I am tempted to suggest thet an answer would be to release two versions - a closed driver with all the proprietary bells and whistles and an open version that gives the functionality the company feels they can release. However, this then leads to an even deeper segregation problem!
The one positive effect that such a strategy *may* have however, is that if the company has a positive experience with the open version of the driver, it may encourage them to open more code in the future.
Hmm, it's a thorny problem though - and one which we have all been banging our heads against since way back:-)
Seriously, if it comes down to that choice, I'd rather have better support in Linux.
Having been a Linux user for years (starting with an early Slackware distro), I have to say that ease of use is *still* a priority for me - even if I am prepared to dive into config files and the like, I prefer not to. Open Source is important to me as a developer and on a more idealistic level, but in the real world, I'd rather see companies supporting Linux and giving the same level of features (or better) in their software as the Windows users get.
At the end of the day, it isn't every company who is going to take the Open Source path. Those that don't should be gently encouraged, but quite realistically we have to just get on with life and using our computers - and I want to use mine with all the functionality I can get.
What a wonderful idea! I mean, just think about it - I registered wap-dev.net and wap-dev.org a little while back, for a non-profit mailing list I run. Now imagine that I register these and wait a month for people who have a script that can place a bid 1 cent higher in price than I have offered for the names, in the LAST minute of the auction. So I lose my domain names, to someone who KNOWS that I want these two names. They now contact me and offer them for sale at 200% the price.
Now what do I do? Give the domain jumpers the money or register some new names that will also get jumped a month later?
... and then they could emulate MAME on it... and then perhaps emulate PhotoShop... and slap in a hard-drive... and a monitor and...
... oops! Suddenly they've created a PC!
Surely the point is that MS are creating a games console, because of the particular economics of game consoles - lock people into a platform and then make money off selling the games to go with the system. Why would they want to open up the system so that other companies could make money from the games?
How will this cater for the extra features that are propsed for WAP such as location detection, or hyperlinks that call telephone numbers?
In theory trimming down HTML works really well for presenting textual information on a small screen, but it doesn't really allow you to cater for extra services that make mobile devices really useful.
Now a handset that can handle BOTH wap and slimmed-down HTML... now you're talking!
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Well suited to the job at hand
on
WAP Under Fire
·
· Score: 5
The most common criticisms I tend to hear about wap are of the "Who wants to use the Interent with 4 lines of text" variety. Very few people know what they are actually criticising when it comes to the questions of * What is WAP intended to do * How does it differ from HTML and * How will it improve in the future.
In my view, WAP is pretty well designed, but it's still early days yet. At it's simplest level, WAP is designed to be a method of presenting content to mobile devices, using the Internet as a carrier medium (my viewpoint). It differs from HTML in that it is a highly slimmed-down markup language, based on XML and including support for various phone functions, such as clicking a link to dial a phone number.
The more interesting part is perhaps where it will go in the future. Many people point out that it won't take too much extra computing power before your PDA can present HTML as well as a desktop browser. This is all well and good, but it doesn't take into account the extra funtions that are planned for WAP such as location based services, phone functionality etc. These are things that have no place in HTML, so a separate language of some sort is probably the best way to go.
Personally, I'm investing quite a lot of personal time in WAP with my wap search engine at http://wapwarp.com and a wap developers mailing list http://www.wap-dev.net (hop onboard if you are interested in discussing WAP development with other developers). I am not scared though to imagine that it will be replaced in the future with another standard.
However it's gonna take a bit for me to hop off the WAP bandwagon. I need to see handsets that support any replacing standard and I need to see a widespread buzz that will attract developers and investors.
Whatever the case, WAP is certainly helping bridge the gap between the stationary net and the mobile applications of the future - and that is what's so damn exciting about WAP.
As far as I'm concerned, Slashdot is the property of the Slashdot editors. The trolling that has been happening is nothing more than graffiti on an otherwise great web resource. If someone came an sprayed tags on the door to your house and you caught them at it, would you let them just walk away or would you report them to the police (or perhaps take matters into your own hands mr AC?).
As a long time Slashdot reader I am sick and tired of the trolls. Sue the lot of 'em I say.
