As a fully-qualified professional IT consultant employed by one of the leading names in the software industry
If you puff up any more, you're likely to blow up. Would be a pity, dontcha think?
I am engaged in a study into the "open source" (thanks to people for correcting my misconception about freeware vs. open source) phenomenon started by Linus Torvelds and his Linux operating system suite.
Oh, God. Didn't anybody tell you that bureacratese is NOT a good way to write or speak? This is Slashdot, not a corporate presentation.
And, BTW, the guy's name is Torvalds.
Surely an OS as big as Linux - taking a whole CD-ROM up as it does - is not the obvious choice for a small device with limited capabilities?
First of all, there are Linux variants which fit on a floppy (or two). Second, as with any modern operating system the great majority of it (volume-wise) is taken by hardware drivers. Third, Linux is fairly modular and can be stripped down considerably without losing core functionality (see first).
Wouldn't a custom built OS for this kind of device such as EPOC or Windows CE be much better suited in this domain?
May be and may be not. It all depends how well this custom OS was built, no?
Also, I am wondering whether the Linux GUI, GNOME, is of sufficiently high standard for the purposes of an "easy to use" device such as he Yopy.
Linux has no "official" GUI. Two -- GNOME and KDE -- are the most widespread. In any case, both GNOME and KDE desktops are constructed for the desktop machines which assumes large screen space and a keyboard + some pointing device (mouse). It's fairly clear that PDAs will need their own GUIs, or at least heavily modified versions of desktop GUIs.
Since the GUI is part and parcel of the operating system
No, it isn't. You are thinking in terms of Windows where it is. For Linux (and any UNIX in general) GUI is a completely separate level that is technically not a part of the operating system at all.
Anyway, your thoughts as representatives of the open source community would be appreciated
Aw, shucks [blushes]...
I can't really see why this is any more than a publicity stunt, cashing in on the "geek coolness" of the Linux brand name.
Again, that may well be true, but not necessarily. It's usually fruitless to discuss vaporware, since the correct answer is "It depends". It is possible for Yopi to turn out a bungled, ugly, unusable device which no one in his right mind will touch with a 10-foot pole. It is also possible for it to turn out an elegant and useful PDA, able to successfully compete with the Palms, iPaqs, Casios and Psions. We don't know yet.
In any case, the underlying operating system has little to do with the success or failure of a PDA. Even leaving the marketing issues aside, the elegance of GUI (which doesn't have to do much with the underlying OS) and the applications is much more important than what code twiddles the hardware underneath.
What programmers and designers need to realize is that they need to provide alternatives. Or at least, they need to make it possible for the user to choose/install a third-party UI if they so choose.
That's a laudable goal, but a very hard thing to implement. Consider this: we pretty much agree that the interface across the applications has to be consistent (for obvious reasons). This means that all applications must be decoupled from their interfaces, and that's nontrivial if possible at all. An application will no longer be able to do
switch(some_event) {
...
case button_1_release:....
...
}
because it doesn't know whether the user interface used actually has buttons (maybe it's voice input). I actually don't think it is possible to decouple an application from it's UI to this extent.
On a simpler note, consider writing an application the full functionality of which is accessible through (1) command line; (2) GUI; (3) voice input. It's much harder than make a just-GUI or just-command-line applications.
The second problem is: how do you plug in a new user interface for an application? An application has a set of inputs that it reacts to -- the user interface has to know each one of these inputs and map each of it to some mouse/keyboard/voice even. Retrofitting a new user interface onto an application is going to be pretty hard (and demand the application's source most likely) and writing a user interface that you can plug into existing applications is going to be basically impossible (no, I'm not talking about simple things like theming and keyboard remapping).
I think one of the major requirements for a user interface is a very hard one -- it has to simultaneously:
(1) Allow newbies to understand what's going one and learn (e.g. menus);
(2) Allow casual users to use "standard" skills in an application (consistency across applications);
(3) Allow experts to use fast but nonintuitive ways (e.g. keyboard shortcuts) and to considerably modify the user interface if desired (e.g. remap keyboard).
(4) Allow a smooth progression from the newbie status to the expert status (newbie and expert should not be two completely different interfaces).
a charlatan is necessarily an expert at sounding correct, while in fact not being correct.
Read what you are replying to. I said Lessig thinks cleanly and expresses himself well. None of this has much to do with sounding correctly (which is mostly playing to the preconceptions of the listeners).
Lessig seems to be saying "If all these bad things happen, and we don't do anything about them, then the Net will not be free."
No, not really. He is saying that the 'net is going to be regulated by the government. It's not a question of "if" -- it will be. The question is what kind of regulation. Lessig is basically saying that shouting "Keep your dirty hands off my Internet!" is not a reasonable position and it will do no good to the 'net.
Yes, bad things are happening to the Net -- but people are constantly doing things about it.
