking to it is bad.
I suggest that you all go to this website, copy it to your hard drive, print it out, and scatter it accross the earth like DeCSS.
----------
Moral stupidity. Morals have no place in the law. You Christian nutcases should stay in church babbling about impractical pie-in-the-sky nonsense which you can understand.
Apple sells you a CD which has more on it than they want to give to you mistakenly -- their fault, not yours. Once you've bought the CD, its yours -- short of using it as a disc to chop someones head off with, you can do whatever you want to/with the CD, as well as the information obtained off if it(at least on your computer). If you want to modify part of the CD or the program it creates, that's your right -- no different than if I buy a game and want to apply a patch to it to make it better. My right.
Apple has no right to abridge macfixit.com's right to freedom of speech. The website is telling people how to get around a potentially troublesome issue, which may pose problems for many of them.
Irrelevant of "why" the information is being distributed or used, macfixit has a right to do so. They have the right to point out flaws in software and provide workaround. Furthermore, they have the right to state what we know as being the truth, or their opinion regarding it, and a way to use it to one's advantage.
Finally, since when does a companies idiotic conduct protect them? Apple dropped the ball, so now they get to say, "No no, you can't tell other people how we dropped the ball or how they can pick it up"? I don't think so. This is just like the Prof. Felton case regarding SDMI. Its a legitimate criticism of a "technology" and an explanation of how to get around that technology: just like what Prof. Felton did with SDMI. If this goes to trial, it won't hold up.
In regards to explaining the decision of the court to dismiss the suit, I believe it was because no actual issue was presented before the court. Because the RIAA backed down, there was no tangible case to examine in which Felton's rights were being violated. As they know the DMCA is unconstitutional, this is likely to be the strategy of the RIAA: threaten people as much as possible with the DMCA, back down when they seriously challenge. That way, you can effectively scare people into obeying the DMCA, while not ever risking having the DMCA over-turned on grounds that it is unconstitutional.
I certainly hope that somehow, Felton's lawyers find a way to bring this case before a court. There are indeed constitutional issues at stake. Perhaps they could bring it to court regarding the chilling effect on Prof. Felton's free speech, that he has to fear that entities -- from RIAA and the SDMI to individual music companies -- may sue him retroactively. In any case, if Felton's lawyers cannot convince a judge that there is an actual tangible situation at stake, the case is likely to be dismissed; I sincerely hope this is not the case.
Now, I will divulge on a tangent issue relating the the insufficiency of our current legal system.
This, as I've mentioned before, is a major flaw in our system. Before a court can rule on the constitutionality of a law, an actual case must be before it. This means that someone's life must be on the line -- their money, or freedom -- before the issue is considered. This creates an unacceptable risk to the citizens of the US: if we are to overturn an unconstituional law, we must wait until someone violates it an puts their life on the line for a "test case." This clearly needs to be fixed. Any laws should be subject to constitutional challenge on a theoretical basis, irrelevant of whether or not a case is before the court. This is currently the system operating in Germany.
Another unacceptable flaw in our laws permeates every law ever created: vagueness, or lack of clarity. Laws are vague and difficult to understand. This is because they were poorly thought out and what they mean is very debatable(i.e., DMCA), because they were simply worded poorely as all laws are, and/or because they are unnecessarily long and thus trying on the average person who tries to read them. To fix this, laws should have to be written in Orwellian fashion: minimal use of words, minimal use of long words, and clarity being the most important. There shoiuld be no "thou's", no "shalls", no "whereforths", no "whenceforths", no "thees", no "thys", no "said persons", or any of the other antiquated British bullshit that currently bloats our laws to obesity. Furthermore, the number of laws should be minimized, as should the length fo each law. In our current system, it is impossible for the average person to know every law. This is wrong. If people cannot possible know the laws, they cannot possibly be expected to obey them. The net sum of laws in any state should be able to fit in 20 pages of text.