Kewl! I've got a 2600 and a copy of combat at home (picked it up at a car boot sale in London a coupla years back for 30 quid!). I'll give that one a try!
I do like the ironic sense of humour that the "victim" file has. The fact that one can use the features of Gnutella to go and see how many people have been infected by the worm is pretty original. However, as worms go, this doesn't seem to have been particularly effective at replicating itself.
Self publishing was traditionally regarded as a *bad thing*. Before the advent of the net, there were only really a couple of ways to publish your own works - you went to a vanity publisher (who charged you loads of money for the privilege of having your book on their list) or you printed it up yourself and hawked it mail order.
This was generally frowned upon by people who did "real" publishing, though it's worth noting that the 'zine scene that sparked off with the advent of cheap copying techniques in the 60's has been a flourishing part of the counterculture ever since and some people still make their crust in this way.
The rise of email and the web threw up a whole range of new techniques for publishing work. It's what first attracted me to the web and the huge amount of zines and online material available show how popular a technique this is for distributing information.
I guess the answer to the original question is - can you get published by a "real" publisher. i.e. one who will give you money for your work and spend money on advertising, publicity, quality printing etc? If so, you'll definitely want to see what they think of your plans to publish online as well. You may find they are dead against it (in which case, if you are completely for it, you'll probably end up in an argument), otherwise, you'll need to examine their contract.
If you publish the material on the net before you get a dead-trees contract, then you run the risk of devaluing your work in the eyes of a publisher. Of course, whether you have actually devalued the work, or added value to it by releasing on the net is extremely debateable, but it's pretty much a sure bet that a publisher will see it as a negative thing (after all, potential customers will have already seen the work without paying).
Of course, if you have no publisher, then there's a good chance that web publishing may be your only chance to get your work released - in which case you'll find quite a few different options for publishing electronic books online in a form where you will be paid per download - but that's another story...
I really can't believe I'm reading this. 70-odd posts about WAP and hardly one of them is positive! I bet that not one of you remembers when HTML was something new. If you did, then perhaps you would recognise the importance of WML and WAP.
* Of course it's basic at the moment - it's a new standard. It's got a way to go before it develops, but it's already being used to produce useable and useful sites.
* OK, so its not Open Source - and Geoworks is kicking up a stink over an alleged patent they have on WAP, but nobody seriously believes Geoworks' claims and it is completely free to develop WAP - just the same as HTML.
* Phones have small screens and so WAP is text based. Yup. So what? There's a lot of info that can be made available through text - or don't you guys use telnet?
* WAP is insecure|slow|boring|expensive / there are too few sites / can't handle video/audio etc. Give it time. When I started using the net all the above was true as well. People invent and create around such obstacles.
* WML isn't as rich as HTML. Right tools for right interface. Do you need <font size="7"> on your phone? WML is a new markup language that resembles HTML, but is built using XML and includes the features that are necessary for the current development of phones.
* WML won't last. Quite possibly right. I kinda see WAP as a bridging technology to other better methods of accessing the huge amount of info that's on the net - however it's an extremely important bridging technology because for the first time, mobile Internet access is a reality - for the masses. It'll take a while to fill out and mature, but the cat is out of the bag and you ain't gonna be able to stuff it back in again.
Finally, I suspect that many of the posters here are Americans. Nope, I'm not going to get into some kinda racial slur here, but the US has a terrible relationship to mobile phone technology. Maybe if you lived in a country where mobile phone use was as cheap, simple and ubiquitous as those of us in Europe or Japan (and other areas), then you would understand how truly revolutionary it is being able to get access to a portion of the huge, huge wealth of information that is available on the Internet.
Beyond that, mobile phones are quite simply easier to understand and use for many people than computers. Even my Mum understands what WAP is about and uses an SMS banking service on her mobile phone. She's been on the web maybe 4 times! Does she really need a computer in her life? I think not - but if she had access to say, a theatre ticket booking system, her bank account balance and a simple message service she would actually make use of such tools.
Well, that's my rant over - if you've read this far I hope that you'll maybe reconsider your view of WAP - if not, that's your perogative and I'll look forward to hearing your views in 2 years when you are whining that you missed the boat.
