It's not pointless semantics, it's one of the fundamental differences between the job of the police officer and the job of judge and jury. The policeman only has the power to hold you very temporarily, but all he needs is suspicion. Do not equivocate.
Exactly. Pointless semantics. "Judge" means different things in different contexts. A policeman judges traffic safety even if he doesn't preside in judgment at a trial.
Call it deciding though, if it makes you feel better.
Meeting someone for the first time and arresting them a few moments later is not sufficient time to decide whether that person is "a threat", or going to go into hiding (perhaps more likely than the threat e.g. for a lethal crime of passion), or going to destroy or fabricate evidence, or whatever. So you start off by basing the rules on the crime he is suspected of committing, then you give leeway based on the merest reasonable suspicion.
Duh, yeah. For the class of crimes where it's reasonable to let someone go before trial the policeman has leeway in making the call, based on the circumstances and their experience.
Do you seriously believe a police officer (or anyone?) should enforce a law they feel is unjust?
What exactly do you propose as an alternative?
Refusing. And either do a reduced subset of the job (policemen who'd investigate murders but not victimless crimes would still be valuable) or quit.
Are you seriously proposing that they should strap on a gun and go force someone to do something they honestly believe is wrong?
Or do you think there should be no police at all until some revolution occurs creating enough people who think exactly like you as far as just laws are concerned?
I don't think it's a very hard thing. Most of our law comes from the same small set of principles - something is harmful to others and only therefore illegal, you can't be found guilty without evidence and a trial, etc.
Only some laws go beyond this. Drug-seizure laws in the USA let police seize what might be drug-related property and makes the owner fight to get it back. Obviously "race"-based laws would be unjust.
If you can't think of a law, even hypothetically, that you would and by modern standards should refuse to enforce or obey you're a dangerous sociopath.
idiots who think that killing people is the first, best solution to any problem instead of what it transparently is: the worst one?
That's the problem with standing armies. Why bother building it if you're not going to use it?
Why does killing people, which is known to be the most awesomely inefficient, ineffective means of solving problems, get almost all the cash?
Defense gets a lot of focus because if you can't defend yourself nobody is going to care what your opinion is. Only when they can't walk over you will they bother to talk. Not that the defense needs to be killing machines. It needs to be chosen in response to the actual threats.
There are always ways that all parties can resolve their legitmate conflicts to the greater benefit of everyone.
Some problems aren't for solving. Hitler didn't have a problem with the Jews/gays/etc that talking would help.
With regard to WWII, for example, it is not clear to me that a few decades of containment of the kind used against the USSR wouldn't have solved the problem with far less loss of life and property than war produced.
The soviets killed millions of "their" people while we had them bottled up. Also they developed nukes and weren't really very bottled.
If we'd left the Nazis in Poland(? France? Most of Europe?) and tried to bottle them up, even if effective, it would have led to the complete extermination of their victims.
Ask any economist if war is ever rational, and they will almost certainly tell you it isn't.
If there's a cheaper way of solving the problem, no. And a vast majority of times there is. But some people set out to kill others for "no good reason" and as such can't be talked out of it.
Note also that asking an economist about the value of human life is likely to get you a useless answer.
I think we should turn most of our armed forces into a national guard. For real defense - not attacking. And turn most of the rest into peace-keepers who we let the world have a large say in the distribution of, to keep actual peace and not enforce our favorite warlords, to make the world a safer place and generally reduce the chance of needing to go to war.
I see North Korea's dictator (and others) as a threat we shouldn't leave. He kills "his" own people and holds the lives of millions of SKs hostage (as well as some actual SK and Japanese kidnap victims) to keep his position. We don't leave armed snipers in the mall simply because it's cheaper than sending someone in to get them. The problem is that because he's declared himself the head of a sovereign state our governments feel compelled to go to war instead of acting against him and his power structure directly (or they feel they'd endorse a shoot-the-leader policy) so even if we did anything we won't do it without killing tens of thousands of draftees and bombing civilians - and then we'd probably just put the dictator in jail.
The hosting provider isn't monitoring anyone. You put your data on the hosting provider's machines, you gave it to them to publish, they are acting as a proxy to YOU.
Ummm, hello. The drives don't automatically report koran-burning content. They had to go looking. It wasn't hard, but it took a deliberate action.
You give your data to the phone company too, and you expect them not to look at it even if it's easy to do so.
No, because they're not HOSTING the content to begin with. All they do is move the data, they don't provide it.
Neither does the hosting provider. They just move it from a hard drive to a wire instead of one wire to another.
What's the critical difference here that you think suggests they need separate legal coverage?
No, the difference is huge, and that's why the terminology is important to the conversation.
Of course you're totally unwilling to actually talk about why the differences are important. You're hung up almost totally on the terminology. Of course, it's the easy part for you to learn.
You're getting bent out of shape over my broad use of ISP, despite the fact that I'm giving you ample venue to discuss the actual issues at hand, in whatever terminology you wish to use.
No, I'm pointing out that words have meanings, and refusing to use the accepted meaning of the word makes the conversation impossible to have.
Bullshit. I pointed out that I knew what you meant but that you were being overly exclusive with your terminology. If you had a point underneath your pedanticism you could have made it. Instead you do your level best to avoid a useful discussion and instead focus on enforcing your definitions.
Another of your points is that they simply aren't an ISP, and that's right but useless.
awwww, so close, so close......
So, do something new for once and say why a data-host shouldn't get CC-like immunity but a data-transporter should. Why, as in how does it benefit society.
Yeah, past tense I see. I'm not surprised, if it was in any sort of a technical position, I'd have gotten rid of you too.
I'm sure you would. But you're an pedant without a clue of the larger situation. Exactly the type who'd run around making disastrous decisions. Some day you'll learn that memorizing a list of terms, without understanding exceptions, is useless.
You're just pissy that I know more than you. I know what you're saying, but I also know when it's not true or useful. I know enough not to insist on the term ISP as if it matters because it's not a legal term, or a precise technical term, nor does it directly map to the subject at hand. It's a convenient label, when it is, and nothing more.
Of course, a warrant is an order for someone's arrest. I'm talking about when that officer wasn't told to arrest someone specifically. Just people they encounter in their job who don't need to be held in jail to compel their appearance.
[...] where a policemen can make a decision, it is not his job to "judge" [...]
Pointless semantics. A police officer "judges" if he has room to merge into traffic.
the primary grounds for arrest is suspicion of a sufficiently serious offence. [...]Your "[most anything]" does not apply to straight indictable offences.
It's their call on arresting someone for the vast majority of cases handled, if not sections of the criminal code. Most people are adequately handled administratively.
the policeman must take into account far more than just a suspicion that another crime will occur. He must consider whether the process of law will take place (identification, not skipping Court, etc.).
Yes. My words from the first post weren't intended to be an absolute list of possibilities. Skipping out on court is roughly "harm to others".
Look at it from a financial point of view instead of some weird utopian angle. If the police don't think you're a threat why waste money paying to hold you?
But back to the real issue.
Do you seriously believe a police officer (or anyone?) should enforce a law they feel is unjust? (Not just factually wrong, like a too-low speed limit, but in a human-rights abuse way.)
That is absurd and naive. No man fully supports every law, so you are essentially arguing that there should be no policemen.
