Fuck local loops. The Bells will never open it up. IP laws will ease up around the same time this happens.
Let's treat internet infrastructure as infrastructure (aka roads) and have the govt lay the lines. We can fully fund this with the 70+ billion ca$h from the War on Terrorism. Remember, the Interstate highway system was built from Defense dollars during the Cold War, and that's why their symbol is a little shield. If bush can justify handing IBM a check for 1.3 billion in the name of homeland defense, then this should be a congressional walkover.
After that, let private ISP's bid to operate the lines (i.e. maintenance, routers, cacheing, etc.) and make money on service not bandwidth. Competing on the quality of service is more productive than getting into infrastructure wars -- suing who owes what to whom. You can then run your mail/web server and pay only the costs of administering your account, which should be billing you, electricity, and checking that no one cut the line to your house accidently. Shouldn't be too much. Those who want webmail and funky desktop icons which guide you through the internet search process can and should pay extra. Also, I think more people will sign up if there's a fiber optic line heading to just about every home in the major urban areas. As an extra plus, it'll give silicon valley a shot in the arm.
For those whom just can't stand the thought of govt. spending on public infrastructure, you can always just privatize the thing once the lines are laid and enough cutomers have signed up to make it profitable.
If keeping hardware unencumbered, open and patent-free formats/drivers, not living in a police state, and maintaining free speech rights need to be sacrificed to assure the steady flow of "'n sync" hits, then I will gladly do away with the latter. I just don't want to live in a world where I have to have a license to enjoy a song. sorry.
But the deeper answer is that several of your assumptions are wrong:
#1. the present system supports artists.
At best a toss up. Yes, some mega stars drive around in cadillacs. Also, expensive music videos and add campaigns are launched. On the other hand, the labels make it difficult for me to get good music by:
An overbearing distribution network (control of shelf space, payola, verticle integration with media monoliths). This network makes it difficult for independent bands to get heard on the radio, or get their stuff in the stores. As soon as a new sound appears, the rip off bands get into high gear and -- with this distribution network behind them -- eat up the consumer dollars which could have gone to the band that was responsible for the innovation. Funny how people don't talk about that kind of piracy.
contracts which make middling bands inevitably fall into debt. The label then pressures them to be more mainstream in order to break even on the next album. Basically, this is an economic model which only works for mega hits. Like television, music is punished if it does not aim at the most mainstream tastes. Actually, thie demographic is skewed towards those with more disposable income (for obvious reasons) so the target market is not really "democratic" in the traditional sense. The major avenues that most people have to experience new music : airwaves, record stores, concerts -- are all dominated by monopolies, punitive and exclusive contracts which limit consumer choice and hurt the little guy.
price-fixing
#2. Musicians will stop making music if the current property rights regime is changed.
Well, this is just silly. Beautiful music was made in feudal, pre-capitalist, capitalist and socialist systems. It will go on. Perhaps those who dissappear will be the armies of boy bands, rip off artists, and the music professionals which surround them. These parasites have been squeezing out the real innovators since the thirties. I'll pay money to see them go.
#3. We soon wont have record companies.
That's just silly. The biggest asset which these monstrosities have is not IP rights, but a distribution/promotional network. They will still have that. Hopefully, it will be weakened enough so that good music can be heard above their marketing blitz. People will still buy records, because records are cool. Because of ownership fetish, for the artwork, and as a symbol of group membership. None of this will change, except possibly in scale. Even the rip-off artists, whise bottom line you are so eager to trade your rights for, will still make money.
7. By copying, installing or otherwise using the software, Licensee agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of this License Agreement.
Yeah, right.
I log into a shell account and am held hostage to the wild fantasies of anyone who wrote some innocuous seeming library or kernel module. It's Python, for chrissakes. How can you not end up using it?
This is getting crazy. A previous poster only wants feminists or fetishists to use his work. Sheesh. When do we go back to being normal people? Private citizens are left alone to tinker and share, businesses pay some royalties. If things get muddled up, we have a few beers and then forget what we were fighting about. Ah, the old country.
Moderators be damned I think the Simpsons have just been boring recently. Unfortunately, I don't think Futurama is that funny. Cool and on topic, but not very funny. And I don't like the drawing. Does anyone like the drawing? The Simpsons had a cool frantic dishevelled look to go with the mile a minute jokes and hurried dialogue. Futurama looks well, wierd. Nowadays, if I do watch it, I often start nodding in agreement and end up looking at my watch.
P.S. Anyone with metamod points -- how about starting a "Crusade for Boorish Dignity" -- let's look back over those Linux Rulez! posts to see if they were really that insightful.
the poster was making was that just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it's immoral, on a kin to capturing ships and killing the crew. Hell, according to Lego, using the word "legos" is an infringement of their intellectual "property" -- and they specifically mention how you are allowed to describe their product: '"lego blocks" is legal, "legos" is illegal'. A lot of us think that these IP laws have gone too far, have been rammed down our throats without our consent or representation. And just as the US govt. does when the world court rules against it, we just decide to snub our nose at the media cartels. We're not pirates. We don't bribe our congressmen, we don't sink oil tankers or sail ships to intl. waters before illegally dumping them in the sea, we're not even price fixing monopolies. No need to start slurring our reps over some file sharing.
