The last paragraph of the article
states that the great grand world of Trusted Computing will get rid of spyware. Why? If a commercial company is willing to publically sign code that is spyware, what exactly stops spyware?
This idea is similar to some ideas used in web searching (a la AltaVista, Google). The problem in websearching is eliminating duplicate documents. You can't just compare hashes of the documents, because duplications often have slightly different tags or headers. Microsoft has a nice algorithm for doing this, I think they call it Shingling. It also involves multiple overlapping hashes from a sliding window, but also some other stuff to speed up comparisons between billions of pages.
So, not only did Microsoft do this first, they did it better!
The biggest advantage of blogs is that it lets you keep in touch with friends and acquaintances you don't normally interact with often. I don't like purely personal journals (they are usually too boring), but journals that mix semi-personal thoughts and intellectual thoughts are quite fun to read. It is a great motivating factor to keep a journal of research work you have done, and to see what other people are working on.
Subsidizing programmers with government money would not necessarily involve telling the programmers what to work on. I'm sure the approach would be like NSF grants. You have a good idea for a free software project, you write up a proposal, and the government may or may not decide to give you money to help you implement the proposal. I don't think that most people think that government interference is a big problem in basic science research at universities. The biggest effect is that research that might potentially benefit military applications is over-funded.
The idea is not as radical as you think it is. There is some truth to the idea that since programs are really just information, why not remove all exclusivity constraints and have them be public goods? Science used to be proprietary and secret, but since it has moved to mostly public funding I would argue that there has been more progress and greater benefit to society.
This is a very interesting comment! I think the answer here is more clear-cut than Cringley's proposal. Owning part of a company does not give you the right to control the assets of the company. That's what the whole shareholder voting system is for, to decide what the company will do.
As a variation on Cringley's idea, the "mutual fund" company could buy distribution rights for music (rather than one CD). Then anyone who is a shareholder gets all the music free from the internet. As more people join, the money gets used to buy more music. I'm not sure about the economics, but it might be possible to get a snowball effect where eventually everyone publishes on this label and everyone that likes music pays for a share.
I've been trying to come up with an idea for countersuing the RIAA using the same laws they are using. I presume that when they "look for infringers" they do searches on the network and see which computers answer.
Here is one idea: encrypt search results. To get the key, you must prove that you have accepted and are sharing an existing file F (by actually sharing file F for every transaction). But file F is copyright the author of the system. Every member of the network is infringing file F and can be sued by the author. Of course, the author would only sue the RIAA if they step in. Yes, this is selective enforcement, but selective enforcement is legal for copyright.
The stock jump is not so unreasonable. Think of
what happens when a company announces a new corporate
philosophy (i.e. downsizing or something). All it takes
is five minutes of a secretary's time to write the
note, a stamp, etc., but these announcements can
drastically affect stock prices.
In this case, I think
the market is reacting to the fact that the copyright
registration provides more evidence that SCO is
acting in good faith. If SCO were not convinced
that it was right, it would be more hesitant to
register the copyright since that would open them
up to claims of acting in bad faith, i.e. registering
something they knew wasn't theirs, which would hurt
their legal chances for everything (even things not
directly related to copyright, like patent and trademark
claims).
I think grid computing is way overdue. I am not disparaging the current researchers in the field. Resource sharing and management has been with computers from day one (one of the quotes from the talk is from 1969). Ever since I discovered PovRay (it was DKB or something back then) I have been waiting for fast computers available for my use without muss or fuss. I'm still waiting.
I would seriously urge anyone reading this post to think very hard about how they view intellectual accomplishment, and decide if they think a male-dominated conception of intellectual greatness is either fair or rational.
I'm not sure why you think this a zealous position, or how it is telling people what they should or should not think. I am also not sure what your argument is. You have said there are more great male than female geniuses. I agree. You said it is ridiculous to change one's perception of greatness merely to equalize male and female outcomes. I agree. You mentioned several individuals whom you regard by their output and not by society's blessing. I have no reason to doubt you, but would mention that the matter is worthy of introspection. None of these facts has anything to do with my argument.