I'm not the one who let it get this way, but yes, if it is so warty that nobody in good conscience can support it then nobody should be enforcing it. Like jury nullification, a check against abuses. We should be paying attention to this as we add laws, and to retire obsolete ones.
But yes, I will absolutely say that nobody should support, enforce, or let be enforced, a law they believe to be unjust.
Sorry, what? Is this from your utopic manual of how you want government to work
No, the Canadian criminal code.
Arrest without warrant by peace officer 495. (1) A peace officer may arrest without warrant (a-c) [everyone]
Limitation (2) A peace officer shall not arrest a person without warrant for (a-c) [most anything] in any case where
(d) he believes on reasonable grounds that the public interest, having regard to all the circumstances including the need to (i) establish the identity of the person, (ii) secure or preserve evidence of or relating to the offence, or (iii) prevent the continuation or repetition of the offence or the commission of another offence, may be satisfied without so arresting the person, and
(e) he has no reasonable grounds to believe that, if he does not so arrest the person, the person will fail to attend court in order to be dealt with according to law.
where policemen have the job of judging the thoughts ("believe will go on to...") of potential criminals?
Look at the phrase "no reasonable grounds to believe". It is the police's job to judge the intent of people, based on the circumstances and experience, where possible.
No, but if they don't fully support the law they shouldn't become cops.
If they support, or enforce, criminalizing victimless actions, they're corrupt. It doesn't matter if they're doing it as part of a larger package deal.
Also, police do have jurisdiction to decide who to arrest - and it's supposed to be only those who they believe will go on to cause harm to themselves or others. Similarly, the prosecutor can choose to charge every crime with the effort of a murder trial, or to drop all cases that didn't result in victims or create unsafe conditions.
The topic here is, and has been since the first post I've made, that Rackspace is not an ISP.
No, the topic here is about Rackspace censoring (removing) a client. People started by discussing if they should have done it and if they are legally safer if they do so, or not.
The legal angle raised the issue of their status, and what services they provide. Beyond just server hosting they do bundle, balance, and provide internet connectivity themselves (ask them) but do not own the tubes.
Then someone called Rackspace an ISP because they provide internet services and technically this would make them an internet service provider. Right, but wrong, but also irrelevant because ISP isn't a legally defined term and nothing about CC status hinges on it, but instead the actual services provided.
And that is when you used your internet cop badge to set the official topic to "What's an ISP". And of course because you don't have one you're actually vastly off-topic. Not a big deal. It's just funny that you can't see what you're doing.
What traits do they share with phone companies, and not with Rackspace, that are critical to this in your mind?
Evidently it's not carrying the customer's data across a network, because Rackspace does that. Otherwise your data wouldn't get from your server, dedicated or otherwise, to the ISPs.
Okay, one more time. Person A makes a call to their friend Bill. [...]
Nope. You're describing a scenario, you aren't saying which bits are critical to legal protection.
Person B is analogous to Rackspace in this example.
Why should the hosting provider but not the phone company be expected to monitor Carl and other users? Both have multiple customers. Both are totally automated in the course of their normal business.
You are involving equipment owned by you (the phone, the wires in the house running out to the phone-company's junction, or your own network if it's VOIP). This does not make you a phone company.
I worked for a phone company - they made PBX systems. I assume you'll pitch a fit over this too.
The ISP doesn't provide that bandwith to Rackspace out of the goodness of their hearts. Rackspace has to pay for that bandwidth, and they pass that cost along to you if you go over what they have budgeted for your account.
It's not some magical hosting that happens in a bubble, they also provide one leg of the data transfer - if only by reselling other company's services.
Wouldn't the fact that they have a TOS imply that they may take a look at what you're putting up? How would they know if you're violating the TOS if they never looked at the sites? Further, what happens if someone contacts them and says that a site they're hosting violates that TOS. Are they supposed to avoid looking at the site and ignore that report, or would they reasonably take a look at the site to see what's there, and take action if the TOS is being violated?
Why doesn't the phone company need a TOS? (Yes yes, CC status.) But WHY? Not "because it's a LABEL" but because it does things that make it unreasonable to scan every piece of content.
So now you want to move on from an imaginary definition of ISP to an imaginary use of something called "Common Hosting Status" that you just made up.
No, I want to talk about why we protect carriers but not hosts. I know there's a difference but I'm saying it's small and seemingly irrelevant. The substance of the issue is taking something from clients that you don't have an opportunity to examine properly, and thus not being expected to.
One of your main points if that Rackspace doesn't move your data, and on that you're dead wrong. Another of your points is that they simply aren't an ISP, and that's right but useless.
I take it you're admitting ignorance as to the nature of Godwin's law? Not only is the "lost the debate" part an optional tack-on, but it only applies if the comparison is spurious. You're ignoring the nature of the debate, Wikileaks and censorship. The products of censorship, including war crimes such as the slaying of civilians are on topic, as are comparisons to what we did to others who used these tactics.
And on that note, Wikileaks and what it leaked.
Specifically, and enough for the purposes of this conversation, the Collateral Murder video. I do not think this was publicly available before.
While it was publicly available, though extremely far from common knowledge, that a reporter was killed and children injured as collateral damage, the actual events - including the criminally low standards of proof and the government's refusal acknowledge their errors to prevent future killing - change the perception of the incident (once again, if people had heard of it at all) from "mistakes happen in war" to "our troops are killing indiscriminately and refusing oversight or correction".
That's the line between war crime and not. And this video is one of the best examples of us crossing that line that I've seen.
I'm not stuck on Wikileaks - if you saw this video elsewhere first, please give me your sources. But until then, it's crazy to say they haven't leaked anything.
No shit. That's pretty much a given unless I'm a majority stockholder. You call this insight?
Insight? No, I call it blisteringly obvious, and yet you seemed to have a hard time getting it.
You seem not to understand the point of Slashdot and most other internet forums. They aren't for the owners of a company to meet and pseudonymously discuss their plans. They're for everyone to share their opinions on things, including the actions of others.
I'm certainly not questioning their ownership of their business, just discussing it. Perhaps this is why you feel unheard - as your message seems to be common knowledge.
Why does it matter if you put "ROFL" on the comment or not. It didn't make sense in context, and it wasn't funny, so what was the point of a) saying it and b) defending it? Do you typically roll around on the floor laughing at things that aren't jokes?
Maybe you're a joke and you just don't know it... You'd just claimed to have beaten me up for my opinion when you actually bypassed the entire opinion and attacked the technical gotcha against which you couldn't win.
No, idiot. I didn't say how dare they, I said "are they making it their business"? Because, I want to know if they are.
You don't read well, do you? I didn't claim *you* said "how dare they". The point is, to suggest they're "snooping" through your data when you've contracted them to make that data publicly available is ridiculous.
I've contracted the phone company to move my data too. Most people would consider it snooping if they payed more attention to this data than required to route it.
I'm not concerned about them having the data as you imply because it ultimately is public as you say, but about contracting with a business who spends more time monitoring content than strictly required. It's both a business risk to deal with someone like that and a sign that the company isn't as efficient or well priced as it could be.
Firstly, they don't have advertisers, they have clients. They host the sites, they don't write the content.