No one is suggesting that graphical installers should be mandatory -- or even default. But OpenBSD still has a large hobbyist following. For God's sake no SMP support, clunky threads, a bit on the slow side, a behind-the-times alpha port -- we're not talking about some huge production OS here. One of my colleagues runs openBSD mainly to serve up his webpages on his workstation. He likes the security. Sure, he gets 12 hits a day, but his thesis is on the machine and his RedHat box was cracked the second day he installed it. Also, the man pages are of surpassing excellence. And a lot of people buy the CD's to get the stickers. Why not? They're having fun. A cs friend on mine hacks on openbsd just because it's well document and the code is so pretty. He wants to have fun, too.
I'm sick of people supporting Apple, MS (err.. in other forums), RIAA, as they stomp over our free speech rights just to make money. When the hell did making money become a guaranteed right? If you screw up and ship a completed product, don't gag the third party which tells the world of your mistakes. Suck it up and take the loss.
I don't understand the prejudice which a lot of oldster unix guys against graphics. I reject your frivolous argument as insincere, since text based console tricks have a long and rich tradition in unix. Look at the emacs feature that tells you the phases of the moon, gazillions of aphorisms, the names of programs such as fsck or daemon, lots of text based games. People like to have fun with their computers. That's just as important as anything else a home computer or workstation does. What you don't like is graphics. Well, grow up. See that there's no difference between graphics frivolity in this generation and text frivolity in yours.
So you suggest that if someone - anyone is ever "aggressed," then everyone needs to be under constant surveillance to keep this from happening again?
Are the people who want to avoid the cameras the same that carry a cellular phone ?
One would think so. Carrying a cell phone, or a gun, or walking with friends are options for individuals who are worried about their safety. They choose to take those measures for their own peace of mind. This is a way of protecting your freedom without infringing your neighbors'.
behind them. Remember that you are paying for peak performance with broadband. That translates to only one thing for the cable companies:
oversell
So any additional use is costing them, and they can figure out how much. Imagine the MBA's a few years ago when they formulated the business plan, say for domestic cable rates: Most people work all day, they have only one computer. No pda's, etc.
Now everything is connected, and we can use our bandwidth when we're away from our dens. People running servers. Un*x desktops in the home with uptimes in years. It must be sheer hell for them, and they can probably estimate the "cost" of an additional IP.
..seems a bit steep for a company that uses prison labor to shrink wrap the boxes. I can't imagine more than a few dimes for pressing a CD. Maybe those fancy holograms are responsible..
Dude, you are paranoid, unable to take criticism of the "motherland," and have a very rosy view of the "development" -- as you call it --- which is being forced on the Tibetans.
There's plenty of info out there which might explain to you why the Tibetans are not grateful for this "yellow man's burden" which you are so nobly taking upon yourself. Too bad you are too prejudiced to even read it.
So does the Japanese, Korean, etc. Why aren't you critising them as well?
Uh..maybe because this topic is about censorship in China?
Also, you seem to have missed the point of my post. I advocated for the acceptance of criticism. You respond with
1. obscenities
2. pointing out the faults of the japanese/koreans
3. blaming me for not being critical of the japanese/koreans
4. repeat 2-3 for the US,
5. lots of shouting that you are pissed off
Obviously your blood is boiling at the slightest suggestion of criticism of China. I hope that you're not an official with some power, but even if you are not -- you are the problem. It's people like that which were waving their little red books in the sixities, ready to shout down anyone who was an enemy of the state. If you don't realize that, then you don't understand the first thing about McCarthyism. You're infected, buddy.
Now, about the personal attacks. I've posted almost 80 comments. All but the last few have been critical of the US and it's allies. Hell, I give money every month to z magazine which is a portal containing loads of articles which protest and criticize US govt. actions. That's my main job. Since I live in the US, my primary responsibility is to try to stir opposition to US abuses. Read my other posts if you don't believe me. I haven't "conveniently" neglected anything. The difference between me and you, is that when someone suggests that my govt is doing something wrong, I look for the facts, find out what the problem is (to the best of my abilities) and then thank them for letting me know. I put the stuff on the web, tell my friends, and organize to try to draw attention to the problem. I volunteer my time to maintain websites which protest US foreign policy. 90% of my interests have nothing to do with China or Japan.
On the other hand, when you hear criticism of China you
1. get defensive
2. blame the foreign news media
3. blame me for bringing it up.
3. don't investigate
4. draw attention to what other countries are doing.
You are like those people who shout "America love it or leave it." You don't want to live in an open society. You claim that my criticisms are somehow helping hard-liners, but your actions (1-4) above tell me that you are as much of a hard-liner as anyone else. You ask me how do I know that you are not working to promote freedom of speech and protest? Well, just look at your own post. If this is how you react when someone protests your govt.'s policy, then you are certainly not respecting their rights do so. Or perhaps only ethnic chinese are allowed to do that? If that's what you think, then you're pretty far down on the evolutionary ladder. And no, please don't generalize my comments to mean "all chinese" when I'm referring to you -- that sort of groupthink is why I posted in the first place.
