So if I work hard for a living, I'm not entitled to protection?
I've lived in the poor parts of town, and let me tell you that it is *nothing* like what the Liberals would have you think. If those people weren't so lazy, they wouldn't be poor! A simple solution, wouldn'y you agree?
This "use it or lose it" view of intellectual property seems to be a pervasive one -- and the only reason for this, I believe, is that it allows people to feel a little better about themselves when they download old intellectual property that they have no right to.
This "pay up or go to jail" view of intellectual property seems to be a pervasive one -- and the only reason for this is, I believe, is that allows people to feel a little better about themselves when they send people to jail for downloading old intellectual property that they no longer sell.
I wrote a book, thought it was horrible, and shelved it, that I wouldn't have any rights because I wasn't selling it?
What difference would it make to you, financially or otherwise (HINT: none). These spurious strawman arguments only prove the weakness of the corpratist point of view.
And put banner ads on the site where you're distributing it at that?
You mean like Slashdot distributing M$ "trade secrets"? If that bothers you, there are other sites, you know.
Isn't it time that people got a little bit realistic here, took a deep breath, and checked if their IP morality isn't just a convenient way of justifying illegal and wrong acts?
Just because a certain issue of a magazine is no longer on the shelves, does that give you the right to go out and copy it?
My actions are not bounded by artificial "rights" granted by others. I am, as a human, fully capable of exercising Reason in such issues. If you need something, why should anyone put up artificial barriers against it? It does nothing but hold back the progress of humanity, thus furthering the claims of those who benefit from the status quo.
For instance, what if you want Microsoft to open up Win 3.1?
Strawman. The Abandonware Movement is about free "beer" not free "speech".
How many out of print movies and books are there?
Too many. Movie companies usually destroy films when the copyright expires rather than allow them to enter the public domain. Is this "right"? Not even the most morally corrupt person could claim so much. -- Floyd
I have a hard time taking a self-proclaimed "troll" seriously, but....
Just because something *can* be done, doesn't mean it's right
It doesn't mean it's "wrong" (by whose definition? The lawmakers who were paid off by Big Money?), either. Learn some logic before you try arguing.
It'll just encourage companies to crack down on even the semi-legit sites like The Underdogs
There is no such thing as "semi-legit". The Home of the Underdogs is "illegal". Does that make it wrong? I think not. If a game is no longer sold, how are you hurting the company by downloading it? If for example, you downloaded Ultima 7 (my previous example), you might like enough to buy Origin's current offerings: Ultima 9 or Ultima Online. Your argument sounds suspiciously like the RIAA whining about Napster users not buying CDs when the exact opposite is true.
Abandonware helps users and companies! It's not a zero-sum game. -- Floyd
The whole point of copyright is to encourage people to create.
Try telling that to Congress:)
If they've abandoned their work, there's no need for copyright -- they've already gotten all the benefit they're going to get from it.
Exaclty. There is no rational reason for holding onto the copyrights for old software which is no longer being sold. It's simple greed and corporatism, designed to hold back geeks from things they can use in a productive manner. Personally, since it is so irrational, I see no compelling reason to play along with the little corporate games. If you don't sell it, that's no reason why I can't have it. -- Floyd
By now, it should be pretty well-known that any attempt to control digital media in the Internet age will be a complete failure (cf Napster, Gnutella, etc). Who worries about the legal status anyway? If you want to download a copy of Ultima 7, then you're going to do so no matter what the law says.
The only real difference between abandonware and mp3 audio is that abandonware is generally distributed on centralized web sites rather than de-centralized systems like Napster, which means that they can be shut down much more easily. I personally look forward to the day when all of it is available on FreeNet of Gnutella.
I, for one am glad to see that the Constitution means something. It's time that all this talk of "school prayer" and "equal time" gets taken out of the picture. Do I get equal time on the pulpit at a xitian church to teach evolution? Then why are they invading the minds of children to teach them religious rubbish? Evolution is a confirmed, Objective fact. Religion, and creation "science" is pure fantasy.