Feel free to check out some of the WAP services already available here; http://wapwarp.com
Duh! It's Ask Slashdot. That makes it a question - not a story. It sounds as though you have a good answer as well - perhaps you should just have given the answer instead of whining - would have contributed more to the conversation dont'cha think?
That's the simplest answer I can give - be creative!
I can assure you that success didn't come to Slashdot overnight, or easily. There is no one way to do it. Think of all the bands out there who get a record deal, have a record company spend money on them, but never really get mcuh fame or fortune. Quite simply, you must have a product which when found, will cause people to return or to tell their friends about it.
Given that you probably believe in your own site, what else can you do apart from Search engine advertising?
Always have a link in your.sig for emails, newsgroups, email etc.
Find appropriate newsgroups and mention your site (the key here is *appropriate* - don't spam)
Have a "Mail this to a friend" button on your site.
A newsletter will ensure that people come back to your site - all my favourite sites have nwesletters which drag me back when there is new content of interest.
Think viral marketing! What can you make your site do that helps spread the message. For instance, Geocities had a message saying "Get free email at Geocities.com" at the bottom of every mail their users sent out. (More info here - http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/vi ral-principles.htm)
That's some starting pointers. The important thing is to be realistic. Is your site *really* something that people will want to return to? Otherwise you should be content with fairly low numbers of visitors.
Another part of this problem in the UK is due to the laws surrounding who is and who isn't considered a publisher. As far as I understand it, in a libel suit, it's both the writer and the publisher who can be sued.
Now why (you might ask) has an ISP been sued in that case? Well, the answer is that in the UK a precedent was set a long time ago that in libel cases concerning traditional paper published material the publisher is considered to be the writer, the publisher, the distributor and the retail outlet that sells the material!
Yup - any of those people can be sued for libel in a book or magazine.
So of course, it was a natural progression that an ISP would be considered a publisher in this case, as opposed to being a common carrier like the postal service. I remember about 5 years ago a similar debate regarding whether ISP's would have to check all the content found on bulletin boards on their sites. There was a lot of pressure for ISP's to never check anything on their sites so that they could be considered common carriers. However it seems that these days, ISP's have lost the fight and can now be held responsible for information found on their servers. Which level this could be taken to is kinda chilling - does information passing through a server (email for instance) also count as published material?
Unfortunately, the UK has a bunch of very restrictive laws surrounding freedom of speech. Civil liberties have been gradually eroded over the last 20 years, so that nowadays there is no real "right to silence", you can be easily prosecuted for importation of "obscene" material and now you cannot air free speech on a web server.
I for one am glad I moved to Sweden - which has it's own problems, but seems more open than the post Thatcher UK.
I was wondering for some time whether Slashdot should try an approach like this against the trollers - but I found myself coming to the conclusion that it would not be effective and would only hurt Slashdot itself.
Think about it - it would only let the trollers know that they had won!
I guess the intended effect of such a strike is to raise consciousness amongst those affected of the effects of their actions. Ask yourself - how many script kiddies / trollers are really gonna care about the effect of their actions?
I'm left wondering - where would the trollers go if Slashdot closed it's doors??
There has long been a debate in the UK surrounding whether ISP's should be given common carrier status (such as the Royal Mail have) whereby they are not held responsible for information transmitted over their networks.
It seems at first glance that they certainly should. But at what point does that end? We can all agree that to employ people to read and make a value judgment on every piece of information sent over a network would be ridiculous. Similarly, checking a bulletin board the size of (say) Slashdot would also be a mammoth undertaking.
What about the situation of when requested to remove personal attacks against a person though, from a news server or bulletin board hosted on that particular ISP's servers?
Where to draw the line becomes a sticky problem.
The situation in the UK is further complicated by the fact that according to existing laws suurrounding censorship and libel, the "publisher" of traditional paper material can be any of; the publisher, the writer, distributors and/or stockists! This leads to a horrible situation, where a shop is responsible for the content of books that it stocks - which has lead to several raids in the UK against comic shops stocking "adult" comics.
