The forced openness that the GPL (and other OSS licenses) establishes creates a culture and social order where as an open-source developer you are meatured by the quality of your work on a daily basis by a vast comunity of your peers. In many companies there are 'Code Reviews' where a developer goes into a conference room with a few of his coligues who then proceed to critique his code. In the end, only they know how good or bad it actually is. In the OSS comunity, that group of people critiquing the code is far move vast and generally quite knowlegable. Reputations are built on OSS projects and you're only as good as your most recent release. It's a competitive enviroment that retains a sense of comroderie,, unique to OSS development.
Imagine for a moment of microsoft has the Windows Source Code peer-reviewed in this fashion... There would be riots in the street...
Developers have the opportunity to build great creadibility, and to earn the respect of their coligues in a non-business enviroment, while working to develop truly valuable products for the business and non-business user alike.
The same thing applies with regard to fixes, and patches. Only yesterday, the OpenBSD Project was Chastised for not producing a patch in less than 6 days. Show me one instance where, first the user comunity of closed-source software could creadibly do tat, or is even made aware in a reasonably timely fashion, by corporations, of bugs in their software. Open source is conducive both to discovery of bugs and (tue essentially to a type of peer pressure) the timely patching of those bugs. Again, in the OSS comunity you live and die by the quality of your code.
The GPL goes far beyond game theory. It creates a social structure that facilitates it's successful use. I'd love to hear from some sociologists with regard to the operational characteristics of Open Source Development. I'm sure it would make a fascinating paper...
Assuming OpenBSD was informed on 9 June 2001, still 6 days turnaround isn't bad when you compare it to the turnaround on Microsoft patches.
Granted, OSS projects frequently do far better, butremember, there was a time two decades ago when six days turnaround onm a patch would have been unheard-of.
Here's to hopeing that such critical patches are only nessecery infrequently, especialy with BSD which has such and old code-base (read: rich with history).
It looks like the plot outlines are similar, and the storylines track, but is it truly plagerism if the animation, soundtrack and dialog are original?
Movies get remade, look at the Planet of the Apes... in that case the two movies have a producer in common and they secured the rights to make it, but to what part of an animated movie would you secure such rights wo as to avoid a charge of plagerism? Is it the script, the whole original film? These are questions that need to be explored before such accusations can be made.
There are several issues relating to scientific publication on the net, here which are covered in some fashion in various articles and comments on the Nature website, but I'd like to take a moment to cull them together:
Well, you might say, the internet provides information in vast quantities to millions of users... Maybe, maybe not. If I do primary source research and produce a scolarly work, I have two choices. I can have it printed in a scolarly journal, or publish it on the internet. IF I publish it on the net, I then need to publicize it's existance. How do I do that? well, rencently search engines have begun to charge several hundred doollars in order to include new sites in their indexes. They claim that non-business content will eventually be indexed (I think the estimate at excite was 8 weeks to index new non-business content) but I havn't seen it happen.
We have ecentially turned over the 'library card catalogs of the internet' over to corporations who's goal is to make a proffit. This is an interesting choice to say the least. These companies make no commitment to index any particular content, or to index new content within a particular period... introducing the potential to have valuable scolarly work lost amidst the noise of the internet. It's nice to have more information, but it introduces the possibility that truly valuable information is lost in the frey.
Also, there is the possibility that information stored on the internet will disappear after sponsorship of that information disappears. In order for information to appear on the internet, someone needs to pay for the bandwidth and arrange for hosting of the material. What if Galileo or Aristottle has published their works onthe internet? Their ideas weren't widely recognized or accepted until after they died, and as soon as they died, the their sponsorship of the material would disappear. This raises the question, what happens to truly valuable information which is not recognized as such until years after the death of the originator of that information? Does it simply disappear off the net? Information nowadays is not nearly as static as it once was.
How should the sum total of human knowlege be truly preserved? Is there a Correct answer here? It doesn't look that way to me.
Microsoft is only ever going to implement standards which it thinks are in it's best interest. You can bet M$ bCentral.com (remember www.linkexchange.com?) will have their P3P policy in place in a hurry if it isn't alredy there...
To be honest though, the business advantage for Microsoft, of implementing this standard atthis point is still a bit sketchy in my mind...
What do they hope to gain? User trust? Most users blindly trust them anyway, and those who don't (ie:/.ers, etc.) are unlikely to start trusting in the almighty Bill because of this move. What's the angle here?
I'm disappointed to see that someone felt my comments were flaimbait.
Perhaps I was not clear in my point, which was not relating to the accountability (or lack thereof) established in shrink-wrapped licenses, but more relating to the ability to have a company to rely on to provide primarily technical support. The software to which I was refering was the category of development tools, libraries and other resources such as embedded realtim operating systems. These pieces of software typically have comprehensive support contracts associated with their licenses, as well as financial non-performance penalties.