Right. I said that wrong. Their clients were potentially losing advertisers due to user pressure and Rackspace took action to placate those advertisers, and thus their direct customers. I hadn't heard of any non-ad related pressure but some clients could have experienced direct pressure, or theoretically had a problem themselves.
That you so desperately want to misuse the term, even after you're corrected reflects more about you than me.
I know the usual meaning of the term. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying YOU are wrong in your juvenile insistence that it is the only meaning of those words.
I'm happy to discuss it with whatever terms you wish. I'm not the one stuck on definitions.
Yeah, see that's the problem. If you insist on using a made-up definition, you're not having the same discussion as anyone else.
I don't. You're the one insisting on which terms we use. I've been saying I know what you mean but you're so busy fighting a non-fight to actually try to make a point.
That's probably why you're bringing common-carrier status into this.
No, I'm bringing up common carrier status and the legal concepts behind it because it is what issues like this hinge on, not the technical definition of ISP.
Companies like Rackspace don't get common-carrier status, because they're not common carriers. This would have been clear if you hadn't redefined ISP, because they do act as common carriers.
ISPs do, do they?
What traits do they share with phone companies, and not with Rackspace, that are critical to this in your mind?
Evidently it's not carrying the customer's data across a network, because Racksp
Yes, but we only punish sense 1. To appropriate your ideas without credit is reasonable. If I'm eating plain cheesecake and I see you dumping blueberries on yours I'm free to do the same next time, without having to either ask your permission or attribute the innovation to you.
Violations of sense 2 & 3 are usually punished as lies/fraud if at all. It's not the using of your words that's the problem, it's the implicit promise on an exam that they are originally mine that is the problem. It's not ending up with your girlfriend that's the crime - it's any lies I tell her that unfairly ruin her view of you.
No, it sounds like negating a monopoly grant. I don't like copyright and the monopoly control the government grants. By copying a copyrighted work I reduce the value of that grant - ideally to zero, where it should have been.
If our society wants to reward authors or inventors it needs to simply do so. Without a registration process, or bureaucratic hoops to jump though, simply reward people who have spent their time enriching society. Don't grant patents, reward the people the industry agrees are responsible for the most advancement. Don't grant a copyright holder monopoly rights that would only restrict distribution of their work, simply directly reward them. The worst part is that these current grants aren't actual directly valuable and only enable a savvy creator to run a licensing business - in reality most creators get bilked out of these rights which then are used not to enrich creators but to create a perpetual income for a company that functions only as a gatekeeper - slowing society down merely to collect enable collecting a toll.
When systems like this are proposed it's easy to see how little anyone cares about actually rewarding society's helpers and how much we're simply willing to sell our neighbors' rights, such as to repeat something they heard or build something they see, without any thought for how much those restrictions hurt others.
Also, your simplistic idea "it's theft and it hurts the little guy" is nonsense. If you want to reward the little guy you've got a lot more to do than just paying for something - you've got to see where that money goes. Very likely it's mostly being siphoned off by some gate-keeper (like a record label) who he's paying merely because they exert anti-competitive pressure on the industry - BECAUSE we created these grants for them to leach off of in the first place. Trying to actually reward a creator is far harder than buying something - it involves figuring out which side-products (concerts, t-shirts) their label doesn't collect the majority of the profits from and buying those, which are often only tangential to the thing of theirs that you enjoy.
Sure, money for copyright licensing goes somewhere and if you stop paying it stops, but how much of that helps and how much just rewards bridge trolls, demanding tolls to use the resources they've co-opted? If you're trying to support the creators aren't you pretty much obligated to go around the system already?
You're not going to like this answer, but everywhere. Every case where a shopkeeper or salesman tries to change the terms of a deal after the deal has been made. Every contract, will, etc, that someone tried to sneak something into after the other party agreed to it that has been shot down.
Contracts, etc, work that way. Not just because I want them to but because all law in our society is derived from that. If contracts could be unilaterally altered nobody would ever provide anything. They'd give the other person an envelope that on the inside read "By opening this envelope you've given up all other consideration."
Contracts are for the intent, not the marks on the paper. If I use trick paper to change the words but you can prove your intent, the intent wins. You can't intend to contract to something you don't know about, and without intent there is no contract.
If it's like contract law regular, which would be the assumption in the absence of something like the UCITA might be, then any old contract case should be a cite. It's only if the judge subscribes to the "software is different" line of through. Copyright law specifically says licenses aren't required to run software but some judges don't seem to read that bit. At that point, who knows what else they believe.
Oh, I know, it's because I've made the mistake of actually trying to engage with you, even though you not only pride yourself on, but actually revel in coming off as ignorant. Like one of those guys who corrects someone who says the word "nuclear" by loudly saying "no, it's nuk-u-lar".
Strange. The guy I was talking to gave me the same impression.
Again, no idea what you're trying to say.
Yes, intentional stupidity looks good on you.
Vague terms suck,
Yes they do, luckily, we have specific ones like "Internet Service Provider" or "Web Hosting Service" that have very specific meanings.
There's that internet cop thing again. Slow down this time and maybe you'll be able to understand.
You seem to believe that there's a master organization that blesses certain phrases, as if because you're used to using ISP to mean "provider of internet connectivity" it's law that it means that, and only that to everyone.
I have said I know what you mean, I just find it funny how strongly you insist that your meaning is the absolute truth.
Oh, I get it now, it's everyone in the industry that's wrong, and you're right. That clears things up nicely. Doesn't make you seem like an ignorant crank at all when put that way.
Nope. I'm happy to discuss it with whatever terms you wish. I'm not the one stuck on definitions.
You're the one declaring there's one official meaning.
But, even if they do not, they still provide a very ISP-like function in routing your data from your server down to the basement to what you'd call an actual ISP.
Nope. Rackspace ends at the Rackspace firewall. It's then picked up by the ISPs they use.
Okay, that was the other option I listed.
I assume you'll ignore this part, since it a) contradicts what you've been saying, and b) is actually correct, which you've shown a dislike for.
No, that part merely (I'll take your word for it) confirmed the other option I listed. I was assuming Rackspace would handle selling connectivity too, as a package solution, but this is what I was referring to where I said "[routing your data] to what you'd call an actual ISP."
Yeah, you can explain it as many times as you like, it was still stupid, and not in the intentional way you're claiming.
Hmmm, and yet you can't even recognize the common term ROFL when someone puts punctuation between the letters. And you'd rather be belligerent than ask.
No, smart money is on you missing this too.
It doesn't matter what their reasoning is, it's their choice.
No shit. That's pretty much a given unless I'm a majority stockholder. You call this insight?
Personally, I think their reasons are fairly simple, they don't want to be associated with a loon who's garnered negative worldwide attention for being a crazy asshole. Imagine, a private business that doesn't want to be associated with that.
Yeah, that's the profit motive I was speculating they might have. Simply that they'll lose more advertisers by keeping the loon than his business is worth.
And I'm pretty sure it's flawed, but that they recognize that and it's not their reason.
Usually when companies admit they're able to police some content special interests descend and bury the company under endless demands to do so. Then every accused loon not removed results in conspiracy theories. Eventually the company, having wasted enough money trying to placate people and only gotten bad PR, becomes institutionally surly and just stops answering complaints.