Of course, the last major flaw in our current laws is, as briefly alluded to, their volume. Simply put, there are too many laws. Does there really need to be a law in Florida against fucking birds? Does there really need to be a law against prostitution or gambling? What about a law agaisnt sodomy? Or the laws against voluntary incest? These laws are completely unnecessary; they serve no purpose other than to propagate religious fanatacism.
So what I propose is this: (1) Minimize the length of all laws; (2) Maximize the clarity of all laws, eliminate words that cannot be understood by 90% of the population, and in no case, should there be any words longer than twenty characters in the law; (3) Minimize the number of laws by eliminating useless laws; (4) Allow courts to decide on the constitutionality of laws before an actual case is at stack: better yet, require that all laws passed be ran through a commission of experts on the constitution to determine their constitutionality, and lastly the Supreme Court.
The simple fact is, all intellectual proprty laws -- except perhaps trade secrets -- violate freedom of speech. They either create prior restrictions on free speech or impose harsh and unreasonable post-publication punishments for excercising the right to free speech.
As for trade-secrets, there's nothing wrong with a company keeping a secret. They have as much a right to do so as you or I do -- this falls under the right to privacy. However, just like you and I, their right to privacy is not protected at the expense of freedom of speech, except perhaps against the government. If I keep a private diary, that's a right I have protected under privacy-rigths. However, if I leave my diary in a park and someone transcibes it and publishes it, I have no cause for issuing grieviances. If I wanted to keep it private, I should have protected it better.
On the other hand, if someone steals my diary from a private place which I've secured, they still cannot be prevented from publishing it -- that would be prior restraint. If we're to have a concern for free speech, they also cannot be subject to personal liabilities: that would also have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. What they can be liable for is what they must have done to get a private diary that I have secured: for breaking into my house and stealing a piece of my property. My privacy rights may have been violated by this person, and he may be punished in respect to the violation itself; but not in respect to any speech he may want to say about my private affairs. He can be held liable in civil court for violating my right to privacy, intrinsic; no consideration of the effects of any speech he spoke may be considered. He is also, of course, criminally liable for breaking into my house and stealing my proprty.
GPL in general is good to ensure that all of the improvements made upon an open-sourced code are reintegrated back into the community code. This prevents forking by allowing all conflicting versions to be united into one if a standard is desired; it also allows for variability because anyone can make a variation.
BSD license is good to allow anyone to contribute to and improve open-sourced code, but does not require that the improvement be resubmitted back into the community pool. This allows for slightly quicker development when it comes to businesses being involved. However, it also leads to the possibility of unresovable forking. Look at what happened with the variations of UNIX; they forked in different proprietary directions, each fork unresolvable with its neighbor because everyone licensed their code under "can't touch this" mentality.
As another alternative license I've proposed, one may want to say: "Any modifications to this code may be distributed under any open-source license," with provisions to ensure that businesses don't use this as a way to make one version, release it under open source, then EULA updates.
The idea that people who rely on open-sourced code to make an improvement or product should have to resubmit that to the open-sourced pool is justified and reasonable: "If I can see farther than others, it is only because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants." The vast majority of accomplishments possible today, are possible because decades and centuries ago, people contributed to public knowledge openly. In deference to those contributions, progress made on the "back" of such contributions should be available for all of society.
Ok, I'm not going to go into the details of each license, let me just summarize all three. Please correct me if any of my simplifications grossly misrepresented reality.
,that's the ideal end. If that is not possible, then a secondary end should be drastically scaling back the IP system: i.e., reducing the power programmers can excercise over their users, and reducing the terms of copyright/patent/trademark/tradesecret protection to 5-10 years max. However, we should work towards the ideal end -- the elimination of IP altogether. Its barbaric to think that people can "own" ideas: this is what was done in the Middle Ages when the religious nuts owned religious ideas. In the ideal system of no-IP, no licenses would be needed, as no oone would be able to create a license which deprives any user of freedom regarding how they use their software.
