The only reason why the consumer is still afraid of installing Linux instead of an MS OS is based on the risk that the installation (with automatic configuration of your printer, audio card, network connectivity etc) may still be so difficult that you have to consult other online docs.
In that case you need another second PC connected to the web to read the online documentation in order to be able to your first Linux computer to configure properly.
That's the real problem. Either they ship hardware preconfigured with Linux (which I don't like) or they still put more emphasis on a complete, hundred percent bugfree installation process for the absolute PC illiterate, which must include a idiot proof printer and web connectivity set-up. This is especially important for countries where it's hard and expensive to get connectivity at all.
What I think most people are missing is the fact that Linux illiterates have to learn from online docs most of the time. If you have only one PC, how are you supposed to access all those with a Linux PC, if you need already to be connected to get the Linux PC to work in the first place.
Another reason where I think the consumer is underestimated , is to think that the average user only wants his desktop . I don't believe hat at all. If the illiterate would be gently introduced into the advantages to run his own servers, he would immediately try to set them up, for the simple reason that most consumers don't like to be dependent on system admins, who can do anything with your system. Don't forget an illiterate is more scared and more anxious than a knowledgable person. To win his trust, you have to set him free and give him the opportunity to make him knowledgable and not the opposite. Open Sources are the first step, open minds towards to consumer and newbie from the open source community of geeks is the second step. On the second step there is still a lot of learning to be done.
Since when is the right to freedom of speech the same as the right to fill my private mail box with the written speech, I didn't ask for to read ?
Isn't the right of freedom of speech already granted for each company allowing them to broadcast their website directly into my living room and advertise whatever they want on it ?
The company's "speech" is already in my house, absolutely no rights to express themselves would be taken away by making the opt-out status the default, so that the reader, who wants the info in his mailbox, has to actively give permission to the company to send it into my mailbox.
But to fill up my mail box and to force me to take action and having to choose to opt out (because the default would otherwise be the opt-in and thus they can start sending me their crap without asking for permission to do so first) to prevent them filling my mailbox, has nothing to do with their right of free expression.
Since when is there a "right to contact" a person ?
Men, if that goes through, I take my "right to contact" the Senators literally too. These days anything goes under the first amendment.
Are there estimate[s of] how much money in form of salaries were ever paid to programmers for the code and how much was in effect done not only voluntarily, but also completely on an unpaid basis?
Unfortunately not; it's not even clear how to find out. You would have to go back to individual patches submitted to every project, and few people identify in their patches "I was paid to do this."
There is a bit of tension in a couple of posts here about how many lead programmer, side programmer and how many "patcher's" (not meant to be in a negative sense, just don't know a better word) contributed to the entirety of all programs within the package you have tested.
Wouldn't it be worth to do a poll by slashdot, asking for submissions by programmers, who would be able to say something like this :
" I estimate I have spent x hours/months/years to provide code or patches to programs now part of RH7.1."
a. I did all this in my spare time without getting paid
b. I was allowed to write code during my working hours (getting paid for something else though
c. I provided code and was paid to write this code specifically.
I think it would be very interesting (and somewhat important too) to shed more light on who has done how much work for how little/much/no money for how long.
May be/. could help to make such a poll and posters to the poll would actually give their names and be honest about their contribution. It would certainly help to read once something very uplifting on/. and might be helpful for other purposes too.
It might also be a way to publicly acknowledge in a way each person who contributed if he chooses to reveal his contribution here on/. or whereever one could set up a poll like that.
Had this Linux distribution been developed by conventional proprietary means, it would have cost over $1.08 billion (1,000 million) to develop in
the U.S. (in year 2000 dollars).
Are there estimate how much money in form of salaries were ever paid to programmers for the code
and how much was in effect done not only voluntarily, but aslo completely on an unpaid basis ?
In the assumption that the difference between the total sum of salaries paid to all programmers for all the code included in the RH7.1 distribution and the 1.8 billion dollars it would have cost to develop by proprietary means, this overwhelmingly large, isn't that the best proof that Free/Open Software is far more powerful in promoting the progress of USEFUL Science, just because its so much cheaper to develop and so much more easy to make better ?
I wonder why the GPL should not hold up in court as the better license to prove the that Free/Open Software is much more capable to comply with the ideas of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 gives congress the power:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
That means, if it will be available on subscription basis including backups etc, you can then run your RedHat Interchange e-commerce platform plus backend RH databases all in a nicely supportive environment for quite an affordable price.
Looks to me as a dream come through.:-) Just keep the prices affordable for the mini-mami-shops.
So, basically what RMS requests, is that his interpretation of the First Amendment, namely that the Freedom of Speech has to be bsolute, has to be accepted by the whole world ? Why ? Because the U.S. constitution is superior to any other constitution ?
Seems to me that he would impose his interpretation of Freedom of Speech on to the world, not obeying a majority rule based on democratic election of all member countries proportionally represented ?
Aboslute Freedom of Speech is the beginning of the end to it. It allows the destruction of its own request to protect Freedom of Speech. It allows the mob to mentally brainwash the world population and circumvent any democratic process.
If you want to preserve Freedom of Speech, you have to limit its absoluteness. The way Freedom of Speech is limited within the U.S., depends on interpretations which evolved in case law. This means it is dependent on decisions of various supreme courts decisions.