How on earth can you defend what China is doing to Tibet??
Sure, you can try to change the subject, and say that other nations also committed genocide. Duh. In the US, we are not proud of what we have done to Indians. We teach our schoolchildren of the massacres committed by our armies and publish the bitter denouncements of Sitting Bull and Mark Twain. We remember the heroes who spoke out against the atrocities and did the best they could to fight against them.
I cannot even begin to understand your ethical system. Do you truly believe that the Han are right to invade Tibet, surpress the Tibetan religion, kill monks, and treat tibetans like shit?
Or are you just defending your "race" because you are afraid of criticism?
My God, this is slashdot and you can post anonymously. To defend the ongoing rape of Tibet here shows that you are a coward and an embarassment to humanity.
So they could be said to be disruptive for a morally correct reason.
You seem to be greatly afraid of "disruptions". No, don't tell me -- cultural revolution, right? Well here's a thought. The cultural revolution could not have occured on the scale it did if it wasnt for the (in)famous groupthink with which the Chinese are still struggling. By avoiding criticism, suppressing discussion, punishing "incorrect" reasoning, the Chinese strong men are supporting this tendency. They are promoting tribalism and so endangering their society.
Frequently, when speaking with ethnic Chinese, I hear such phrases as "We chinese do/say X..", instead of "I think". In a recent NYtimes report on AIDS, the author of a popular internet diary was interviewed about his recommendations for govt. AIDS policy. He felt the need to preface his remarks with "Well, I am only an individual, so I'm not qualified to judge.." My question is, who the hell _does_ judge policy, if not human beings? It is this fear of being the nail which sticks out, this sense of doing what your neighbor does, which has turned china into a giant gasoline pool, waiting for a spark. In an open society, individuals may go crazy, but the culture as a whole remains sound. Instead, the authorities whom you are defending have chosen to live in a closed society. They always fear the smallest flame.
In the US, we did have violent demonstrations in Seattle, they were publicized, debated, and no revolution, no mass bloodshed. In china it's forbidden to even mention Tiananmen square, secret police prevent people from assembling there on anniversary dates, professors fear for their jobs if they bring it up. The justification is fear of "disruptions", but few dare to ask why such a small spark can set fire to a whole nation.
Instead of ritually defending the CCP, or "we chinese" as a nation, those who truly care about the health of society should attempt to promote freedom of speech, of criticism, of protest. Strive towards open government and an open culture. This will provide channels to dredge the lake, and chinese human beings (as opposed to "The Chinese") will finally be able to speak for themselves without fear of commiting "incorrect" criticism.
civil anti-trust suits are not restricted to monetary damages, although since monetary damages can be tripled, they are often the plantiff's focus.
For instance, in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services
"The ISOs[Independent Service Organizations]
alleged that Kodak used its monopoly in the market for Kodak photocopier and micrographic parts to create a second monopoly in
the equipment service markets. A jury verdict awarded treble damages totaling $71.8 million. The district court denied Kodak's post
trial motions and entered a ten year permanent injunction requiring Kodak to sell "all parts" to ISOs.
Personally, I think purely seeking monetary damages against a company with as deep pockets as microsoft is a mistake; they can just jack up their site-licenses and roll with the punches. And civil suits are a valid way of addressing most of the structural problems I cited above.
Another note, even if the plaintiffs only sue for money, they have great flexibility in using the threat of a fiscal award to force microsoft to agree to modify its behavior in a settlement. Surely settlements aren't limited to cash only, are they? Even in this settlement proposal, MS has agreed to set up an independent agency to oversee the plan, to provide support, and to provide software as well as hardware. That's not just "financial restitution" is it?
My main objection is that your point is mostly irrelevent to the value of the proposal. Microsoft has caused real damage to consumers and to the software industry. There is a real structural problem with much of today's software market because of MS manipulation, because they leverage monopoly powers. This problem will not go away if MS donates stuff to schools, sends all americans a $20 rebate, funds an african wildlife reserve, or engages in safe-sex education. Arguing the merits of windows vs. linux in schools is just offtopic. Debating wether MS "bought" or "earned" their initial monopoly is also offtopic.
We should be proposing real remedies to the current problem, such as:
1. Disclosing the terms of oem contracts with microsoft.
2. Punishing contracts which discourage/forbid oem makers from pre-installing other OS's or rival media players, authentication systems, etc. At the least, these contracts should be declared anti-competitive and unenforcable. At the most fines should also be paid for this collusion.
3. break up MS into a division that sells office software, a division that sells other stuff, and a division that sells an Operating System. The fact that MS even opposes this is evidence that they believe they can leverage their OS monopoly to increase their dominance in other areas. That's illegal. Even if it means subsidising your xbox sales by the minions who shell out cash for Office XP. This is a general and sound principle: As soon as you achieve dominance in one area, break it off from your other businesses. This levels the playing field.
