As someone who is about to exit college and enter the programming field, I have a vested interest in this stuff. However, before we all jump and attack companies like a bunch of blind monkies, let's look at a few things. First, it takes more than just programmers to make a good game. In fact I've played a lot of well coded games that sucked. A lot. The thing is that people (esp. higher-up types in companies) don't necessarily get this. As such they'll use anything they can to woo top shelf programmers to their company. And just like in the big internet boom/bust that we have been witnessing, all of the bonuses and little extras add up to cost a fortune that will bankrupt a company that isn't producing a really incredible product. Think of it as a rate war. Airlines used to have rate wars that would be great for people flying but would bankrupt the littler companies, regardless of whether the littler companies actually had better service. This is a typical phenomenon and Japanese companies realize that this stuff happens a lot throughout industry and they wish to avoid it by avoiding having their employees be enticed away by people who, in some cases will put them out of business, but more likely than not will put the company from which they pirated the programmers out of business at the same time that the pirating company runs itself into the ground. If everyone goes under except for the few big guys who can survive a storm like this then everyone here will just be complaining about monopolies/collusion in the gaming industry. At least try to accept that there may be other ways of viewing things and that not everyone is out to get you and take you for all your worth. Paranoia is good, but only to a point.
Ever read the Foundation series? I read the first Dune and liked it a lot. I tried reading some of the subsequent ones (got maybe half way through God Emporer, not very far at all into any of the others) and just couldn't keep going. Any great sci-fi author can keep a universe going. Larry Niven did it with Known Space. Heinlein had continuity in a lot of his books. Asimov did it to a phenomenal level. The thing is that I was able to keep reading and enjoying their books and I just couldn't do that with Dune. I think it's excellent for those who could, and in another few years I'll probably sit down and try to work through them again, but I read the other authors as a kid and was able to appreciate them and read them now and see a lot of new things in them but still appreciate them. If you haven't read the foundation series or Niven's Ringworld series or any of Heinlein's books I'd highly recommend them. You're almost certain to enjoy them
-Mike
I've got a logitech wireless wheel mouse thing. It communicates through radio frequencies and you just drop a little box somewhere (I've got it on top of my computer) that actually has the wire that goes to the computer. It works beautifully, has about a 10 foot range from the little box, and doesn't need any special support in linux. It's recognized as a regular mouse.
I don't disagree that a multi-alphabet system is necessary. What I do disagree with is the "vowel poor" part of your message. In hiragana for instance (the alphabet that is primarily used in Japanese) there are 5 vowels and every character has those vowels attached to it (a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko, sa shi su se so,...). In cyrillic (the alphabet Russian is written in) there are also 5 vowels. In the Greek alphabet there are also 5 base vowels (which are combined among each other into dipthongs to allow for further vowel sounds). In Turkish there are, suprise, 5 vowels as well, although they are modified by punctuation marks to extend the range of vowel sounds representable. But in all of these alphabets there are 5 base vowels. I don't have any familiarity with them, but I've heard that Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew,...) use only special marks to denote vowel sounds, foregoing full characters altogether. Ancient Egyptian, to my knowledge, also forewent actual vowels, leaving up to the reader to fill in the vowel sounds and only occasionally leaving clues. I won't disagree that ASCII is a limiting factor, just make sure you give good arguments or facts to support those arguments if you're trying to convince people that may in fact disagree. If you know any alphabets that have more than 5 base vowels (by that I mean there are more than 5 actual characters to represent distinct vowel sounds) I'd be curious to know. Thanks
Outlook, in many cases, is set to autorun scripts and files it understands. Many people just had open the email in order to be screwed. I don't know of a unix mail client that autoruns shell scripts. The reason I don't is because it's a stupid idea and it's entirely the fault of Microsoft and the Outlook teams for putting that into the software. The fact that they claim it's a feature just shows how incompetent they realy are over there. If you run a file that you don't know what it does, you get what you deserve. If your computer runs a file WITHOUT ASKING that neither you nor it knows what it does, then it's the fault of the software company whose program autoran the software if something goes wrong.
You're right and you're wrong. Security in software doesn't usually mean that the company who wrote the software actually harmed your computer, just that they left open the possibility for others to harm it. Which is what Microsoft did. Consistently Microsoft has trampled security in the name of "features" and then pointed a finger at their competitors and said, look they don't have this "feature". That practice, through the variety of bugs attacking DOS and Windows systems over the years, has arguably cost trillions of dollars. That's just flat out insane and it's time that someone called Microsoft on it. A feature that leaves you so easily open to malicious and extremely damaging attacks is a bug. Microsoft really needs to understand that point and stop "innovating" the American economy into a sinkhole.
I'll admit it, I learned about your music through hearing mp3's of it on friends' computers. I found that I really liked your stuff as well. Enough that I bought a CD and am probably going to buy a few more. With that in mind, have you considered taking a couple of songs, a representative sample of your work as a whole, and releasing them online for free distribution? I think you'd really open yourselves up to a lot of people who don't know your stuff and certainly would indebt those of us who support alternative music distribution methods to you for being leaders in the industry. You guys rock, keep up the awesome music.