I get the impression that this latest news does still not set a precedent saying that UK ISP's should be responsible for all the content on their servers, but rather that if asked to remove material that could prove libellous in court, they should probably try and comply. Not the best ruling, I'll agree, but not a total disaster either.
I think that live protests such as this can only have a positive effect. Look for instance at the discussions currently on the previous news article of the WAVE program. There is huge sentiment that such a program should not be misused, but how are we going to make that known? Spam and hate mail to the organisers?
A live demonstrations shows a real commitment to an issue - even if it involves only a few people. It's also likely to be taken more seriously than a bunch of "Fsck you" and "Hot grits" emails which will probably only be skimmed and binned by a secretary anyway.
Huh - how do HP think they can market an entire server just for producing little sticky tags? I mean, who even buys those small electronic Dymo machines? I mean the old fashioned mechanical ones were perfectly good and everyone loves that "oops, I didn't click hard enough on the last letter, so I'll over-compensate on this letter" look.
I will lay over and DIE the day a linux user says "yes! we have it today!" rather than "Real Soon Now".
OK - I know this is flamebait, but I had to respond. It seems that this person has missed the point of a site such as/. somewhat. Slashdot is pushing development by raising functionality that we don't currently have. If someone then thinks that X functionality is sufficiently worth investing some time in and/or an interesting hack, we end up getting the functionality.
It would be easy to sit down and identify a whole bunch of apps that any O/S is lacking - precisely because nobody has written thenm yet.
True, Linux is somewhere behind Windows in certain areas of applications. However there are other areas where the application coverage kicks Windows' butt as a platform. Networking apps for instance!
Sorry to reply the the flame, but I felt it was an attitude worth exploring.
Having been involved a lot with anti-copyright publications and ideas some years back (and having now been sucked into the corporate world!), this is something close to my heart and something I have been watching of late with great interest.
Katz provides a useful recap of what's afoot at present in the online copyright battle, but leaves it up to us to decide where our alliegances stand.
The question of "fan rights" sounds dubious to me. Where does one draw the line between fandom and making a quick buck? I can think of any number of fan sites that look professional enough to earn money and of official sites that look like cheap knock-offs! I desperately want to see studios/corporations give fans the right to use material for non-commercial purposes, but where are they gonna draw the line? When someone has affiliate programs on their site to finance it? When they provide character email postcards? When they start selling merchandise?
At the same time, the studios should be prepared to "turn a blind eye" to the majority of sites. It's a little like marijuana use in certain parts of Europe - nowhere is it actually "legal" - but in some places it is "decriminalised" though the police being instructed to not arrest / prosecute users or certain sellers.
At the same time, it is clear that the copyright laws we have are becoming exceedingly outmoded. I find it hard to sympathise with a music industry who one the one hand complain of the effects of piracy and on the other report staggering annual profits and increased sales! It seems clear that simple copying techniques are set to spread thanks to digital techniques (and more power to them) - at the same time as overall music sales grow thanks to people getting better and better exposure to the music they like.
The music industry (film, software etc) is simply going to have to learn how to subvert these techniques to it's own use - and believe me they will! At the same time, we are going to have to put up with ever increasing amounts of noise about the dangers/evils/threat/spread of piracy, because they cannot be seen to just sit back and accept what is happening. It is in a record company's interest to be seen to advance technology on the one hand (release an MP3 version of a record for instance) and obstruct technology on the other (complain about piracy affecting sales). These two actions provide "shareholder value" at two levels - satisfying both consumer and investor needs.
So I should probably think about a summary to this rant! I guess I'm saying that we should pretty much carry on as we have done - use the technology, copy stuff for personal use, but don't expect to publicly use other people's work and make money from it without attracting some serious big-lawyer attention!
Slashdot Mirror
so this guy didn't even have a backup of his site squirreled away somewhere?
:-)
Typical bloody Mac user
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Certainly a strong point.
:-)
I am tempted to suggest thet an answer would be to release two versions - a closed driver with all the proprietary bells and whistles and an open version that gives the functionality the company feels they can release. However, this then leads to an even deeper segregation problem!
The one positive effect that such a strategy *may* have however, is that if the company has a positive experience with the open version of the driver, it may encourage them to open more code in the future.