4. Publish protocals, interfaces, and all system calls. For free, fully, to all interested parties.
5. No fucking with file formats. see above.
6. No EULA's forbidding reverse engineering. When you have a monopoly, reverse engineering shouldn't even be necessary. You should be forced to disclose all specs, validation schemes, etc. because they are defacto standards and standards need to be accessible to all comers.
This is how to deal with MS. Not by giving away free wheelchairs or whatever stunt is being proposed. You can debate the merits of my points, but that is what you should be debating. Not whether schoolchildren should learn MS Office.
[snip]
Apple informed the SVG 1.0 Working Group very early in the SVG 1.0 process of the patent they listed in their license statement. The SVG Working Group made a concerted effort to produce a specification that does not require implementors to infringe the patent.
[snip]
Member Name -/-Patent Claim -/- License...
Adobe -- None -- Royalty-Free -- Apple -- Patent: US 5379129 -- RAND --
uh, you are aware that this story is about Apple, and not Adobe, right?
It seems un-American, bordering on the Communist to suggest that Apple should simply give away their intellectual property.
<aside> What the do you mean, exactly, by "un-American" -- "doubleplus ungood"? or is it closer to "un-Italian"?
Were Helen Keller and Jack London un-American because they were socialists? </aside>
Did you ever stop to think that patents are a way for companies to avoid competition? To keep out the little guy?
Many companies have decided that instead of competing on price and quality, they would rather go to the govt. and get an exclusive monopoly to use a certain technology. Because the pace of change in the tech field is so rapid, patents are effectively eternal. And when people criticize this, because they want to see competing products in the marketplace, you call them communists?
if and when I have a nuclear stockpile installed in my backyard I'd certainly want the CIA to notify me of any vulnerabilities.
But you analogy is seriously flawed. Governments, like all beaurocracies, strive first and foremost to avoid bad publicity and/or responsibility for their actions. That's why openness, accountability, and yes -- full disclosure are important. There is always a gray area in terms of giving the relevant corporation/agency advance notice and some limited exceptions for national security.
But you need not worry about the balance tilting too far. The CIA might publish a guidebook on torture, but it wouldn't publish a guide on getting a fake ID/passport. Hence it's so rare for teenagers or illegal aliens to get any fake documents at all.
No, Pico is for everyone. BBedit-Lite is for everyone. MSWord is hard to use, does funny things to your document without asking, and is filled with a veritable bestiary of gremlins which are easy to create/hard to kill.
Is it really worse to do it because they're black (for example) than to do it because they nailed your wife? Why is one cause worthy of different legal treatment?
In some cases it is different, and so requires different legal treatment. In a commutity with high racial (or religious, whatever) tensions, killing someone becasue they're black can incite riots, lead to civil wars (aka Kosovo), and much more violence down the road. This may not fit in with your "colorblind" value-system, but some crimes are more damaging than others. The shooting of MLK comes to mind. A country/community must work hard to try to enable/encourage minorities to participate in its political and economic life. High-profile racial crimes can set that work back by decades, and so are a greater threat to the society in which they are committed. That's why they (in some cases) receive stiffer punishments.
Having said that, most of the actual laws on the books about hate crimes are silly, dangerous and not applied correctly. Speech on the other hand, should always be sacrosanct.
btw, Yahoo is an American company, so a good case can be made that the French court was over-reaching it's authority. On the other hand, nothing stopped the US from invading Panama, kidnapping Noriega, and putting him on trial for violating US drug laws. I wonder how many americans would not mind, say, Nicaragua kidnapping Reagan and putting him on trial for mining the their harbors.
dictionary.com describes several meanings of "moot", including a theoretical debate by law students, or a certain debate of free men, etc. They include the following
Usage Note: The adjective moot is originally a legal term going back to the mid-16th century. It derives from the noun moot, in its sense of a hypothetical case argued as an exercise by law students. Consequently, a moot question is one
that is arguable or open to debate. But in the mid-19th century people also began to look at the hypothetical side of moot as its essential meaning, and they started to use the word to mean "of no significance or relevance." Thus, a moot point, however debatable, is one that has no practical value. A number of critics have objected to this use, but 59 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence
"The nominee himself chastised the White House for failing to do more to support him, but his concerns became moot when a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would oppose the nomination."
When using moot one should be sure that the context makes clear which sense is meant.
Or are you one of those prigs who think the real meaning of "aweful" is "full of awe"?
Well, since I submitted it, I think it should be on the front page too:)
But unfortunately, not all of those choice comments are so important, since this was a district court ruling on a preliminary injunction, not on the case itself, so those comments don't carry as much legal "weight."
The main point for me is that it shows we have some friendly judges here in CA. Hopefully, they will get to rule on actual cases such as this one sometime soon. I'm holding my fingers crossed that UCITA-like acts will get partially struck down on the basis of violating the first-sale principle. Just a wish.
Slashdot Mirror
Fuck local loops. The Bells will never open it up. IP laws will ease up around the same time this happens.