I'm just curious about why you decided to have the missile turn into a whale, and where the names Slartibartfast and Zaphod Beeblebrox might have come from. Thanks for the great stuff. -Mike
Yes. I would buy a CD. In fact I've bought a couple of CDs of bands that I didn't know at all before I heard them on a friends computer because I liked their music a lot. I wouldn't have known this however if I had no opportunity to hear them. That's the freedom that is being taken away. If the bands would wise up to the potential and release a couple of songs which people could legally distribute then I think everyone who's complaining would have nothing to complain about. That's the easiest way to shut up people who you think are wrong. Remove their ability to argue their point.
It's sad how many people miss out on the opportunity for discussion in order to just attack Katz. What I did when I read this is think about what affect this wide spread "free" distribution of music has done for me. What I quickly figured out is that it significantly expanded the range of music I listen to and got me to buy a couple different albums. Including a Metallica album. I hadn't really heard them before hearing some stuff on a friend's computer one day (yeah, like I'm gonna admit to having anything on my computer and get sued) and having easy access to their music and being able to listen to some stuff got me really interested in their band. I'll probably buy another album or two eventually.
What we need maybe is for the two groups to come to some sort of agreement. What the recording industry and the artists themselves fail to realize is that the internet today is taking up most of the responsibilities of the radio. People used to find out about bands by hearing something of theirs on the radio. More and more these days though people are finding out about bands through the internet. I'd love to see a band like Metallica release two or three songs for revenue free redistribution. Make it legal to distribute some songs online. If all the bands followed suit then I think the piracy issues would fade a lot. I'd very much like to support the bands I like and make available things of theirs which they say it's alright to distribute. Unfortunately, except for bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish, none of them say it's alright to distribute anything. The argument for revenue from live performances was made already in an earlier post so I won't repeat it (just recommend that you read it if you haven't).
I guess I have to say something stupid in here (though you may think what I've said already is stupid) so here goes: Who thinks that the RIAA put Metallica up to this?
I'm just curious as to how we've gotten to the point where a lawsuit in the U.S. could require a Canadian and a Swede to appear and stand trial. If a lawsuit like this were filed in the Ukraine or Greece or... (essentially any country that's not the U.S. or a country really closely tied to it) and Americans were required to go stand trial, does anyone really think there'd be such little news on it? I just find it sick that U.S law has become such an all encompassing force that the rest of the world is made to bow to it whenever a powerful entity in the U.S. decides it doesn't like something. Of course with comments like this, I expect in another 70-80 years there'll be a story on Slashdot about my FBI file being released.:)
It's also perhaps the case that with GPL'd software, all modifications are given back, so other than a small amount of tinkering (which you're likely never to see because there's no point in releasing back personal preference changes) most people will never find themselves facing something worth changing in existing GPL'd software.
GPL'd software gets better all the time. One needs look no further than the Linux kernel itself to see this, but also go check out freshmeat.net. The biggest problem in open source land today seems to be finding a problem to work on that someone else isn't already tackling.
I am very happy to know that the software I use and enjoy isn't going to be stolen and usefully modified by a company somewhere that will then require me to pay for it. If the changes are worth making, someone will make them, even if they have to give them away. It's all a matter of cost analysis: how much would it cost to add this vs. how much is it worth to us to have it. Letting a company steal code just to tip the worth scale a little more is something I just can't agree with. In the end, it's a matter of world view and it'll never be argued out successfully, but I personally don't see how a developer could undervalue his/her labor so much as to work on a program that no one else would feel the desire to improve just on good will. The BSD style licenses, to me, seem to be a form of begging, in that they try to make it even more appealing for someone to modify the code than the simple reason of "I'd like to see this implemented." Changes that aren't worth making on their own merit just don't seem to be worth making at all, and that's the real reason to stick with a GPL/LGPL license for free software.