Hmm, it's a thorny problem though - and one which we have all been banging our heads against since way back
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
You can get terraterm itself here:
:-)
:-)
http://www.uncwil.edu/downl oad/tc/pc/ttpro/ttermp23.exe
the TTSSH plug-in for SSH usage is here:
http://www.zip.com.au/~roca/ttssh.html
TTSH has been developed in Australia, so it's open for download at maximum strength to anyone - not just Americans
I'v been using the combo for about a year and wouldn't switch for anything (except perhaps money
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Seriously, if it comes down to that choice, I'd rather have better support in Linux.
Having been a Linux user for years (starting with an early Slackware distro), I have to say that ease of use is *still* a priority for me - even if I am prepared to dive into config files and the like, I prefer not to. Open Source is important to me as a developer and on a more idealistic level, but in the real world, I'd rather see companies supporting Linux and giving the same level of features (or better) in their software as the Windows users get.
At the end of the day, it isn't every company who is going to take the Open Source path. Those that don't should be gently encouraged, but quite realistically we have to just get on with life and using our computers - and I want to use mine with all the functionality I can get.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Point taken Tackat!
I have to say, this is the biggest laugh Slashdot has given me in years!
(sad eh?)
:-)
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
What a wonderful idea! I mean, just think about it - I registered wap-dev.net and wap-dev.org a little while back, for a non-profit mailing list I run. Now imagine that I register these and wait a month for people who have a script that can place a bid 1 cent higher in price than I have offered for the names, in the LAST minute of the auction. So I lose my domain names, to someone who KNOWS that I want these two names. They now contact me and offer them for sale at 200% the price.
Now what do I do? Give the domain jumpers the money or register some new names that will also get jumped a month later?
Still sounds like a good idea?
... I thought not!
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
"Konqi + KDE-Developer"
... isn't that KDE developer actually a slightly shrunken Frasier from TV?
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
... and then they could emulate MAME on it... and then perhaps emulate PhotoShop... and slap in a hard-drive... and a monitor and...
... oops! Suddenly they've created a PC!
Surely the point is that MS are creating a games console, because of the particular economics of game consoles - lock people into a platform and then make money off selling the games to go with the system. Why would they want to open up the system so that other companies could make money from the games?
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Try these links:
http://www.eio.com/lcdintro.htm
http://www.eio.com/sage.htm
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
How will this cater for the extra features that are propsed for WAP such as location detection, or hyperlinks that call telephone numbers?
In theory trimming down HTML works really well for presenting textual information on a small screen, but it doesn't really allow you to cater for extra services that make mobile devices really useful.
Now a handset that can handle BOTH wap and slimmed-down HTML... now you're talking!
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
The most common criticisms I tend to hear about wap are of the "Who wants to use the Interent with 4 lines of text" variety. Very few people know what they are actually criticising when it comes to the questions of
* What is WAP intended to do
* How does it differ from HTML and
* How will it improve in the future.
In my view, WAP is pretty well designed, but it's still early days yet. At it's simplest level, WAP is designed to be a method of presenting content to mobile devices, using the Internet as a carrier medium (my viewpoint). It differs from HTML in that it is a highly slimmed-down markup language, based on XML and including support for various phone functions, such as clicking a link to dial a phone number.
The more interesting part is perhaps where it will go in the future. Many people point out that it won't take too much extra computing power before your PDA can present HTML as well as a desktop browser. This is all well and good, but it doesn't take into account the extra funtions that are planned for WAP such as location based services, phone functionality etc. These are things that have no place in HTML, so a separate language of some sort is probably the best way to go.
Personally, I'm investing quite a lot of personal time in WAP with my wap search engine at http://wapwarp.com and a wap developers mailing list http://www.wap-dev.net (hop onboard if you are interested in discussing WAP development with other developers). I am not scared though to imagine that it will be replaced in the future with another standard.
However it's gonna take a bit for me to hop off the WAP bandwagon. I need to see handsets that support any replacing standard and I need to see a widespread buzz that will attract developers and investors.
Whatever the case, WAP is certainly helping bridge the gap between the stationary net and the mobile applications of the future - and that is what's so damn exciting about WAP.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Fuck him!