Well, if you think, that the world is willing to accept the interpretation and rulings of U.S. courts with regards to how Freedom of Speech has to be understood, elaborated by its politically appointed judges, you... must have lost it.
May be its necessary to define the limits of Freedom of Speech uniformly worldwide.
Hasn't it been proven that certain locations and parts of your brain get more developed as soon as you train them, like certain muscles get more developed if you use them more often than others ?
I think that was shown in children which have to learn two languages at once. Both centers in the brain for each of the languages learned are located in different places within the brain. Whatever language gets more exposure, reading and writing training (whereby each location for spoken language, reading and writing skills is separately developed), that part of the brain is more developed, whereas the location for the first language (the one less used) will "shrink", so to speak. What scientists could observe on the biochemical level of the nerve cells growths and functionality etc., can easily be observed in real life on multilingual children.
To me that explains clearly, why there is no way to "measure" intelligence. Because as soon as you are able to measure something, that something is also trainable and the quantity of what you measure goes up and down dependent on how it was trained. What you measure has nothing to do with your innate capabilities. It is questionable if men have static innate capabilities at all, other than the capability to change. If they don't (have static intelligence) then we would not have measurable intelligence, which would represent any meaning.
All that a computer does is challenging the brain to process information in a different manner than it was processed formerly through other tools. For example I am pretty sure that computer usage enhances the capabilities of kids to do two or three things simultaneously faster, at the same time it reduces the capability to do one thing focussed (unless the kid starts concentration to write code).
I think there is a connection between body movement and mental health. Hasn't it been shown that men have to move their bodies in order to stay mentally fit ? I would see a negative effect for children on their mental capabilities using a computer for prolonged time if it goes along with the lack of body movement.
I don't know what intelligence is supposed to be. To me the concept of intelligence is as fluid as my whole physiological and biochemical body system. Like saying I have a blood pressure of 130/70, I have an IQ of 135. I guess under certain conditions my IQ is down to 110 and my blood pressure up to 190/120, which is definitely not healthy.
Suffice to say that my IQ always goes down and my blood pressure always goes up when reading too much/.:-)
No, I don't believe they do. I just saw the documentary in WETA "The Lost Children of Rockdale". Parents don't know what is going on, and if they get to know and learn, they don't know, how they could have done something against it. There is real denial, real helpless reactions and, if going through the experience to be confronted with the consequences of how much damage kids are being allowed to do to themselves, real despair.
There are so many reasons for what IS happening that it can't be discussed just on this example.
It is the saddest thing that in order for the parents to be able to beat the system and get back some kind of knowledge and possibly guidance and control back into their hands, they have to rely on software. That's just one more bitter irony of what technology has brought us in progress with regards to our communication skills with each other.
I agree much with what you are saying, but how do handle the fact that one's person's sarcasm (especially online anonymous sarcasm on forums like/. and K5) is another person's feeling of being threatened. Anyone can claim that what meant to be humourous was in fact not, and OTOH anyone who meant to hurt with his sarcasm can claim he didn't intend to.
The minimum what is needed might be a clearly marked post with {sarcasm} flags. Takes away the humor, would prevent severe trolling, which isn't too bad, but simply might be necessary to do.
I think it's a little miracle to have gotten all those men sign the statement. I am very glad it happened, may be a first *real* American act of open source-lers. Bless you for the effort.
I had formulated my comment originally as a response to a comment by DarkProphet. This is why I was referring to showing open source code for patent. I am aware of the documentation which goes along with a patent.
With regards to the 20 year period etc. I agree fully, especially for simple software business method patents.
I would think that one should show the source code if one wants a software based business process patent. Nevertheless it doesn't solve the problem by just doing that alone, I believe.
Patenting the source code directly wouldn't necessary help, as you can write code easily a bit differently to achieve the same result. I thought one patents a "software based business process" or an "idea", not one specific code implementation of that idea. And that's exactly why those patents are damaging to the progress of software development.
How many ways can you code a one-click ordering feature ? The reason why Amazon's one-click patent is damaging, is exactly because it had not patented their own specific code, but the idea of the one-click business process in itself. May be the code they had written to accomplish their one-click feature was mediocre. May be other developers could code the same thing more elegantly, would have added or designed privacy issues related with the one-click ordering feature differently etc.
It's clear to me that the patent not only prevents innovational coding by taking the incentive away from anyone to write better code for the same idea, they also take away any financial incentive for all other coders to further invest their development time into the same or similar solutions for the patented software based business process. On top of that, they prevent competing companies to use business processes, which should be "common good", because they can be "invented" or "coded" in hundreds of ways which are "commonly known".
If a software company owns the copyrights to its own (closed) software, that should be sufficient to regain R&D costs they had to invest into their development team. If a software company wants to patent a software based business method and you would request that they have to show their source code, it would just mean that you patent a specific code implementation of that business method and not the business process itself. The next step would be that each an every code implementation would be patented and this would just then mean the patent and the copyright of that code become one and the same thing. (Right or wrong ?)
People say algorithms are inventions and that you can patent therefore an algorithm. But aren't there always a multitude of possible algorithms to solve a certain problem ? (Right ? Wrong ?)