These are things you simply can't get with OSS software regardless of weather it's GPL'd ordistributed under any other OSS license.
Well, more precisely, most large corporations have not yet realized the value they can extract from OSS through contracting with OSS support companies such as NuSphere which supports MySQL, and others that commercially package OSS apps. My point here, and above is, that it doesn't matter weather softwar is GPL'd or not. OSS is OSS, plain and simple.
OK, so I'm not sure I see the value in apeasing the Free Software Foundation anymore. At one point they were the only folks championing a unique and at that time - new and different development and software distribution model, but at this point, there are enough open-source licenses out there which all offer substancially the same protections to the author of a product, and provide the same rights and restrictions on distribution.
I understand the derivitive work licensing componant of the GPL, but that aside for the moment - assuming the author of the application in question has no interest in this provision, what is the real value in making your license GPL compatible? What does that buy you? I have yet to hear of a company that refuses to use non GPL compliant software. I have, on the other hand, dealt with many companies who refuse to use GPL's software due to the restrictions it introduces, as well as the general lack of accountbility which is an integral part of most open-source licenses.
With this in mind, why would someone spend such inordinate amounts of time making software (it's license, rather) GPL compliant? It doesn't make the software any more free (monetarily speaking) or any more Open-Source... So why bother?
Are there really people out there who refuse to use non-GPL's software or something?
If the USPTO improved their research capability with regard to prior art, what would all those IP lawyers do with all the free time they'll suddenly have? Once all this input is hathered by the USPTO, and they make recommendations to improve their system, they'll draft a budget with a line item for making the recommended improvements. Mark My words, Lobyists for the IP Lawyers will be out in force trying to get the budget cut, vecause after all, if they could do adequite research into Prior Art, The current torrent of IP lawsuits will be reduced to a trickle. What ever would the lawyers to with themselves?
Here's hopeing they jump out of a top floor window.
Why do we care about the first commercial computer so muuch? Why not look at hte history (which I find much more interesting), including the work of Alan Turing and all the great men and women who were involved in the Bletchley Park Enigma Codebreaking effort. It's a fascinating piece of history for all; computer enthusiasts, military history fans, and those fascinated with the world of spies and spying. And for those who don't feel like reading what they think yould be dry, historical records, there are laways novelised accounts out there too [I'll dispense with ranting about how historical record chould not be novelized because it draws an audience for a version of history, while plainly offered as fiction, some group of readers will always take as historical fact, distortinh historical truth, etc, etc...]. Having said that, there are a few novelized acconts of this era that are quite cood. Perticularly Enigma, a novel by Robert harris. It was quite entertaining but I recommend reading some of the historical record of the time first, so as not to get yourself into the rut of using it as a reference for historical fact of the time [which, again, I'll rant about some other time...]
It really ammounts to a nice PR move by Unisys. Vary slick. Remind the world that 50 years ago the company was an inovator, well What have you done for me lately?
I was a little disappointed with their spokesman Mr. Esnouf:"My son, for example, plays this game called 'I'm Going In,'" Esnouf said. "He spends all Sunday morning shooting people on the computer. We've invented this whole virtual reality. It's great, isn't it?" Is that really the best light he could put computer gaming in? I'm all for computer games and I'd say 'spending sunday morning shooting people' is a bit harsh. But all in all, Unisys pulled off a vary nice PR move without having to produce announce, or unveil a new product. Good deal for them...
It's interesting to me how the mainstream media fails to adiquitely report on scientific thought in any sort of balanced fashion. Fro mthe title of the story, you'd think this guy was some left wing nut case proposing an outlandish new theory
In fact this theory has been around for 30 some years and in the middle of the article, one of the guys to whom the theory is atributed qualifies his argument in such a way to make it sound quite reasonable
Roberts proposes a variation on the theme, saying it is possible the extinctions took place over a longer period of time and were not the result only of hunting but also of environmental chaos wrought by humans, such as burning the landscape to facilitate hunting or travel.
OF course, if you introduce a new predator into any closed or reasonably closed eco-system there will always be a draumatic result. Why would anyone be suprised by that...? It's not like ancient man had the tools nessecery to kill off a sufficient quantity of any animal as to drive it to extinction (unlike more modern man drove the american water buffalo to extinction - using more modern weapons like guns - imagine doing that with a knife or spear, in sufficient quantities to drive any animal to extinction).
But then the guy goes on.... he really does a masterful job of fence sitting here:
The idea that climate change triggered the extinctions is undermined by the fact that they were not simultaneous, Roberts said. "If it had been a global climate change phenomenon, everyone would have gone extinct in all of those different places at the same time. The fact that they didn't really points the finger very, very strongly at human beings, as the new kid on the block, causing all the trouble."