Public domain -- any person can do anything they so desire with the program; no acknowledgements of authorship necessary(not a license). This ensures that people will be able to do whatever they want with code.
BSD license -- basically the same as Public domain, except for a few caveats. People have to attribute the author(s) of the program; any redistributions of the same code must abide by BSD license; modifications to the code may be distributed under any license, provided the original code is still BSD-licensed.
GPL -- many of the users freedoms are preserved; they can basically do whatever they want with the program, with the exception of a few re-licensing and distribution issues. Any publicly distributed modifications must be GPLed; any distribution of the code must obide by GPL; and the author(s) must be attributed.
EULA -- users have the right to use the program: little else. Except as granted by fair use and other exceptions, users have no right to redistribute, analyze the source, or even publicly distribute modifications. Given recent events, MS may modify the EULA to be even more restrictive, with the requirement that "MS Word not be used to produce any material of questionable integrity".
IP enthusiasts argue that EULA and variations give program-authors the most "freedom" or "power". This may be true for "original authors", but it gives secondary authors(i.e., people who want to modify an existing program: to make it better) no rights/power. I'd argue that it doesn't even give original authors much power, as it prevents them from accessing source code from which they may generate ideas; thus, reduces their ability to act as authors.
The BSD-license and the GPL-license are two different ways, from my POV, to achieve the same thing -- an open society in which ideas are open, and in which they cannot be controlled. It should be noted that these two licensing systems are means to an end, not ends in of themselves; neither is desireable as the end result. The desireable end result is that no IP system exists, thus there would be no need for GPL/BSD licenses to ensure that code remains free.
BSD license attempts to aid us towards this end by practicing it as much as possible, while ensuring that the original code remain covered under BSD-license. The idea behind BSD is "just make people redistribute under the same license" and don't force them to do anything else(except site credits); i.e., don't force them to redistribute code they created to modify your code in any particular license. This type of system offers full compatability with any other open-sourced project. The problem is, it also offers full compatability with closed-source projects. In other words, it can be a tool which can aid software companies in their ends of enslaving information, in that it can provide them with an idea upon which to work, and then close off the progress they've made. Precisely because BSD-license offers full compatability with any other effort under any license, it provides a potential tool to businesses. Thus, it is a license which offers much in terms of potential benefits(complete compatability with anything), but is also fairly risky(in that companies can use it to their ends).
GPL has taken another approach: allow people to do whateve they want with the code, provided that they redistribute under the GPL, and also distribute any modifications under the GPL. This prevents corporations from using GPLed code as a base upon which to make EULAed code: it thus eliminates that risk. But it also eliminates some benefits in that it is incompatable with many other open-source licenses. It is thus a lower risk, but lower potential benefit license.
So, choosing between GPL and BSD license is really a matter of risk v. benefit. Do you want to offer more potential freedom, at the risk that a corporation could use that freedom as a base to make code licensed such as users don't have freedom? Or do you want to offer more potential safety, at the cost of a little less freedom(but still more freedom than EULA)?
One possible compromose solution is to create an intermediate license, lets say the Open Source Compatable License(OSCL). This license would operate exactly like the GPL license in many respects. Redistributions would have to be under the OSCL. But, and precisely what differentiates the OSCL from the GPL, any modficiations made to the original code would not have to be distributed unde the OSCL. Rather, any modifications have to be distributed under any Open-source license. That is, the programmer modifying the original source code has the option to distribute that modification under the open-sourced code of his choice. This would ensure compatability with all other Open source licenses; however, it would cease to offer protection from corporate raiders after the initial program. I realize that this license, as I presented it, could easily be bypassed by corporations who want to raid my original software to build a closed-source system on top of; i.e., they make modifications to my program, release those modifications under the BSD license. Then, any additional modifications they make(i.e., version updates) could be licensed under EULA. Obviously, terms in the license would have to be added to prevent such.