Why then wouldn't one limit the financial rewards of a software based patent, which allows a company to regain their R&D costs, to the amount of money the company had to spend on its development team to come up with the algorithm ?
An algorithm is purely the result of a thought process. How much does the brainpower of a programmer cost ? Isn't the programmer as much worth as the financial revenues the idea of the software based business process is going to generate for the company ? In other words, if the business "idea" is not that great to begin with, the programmer's work to generate code for that idea, is also not much worth, certainly not "a million or much more".
Most software based business processes patented these days are not as much worth as a twenty year long (or even shorter one) software based patent allows a company to reap profits from.
May be one should think about tieing a software based business process patent to a proof, that said business process in itself generates a meaningful profit to the company, independent from the fees the company can collect from the patent.
In case a company couldn't prove that, it should loose its patent.
If the business process is that banal, that it can't be proven that it is essential to the general business plan of the company to generate revenues (or just for that little time period til someone else would have implemented other code to implement the same business process), then the revenues from the patent shouldn't replace the non existing profits the patented business method was unable to generate.
That certainly was not intended by the people who designed the first patent laws. Clearly it was meant to do the opposite, to regain upfront investment costs to implement an innovative idea, but not to generate profit of a bad idea, which didn't cost much to implement through code to begin with. The "idea", for example, of the "one-click ordering feature" is so banal, that it hardly can be recognized as a "breathtaking invention" for the "Progress of Science and useful Art".
Can Amazon prove hat the one-click feature generates income aside from collecting fees for its patent on it ? I doubt it. Why then is it something worth to be patented, if the software based business process even doesn't help the company's business economically ? Or in other words, does the fact that Barnes & Nobles was not allowed to use the one-click ordering feature (implemented by code their own programmers implemented) had any negative economic impact on the overall business of Barnes & Nobles ? I doubt that too. How ethical then is the whole process of patenting something which is worth nothing and collect fees for someone infringing on something worthless ?
What software based patents do, is not supporting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts", they promote the "Progress of Profit of a single company" by precisley preventing the "Progress of Science and useful Arts" in the *field of software development* to allow to take place. That is clearly not the intention of the constitution. There have to be other methods for a software companies to regain R&D costs into software development than the patenting of a simple software business process.
Now the whole thing becomes completely different if you deal with open source software.
An open source code based software company can't regain its R&D costs through its copyrights on the source code, due to the GPL and similar licences.
But there might be a chance to allow the open source code based software company to still regain R&D costs if you would design a specific open source code based business process patent.
Ironically only for open source code a business process patent makes actually a lot of sense, because it allows to promote "Progress of Science and useful Art" (because of its open sources) and at the same time would allow the open source code software company to be on a level playing field to regain R&D costs.
Strangely enough the open source business process patent (within the realm of software development) is the only one, which actually makes sense in the framework of the original intentions of the patent laws, whereas the closed source business process patent opposes the original intentions of the patent laws.
Therefore it might be very important in order for the open source code and the GPL to survive, to have a specific patent for *open sourced software based business processes*, so that there is a way for the open source based companies to regain their own R&D costs as well as the closed source code software companies did with both their copyrights for their closed source code and their
patents for their closed source software based business methods. Those latter companies have one advantage too many (the business patents), whereas open source code companies have neither.
If both kind of companies were to be put on equal level playing grounds, it would mean that you have to disallow closed source code based business method patents and request open source code based business method patents for all sorts of software copyrights that include the request to free and open sources.
The GPL *clearly promotes* "Progress in Science and useful Art" in the field of software development, but forfeits at the same time the inate financial rewards it would normally hold for anything else *but* open source software. That has to be corrected.
Strange... the whole thing. Where do I miss the logic ? IANAL and IANAP, but this thing fascinates me to understand. Can you help me ?
Ever thought about the possibility that the parents knew what was going on and were threatened by the kid with exactly the guns, which the kid stored and had hidden in his parents house ?
If parents try to get help from the police, these kids are great to let the "evidence" disappear and play "the innocent victim" of paranoid parents, who claim their kids have a "mental" problem and need "treatment". If your kid talks coherent and calm in front of the police, a parent has no chance to get help from the police from being threatened by the kid.
And don't forget that as soon as those kids are over eighteen, parents are lost. They can throw their kids out, but that doesn't protect the parents from the retaliation of their own kids.
There are many families who are scared and terrorized by one of their own kids. Mothers and sisters are being robbed of their belongings by out of control drugged brothers. It's a very terrible situation, so terrible that most parents really become desperate and suicital, if that happens. Even if the kid goes to prison or juvenile court, it comes out, the parents are supposed to help the kid back on track and it's and on and off again play. Parents are scared. You have to listen to stories in parent's self-help groups like "Tough Love" and you understand that the situation is not that "innocent" anymore.
Some kids just are so deeply caught up mentally in a lost path, that even very considerate parents can't help them out anymore. Of course parents are very often to blame for a lot of things, but these days many parents are not anymore able to counterbalance influences from the outside.
You can blame a lot of things for this situation. It's always a cumulation of causes, never simply a single one. But I would agree that the media's influence just by the repetitive quantity of trash material being broadcasted continuously, is a way of conditioning kids into accepting, imitating and in the worst case szenario performing violent acts.