Yeah, but to what effect? About a month ago people tried to organize a demonstration against DMCA (or was it UCITA?) on the steps of Congress. You know what? About ten to twenty guys showed up. This is pathetic.
That's what it looks to me like QNX is doing. Even if they end up failing on the desktop, they still have the embedded market for their core product, so that core won't die. This in turn leads to potential desktop developers having more confidence in the core's future, so maybe it won't fail after all. Neat bootstrap effect. Be should try it.
QNX's position is somewhat more precarious. First of all, it's not a question of them failing on the desktop -- they are not even in the running. Seen a lot of QNX desktops around? Seen any? I don't think QNX is making a bid for the desktop and that's a realistic and wise position.
Second, QNX is not the undisputed king of the embedded market. There is a whole bunch of embedded OSes and QNX is just one medium-big fish in a pond. Besides, that particular pond already has a so-far-not-very-big great white swimming in it: Windows CE. Despite being a flop on handhelds, WinCE is doing very well in the embedded market. From what I've heard it's actually a decent OS (which has nothing to do with suitability of Windows GUI to handhelds).
So I don't really see what Be should try: become the "Windows" of internet appliances (whatever they may be)? I am sure Be would love to find itself in this position. Unfortunately, I am also sure that other players (MS included) have other plans.
No, guess I do not get the "time-honored" art of flaming.
Your loss.
lame fud that big-bro is coming
I thought you didn't like flaming? In any case, historically Big Brother (==totalitarian) governments existed in abundance with rather ugly consequences. I don't see any reasons why a totalitarian government is impossible these days. We can discuss how likely it is to appear in the US or Western Europe, but there is also the rest of the world, no?
And these are hardly skillful jabs, more like fifth-grade chest thumping.
I agree that ESR went overboard on self-promotion. Lessig, though, was much more classy.
And, no, he is not really a great thinker.
On the level of Socrates and Spinoza, no, he (did you mean ESR? or both?) isn't. But in the current debate both ESR and Lessig tend to produce more thought out positions and argument than the rest. But that's all personal opinion, anyway. I, for example, think that Lessig thinks very well, cleanly and precisely. I don't expect everyone to agree with that.
Also, I suppose those of us without time or inclination to write and publicize essays can not be allowed to criticize those who do?
Oh, you can do whatever you want. It's just that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to provide some better reasons than just the equivalent of "Ah, these two assholes are just stooopid".
Linux won in the court of public opinion.
Again I ask, won what and is the contest over? Linux won a place on a radar screen, but that's barely a beginning and definitely not a place to retire the revolutionaries.
And we should do exactly what you fear. Go back to your cubilce or bedroom/study/livingroom/office and write good code.
Well, go! What are you sitting here reading Slashdot for? If you think such philosophical/legal debates are a waste of time, don't participate in them. If you think they are not important, ignore them. Nobody's stopping from writing code (so far, that is).
the gulf between what Lessig says will happen in terms of sensible regulation and what actually will happen is enormous.
I don't think Lessig says what will happen. I think one of his main points is that some kind of regulation will happen, like it or not. He doesn't specify what, only that there'll be something.
my view that Lessig is basically a charlatan
Oh, is he? For a charlatan he can think very very cleanly and can express himself very well. I take it you have read his book ("Code and other laws of cyberspace") and it's all mumbo-jumbo, right? No sense at all, just a lot of confusing words and longer-than-three-words sentences. Must be a charlatan. Right.
Lessig's "book knowledge" of the Internet's workings matches up with ESR's working knowledge.
Of course, they were discussing not the technical details of the inner working of the 'net, but rather laws and government regulation thereof -- a subject in which Lessig likely has more working knowledge.
a good example is ESR's point that there are four GPL-like open-source licenses, of which the GPL is just one. Lessig is oblivious to subtleties like that.
And exactly which point of Lessig's does this fact invalidate?
I think you misunderstand and underappreciate the time-honored art of flamage. Why do you think that interesting ideas can be only expressed in monotonous bureacratese or polite-and-grammatically-correct sentences? This is public debate, an art form, and skillful jabs at the opponent are appreciated.
ESR is not a great thinker. He is a clever manipulator. Lessig is not any better.
As opposed to you, I take it? ESR and Lessig think and express themselves better than about 99% of humanity. That's good enough for me. If that's not good enough for you, you can go and write better essays, right?
Linux won.
And what it is exactly that Linux won? Was there some contest that is now over and done with?
We need to retire the revolutionaries.
And do what? Get back to our cubicles? Concentrate on allowing another dot-com to make an IPO? Take Bill Gates/Larry Ellison/Scott McNealy as our heroes?
In France, they did not make the transition, and the revolutionaries committed atrocities and sold it out to Bonaparte.