Let's treat internet infrastructure as infrastructure (aka roads) and have the govt lay the lines. We can fully fund this with the 70+ billion ca$h from the War on Terrorism. Remember, the Interstate highway system was built from Defense dollars during the Cold War, and that's why their symbol is a little shield. If bush can justify handing IBM a check for 1.3 billion in the name of homeland defense, then this should be a congressional walkover.
After that, let private ISP's bid to operate the lines (i.e. maintenance, routers, cacheing, etc.) and make money on service not bandwidth. Competing on the quality of service is more productive than getting into infrastructure wars -- suing who owes what to whom. You can then run your mail/web server and pay only the costs of administering your account, which should be billing you, electricity, and checking that no one cut the line to your house accidently. Shouldn't be too much. Those who want webmail and funky desktop icons which guide you through the internet search process can and should pay extra. Also, I think more people will sign up if there's a fiber optic line heading to just about every home in the major urban areas. As an extra plus, it'll give silicon valley a shot in the arm.
For those whom just can't stand the thought of govt. spending on public infrastructure, you can always just privatize the thing once the lines are laid and enough cutomers have signed up to make it profitable.
If keeping hardware unencumbered, open and patent-free formats/drivers, not living in a police state, and maintaining free speech rights need to be sacrificed to assure the steady flow of "'n sync" hits, then I will gladly do away with the latter. I just don't want to live in a world where I have to have a license to enjoy a song. sorry.
But the deeper answer is that several of your assumptions are wrong:
#1. the present system supports artists.
At best a toss up. Yes, some mega stars drive around in cadillacs. Also, expensive music videos and add campaigns are launched. On the other hand, the labels make it difficult for me to get good music by:
An overbearing distribution network (control of shelf space, payola, verticle integration with media monoliths). This network makes it difficult for independent bands to get heard on the radio, or get their stuff in the stores. As soon as a new sound appears, the rip off bands get into high gear and -- with this distribution network behind them -- eat up the consumer dollars which could have gone to the band that was responsible for the innovation. Funny how people don't talk about that kind of piracy.
contracts which make middling bands inevitably fall into debt. The label then pressures them to be more mainstream in order to break even on the next album. Basically, this is an economic model which only works for mega hits. Like television, music is punished if it does not aim at the most mainstream tastes. Actually, thie demographic is skewed towards those with more disposable income (for obvious reasons) so the target market is not really "democratic" in the traditional sense. The major avenues that most people have to experience new music : airwaves, record stores, concerts -- are all dominated by monopolies, punitive and exclusive contracts which limit consumer choice and hurt the little guy.
price-fixing
#2. Musicians will stop making music if the current property rights regime is changed.
Well, this is just silly. Beautiful music was made in feudal, pre-capitalist, capitalist and socialist systems. It will go on. Perhaps those who dissappear will be the armies of boy bands, rip off artists, and the music professionals which surround them. These parasites have been squeezing out the real innovators since the thirties. I'll pay money to see them go.
#3. We soon wont have record companies.
That's just silly. The biggest asset which these monstrosities have is not IP rights, but a distribution/promotional network. They will still have that. Hopefully, it will be weakened enough so that good music can be heard above their marketing blitz. People will still buy records, because records are cool. Because of ownership fetish, for the artwork, and as a symbol of group membership. None of this will change, except possibly in scale. Even the rip-off artists, whise bottom line you are so eager to trade your rights for, will still make money.
and when you do, be sure to share the mp3 on gnutella, for those who don't have such a good deck.
7. By copying, installing or otherwise using the software, Licensee agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of this License Agreement.
Yeah, right.
I log into a shell account and am held hostage to the wild fantasies of anyone who wrote some innocuous seeming library or kernel module. It's Python, for chrissakes. How can you not end up using it?
This is getting crazy. A previous poster only wants feminists or fetishists to use his work. Sheesh. When do we go back to being normal people? Private citizens are left alone to tinker and share, businesses pay some royalties. If things get muddled up, we have a few beers and then forget what we were fighting about. Ah, the old country.
Moderators be damned I think the Simpsons have just been boring recently. Unfortunately, I don't think Futurama is that funny. Cool and on topic, but not very funny. And I don't like the drawing. Does anyone like the drawing? The Simpsons had a cool frantic dishevelled look to go with the mile a minute jokes and hurried dialogue. Futurama looks well, wierd. Nowadays, if I do watch it, I often start nodding in agreement and end up looking at my watch.
P.S. Anyone with metamod points -- how about starting a "Crusade for Boorish Dignity" -- let's look back over those Linux Rulez! posts to see if they were really that insightful.
the poster was making was that just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it's immoral, on a kin to capturing ships and killing the crew. Hell, according to Lego, using the word "legos" is an infringement of their intellectual "property" -- and they specifically mention how you are allowed to describe their product: '"lego blocks" is legal, "legos" is illegal'. A lot of us think that these IP laws have gone too far, have been rammed down our throats without our consent or representation. And just as the US govt. does when the world court rules against it, we just decide to snub our nose at the media cartels. We're not pirates. We don't bribe our congressmen, we don't sink oil tankers or sail ships to intl. waters before illegally dumping them in the sea, we're not even price fixing monopolies. No need to start slurring our reps over some file sharing.