There is nothing which you don't learn through imitation. If eight year olds play "having sex" a la mode they see it in porn or movies, you *should* accpet that those media had an influence on the kid's behaviour. So, is the only way of defense to lock your kid up in a room, throw the TV out and isolate your kid from society ?
I mean get real, you can't protect your kid anymore from NOT getting exposed to things, you, as a parent, don't want your kid to get exposed to. It's nearly impossible for mere mortal parents, more so for single parents and worst for single parents, who really can't take care anymore for their kids, because they are either themselves already "kaput" and drug addicted, or because they work so many hours at mimimal wage, that their kids are completely left alone. Fact is you talk endlessly about community and family here. That is a sure sign that BOTH are missing in real life.
You simply can't leave kids that alone (well, you can't leave anybody that alone for that matter), but society here doesn't give a lot of parents a chance to have enough time and means to take care of their kids.
If the situation has become so bad, that father and/or mother have to defend themselves with a gun in front of a at gun-point threatening kid, I would say, it's time to come to your senses in this country.
not a difficult choice to make for me
on
Opt-in vs. Opt-out
·
· Score: 1
I don't think the decision is a difficult one.
Since the seller has an obvious interest in collecting information, it has an incentive to make it easy and simple to opt in, under an 'opt-in' system, and an incentive to make it difficult and time-consuming to opt out, under an 'opt-out' system. Whatever regulations exist to make opting out easier, the seller has an incentive to push the envelope, to make opting out as difficult as possible within the letter of the law. Thus, transaction costs under an 'opt-out' scheme are likely to be higher than under an 'opt-in' scheme, and the outcome under 'opt-out' is likely to be concomitantly farther away from the 'correct' outcome than under 'opt-in'.
1.) The 'opt-out' option doesn't reflect the true wishes of the consumer, because opting out is an active step the consumer has to go through, and it is a step which is on purpose made complicated for the comsumer by the seller.
The question, then, is not whether 'opt-in' or 'opt-out' are closer, in the long-term, to the 'correct' outcome; in the long run both will lead to it. Rather, the question is from which end do we want to start the journey into the long-term - do we want to start with over-disclosure and work our way down, or from under-disclosure and work our way up?
2.)
Once consumer's information is disclosed, it's almost impossible to get it back. Clearly I opt to work up from under-disclosure (resulting from the 'opt-in' process) than I would opt to work down from over-disclosure (resulting from the 'opt-out' process after a default 'opt-in' status for the consumer was pre-set by the seller). The question asked below for me is no question at all. Why would the consumer allow the seller to make a decision about his wishes upfront and then ask the comsumer to take action if one is not satisfied with the default assumption the seller made ? I consider this lousy customer service and I think it's simply mild harrassment. For heaven's sake, I do not want to opt out each time I access a site, where I need to submit some personal data. I am amazed that there are so many controversial legal decisions out.
If free speech were really free, anonymous online speech would not be needed. I think they shouldn't co-exist.
May be it's a matter to weigh the harm which is done by anonymous speech towards the subject matter and persons talked about versus the harm which might be done to a non-anonymous free speaker for speaking up.
Nothing is anonymous online and nowhere is free speech really free. So, it's somewhat weirdo assumption in the first place. And what's a stable society anyway ? Is the U.S. a stable society ?
Laughable. I think you should get some better ideas of how many women join the profession deliberately (and earn decent money) and how many are traded into it against their will.
Women and children slave-like trade (into porn related business operations) is among us, well alive and up. And you can whine as much as you want in your fixation against your favorite group of conservative sexually tight-up lunatics, you are nothing short of promoting the mob's modern day world wide (sex) slave trade behind your progressive fassade.
I am sure, if porn would be totally free and didn't cost anything, you would loose your interest in all this sexual liberation bubble-talk foaming from your mouth.
Being a British paper, they do a good job of getting the news across, neutrally. I never read American weeklies anymore: It's all the same propaganda dog food.
One of the best articles about ecommerce and the internet in the Economist some three years ago or more were actually written by a very kind American gentleman, who felt much at home in Britain.:-)
I wonder, if it's the same author again. Unfortunately I can't find a reference.
That's not to say, that I am not very pleased and relieved with with the answers Bob Young gave to the question of "Standardization" by "milo_Gwalthny"
I especially agree with him on these:
This control over future innovation is being assisted by the trend in our legislatures worldwide to expand Intellectual Property (patents and copyrights, otherwise known as government granted monopolies) rights. These enable corporations to maximize their profits at the expense of the citizens in our society and are not just bad for our democracy, it is bad for business.
and this
Giving the major global publishing and technology companies ever-greater government granted monopolies on vast definitions of technology (think "one-click" patents on a website) is inconsistent with how free-market democracies are supposed to work. Then arguing, as Miller does, that any alternative model cannot be legitimate because it does not generate the monopoly profits his employer collects would be a joke - if were not for so many of our legislators buying this line of reasoning.
and this
The cool thing about free-market democracies is that the citizens are the consumers. So you can sometimes solve societal problems in the marketplace. This is where Red Hat's and the rest of the open source suppliers opportunity lies.
and this:
Matthew Szulik and his team have driven Red Hat from revenues of less than $15 million when we went public 21 months ago, to over $100 million today with gross margins in excess of 55%.