Nah... That's not really plausable... Climate change could vary easily have contributed to the extinction. Look at Gloval Warming, or destruction of the Ozone Layer. These events represent large scal climatic events, but they are affecting different regions of the globe in different ways, and at different rates, baserd primarily based on proximity to the epicenter of the event (antarctica in the case of the largest Ozone Hole) and the pre-existing climate.
I have two problems with this article, first, it didn't cover the theory it strives to cover in a fair and non-judgemental fashion, and it presents it in the light of the enviromentalists versus the conservatives. Well, this is science. It is an exploration of historical events to try and determin fact. There are not politics to it and there are no accusations being made here that would impact modern man. No one is using this theory to try and band deer hunting, or something like that.
People need to relax and take science for what it's worth, rather than taking it so personally. The article it seems was designed to be inflamatory, co I can't fault the traders - perhaps that was the only way it found its way into the mainstream media in the us, after all, an earlier poster pointed out that the BBC had this story a week or more ago...--CTH
It's really unbelievable. There seem to be two distinct service categories out there. First there are P2P services which strive to drive resources to the network edge, at cost to the consumers. Second, there are ASP type services such as Microsoft HailStorm and this second generation PVR concept, as well as the early 90's implementations of Video On Demand.
That's right. Screw the onsumer by having him/her store data he doesn't want/need as in P2P services and then, don't let joe consumer store the information he/she DOES want. While we're at it, lets do away with video storage completely and make everything pay-per-view...
when the largest automaker recognizes that a seachange is coming, that's something to note. Or, they could be hedging their bets.
But in reality GM isn't hedging at all. They're making a strategic incentment in a technology which they should have invested in 10 years ago, in preperation for the more and more stringent emissions standards being phased in over the next 10 years (in addition to those phased in over the past decade).
There's no hedging about it. They're going to be forced to make a change, and they're already being pushed against the wall with existing regulations
I agree. Only the offices and data centers located in france should be bound by french law - and only content served from french locations are under the jurisdiction of french courts.
In every case I've seen, relating to legality of content, it has always been decided that the location of of publication is the location of the servers distributing the content, rather than the client browsers, where the content is displayed. As such, if yahoo has complied with the order of the french court by removing the offending content from the french servers, then the judge has reached the limit of his jurisdiction. The judge can not compel Yahoo to act to modify content on servers not located in France. To suggest otherwise would fly in the face of every web content related leval decision in the past half decade.
I had the opportunity to mess with fortran as a programming excersise in school. It was quite an eperience
More importantly than the content of this article (which is interesting but known by most techies), is the fact that the article appeared in the NY Times - a mainstream media outlet. Even five years ago, the apearance of such an article would be unheard of. It's amazing that information technology has become so pervasive in our sucture, beyond the stature of a tool - a means to an end; but rather all aspects of computer technologies now represent such a source of interest to the general public that the mainstream media feel it appropriate to cover such an arcaine (although interesting to us geeks) piece of computer history.
It's actually quite gratifying to see this level of interest in technological history by the general public (as represented by the fact that the article was published in such a mainstream paper)
This is a vary good point. The telcos and hardware vendors' decision to use a non-interoperable protocol and access mechanism was extremely short sighted. I'm suprised they didn't learn from a half decade of web content delivery experience and three decades of IP based networking experience; about the tremendous of interoperability. It's truly increadible the architects of WAP and GPRS didn't get this right. Oh, well. Perhaps 3G will be better. It doesn't sound to me like the replacement of WAP with M-Services alone will do the trick. We'll see...
--CTH
---
Spend money on that which brings you joy...
on
Insanely Audiophile
·
· Score: 2
I can understand spending on something which you enjoy. For me it's home theatre, and I'm probably still on the low end of the scale because that's all my budget can hanele at the moment, but Who's to say what's crazy. I was suprised to fin that the author of the author was a guy, because this is does seem to be a male dominated spending habit, but hey, who am I to judge?
Jay Leno has how many cars now? He works how many hours per day? Is he crazy... well maybe but no one would say it to his face (read: chin).
So, what's wrong with investing in the high end of anything, really? DO I need a rack of 1.2Ghz servers in my home? PRobably not, but, if you asked me if I needed them all, I'd come up with reasons that each one was essential to my wellbeing. OK, well the article is worth a read for it's entertainment value, which, of course is it's intent, as far as I can tell.
With MS IE 6 smart tags, you won't have to go to the next page. The link will be on the same page pointing to MS products
That's a vary good point. Smart Tags blur the line such that only users who check the URLs of the site they're going to - ignoring the squigly line for the moment - would notice weather or not the site they may buy hardware from may actually NOT be associated with the site that reviewed it - asuming that it's inevitable that microsoft will eventually sell smart tags words much like RealNames sells words as convenient URLs - and even then it may be difficult given the serpentine ownership of web properties these days. This introduces the possibility that over time users will become acustomed to such a convenience and when links to sites WITH co-ownership appear, users may not think swice.
