You misunderstand -- that's what I'm trying to say. I'm asking: is the article suggesting that no one will ever take advantage of the DMCA's full horror?
Yes, it will -- starting with Perl 6.0. This is a complete rewrite that compiles to a bytecode called Parrot by default. You can compile Parrot bytecode into binary, or almost anything.
Whenever you purchase (legally) a CD, DVD, VHS, etc., you have a right to make one copy for backup purposes.
Wrong. You only have a right to make a backup for software [cornell.edu] unless you are a libarary [cornell.edu].
You're both wrong. The copyright law says nothing about how many copies you're allowed to make for your own use. You can make a billion copies if you want.
It does concern what you do with them. But don't confuse your average bogus EULA's assertions with the current US law, no matter how broken the law may be. (Broken as in it still treats the intangible as physical property.)
Yeah, I'm a Lessig fan, even if he's a little more conservative than I. (Although I can afford to be less conservative; I don't have to argue in front of the Supreme Court this year.)
Obviously no one has a right to steal "intellectual property," but when did intellectual property, which is handled differently in the Constitution itself
The Constitution does not mention, not even in a single phrase, the idea of "intellectual property." The founders saw copyright and patent as a way to grant very limited monopoly in order to encourage creation.
In no way were they ever envisioning their laws being excuses to treat the intangible as if it was physical. Jefferson agonized over this, opposing the copyright and patent additions until the last minute, and even then reluctantly.
We are turning intellectual property slowly into real property
We agree on the basics of this issue, and I think I'm just writing to point out this: "intellectual property" is a trojan phrase, meant to imply what we're arguing against. There is no "intellectual property." You can own something that isn't real in the physical universe. If you could, it's tantamount to slavery. Do you own the part of my brain that knows the song you wrote?
Actually, one of the first things I did after Sept 11 was to go and get a new radio. When the next shit comes down -- say it's a suitcase nuke or smallpox -- it's going to be chaos, with most of the populated areas heading for the hills. Communication is going to be important, and maybe even life-saving.
What I don't understand is: why doesn't at least one of these smaller companies find a way to sue the Patent and Trademark Office for not doing sufficient background checks, and therefore creating opportunity for these patent suits to begin with?
It seems to me that the PTO is liable for the damages smaller (and bigger!) companies face. After all, if the PTO did its job, the suits wouldn't be happening.
I don't fear HTTP going away; it was never really intended to do what we're doing with it.
But what I do fear is Microsoft's ideas for a replacement. P2P? Sure. But imagine the control and insidious design they would want. If we replace HTTP, we cannot let Microsoft set the new standard.
The Pentium Compiler Group (look here) has a compiler patch to optimize GCC for the Pentium family. It's been out for years -- my company uses it and we notice great improvement -- and claims about the same performance gain as this "new" intel compiler. Interesting thing is, it was based on patches from INTEL!
From the PCG FAQ:
1.18 Where did PGCC come from?
When Intel released the Pentium some of their team produced a version of gcc with enhancements which gave 30% speed improvements on some benchmarks. Having demonstrated the improvements possible, they stopped development and released the code.
PGCC came from this work and further enhancements of the Intel code that had been produced. It aims to improve the stability of the compiler and to carry on improving the quality of the generated code.
1.19 How much speed improvement can I expect?
The 30% achieved by the Intel engineers is rare in the real world. Typically, the improvement will be about 5% using an intermediate optimization level like -O3 and no fine-tuning. Sometimes the 30% can be achieved - gzip-1.24 unzips about 20%-35% faster - but don't bank on it.
---
The interesting thing here is the note that the Intel engineers supposedly stopped work on the code. Apparently, they didn't.
Anyway, I recommend checking this out if you want to stick with GCC. The optimizations that work the best:
gcc -O6 -march=pentiumpro
The pentiumpro switch will also optimize for PII and PIII (and presumably PIV).
As with the intel compiler, don't try to build the Linux kernel with this.
While the facts in this guy's article are correct, he is way overstating stability problems. My company, a high-traffic dot-com survivor, has been running on 2.4 since the pre-releases, and we have never had a single incident on any of our servers.
Although known problems with 2.4 might account for his troubles, it's equally likely he has been having hardware problems. These "bugs" may very well be a straw man, drawing attention away from faulty hardware, which is usually the problem when a machine just suddenly locks up.
For anyone who might have run into this problem: it appears to be the result of trying to compile the kernel with pgcc (the pentium-optimized gcc). Apparently, that's a no-no.
Portability - MP3 has it all. Ogg has virtually none. Come on, someone reply with a link to some tiny Korean company that promises to make an Ogg player Real Soon Now.
Hmm -- I find your arguments moot, because all of them depend on the 'fact' that no one supports Ogg. And that, sir, just ain't true. There are players that have been out there for some time now, not the least of which is the Iomega HipZip (Iomega supplied some test models to the Ogg developers maybe a year ago).