And if your pledge to serve your customer better is honest, Mr. Young, get Matthew Szulik out and answer the rest of the questions you didn't wnat to get into.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
All your databases are belong to us
The only reason why the consumer is still afraid of installing Linux instead of an MS OS is based on the risk that the installation (with automatic configuration of your printer, audio card, network connectivity etc) may still be so difficult that you have to consult other online docs.
In that case you need another second PC connected to the web to read the online documentation in order to be able to your first Linux computer to configure properly.
That's the real problem. Either they ship hardware preconfigured with Linux (which I don't like) or they still put more emphasis on a complete, hundred percent bugfree installation process for the absolute PC illiterate, which must include a idiot proof printer and web connectivity set-up. This is especially important for countries where it's hard and expensive to get connectivity at all.
What I think most people are missing is the fact that Linux illiterates have to learn from online docs most of the time. If you have only one PC, how are you supposed to access all those with a Linux PC, if you need already to be connected to get the Linux PC to work in the first place.
Another reason where I think the consumer is underestimated , is to think that the average user only wants his desktop . I don't believe hat at all. If the illiterate would be gently introduced into the advantages to run his own servers, he would immediately try to set them up, for the simple reason that most consumers don't like to be dependent on system admins, who can do anything with your system. Don't forget an illiterate is more scared and more anxious than a knowledgable person. To win his trust, you have to set him free and give him the opportunity to make him knowledgable and not the opposite. Open Sources are the first step, open minds towards to consumer and newbie from the open source community of geeks is the second step. On the second step there is still a lot of learning to be done.
Since when is the right to freedom of speech the same as the right to fill my private mail box with the written speech, I didn't ask for to read ?
Isn't the right of freedom of speech already granted for each company allowing them to broadcast their website directly into my living room and advertise whatever they want on it ?
The company's "speech" is already in my house, absolutely no rights to express themselves would be taken away by making the opt-out status the default, so that the reader, who wants the info in his mailbox, has to actively give permission to the company to send it into my mailbox.
But to fill up my mail box and to force me to take action and having to choose to opt out (because the default would otherwise be the opt-in and thus they can start sending me their crap without asking for permission to do so first) to prevent them filling my mailbox, has nothing to do with their right of free expression.
Since when is there a "right to contact" a person ?
Men, if that goes through, I take my "right to contact" the Senators literally too. These days anything goes under the first amendment.
No way I would support this.
I think it would be very interesting (and somewhat important too) to shed more light on who has done how much work for how little/much/no money for how long.
May be /. could help to make such a poll and posters to the poll would actually give their names and be honest about their contribution. It would certainly help to read once something very uplifting on /. and might be helpful for other purposes too.
It might also be a way to publicly acknowledge in a way each person who contributed if he chooses to reveal his contribution here on /. or whereever one could set up a poll like that.
Are there estimate how much money in form of salaries were ever paid to programmers for the code and how much was in effect done not only voluntarily, but aslo completely on an unpaid basis ?
In the assumption that the difference between the total sum of salaries paid to all programmers for all the code included in the RH7.1 distribution and the 1.8 billion dollars it would have cost to develop by proprietary means, this overwhelmingly large, isn't that the best proof that Free/Open Software is far more powerful in promoting the progress of USEFUL Science, just because its so much cheaper to develop and so much more easy to make better ?
I wonder why the GPL should not hold up in court as the better license to prove the that Free/Open Software is much more capable to comply with the ideas of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 gives congress the power:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
Great analysis to read.
That means, if it will be available on subscription basis including backups etc, you can then run your RedHat Interchange e-commerce platform plus backend RH databases all in a nicely supportive environment for quite an affordable price.
:-) Just keep the prices affordable for the mini-mami-shops.
Looks to me as a dream come through.
Go RedHat, Go !
according to this: article
It's not only quite possible, it's hundred percent sure.
I read here a lot of advice to look for jobs in the Midwest, where real estate and living costs are lower.
But are there really jobs in small town Midwest, where you can work as a programmer, system admin or website designer ?
I can't quite believe that might be that easy to find.
So, basically what RMS requests, is that his interpretation of the First Amendment, namely that the Freedom of Speech has to be bsolute, has to be accepted by the whole world ? Why ? Because the U.S. constitution is superior to any other constitution ?
... must have lost it.
Seems to me that he would impose his interpretation of Freedom of Speech on to the world, not obeying a majority rule based on democratic election of all member countries proportionally represented ?
Aboslute Freedom of Speech is the beginning of the end to it. It allows the destruction of its own request to protect Freedom of Speech. It allows the mob to mentally brainwash the world population and circumvent any democratic process.
If you want to preserve Freedom of Speech, you have to limit its absoluteness. The way Freedom of Speech is limited within the U.S., depends on interpretations which evolved in case law. This means it is dependent on decisions of various supreme courts decisions.
Well, if you think, that the world is willing to accept the interpretation and rulings of U.S. courts with regards to how Freedom of Speech has to be understood, elaborated by its politically appointed judges, you
May be its necessary to define the limits of Freedom of Speech uniformly worldwide.
Whose illiterate asses are you talking about, mom's asses or their son's asses ?