Let me state again that the end is the elimination of the entire intellectual property system all-together -- at least
As a final note, someone earlier said that EULA does not deny any user their rights, because they voluntarily accepted the terms of the agreement, which restricted their rights to use/distribute/analyze the program. Nonsense. You cannot "sign off" on your rights legitimately. We long ago accepted that people cannot contract into slavery. The same applies here, for the same reasons.
----------
Ok, I'm going to be rather harsh and criticize this point for point.
There's an old children's story I heard once... Lets start out with O'Reilly's objectionable mentioning of the story regarding cows and butter. There's a reason he doesn't tell you the name of the story: that's because the story is racist, designed to make fun of African American people. The story basically details an African American boy going to get things for his mother each day and idiotically blundering in doing such simple things. The story was clearly desiged to imply that African American people are dumb.
My goal is to see as much good software created as possible, and for that to happen, we need a range of licensing models.
A simplified and stupid goal. What good is it to have "good software" if the vast majority of the public can't afford it? The goal should be to maximize the amount of good software the the public effectively has access to(that means, maximize the amount of good software that the average person will get). Progress is useless to society if it only helps the upper echelon of the rich. There are currently "treatments" for AIDS. Big freakin' deal. Only the richest 1% of people in America can afford AIDS treatment. Who cares? Zillions of tax-payer dollars were pumped into research for AIDS...the result: a "treatment" that is completely unavailable to the average person; only the richest of the rich benefit from tax-payer dollars spent on AIDS research. Don't expect that to change when a "cure" is found either.
The Slashdot moderator noted: "it's pretty clear that true freedom would not let one person control what another does with software."
This is just silly. The GPL absolutely controls what other people can do with software. Even the BSD license, which is very generous, places restrictions (e.g. attribution).
O'Reilly's assertion that "that's silly" is not backed up. Simply because GPL does express power over others, does not mean that people have the right to excercise power over others in the form of licensing. GPL is a licensing solution designed to work under the current system of IP, which does excercise some power over others, in order to prevent them from excercising power over others. I agree that GPL does excercise power over users; however, it is the only way under our current system to prevent those users from modifying the code, copyrighting it, and excercising undue power over others.
I'm a firm believer in the original goal of copyright law, which was to maximize progress in the useful arts.
Again, the same criticism applies. "Maximizing progress" is pointless. What you want to maximize is useful progress that the average public person benefits from. If progress in software means that you have to spend 1000 dollars for a single program, that progress is useless to the vast majority of us. Might as well not have it, resources are better spent on a cheaper alternative.
And I know that sometimes throwing something to the winds (i.e. releasing open source software) is the best way to maximize progress, while at others, placing restrictions on its distribution takes you further towards that goal.
Closing off ideas and placing restrictions on them is never the optimal way to increase progress; and it certainly is never the optimal way to increase useful progress(progress that the majority of the public can benefit from). Want a historical example? Lets see, lets compare the Modern age of "enlightenment" and the Ancient age, to the Middle Ages. In the ancient age, great scientific progress was made, as was mathematical progress and technological progress; the same in the modern age; furthermore, people's rights in each age were, relatively, well-respected. The Middle Ages: half a millenium of wars, torture, religious dictatorships, and zero progress. The only progress made during the middle ages was progress in killing and death. Ancient Mayan scripts were destroyed at the "ends" of the Middle Ages by visitors to America(this is technically not the "Middle Ages", but still an era under the control of religious idiocy and closed-mindedness). The medical scripts of Imhotep, the great Priest of Egypt, were destroyed at the onset of the Middle Ages...another wonder we can thank religion and closed-mindedness(including closing off ideas) for. Imhotep was the first real practitioner of medicine, even before Hippocrates. Thanks to the destruction of his work, medicine may have been set back centuries.
----------
Well, I'm no attorney, but from what I've read about fari use, I'll try to explain it. As a disclaimer, I in no way support the current intellectual ownership system; I am simply pointing out how to use some of the crooked rules of that system to empower one's self.