The Artistic License, to me, seems to be much more of a nice concept for a license as opposed to an actual legally binding and sealed up license. I read through it and it looks pretty good, but it seems as though it was written by a programmer as opposed to a lawyer, and with that being the case it doesn't seem even to have been reviewed in depth ever by a lawyer. Taken that way, it seems a more restrictive license than the GPL, being that the concept for the GPL (as I see it) is "You can use my code, but if you change it I want to see and be able to use your changes." That's not a legally acceptable way of stating that concept though, hence the rather long and tedious wording of it in the actual GPL. The artistic license just needs to make that jump from a concept (albeit a much better described concept than my simplification of the GPL) to a fully-reviewed, legally sealed license. That's my take on it -Mike
I'm going to make a blind guess that you live in the U.S. If this is the case, then while it sucks in some ways, you as a minor cannot make a legally binding contract. Don't believe everyone who's said this so far? Go ask a decent lawyer. They'll tell you the same thing. Don't be "insulted" by Corel just because they take the time to point out that you can't legally agree to the terms of the contract. Everyone else assumes that you understand that you aren't legally allowed to consent to their contracts. It's not like they're going to come sue you for using their software anyway. Unless you start to ignore the terms and do illegal things with it, in which case they've got that special clause there which gives them a little bit of extra protection. In these litigation crazy United States, they need everything they can get. (Also, don't forget that Corel is a Canadian company and that somehow Canadian law may require such a clause (I'm really guessing on that one though, so anyone who has any commentary, please add)). -Mike
Slashdot, as the title in the header itself declares, is about news for nerds and stuff that matters. To throw about the phrase "tyranny of the majority," (a phrase which in itself is flawed as the term tyrant itself comes from greek (a language I'm studying) in which it implies an authoritarian rule by one individual and is used to contrast with the rule by the demos (the people), ) is just bizarre. To answer more clearly why I am distressed by this, though, it needs merely be said that my original post, and the subsequent posts of quite a number of people in many various threads, was placed entirely because I myself feel that interviewing someone that I feel to be a shameless loser is a waste of time for slashdot and its readers. My next post explained more clearly what I was trying to say in my original post and expressed my desire for some sort of alternate feedback mechanism for interviews. And now this comment should clarify that the entire purpose of these interview things, to my knowledge, is to interview and pick the brains of people that it would be interesting to know more about/hear more from. I don't want to know anymore than I already do about this guy, and I wish that I'd never hear anything again from him. If you're interested in him, go research. There was an article in the NY Times a small while back (I referenced an article in my previous post, but only recalled that it was the Times article through reading other people's posts) that summarizes him quite well. He's not someone that I want to hear anything from. Implying that somehow just because a large number of people here think this is a waste of time and that we'd much rather hear from someone more interesting, that therefore we form a tyranny of the majority is ludicrous and offensive, and phrases like that are only meant to try to silence people whose opinions you disagree with, thereby effecting the same concept that you yourself attempt to accuse others of. This is a public forum. The opinions of none are silenced, however it is the operators who chose what we hear, and I posted solely to let them know that what I'm hearing in this case isn't something I care to know more about, and that this fellow isn't someone I care to hear more from. -Mike
I wasn't trying to be particularly productive towards finding out about him. I don't really like this fellow at all. I don't want to investigate him because it only brings more notoriety to him. What I'd like to see is some system whereby there're two polls on slashdot. One for whatever poll topic is running and another for who we should interview. If there was one for that, I'd have voted for someone else and I wouldn't be commenting here. Instead, I am commenting here because it's the only way to let them know that I disagree with the choice of person to interview. Perhaps even just a poll to find out whether or not people are happy with the currently chosen person. My subject should have expressed that I wasn't exactly making an investigative comment, but if not, sorry. As for "investigating the perception," I don't feel that my opinions about this fellow are a perception when he's done everything possible to convince everyone that what I've said is close to the mark. I recall an article a month or two ago that confirmed my thoughts for me. As for mouthing off, again, I wasn't trying to make a comment to be posted to him, but rather attempting to make my opinion of the choice of interviewy known. Like I mentioned, a poll of some sort for the interview (either pre-interview or post-interview) would be very useful to avoiding comments like my original one (and these subsequent ones) that aren't entirely relevant as far as being passed on goes, but should be useful for determining who to interview. -Mike
Seeing slashdot contribute to the fame of such a character just really disgusts me. Everything I've read says that this guy is a self-promoting nobody who doesn't know his stuff, and everything I've seen him do involves him sueing someone because they came out and said as much. The only question I have is why he even thinks he deserves to be interviewed here. I've never heard of anything positive coming from him and I've heard of a lot of negative stuff -Mike
Reading these guys' statements, I couldn't help but think of something I read last winter, Hugo's Les Miserables. They fit so well with the group of revolutionaries from that, with the varying viewpoints and personalities all united in a weird way towards a common purpose of changing the world to a better place. I just hope the cDc fares better than Hugo's revolutionaries did.
That said, this was definitely a good interview. Lots of interesting stuff from a well known yet secretive group. Those of us who've come a bit late to the world of hacking can do very well to learn from the various different ideals of all the different communities out there. Thanks. -Mike
Get a grasp on the GPL. Internal release is legal. Why your comment was moderated up is beyond me. For one thing, I neither said, nor made a statement to the affect, that something with the GPL is "not for redistribution". I will make that now though. Because if you take GPL'd software and do lots of really cool stuff with it and use it just for yourself/your company, then you don't have to redistribute anything. Ever. It's comments like yours that make people call the GPL a "virus". If you've never taken the time to, read the GPL itself word for word. The whole point of the GPL is to thwart people from stealing GPL'd software, altering it, releasing it as their own, and not releasing any changes they made to the source. If they made no changes to code from others that was GPL'd, then quite frankly they have made no errors. They have said that the distribution as a whole and complete body is not to be given away, and as a member of the "Beta testing program" (which in essence makes you a member of a pseudo organization that they have created) you aren't allowed to give away their property as a whole. Namely the distribution.
Like I said before and in a different reply, you can change software all you like and not give away any changes, provided you don't release the changed software to the public. This isn't releasing it to the public, so no violation, case closed.