Is that a phonics or a grammar issue ?
Hasn't it been proven that certain locations and parts of your brain get more developed as soon as you train them, like certain muscles get more developed if you use them more often than others ?
/. :-)
I think that was shown in children which have to learn two languages at once. Both centers in the brain for each of the languages learned are located in different places within the brain. Whatever language gets more exposure, reading and writing training (whereby each location for spoken language, reading and writing skills is separately developed), that part of the brain is more developed, whereas the location for the first language (the one less used) will "shrink", so to speak. What scientists could observe on the biochemical level of the nerve cells growths and functionality etc., can easily be observed in real life on multilingual children.
To me that explains clearly, why there is no way to "measure" intelligence. Because as soon as you are able to measure something, that something is also trainable and the quantity of what you measure goes up and down dependent on how it was trained. What you measure has nothing to do with your innate capabilities. It is questionable if men have static innate capabilities at all, other than the capability to change. If they don't (have static intelligence) then we would not have measurable intelligence, which would represent any meaning.
All that a computer does is challenging the brain to process information in a different manner than it was processed formerly through other tools. For example I am pretty sure that computer usage enhances the capabilities of kids to do two or three things simultaneously faster, at the same time it reduces the capability to do one thing focussed (unless the kid starts concentration to write code).
I think there is a connection between body movement and mental health. Hasn't it been shown that men have to move their bodies in order to stay mentally fit ? I would see a negative effect for children on their mental capabilities using a computer for prolonged time if it goes along with the lack of body movement.
I don't know what intelligence is supposed to be. To me the concept of intelligence is as fluid as my whole physiological and biochemical body system. Like saying I have a blood pressure of 130/70, I have an IQ of 135. I guess under certain conditions my IQ is down to 110 and my blood pressure up to 190/120, which is definitely not healthy.
Suffice to say that my IQ always goes down and my blood pressure always goes up when reading too much
No, I don't believe they do. I just saw the documentary in WETA "The Lost Children of Rockdale". Parents don't know what is going on, and if they get to know and learn, they don't know, how they could have done something against it. There is real denial, real helpless reactions and, if going through the experience to be confronted with the consequences of how much damage kids are being allowed to do to themselves, real despair.
There are so many reasons for what IS happening that it can't be discussed just on this example.
It is the saddest thing that in order for the parents to be able to beat the system and get back some kind of knowledge and possibly guidance and control back into their hands, they have to rely on software. That's just one more bitter irony of what technology has brought us in progress with regards to our communication skills with each other.
I agree much with what you are saying, but how do handle the fact that one's person's sarcasm (especially online anonymous sarcasm on forums like /. and K5) is another person's feeling of being threatened. Anyone can claim that what meant to be humourous was in fact not, and OTOH anyone who meant to hurt with his sarcasm can claim he didn't intend to.
The minimum what is needed might be a clearly marked post with {sarcasm} flags. Takes away the humor, would prevent severe trolling, which isn't too bad, but simply might be necessary to do.
I think it's a little miracle to have gotten all those men sign the statement. I am very glad it happened, may be a first *real* American act of open source-lers. Bless you for the effort.
I had formulated my comment originally as a response to a comment by DarkProphet. This is why I was referring to showing open source code for patent. I am aware of the documentation which goes along with a patent.
With regards to the 20 year period etc. I agree fully, especially for simple software business method patents.
Thanks
I would think that one should show the source code if one wants a software based business process patent. Nevertheless it doesn't solve the problem by just doing that alone, I believe.
... the whole thing. Where do I miss the logic ? IANAL and IANAP, but this thing fascinates me to understand. Can you help me ?
Patenting the source code directly wouldn't necessary help, as you can write code easily a bit differently to achieve the same result. I thought one patents a "software based business process" or an "idea", not one specific code implementation of that idea. And that's exactly why those patents are damaging to the progress of software development.
How many ways can you code a one-click ordering feature ? The reason why Amazon's one-click patent is damaging, is exactly because it had not patented their own specific code, but the idea of the one-click business process in itself. May be the code they had written to accomplish their one-click feature was mediocre. May be other developers could code the same thing more elegantly, would have added or designed privacy issues related with the one-click ordering feature differently etc.
It's clear to me that the patent not only prevents innovational coding by taking the incentive away from anyone to write better code for the same idea, they also take away any financial incentive for all other coders to further invest their development time into the same or similar solutions for the patented software based business process. On top of that, they prevent competing companies to use business processes, which should be "common good", because they can be "invented" or "coded" in hundreds of ways which are "commonly known".
If a software company owns the copyrights to its own (closed) software, that should be sufficient to regain R&D costs they had to invest into their development team. If a software company wants to patent a software based business method and you would request that they have to show their source code, it would just mean that you patent a specific code implementation of that business method and not the business process itself. The next step would be that each an every code implementation would be patented and this would just then mean the patent and the copyright of that code become one and the same thing. (Right or wrong ?)
People say algorithms are inventions and that you can patent therefore an algorithm. But aren't there always a multitude of possible algorithms to solve a certain problem ? (Right ? Wrong ?)
Why then wouldn't one limit the financial rewards of a software based patent, which allows a company to regain their R&D costs, to the amount of money the company had to spend on its development team to come up with the algorithm ?
