Public domain means that we (the public) own it. If you looked at the site, you'd see that people have re-entered the music into the Lilypad program, so the copyright on the printed sheets (not the music itself) no longer applies. If your assumptions were right, then Project Gutenberg itself could be legally shut down for opposing the interests of book publishers. Good luck on that... it won't happen.
-Gareth
What you're describing is Joe selling a commercial program, pure and simple, for a while and then changing the license to an open one. Sure, that would be "accepted"! Isn't that what Netscape did with Mozilla and Sun with Star Office?
-Gareth
Would you
say though, that to someone looking down the wrong end of one, there's much
difference between a dictatorship (absolute authority for one person) and an
oligarchy (absolute authority for a small group)?
I would say that there is a pretty big difference in the case of Starship Troopers. The "oligarchy" is not closed. Anyone with an interest in voting can join the oligarchy by paying a period of public service, whether military or not. NO ONE, Heinlein stresses, can be denied their chance at a vote by denying them a valid public service to do.
A funny aspect of the book, which no-one mentions, is the smug, superior attitude of people like the narrator's parents, who have a comfortable life and think that doing service and becoming citizens is a scam. And the mandatory history and ethics course in high school also seems to dissuade the mass of people from becoming citizens. Why? If people don't care about their franchise, why should they have it? For example, the 50% of people in the US and 30-40% percent of those in Canada who can't be bothered to vote.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that Heinlein was thinking of H.G. Wells' book "A Modern Utopia" when he wrote Starship Troopers. In it, Wells goes back to Plato's problem of choosing the leaders of a State. Plato thought that proper breeding and education would allow the "best" to be chosen. Wells knew better: he said, allow the class of leaders to be self-selected, and make the extra taxes, duties, and inconveniences so high that only the ones who really want to do a stint of public service will do so. (Wells also made citizenship a temporary state, as well as a voluntary one). It strikes me that that's exactly what happens in Starship Troopers.
Should it be like this? That's up to you to decide. It is not, however, similar to any historical oligarchy that I've heard of. Not with a guarantee of the right to move into the oligarchy for every "civilian."
Heinlein has done books in which isolationists are main characters. For example, Lazarus Long, Farnham, Jubal Harshaw.
However, Heinlein's done the opposite, too. Between Planets has a Jubal-like character who is killed by the secret police because he can't bear to leave the pleasures and sins of the big city. The hero of that book starts by trying to mind his own business and ends up as a full participant in a pretty social activity: revolution. (Come to think of it, that is the plot of Moon is a Harsh Mistress, too). And Starship Troopers is a third one on the topic of abandoning selfish pursuits to serve something greater.
Anyone who does not see the parallel between the GPL and communism is ignorant.
I've seen programs whose release notice said that they can be used freely, except by certain named individuals. Others, that they can be hosted freely, except by certain servers. The GPL, similarly, says that certain programs can be used freely, but only by those willing to GPL their work in turn. You can put any arbitrary terms into your license, so why is that communism? I think that Marx would see the GPL as utopian socialism (like Richard Owens' ideal communities), peacefully coexisting with the capitalist system, and would be against it.
For that reason, calling GPL a "Communist" idea makes less sense than calling it either "Anarchist" or "Christian," since the latter two promote extreme sharing within a community of common beliefs. People just forget how radical Christianity is in this respect, but reading "Acts" will cure that.
I think the gentleman from IBM who said that his company could help Linux immediately but didn't want to make the community look bad had something specific in mind. Until the decision to make AIX Linux-compatible, IBM probably considered forking the kernal to support mainframe features. That would make the community look bad: "Linux is a nice little system, but we can't make it do _real_ work." Now they can say, "Linux is a great system, we're adopting Linux compatibility as a standard even on our top-of-the-line hardware."
Coverti says: "By Design, the Internet is inherently flawed. How can a Law created and enforced in one country, be enforced in another?" That's not a bug, it's a feature!