Personally, I'd like to see someone shut down these religious hoaxsters for good. Take these fundies out of the school system and out of our government. Religion, the crutch that it is, has no place in public life, mine or anyone elses. -- Floyd
It doesn't need an OS. It will even run faster without one. Trust me. Solid state is MUCH faster than software, generally speaking.
And it's also less flexible and upgradeable, not to mention non-Open Source. But I'm sure that you (and everyone else) has their own opinions on the question of what should be software and what should be hardware.
My photocopier does not need to run windows. Even if it is networked, it still doesn't need... an OS
Surely you don't think that modern printers are implemented entirely in hardware, do you? Apple's first laser printer had a more powerful CPU than the computers that used it.
My phone of today is much more complex, technically speaking, than the one I used 10 or 15 years ago. It also has a lot more useful functions (caller id, phone book, etc). That sort of thing really requires a software rather than hardware approach. Modern devices need to be more powerful, flexible, and most of all, connectable. If that means a CPU and embedded Linux, so be it. -- Floyd
While I'm sure some Java programmers will be thrilled to see the inclusion of that language in the list, it's equally important to notice what they aren't using, namely Jini. The idea behind Jini is that any device on a network will be able to discover and talk to any other device, through the use of Java programs running on an embedded JVM. While an interesting concept, it has failed completely.
OTOH, I think that that method is clearly the way of the future. Plug 'n play has vastly simplified the installation of new hardware: systems like Red Hat's kudzu can autodetect and install stuff automatically. Imagine if your network could do the same. Wirelessly. Bring your laptop in a room, and you can instantly communicate with other computers and peripherals, such as printers or scanners. Apple has something very much like that, and I think that Open Source is seriously lagging behind.
Jini would be a good idea, but I think we can discard the JVM and replace it with an embedded Linux version. Remove the dependency on Java, and a whole new world opens up. Sun can only lock new technology into it's languages and platforms for so long. -- Floyd
Caldera targets their packages to major companies and VARs. OpenLinux has always been positioned as "Linux for business". The downside of this is that few induvidual hacker types use it, which in turn means that it's not always so well supported by the "community".
One thing you'll notice is that while most commercial Linux distributions are perfectly willing to inflate their version number to play "keeping up with Red Hat", OpenLinux is still at 2.x (2.4 for Caldera eDesktop).
So anyway, many places use Caldera. You just don't hear about them. Probably because their users like it too much to complain:)
If you read Slashdot or other news sources, you might have noticed that BSDI and Walnut Creek (a major supporter of FreeBSD) are merging. What this means is that BSDI and FreeBSD themselves are going to eventually merge as the BSD/OS (BSDI's product) is gradually Open-Sourced. While this "daemon mating" is another example of commercial/open source merging, I don't see it happening to any large degree.
(Having said this, there will probably be a "HP/UX - OpenBSD merger" story posted next:)
Sure, SCO is (err, was) a well-established company in the field of x86 Unix, but I think we all know that Linux came along and made them obsolete overnight. I suppose that Caldera is doing this mostly to get the contracts that SCO has with it's customers, so that they can reap the rewards of moving the major enterprises from Xenix to OpenLinux. While I'm all for that, I'm not so sure what should be done with OpenServer and UnixWare. Given that commercial Unix vendors are so woefully behind the Open Source community, is it even worthwhile releasing them? There might be one or two good things in there, but let's face it, if there was OSS would have copied it by new. I advocate sending the whole mess to/dev/null and forgetting it ever existed.
Once you've got your customers on Linux, they won't want to go back anyway:)
Name one other commercial web browser developed using Open Source Techniques. You can't? Sounds like "research" to me.
Silly me, I thought they were actually trying to get a piece of software out the door
Do you really want just another bloated, buggy POS web browser? The Mozilla team needs to do more than just another "piece of software". Mozilla is about completely rethinking the way software is designed. Or maybe you don't think there's any room for progress? Sorry, but reactionaries are always proven wrong.
(well, actually I quit thinking that a long time ago, as well...)
Yes, IE needs more users. Back to Uncle Bill's sheep farm for you.