Again, maybe these users deserve what they get, for not performing any sort of real due diligence, but realistically, (as much as it pains me to say this) most users will fall into this category.
So, not only do Smart Tags pose the threat of allowing microsoft to enguage in what amounts to deceptive and patently illegal advertising practices, AND the threat of Trampling the rights of content (read copyright) owners, but also, it it acts to redice the public consumer awareness, with regard to multi-sourcing information and market decisions. The latter is extremely dangerous because Microsoft could probably honestly say that this was not their intent at all (and I'd believe them) to the point where they may not be possible to hold them liable for it. It would be an etremely dangerous social side-effect of a technological 'convenience' - we've seen this sort of thing before. Not only are they a microsoft bad, but a larger social bad...
You think they pass laws like UCITA because they're ignorant?
I think they pass such laws because they are lobbied to do so by large corporations AND they fail to understand the ramifications of the legislation - not that they fail to understand the wording or legal impacts in treditional contexts, but rather that they entirely miss the potential risks they are introducing with respect to online access to services and online business transactions; this due primarily to lack of information rather than lack of inteligence.
OK, how stupid do you have to be to go out trust hardware reviews you get on a website that on the next page offers to sell you that hardware?
The disturbing thing is there are an inordinate number of users who would do just that. See how convenient the web is? I can learn about the best hardware and buy it on the same page! Oh, Boy! Wait a minute, this would never fly outside the online world. Go to a computer store and ask the sales 'consultant' what to buy, then he hands it to you and you fork over the green. There's an idea. Oh, and while you're at it, you might as well bend over and grab your ankles.
Think for a moment how rediculous the above is, to the enthusiast comunity. No one would fall for this. It's merely the evolution of advertising. These new sites aren't geared tward technically astute people (read Geeks). They're grared tward the slightly more knowlegable general user, he who thinks he is aware of events within the industry and developments in technology. This is a logical progression. C|Net content was always geared tward the entry level user, the lowest common denominator. Their aquisition of ZDNet allows them to cater to a slightly (vary slightly) more sophistocated crowd, and now the introduction of these enthusiast-site look-alikes is simply a means to capture former ZDNet readers who fancy themselves morer astute than to continue teading ZD publications, probably anticipating their being dumbed down (even further) by CNet editors.
Just as television advertising has become more sophistocated over the past two decades, online marketing has become infinately more sophistovated in the past half decade. The issue online though, is users will 'graduate' from one calibre of publication to another vary quickly and to keep users in the CNet network of content sites, they aquired ZDNet as the next logical progression and are now pushing another class of site to fit in between ZDNet and the true techie sites like Toms Hardware and AnandTech.
CNet is out to expand their audience. They'll try to a more technically astute readership over time, but online publication is a reputation game. They'll pick up a few users here and there, but no self respecting/. reader would confuse AnandTech with Extreme Tech.
New laws should restore the balance between corporations and customers, not tilt things further toward the ever-more-powerful corporations. But the reality is that money brings clout in Congress and legislatures.
This kind of misses the point. It's not lack of attentiveness on the part of users and congressional constituants that is allowing companies to get away with questionable license agreements, and thatis allowing the 'Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act' to even be considered (and passed in some states). It's lack of knowlege on the part of legislators. Wise and meaningful legislation can not be expected to come from ill-informed and less than technically astute legislators. We need to begin to educate our representitives on the technologies of today and tomorrow, rather than expect them to apply treditional concepts of IP, and ownership to information in the modern world.
It's our responsibility as citizens to insure that our legislators are making informed decisions rather than selling our rights down the river for decades to come...
Site operators could insert a metatag disabling Smart Tags, so concerned publishers could avoid them.
The problem with that is that publishers would have to take positive action to prevent their rights from bein infrinced upon (I'm assuming that the publishers rights issue is completely valid on it's face, for the moment). It could be argues that placing these exclusionary tags on your website are similar to insuring copyright on your material, but Microsoft is not the federal government and does not have the authority to take over the responsibilities of the US Patent and Copyright Office.
I expect Microsoft will be forced to shift from the exclusionary tag model to an inclusionary tag model where only sites with an inclusionary tag can be modified in this way. That way content owners have to give their eplicit permission to microsoft to edit their page in ways they would be completely unaware of.
Along the same lines, has anyone thought about how much they want to charge Microsoft for such a content license? I'll be sure to put a click-thru license (enforceable through the wonders of the DMCA) on my website, requiring Microsoft to pay some reasonable fee per page modification, per user - how about $100 per occurance
This was a vary interesting piece, however Lynch could have explored further the transition of human knowlege to a far more dynamic digital form as an overlay of his discussion of the demise of printed books. Lynch seems overly focused on the method of ppublication rather than the nature of the information provided.