You mention that you listen to Beethoven's work and have decided yourself that he is a great composer. Fine. How many women composers have you listened to from the same period? I'm guessing the answer is zero. Historically there have been many female composers that were as famous during their lifetime as other standard great male composers. We just don't hear about them today, or remember them as "genius" composers. [Ref: work of Susan Pickett]
To respond to some other points made in the parent. I do have trouble believing what society tells me, because I do not believe society is necessarily rational. I prefer to base my life on rational thought rather than authority and convention. I do not believe that the sexes must be equal in all things abstract and practical as stated. In regards to the last line of the parent, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Assuming the reader of any given comment is male is not really sexist. Assuming that genius only exists in males is extremely sexist, which is the point I was making previously.
In a more constructive tone, one should consider the idea that "greatness" or "genius" is an almost purely social construct. Do you think Newton was a great scientific thinker? Why do you think this? Have you ever read anything by Newton? Even if so, have you reviewed the ideas and compared them to Newton's contemporaries? I would guess that only a handful of science history geeks have.
The somewhat disturbing answer is that I think Newton is great because other people have told me he was. I think Beethoven was a great composer because other people have told me he was. I really want to think that I somehow made my own decisions about who I admire historically, but I cannot honestly do that.
We have a popular idea of what genius is, and it is male dominated. This is tremendously unfair to women. I would seriously urge anyone reading this post to think very hard about how they view intellectual accomplishment, and decide if they think a male-dominated conception of intellectual greatness is either fair or rational.
The whole point of patents is to encourage inventors to publish their inventions in a safe way. In some respects, PageRank is a good example of how the system is supposed to work. They publish the algorithm, people examine it and experiment further with it, but the inventors still have protection against people ripping off their work.
The problem is that the GPL does not allow distribution of patent-encumbered technology. The authors of the code in question have every right to release their code with whatever license they want (I believe this is a free-speech issue, especially since the purpose of releasing the code is for doing research). People who receive their code may not use the code in a way that violates the patent, and in addition may not redistribute the code at all (since it would violate the GPL).
The other issue is that PageRank is really a mathematical formula, and as such is unpatentable. What they actually patented is an algorithm for computing PageRank. If someone finds another way of computing the same formula, I think the patent holders would have a very hard time showing infringement.
Actually, any sort of type system that is checked at compile time is a "formal method" that proves things about the program. In this case the properties are simple things like "no function is applied to the wrong number of arguments", or "no pointer is dereferenced that does not point to a valid object".
You might argue that this type of proof is in a different level entirely than using Z, but verification can happen in varying degrees. Even a Z specification might not talk about the hardware used to execute the program. Also, types can conceivably encode any mathematical property, it's just that existing languages have simple types.
The thing that is true is that manual proof systems for code are almost never used, even by the people who create them. Automatic proof systems are much more practical and have a real possibility of wide adoption. Think of it as making compilers smarter. I would love it if my compiler could look at a function I just wrote and give me an error like, "this function will not terminate if passed directed graphs with cycles, which might be produced as input in the following way..."
Firstly, buses are very efficient for transporting people and so are a much saner choice for a cleaner environment than miles of commuter cars with one occupant each.
Secondly, combatting pollution is not a choice for everyone in the world between cleanliness and convenience. It can be a choice between cleanliness and starvation, or pollution and food. Developed countries have the luxury of choosing cleanliness; other parts of the world don't have this luxury.
Tell that to the software engineers. They seem to use lots of complex math very effectively. For example, suppose you are designing a web crawler for a search engine. How should you gather pages? The answer requires lots of thinking about graphs, recursive equations, and other complex mathematical things.
In general, math doesn't help you write any actual
code. But it is vital in designing applications, and design is really the interesting part of software engineering.
It is actually not impossible to offer infinite game space. You can use a pseudo-random number generator to generate dynamic environments, with suitable culling functions to choose the "best" ones. This generally works best for abstract games (e.g. the terrain in SimCity). With advances in AI, it could be possible to make this work for D&D style games, too.