Are they making it their business to snoop on what you send on that wire, even if it is very short and totally within their premises, or do they stay
Yes. It's a common tactic to ask for the moon and then fall back to your previously hideously unreasonable position and play the conciliator, willing to compromise so much.
The only reason to expect anything different at all is because patents are an artificial restriction and a country with them is going to get left behind by unrestricted competitors. Now that we're broke it's getting harder to force the world into ruinous treaties. At some point we'll be left with patented cats and the rest of the world will just cut us and our insane laws off until we starve.
There's nothing where single-license purchasing is the norm. You simply don't need a license to use a copyrighted work, only to duplicate it in a lasting medium. If you buy a copy you've got unlimited use rights, excepting a few copyright exceptions such as public performance, etc.
In the case where these works purport to come with a license, often packed as an EULA, they aren't valid because they're post-agreement modifications.
If you don't know you licensed a work, you did not. It cannot happen accidentally.
No surprise, that's how it's always been. If you enter into a special agreement the normal implied contract of sale doesn't apply.
But buying software at a store does not enter into a licensing agreement. They call it a sale, the consumer thinks it's a sale, it's a sale. For that, the doctrine would still apply.
But whatever. You're defensive and angry. I'm not going to argue with you.
I was asking questions, but as you said, whatever.
I would know, since I got yelled at and modded 'troll' for saying, "I don't like the control Apple has over iPhone/iPad application distribution, but let's be honest: Apple isn't really wrong in their criticisms of Flash."
And you don't think that was Apple fans modding you down for not liking Apple's limits?
Because I've been yelled at and modded troll for saying "I hate Flash, Apple's right, it does suck. But I still don't want companies banning the competition's products." Everyone who complained did so about my not respecting Apple's right to do what they want and my SUPPORT of Flash (wtf!?), not my thinking that Flash stunk.
No. That's not the important thing though - Apple does. Or claims to and has lawyers. They might lose those nuisance lawsuits, or never even file them, but they still hate jailbreakers and would ruin them if they could.
That's just something to think about when casually picking a platform to develop for.
How so? You were addressing the trolling masses as if they were the people whose voices they had drown out, were you not?
Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how everyone was pretty well in agreement that Flash sucks [...] Then suddenly it's like, "How could they do that?! Flash is awesome
So you are aware that by "everyone" you really mean "some trolls"?
So you just want to howl into the wind at people who have absolutely no reason to listen to you. Okay.
I wasn't aware your special 'Internet Cop' badge afforded you extra privileges. I may have to upgrade.
Repeating your reasoning doesn't actually help it to make sense. The "walled garden" example was stupid in this context.
Yes, and that was the intent. It wouldn't be crazy-silly if it were plausible.
It was to reflect the stupidity of taking the turd out of the punchbowl when it's just going to fall back in. Unless they had walls, etc... And then even if it worked they'd end up with - AOL...
Meh, whatever.
And you're the final arbiter of what's moral?
No, I'm able to see flaws in what must be their reasoning.
They're doing it to either A) distance themselves from bad publicity , or B) silence a dissenting view by terminating their service.
Option B is morally wrong, not because I say so but because it relies on censorship, not words. And not because it's morally wrong, but because it won't achieve the moral goal. Censoring hate doesn't make it go away.
Yes, they've got a right to not serve a customer. But if they use that right simply because they don't like the customer's views they're censors.
Moreover, it's useless. To counter haters you need to have rational explanation of why they're wrong, not more screaming.
[ISP] has one commonly accepted definition. That you're too thick to understand that is entirely your own problem. The only thing you demonstrate by continuing to willfully ignore the correct use of the term is that you shouldn't be taken seriously in the conversation.
Sure, and that commonly agreed on usage is technically incorrect in that it ignores all level of internet service providing.
I know what you're talking about, and you know what I'm talking about, but you're too pompous to allow for someone else's different usage of a term. No, can't do that, must do it Loud Howard's way or he'll bitch and derail the meeting arguing over terminology.
NO AGAIN.
Bold it next time. It lacked a little something this way.
The content provider is the person who provides the server and the data.
There are many ISPs in the scenario, some provide backbone connections, some provide end-user connections, some provide hosted-end-user connections, etc.
Rackspace is an ISP, the servers they host are analogous to residential users.
Rackspace does not move your data anywhere, that's the job of the ISP. You can not buy internet access from Rackspace, that is not their business.
They offer network uptime guarantees so I'm under the impression they actually do sell internet access in the traditional way.
But, even if they do not, they still provide a very ISP-like function in routing your data from your server down to the basement to what you'd call an actual ISP.
And that's the part I'm talking about. Are they making it their business to snoop on what you send on that wire, even if it is very short and totally within their premises, or do they stay hands off and let existing societal tools (the police, the law) do the work?
The way you're defining ISP at this point means if you run Apache on your laptop, you're an ISP because you make data available on the internet the same way that Rackspace does. Do you think you're an ISP?
Weeee, I'm an ISP! Yay. [runs around excitedly]
I dunno, if I'm Providing a Service on the Internet, yes. If someone called and asked, "Are you an ISP?", I'd ask if they wanted residential service, though, because I do know what most people mean when they say it.
Vague terms suck, why are you getting all worked up about it instead of talking about common carrier status or whatever the issue really is?
You are aware that in Apple's opinion, jailbreaking is a DMCA violation? As soon as it suits them they'll detect jailbroken phones, shut you down, and file a massive nuisance lawsuit ala DirecTV.
Strange, Apple really used to seem to care about reaching out to students. Charging for developer tools is so stuffy and 1984-chained to your seats watching the same monotone monopolistic leader chanting that it's surreal.
If you were a mechanic, a single ratchet would cost $99.
Yeah, sucks to be in an industry where you can't replicate the tools for free. Ouch.
Seriously, $99 isn't much money.
Well okay, you made it sound like a lot, but sure.
Even though it's not a lot it's a significant barrier to a new programmer, especially if they're pre-teen.
Even if you value your time at minimum wage, the amount of money it will take you to actually write software that does something for you will rapidly exceed $99.
But your time, especially on a project you're learning from, is a ready commodity to many people.
Sure, to anyone with a credit card this is no big deal, but to a kid who'd have to save for weeks, borrow a credit-card they can use online, and register (probably something they couldn't actually do, being underage and having to sign a contract), just to get the tools to start writing 'Hello World', it's a big enough barrier.
And, as you said yourself, they're giving you XCode for free without strings attached.
Yeah, no strings. What string would they attach? After all, it only works with their products. Where are you going to go with that, Android?
It's their house, they can do what they want. I'm just saying it's going to be a pretty stagnant house with less and less junior programmers.
You know though, which market segment I've seen adopt the iPhone in greatest numbers (aside from existing Mac users) - the middle-aged and elderly. Like getting Grandma an iMac, getting her an iPhone is pretty easy. I guess it's not surprising, Jobs is what, 70? So yeah, he's probably not just out of touch but a bit afraid of teenagers these days, what with all their hacking and blue boxes.
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It's not pointless semantics, it's one of the fundamental differences between the job of the police officer and the job of judge and jury. The policeman only has the power to hold you very temporarily, but all he needs is suspicion. Do not equivocate.