What many people seem to be forgetting is that the Mozilla project is not just about creating the next web browser for AOL (or whoever happens to own Netscape in the future). It's about exploring new ideas in software, both in the development approach and in the software components themselves. Given the number of Open Source Office suites available, is it that outlandish to consider integerating one of them with Mozilla? Consider a suite with fully configurable cross-platform UI, the best Internet integration available, and all the infrastructure of the Mozilla project, and I daresay you have a winner.
Web browser state-of-the-art needs to move beyond <BLINK tags and "Shop" buttons. Mozilla provides this. I think we'll be seeing a lot more than Netscape 6 coming out of mozilla.org
this is not about the restriction of thought or speech.
It is *only* about free speech. "Free" means "absoulutely free". You can't put conditions on absolutes. If are for restrictions, of *any* kind, than you are *not* for Free Speech, end of story.
s about the restriction of certain pieces of speech, mutually agreed to by the creator and the pacakger
More likely, "agreed" to in a lopsided contract which leaves artists out to dry after the corporate machines bleed them dry. Such contracts might be legal, but are never moral. And like RMS, I prefer to follow my sense of ethics, rather than the laws, even if no one else is capable of doing so.
Not being able to play Star Wars on my Linux box is not on the same plane as Martin Luther King fighting for the right to drink from the same water fountain as a white person.
While I have great respect for Dr. King and the civil rights movement, I think that we are currently in the midst of something that is of equal, if not GREATER importance.
It's not about pirating DVDs. It's about free speach, free thought, and freedom from corporate repression. Whenever a Big Company with billions of dollars says "You can't do this", our freedom is being eroded. The MPAA thought police are telling you what to say, what to think, and how to act. Most people are simply *controlled* by the entertainment industry, although most freedom-loving Linux geeks probably don't fall into that category. In a world full of media-controlled conformists, it is the duty of the non-conformists, the geeks, to rebel.
While Dr. King may have given black people the right to drink out of a water fountain, we are giving people the right to *think* without the MPAA's gun to their head. Money can be as damaging as bullets, my friend, and Hollywood has no shortage of cash.
This is the new rights movement. The Free Though movement. And it is the Geeks' Movement.
Now that our rights our being trampled left and right, I can only hope that the few other Slashdot readers who have seen that this was coming will join me in doing something about it.
If DeCSS is illegal, how much longer will it be until any piece of software which big companies dislike will go the same way? Will M$-friendly congressmen ban Open Source? Will Linux become the domain of outlaws and freedom fighters?
And how much longer until *all* our rights are sacrified for corporate profitiabilty? Jon Katz is, as usual, right on the mark: you are no longer in control of your own life! The CEOs are deciding not only what you will see and what you will hear, but now what you will think!
While America and the rest of the world, sleeps, who will stand for freedom against the corporate republic? When the laws are corrupt, what meaning is there in following them? I encourage everyone to take a stand for democracy, for freedom, and take on the MPAA and RIAA.
People have no privacy? It's no wonder when you try to make it illegal for them to do so!
The government needs to back off and realize that crypto isn't something that can be regulated at the border like guns or drugs. They need to see that within the digital landscape, there is no need for international boundaries.
If strong encryption became available and was made mandatory in government and business, you can bet that most of this lost privacy would disappear. Me, I don't want the rest of the world to know what I did last weekend, so I encrypt all emails. If everyone did the same for *everything*, it would be a *lot* harder to dig up personal information to be used against you.
As a side note and slightly OT comment, I'd like to say that sexual harassmant laws are so blatently unconstitutional it's sickening that they were ever enacted. You can now be arrested if a woman so much as THINKS you said something bad to her. Thank god for feminazis.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry.
ESR says otherwise. No guns, no geek.
-- Floyd
to protect the wealthy (only police and justice).
So if I work hard for a living, I'm not entitled to protection?
I've lived in the poor parts of town, and let me tell you that it is *nothing* like what the Liberals would have you think. If those people weren't so lazy, they wouldn't be poor! A simple solution, wouldn'y you agree?
-- Floyd
This "use it or lose it" view of intellectual property seems to be a pervasive one -- and the only reason for this, I believe, is that it allows people to feel a little better about themselves when they download old intellectual property that they have no right to.