Someone earlier implied that the only actions covered under fair use were "editorial and educational" actions. These are indeed covered, but are not the only actions covered. Fair use is basically any use of a copyrighted work/software that does not deprive the "owner" of his priviledges regarding the work/software (no, "copyrights" are not rights; the rights are listed in the Amendments to the constitution; I don't see the right to enslave information as one of those rights).
Lets take a simple example. Lets say that I purchase a book which is copyrighted. Lets say I transcribe this entire book word for word exactly and put it online as a website. I password-protect the website so that no-one can access it but myself and I tell no one the password. This is clearly fair use. In no way has the owner of the book been prevented from making a profit off of his work. I am simply doing this so that I can read that book from any location I so desire.
Lets modify that example. Lets say that I do as I did in the previous paragraph, except this time I also give the password(to view the site, not modify it) to other people who have bought the book and tell them to keep the password confidential. Again, clearly fair use by the same criteria.
Of course, in such a case, one could say that anyt individual I gave the password to could post it online and give it to the world, thus allowing anyone to view the book. This is true. However, if such happened, I would be at no fault; I cannot control the actions of other individuals. In such a case, the individuals who dispersed the password would be at fault(in the eyes of our current flawed idea-ownership system). They and they alone would be liable, while I would bear no liability. I could not have possibly controlled their actions, and I was only offering them access to a fair-use service which I had access to myself.
This is also a very simple scenario by which intellectual ownership could be undermined, and could be taken as a model for fighting against intellectual ownership. It is hard, if not impossible, to determine who let such a password leak. Someone I gave the password to could post it from a public computer, on a Yahoo! Club, newsgroup, message board, etc, leaving no trace. Once the password is known by others, and they use it, they can read the book; surely, many will copy the text and republish it on other web pages. Such will continue in a chain reaction.
Of course, as soon as I'm aware that people have obtained unauthorized access to the book, I may be legally obligated to change the password and re-inform all of my fair-use "customers" of the password change. However, by that time, it would already be too late. The entire book would have been copied by individuals and posted on other websites -- ideally, based in nations that disregard intellectual property laws. The information would spread around the world, and control of it by courts would be impossible.
This is much like the DeCSS decision. Did the court's ruling really have any significant impact on the dissemination of DeCSS? No, it did not. Even executable compilations of the code were available.
In the modern world, information moves at the speed of electrons, which is relatively near the speed of light. In the future, with fiber-optics, information will move at the speed of light. Courts and law-enforcement move about as fast as old people ****. There is no way for any court to control the dissemination of information post-publication.
----------
RioVolt makes the best MP3 players -- they're rated the highest and their CD-MP3 players allow you to get more memory for your buck to store MP3's on. The CD-MP3 players bypass "digital rights management" and basically allow you memory for as many songs as you want -- all you need do is buy another CD-R or CD-RW. I personally use one CD-RW as a temporary storage place for songs I currently like; then I put the complete compilation of an artists songs on one CD-R or maybe two CD-R's. I have all the songs by Madonna on one CD-R, all the songs from Lords of Acid on one CD-R, and all the songs of Beethoven...well, that takes a few more CD-R's -- but you certainly can put all of his most notable works on one CD-R. Lets compare prices and options. Prices for MP3 players were taken from the parent-company's website, prices for one CD-R/RW were calculated from prices from 50 and 25 packs, respectively, from Amazon.com.
Item [Price]
Latest RioVolt [$180]
Nomad Jukebox(20GB) [$350]
1 CD-R (700MB) [$0.40]
1 CD-RW (650MB) [$0.80]
So, it costs you $350 for 20GB of music-memory from Nomad. Lets see how much you'd have to spend for 20GB if you used RioVolt:
Assuming 20GB of CD-RW's:
$180 + (20GB*1024MB/GB / 650MB) * $0.80 = $205.21.