Err... I'll ignore your strange view of French history for the time being, but this is a metaphor for what? Do you expect Linux, ESR, and RMS to go around wiping the hard drives of whom? I don't really know... and then sell out to whom again? To our friend Bill? Or to Larry, since as of yesterday he is now the richest kid on the block?
I see major problems with carrier-pigeon network interfering with the laser one.
Initially, as the flights of pigeons would be blocking the laser's line-of-sight, the laser network will suffer: "I am sorry, sir, the packets can't get through -- there are pigeons in the way!".
Eventually I would expect the laser network to deal with this problem technologically, that is, upgrade their lasers to military power. At this point, the carrier-pigeon network will begin to suffer casualties, and notices like "Caution! Dead pigeons falling out of the sky!" will have to be posted around the laser network sites.
Later we may expect carrier pigeons to be fitted with mirror-shielded armor and the network lasers to be outfitted with tracking devices, but that's going to take some time...
"Packets? What packets? There is a pigeon shoot going on!"
the best way to do it would be to have a sort of distributed system, in which the processing was spread out onto the computers of anyone who was logged in.
Sounds good in theory, but only if everyone has a broadband connection. The problem with distributed systems is communication between processes and to keep a large world coherent and consistent would impose huge load on the network. The lag alone would probably kill the system.
It is conceivable to make some kind of a dynamic clustering scheme where the computers of those physically near in the gameworld cooperate on rendering and tracking "the neighbourhood" and bypass the central server -- but this is very, very far from trivial. It's definitely not something that A couple of programmers could hack something together without too much trouble
I go where? My point stands. The worst Scientology guys can do to you is sue you into bankrupcy. The government, OTOH, can put you in jail (and often does -- US has the largest % of population in prison as I recall).
No government agency is allowed to buy product from a company that makes the product overseas and gives the workers less wages and benefits than they could give local workers"
Care to speculate what's going to happen to your taxes in this case?
Trade unions will be overjoyed -- I find it hard to see who else would like the idea.
The current situation provide WAY to much power to the corps
It does? Consider what, say, Microsoft can do to you, personally, if it decides it doesn't like you at all. Now consider what the government can do to you if it decides it dislikes you.
The proposed law strengthens the hands of the people and checks the corps./i.
And it strengthens individuals how?
Besides, I would assume the people most interested in the source would belong to the three-letter agencies (that is, their French equivalents). I mean, assume you are NSA: wouldn't being able to find security holes in your private copy of the source of Win2K/9x/NT/whatever be a godsent to you?
it would demand that software used by the French government have its source code available
In the French political tradition the government (== the state) is much more powerful and subject to less checks and balances than in the Anglo-American tradition. I see this as the continuation of the trend: the government is (slyly) trying to increase its power in the Information Age.
One, often useful, view on what's happening treats economic and political life as a huge power game, played by three kinds of players: governments, corporations, and individuals. Recently (second half of the XX century) the governments have been on the losing side -- their power vis-a-vis other players have somewhat declined. Since the first goal of any government is to stay in power, and the second is to grab as much power as it can get away with, this makes government unhappy. Add to this the (yet) unfettered freedom of the 'net and the governments start to look positively worried.
I don't see this (the French government claim to source disclosure) as a good thing. I am highly distrustful of governments and giving more power to them -- and this is a power grab by the government, make no mistake about it -- does not strike me as something to be applauded. I recognize that corporations are not all benevolent either, but I still think that governments are more dangerous.
Hello? Anybody home? Our brains are neural networks, which learn by patterning and repetition.
Yep, somebody's home, though probably not one you expected:-)
Saying that our brains are neural nets (NNs) which learn by repetition is a GROSS oversimplification of human neural activity. It's like saying that aircraft fly by sending electical signals down the wire. Sure, some of it is taking place, but that's not a useful starting point.
Do the "violent behavior is normal/acceptable/etc" neural pathways get reinforced by playing violent games or by watching cinema/TV violence? Of course they do.
Err... can you be more specific about what you mean by saying "neural pathways"? Especially about the 'violent behavior is acceptable' neural pathways? I mean, man, you are making a breakthrough in neural physiology and the study of human brain -- there could be a Nobel prize in this! After all, if after all the years of research it turns out that the brain is such a simple device as you're describing... why, then we'll have most of the world's problem fixed! [/heavy sarcasm mode]
To summarize, you don't have the first clue about the brain physiology or how human behavior is formed. Try training your "thinking" pathways more.
...both IP address as well as namespace partitioning (a.porn top-level?), so that both routing and DNS could be used to prevent exposure of children to these sites. (I and many others firmly believe that exposing children to porn, even accidentally, is a particularly egregious form of child abuse.
I see. So just because you have hangups about nude human bodies, we should partition the Internet?
Bottom line: Are you willing to sacrifice the future of the entire Internet to avoid the minor inconvenience of a few sleazy pornographers?