The author describes the problem he originally solves as being the pain of moving code between Linux and Windows, losing attributes, case problems, etc. The approach I take is to keep all code in CVS on my file server. I do compiling and editing on my personal computer; both Linux and Windows can handle CVS. This way you have to reboot into Windows for the Windows compile, but never have to worry about copying files or case changes.
I'll be devil's advocate for DRM for a minute. Suppose that in the future, every digital work is protected by DRM and owners can dictate exactly what operations are allowed on any copies. This could be a great thing for free/open source software (and other copylefted things). People will be faced with the stark reality of how burdensome copyright restrictions are, and see the benefits of freely copiable and distributable works.
It might even be argued that this is the true free market approach to digital ideas; let creators decide their own restrictions, then let consumers decide which restrictions they will accept or not.
It might also be that if DRM controls are implemented securely, then creators and distributors will be much more free to release their works in digital form without qualms. Imagine being able to check out any book from any library instantly over the internet for reading (but not saving or printing). That alone might convince me to buy into DRM.
I don't think DRM is a good idea, but there are arguments both ways.
Slashdot Mirror
The last paragraph of the article states that the great grand world of Trusted Computing will get rid of spyware. Why? If a commercial company is willing to publically sign code that is spyware, what exactly stops spyware?
So, not only did Microsoft do this first, they did it better!
The biggest advantage of blogs is that it lets you keep in touch with friends and acquaintances you don't normally interact with often. I don't like purely personal journals (they are usually too boring), but journals that mix semi-personal thoughts and intellectual thoughts are quite fun to read. It is a great motivating factor to keep a journal of research work you have done, and to see what other people are working on.
I took it to be a numerical reference to the word One in the name. Not exactly leet speak, but just as stupid.
The idea is not as radical as you think it is. There is some truth to the idea that since programs are really just information, why not remove all exclusivity constraints and have them be public goods? Science used to be proprietary and secret, but since it has moved to mostly public funding I would argue that there has been more progress and greater benefit to society.
As a variation on Cringley's idea, the "mutual fund" company could buy distribution rights for music (rather than one CD). Then anyone who is a shareholder gets all the music free from the internet. As more people join, the money gets used to buy more music. I'm not sure about the economics, but it might be possible to get a snowball effect where eventually everyone publishes on this label and everyone that likes music pays for a share.
Here is one idea: encrypt search results. To get the key, you must prove that you have accepted and are sharing an existing file F (by actually sharing file F for every transaction). But file F is copyright the author of the system. Every member of the network is infringing file F and can be sued by the author. Of course, the author would only sue the RIAA if they step in. Yes, this is selective enforcement, but selective enforcement is legal for copyright.
Any thoughts?
Most bands don't own the copyright to their own work, so I'm not sure you have the right to subpoena them.
In this case, I think the market is reacting to the fact that the copyright registration provides more evidence that SCO is acting in good faith. If SCO were not convinced that it was right, it would be more hesitant to register the copyright since that would open them up to claims of acting in bad faith, i.e. registering something they knew wasn't theirs, which would hurt their legal chances for everything (even things not directly related to copyright, like patent and trademark claims).
I think grid computing is way overdue. I am not disparaging the current researchers in the field. Resource sharing and management has been with computers from day one (one of the quotes from the talk is from 1969). Ever since I discovered PovRay (it was DKB or something back then) I have been waiting for fast computers available for my use without muss or fuss. I'm still waiting.
What safeguards are in place to protect file-sharers wrongfully accused by big media conglomerates of copyright infringement?
I would seriously urge anyone reading this post to think very hard about how they view intellectual accomplishment, and decide if they think a male-dominated conception of intellectual greatness is either fair or rational.
I'm not sure why you think this a zealous position, or how it is telling people what they should or should not think. I am also not sure what your argument is. You have said there are more great male than female geniuses. I agree. You said it is ridiculous to change one's perception of greatness merely to equalize male and female outcomes. I agree. You mentioned several individuals whom you regard by their output and not by society's blessing. I have no reason to doubt you, but would mention that the matter is worthy of introspection. None of these facts has anything to do with my argument.