Assumng 20GB of CD-R's:
$180 + (20GB*1024MB/GB / 700MB) * $0.40 = $191.70
Thus, you save from $145 to $158 dollars by choosing RioVolt over Nomad. Its a no-brainer, regarding which product you should buy. Yes, Nomad allows you to alter the contents of your collection...so does RioVolt, if you use CD-RW's: and you'll still save 145 bucks.
Put another way, if you wanted to spend $350 dollars for an MP3-playing device and the memory/CD's to store MP3's on, you get:
(a) 20GB of storage space from Nomad
(b) 134GB to 290GB of storage space using RioVolt and 213CD-RW's or 425CD-R's, respectively.
This is not a practical comparison -- as few people want to carry around 425CD-R's, though some of the larger CD-booklets would let you do such. This is simply cost-analysis.
Lets go back to the analysis of how much you save by using RioVolt and an according # of CD-RW's to get to 20GB. If you use RioVolt and 32CD-RW's to get 20GB of memory, you save 145 dollars. But lets be a bit more accurate -- you can't carry around 32CD-RW's in your pocket: you need a CD-folder. A Steel CD case capable of holding 60CD's, costs 20 dollars. So you actually only save 125 dollars by choosing RioVolt and buying CD-RW's to get to 20GB. Now, would you rather walk around with one Nomad Jukebox, or with one RioVolt, one steel 60CD case, and 125 extra dollars in your pocket? Your choice.
P.S.: 125 dollars is enough to buy you one GeForce2 MX for your laptop.
----------
There are two types of globalization: (1) the globalization of ideas; (2) The globalization of governing authorities. One is a positive force for freedom of thought, while the other is a new and dangerous way in which the sovereignty of a nation's people may be usurped from them and translocated to a place half-way around the world from them.
The globalization of ideas, quite simply put, a good thing: both morally and technically. Because of hte globalization of ideas, no morality or ideal will go unchallenged, hence morals will be -- indeed are being -- thoroughly examined and argued over. This is best from a libertarianist or pragmatic point of view; moralities which have little relevance on to society will be deemed as optional, trivial, or unnecessary(i.e., laws against sodomy).
As for the globalization of governing authorities, this is a negative force which will serve to hinder progress and enforce the laws of one nation on another: to usurp the natural and rightful soveregnty that citizens have over their own government -- thus how their governed -- and translocate it to some central locus of power, which may formally or informally be known as "the capital of the world". This central locus of power may not have to be a physical place -- it could be an organization, such as NATO or the WTO.
The globalization of governing authorities is the government's answer to the globalization of ideas. Narrowing the issue down the the US, the government naturally fears intellectual globalization, as it means they have less ability to control people's actions. Namely, it means that government -- nor businesses -- can no longer control information, be it trade secrets, copyrights, patents, classified documents, trademarkers, or whatnot.
Naturally, the govenment wants to be able to control information: that's how you control how peoplle think. So the US government has been pushing particularly hard for globalization, particularly regarding intellectual property issues, in which the US has very strong protective laws, as opposed to the more libertarian laws in place in Russia.
Of course, globalization is not only a way upon which the US exerts power over the people's of other nations -- and over its own citizens actions in other nations, be those actions on-line or in physical place. Globalization is also a way in which the laws of other nations and court decisions of other nations may be forced upon US citizens. In a world of globalized governing authority, the decision ruling in France banning Yahoo! from selling nazi memorabilia would hold in the US.
In short, a world of globalized governing authority means that a citizen of one nation will be governed by the laws of every nation of the world, at least when they are appilcable(i.e., when online, when writing mail, when talking on the phone, etc etc). Such is clearly a crippling environment which would prevent people from acting in any way at all.
The globization of ideas, however, is a much more natural phenomena than the globalization of governing authorities. Indeed, it is the sole weapon with which to fight the globilization of governing authorities.
My feelings towards Hillary Rosen can be summarized as this:
Die bitch! Die you fucking bitch! You should have been in the WTC when it collapsed. You should have been in Afghanistan when we were bombing them. Your father should have pulled out on time so we don't have to deel with a bitch like you!
That about sums it up.