Well, I am certainly not willing to sacrifice the future of the entire Internet to avoid the minor incovenience of a few mealy-mouthed moralists who believe that viewing naked bodies or even (heaven forbid) pictures of actual sex will irretrievably damn the poor innocents to eternal damnation.
I am strongly opposed to Internet partitioning (as in,.xxx TLD is perfectly fine, routing-level access restriction are not fine at all) just some people find some material objectionable.
Not to mention that this is a very, very slippery slope.
Expand that to the entire Internet.. since they're Microsoft supporters, we could see "This website ONLY WORKS with AOL and IE running under Windows . Any other systems WILL BE DEMOLISHED!" or something like that..
First of all, AOL is a direct competitor of Microsoft and AFAIK they don't like each other too much. Recall the latest spat over InstantMessenger compatibility.
Second, even if you meet such a site -- so what? As the old advice goes, don't do it then. Proprietary AOL content, not accessible otherwise than through AOL, exists and is plentiful. Does it bother me? Not at all. I just don't go there:-)
Maybe, but remember how hard it is to get AOL5 out once you've put it in.
Again, don't do it then. I don't remember how hard it is exactly for this reason. My need for coasters have long been satisfied and AOL CDs now go to trash (sometimes making a detour via the microwave).
Sure, they won't take it ALL, but what happens when they apply their censorship to most of Usenet?
Err, do you understand what Usenet is and how it works? AOL censoring Usenet is in the same class as processor-exloding emails.
I have seen both Hemos and Katz respond to selective questions yet neither of them has responded to the most obvious, the ones about OUR comments. This disturbs me highly.
Lest you get disturbed, I'll clarify some points for you about YOUR comments.
All comments posted to Slashdot are copyright of the poster. Posting them essentially constitutes publishing. Now, by fair use provisions anybody, even Jon Katz, can take excepts from these posts and use them -- this is called quoting. Nobody needs any permission to quote any published material. Nothing happens to copyright -- it still resides with the original poster.
If quotes from your comments being used in Katz's book disturbes you highly, I'd recommend to try and get a life. I understand this is a hard problem, but I've heard it's fun...
If you are serious, get one of those phone-center cards/software, put it into your PC and let it pick up all the calls on the first ring. I am sure you can make it do all kinds of things including "No solicitors", "If you are calling X press 1", and "Kill all the lawyers".
BTW, does anyone else feel motivated to start dealing out pain when some telemarketer introduces their spiel by saying "This is just a courtesy call..."
If I am bored and have ample free time, at this point I usually ask "You mean courtesy to me?" This gets them off their script and it's always funny to hear them ad lib. Usually after a couple of minutes of umms and hmms they have to admit that yes, this is a courtesy to me, and then, of course, I ask them to explain how exactly calling me in the middle of my { dinner | lovemaking | preparing for the assassination | meditation | etc.etc. } is courtesy. Can be fun.
Would it be possible for the phone company to offer a service that either before the number rings or immediately after a connection has been established a computerized voice says "No solicitors"?
ROTFL! And no barristers as well, I suppose?
Look up the meaning of the word "solicitor" in a dictionary, especially British usage. And while I agree that this could be a good thing, prefacing all your phone conversations with such a statement... (yeah, I know, Carthage must be destroyed and all that).
I suppose the usual slashdot paranoids will come out and start whinging about privacy. But who really cares if some 15-year old linux zealot is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Pokemon ? Does anyone care ?
Two observations.
First: geek profiling. Your 15-year old linux zealot is not very popular at school, is he? You know, the too-smart-for-his-own-good loner type? Of course he is a danger to society. He needs psychiatric counseling. Yeah, send him to re-education camps... oops, sorry, wrong country. Anyway, to determine if they should arrest him right away, the school asks for his viewing habits -- oh, God, look at the shows he is watching! He is clearly mentally unbalanced and must be "fixed".
After you stop laughing, remember that listening to rock groups has been periodically brought up in court cases as "proof" of guilt or evidence of the defendant's moral degradation.
Second: your linux zealot will grow up. Eventually he may become a person of note. He may want to run for public office, or he'll become a thorn in the side of some important people, or anyway somebody will need mud/blackmail material to be used against him. And remember, database records never go away. Anybody remembers Judge Bork? That was just a mild preview.
Slashdot Mirror
As a fully-qualified professional IT consultant employed by one of the leading names in the software industry
If you puff up any more, you're likely to blow up. Would be a pity, dontcha think?
I am engaged in a study into the "open source" (thanks to people for correcting my misconception about freeware vs. open source) phenomenon started by Linus Torvelds and his Linux operating system suite.
Oh, God. Didn't anybody tell you that bureacratese is NOT a good way to write or speak? This is Slashdot, not a corporate presentation.