I think that we have to prepare for two futures on the freedom of information. "Tools," such as general-purpose software, will probably become free as in speech. The free software movement and the Open Source movement are making such progress in this that a lot of it will be free as in beer, too. On the other hand "Content," such as movies, music, and books, will use technology and law to become more tightly controlled than now. The only way I can see of countering that is in the enthusiastic development and distribution of "rogue content" -- made to be freely shared. (More likely beer than speech for artistic works; more likely speech than beer for reference works).
The control of tools was pried out of the hands of big software companies by people who created new software and gave it away. Music may still retain some freedom thanks to legitimately free MP3s. Movies are a lost cause, IMHO. They're generally too expensive to create for free (beer) sharing, and the industry won't allow free (speech) use, if it can help it.
To stay on topic, I am disgusted that personal expression is now considered journalism, and can be regulated as such. Now to get slightly off-topic.
I've been fascinated by the trend to stupider and stupider sports in the Olympics. Rhythmic gymnastics? Target shooting? Which of "Faster, Stronger, Higher" applies to any of those?
I wrote a short satire on the trend. Unfortunately, not long after I posted it, I saw a documentary on CBC about the struggle to get ballroom dancing accepted as an Olympic sport. They've passed the first hurdle... it's now a recognized sport, as long as they don't call it Ballroom, just "Dance Sport."
What term would be used to describe to overturning of a patent by agovernment agency after it was patented, at the request of a special interest group?
I don't know, but I'd be tempted to suggest "eminent domain." Is there such a thing for so-called Intellectual Property?
Thanks for reminding me that, due to acute acronym shortage, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets as well. OK, guys, that means that if we state in our pages that you can go somewhere to "remove CSS" or "defeat CSS" then the MPAA won't find you with a search for "deCSS"... you'll be camoflaged among all the false results.Heh heh.
I went to a Polish mirror of DeCSS and found a copy of the "non-domestic" letter the MPAA sends. Pretty much the same as the one on , except for the part that says: "Even if you are not bound by this injunction, we submit the legal rationale of these opinions would
apply to the activities complained of herein. Thus we still request you comply with this request."
My understanding of things says that this is crap. The case was about circumvention of an access control device, right? That's an American thing.
"Sic" is Latin for "such," and used to mean "I know this is wrong, but that was exactly the way it was, dammit!"
There isn't going to be a breeding population...
on
TigerCloning
·
· Score: 1
You aren't going to get a breeding population from this. The foetal thylacine they have is _female_. That means no Y chromosomes to make males!
-Gareth
A better method would be to contact each author/corporation before posting it.
While being inconvenient, it's really the best way to ensure you aren't violating
anybody's rights.
Well, at least that would make it legal. But how effective would it be?
You'd be amazed. I'm part of an effort to find copyright holders of Apple II software and to persuade them to reclassify their programs as freeware. In the last couple of months I've managed to free The Ancient Art of War, Ancient Art of War at Sea, Balance of Power, a set of statistical programs, and I've sent copies of ThinkTank and Advanced VisiCalc to their respective authors to post on their sites. Just about all Beagle Bros and Penguin/Polarware programs are now freeware. Yes, the big corporations are a problem... especially Apple, I'm sorry to say. But what can be done is pretty amazing.
Interesting that you list India as "small military." According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"The combined Indian armed forces--comprising the army, navy, coast guard, and air force--are among the largest in the world. Each of the services consists solely of volunteers and is led by a well-trained, highly professional corps of officers. Equipment, much of it obtained from the former Soviet Union, is generally of high quality."
From another site I got the figure of 1.2 million army personnel. Not to mention that India's a nuclear nation.And has a surprisingly large, and growing, navy that will soon include the Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov.
It is a major goal of the Indian military to (at least) match China in strength.
I also looked into the ability of Taiwan to defend itself against China. Check out the size and quality of its air force and navy (including submarines). Without air or sea superiority, China would have a tough time trying to invade. Especially given that it doesn't have much in the way of troop transports. Plus, if Taiwan mobilized its reserves (granted, not something it could sustain for long), then it would be a good match for the People's Liberation Army.