Two points. First, you can distribute without source provided you make the source easily accessible somewhere publicly. Second, people distribute a distribution, but they privately release a beta test of a software. If you download GPL'd software, heavily modify it, and use it within your own company without trying to pass it off as yours and sell it/give it away to others, then you have violated nothing within the GPL. I believe that beta testing should be considered modifying and releasing within your own company, except that you're using some volunteers who are offering to be members of your company (solely in the sense that they are testing your product for you) for a period of time before you actually release the software. If you look at it that way, then there's no violation and the whole world is a much happier place because companies won't be forced into releasing disgustingly unuseable software for linux just because they can't beta test externally and don't have enough internal people to test. Corel's been doing quite a few very cool things for linux. I for one support them in this, with the only provision being that they stick to their promise of GPL'ing all of the really nice stuff they've created when it comes time for them to start selling this stuff. -Mike
Being that it's not a public release (limited release beta not for redistribution) you could consider it to be their software. It's not a violation to change GPL'd software without giving back the changes, just to distribute the changes without source. It's a really interesting thing to try to deal with, but it'd be really hard to beta test software that you aren't ready to release yet and still conform to the GPL without considering the beta testers as being people who're part of your organization in a weird sense. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and if I was I think I'd be standing on a ledge right about now if I had to deal with this one, but ohh well. That's just my 2 cents. -Mike
How someone who thinks Asimov is dull could tolerate reading philosophy is beyond me. But as for your general outlook, I think you really missed the boat in a lot of aspects as far as reading science fiction. Most of the authors you dislike tend to have a lot of really deep underlying philosophy and thought in what they write. Philosophers, in my opinion, should be people who learn to think about things on an insanely grand scale while keeping as detailed a resolution of it all as possible. Give a try to imagining all the events that would happen between when some of Clarke's works were written and the time they were supposed to have taken place, then try envisioning the shifts in the average person's thinking that would need to take place to get there, then perhaps try interacting with people on a different level of thinking than yourself so that you actually understand how different groups of people think (from the common everyday person to all the sub-niches of genius), then take all the knowledge you've managed to amass, attempt to try to guess some of the factors of the world as it actually is, expand your thought process farther and farther (and perhaps one day start to truly comprehend the world) and then re-read the works that you have found dull or poor and perhaps you will understand them a little better and have a better opinion of them. That you studied philosophy was apparent without you needing to mention it: you have the attitude of a philosopher down to a fine art. And in actuality, you really are just plain wrong about everyone not being philosophers. The only thing left to being a philosopher these days is the mannerisms and haughtiness of it all. Not everyone makes a good philosopher, nor does everyone make a good writer, a good artist, a good mathematician, a good chemist,... but (in the U.S. at least) the education system is such that people learn enough to be able to do these things if they so desire. The only thing left that the average person can't do is become nobility (excluding the very slight possibility of marrying a nobleperson and thereby becoming a nobleperson yourself). I'm not much for listening to opinions from people who've decided that they're right and others are wrong. Philosophy is all about that from what I've seen and you've written at least two opinions so far which have expressed such an attitude. If, therefore, this reply is overly harsh, my apologies. If you truly fashion yourself a philosopher, it would be good for you to examine your own attitudes and opinions to see how they might color your view of the world at large, thereby allowing you to see the world more clearly and better understand the opinions of other philosophers that you might hold in some esteem. -Mike
Sorry, but something in me jumps when someone starts using phrases like "you people". I live in America. New York as a matter of fact. Now I say NY and people will probably jump and think of NYC. That's a typical reaction of people who don't live in this general area. Actually, I live ~100 miles north of the city and there's a lot of open areas and even a few farms around here. Now being that the state I live in is the approximate size of some European countries, it bothers me a little when people start talking about and including me in a grouping with people who could live more than 2000-3000 miles from me. Why not just call the Spanish people Russian, because after all they live the same distance as I do from some "Americans". I happened to think this was a worthwhile story. And I happen to be "just another American". And so do the Canadians to the north of me, who're probably a hell of a lot closer than some of the closed-minded individuals writing their opinion in this open forum for the discusion of issues. I've always liked to think of Slashdot as a sort of grand-scale, modern version of an 18th century Parisian coffee house, where mostly intellectual people talk about things that seem interesting. Don't jump on me and my country, and I won't jump on you and yours. Maybe instead we can all stick to the issue. Granted, this guy might be pretty stupid to think that things like this won't filter across to affect him somehow, and I've never even read any other posts by him in the past (that I remember anyway) and so maybe he's just trying to push that web site that he so prominently linked in, but irregardless, if you don't like him and his opinion then provide some positive criticism, don't just knock a whole bunch of people because it's easy to do.