And, BTW, the guy's name is Torvalds.
Surely an OS as big as Linux - taking a whole CD-ROM up as it does - is not the obvious choice for a small device with limited capabilities?
First of all, there are Linux variants which fit on a floppy (or two). Second, as with any modern operating system the great majority of it (volume-wise) is taken by hardware drivers. Third, Linux is fairly modular and can be stripped down considerably without losing core functionality (see first).
Wouldn't a custom built OS for this kind of device such as EPOC or Windows CE be much better suited in this domain?
May be and may be not. It all depends how well this custom OS was built, no?
Also, I am wondering whether the Linux GUI, GNOME, is of sufficiently high standard for the purposes of an "easy to use" device such as he Yopy.
Linux has no "official" GUI. Two -- GNOME and KDE -- are the most widespread. In any case, both GNOME and KDE desktops are constructed for the desktop machines which assumes large screen space and a keyboard + some pointing device (mouse). It's fairly clear that PDAs will need their own GUIs, or at least heavily modified versions of desktop GUIs.
Since the GUI is part and parcel of the operating system
No, it isn't. You are thinking in terms of Windows where it is. For Linux (and any UNIX in general) GUI is a completely separate level that is technically not a part of the operating system at all.
Anyway, your thoughts as representatives of the open source community would be appreciated
Aw, shucks [blushes]...
I can't really see why this is any more than a publicity stunt, cashing in on the "geek coolness" of the Linux brand name.
Again, that may well be true, but not necessarily. It's usually fruitless to discuss vaporware, since the correct answer is "It depends". It is possible for Yopi to turn out a bungled, ugly, unusable device which no one in his right mind will touch with a 10-foot pole. It is also possible for it to turn out an elegant and useful PDA, able to successfully compete with the Palms, iPaqs, Casios and Psions. We don't know yet.
In any case, the underlying operating system has little to do with the success or failure of a PDA. Even leaving the marketing issues aside, the elegance of GUI (which doesn't have to do much with the underlying OS) and the applications is much more important than what code twiddles the hardware underneath.
Kaa
What programmers and designers need to realize is that they need to provide alternatives. Or at least, they need to make it possible for the user to choose/install a third-party UI if they so choose.
....
That's a laudable goal, but a very hard thing to implement. Consider this: we pretty much agree that the interface across the applications has to be consistent (for obvious reasons). This means that all applications must be decoupled from their interfaces, and that's nontrivial if possible at all. An application will no longer be able to do
switch(some_event) {
...
case button_1_release:
...
}
because it doesn't know whether the user interface used actually has buttons (maybe it's voice input). I actually don't think it is possible to decouple an application from it's UI to this extent.
On a simpler note, consider writing an application the full functionality of which is accessible through (1) command line; (2) GUI; (3) voice input. It's much harder than make a just-GUI or just-command-line applications.
The second problem is: how do you plug in a new user interface for an application? An application has a set of inputs that it reacts to -- the user interface has to know each one of these inputs and map each of it to some mouse/keyboard/voice even. Retrofitting a new user interface onto an application is going to be pretty hard (and demand the application's source most likely) and writing a user interface that you can plug into existing applications is going to be basically impossible (no, I'm not talking about simple things like theming and keyboard remapping).
Kaa
I think one of the major requirements for a user interface is a very hard one -- it has to simultaneously:
(1) Allow newbies to understand what's going one and learn (e.g. menus);
(2) Allow casual users to use "standard" skills in an application (consistency across applications);
(3) Allow experts to use fast but nonintuitive ways (e.g. keyboard shortcuts) and to considerably modify the user interface if desired (e.g. remap keyboard).
(4) Allow a smooth progression from the newbie status to the expert status (newbie and expert should not be two completely different interfaces).
Kaa
Wind River Systems would disagree with you on qnx being the undisputed king of embedded.
You probably mixed up the original post and my reply. In my reply (which you quote) I said:
"Second, QNX is not the undisputed king of the embedded market."
Kaa
a charlatan is necessarily an expert at sounding correct, while in fact not being correct.
Read what you are replying to. I said Lessig thinks cleanly and expresses himself well. None of this has much to do with sounding correctly (which is mostly playing to the preconceptions of the listeners).
Lessig seems to be saying "If all these bad things happen, and we don't do anything about them, then the Net will not be free."
No, not really. He is saying that the 'net is going to be regulated by the government. It's not a question of "if" -- it will be. The question is what kind of regulation. Lessig is basically saying that shouting "Keep your dirty hands off my Internet!" is not a reasonable position and it will do no good to the 'net.
Yes, bad things are happening to the Net -- but people are constantly doing things about it.
Yeah, but to what effect? About a month ago people tried to organize a demonstration against DMCA (or was it UCITA?) on the steps of Congress. You know what? About ten to twenty guys showed up. This is pathetic.