No one is suggesting that graphical installers should be mandatory -- or even default. But OpenBSD still has a large hobbyist following. For God's sake no SMP support, clunky threads, a bit on the slow side, a behind-the-times alpha port -- we're not talking about some huge production OS here. One of my colleagues runs openBSD mainly to serve up his webpages on his workstation. He likes the security. Sure, he gets 12 hits a day, but his thesis is on the machine and his RedHat box was cracked the second day he installed it. Also, the man pages are of surpassing excellence. And a lot of people buy the CD's to get the stickers. Why not? They're having fun. A cs friend on mine hacks on openbsd just because it's well document and the code is so pretty. He wants to have fun, too.
excellent post.
I'm sick of people supporting Apple, MS (err.. in other forums), RIAA, as they stomp over our free speech rights just to make money. When the hell did making money become a guaranteed right? If you screw up and ship a completed product, don't gag the third party which tells the world of your mistakes. Suck it up and take the loss.
I see that as being a pointless waste of effort.
I don't understand the prejudice which a lot of oldster unix guys against graphics. I reject your frivolous argument as insincere, since text based console tricks have a long and rich tradition in unix. Look at the emacs feature that tells you the phases of the moon, gazillions of aphorisms, the names of programs such as fsck or daemon, lots of text based games. People like to have fun with their computers. That's just as important as anything else a home computer or workstation does. What you don't like is graphics. Well, grow up. See that there's no difference between graphics frivolity in this generation and text frivolity in yours.
So you suggest that if someone - anyone is ever "aggressed," then everyone needs to be under constant surveillance to keep this from happening again?
Are the people who want to avoid the cameras the same that carry a cellular phone ?
One would think so. Carrying a cell phone, or a gun, or walking with friends are options for individuals who are worried about their safety. They choose to take those measures for their own peace of mind. This is a way of protecting your freedom without infringing your neighbors'.
behind them. Remember that you are paying for peak performance with broadband. That translates to only one thing for the cable companies:
oversell
So any additional use is costing them, and they can figure out how much. Imagine the MBA's a few years ago when they formulated the business plan, say for domestic cable rates: Most people work all day, they have only one computer. No pda's, etc.
Now everything is connected, and we can use our bandwidth when we're away from our dens. People running servers. Un*x desktops in the home with uptimes in years. It must be sheer hell for them, and they can probably estimate the "cost" of an additional IP.
..seems a bit steep for a company that uses prison labor to shrink wrap the boxes. I can't imagine more than a few dimes for pressing a CD. Maybe those fancy holograms are responsible..
Dude, you are paranoid, unable to take criticism of the "motherland," and have a very rosy view of the "development" -- as you call it --- which is being forced on the Tibetans.
There's plenty of info out there which might explain to you why the Tibetans are not grateful for this "yellow man's burden" which you are so nobly taking upon yourself. Too bad you are too prejudiced to even read it.
So does the Japanese, Korean, etc. Why aren't you critising them as well?
Uh..maybe because this topic is about censorship in China?
Also, you seem to have missed the point of my post. I advocated for the acceptance of criticism. You respond with
1. obscenities
2. pointing out the faults of the japanese/koreans
3. blaming me for not being critical of the japanese/koreans
4. repeat 2-3 for the US,
5. lots of shouting that you are pissed off
Obviously your blood is boiling at the slightest suggestion of criticism of China. I hope that you're not an official with some power, but even if you are not -- you are the problem. It's people like that which were waving their little red books in the sixities, ready to shout down anyone who was an enemy of the state. If you don't realize that, then you don't understand the first thing about McCarthyism. You're infected, buddy.
Now, about the personal attacks. I've posted almost 80 comments. All but the last few have been critical of the US and it's allies. Hell, I give money every month to z magazine which is a portal containing loads of articles which protest and criticize US govt. actions. That's my main job. Since I live in the US, my primary responsibility is to try to stir opposition to US abuses. Read my other posts if you don't believe me. I haven't "conveniently" neglected anything. The difference between me and you, is that when someone suggests that my govt is doing something wrong, I look for the facts, find out what the problem is (to the best of my abilities) and then thank them for letting me know. I put the stuff on the web, tell my friends, and organize to try to draw attention to the problem. I volunteer my time to maintain websites which protest US foreign policy. 90% of my interests have nothing to do with China or Japan.
On the other hand, when you hear criticism of China you 1. get defensive
2. blame the foreign news media
3. blame me for bringing it up.
3. don't investigate
4. draw attention to what other countries are doing.
You are like those people who shout "America love it or leave it." You don't want to live in an open society. You claim that my criticisms are somehow helping hard-liners, but your actions (1-4) above tell me that you are as much of a hard-liner as anyone else. You ask me how do I know that you are not working to promote freedom of speech and protest? Well, just look at your own post. If this is how you react when someone protests your govt.'s policy, then you are certainly not respecting their rights do so. Or perhaps only ethnic chinese are allowed to do that? If that's what you think, then you're pretty far down on the evolutionary ladder. And no, please don't generalize my comments to mean "all chinese" when I'm referring to you -- that sort of groupthink is why I posted in the first place.