Human knowlege has become much less statis with the introduction of these technologies. e-books and web publishing have made it far easier to publish information, however that information, once published, is far less static. First, the content must be sponsored in perpetuity, rather than the up front cost of publication, there are continuing costs of content delivery. For this reason, knowlege has become a sponsored comodity. If an academic paper is published in digital form, it is only afailable at the whim of the sponsor who published it on the web, or provides it as an e-book. Once the author dies, or if the information is considered to be of little value when it is published, it will not be available to an audience, and will not have any static physical presence in the future. What would happen if Galileo, or Aristotle had not writen their works in printed books (and instead published it in some digital form...). Their ideas were haracy, and considered to be of no value, durring their lives, and yet today, their works are of great scientific and historical significance. Information in a digital age has become transient. If it does not reach an audience imediately, it is discarded. What will historiens find of modern thought, 1000 years from now? Will it be the fringe thinkers who expressed ideas decades ahead of their time, or will it be a plethora of popular cultural iconism... ?
Ok, I'm done ranting, back to Lynch's paper... On a more humerous note, I also vary much enjoyed the introduction witch mentioned the technology known as Napster, which I guess ranks up there with the Operating System known as RedHat.
Slashdot Mirror
For those who are interested, I found this site a while back, which gives a detailed history of video games through the ages.
http://www.pong-story.com/intro.htm
Remember Pong?
--CTH
---
The forced openness that the GPL (and other OSS licenses) establishes creates a culture and social order where as an open-source developer you are meatured by the quality of your work on a daily basis by a vast comunity of your peers. In many companies there are 'Code Reviews' where a developer goes into a conference room with a few of his coligues who then proceed to critique his code. In the end, only they know how good or bad it actually is. In the OSS comunity, that group of people critiquing the code is far move vast and generally quite knowlegable. Reputations are built on OSS projects and you're only as good as your most recent release. It's a competitive enviroment that retains a sense of comroderie,, unique to OSS development.
Imagine for a moment of microsoft has the Windows Source Code peer-reviewed in this fashion... There would be riots in the street...
Developers have the opportunity to build great creadibility, and to earn the respect of their coligues in a non-business enviroment, while working to develop truly valuable products for the business and non-business user alike.
The same thing applies with regard to fixes, and patches. Only yesterday, the OpenBSD Project was Chastised for not producing a patch in less than 6 days. Show me one instance where, first the user comunity of closed-source software could creadibly do tat, or is even made aware in a reasonably timely fashion, by corporations, of bugs in their software. Open source is conducive both to discovery of bugs and (tue essentially to a type of peer pressure) the timely patching of those bugs. Again, in the OSS comunity you live and die by the quality of your code.
The GPL goes far beyond game theory. It creates a social structure that facilitates it's successful use. I'd love to hear from some sociologists with regard to the operational characteristics of Open Source Development. I'm sure it would make a fascinating paper...
--CTH
---
Assuming OpenBSD was informed on 9 June 2001, still 6 days turnaround isn't bad when you compare it to the turnaround on Microsoft patches.
Granted, OSS projects frequently do far better, butremember, there was a time two decades ago when six days turnaround onm a patch would have been unheard-of.
Here's to hopeing that such critical patches are only nessecery infrequently, especialy with BSD which has such and old code-base (read: rich with history).
--CTH
It looks like the plot outlines are similar, and the storylines track, but is it truly plagerism if the animation, soundtrack and dialog are original?
Movies get remade, look at the Planet of the Apes... in that case the two movies have a producer in common and they secured the rights to make it, but to what part of an animated movie would you secure such rights wo as to avoid a charge of plagerism? Is it the script, the whole original film? These are questions that need to be explored before such accusations can be made.
--CTH
---
There are several issues relating to scientific publication on the net, here which are covered in some fashion in various articles and comments on the Nature website, but I'd like to take a moment to cull them together:
Well, you might say, the internet provides information in vast quantities to millions of users... Maybe, maybe not. If I do primary source research and produce a scolarly work, I have two choices. I can have it printed in a scolarly journal, or publish it on the internet. IF I publish it on the net, I then need to publicize it's existance. How do I do that? well, rencently search engines have begun to charge several hundred doollars in order to include new sites in their indexes. They claim that non-business content will eventually be indexed (I think the estimate at excite was 8 weeks to index new non-business content) but I havn't seen it happen.
We have ecentially turned over the 'library card catalogs of the internet' over to corporations who's goal is to make a proffit. This is an interesting choice to say the least. These companies make no commitment to index any particular content, or to index new content within a particular period... introducing the potential to have valuable scolarly work lost amidst the noise of the internet. It's nice to have more information, but it introduces the possibility that truly valuable information is lost in the frey.
Also, there is the possibility that information stored on the internet will disappear after sponsorship of that information disappears. In order for information to appear on the internet, someone needs to pay for the bandwidth and arrange for hosting of the material. What if Galileo or Aristottle has published their works onthe internet? Their ideas weren't widely recognized or accepted until after they died, and as soon as they died, the their sponsorship of the material would disappear. This raises the question, what happens to truly valuable information which is not recognized as such until years after the death of the originator of that information? Does it simply disappear off the net? Information nowadays is not nearly as static as it once was.