The real point has nothing to do with all this, though. It is this: when that German company starts enforcing patent royalties, and starts building content-control into 'improved' versions of MP3, we need to have a good alternative. Ogg is that alternative.
We act like what is happening now is the final word for the Net. It's not even close -- someone just invented the horseless carriage, and we're really concerned because a couple of big companies have started making them.
Yes, those companies could be Ford and GM, but they also could be nobodies. We have only just begun; the technology is very young and very immature, and so are just about all the internet's users.
We have to face it: the world is going to be full of (mostly baby-boomer) reactionaries for some time. Jaron Lanier was probably all too correct when he predicted a society in which all thoughts, ideas, and communication are owned and monitored.
This is precisely what Orwell was trying to warn us against, but when you've got a generation of people who were raised to believe in solopsistic selfishness, then the spirit of I-got-mine will inevitably rule the day.
Property is always more important than freedom, right? Hey, that's my idea! I own it! Give it back! Pay up!
Well, yeah, Omni always had great fiction (Ellen Datlow being a fine SF editor). But the magazine the website have both been defunct for years. I particularly miss the magazine. You're telling me there's no market for a science-and-science-fiction magazine?? C'mon, Gucc.
I like the idea a lot -- the online world is missing out on good SF since the demise of omni magazine. (Maybe Asimov's or one of the other pocket-style magazines is online, but I don't know, and have never really thought that much of them anyway.)
OTOH, hasn't Bruce Sterling had enough press for a lifetime?
It'd be nice to see someone start a more amateur SF 'zine -- but the realities of sifting through sludge to find the occasionally good submission would probably quell any such ambitions. Oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
You misunderstand -- that's what I'm trying to say. I'm asking: is the article suggesting that no one will ever take advantage of the DMCA's full horror?
Hmm -- what's the point of the article? That since no one's taken advantage of the DMCA's power yet, it can't be that big of a danger?
Not to compare apples to oranges, but didn't we say that same thing about a certain terrorist leader?
I don't believe java support in Oracle goes much beyond having a JVM available as part of the db engine. Certainly not EJB or JSP.
Really, the point is, people are getting out of java as fast as they can, because
Yes, it will -- starting with Perl 6.0. This is a complete rewrite that compiles to a bytecode called Parrot by default. You can compile Parrot bytecode into binary, or almost anything.
Whenever you purchase (legally) a CD, DVD, VHS, etc., you have a right to make one copy for backup purposes. Wrong. You only have a right to make a backup for software [cornell.edu] unless you are a libarary [cornell.edu].
You're both wrong. The copyright law says nothing about how many copies you're allowed to make for your own use. You can make a billion copies if you want.
It does concern what you do with them. But don't confuse your average bogus EULA's assertions with the current US law, no matter how broken the law may be. (Broken as in it still treats the intangible as physical property.)
Yeah, I'm a Lessig fan, even if he's a little more conservative than I. (Although I can afford to be less conservative; I don't have to argue in front of the Supreme Court this year.)
You can own something that isn't real in the physical universe
Of course, I meant to say:
You can't own something that isn't real in the physical universe.
Obviously no one has a right to steal "intellectual property," but when did intellectual property, which is handled differently in the Constitution itself
The Constitution does not mention, not even in a single phrase, the idea of "intellectual property." The founders saw copyright and patent as a way to grant very limited monopoly in order to encourage creation.
In no way were they ever envisioning their laws being excuses to treat the intangible as if it was physical. Jefferson agonized over this, opposing the copyright and patent additions until the last minute, and even then reluctantly.
We are turning intellectual property slowly into real property
We agree on the basics of this issue, and I think I'm just writing to point out this: "intellectual property" is a trojan phrase, meant to imply what we're arguing against. There is no "intellectual property." You can own something that isn't real in the physical universe. If you could, it's tantamount to slavery. Do you own the part of my brain that knows the song you wrote?
Actually, one of the first things I did after Sept 11 was to go and get a new radio. When the next shit comes down -- say it's a suitcase nuke or smallpox -- it's going to be chaos, with most of the populated areas heading for the hills. Communication is going to be important, and maybe even life-saving.
Yes, we're that serious -- it's not that we all don't give out cc numbers over the phone.
It's just that none of us wants to be responsible for security on the day that our site gets 0Wn3d and see the cc numbers posted on geocities.
This needs to be done for AVS. If you don't know what AVS is and you posted in the thread you're part of the noise.
Ok, then, what is "AVS", exactly? Automatic Verification System?
What I don't understand is: why doesn't at least one of these smaller companies find a way to sue the Patent and Trademark Office for not doing sufficient background checks, and therefore creating opportunity for these patent suits to begin with?
It seems to me that the PTO is liable for the damages smaller (and bigger!) companies face. After all, if the PTO did its job, the suits wouldn't be happening.
I don't fear HTTP going away; it was never really intended to do what we're doing with it.
But what I do fear is Microsoft's ideas for a replacement. P2P? Sure. But imagine the control and insidious design they would want. If we replace HTTP, we cannot let Microsoft set the new standard.