As for my advice to this Poag fellow, Linux is a worldwide thing. This may only directly affect about 90 people, but being that it is the LUG for the whole country, it's actions and it's policies could directly affect linux usage there for a number of years to come. Raising fees, and by derivative closing out some less well to do members is a bad idea. Maybe splitting membership levels up would make more sense. That's my
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who is about to exit college and enter the programming field, I have a vested interest in this stuff. However, before we all jump and attack companies like a bunch of blind monkies, let's look at a few things. First, it takes more than just programmers to make a good game. In fact I've played a lot of well coded games that sucked. A lot. The thing is that people (esp. higher-up types in companies) don't necessarily get this. As such they'll use anything they can to woo top shelf programmers to their company. And just like in the big internet boom/bust that we have been witnessing, all of the bonuses and little extras add up to cost a fortune that will bankrupt a company that isn't producing a really incredible product. Think of it as a rate war. Airlines used to have rate wars that would be great for people flying but would bankrupt the littler companies, regardless of whether the littler companies actually had better service. This is a typical phenomenon and Japanese companies realize that this stuff happens a lot throughout industry and they wish to avoid it by avoiding having their employees be enticed away by people who, in some cases will put them out of business, but more likely than not will put the company from which they pirated the programmers out of business at the same time that the pirating company runs itself into the ground. If everyone goes under except for the few big guys who can survive a storm like this then everyone here will just be complaining about monopolies/collusion in the gaming industry. At least try to accept that there may be other ways of viewing things and that not everyone is out to get you and take you for all your worth. Paranoia is good, but only to a point.
Ever read the Foundation series? I read the first Dune and liked it a lot. I tried reading some of the subsequent ones (got maybe half way through God Emporer, not very far at all into any of the others) and just couldn't keep going. Any great sci-fi author can keep a universe going. Larry Niven did it with Known Space. Heinlein had continuity in a lot of his books. Asimov did it to a phenomenal level. The thing is that I was able to keep reading and enjoying their books and I just couldn't do that with Dune. I think it's excellent for those who could, and in another few years I'll probably sit down and try to work through them again, but I read the other authors as a kid and was able to appreciate them and read them now and see a lot of new things in them but still appreciate them. If you haven't read the foundation series or Niven's Ringworld series or any of Heinlein's books I'd highly recommend them. You're almost certain to enjoy them -Mike
I've got a logitech wireless wheel mouse thing. It communicates through radio frequencies and you just drop a little box somewhere (I've got it on top of my computer) that actually has the wire that goes to the computer. It works beautifully, has about a 10 foot range from the little box, and doesn't need any special support in linux. It's recognized as a regular mouse.
I don't disagree that a multi-alphabet system is necessary. What I do disagree with is the "vowel poor" part of your message. In hiragana for instance (the alphabet that is primarily used in Japanese) there are 5 vowels and every character has those vowels attached to it (a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko, sa shi su se so, ...). In cyrillic (the alphabet Russian is written in) there are also 5 vowels. In the Greek alphabet there are also 5 base vowels (which are combined among each other into dipthongs to allow for further vowel sounds). In Turkish there are, suprise, 5 vowels as well, although they are modified by punctuation marks to extend the range of vowel sounds representable. But in all of these alphabets there are 5 base vowels. I don't have any familiarity with them, but I've heard that Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, ...) use only special marks to denote vowel sounds, foregoing full characters altogether. Ancient Egyptian, to my knowledge, also forewent actual vowels, leaving up to the reader to fill in the vowel sounds and only occasionally leaving clues. I won't disagree that ASCII is a limiting factor, just make sure you give good arguments or facts to support those arguments if you're trying to convince people that may in fact disagree. If you know any alphabets that have more than 5 base vowels (by that I mean there are more than 5 actual characters to represent distinct vowel sounds) I'd be curious to know. Thanks
-Mike
Outlook, in many cases, is set to autorun scripts and files it understands. Many people just had open the email in order to be screwed. I don't know of a unix mail client that autoruns shell scripts. The reason I don't is because it's a stupid idea and it's entirely the fault of Microsoft and the Outlook teams for putting that into the software. The fact that they claim it's a feature just shows how incompetent they realy are over there. If you run a file that you don't know what it does, you get what you deserve. If your computer runs a file WITHOUT ASKING that neither you nor it knows what it does, then it's the fault of the software company whose program autoran the software if something goes wrong.
-Akmed
You're right and you're wrong. Security in software doesn't usually mean that the company who wrote the software actually harmed your computer, just that they left open the possibility for others to harm it. Which is what Microsoft did. Consistently Microsoft has trampled security in the name of "features" and then pointed a finger at their competitors and said, look they don't have this "feature". That practice, through the variety of bugs attacking DOS and Windows systems over the years, has arguably cost trillions of dollars. That's just flat out insane and it's time that someone called Microsoft on it. A feature that leaves you so easily open to malicious and extremely damaging attacks is a bug. Microsoft really needs to understand that point and stop "innovating" the American economy into a sinkhole.
-Mike
I'll admit it, I learned about your music through hearing mp3's of it on friends' computers. I found that I really liked your stuff as well. Enough that I bought a CD and am probably going to buy a few more. With that in mind, have you considered taking a couple of songs, a representative sample of your work as a whole, and releasing them online for free distribution? I think you'd really open yourselves up to a lot of people who don't know your stuff and certainly would indebt those of us who support alternative music distribution methods to you for being leaders in the industry. You guys rock, keep up the awesome music.
-Mike McLaughlin
I'm just curious about why you decided to have the missile turn into a whale, and where the names Slartibartfast and Zaphod Beeblebrox might have come from. Thanks for the great stuff.