That leaves nuclear blackmail, which might work, but wouldn't if the Taiwanese called China's bluff. Can you imagine the deep shit China would be in if it dropped a nuclear weapon on Taiwan?
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was called Racteur (short for "Raconteur"). -Gareth
Public domain means that we (the public) own it. If you looked at the site, you'd see that people have re-entered the music into the Lilypad program, so the copyright on the printed sheets (not the music itself) no longer applies. If your assumptions were right, then Project Gutenberg itself could be legally shut down for opposing the interests of book publishers. Good luck on that ... it won't happen.
-Gareth
What you're describing is Joe selling a commercial program, pure and simple, for a while and then changing the license to an open one. Sure, that would be "accepted"! Isn't that what Netscape did with Mozilla and Sun with Star Office? -Gareth
Chris Hind writes:
I would say that there is a pretty big difference in the case of Starship Troopers. The "oligarchy" is not closed. Anyone with an interest in voting can join the oligarchy by paying a period of public service, whether military or not. NO ONE, Heinlein stresses, can be denied their chance at a vote by denying them a valid public service to do.
A funny aspect of the book, which no-one mentions, is the smug, superior attitude of people like the narrator's parents, who have a comfortable life and think that doing service and becoming citizens is a scam. And the mandatory history and ethics course in high school also seems to dissuade the mass of people from becoming citizens. Why? If people don't care about their franchise, why should they have it? For example, the 50% of people in the US and 30-40% percent of those in Canada who can't be bothered to vote.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that Heinlein was thinking of H.G. Wells' book "A Modern Utopia" when he wrote Starship Troopers. In it, Wells goes back to Plato's problem of choosing the leaders of a State. Plato thought that proper breeding and education would allow the "best" to be chosen. Wells knew better: he said, allow the class of leaders to be self-selected, and make the extra taxes, duties, and inconveniences so high that only the ones who really want to do a stint of public service will do so. (Wells also made citizenship a temporary state, as well as a voluntary one). It strikes me that that's exactly what happens in Starship Troopers.
Should it be like this? That's up to you to decide. It is not, however, similar to any historical oligarchy that I've heard of. Not with a guarantee of the right to move into the oligarchy for every "civilian."
-Gareth
Heinlein has done books in which isolationists are main characters. For example, Lazarus Long, Farnham, Jubal Harshaw.
However, Heinlein's done the opposite, too. Between Planets has a Jubal-like character who is killed by the secret police because he can't bear to leave the pleasures and sins of the big city. The hero of that book starts by trying to mind his own business and ends up as a full participant in a pretty social activity: revolution. (Come to think of it, that is the plot of Moon is a Harsh Mistress, too). And Starship Troopers is a third one on the topic of abandoning selfish pursuits to serve something greater.
-Gareth
I've seen programs whose release notice said that they can be used freely, except by certain named individuals. Others, that they can be hosted freely, except by certain servers. The GPL, similarly, says that certain programs can be used freely, but only by those willing to GPL their work in turn. You can put any arbitrary terms into your license, so why is that communism? I think that Marx would see the GPL as utopian socialism (like Richard Owens' ideal communities), peacefully coexisting with the capitalist system, and would be against it.
For that reason, calling GPL a "Communist" idea makes less sense than calling it either "Anarchist" or "Christian," since the latter two promote extreme sharing within a community of common beliefs. People just forget how radical Christianity is in this respect, but reading "Acts" will cure that.
-Gareth
visit my site
I think the gentleman from IBM who said that his company could help Linux immediately but didn't want to make the community look bad had something specific in mind. Until the decision to make AIX Linux-compatible, IBM probably considered forking the kernal to support mainframe features. That would make the community look bad: "Linux is a nice little system, but we can't make it do _real_ work." Now they can say, "Linux is a great system, we're adopting Linux compatibility as a standard even on our top-of-the-line hardware."
Coverti says: "By Design, the Internet is inherently flawed. How can a Law created and enforced in one country, be enforced in another?" That's not a bug, it's a feature!