The Pentium Compiler Group (look here) has a compiler patch to optimize GCC for the Pentium family. It's been out for years -- my company uses it and we notice great improvement -- and claims about the same performance gain as this "new" intel compiler. Interesting thing is, it was based on patches from INTEL!
From the PCG FAQ:
1.18 Where did PGCC come from?
When Intel released the Pentium some of their team produced a version of gcc with enhancements which gave 30% speed improvements on some benchmarks. Having demonstrated the improvements possible, they stopped development and released the code.
PGCC came from this work and further enhancements of the Intel code that had been produced. It aims to improve the stability of the compiler and to carry on improving the quality of the generated code.
1.19 How much speed improvement can I expect?
The 30% achieved by the Intel engineers is rare in the real world. Typically, the improvement will be about 5% using an intermediate optimization level like -O3 and no fine-tuning. Sometimes the 30% can be achieved - gzip-1.24 unzips about 20%-35% faster - but don't bank on it.
---
The interesting thing here is the note that the Intel engineers supposedly stopped work on the code. Apparently, they didn't.
Anyway, I recommend checking this out if you want to stick with GCC. The optimizations that work the best:
gcc -O6 -march=pentiumpro
The pentiumpro switch will also optimize for PII and PIII (and presumably PIV).
As with the intel compiler, don't try to build the Linux kernel with this.
While the facts in this guy's article are correct, he is way overstating stability problems. My company, a high-traffic dot-com survivor, has been running on 2.4 since the pre-releases, and we have never had a single incident on any of our servers.
Although known problems with 2.4 might account for his troubles, it's equally likely he has been having hardware problems. These "bugs" may very well be a straw man, drawing attention away from faulty hardware, which is usually the problem when a machine just suddenly locks up.
For anyone who might have run into this problem: it appears to be the result of trying to compile the kernel with pgcc (the pentium-optimized gcc). Apparently, that's a no-no.
Portability - MP3 has it all. Ogg has virtually none. Come on, someone reply with a link to some tiny Korean company that promises to make an Ogg player Real Soon Now.
Hmm -- I find your arguments moot, because all of them depend on the 'fact' that no one supports Ogg. And that, sir, just ain't true. There are players that have been out there for some time now, not the least of which is the Iomega HipZip (Iomega supplied some test models to the Ogg developers maybe a year ago).
The real point has nothing to do with all this, though. It is this: when that German company starts enforcing patent royalties, and starts building content-control into 'improved' versions of MP3, we need to have a good alternative. Ogg is that alternative.
Kernel 2.4.12 does not build. This the error it fails with:
init/main.o: In function `check_fpu':
init/main.o(.text.init+0x63): undefined reference to `__buggy_fxsr_alignment
make: *** [vmlinux] Error 1
I love how M$ always has to bend and break reality. M$ Research was the first research center started by a software company?
IBM??? YEARS before M$ existed, IBM had a research facility. And don't tell me IBM is (and was) not a software company.
I'm telling you -- and the moderators will think I'm just blowing smoke -- that the future of ISPs is that we will make our own.
After seeing this info about how to lay your own DSL line, and noticing this (clearly inflammatory but still interesting) piece about wireless grids, it's becoming obvious to me that we are going to end up building some of the network ourselves. Maybe it'll just be the last mile, or maybe we'll be building a nice, humble network to replace the original internet -- a net on which we are not beholden to corporate and government evil.
We act like what is happening now is the final word for the Net. It's not even close -- someone just invented the horseless carriage, and we're really concerned because a couple of big companies have started making them.
Yes, those companies could be Ford and GM, but they also could be nobodies. We have only just begun; the technology is very young and very immature, and so are just about all the internet's users.
Don't worry yet. Worry in about 25 years.
There's supposed to be a link to the Jaron Lanier article up there. Dunno why it didn't come through, but here it is:
http://www.pulsenation.org/napster.cfm
We have to face it: the world is going to be full of (mostly baby-boomer) reactionaries for some time. Jaron Lanier was probably all too correct when he predicted a society in which all thoughts, ideas, and communication are owned and monitored.
This is precisely what Orwell was trying to warn us against, but when you've got a generation of people who were raised to believe in solopsistic selfishness, then the spirit of I-got-mine will inevitably rule the day.
Property is always more important than freedom, right? Hey, that's my idea! I own it! Give it back! Pay up!
Well, yeah, Omni always had great fiction (Ellen Datlow being a fine SF editor). But the magazine the website have both been defunct for years. I particularly miss the magazine. You're telling me there's no market for a science-and-science-fiction magazine?? C'mon, Gucc.
I like the idea a lot -- the online world is missing out on good SF since the demise of omni magazine. (Maybe Asimov's or one of the other pocket-style magazines is online, but I don't know, and have never really thought that much of them anyway.)
OTOH, hasn't Bruce Sterling had enough press for a lifetime?
It'd be nice to see someone start a more amateur SF 'zine -- but the realities of sifting through sludge to find the occasionally good submission would probably quell any such ambitions. Oh well.