-Mike
Yes. I would buy a CD. In fact I've bought a couple of CDs of bands that I didn't know at all before I heard them on a friends computer because I liked their music a lot. I wouldn't have known this however if I had no opportunity to hear them. That's the freedom that is being taken away. If the bands would wise up to the potential and release a couple of songs which people could legally distribute then I think everyone who's complaining would have nothing to complain about. That's the easiest way to shut up people who you think are wrong. Remove their ability to argue their point.
-Mike
It's sad how many people miss out on the opportunity for discussion in order to just attack Katz. What I did when I read this is think about what affect this wide spread "free" distribution of music has done for me. What I quickly figured out is that it significantly expanded the range of music I listen to and got me to buy a couple different albums. Including a Metallica album. I hadn't really heard them before hearing some stuff on a friend's computer one day (yeah, like I'm gonna admit to having anything on my computer and get sued) and having easy access to their music and being able to listen to some stuff got me really interested in their band. I'll probably buy another album or two eventually.
What we need maybe is for the two groups to come to some sort of agreement. What the recording industry and the artists themselves fail to realize is that the internet today is taking up most of the responsibilities of the radio. People used to find out about bands by hearing something of theirs on the radio. More and more these days though people are finding out about bands through the internet. I'd love to see a band like Metallica release two or three songs for revenue free redistribution. Make it legal to distribute some songs online. If all the bands followed suit then I think the piracy issues would fade a lot. I'd very much like to support the bands I like and make available things of theirs which they say it's alright to distribute. Unfortunately, except for bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish, none of them say it's alright to distribute anything. The argument for revenue from live performances was made already in an earlier post so I won't repeat it (just recommend that you read it if you haven't).
I guess I have to say something stupid in here (though you may think what I've said already is stupid) so here goes: Who thinks that the RIAA put Metallica up to this?
-Mike
I'm just curious as to how we've gotten to the point where a lawsuit in the U.S. could require a Canadian and a Swede to appear and stand trial. If a lawsuit like this were filed in the Ukraine or Greece or ... (essentially any country that's not the U.S. or a country really closely tied to it) and Americans were required to go stand trial, does anyone really think there'd be such little news on it? I just find it sick that U.S law has become such an all encompassing force that the rest of the world is made to bow to it whenever a powerful entity in the U.S. decides it doesn't like something. Of course with comments like this, I expect in another 70-80 years there'll be a story on Slashdot about my FBI file being released. :)
-Mike
It's also perhaps the case that with GPL'd software, all modifications are given back, so other than a small amount of tinkering (which you're likely never to see because there's no point in releasing back personal preference changes) most people will never find themselves facing something worth changing in existing GPL'd software.
GPL'd software gets better all the time. One needs look no further than the Linux kernel itself to see this, but also go check out freshmeat.net. The biggest problem in open source land today seems to be finding a problem to work on that someone else isn't already tackling.
I am very happy to know that the software I use and enjoy isn't going to be stolen and usefully modified by a company somewhere that will then require me to pay for it. If the changes are worth making, someone will make them, even if they have to give them away. It's all a matter of cost analysis: how much would it cost to add this vs. how much is it worth to us to have it. Letting a company steal code just to tip the worth scale a little more is something I just can't agree with. In the end, it's a matter of world view and it'll never be argued out successfully, but I personally don't see how a developer could undervalue his/her labor so much as to work on a program that no one else would feel the desire to improve just on good will. The BSD style licenses, to me, seem to be a form of begging, in that they try to make it even more appealing for someone to modify the code than the simple reason of "I'd like to see this implemented." Changes that aren't worth making on their own merit just don't seem to be worth making at all, and that's the real reason to stick with a GPL/LGPL license for free software.
-Mike
The Artistic License, to me, seems to be much more of a nice concept for a license as opposed to an actual legally binding and sealed up license. I read through it and it looks pretty good, but it seems as though it was written by a programmer as opposed to a lawyer, and with that being the case it doesn't seem even to have been reviewed in depth ever by a lawyer. Taken that way, it seems a more restrictive license than the GPL, being that the concept for the GPL (as I see it) is "You can use my code, but if you change it I want to see and be able to use your changes." That's not a legally acceptable way of stating that concept though, hence the rather long and tedious wording of it in the actual GPL. The artistic license just needs to make that jump from a concept (albeit a much better described concept than my simplification of the GPL) to a fully-reviewed, legally sealed license. That's my take on it
-Mike
I'm going to make a blind guess that you live in the U.S. If this is the case, then while it sucks in some ways, you as a minor cannot make a legally binding contract. Don't believe everyone who's said this so far? Go ask a decent lawyer. They'll tell you the same thing. Don't be "insulted" by Corel just because they take the time to point out that you can't legally agree to the terms of the contract. Everyone else assumes that you understand that you aren't legally allowed to consent to their contracts. It's not like they're going to come sue you for using their software anyway. Unless you start to ignore the terms and do illegal things with it, in which case they've got that special clause there which gives them a little bit of extra protection. In these litigation crazy United States, they need everything they can get. (Also, don't forget that Corel is a Canadian company and that somehow Canadian law may require such a clause (I'm really guessing on that one though, so anyone who has any commentary, please add)).