This "pay up or go to jail" view of intellectual property seems to be a pervasive one -- and the only reason for this is, I believe, is that allows people to feel a little better about themselves when they send people to jail for downloading old intellectual property that they no longer sell.
I wrote a book, thought it was horrible, and shelved it, that I wouldn't have any rights because I wasn't selling it?
What difference would it make to you, financially or otherwise (HINT: none). These spurious strawman arguments only prove the weakness of the corpratist point of view.
And put banner ads on the site where you're distributing it at that?
You mean like Slashdot distributing M$ "trade secrets"? If that bothers you, there are other sites, you know.
Isn't it time that people got a little bit realistic here, took a deep breath, and checked if their IP morality isn't just a convenient way of justifying illegal and wrong acts?
An excellent suggestion. I reccomend you try it.
-- Floyd
Intellectual property is
...a myth.
Just because a certain issue of a magazine is no longer on the shelves, does that give you the right to go out and copy it?
My actions are not bounded by artificial "rights" granted by others. I am, as a human, fully capable of exercising Reason in such issues. If you need something, why should anyone put up artificial barriers against it? It does nothing but hold back the progress of humanity, thus furthering the claims of those who benefit from the status quo.
For instance, what if you want Microsoft to open up Win 3.1?
Strawman. The Abandonware Movement is about free "beer" not free "speech".
How many out of print movies and books are there?
Too many. Movie companies usually destroy films when the copyright expires rather than allow them to enter the public domain. Is this "right"? Not even the most morally corrupt person could claim so much.
-- Floyd
I have a hard time taking a self-proclaimed "troll" seriously, but....
Just because something *can* be done, doesn't mean it's right
It doesn't mean it's "wrong" (by whose definition? The lawmakers who were paid off by Big Money?), either. Learn some logic before you try arguing.
It'll just encourage companies to crack down on even the semi-legit sites like The Underdogs
There is no such thing as "semi-legit". The Home of the Underdogs is "illegal". Does that make it wrong? I think not. If a game is no longer sold, how are you hurting the company by downloading it? If for example, you downloaded Ultima 7 (my previous example), you might like enough to buy Origin's current offerings: Ultima 9 or Ultima Online. Your argument sounds suspiciously like the RIAA whining about Napster users not buying CDs when the exact opposite is true.
Abandonware helps users and companies! It's not a zero-sum game.
-- Floyd
The whole point of copyright is to encourage people to create.
:)
Try telling that to Congress
If they've abandoned their work, there's no need for copyright -- they've already gotten all the benefit they're going to get from it.
Exaclty. There is no rational reason for holding onto the copyrights for old software which is no longer being sold. It's simple greed and corporatism, designed to hold back geeks from things they can use in a productive manner. Personally, since it is so irrational, I see no compelling reason to play along with the little corporate games. If you don't sell it, that's no reason why I can't have it.
-- Floyd
By now, it should be pretty well-known that any attempt to control digital media in the Internet age will be a complete failure (cf Napster, Gnutella, etc). Who worries about the legal status anyway? If you want to download a copy of Ultima 7, then you're going to do so no matter what the law says.
The only real difference between abandonware and mp3 audio is that abandonware is generally distributed on centralized web sites rather than de-centralized systems like Napster, which means that they can be shut down much more easily. I personally look forward to the day when all of it is available on FreeNet of Gnutella.
-- Floyd
FLTK (Fast Light ToolKit) is available at http://www.fltk.org/
-- Floyd
That is why we say theory of evolution. It's a theory.
Like the Theory of Gravity? A scientific "law" is just a "theory" that's been around a long time.
We also say "social science", but that doesn't make it science, no?
-- Floyd
I, for one am glad to see that the Constitution means something. It's time that all this talk of "school prayer" and "equal time" gets taken out of the picture. Do I get equal time on the pulpit at a xitian church to teach evolution? Then why are they invading the minds of children to teach them religious rubbish? Evolution is a confirmed, Objective fact. Religion, and creation "science" is pure fantasy.
Personally, I'd like to see someone shut down these religious hoaxsters for good. Take these fundies out of the school system and out of our government. Religion, the crutch that it is, has no place in public life, mine or anyone elses.