You cannot take criticism. You are the problem.
How on earth can you defend what China is doing to Tibet??
Sure, you can try to change the subject, and say that other nations also committed genocide. Duh. In the US, we are not proud of what we have done to Indians. We teach our schoolchildren of the massacres committed by our armies and publish the bitter denouncements of Sitting Bull and Mark Twain. We remember the heroes who spoke out against the atrocities and did the best they could to fight against them.
I cannot even begin to understand your ethical system. Do you truly believe that the Han are right to invade Tibet, surpress the Tibetan religion, kill monks, and treat tibetans like shit?
Or are you just defending your "race" because you are afraid of criticism?
My God, this is slashdot and you can post anonymously. To defend the ongoing rape of Tibet here shows that you are a coward and an embarassment to humanity.
So they could be said to be disruptive for a morally correct reason.
You seem to be greatly afraid of "disruptions". No, don't tell me -- cultural revolution, right? Well here's a thought. The cultural revolution could not have occured on the scale it did if it wasnt for the (in)famous groupthink with which the Chinese are still struggling. By avoiding criticism, suppressing discussion, punishing "incorrect" reasoning, the Chinese strong men are supporting this tendency. They are promoting tribalism and so endangering their society.
Frequently, when speaking with ethnic Chinese, I hear such phrases as "We chinese do/say X..", instead of "I think". In a recent NYtimes report on AIDS, the author of a popular internet diary was interviewed about his recommendations for govt. AIDS policy. He felt the need to preface his remarks with "Well, I am only an individual, so I'm not qualified to judge.." My question is, who the hell _does_ judge policy, if not human beings? It is this fear of being the nail which sticks out, this sense of doing what your neighbor does, which has turned china into a giant gasoline pool, waiting for a spark. In an open society, individuals may go crazy, but the culture as a whole remains sound. Instead, the authorities whom you are defending have chosen to live in a closed society. They always fear the smallest flame.
In the US, we did have violent demonstrations in Seattle, they were publicized, debated, and no revolution, no mass bloodshed. In china it's forbidden to even mention Tiananmen square, secret police prevent people from assembling there on anniversary dates, professors fear for their jobs if they bring it up. The justification is fear of "disruptions", but few dare to ask why such a small spark can set fire to a whole nation.
Instead of ritually defending the CCP, or "we chinese" as a nation, those who truly care about the health of society should attempt to promote freedom of speech, of criticism, of protest. Strive towards open government and an open culture. This will provide channels to dredge the lake, and chinese human beings (as opposed to "The Chinese") will finally be able to speak for themselves without fear of commiting "incorrect" criticism.
civil anti-trust suits are not restricted to monetary damages, although since monetary damages can be tripled, they are often the plantiff's focus.
For instance, in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services "The ISOs[Independent Service Organizations] alleged that Kodak used its monopoly in the market for Kodak photocopier and micrographic parts to create a second monopoly in the equipment service markets. A jury verdict awarded treble damages totaling $71.8 million. The district court denied Kodak's post trial motions and entered a ten year permanent injunction requiring Kodak to sell "all parts" to ISOs.
Personally, I think purely seeking monetary damages against a company with as deep pockets as microsoft is a mistake; they can just jack up their site-licenses and roll with the punches. And civil suits are a valid way of addressing most of the structural problems I cited above.
Another note, even if the plaintiffs only sue for money, they have great flexibility in using the threat of a fiscal award to force microsoft to agree to modify its behavior in a settlement. Surely settlements aren't limited to cash only, are they? Even in this settlement proposal, MS has agreed to set up an independent agency to oversee the plan, to provide support, and to provide software as well as hardware. That's not just "financial restitution" is it?
My main objection is that your point is mostly irrelevent to the value of the proposal. Microsoft has caused real damage to consumers and to the software industry. There is a real structural problem with much of today's software market because of MS manipulation, because they leverage monopoly powers. This problem will not go away if MS donates stuff to schools, sends all americans a $20 rebate, funds an african wildlife reserve, or engages in safe-sex education. Arguing the merits of windows vs. linux in schools is just offtopic. Debating wether MS "bought" or "earned" their initial monopoly is also offtopic.
We should be proposing real remedies to the current problem, such as:
1. Disclosing the terms of oem contracts with microsoft.
2. Punishing contracts which discourage/forbid oem makers from pre-installing other OS's or rival media players, authentication systems, etc. At the least, these contracts should be declared anti-competitive and unenforcable. At the most fines should also be paid for this collusion.
3. break up MS into a division that sells office software, a division that sells other stuff, and a division that sells an Operating System. The fact that MS even opposes this is evidence that they believe they can leverage their OS monopoly to increase their dominance in other areas. That's illegal. Even if it means subsidising your xbox sales by the minions who shell out cash for Office XP. This is a general and sound principle: As soon as you achieve dominance in one area, break it off from your other businesses. This levels the playing field.