-Mike
Slashdot, as the title in the header itself declares, is about news for nerds and stuff that matters. To throw about the phrase "tyranny of the majority," (a phrase which in itself is flawed as the term tyrant itself comes from greek (a language I'm studying) in which it implies an authoritarian rule by one individual and is used to contrast with the rule by the demos (the people), ) is just bizarre. To answer more clearly why I am distressed by this, though, it needs merely be said that my original post, and the subsequent posts of quite a number of people in many various threads, was placed entirely because I myself feel that interviewing someone that I feel to be a shameless loser is a waste of time for slashdot and its readers. My next post explained more clearly what I was trying to say in my original post and expressed my desire for some sort of alternate feedback mechanism for interviews. And now this comment should clarify that the entire purpose of these interview things, to my knowledge, is to interview and pick the brains of people that it would be interesting to know more about/hear more from. I don't want to know anymore than I already do about this guy, and I wish that I'd never hear anything again from him. If you're interested in him, go research. There was an article in the NY Times a small while back (I referenced an article in my previous post, but only recalled that it was the Times article through reading other people's posts) that summarizes him quite well. He's not someone that I want to hear anything from. Implying that somehow just because a large number of people here think this is a waste of time and that we'd much rather hear from someone more interesting, that therefore we form a tyranny of the majority is ludicrous and offensive, and phrases like that are only meant to try to silence people whose opinions you disagree with, thereby effecting the same concept that you yourself attempt to accuse others of. This is a public forum. The opinions of none are silenced, however it is the operators who chose what we hear, and I posted solely to let them know that what I'm hearing in this case isn't something I care to know more about, and that this fellow isn't someone I care to hear more from.
-Mike
I wasn't trying to be particularly productive towards finding out about him. I don't really like this fellow at all. I don't want to investigate him because it only brings more notoriety to him. What I'd like to see is some system whereby there're two polls on slashdot. One for whatever poll topic is running and another for who we should interview. If there was one for that, I'd have voted for someone else and I wouldn't be commenting here. Instead, I am commenting here because it's the only way to let them know that I disagree with the choice of person to interview. Perhaps even just a poll to find out whether or not people are happy with the currently chosen person. My subject should have expressed that I wasn't exactly making an investigative comment, but if not, sorry. As for "investigating the perception," I don't feel that my opinions about this fellow are a perception when he's done everything possible to convince everyone that what I've said is close to the mark. I recall an article a month or two ago that confirmed my thoughts for me. As for mouthing off, again, I wasn't trying to make a comment to be posted to him, but rather attempting to make my opinion of the choice of interviewy known. Like I mentioned, a poll of some sort for the interview (either pre-interview or post-interview) would be very useful to avoiding comments like my original one (and these subsequent ones) that aren't entirely relevant as far as being passed on goes, but should be useful for determining who to interview.
-Mike
Seeing slashdot contribute to the fame of such a character just really disgusts me. Everything I've read says that this guy is a self-promoting nobody who doesn't know his stuff, and everything I've seen him do involves him sueing someone because they came out and said as much. The only question I have is why he even thinks he deserves to be interviewed here. I've never heard of anything positive coming from him and I've heard of a lot of negative stuff
-Mike
Reading these guys' statements, I couldn't help but think of something I read last winter, Hugo's Les Miserables. They fit so well with the group of revolutionaries from that, with the varying viewpoints and personalities all united in a weird way towards a common purpose of changing the world to a better place. I just hope the cDc fares better than Hugo's revolutionaries did.
That said, this was definitely a good interview. Lots of interesting stuff from a well known yet secretive group. Those of us who've come a bit late to the world of hacking can do very well to learn from the various different ideals of all the different communities out there. Thanks.
-Mike
Get a grasp on the GPL. Internal release is legal. Why your comment was moderated up is beyond me. For one thing, I neither said, nor made a statement to the affect, that something with the GPL is "not for redistribution". I will make that now though. Because if you take GPL'd software and do lots of really cool stuff with it and use it just for yourself/your company, then you don't have to redistribute anything. Ever. It's comments like yours that make people call the GPL a "virus". If you've never taken the time to, read the GPL itself word for word. The whole point of the GPL is to thwart people from stealing GPL'd software, altering it, releasing it as their own, and not releasing any changes they made to the source. If they made no changes to code from others that was GPL'd, then quite frankly they have made no errors. They have said that the distribution as a whole and complete body is not to be given away, and as a member of the "Beta testing program" (which in essence makes you a member of a pseudo organization that they have created) you aren't allowed to give away their property as a whole. Namely the distribution.
Like I said before and in a different reply, you can change software all you like and not give away any changes, provided you don't release the changed software to the public. This isn't releasing it to the public, so no violation, case closed.