An algorithm is purely the result of a thought process. How much does the brainpower of a programmer cost ? Isn't the programmer as much worth as the financial revenues the idea of the software based business process is going to generate for the company ? In other words, if the business "idea" is not that great to begin with, the programmer's work to generate code for that idea, is also not much worth, certainly not "a million or much more".
Most software based business processes patented these days are not as much worth as a twenty year long (or even shorter one) software based patent allows a company to reap profits from.
May be one should think about tieing a software based business process patent to a proof, that said business process in itself generates a meaningful profit to the company, independent from the fees the company can collect from the patent.
In case a company couldn't prove that, it should loose its patent.
If the business process is that banal, that it can't be proven that it is essential to the general business plan of the company to generate revenues (or just for that little time period til someone else would have implemented other code to implement the same business process), then the revenues from the patent shouldn't replace the non existing profits the patented business method was unable to generate.
That certainly was not intended by the people who designed the first patent laws. Clearly it was meant to do the opposite, to regain upfront investment costs to implement an innovative idea, but not to generate profit of a bad idea, which didn't cost much to implement through code to begin with. The "idea", for example, of the "one-click ordering feature" is so banal, that it hardly can be recognized as a "breathtaking invention" for the "Progress of Science and useful Art".
Can Amazon prove hat the one-click feature generates income aside from collecting fees for its patent on it ? I doubt it. Why then is it something worth to be patented, if the software based business process even doesn't help the company's business economically ? Or in other words, does the fact that Barnes & Nobles was not allowed to use the one-click ordering feature (implemented by code their own programmers implemented) had any negative economic impact on the overall business of Barnes & Nobles ? I doubt that too. How ethical then is the whole process of patenting something which is worth nothing and collect fees for someone infringing on something worthless ?
What software based patents do, is not supporting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts", they promote the "Progress of Profit of a single company" by precisley preventing the "Progress of Science and useful Arts" in the *field of software development* to allow to take place. That is clearly not the intention of the constitution. There have to be other methods for a software companies to regain R&D costs into software development than the patenting of a simple software business process.
Now the whole thing becomes completely different if you deal with open source software.
An open source code based software company can't regain its R&D costs through its copyrights on the source code, due to the GPL and similar licences.
But there might be a chance to allow the open source code based software company to still regain R&D costs if you would design a specific open source code based business process patent.
Ironically only for open source code a business process patent makes actually a lot of sense, because it allows to promote "Progress of Science and useful Art" (because of its open sources) and at the same time would allow the open source code software company to be on a level playing field to regain R&D costs.
Strangely enough the open source business process patent (within the realm of software development) is the only one, which actually makes sense in the framework of the original intentions of the patent laws, whereas the closed source business process patent opposes the original intentions of the patent laws.
Therefore it might be very important in order for the open source code and the GPL to survive, to have a specific patent for *open sourced software based business processes*, so that there is a way for the open source based companies to regain their own R&D costs as well as the closed source code software companies did with both their copyrights for their closed source code and their
patents for their closed source software based business methods. Those latter companies have one advantage too many (the business patents), whereas open source code companies have neither.
If both kind of companies were to be put on equal level playing grounds, it would mean that you have to disallow closed source code based business method patents and request open source code based business method patents for all sorts of software copyrights that include the request to free and open sources.
The GPL *clearly promotes* "Progress in Science and useful Art" in the field of software development, but forfeits at the same time the inate financial rewards it would normally hold for anything else *but* open source software. That has to be corrected.
Strange
Wishful thinking.
Lol, so what do the actors get paid in the LA area at those porn producing companies ? Should they also not expect the pay ?
Ever thought about the possibility that the parents knew what was going on and were threatened by the kid with exactly the guns, which the kid stored and had hidden in his parents house ?
If parents try to get help from the police, these kids are great to let the "evidence" disappear and play "the innocent victim" of paranoid parents, who claim their kids have a "mental" problem and need "treatment". If your kid talks coherent and calm in front of the police, a parent has no chance to get help from the police from being threatened by the kid.
And don't forget that as soon as those kids are over eighteen, parents are lost. They can throw their kids out, but that doesn't protect the parents from the retaliation of their own kids.
There are many families who are scared and terrorized by one of their own kids. Mothers and sisters are being robbed of their belongings by out of control drugged brothers. It's a very terrible situation, so terrible that most parents really become desperate and suicital, if that happens. Even if the kid goes to prison or juvenile court, it comes out, the parents are supposed to help the kid back on track and it's and on and off again play. Parents are scared. You have to listen to stories in parent's self-help groups like "Tough Love" and you understand that the situation is not that "innocent" anymore.
Some kids just are so deeply caught up mentally in a lost path, that even very considerate parents can't help them out anymore. Of course parents are very often to blame for a lot of things, but these days many parents are not anymore able to counterbalance influences from the outside.
You can blame a lot of things for this situation. It's always a cumulation of causes, never simply a single one. But I would agree that the media's influence just by the repetitive quantity of trash material being broadcasted continuously, is a way of conditioning kids into accepting, imitating and in the worst case szenario performing violent acts.