As far as I'm concerned, Slashdot is the property of the Slashdot editors. The trolling that has been happening is nothing more than graffiti on an otherwise great web resource. If someone came an sprayed tags on the door to your house and you caught them at it, would you let them just walk away or would you report them to the police (or perhaps take matters into your own hands mr AC?).
As a long time Slashdot reader I am sick and tired of the trolls. Sue the lot of 'em I say.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Kewl! I've got a 2600 and a copy of combat at home (picked it up at a car boot sale in London a coupla years back for 30 quid!). I'll give that one a try!
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
I do like the ironic sense of humour that the "victim" file has. The fact that one can use the features of Gnutella to go and see how many people have been infected by the worm is pretty original. However, as worms go, this doesn't seem to have been particularly effective at replicating itself.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Self publishing was traditionally regarded as a *bad thing*. Before the advent of the net, there were only really a couple of ways to publish your own works - you went to a vanity publisher (who charged you loads of money for the privilege of having your book on their list) or you printed it up yourself and hawked it mail order.
This was generally frowned upon by people who did "real" publishing, though it's worth noting that the 'zine scene that sparked off with the advent of cheap copying techniques in the 60's has been a flourishing part of the counterculture ever since and some people still make their crust in this way.
The rise of email and the web threw up a whole range of new techniques for publishing work. It's what first attracted me to the web and the huge amount of zines and online material available show how popular a technique this is for distributing information.
I guess the answer to the original question is - can you get published by a "real" publisher. i.e. one who will give you money for your work and spend money on advertising, publicity, quality printing etc? If so, you'll definitely want to see what they think of your plans to publish online as well. You may find they are dead against it (in which case, if you are completely for it, you'll probably end up in an argument), otherwise, you'll need to examine their contract.
If you publish the material on the net before you get a dead-trees contract, then you run the risk of devaluing your work in the eyes of a publisher. Of course, whether you have actually devalued the work, or added value to it by releasing on the net is extremely debateable, but it's pretty much a sure bet that a publisher will see it as a negative thing (after all, potential customers will have already seen the work without paying).
Of course, if you have no publisher, then there's a good chance that web publishing may be your only chance to get your work released - in which case you'll find quite a few different options for publishing electronic books online in a form where you will be paid per download - but that's another story...
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
I really can't believe I'm reading this. 70-odd posts about WAP and hardly one of them is positive! I bet that not one of you remembers when HTML was something new. If you did, then perhaps you would recognise the importance of WML and WAP.
* Of course it's basic at the moment - it's a new standard. It's got a way to go before it develops, but it's already being used to produce useable and useful sites.
* OK, so its not Open Source - and Geoworks is kicking up a stink over an alleged patent they have on WAP, but nobody seriously believes Geoworks' claims and it is completely free to develop WAP - just the same as HTML.
* Phones have small screens and so WAP is text based. Yup. So what? There's a lot of info that can be made available through text - or don't you guys use telnet?
* WAP is insecure|slow|boring|expensive / there are too few sites / can't handle video/audio etc. Give it time. When I started using the net all the above was true as well. People invent and create around such obstacles.
* WML isn't as rich as HTML. Right tools for right interface. Do you need <font size="7"> on your phone? WML is a new markup language that resembles HTML, but is built using XML and includes the features that are necessary for the current development of phones.
* WML won't last. Quite possibly right. I kinda see WAP as a bridging technology to other better methods of accessing the huge amount of info that's on the net - however it's an extremely important bridging technology because for the first time, mobile Internet access is a reality - for the masses. It'll take a while to fill out and mature, but the cat is out of the bag and you ain't gonna be able to stuff it back in again.
Finally, I suspect that many of the posters here are Americans. Nope, I'm not going to get into some kinda racial slur here, but the US has a terrible relationship to mobile phone technology. Maybe if you lived in a country where mobile phone use was as cheap, simple and ubiquitous as those of us in Europe or Japan (and other areas), then you would understand how truly revolutionary it is being able to get access to a portion of the huge, huge wealth of information that is available on the Internet.