How should the sum total of human knowlege be truly preserved? Is there a Correct answer here? It doesn't look that way to me.
--CTH
---
Microsoft is only ever going to implement standards which it thinks are in it's best interest. You can bet M$ bCentral.com (remember www.linkexchange.com?) will have their P3P policy in place in a hurry if it isn't alredy there...
/.ers, etc.) are unlikely to start trusting in the almighty Bill because of this move. What's the angle here?
To be honest though, the business advantage for Microsoft, of implementing this standard atthis point is still a bit sketchy in my mind...
What do they hope to gain? User trust? Most users blindly trust them anyway, and those who don't (ie:
--CTH
---
I'm disappointed to see that someone felt my comments were flaimbait.
Perhaps I was not clear in my point, which was not relating to the accountability (or lack thereof) established in shrink-wrapped licenses, but more relating to the ability to have a company to rely on to provide primarily technical support. The software to which I was refering was the category of development tools, libraries and other resources such as embedded realtim operating systems. These pieces of software typically have comprehensive support contracts associated with their licenses, as well as financial non-performance penalties.
These are things you simply can't get with OSS software regardless of weather it's GPL'd ordistributed under any other OSS license.
Well, more precisely, most large corporations have not yet realized the value they can extract from OSS through contracting with OSS support companies such as NuSphere which supports MySQL, and others that commercially package OSS apps. My point here, and above is, that it doesn't matter weather softwar is GPL'd or not. OSS is OSS, plain and simple.
--CTH
---
OK, so I'm not sure I see the value in apeasing the Free Software Foundation anymore. At one point they were the only folks championing a unique and at that time - new and different development and software distribution model, but at this point, there are enough open-source licenses out there which all offer substancially the same protections to the author of a product, and provide the same rights and restrictions on distribution.
I understand the derivitive work licensing componant of the GPL, but that aside for the moment - assuming the author of the application in question has no interest in this provision, what is the real value in making your license GPL compatible? What does that buy you? I have yet to hear of a company that refuses to use non GPL compliant software. I have, on the other hand, dealt with many companies who refuse to use GPL's software due to the restrictions it introduces, as well as the general lack of accountbility which is an integral part of most open-source licenses.
With this in mind, why would someone spend such inordinate amounts of time making software (it's license, rather) GPL compliant? It doesn't make the software any more free (monetarily speaking) or any more Open-Source... So why bother?
Are there really people out there who refuse to use non-GPL's software or something?
--CTH
---
If the USPTO improved their research capability with regard to prior art, what would all those IP lawyers do with all the free time they'll suddenly have? Once all this input is hathered by the USPTO, and they make recommendations to improve their system, they'll draft a budget with a line item for making the recommended improvements. Mark My words, Lobyists for the IP Lawyers will be out in force trying to get the budget cut, vecause after all, if they could do adequite research into Prior Art, The current torrent of IP lawsuits will be reduced to a trickle. What ever would the lawyers to with themselves?
Here's hopeing they jump out of a top floor window.
--CTH
---
Why do we care about the first commercial computer so muuch? Why not look at hte history (which I find much more interesting), including the work of Alan Turing and all the great men and women who were involved in the Bletchley Park Enigma Codebreaking effort. It's a fascinating piece of history for all; computer enthusiasts, military history fans, and those fascinated with the world of spies and spying. And for those who don't feel like reading what they think yould be dry, historical records, there are laways novelised accounts out there too [I'll dispense with ranting about how historical record chould not be novelized because it draws an audience for a version of history, while plainly offered as fiction, some group of readers will always take as historical fact, distortinh historical truth, etc, etc...]. Having said that, there are a few novelized acconts of this era that are quite cood. Perticularly Enigma, a novel by Robert harris. It was quite entertaining but I recommend reading some of the historical record of the time first, so as not to get yourself into the rut of using it as a reference for historical fact of the time [which, again, I'll rant about some other time...]
--CTH
---
It really ammounts to a nice PR move by Unisys. Vary slick. Remind the world that 50 years ago the company was an inovator, well What have you done for me lately?
I was a little disappointed with their spokesman Mr. Esnouf:"My son, for example, plays this game called 'I'm Going In,'" Esnouf said. "He spends all Sunday morning shooting people on the computer. We've invented this whole virtual reality. It's great, isn't it?" Is that really the best light he could put computer gaming in? I'm all for computer games and I'd say 'spending sunday morning shooting people' is a bit harsh. But all in all, Unisys pulled off a vary nice PR move without having to produce announce, or unveil a new product. Good deal for them...