To respond to some other points made in the parent. I do have trouble believing what society tells me, because I do not believe society is necessarily rational. I prefer to base my life on rational thought rather than authority and convention. I do not believe that the sexes must be equal in all things abstract and practical as stated. In regards to the last line of the parent, I have no idea what you are talking about.
In a more constructive tone, one should consider the idea that "greatness" or "genius" is an almost purely social construct. Do you think Newton was a great scientific thinker? Why do you think this? Have you ever read anything by Newton? Even if so, have you reviewed the ideas and compared them to Newton's contemporaries? I would guess that only a handful of science history geeks have.
The somewhat disturbing answer is that I think Newton is great because other people have told me he was. I think Beethoven was a great composer because other people have told me he was. I really want to think that I somehow made my own decisions about who I admire historically, but I cannot honestly do that.
We have a popular idea of what genius is, and it is male dominated. This is tremendously unfair to women. I would seriously urge anyone reading this post to think very hard about how they view intellectual accomplishment, and decide if they think a male-dominated conception of intellectual greatness is either fair or rational.
Did anyone here at Slashdot even consider the possibility that the genius is a woman? My god, I am continually amazed at the extent of sexism here.
The problem is that the GPL does not allow distribution of patent-encumbered technology. The authors of the code in question have every right to release their code with whatever license they want (I believe this is a free-speech issue, especially since the purpose of releasing the code is for doing research). People who receive their code may not use the code in a way that violates the patent, and in addition may not redistribute the code at all (since it would violate the GPL).
The other issue is that PageRank is really a mathematical formula, and as such is unpatentable. What they actually patented is an algorithm for computing PageRank. If someone finds another way of computing the same formula, I think the patent holders would have a very hard time showing infringement.
You might argue that this type of proof is in a different level entirely than using Z, but verification can happen in varying degrees. Even a Z specification might not talk about the hardware used to execute the program. Also, types can conceivably encode any mathematical property, it's just that existing languages have simple types.
The thing that is true is that manual proof systems for code are almost never used, even by the people who create them. Automatic proof systems are much more practical and have a real possibility of wide adoption. Think of it as making compilers smarter. I would love it if my compiler could look at a function I just wrote and give me an error like, "this function will not terminate if passed directed graphs with cycles, which might be produced as input in the following way..."
I think it says more about the demographics of people that care about these types of issues.
Secondly, combatting pollution is not a choice for everyone in the world between cleanliness and convenience. It can be a choice between cleanliness and starvation, or pollution and food. Developed countries have the luxury of choosing cleanliness; other parts of the world don't have this luxury.
In general, math doesn't help you write any actual code. But it is vital in designing applications, and design is really the interesting part of software engineering.
It is actually not impossible to offer infinite game space. You can use a pseudo-random number generator to generate dynamic environments, with suitable culling functions to choose the "best" ones. This generally works best for abstract games (e.g. the terrain in SimCity). With advances in AI, it could be possible to make this work for D&D style games, too.
This is called the HEADER, and yes, my emails have legitimate ones.
The author describes the problem he originally solves as being the pain of moving code between Linux and Windows, losing attributes, case problems, etc. The approach I take is to keep all code in CVS on my file server. I do compiling and editing on my personal computer; both Linux and Windows can handle CVS. This way you have to reboot into Windows for the Windows compile, but never have to worry about copying files or case changes.
It might even be argued that this is the true free market approach to digital ideas; let creators decide their own restrictions, then let consumers decide which restrictions they will accept or not.
It might also be that if DRM controls are implemented securely, then creators and distributors will be much more free to release their works in digital form without qualms. Imagine being able to check out any book from any library instantly over the internet for reading (but not saving or printing). That alone might convince me to buy into DRM.
I don't think DRM is a good idea, but there are arguments both ways.
If the seller didn't agree to the EULA, why does it matter what the EULA says? It doesn't.