-Mike
Two points. First, you can distribute without source provided you make the source easily accessible somewhere publicly. Second, people distribute a distribution, but they privately release a beta test of a software. If you download GPL'd software, heavily modify it, and use it within your own company without trying to pass it off as yours and sell it/give it away to others, then you have violated nothing within the GPL. I believe that beta testing should be considered modifying and releasing within your own company, except that you're using some volunteers who are offering to be members of your company (solely in the sense that they are testing your product for you) for a period of time before you actually release the software. If you look at it that way, then there's no violation and the whole world is a much happier place because companies won't be forced into releasing disgustingly unuseable software for linux just because they can't beta test externally and don't have enough internal people to test. Corel's been doing quite a few very cool things for linux. I for one support them in this, with the only provision being that they stick to their promise of GPL'ing all of the really nice stuff they've created when it comes time for them to start selling this stuff.
-Mike
Being that it's not a public release (limited release beta not for redistribution) you could consider it to be their software. It's not a violation to change GPL'd software without giving back the changes, just to distribute the changes without source. It's a really interesting thing to try to deal with, but it'd be really hard to beta test software that you aren't ready to release yet and still conform to the GPL without considering the beta testers as being people who're part of your organization in a weird sense. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and if I was I think I'd be standing on a ledge right about now if I had to deal with this one, but ohh well. That's just my 2 cents.
-Mike
How someone who thinks Asimov is dull could tolerate reading philosophy is beyond me. But as for your general outlook, I think you really missed the boat in a lot of aspects as far as reading science fiction. Most of the authors you dislike tend to have a lot of really deep underlying philosophy and thought in what they write. Philosophers, in my opinion, should be people who learn to think about things on an insanely grand scale while keeping as detailed a resolution of it all as possible. Give a try to imagining all the events that would happen between when some of Clarke's works were written and the time they were supposed to have taken place, then try envisioning the shifts in the average person's thinking that would need to take place to get there, then perhaps try interacting with people on a different level of thinking than yourself so that you actually understand how different groups of people think (from the common everyday person to all the sub-niches of genius), then take all the knowledge you've managed to amass, attempt to try to guess some of the factors of the world as it actually is, expand your thought process farther and farther (and perhaps one day start to truly comprehend the world) and then re-read the works that you have found dull or poor and perhaps you will understand them a little better and have a better opinion of them. That you studied philosophy was apparent without you needing to mention it: you have the attitude of a philosopher down to a fine art. And in actuality, you really are just plain wrong about everyone not being philosophers. The only thing left to being a philosopher these days is the mannerisms and haughtiness of it all. Not everyone makes a good philosopher, nor does everyone make a good writer, a good artist, a good mathematician, a good chemist, ... but (in the U.S. at least) the education system is such that people learn enough to be able to do these things if they so desire. The only thing left that the average person can't do is become nobility (excluding the very slight possibility of marrying a nobleperson and thereby becoming a nobleperson yourself).
I'm not much for listening to opinions from people who've decided that they're right and others are wrong. Philosophy is all about that from what I've seen and you've written at least two opinions so far which have expressed such an attitude. If, therefore, this reply is overly harsh, my apologies. If you truly fashion yourself a philosopher, it would be good for you to examine your own attitudes and opinions to see how they might color your view of the world at large, thereby allowing you to see the world more clearly and better understand the opinions of other philosophers that you might hold in some esteem.
-Mike
two cents... sorry, hit submit instead of preview. Ohh well.
-Mike
Sorry, but something in me jumps when someone starts using phrases like "you people". I live in America. New York as a matter of fact. Now I say NY and people will probably jump and think of NYC. That's a typical reaction of people who don't live in this general area. Actually, I live ~100 miles north of the city and there's a lot of open areas and even a few farms around here. Now being that the state I live in is the approximate size of some European countries, it bothers me a little when people start talking about and including me in a grouping with people who could live more than 2000-3000 miles from me. Why not just call the Spanish people Russian, because after all they live the same distance as I do from some "Americans". I happened to think this was a worthwhile story. And I happen to be "just another American". And so do the Canadians to the north of me, who're probably a hell of a lot closer than some of the closed-minded individuals writing their opinion in this open forum for the discusion of issues. I've always liked to think of Slashdot as a sort of grand-scale, modern version of an 18th century Parisian coffee house, where mostly intellectual people talk about things that seem interesting. Don't jump on me and my country, and I won't jump on you and yours. Maybe instead we can all stick to the issue. Granted, this guy might be pretty stupid to think that things like this won't filter across to affect him somehow, and I've never even read any other posts by him in the past (that I remember anyway) and so maybe he's just trying to push that web site that he so prominently linked in, but irregardless, if you don't like him and his opinion then provide some positive criticism, don't just knock a whole bunch of people because it's easy to do.
As for my advice to this Poag fellow, Linux is a worldwide thing. This may only directly affect about 90 people, but being that it is the LUG for the whole country, it's actions and it's policies could directly affect linux usage there for a number of years to come. Raising fees, and by derivative closing out some less well to do members is a bad idea. Maybe splitting membership levels up would make more sense. That's my
Have you ever considered starting a cult of some sort? We could all get together and worship the holy penguin king of zamboozie. :)
I'd join it, anyway.
-Mike