Exactly. Pointless semantics. "Judge" means different things in different contexts. A policeman judges traffic safety even if he doesn't preside in judgment at a trial.
Call it deciding though, if it makes you feel better.
Meeting someone for the first time and arresting them a few moments later is not sufficient time to decide whether that person is "a threat", or going to go into hiding (perhaps more likely than the threat e.g. for a lethal crime of passion), or going to destroy or fabricate evidence, or whatever. So you start off by basing the rules on the crime he is suspected of committing, then you give leeway based on the merest reasonable suspicion.
Duh, yeah. For the class of crimes where it's reasonable to let someone go before trial the policeman has leeway in making the call, based on the circumstances and their experience.
Do you seriously believe a police officer (or anyone?) should enforce a law they feel is unjust?
What exactly do you propose as an alternative?
Refusing. And either do a reduced subset of the job (policemen who'd investigate murders but not victimless crimes would still be valuable) or quit.
Are you seriously proposing that they should strap on a gun and go force someone to do something they honestly believe is wrong?
Or do you think there should be no police at all until some revolution occurs creating enough people who think exactly like you as far as just laws are concerned?
I don't think it's a very hard thing. Most of our law comes from the same small set of principles - something is harmful to others and only therefore illegal, you can't be found guilty without evidence and a trial, etc.
Only some laws go beyond this. Drug-seizure laws in the USA let police seize what might be drug-related property and makes the owner fight to get it back. Obviously "race"-based laws would be unjust.
If you can't think of a law, even hypothetically, that you would and by modern standards should refuse to enforce or obey you're a dangerous sociopath.
idiots who think that killing people is the first, best solution to any problem instead of what it transparently is: the worst one?
That's the problem with standing armies. Why bother building it if you're not going to use it?
Why does killing people, which is known to be the most awesomely inefficient, ineffective means of solving problems, get almost all the cash?
Defense gets a lot of focus because if you can't defend yourself nobody is going to care what your opinion is. Only when they can't walk over you will they bother to talk. Not that the defense needs to be killing machines. It needs to be chosen in response to the actual threats.
There are always ways that all parties can resolve their legitmate conflicts to the greater benefit of everyone.
Some problems aren't for solving. Hitler didn't have a problem with the Jews/gays/etc that talking would help.
With regard to WWII, for example, it is not clear to me that a few decades of containment of the kind used against the USSR wouldn't have solved the problem with far less loss of life and property than war produced.
The soviets killed millions of "their" people while we had them bottled up. Also they developed nukes and weren't really very bottled.
If we'd left the Nazis in Poland(? France? Most of Europe?) and tried to bottle them up, even if effective, it would have led to the complete extermination of their victims.
Ask any economist if war is ever rational, and they will almost certainly tell you it isn't.
If there's a cheaper way of solving the problem, no. And a vast majority of times there is. But some people set out to kill others for "no good reason" and as such can't be talked out of it.
Note also that asking an economist about the value of human life is likely to get you a useless answer.
I think we should turn most of our armed forces into a national guard. For real defense - not attacking. And turn most of the rest into peace-keepers who we let the world have a large say in the distribution of, to keep actual peace and not enforce our favorite warlords, to make the world a safer place and generally reduce the chance of needing to go to war.
I see North Korea's dictator (and others) as a threat we shouldn't leave. He kills "his" own people and holds the lives of millions of SKs hostage (as well as some actual SK and Japanese kidnap victims) to keep his position. We don't leave armed snipers in the mall simply because it's cheaper than sending someone in to get them. The problem is that because he's declared himself the head of a sovereign state our governments feel compelled to go to war instead of acting against him and his power structure directly (or they feel they'd endorse a shoot-the-leader policy) so even if we did anything we won't do it without killing tens of thousands of draftees and bombing civilians - and then we'd probably just put the dictator in jail.
The hosting provider isn't monitoring anyone. You put your data on the hosting provider's machines, you gave it to them to publish, they are acting as a proxy to YOU.
Ummm, hello. The drives don't automatically report koran-burning content. They had to go looking. It wasn't hard, but it took a deliberate action.
You give your data to the phone company too, and you expect them not to look at it even if it's easy to do so.
No, because they're not HOSTING the content to begin with. All they do is move the data, they don't provide it.
Neither does the hosting provider. They just move it from a hard drive to a wire instead of one wire to another.
What's the critical difference here that you think suggests they need separate legal coverage?
No, the difference is huge, and that's why the terminology is important to the conversation.
Of course you're totally unwilling to actually talk about why the differences are important. You're hung up almost totally on the terminology. Of course, it's the easy part for you to learn.
You're getting bent out of shape over my broad use of ISP, despite the fact that I'm giving you ample venue to discuss the actual issues at hand, in whatever terminology you wish to use.
No, I'm pointing out that words have meanings, and refusing to use the accepted meaning of the word makes the conversation impossible to have.
Bullshit. I pointed out that I knew what you meant but that you were being overly exclusive with your terminology. If you had a point underneath your pedanticism you could have made it. Instead you do your level best to avoid a useful discussion and instead focus on enforcing your definitions.
Another of your points is that they simply aren't an ISP, and that's right but useless.
awwww, so close, so close......
So, do something new for once and say why a data-host shouldn't get CC-like immunity but a data-transporter should. Why, as in how does it benefit society.
Yeah, past tense I see. I'm not surprised, if it was in any sort of a technical position, I'd have gotten rid of you too.
I'm sure you would. But you're an pedant without a clue of the larger situation. Exactly the type who'd run around making disastrous decisions. Some day you'll learn that memorizing a list of terms, without understanding exceptions, is useless.
You're just pissy that I know more than you. I know what you're saying, but I also know when it's not true or useful. I know enough not to insist on the term ISP as if it matters because it's not a legal term, or a precise technical term, nor does it directly map to the subject at hand. It's a convenient label, when it is, and nothing more.
Wrong. This particular thread started when
Thank god someone called the internet cops.
only applies to arrest without warrant.
Of course, a warrant is an order for someone's arrest. I'm talking about when that officer wasn't told to arrest someone specifically. Just people they encounter in their job who don't need to be held in jail to compel their appearance.
[...] where a policemen can make a decision, it is not his job to "judge" [...]
Pointless semantics. A police officer "judges" if he has room to merge into traffic.
the primary grounds for arrest is suspicion of a sufficiently serious offence. [...]Your "[most anything]" does not apply to straight indictable offences.
It's their call on arresting someone for the vast majority of cases handled, if not sections of the criminal code. Most people are adequately handled administratively.
the policeman must take into account far more than just a suspicion that another crime will occur. He must consider whether the process of law will take place (identification, not skipping Court, etc.).
Yes. My words from the first post weren't intended to be an absolute list of possibilities. Skipping out on court is roughly "harm to others".
Look at it from a financial point of view instead of some weird utopian angle. If the police don't think you're a threat why waste money paying to hold you?
But back to the real issue.
Do you seriously believe a police officer (or anyone?) should enforce a law they feel is unjust? (Not just factually wrong, like a too-low speed limit, but in a human-rights abuse way.)
That is absurd and naive. No man fully supports every law, so you are essentially arguing that there should be no policemen.