--CTH
---
In fact this theory has been around for 30 some years and in the middle of the article, one of the guys to whom the theory is atributed qualifies his argument in such a way to make it sound quite reasonableOF course, if you introduce a new predator into any closed or reasonably closed eco-system there will always be a draumatic result. Why would anyone be suprised by that...? It's not like ancient man had the tools nessecery to kill off a sufficient quantity of any animal as to drive it to extinction (unlike more modern man drove the american water buffalo to extinction - using more modern weapons like guns - imagine doing that with a knife or spear, in sufficient quantities to drive any animal to extinction).
But then the guy goes on.... he really does a masterful job of fence sitting here:Nah... That's not really plausable... Climate change could vary easily have contributed to the extinction. Look at Gloval Warming, or destruction of the Ozone Layer. These events represent large scal climatic events, but they are affecting different regions of the globe in different ways, and at different rates, baserd primarily based on proximity to the epicenter of the event (antarctica in the case of the largest Ozone Hole) and the pre-existing climate.
I have two problems with this article, first, it didn't cover the theory it strives to cover in a fair and non-judgemental fashion, and it presents it in the light of the enviromentalists versus the conservatives. Well, this is science. It is an exploration of historical events to try and determin fact. There are not politics to it and there are no accusations being made here that would impact modern man. No one is using this theory to try and band deer hunting, or something like that.
People need to relax and take science for what it's worth, rather than taking it so personally. The article it seems was designed to be inflamatory, co I can't fault the traders - perhaps that was the only way it found its way into the mainstream media in the us, after all, an earlier poster pointed out that the BBC had this story a week or more ago...--CTH
---
It's really unbelievable. There seem to be two distinct service categories out there. First there are P2P services which strive to drive resources to the network edge, at cost to the consumers. Second, there are ASP type services such as Microsoft HailStorm and this second generation PVR concept, as well as the early 90's implementations of Video On Demand.
That's right. Screw the onsumer by having him/her store data he doesn't want/need as in P2P services and then, don't let joe consumer store the information he/she DOES want. While we're at it, lets do away with video storage completely and make everything pay-per-view...
This stuff is outragous!!!
--CTH
---
There's no hedging about it. They're going to be forced to make a change, and they're already being pushed against the wall with existing regulations
--CTH
---
I agree. Only the offices and data centers located in france should be bound by french law - and only content served from french locations are under the jurisdiction of french courts.
In every case I've seen, relating to legality of content, it has always been decided that the location of of publication is the location of the servers distributing the content, rather than the client browsers, where the content is displayed. As such, if yahoo has complied with the order of the french court by removing the offending content from the french servers, then the judge has reached the limit of his jurisdiction. The judge can not compel Yahoo to act to modify content on servers not located in France. To suggest otherwise would fly in the face of every web content related leval decision in the past half decade.
--CTH
---
I had the opportunity to mess with fortran as a programming excersise in school. It was quite an eperience
More importantly than the content of this article (which is interesting but known by most techies), is the fact that the article appeared in the NY Times - a mainstream media outlet. Even five years ago, the apearance of such an article would be unheard of. It's amazing that information technology has become so pervasive in our sucture, beyond the stature of a tool - a means to an end; but rather all aspects of computer technologies now represent such a source of interest to the general public that the mainstream media feel it appropriate to cover such an arcaine (although interesting to us geeks) piece of computer history.
It's actually quite gratifying to see this level of interest in technological history by the general public (as represented by the fact that the article was published in such a mainstream paper)
--CTH
---
This is a vary good point. The telcos and hardware vendors' decision to use a non-interoperable protocol and access mechanism was extremely short sighted. I'm suprised they didn't learn from a half decade of web content delivery experience and three decades of IP based networking experience; about the tremendous of interoperability. It's truly increadible the architects of WAP and GPRS didn't get this right. Oh, well. Perhaps 3G will be better. It doesn't sound to me like the replacement of WAP with M-Services alone will do the trick. We'll see...
--CTH
---
I can understand spending on something which you enjoy. For me it's home theatre, and I'm probably still on the low end of the scale because that's all my budget can hanele at the moment, but Who's to say what's crazy. I was suprised to fin that the author of the author was a guy, because this is does seem to be a male dominated spending habit, but hey, who am I to judge?
Jay Leno has how many cars now? He works how many hours per day? Is he crazy... well maybe but no one would say it to his face (read: chin).
So, what's wrong with investing in the high end of anything, really? DO I need a rack of 1.2Ghz servers in my home? PRobably not, but, if you asked me if I needed them all, I'd come up with reasons that each one was essential to my wellbeing. OK, well the article is worth a read for it's entertainment value, which, of course is it's intent, as far as I can tell.
--CTH
---
Again, maybe these users deserve what they get, for not performing any sort of real due diligence, but realistically, (as much as it pains me to say this) most users will fall into this category.