Beyond that, mobile phones are quite simply easier to understand and use for many people than computers. Even my Mum understands what WAP is about and uses an SMS banking service on her mobile phone. She's been on the web maybe 4 times! Does she really need a computer in her life? I think not - but if she had access to say, a theatre ticket booking system, her bank account balance and a simple message service she would actually make use of such tools.
Well, that's my rant over - if you've read this far I hope that you'll maybe reconsider your view of WAP - if not, that's your perogative and I'll look forward to hearing your views in 2 years when you are whining that you missed the boat.
Feel free to check out some of the WAP services already available here;
http://wapwarp.com
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Duh! It's Ask Slashdot. That makes it a question - not a story. It sounds as though you have a good answer as well - perhaps you should just have given the answer instead of whining - would have contributed more to the conversation dont'cha think?
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
That's the simplest answer I can give - be creative!
.sig for emails, newsgroups, email etc.
I can assure you that success didn't come to Slashdot overnight, or easily. There is no one way to do it. Think of all the bands out there who get a record deal, have a record company spend money on them, but never really get mcuh fame or fortune. Quite simply, you must have a product which when found, will cause people to return or to tell their friends about it.
Given that you probably believe in your own site, what else can you do apart from Search engine advertising?
Always have a link in your
Find appropriate newsgroups and mention your site (the key here is *appropriate* - don't spam)
Have a "Mail this to a friend" button on your site.
A newsletter will ensure that people come back to your site - all my favourite sites have nwesletters which drag me back when there is new content of interest.
Think viral marketing! What can you make your site do that helps spread the message. For instance, Geocities had a message saying "Get free email at Geocities.com" at the bottom of every mail their users sent out. (More info here - http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/vi ral-principles.htm)
That's some starting pointers. The important thing is to be realistic. Is your site *really* something that people will want to return to? Otherwise you should be content with fairly low numbers of visitors.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Another part of this problem in the UK is due to the laws surrounding who is and who isn't considered a publisher. As far as I understand it, in a libel suit, it's both the writer and the publisher who can be sued.
Now why (you might ask) has an ISP been sued in that case? Well, the answer is that in the UK a precedent was set a long time ago that in libel cases concerning traditional paper published material the publisher is considered to be the writer, the publisher, the distributor and the retail outlet that sells the material!
Yup - any of those people can be sued for libel in a book or magazine.
So of course, it was a natural progression that an ISP would be considered a publisher in this case, as opposed to being a common carrier like the postal service. I remember about 5 years ago a similar debate regarding whether ISP's would have to check all the content found on bulletin boards on their sites. There was a lot of pressure for ISP's to never check anything on their sites so that they could be considered common carriers. However it seems that these days, ISP's have lost the fight and can now be held responsible for information found on their servers. Which level this could be taken to is kinda chilling - does information passing through a server (email for instance) also count as published material?
Unfortunately, the UK has a bunch of very restrictive laws surrounding freedom of speech. Civil liberties have been gradually eroded over the last 20 years, so that nowadays there is no real "right to silence", you can be easily prosecuted for importation of "obscene" material and now you cannot air free speech on a web server.
I for one am glad I moved to Sweden - which has it's own problems, but seems more open than the post Thatcher UK.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
I was wondering for some time whether Slashdot should try an approach like this against the trollers - but I found myself coming to the conclusion that it would not be effective and would only hurt Slashdot itself.
Think about it - it would only let the trollers know that they had won!
I guess the intended effect of such a strike is to raise consciousness amongst those affected of the effects of their actions. Ask yourself - how many script kiddies / trollers are really gonna care about the effect of their actions?
I'm left wondering - where would the trollers go if Slashdot closed it's doors??
Hmmmm...
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
There has long been a debate in the UK surrounding whether ISP's should be given common carrier status (such as the Royal Mail have) whereby they are not held responsible for information transmitted over their networks.
It seems at first glance that they certainly should. But at what point does that end? We can all agree that to employ people to read and make a value judgment on every piece of information sent over a network would be ridiculous. Similarly, checking a bulletin board the size of (say) Slashdot would also be a mammoth undertaking.
What about the situation of when requested to remove personal attacks against a person though, from a news server or bulletin board hosted on that particular ISP's servers?
Where to draw the line becomes a sticky problem.