Kaa
That's what it looks to me like QNX is doing. Even if they end up failing on the desktop, they still have the embedded market for their core product, so that core won't die. This in turn leads to potential desktop developers having more confidence in the core's future, so maybe it won't fail after all. Neat bootstrap effect. Be should try it.
QNX's position is somewhat more precarious. First of all, it's not a question of them failing on the desktop -- they are not even in the running. Seen a lot of QNX desktops around? Seen any? I don't think QNX is making a bid for the desktop and that's a realistic and wise position.
Second, QNX is not the undisputed king of the embedded market. There is a whole bunch of embedded OSes and QNX is just one medium-big fish in a pond. Besides, that particular pond already has a so-far-not-very-big great white swimming in it: Windows CE. Despite being a flop on handhelds, WinCE is doing very well in the embedded market. From what I've heard it's actually a decent OS (which has nothing to do with suitability of Windows GUI to handhelds).
So I don't really see what Be should try: become the "Windows" of internet appliances (whatever they may be)? I am sure Be would love to find itself in this position. Unfortunately, I am also sure that other players (MS included) have other plans.
Kaa
No, guess I do not get the "time-honored" art of flaming.
Your loss.
lame fud that big-bro is coming
I thought you didn't like flaming? In any case, historically Big Brother (==totalitarian) governments existed in abundance with rather ugly consequences. I don't see any reasons why a totalitarian government is impossible these days. We can discuss how likely it is to appear in the US or Western Europe, but there is also the rest of the world, no?
And these are hardly skillful jabs, more like fifth-grade chest thumping.
I agree that ESR went overboard on self-promotion. Lessig, though, was much more classy.
And, no, he is not really a great thinker.
On the level of Socrates and Spinoza, no, he (did you mean ESR? or both?) isn't. But in the current debate both ESR and Lessig tend to produce more thought out positions and argument than the rest. But that's all personal opinion, anyway. I, for example, think that Lessig thinks very well, cleanly and precisely. I don't expect everyone to agree with that.
Also, I suppose those of us without time or inclination to write and publicize essays can not be allowed to criticize those who do?
Oh, you can do whatever you want. It's just that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to provide some better reasons than just the equivalent of "Ah, these two assholes are just stooopid".
Linux won in the court of public opinion.
Again I ask, won what and is the contest over? Linux won a place on a radar screen, but that's barely a beginning and definitely not a place to retire the revolutionaries.
And we should do exactly what you fear. Go back to your cubilce or bedroom/study/livingroom/office and write good code.
Well, go! What are you sitting here reading Slashdot for? If you think such philosophical/legal debates are a waste of time, don't participate in them. If you think they are not important, ignore them. Nobody's stopping from writing code (so far, that is).
Kaa
the gulf between what Lessig says will happen in terms of sensible regulation and what actually will happen is enormous.
I don't think Lessig says what will happen. I think one of his main points is that some kind of regulation will happen, like it or not. He doesn't specify what, only that there'll be something.
my view that Lessig is basically a charlatan
Oh, is he? For a charlatan he can think very very cleanly and can express himself very well. I take it you have read his book ("Code and other laws of cyberspace") and it's all mumbo-jumbo, right? No sense at all, just a lot of confusing words and longer-than-three-words sentences. Must be a charlatan. Right.
Lessig's "book knowledge" of the Internet's workings matches up with ESR's working knowledge.
Of course, they were discussing not the technical details of the inner working of the 'net, but rather laws and government regulation thereof -- a subject in which Lessig likely has more working knowledge.
a good example is ESR's point that there are four GPL-like open-source licenses, of which the GPL is just one. Lessig is oblivious to subtleties like that.
And exactly which point of Lessig's does this fact invalidate?
Kaa
This is childish at best.
I think you misunderstand and underappreciate the time-honored art of flamage. Why do you think that interesting ideas can be only expressed in monotonous bureacratese or polite-and-grammatically-correct sentences? This is public debate, an art form, and skillful jabs at the opponent are appreciated.
ESR is not a great thinker. He is a clever manipulator. Lessig is not any better.
As opposed to you, I take it? ESR and Lessig think and express themselves better than about 99% of humanity. That's good enough for me. If that's not good enough for you, you can go and write better essays, right?
Linux won.
And what it is exactly that Linux won? Was there some contest that is now over and done with?
We need to retire the revolutionaries.
And do what? Get back to our cubicles? Concentrate on allowing another dot-com to make an IPO? Take Bill Gates/Larry Ellison/Scott McNealy as our heroes?
In France, they did not make the transition, and the revolutionaries committed atrocities and sold it out to Bonaparte.