So, not only do Smart Tags pose the threat of allowing microsoft to enguage in what amounts to deceptive and patently illegal advertising practices, AND the threat of Trampling the rights of content (read copyright) owners, but also, it it acts to redice the public consumer awareness, with regard to multi-sourcing information and market decisions. The latter is extremely dangerous because Microsoft could probably honestly say that this was not their intent at all (and I'd believe them) to the point where they may not be possible to hold them liable for it. It would be an etremely dangerous social side-effect of a technological 'convenience' - we've seen this sort of thing before. Not only are they a microsoft bad, but a larger social bad...
--CTH
---
--CTH
---
OK, how stupid do you have to be to go out trust hardware reviews you get on a website that on the next page offers to sell you that hardware?
/. reader would confuse AnandTech with Extreme Tech.
The disturbing thing is there are an inordinate number of users who would do just that. See how convenient the web is? I can learn about the best hardware and buy it on the same page! Oh, Boy! Wait a minute, this would never fly outside the online world. Go to a computer store and ask the sales 'consultant' what to buy, then he hands it to you and you fork over the green. There's an idea. Oh, and while you're at it, you might as well bend over and grab your ankles.
Think for a moment how rediculous the above is, to the enthusiast comunity. No one would fall for this. It's merely the evolution of advertising. These new sites aren't geared tward technically astute people (read Geeks). They're grared tward the slightly more knowlegable general user, he who thinks he is aware of events within the industry and developments in technology. This is a logical progression. C|Net content was always geared tward the entry level user, the lowest common denominator. Their aquisition of ZDNet allows them to cater to a slightly (vary slightly) more sophistocated crowd, and now the introduction of these enthusiast-site look-alikes is simply a means to capture former ZDNet readers who fancy themselves morer astute than to continue teading ZD publications, probably anticipating their being dumbed down (even further) by CNet editors.
Just as television advertising has become more sophistocated over the past two decades, online marketing has become infinately more sophistovated in the past half decade. The issue online though, is users will 'graduate' from one calibre of publication to another vary quickly and to keep users in the CNet network of content sites, they aquired ZDNet as the next logical progression and are now pushing another class of site to fit in between ZDNet and the true techie sites like Toms Hardware and AnandTech.
CNet is out to expand their audience. They'll try to a more technically astute readership over time, but online publication is a reputation game. They'll pick up a few users here and there, but no self respecting
--CTH
---
It's our responsibility as citizens to insure that our legislators are making informed decisions rather than selling our rights down the river for decades to come...
--CTH
---
Yes, I agree that a page might be copyrighted even if it doesn't have a '©' symbol on it (but that character is easy to scan for), but I'm trying to make it easier for Microsoft to comply with the DMCA, after all, we do want Microsoft to comply with the DMCA (and other copyright regulations dating back to 1893 and earlier) right?
---
I expect Microsoft will be forced to shift from the exclusionary tag model to an inclusionary tag model where only sites with an inclusionary tag can be modified in this way. That way content owners have to give their eplicit permission to microsoft to edit their page in ways they would be completely unaware of.
There is some middle ground. Perhaps Microsoft could check the page for the '©' symbol, and if it is found, then search for the inclusionary tag, granting them license to modify the page.
Along the same lines, has anyone thought about how much they want to charge Microsoft for such a content license?
I'll be sure to put a click-thru license (enforceable through the wonders of the DMCA) on my website, requiring Microsoft to pay some reasonable fee per page modification, per user - how about $100 per occurance
--CTH
---
This was a vary interesting piece, however Lynch could have explored further the transition of human knowlege to a far more dynamic digital form as an overlay of his discussion of the demise of printed books. Lynch seems overly focused on the method of ppublication rather than the nature of the information provided.
Human knowlege has become much less statis with the introduction of these technologies. e-books and web publishing have made it far easier to publish information, however that information, once published, is far less static. First, the content must be sponsored in perpetuity, rather than the up front cost of publication, there are continuing costs of content delivery. For this reason, knowlege has become a sponsored comodity. If an academic paper is published in digital form, it is only afailable at the whim of the sponsor who published it on the web, or provides it as an e-book. Once the author dies, or if the information is considered to be of little value when it is published, it will not be available to an audience, and will not have any static physical presence in the future. What would happen if Galileo, or Aristotle had not writen their works in printed books (and instead published it in some digital form...). Their ideas were haracy, and considered to be of no value, durring their lives, and yet today, their works are of great scientific and historical significance. Information in a digital age has become transient. If it does not reach an audience imediately, it is discarded. What will historiens find of modern thought, 1000 years from now? Will it be the fringe thinkers who expressed ideas decades ahead of their time, or will it be a plethora of popular cultural iconism... ?
Ok, I'm done ranting, back to Lynch's paper...
On a more humerous note, I also vary much enjoyed the introduction witch mentioned the technology known as Napster, which I guess ranks up there with the Operating System known as RedHat.
--CTH
---