I'm not the one who let it get this way, but yes, if it is so warty that nobody in good conscience can support it then nobody should be enforcing it. Like jury nullification, a check against abuses. We should be paying attention to this as we add laws, and to retire obsolete ones.
But yes, I will absolutely say that nobody should support, enforce, or let be enforced, a law they believe to be unjust.
Sorry, what? Is this from your utopic manual of how you want government to work
No, the Canadian criminal code.
Arrest without warrant by peace officer
495. (1) A peace officer may arrest without warrant
(a-c) [everyone]
Limitation
(2) A peace officer shall not arrest a person without warrant for
(a-c) [most anything]
in any case where
(d) he believes on reasonable grounds that the public interest, having regard to all the circumstances including the need to
(i) establish the identity of the person,
(ii) secure or preserve evidence of or relating to the offence, or
(iii) prevent the continuation or repetition of the offence or the commission of another offence,
may be satisfied without so arresting the person, and
(e) he has no reasonable grounds to believe that, if he does not so arrest the person, the person will fail to attend court in order to be dealt with according to law.
where policemen have the job of judging the thoughts ("believe will go on to...") of potential criminals?
Look at the phrase "no reasonable grounds to believe". It is the police's job to judge the intent of people, based on the circumstances and experience, where possible.
No, but if they don't fully support the law they shouldn't become cops.
If they support, or enforce, criminalizing victimless actions, they're corrupt. It doesn't matter if they're doing it as part of a larger package deal.
Also, police do have jurisdiction to decide who to arrest - and it's supposed to be only those who they believe will go on to cause harm to themselves or others. Similarly, the prosecutor can choose to charge every crime with the effort of a murder trial, or to drop all cases that didn't result in victims or create unsafe conditions.
The topic here is, and has been since the first post I've made, that Rackspace is not an ISP.
No, the topic here is about Rackspace censoring (removing) a client. People started by discussing if they should have done it and if they are legally safer if they do so, or not.
The legal angle raised the issue of their status, and what services they provide. Beyond just server hosting they do bundle, balance, and provide internet connectivity themselves (ask them) but do not own the tubes.
Then someone called Rackspace an ISP because they provide internet services and technically this would make them an internet service provider. Right, but wrong, but also irrelevant because ISP isn't a legally defined term and nothing about CC status hinges on it, but instead the actual services provided.
And that is when you used your internet cop badge to set the official topic to "What's an ISP". And of course because you don't have one you're actually vastly off-topic. Not a big deal. It's just funny that you can't see what you're doing.
What traits do they share with phone companies, and not with Rackspace, that are critical to this in your mind?
Evidently it's not carrying the customer's data across a network, because Rackspace does that. Otherwise your data wouldn't get from your server, dedicated or otherwise, to the ISPs.
Okay, one more time.
Person A makes a call to their friend Bill. [...]
Nope. You're describing a scenario, you aren't saying which bits are critical to legal protection.
Person B is analogous to Rackspace in this example.
Why should the hosting provider but not the phone company be expected to monitor Carl and other users? Both have multiple customers. Both are totally automated in the course of their normal business.
You are involving equipment owned by you (the phone, the wires in the house running out to the phone-company's junction, or your own network if it's VOIP). This does not make you a phone company.
I worked for a phone company - they made PBX systems. I assume you'll pitch a fit over this too.
The ISP doesn't provide that bandwith to Rackspace out of the goodness of their hearts. Rackspace has to pay for that bandwidth, and they pass that cost along to you if you go over what they have budgeted for your account.
It's not some magical hosting that happens in a bubble, they also provide one leg of the data transfer - if only by reselling other company's services.
Wouldn't the fact that they have a TOS imply that they may take a look at what you're putting up? How would they know if you're violating the TOS if they never looked at the sites? Further, what happens if someone contacts them and says that a site they're hosting violates that TOS. Are they supposed to avoid looking at the site and ignore that report, or would they reasonably take a look at the site to see what's there, and take action if the TOS is being violated?
Why doesn't the phone company need a TOS? (Yes yes, CC status.) But WHY? Not "because it's a LABEL" but because it does things that make it unreasonable to scan every piece of content.
So now you want to move on from an imaginary definition of ISP to an imaginary use of something called "Common Hosting Status" that you just made up.
No, I want to talk about why we protect carriers but not hosts. I know there's a difference but I'm saying it's small and seemingly irrelevant. The substance of the issue is taking something from clients that you don't have an opportunity to examine properly, and thus not being expected to.
One of your main points if that Rackspace doesn't move your data, and on that you're dead wrong. Another of your points is that they simply aren't an ISP, and that's right but useless.
I'm defending my pos
I take it you're admitting ignorance as to the nature of Godwin's law? Not only is the "lost the debate" part an optional tack-on, but it only applies if the comparison is spurious. You're ignoring the nature of the debate, Wikileaks and censorship. The products of censorship, including war crimes such as the slaying of civilians are on topic, as are comparisons to what we did to others who used these tactics.
And on that note, Wikileaks and what it leaked.
Specifically, and enough for the purposes of this conversation, the Collateral Murder video. I do not think this was publicly available before.
While it was publicly available, though extremely far from common knowledge, that a reporter was killed and children injured as collateral damage, the actual events - including the criminally low standards of proof and the government's refusal acknowledge their errors to prevent future killing - change the perception of the incident (once again, if people had heard of it at all) from "mistakes happen in war" to "our troops are killing indiscriminately and refusing oversight or correction".
That's the line between war crime and not. And this video is one of the best examples of us crossing that line that I've seen.
I'm not stuck on Wikileaks - if you saw this video elsewhere first, please give me your sources. But until then, it's crazy to say they haven't leaked anything.
No shit. That's pretty much a given unless I'm a majority stockholder. You call this insight?
Insight? No, I call it blisteringly obvious, and yet you seemed to have a hard time getting it.
You seem not to understand the point of Slashdot and most other internet forums. They aren't for the owners of a company to meet and pseudonymously discuss their plans. They're for everyone to share their opinions on things, including the actions of others.
I'm certainly not questioning their ownership of their business, just discussing it. Perhaps this is why you feel unheard - as your message seems to be common knowledge.
Why does it matter if you put "ROFL" on the comment or not. It didn't make sense in context, and it wasn't funny, so what was the point of a) saying it and b) defending it? Do you typically roll around on the floor laughing at things that aren't jokes?
Maybe you're a joke and you just don't know it... You'd just claimed to have beaten me up for my opinion when you actually bypassed the entire opinion and attacked the technical gotcha against which you couldn't win.
No, idiot. I didn't say how dare they, I said "are they making it their business"? Because, I want to know if they are.
You don't read well, do you? I didn't claim *you* said "how dare they". The point is, to suggest they're "snooping" through your data when you've contracted them to make that data publicly available is ridiculous.
I've contracted the phone company to move my data too. Most people would consider it snooping if they payed more attention to this data than required to route it.
I'm not concerned about them having the data as you imply because it ultimately is public as you say, but about contracting with a business who spends more time monitoring content than strictly required. It's both a business risk to deal with someone like that and a sign that the company isn't as efficient or well priced as it could be.
Firstly, they don't have advertisers, they have clients. They host the sites, they don't write the content.