Err... I'll ignore your strange view of French history for the time being, but this is a metaphor for what? Do you expect Linux, ESR, and RMS to go around wiping the hard drives of whom? I don't really know... and then sell out to whom again? To our friend Bill? Or to Larry, since as of yesterday he is now the richest kid on the block?
I don't think you are making sense.
Kaa
I see major problems with carrier-pigeon network interfering with the laser one.
Initially, as the flights of pigeons would be blocking the laser's line-of-sight, the laser network will suffer: "I am sorry, sir, the packets can't get through -- there are pigeons in the way!".
Eventually I would expect the laser network to deal with this problem technologically, that is, upgrade their lasers to military power. At this point, the carrier-pigeon network will begin to suffer casualties, and notices like "Caution! Dead pigeons falling out of the sky!" will have to be posted around the laser network sites.
Later we may expect carrier pigeons to be fitted with mirror-shielded armor and the network lasers to be outfitted with tracking devices, but that's going to take some time...
"Packets? What packets? There is a pigeon shoot going on!"
Kaa
Doesn't fog, rain, smog, etc. screw up lasers?
"It's foggy, I can't see the Internet..."
Kaa
the best way to do it would be to have a sort of distributed system, in which the processing was spread out onto the computers of anyone who was logged in.
Sounds good in theory, but only if everyone has a broadband connection. The problem with distributed systems is communication between processes and to keep a large world coherent and consistent would impose huge load on the network. The lag alone would probably kill the system.
It is conceivable to make some kind of a dynamic clustering scheme where the computers of those physically near in the gameworld cooperate on rendering and tracking "the neighbourhood" and bypass the central server -- but this is very, very far from trivial. It's definitely not something that A couple of programmers could hack something together without too much trouble
Kaa
s/Microsoft/Scientology/, and there you go.
I go where? My point stands. The worst Scientology guys can do to you is sue you into bankrupcy. The government, OTOH, can put you in jail (and often does -- US has the largest % of population in prison as I recall).
Kaa
No government agency is allowed to buy product from a company that makes the product overseas and gives the workers less wages and benefits than they could give local workers"
Care to speculate what's going to happen to your taxes in this case?
Trade unions will be overjoyed -- I find it hard to see who else would like the idea.
Kaa
The current situation provide WAY to much power to the corps
It does? Consider what, say, Microsoft can do to you, personally, if it decides it doesn't like you at all. Now consider what the government can do to you if it decides it dislikes you.
The proposed law strengthens the hands of the people and checks the corps./i.
And it strengthens individuals how?
Besides, I would assume the people most interested in the source would belong to the three-letter agencies (that is, their French equivalents). I mean, assume you are NSA: wouldn't being able to find security holes in your private copy of the source of Win2K/9x/NT/whatever be a godsent to you?
Kaa
it would demand that software used by the French government have its source code available
In the French political tradition the government (== the state) is much more powerful and subject to less checks and balances than in the Anglo-American tradition. I see this as the continuation of the trend: the government is (slyly) trying to increase its power in the Information Age.
One, often useful, view on what's happening treats economic and political life as a huge power game, played by three kinds of players: governments, corporations, and individuals. Recently (second half of the XX century) the governments have been on the losing side -- their power vis-a-vis other players have somewhat declined. Since the first goal of any government is to stay in power, and the second is to grab as much power as it can get away with, this makes government unhappy. Add to this the (yet) unfettered freedom of the 'net and the governments start to look positively worried.
I don't see this (the French government claim to source disclosure) as a good thing. I am highly distrustful of governments and giving more power to them -- and this is a power grab by the government, make no mistake about it -- does not strike me as something to be applauded. I recognize that corporations are not all benevolent either, but I still think that governments are more dangerous.
Kaa
Hello? Anybody home? Our brains are neural networks, which learn by patterning and repetition.
:-)
Yep, somebody's home, though probably not one you expected
Saying that our brains are neural nets (NNs) which learn by repetition is a GROSS oversimplification of human neural activity. It's like saying that aircraft fly by sending electical signals down the wire. Sure, some of it is taking place, but that's not a useful starting point.
Do the "violent behavior is normal/acceptable/etc" neural pathways get reinforced by playing violent games or by watching cinema/TV violence? Of course they do.
Err... can you be more specific about what you mean by saying "neural pathways"? Especially about the 'violent behavior is acceptable' neural pathways? I mean, man, you are making a breakthrough in neural physiology and the study of human brain -- there could be a Nobel prize in this! After all, if after all the years of research it turns out that the brain is such a simple device as you're describing... why, then we'll have most of the world's problem fixed! [/heavy sarcasm mode]
To summarize, you don't have the first clue about the brain physiology or how human behavior is formed. Try training your "thinking" pathways more.
Kaa
...both IP address as well as namespace partitioning (a .porn top-level?), so that both routing and DNS could be used to prevent exposure of children to these sites. (I and many others firmly believe that exposing children to porn, even accidentally, is a particularly egregious form of child abuse.