The situation in the UK is further complicated by the fact that according to existing laws suurrounding censorship and libel, the "publisher" of traditional paper material can be any of; the publisher, the writer, distributors and/or stockists! This leads to a horrible situation, where a shop is responsible for the content of books that it stocks - which has lead to several raids in the UK against comic shops stocking "adult" comics.
I get the impression that this latest news does still not set a precedent saying that UK ISP's should be responsible for all the content on their servers, but rather that if asked to remove material that could prove libellous in court, they should probably try and comply. Not the best ruling, I'll agree, but not a total disaster either.
I think that live protests such as this can only have a positive effect. Look for instance at the discussions currently on the previous news article of the WAVE program. There is huge sentiment that such a program should not be misused, but how are we going to make that known? Spam and hate mail to the organisers?
A live demonstrations shows a real commitment to an issue - even if it involves only a few people. It's also likely to be taken more seriously than a bunch of "Fsck you" and "Hot grits" emails which will probably only be skimmed and binned by a secretary anyway.
Huh - how do HP think they can market an entire server just for producing little sticky tags? I mean, who even buys those small electronic Dymo machines? I mean the old fashioned mechanical ones were perfectly good and everyone loves that "oops, I didn't click hard enough on the last letter, so I'll over-compensate on this letter" look.
...Oh, you said *Dynamo*! Sorry!
...I'll go away now....
I will lay over and DIE the day a linux user says "yes! we have it today!" rather than "Real Soon Now".
/. somewhat. Slashdot is pushing development by raising functionality that we don't currently have. If someone then thinks that X functionality is sufficiently worth investing some time in and/or an interesting hack, we end up getting the functionality.
OK - I know this is flamebait, but I had to respond. It seems that this person has missed the point of a site such as
It would be easy to sit down and identify a whole bunch of apps that any O/S is lacking - precisely because nobody has written thenm yet.
True, Linux is somewhere behind Windows in certain areas of applications. However there are other areas where the application coverage kicks Windows' butt as a platform. Networking apps for instance!
Sorry to reply the the flame, but I felt it was an attitude worth exploring.
Having been involved a lot with anti-copyright publications and ideas some years back (and having now been sucked into the corporate world!), this is something close to my heart and something I have been watching of late with great interest.
Katz provides a useful recap of what's afoot at present in the online copyright battle, but leaves it up to us to decide where our alliegances stand.
The question of "fan rights" sounds dubious to me. Where does one draw the line between fandom and making a quick buck? I can think of any number of fan sites that look professional enough to earn money and of official sites that look like cheap knock-offs! I desperately want to see studios/corporations give fans the right to use material for non-commercial purposes, but where are they gonna draw the line? When someone has affiliate programs on their site to finance it? When they provide character email postcards? When they start selling merchandise?
At the same time, the studios should be prepared to "turn a blind eye" to the majority of sites. It's a little like marijuana use in certain parts of Europe - nowhere is it actually "legal" - but in some places it is "decriminalised" though the police being instructed to not arrest / prosecute users or certain sellers.
At the same time, it is clear that the copyright laws we have are becoming exceedingly outmoded. I find it hard to sympathise with a music industry who one the one hand complain of the effects of piracy and on the other report staggering annual profits and increased sales! It seems clear that simple copying techniques are set to spread thanks to digital techniques (and more power to them) - at the same time as overall music sales grow thanks to people getting better and better exposure to the music they like.
The music industry (film, software etc) is simply going to have to learn how to subvert these techniques to it's own use - and believe me they will! At the same time, we are going to have to put up with ever increasing amounts of noise about the dangers/evils/threat/spread of piracy, because they cannot be seen to just sit back and accept what is happening. It is in a record company's interest to be seen to advance technology on the one hand (release an MP3 version of a record for instance) and obstruct technology on the other (complain about piracy affecting sales). These two actions provide "shareholder value" at two levels - satisfying both consumer and investor needs.
So I should probably think about a summary to this rant! I guess I'm saying that we should pretty much carry on as we have done - use the technology, copy stuff for personal use, but don't expect to publicly use other people's work and make money from it without attracting some serious big-lawyer attention!