-- Floyd
You forgot to mention OpenBSD merging with RMTX/OS.
Ironic, isn't it? I actually use OpenBSD, too.
-- Floyd
It doesn't need an OS. It will even run faster without one. Trust me. Solid state is MUCH faster than software, generally speaking.
... an OS
And it's also less flexible and upgradeable, not to mention non-Open Source. But I'm sure that you (and everyone else) has their own opinions on the question of what should be software and what should be hardware.
My photocopier does not need to run windows. Even if it is networked, it still doesn't need
Surely you don't think that modern printers are implemented entirely in hardware, do you? Apple's first laser printer had a more powerful CPU than the computers that used it.
My phone of today is much more complex, technically speaking, than the one I used 10 or 15 years ago. It also has a lot more useful functions (caller id, phone book, etc). That sort of thing really requires a software rather than hardware approach. Modern devices need to be more powerful, flexible, and most of all, connectable. If that means a CPU and embedded Linux, so be it.
-- Floyd
While I'm sure some Java programmers will be thrilled to see the inclusion of that language in the list, it's equally important to notice what they aren't using, namely Jini. The idea behind Jini is that any device on a network will be able to discover and talk to any other device, through the use of Java programs running on an embedded JVM. While an interesting concept, it has failed completely.
OTOH, I think that that method is clearly the way of the future. Plug 'n play has vastly simplified the installation of new hardware: systems like Red Hat's kudzu can autodetect and install stuff automatically. Imagine if your network could do the same. Wirelessly. Bring your laptop in a room, and you can instantly communicate with other computers and peripherals, such as printers or scanners. Apple has something very much like that, and I think that Open Source is seriously lagging behind.
Jini would be a good idea, but I think we can discard the JVM and replace it with an embedded Linux version. Remove the dependency on Java, and a whole new world opens up. Sun can only lock new technology into it's languages and platforms for so long.
-- Floyd
Caldera targets their packages to major companies and VARs. OpenLinux has always been positioned as "Linux for business". The downside of this is that few induvidual hacker types use it, which in turn means that it's not always so well supported by the "community".
:)
One thing you'll notice is that while most commercial Linux distributions are perfectly willing to inflate their version number to play "keeping up with Red Hat", OpenLinux is still at 2.x (2.4 for Caldera eDesktop).
So anyway, many places use Caldera. You just don't hear about them. Probably because their users like it too much to complain
-- Floyd
If you read Slashdot or other news sources, you might have noticed that BSDI and Walnut Creek (a major supporter of FreeBSD) are merging. What this means is that BSDI and FreeBSD themselves are going to eventually merge as the BSD/OS (BSDI's product) is gradually Open-Sourced. While this "daemon mating" is another example of commercial/open source merging, I don't see it happening to any large degree.
:)
(Having said this, there will probably be a "HP/UX - OpenBSD merger" story posted next
-- Floyd
Sure, SCO is (err, was) a well-established company in the field of x86 Unix, but I think we all know that Linux came along and made them obsolete overnight. I suppose that Caldera is doing this mostly to get the contracts that SCO has with it's customers, so that they can reap the rewards of moving the major enterprises from Xenix to OpenLinux. While I'm all for that, I'm not so sure what should be done with OpenServer and UnixWare. Given that commercial Unix vendors are so woefully behind the Open Source community, is it even worthwhile releasing them? There might be one or two good things in there, but let's face it, if there was OSS would have copied it by new. I advocate sending the whole mess to
Once you've got your customers on Linux, they won't want to go back anyway
-- Floyd
Korqueror. Do I win a prize or something?
For what? Redefining "commercial"? Or did KDE start charging money?
KDE is a non-commercial Open Source Project. That's hardly innovative.
-- Floyd
Oh, so its a research project?
Name one other commercial web browser developed using Open Source Techniques. You can't? Sounds like "research" to me.
Silly me, I thought they were actually trying to get a piece of software out the door
Do you really want just another bloated, buggy POS web browser? The Mozilla team needs to do more than just another "piece of software". Mozilla is about completely rethinking the way software is designed. Or maybe you don't think there's any room for progress? Sorry, but reactionaries are always proven wrong.
