First of all, whilst it sometimes requires defending with one's life, freedom of speech is not an absolute right. If it was, there would be no libel laws. In other words, other rights can override freedom of speech.
What is at issue here is the right of all children everywhere not to be turned into sexual objects. I do not believe for one instant that looking at child porn, virtual or otherwise, is going to increase the liklihood of child abduction and rape, but the act of producing such pictures itself serves to legitimize seeing children as sexual objects. For that reason alone I have no problem with making the production of such material illegal.
However, making such stuff illegal does not in itself lead to a solution. What we need to do is question what is it in society that warps some people's sexualities to this extent. If we can find an answer to that question, maybe we can do something about the occurence of paedophilia.
As I recall hearing, IBM was set to use NeXT as its OS. A multi-million dollar deal was set up and agreed upon. A meeting was arranged between Jobs and an array of senior IBM executives to sign the contracts. As our Stevie was at the airport desk picking up his ticket, he suddenly changed his mind and went home, without even informing IBM. But then again he's never been noted for his manners.
The truth is that it wasn't anything to do with the specs for the G3. BeOS was able to run on G3's. It's the controller chips that Apple refused to release the specs for. And before anybody screams "well Linux got the specs" remember that only came about because Linux is not a commercial competitor to Apple (which Be are) and because linux does not run a Mac better than MacOS (sorry, but it's true) which BeOS does. Those people who are hoping that OSX will be available for x86 if Apple move over from Motorola would be wise to remember this. If Apple do start using x86 chips they'll introduce a hardware embedded component which means you will only be able to run it on an Apple machine. Why? Because Apple are a hardware company, first and foremost.
I've seen similar stuff and heard people argue much the sam thing a number of times. What these dorks are failing to recognise is that 10% of the browsing population is A LOT of people these days, and it is blinkered in the extreme to think of this section as insignificant.
Also to be remembered is of the 90% who do use IE, man of them turn off or even not install many of the features, such as Active X controls, java scripting or cookies, mostly for security reasons.
Finally, there's the rising world of IA's. Microsoft's offering in this field uses IE 4.1 for chrissakes. Hardly the cutting edge of their technology.
The submitter does actually have a point. Microsoft uses a wide array of weaponry against competitors, and they will certainly start using these against Linux and unix if it perceives them to be any sort of threat to its monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a bit of a late reply, but that should be "the labour theory of value".
First of all, whilst it sometimes requires defending with one's life, freedom of speech is not an absolute right. If it was, there would be no libel laws. In other words, other rights can override freedom of speech.
What is at issue here is the right of all children everywhere not to be turned into sexual objects. I do not believe for one instant that looking at child porn, virtual or otherwise, is going to increase the liklihood of child abduction and rape, but the act of producing such pictures itself serves to legitimize seeing children as sexual objects. For that reason alone I have no problem with making the production of such material illegal.
However, making such stuff illegal does not in itself lead to a solution. What we need to do is question what is it in society that warps some people's sexualities to this extent. If we can find an answer to that question, maybe we can do something about the occurence of paedophilia.
As I recall hearing, IBM was set to use NeXT as its OS. A multi-million dollar deal was set up and agreed upon. A meeting was arranged between Jobs and an array of senior IBM executives to sign the contracts. As our Stevie was at the airport desk picking up his ticket, he suddenly changed his mind and went home, without even informing IBM. But then again he's never been noted for his manners.
The truth is that it wasn't anything to do with the specs for the G3. BeOS was able to run on G3's. It's the controller chips that Apple refused to release the specs for. And before anybody screams "well Linux got the specs" remember that only came about because Linux is not a commercial competitor to Apple (which Be are) and because linux does not run a Mac better than MacOS (sorry, but it's true) which BeOS does. Those people who are hoping that OSX will be available for x86 if Apple move over from Motorola would be wise to remember this. If Apple do start using x86 chips they'll introduce a hardware embedded component which means you will only be able to run it on an Apple machine. Why? Because Apple are a hardware company, first and foremost.
Seems to me you're more concerned about whether you can make a fast buck than anything else. Ever considered working for a living?
I've seen similar stuff and heard people argue much the sam thing a number of times. What these dorks are failing to recognise is that 10% of the browsing population is A LOT of people these days, and it is blinkered in the extreme to think of this section as insignificant.
Also to be remembered is of the 90% who do use IE, man of them turn off or even not install many of the features, such as Active X controls, java scripting or cookies, mostly for security reasons.
Finally, there's the rising world of IA's. Microsoft's offering in this field uses IE 4.1 for chrissakes. Hardly the cutting edge of their technology.
The submitter does actually have a point. Microsoft uses a wide array of weaponry against competitors, and they will certainly start using these against Linux and unix if it perceives them to be any sort of threat to its monopoly.