Right. I said that wrong. Their clients were potentially losing advertisers due to user pressure and Rackspace took action to placate those advertisers, and thus their direct customers. I hadn't heard of any non-ad related pressure but some clients could have experienced direct pressure, or theoretically had a problem themselves.
That you so desperately want to misuse the term, even after you're corrected reflects more about you than me.
I know the usual meaning of the term. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying YOU are wrong in your juvenile insistence that it is the only meaning of those words.
I'm happy to discuss it with whatever terms you wish. I'm not the one stuck on definitions.
Yeah, see that's the problem. If you insist on using a made-up definition, you're not having the same discussion as anyone else.
I don't. You're the one insisting on which terms we use. I've been saying I know what you mean but you're so busy fighting a non-fight to actually try to make a point.
That's probably why you're bringing common-carrier status into this.
No, I'm bringing up common carrier status and the legal concepts behind it because it is what issues like this hinge on, not the technical definition of ISP.
Companies like Rackspace don't get common-carrier status, because they're not common carriers. This would have been clear if you hadn't redefined ISP, because they do act as common carriers.
ISPs do, do they?
What traits do they share with phone companies, and not with Rackspace, that are critical to this in your mind?
Evidently it's not carrying the customer's data across a network, because Racksp
Yes, but we only punish sense 1. To appropriate your ideas without credit is reasonable. If I'm eating plain cheesecake and I see you dumping blueberries on yours I'm free to do the same next time, without having to either ask your permission or attribute the innovation to you.
Violations of sense 2 & 3 are usually punished as lies/fraud if at all. It's not the using of your words that's the problem, it's the implicit promise on an exam that they are originally mine that is the problem. It's not ending up with your girlfriend that's the crime - it's any lies I tell her that unfairly ruin her view of you.
No, it sounds like negating a monopoly grant. I don't like copyright and the monopoly control the government grants. By copying a copyrighted work I reduce the value of that grant - ideally to zero, where it should have been.
If our society wants to reward authors or inventors it needs to simply do so. Without a registration process, or bureaucratic hoops to jump though, simply reward people who have spent their time enriching society. Don't grant patents, reward the people the industry agrees are responsible for the most advancement. Don't grant a copyright holder monopoly rights that would only restrict distribution of their work, simply directly reward them. The worst part is that these current grants aren't actual directly valuable and only enable a savvy creator to run a licensing business - in reality most creators get bilked out of these rights which then are used not to enrich creators but to create a perpetual income for a company that functions only as a gatekeeper - slowing society down merely to collect enable collecting a toll.
When systems like this are proposed it's easy to see how little anyone cares about actually rewarding society's helpers and how much we're simply willing to sell our neighbors' rights, such as to repeat something they heard or build something they see, without any thought for how much those restrictions hurt others.
Also, your simplistic idea "it's theft and it hurts the little guy" is nonsense. If you want to reward the little guy you've got a lot more to do than just paying for something - you've got to see where that money goes. Very likely it's mostly being siphoned off by some gate-keeper (like a record label) who he's paying merely because they exert anti-competitive pressure on the industry - BECAUSE we created these grants for them to leach off of in the first place. Trying to actually reward a creator is far harder than buying something - it involves figuring out which side-products (concerts, t-shirts) their label doesn't collect the majority of the profits from and buying those, which are often only tangential to the thing of theirs that you enjoy.
Sure, money for copyright licensing goes somewhere and if you stop paying it stops, but how much of that helps and how much just rewards bridge trolls, demanding tolls to use the resources they've co-opted? If you're trying to support the creators aren't you pretty much obligated to go around the system already?
You're not going to like this answer, but everywhere. Every case where a shopkeeper or salesman tries to change the terms of a deal after the deal has been made. Every contract, will, etc, that someone tried to sneak something into after the other party agreed to it that has been shot down.
Contracts, etc, work that way. Not just because I want them to but because all law in our society is derived from that. If contracts could be unilaterally altered nobody would ever provide anything. They'd give the other person an envelope that on the inside read "By opening this envelope you've given up all other consideration."
Contracts are for the intent, not the marks on the paper. If I use trick paper to change the words but you can prove your intent, the intent wins. You can't intend to contract to something you don't know about, and without intent there is no contract.
If it's like contract law regular, which would be the assumption in the absence of something like the UCITA might be, then any old contract case should be a cite. It's only if the judge subscribes to the "software is different" line of through. Copyright law specifically says licenses aren't required to run software but some judges don't seem to read that bit. At that point, who knows what else they believe.
Oh, I know, it's because I've made the mistake of actually trying to engage with you, even though you not only pride yourself on, but actually revel in coming off as ignorant. Like one of those guys who corrects someone who says the word "nuclear" by loudly saying "no, it's nuk-u-lar".
Strange. The guy I was talking to gave me the same impression.
Again, no idea what you're trying to say.
Yes, intentional stupidity looks good on you.
Vague terms suck,
Yes they do, luckily, we have specific ones like "Internet Service Provider" or "Web Hosting Service" that have very specific meanings.
There's that internet cop thing again. Slow down this time and maybe you'll be able to understand.
You seem to believe that there's a master organization that blesses certain phrases, as if because you're used to using ISP to mean "provider of internet connectivity" it's law that it means that, and only that to everyone.
I have said I know what you mean, I just find it funny how strongly you insist that your meaning is the absolute truth.
Oh, I get it now, it's everyone in the industry that's wrong, and you're right. That clears things up nicely. Doesn't make you seem like an ignorant crank at all when put that way.
Nope. I'm happy to discuss it with whatever terms you wish. I'm not the one stuck on definitions.
You're the one declaring there's one official meaning.
But, even if they do not, they still provide a very ISP-like function in routing your data from your server down to the basement to what you'd call an actual ISP.
Nope. Rackspace ends at the Rackspace firewall. It's then picked up by the ISPs they use.
Okay, that was the other option I listed.
I assume you'll ignore this part, since it a) contradicts what you've been saying, and b) is actually correct, which you've shown a dislike for.
No, that part merely (I'll take your word for it) confirmed the other option I listed. I was assuming Rackspace would handle selling connectivity too, as a package solution, but this is what I was referring to where I said "[routing your data] to what you'd call an actual ISP."
Yeah, you can explain it as many times as you like, it was still stupid, and not in the intentional way you're claiming.
Hmmm, and yet you can't even recognize the common term ROFL when someone puts punctuation between the letters. And you'd rather be belligerent than ask.
No, smart money is on you missing this too.
It doesn't matter what their reasoning is, it's their choice.
No shit. That's pretty much a given unless I'm a majority stockholder. You call this insight?
Personally, I think their reasons are fairly simple, they don't want to be associated with a loon who's garnered negative worldwide attention for being a crazy asshole. Imagine, a private business that doesn't want to be associated with that.
Yeah, that's the profit motive I was speculating they might have. Simply that they'll lose more advertisers by keeping the loon than his business is worth.
And I'm pretty sure it's flawed, but that they recognize that and it's not their reason.
Usually when companies admit they're able to police some content special interests descend and bury the company under endless demands to do so. Then every accused loon not removed results in conspiracy theories. Eventually the company, having wasted enough money trying to placate people and only gotten bad PR, becomes institutionally surly and just stops answering complaints.