I think that we have to prepare for two futures on the freedom of information. "Tools," such as general-purpose software, will probably become free as in speech. The free software movement and the Open Source movement are making such progress in this that a lot of it will be free as in beer, too. On the other hand "Content," such as movies, music, and books, will use technology and law to become more tightly controlled than now. The only way I can see of countering that is in the enthusiastic development and distribution of "rogue content" -- made to be freely shared. (More likely beer than speech for artistic works; more likely speech than beer for reference works).
The control of tools was pried out of the hands of big software companies by people who created new software and gave it away. Music may still retain some freedom thanks to legitimately free MP3s. Movies are a lost cause, IMHO. They're generally too expensive to create for free (beer) sharing, and the industry won't allow free (speech) use, if it can help it.
-Gareth
To stay on topic, I am disgusted that personal expression is now considered journalism, and can be regulated as such. Now to get slightly off-topic.
I've been fascinated by the trend to stupider and stupider sports in the Olympics. Rhythmic gymnastics? Target shooting? Which of "Faster, Stronger, Higher" applies to any of those?
I wrote a short satire on the trend. Unfortunately, not long after I posted it, I saw a documentary on CBC about the struggle to get ballroom dancing accepted as an Olympic sport. They've passed the first hurdle ... it's now a recognized sport, as long as they don't call it Ballroom, just "Dance Sport."
As Tom Lehrer said, satire is dead. :-(
Why?
Here's my answer. Some of the other articles on my page are also germane.
-Gareth
GreenGhost asks:
I don't know, but I'd be tempted to suggest "eminent domain." Is there such a thing for so-called Intellectual Property?
-Gareth
Thanks for reminding me that, due to acute acronym shortage, CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets as well. OK, guys, that means that if we state in our pages that you can go somewhere to "remove CSS" or "defeat CSS" then the MPAA won't find you with a search for "deCSS" ... you'll be camoflaged among all the false results.Heh heh.
I went to a Polish mirror of DeCSS and found a copy of the "non-domestic" letter the MPAA sends. Pretty much the same as the one on , except for the part that says: "Even if you are not bound by this injunction, we submit the legal rationale of these opinions would apply to the activities complained of herein. Thus we still request you comply with this request." My understanding of things says that this is crap. The case was about circumvention of an access control device, right? That's an American thing.
"Sic" is Latin for "such," and used to mean "I know this is wrong, but that was exactly the way it was, dammit!"
You aren't going to get a breeding population from this. The foetal thylacine they have is _female_. That means no Y chromosomes to make males! -Gareth
You'd be amazed. I'm part of an effort to find copyright holders of Apple II software and to persuade them to reclassify their programs as freeware. In the last couple of months I've managed to free The Ancient Art of War, Ancient Art of War at Sea, Balance of Power, a set of statistical programs, and I've sent copies of ThinkTank and Advanced VisiCalc to their respective authors to post on their sites. Just about all Beagle Bros and Penguin/Polarware programs are now freeware. Yes, the big corporations are a problem ... especially Apple, I'm sorry to say. But what can be done is pretty amazing.
-Gareth Jones
Visit me and poke around!
Interesting that you list India as "small military." According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"The combined Indian armed forces--comprising the army, navy, coast guard, and air force--are among the largest in the world. Each of the services consists solely of volunteers and is led by a well-trained, highly professional corps of officers. Equipment, much of it obtained from the former Soviet Union, is generally of high quality."
From another site I got the figure of 1.2 million army personnel. Not to mention that India's a nuclear nation.And has a surprisingly large, and growing, navy that will soon include the Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov.
It is a major goal of the Indian military to (at least) match China in strength.
I also looked into the ability of Taiwan to defend itself against China. Check out the size and quality of its air force and navy (including submarines). Without air or sea superiority, China would have a tough time trying to invade. Especially given that it doesn't have much in the way of troop transports. Plus, if Taiwan mobilized its reserves (granted, not something it could sustain for long), then it would be a good match for the People's Liberation Army.
That leaves nuclear blackmail, which might work, but wouldn't if the Taiwanese called China's bluff. Can you imagine the deep shit China would be in if it dropped a nuclear weapon on Taiwan?