4. Publish protocals, interfaces, and all system calls. For free, fully, to all interested parties.
5. No fucking with file formats. see above.
6. No EULA's forbidding reverse engineering. When you have a monopoly, reverse engineering shouldn't even be necessary. You should be forced to disclose all specs, validation schemes, etc. because they are defacto standards and standards need to be accessible to all comers.
This is how to deal with MS. Not by giving away free wheelchairs or whatever stunt is being proposed. You can debate the merits of my points, but that is what you should be debating. Not whether schoolchildren should learn MS Office.
from the W3C Patent statement summary:
...
[snip]
Apple informed the SVG 1.0 Working Group very early in the SVG 1.0 process of the patent they listed in their license statement. The SVG Working Group made a concerted effort to produce a specification that does not require implementors to infringe the patent.
[snip]
Member Name -/-Patent Claim -/- License
Adobe -- None -- Royalty-Free --
Apple -- Patent: US 5379129 -- RAND --
uh, you are aware that this story is about Apple, and not Adobe, right?
is truly an American:
It seems un-American, bordering on the Communist to suggest that Apple should simply give away their intellectual property.
<aside> What the do you mean, exactly, by "un-American" -- "doubleplus ungood"? or is it closer to "un-Italian"?
Were Helen Keller and Jack London un-American because they were socialists? </aside>
Did you ever stop to think that patents are a way for companies to avoid competition? To keep out the little guy?
Many companies have decided that instead of competing on price and quality, they would rather go to the govt. and get an exclusive monopoly to use a certain technology. Because the pace of change in the tech field is so rapid, patents are effectively eternal. And when people criticize this, because they want to see competing products in the marketplace, you call them communists?
if and when I have a nuclear stockpile installed in my backyard I'd certainly want the CIA to notify me of any vulnerabilities.
But you analogy is seriously flawed. Governments, like all beaurocracies, strive first and foremost to avoid bad publicity and/or responsibility for their actions. That's why openness, accountability, and yes -- full disclosure are important. There is always a gray area in terms of giving the relevant corporation/agency advance notice and some limited exceptions for national security.
But you need not worry about the balance tilting too far. The CIA might publish a guidebook on torture, but it wouldn't publish a guide on getting a fake ID/passport. Hence it's so rare for teenagers or illegal aliens to get any fake documents at all.
Microsoft Word is for everyone.
No, Pico is for everyone. BBedit-Lite is for everyone. MSWord is hard to use, does funny things to your document without asking, and is filled with a veritable bestiary of gremlins which are easy to create/hard to kill.
Is it really worse to do it because they're black (for example) than to do it because they nailed your wife? Why is one cause worthy of different legal treatment?
In some cases it is different, and so requires different legal treatment. In a commutity with high racial (or religious, whatever) tensions, killing someone becasue they're black can incite riots, lead to civil wars (aka Kosovo), and much more violence down the road. This may not fit in with your "colorblind" value-system, but some crimes are more damaging than others. The shooting of MLK comes to mind. A country/community must work hard to try to enable/encourage minorities to participate in its political and economic life. High-profile racial crimes can set that work back by decades, and so are a greater threat to the society in which they are committed. That's why they (in some cases) receive stiffer punishments.
Having said that, most of the actual laws on the books about hate crimes are silly, dangerous and not applied correctly. Speech on the other hand, should always be sacrosanct.
btw, Yahoo is an American company, so a good case can be made that the French court was over-reaching it's authority. On the other hand, nothing stopped the US from invading Panama, kidnapping Noriega, and putting him on trial for violating US drug laws. I wonder how many americans would not mind, say, Nicaragua kidnapping Reagan and putting him on trial for mining the their harbors.
dictionary.com describes several meanings of "moot", including a theoretical debate by law students, or a certain debate of free men, etc. They include the following
Usage Note: The adjective moot is originally a legal term going back to the mid-16th century. It derives from the noun moot, in its sense of a hypothetical case argued as an exercise by law students. Consequently, a moot question is one
that is arguable or open to debate. But in the mid-19th century people also began to look at the hypothetical side of moot as its essential meaning, and they started to use the word to mean "of no significance or relevance." Thus, a moot point, however debatable, is one that has no practical value. A number of critics have objected to this use, but 59 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence
"The nominee himself chastised the White House for failing to do more to support him, but his concerns became moot when a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would oppose the nomination."
When using moot one should be sure that the context makes clear which sense is meant.
Or are you one of those prigs who think the real meaning of "aweful" is "full of awe"?
Well, since I submitted it, I think it should be on the front page too:)
But unfortunately, not all of those choice comments are so important, since this was a district court ruling on a preliminary injunction, not on the case itself, so those comments don't carry as much legal "weight."
The main point for me is that it shows we have some friendly judges here in CA. Hopefully, they will get to rule on actual cases such as this one sometime soon. I'm holding my fingers crossed that UCITA-like acts will get partially struck down on the basis of violating the first-sale principle. Just a wish.