There is nothing which you don't learn through imitation. If eight year olds play "having sex" a la mode they see it in porn or movies, you *should* accpet that those media had an influence on the kid's behaviour. So, is the only way of defense to lock your kid up in a room, throw the TV out and isolate your kid from society ?
I mean get real, you can't protect your kid anymore from NOT getting exposed to things, you, as a parent, don't want your kid to get exposed to. It's nearly impossible for mere mortal parents, more so for single parents and worst for single parents, who really can't take care anymore for their kids, because they are either themselves already "kaput" and drug addicted, or because they work so many hours at mimimal wage, that their kids are completely left alone. Fact is you talk endlessly about community and family here. That is a sure sign that BOTH are missing in real life.
You simply can't leave kids that alone (well, you can't leave anybody that alone for that matter), but society here doesn't give a lot of parents a chance to have enough time and means to take care of their kids.
If the situation has become so bad, that father and/or mother have to defend themselves with a gun in front of a at gun-point threatening kid, I would say, it's time to come to your senses in this country.
Since the seller has an obvious interest in collecting information, it has an incentive to make it easy and simple to opt in, under an 'opt-in' system, and an incentive to make it difficult and time-consuming to opt out, under an 'opt-out' system. Whatever regulations exist to make opting out easier, the seller has an incentive to push the envelope, to make opting out as difficult as possible within the letter of the law. Thus, transaction costs under an 'opt-out' scheme are likely to be higher than under an 'opt-in' scheme, and the outcome under 'opt-out' is likely to be concomitantly farther away from the 'correct' outcome than under 'opt-in'.
1.) The 'opt-out' option doesn't reflect the true wishes of the consumer, because opting out is an active step the consumer has to go through, and it is a step which is on purpose made complicated for the comsumer by the seller.
The question, then, is not whether 'opt-in' or 'opt-out' are closer, in the long-term, to the 'correct' outcome; in the long run both will lead to it. Rather, the question is from which end do we want to start the journey into the long-term - do we want to start with over-disclosure and work our way down, or from under-disclosure and work our way up?
2.) Once consumer's information is disclosed, it's almost impossible to get it back. Clearly I opt to work up from under-disclosure (resulting from the 'opt-in' process) than I would opt to work down from over-disclosure (resulting from the 'opt-out' process after a default 'opt-in' status for the consumer was pre-set by the seller). The question asked below for me is no question at all. Why would the consumer allow the seller to make a decision about his wishes upfront and then ask the comsumer to take action if one is not satisfied with the default assumption the seller made ? I consider this lousy customer service and I think it's simply mild harrassment. For heaven's sake, I do not want to opt out each time I access a site, where I need to submit some personal data. I am amazed that there are so many controversial legal decisions out.
Thanks for pointing out that article.
If free speech were really free, anonymous online speech would not be needed. I think they shouldn't co-exist.
May be it's a matter to weigh the harm which is done by anonymous speech towards the subject matter and persons talked about versus the harm which might be done to a non-anonymous free speaker for speaking up.
Nothing is anonymous online and nowhere is free speech really free. So, it's somewhat weirdo assumption in the first place. And what's a stable society anyway ? Is the U.S. a stable society ?
Laughable. I think you should get some better ideas of how many women join the profession deliberately (and earn decent money) and how many are traded into it against their will.
Women and children slave-like trade (into porn related business operations) is among us, well alive and up. And you can whine as much as you want in your fixation against your favorite group of conservative sexually tight-up lunatics, you are nothing short of promoting the mob's modern day world wide (sex) slave trade behind your progressive fassade.
I am sure, if porn would be totally free and didn't cost anything, you would loose your interest in all this sexual liberation bubble-talk foaming from your mouth.
Being a British paper, they do a good job of getting the news across, neutrally. I never read American weeklies anymore: It's all the same propaganda dog food.
:-)
One of the best articles about ecommerce and the internet in the Economist some three years ago or more were actually written by a very kind American gentleman, who felt much at home in Britain.
I wonder, if it's the same author again. Unfortunately I can't find a reference.
That's not to say, that I am not very pleased and relieved with with the answers Bob Young gave to the question of "Standardization" by "milo_Gwalthny"
I especially agree with him on these:
This control over future innovation is being assisted by the trend in our legislatures worldwide to expand Intellectual Property (patents and copyrights, otherwise known as government granted monopolies) rights. These enable corporations to maximize their profits at the expense of the citizens in our society and are not just bad for our democracy, it is bad for business.
and this
Giving the major global publishing and technology companies ever-greater government granted monopolies on vast definitions of technology (think "one-click" patents on a website) is inconsistent with how free-market democracies are supposed to work. Then arguing, as Miller does, that any alternative model cannot be legitimate because it does not generate the monopoly profits his employer collects would be a joke - if were not for so many of our legislators buying this line of reasoning.
and this
The cool thing about free-market democracies is that the citizens are the consumers. So you can sometimes solve societal problems in the marketplace. This is where Red Hat's and the rest of the open source suppliers opportunity lies.
and this:
Matthew Szulik and his team have driven Red Hat from revenues of less than $15 million when we went public 21 months ago, to over $100 million today with gross margins in excess of 55%.
And if your pledge to serve your customer better is honest, Mr. Young, get Matthew Szulik out and answer the rest of the questions you didn't wnat to get into. :-)