Are they making it their business to snoop on what you send on that wire, even if it is very short and totally within their premises, or do they stay
Yes. It's a common tactic to ask for the moon and then fall back to your previously hideously unreasonable position and play the conciliator, willing to compromise so much.
The only reason to expect anything different at all is because patents are an artificial restriction and a country with them is going to get left behind by unrestricted competitors. Now that we're broke it's getting harder to force the world into ruinous treaties. At some point we'll be left with patented cats and the rest of the world will just cut us and our insane laws off until we starve.
There's nothing where single-license purchasing is the norm. You simply don't need a license to use a copyrighted work, only to duplicate it in a lasting medium. If you buy a copy you've got unlimited use rights, excepting a few copyright exceptions such as public performance, etc.
In the case where these works purport to come with a license, often packed as an EULA, they aren't valid because they're post-agreement modifications.
If you don't know you licensed a work, you did not. It cannot happen accidentally.
No surprise, that's how it's always been. If you enter into a special agreement the normal implied contract of sale doesn't apply.
But buying software at a store does not enter into a licensing agreement. They call it a sale, the consumer thinks it's a sale, it's a sale. For that, the doctrine would still apply.
Probably because Flash is bloated and stinks even on a desktop.
But I was actually under the impression it was coming along quite well on Android, for Flash... You know, about as crappy as anywhere.
But whatever. You're defensive and angry. I'm not going to argue with you.
I was asking questions, but as you said, whatever.
I would know, since I got yelled at and modded 'troll' for saying, "I don't like the control Apple has over iPhone/iPad application distribution, but let's be honest: Apple isn't really wrong in their criticisms of Flash."
And you don't think that was Apple fans modding you down for not liking Apple's limits?
Because I've been yelled at and modded troll for saying "I hate Flash, Apple's right, it does suck. But I still don't want companies banning the competition's products." Everyone who complained did so about my not respecting Apple's right to do what they want and my SUPPORT of Flash (wtf!?), not my thinking that Flash stunk.
No. That's not the important thing though - Apple does. Or claims to and has lawyers. They might lose those nuisance lawsuits, or never even file them, but they still hate jailbreakers and would ruin them if they could.
That's just something to think about when casually picking a platform to develop for.
How so? You were addressing the trolling masses as if they were the people whose voices they had drown out, were you not?
Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how everyone was pretty well in agreement that Flash sucks [...] Then suddenly it's like, "How could they do that?! Flash is awesome
So you are aware that by "everyone" you really mean "some trolls"?
I'm hoping to get picked by Commander Taco? Or is that not what you meant?
So you just want to howl into the wind at people who have absolutely no reason to listen to you. Okay.
I wasn't aware your special 'Internet Cop' badge afforded you extra privileges. I may have to upgrade.
Repeating your reasoning doesn't actually help it to make sense. The "walled garden" example was stupid in this context.
Yes, and that was the intent. It wouldn't be crazy-silly if it were plausible.
It was to reflect the stupidity of taking the turd out of the punchbowl when it's just going to fall back in. Unless they had walls, etc... And then even if it worked they'd end up with - AOL...
Meh, whatever.
And you're the final arbiter of what's moral?
No, I'm able to see flaws in what must be their reasoning.
They're doing it to either A) distance themselves from bad publicity , or B) silence a dissenting view by terminating their service.
Option B is morally wrong, not because I say so but because it relies on censorship, not words. And not because it's morally wrong, but because it won't achieve the moral goal. Censoring hate doesn't make it go away.
Yes, they've got a right to not serve a customer. But if they use that right simply because they don't like the customer's views they're censors.
Moreover, it's useless. To counter haters you need to have rational explanation of why they're wrong, not more screaming.
[ISP] has one commonly accepted definition. That you're too thick to understand that is entirely your own problem. The only thing you demonstrate by continuing to willfully ignore the correct use of the term is that you shouldn't be taken seriously in the conversation.
Sure, and that commonly agreed on usage is technically incorrect in that it ignores all level of internet service providing.
I know what you're talking about, and you know what I'm talking about, but you're too pompous to allow for someone else's different usage of a term. No, can't do that, must do it Loud Howard's way or he'll bitch and derail the meeting arguing over terminology.
NO AGAIN.
Bold it next time. It lacked a little something this way.
The content provider is the person who provides the server and the data.
There are many ISPs in the scenario, some provide backbone connections, some provide end-user connections, some provide hosted-end-user connections, etc.
Rackspace is an ISP, the servers they host are analogous to residential users.
Rackspace does not move your data anywhere, that's the job of the ISP. You can not buy internet access from Rackspace, that is not their business.
They offer network uptime guarantees so I'm under the impression they actually do sell internet access in the traditional way.
But, even if they do not, they still provide a very ISP-like function in routing your data from your server down to the basement to what you'd call an actual ISP.
And that's the part I'm talking about. Are they making it their business to snoop on what you send on that wire, even if it is very short and totally within their premises, or do they stay hands off and let existing societal tools (the police, the law) do the work?
The way you're defining ISP at this point means if you run Apache on your laptop, you're an ISP because you make data available on the internet the same way that Rackspace does. Do you think you're an ISP?
Weeee, I'm an ISP! Yay. [runs around excitedly]
I dunno, if I'm Providing a Service on the Internet, yes. If someone called and asked, "Are you an ISP?", I'd ask if they wanted residential service, though, because I do know what most people mean when they say it.
Vague terms suck, why are you getting all worked up about it instead of talking about common carrier status or whatever the issue really is?
You are aware that in Apple's opinion, jailbreaking is a DMCA violation? As soon as it suits them they'll detect jailbroken phones, shut you down, and file a massive nuisance lawsuit ala DirecTV.
Strange, Apple really used to seem to care about reaching out to students. Charging for developer tools is so stuffy and 1984-chained to your seats watching the same monotone monopolistic leader chanting that it's surreal.
If you were a mechanic, a single ratchet would cost $99.
Yeah, sucks to be in an industry where you can't replicate the tools for free. Ouch.
Seriously, $99 isn't much money.
Well okay, you made it sound like a lot, but sure.
Even though it's not a lot it's a significant barrier to a new programmer, especially if they're pre-teen.
Even if you value your time at minimum wage, the amount of money it will take you to actually write software that does something for you will rapidly exceed $99.
But your time, especially on a project you're learning from, is a ready commodity to many people.
Sure, to anyone with a credit card this is no big deal, but to a kid who'd have to save for weeks, borrow a credit-card they can use online, and register (probably something they couldn't actually do, being underage and having to sign a contract), just to get the tools to start writing 'Hello World', it's a big enough barrier.
And, as you said yourself, they're giving you XCode for free without strings attached.
Yeah, no strings. What string would they attach? After all, it only works with their products. Where are you going to go with that, Android?
It's their house, they can do what they want. I'm just saying it's going to be a pretty stagnant house with less and less junior programmers.
You know though, which market segment I've seen adopt the iPhone in greatest numbers (aside from existing Mac users) - the middle-aged and elderly. Like getting Grandma an iMac, getting her an iPhone is pretty easy. I guess it's not surprising, Jobs is what, 70? So yeah, he's probably not just out of touch but a bit afraid of teenagers these days, what with all their hacking and blue boxes.