.xxx TLD is perfectly fine, routing-level access restriction are not fine at all) just some people find some material objectionable.
I see. So just because you have hangups about nude human bodies, we should partition the Internet?
Bottom line: Are you willing to sacrifice the future of the entire Internet to avoid the minor inconvenience of a few sleazy pornographers?
Well, I am certainly not willing to sacrifice the future of the entire Internet to avoid the minor incovenience of a few mealy-mouthed moralists who believe that viewing naked bodies or even (heaven forbid) pictures of actual sex will irretrievably damn the poor innocents to eternal damnation.
I am strongly opposed to Internet partitioning (as in,
Not to mention that this is a very, very slippery slope.
Kaa
This frightens me, it really does.
:-)
Easily scared, aren't you?
Expand that to the entire Internet.. since they're Microsoft supporters, we could see "This website ONLY WORKS with AOL and IE running under Windows . Any other systems WILL BE DEMOLISHED!" or something like that..
First of all, AOL is a direct competitor of Microsoft and AFAIK they don't like each other too much. Recall the latest spat over InstantMessenger compatibility.
Second, even if you meet such a site -- so what? As the old advice goes, don't do it then. Proprietary AOL content, not accessible otherwise than through AOL, exists and is plentiful. Does it bother me? Not at all. I just don't go there
Maybe, but remember how hard it is to get AOL5 out once you've put it in.
Again, don't do it then. I don't remember how hard it is exactly for this reason. My need for coasters have long been satisfied and AOL CDs now go to trash (sometimes making a detour via the microwave).
Sure, they won't take it ALL, but what happens when they apply their censorship to most of Usenet?
Err, do you understand what Usenet is and how it works? AOL censoring Usenet is in the same class as processor-exloding emails.
Kaa
I have seen both Hemos and Katz respond to selective questions yet neither of them has responded to the most obvious, the ones about OUR comments. This disturbs me highly.
Lest you get disturbed, I'll clarify some points for you about YOUR comments.
All comments posted to Slashdot are copyright of the poster. Posting them essentially constitutes publishing. Now, by fair use provisions anybody, even Jon Katz, can take excepts from these posts and use them -- this is called quoting. Nobody needs any permission to quote any published material. Nothing happens to copyright -- it still resides with the original poster.
If quotes from your comments being used in Katz's book disturbes you highly, I'd recommend to try and get a life. I understand this is a hard problem, but I've heard it's fun...
Kaa
Maybe the system would be configurable
If you are serious, get one of those phone-center cards/software, put it into your PC and let it pick up all the calls on the first ring. I am sure you can make it do all kinds of things including "No solicitors", "If you are calling X press 1", and "Kill all the lawyers".
Kaa
BTW, does anyone else feel motivated to start dealing out pain when some telemarketer introduces their spiel by saying "This is just a courtesy call..."
If I am bored and have ample free time, at this point I usually ask "You mean courtesy to me?" This gets them off their script and it's always funny to hear them ad lib. Usually after a couple of minutes of umms and hmms they have to admit that yes, this is a courtesy to me, and then, of course, I ask them to explain how exactly calling me in the middle of my { dinner | lovemaking | preparing for the assassination | meditation | etc.etc. } is courtesy. Can be fun.
Kaa
Would it be possible for the phone company to offer a service that either before the number rings or immediately after a connection has been established a computerized voice says "No solicitors"?
ROTFL! And no barristers as well, I suppose?
Look up the meaning of the word "solicitor" in a dictionary, especially British usage. And while I agree that this could be a good thing, prefacing all your phone conversations with such a statement... (yeah, I know, Carthage must be destroyed and all that).
Kaa
I suppose the usual slashdot paranoids will come out and start whinging about privacy. But who really cares if some 15-year old linux zealot is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Pokemon ? Does anyone care ?
Two observations.
First: geek profiling. Your 15-year old linux zealot is not very popular at school, is he? You know, the too-smart-for-his-own-good loner type? Of course he is a danger to society. He needs psychiatric counseling. Yeah, send him to re-education camps... oops, sorry, wrong country. Anyway, to determine if they should arrest him right away, the school asks for his viewing habits -- oh, God, look at the shows he is watching! He is clearly mentally unbalanced and must be "fixed".
After you stop laughing, remember that listening to rock groups has been periodically brought up in court cases as "proof" of guilt or evidence of the defendant's moral degradation.
Second: your linux zealot will grow up. Eventually he may become a person of note. He may want to run for public office, or he'll become a thorn in the side of some important people, or anyway somebody will need mud/blackmail material to be used against him. And remember, database records never go away. Anybody remembers Judge Bork? That was just a mild preview.
Kaa
What do you actually think will happen to you if they did monitor what you watch?
One word: Bork.
Kaa