(well, actually I quit thinking that a long time ago, as well...)
Yes, IE needs more users. Back to Uncle Bill's sheep farm for you.
-- Floyd
What many people seem to be forgetting is that the Mozilla project is not just about creating the next web browser for AOL (or whoever happens to own Netscape in the future). It's about exploring new ideas in software, both in the development approach and in the software components themselves. Given the number of Open Source Office suites available, is it that outlandish to consider integerating one of them with Mozilla? Consider a suite with fully configurable cross-platform UI, the best Internet integration available, and all the infrastructure of the Mozilla project, and I daresay you have a winner.
Web browser state-of-the-art needs to move beyond <BLINK tags and "Shop" buttons. Mozilla provides this. I think we'll be seeing a lot more than Netscape 6 coming out of mozilla.org
-- Floyd
this is not about the restriction of thought or speech.
It is *only* about free speech. "Free" means "absoulutely free". You can't put conditions on absolutes. If are for restrictions, of *any* kind, than you are *not* for Free Speech, end of story.
s about the restriction of certain pieces of speech, mutually agreed to by the creator and the pacakger
More likely, "agreed" to in a lopsided contract which leaves artists out to dry after the corporate machines bleed them dry. Such contracts might be legal, but are never moral. And like RMS, I prefer to follow my sense of ethics, rather than the laws, even if no one else is capable of doing so.
-- Floyd
Not being able to play Star Wars on my Linux box is not on the same plane as Martin Luther King fighting for the right to drink from the same water fountain as a white person.
While I have great respect for Dr. King and the civil rights movement, I think that we are currently in the midst of something that is of equal, if not GREATER importance.
It's not about pirating DVDs. It's about free speach, free thought, and freedom from corporate repression. Whenever a Big Company with billions of dollars says "You can't do this", our freedom is being eroded. The MPAA thought police are telling you what to say, what to think, and how to act. Most people are simply *controlled* by the entertainment industry, although most freedom-loving Linux geeks probably don't fall into that category. In a world full of media-controlled conformists, it is the duty of the non-conformists, the geeks, to rebel.
While Dr. King may have given black people the right to drink out of a water fountain, we are giving people the right to *think* without the MPAA's gun to their head. Money can be as damaging as bullets, my friend, and Hollywood has no shortage of cash.
This is the new rights movement. The Free Though movement. And it is the Geeks' Movement.
-- Floyd
Now that our rights our being trampled left and right, I can only hope that the few other Slashdot readers who have seen that this was coming will join me in doing something about it.
If DeCSS is illegal, how much longer will it be until any piece of software which big companies dislike will go the same way? Will M$-friendly congressmen ban Open Source? Will Linux become the domain of outlaws and freedom fighters?
And how much longer until *all* our rights are sacrified for corporate profitiabilty? Jon Katz is, as usual, right on the mark: you are no longer in control of your own life! The CEOs are deciding not only what you will see and what you will hear, but now what you will think!
While America and the rest of the world, sleeps, who will stand for freedom against the corporate republic? When the laws are corrupt, what meaning is there in following them? I encourage everyone to take a stand for democracy, for freedom, and take on the MPAA and RIAA.
-- Floyd
t the best of both worlds (FreeBSD and Windows)
And then they go on the mention a solitaire game.
There goes Microsoft's advantage.
-- Floyd
I still have faith in Jobs! :)
-- Floyd
People have no privacy? It's no wonder when you try to make it illegal for them to do so!
The government needs to back off and realize that crypto isn't something that can be regulated at the border like guns or drugs. They need to see that within the digital landscape, there is no need for international boundaries.
If strong encryption became available and was made mandatory in government and business, you can bet that most of this lost privacy would disappear. Me, I don't want the rest of the world to know what I did last weekend, so I encrypt all emails. If everyone did the same for *everything*, it would be a *lot* harder to dig up personal information to be used against you.
As a side note and slightly OT comment, I'd like to say that sexual harassmant laws are so blatently unconstitutional it's sickening that they were ever enacted. You can now be arrested if a woman so much as THINKS you said something bad to her. Thank god for feminazis.
-- Floyd