Whoops. They were using the word copyright so much I lost track of which work they were talking about. Ah well, at least I got my karma;-)
Still, simply because I hate losing, the fact that the posts are nearly worthless could be taken to mean that the book will completely annihilate their minuscule value, thus making it a worse offense than if they were actually worth something and it only impacted a portion of their market. It is conceivable (just barely) that the posts could be used in another context--perhaps one of the posters was inspired by Katz and wants to write a book of his own.
There was a show on the Discovery Channel a few {months,years} ago about a tribe in Africa claiming Jewish descent. Part of the evidence that apparently validates their claim is that many of the men have a Y chromosome mutation that is extremely rare on the general population, but appears in something like 30% of Jews. Because the priesthood was passed down from father to son, the Y chromosome was preserved in the priests' families, despite the tribe being thoroughly 'Africanized'.
If you want an online, threaded, linked version why not refer to the original slashdot articles.
Because the archive isn't threaded? Presumably the book isn't either, though, so the point is moot. (Well, the book's probably is more threaded than the archive.)
I don't see why it should be restricted to only one format. At the very least I'd like to see plain text, HTML, Postscript and PDF. PDF and text are a must, IMO. HTML (or rather, CSS) lets you retain most of the formatting, chapter breaks, etc, and browse online. Postscript...um...is cool.;-)
Considering that we're discussing copyright issues it seems logical to take a look at what the Copyright Office has to say.
Fair use is covered in Circular 21 (pdf). I found this part quite interesting:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
Looking at the above list of factors, it would seem that 1 and 4 may be problematic. The book is clearly commercial (even if the profits are going to charity), and the included posts influence the market potential of the book considerably (i.e., they are the market potential for the book). There isn't clearly a problem, IMO, but I would definitely want an IP lawyer to take a look at the book before it was published.
OTOH, reading down a little, it appears that comments can safely be reprinted in their entirety without violating the authors copyright--in particular, it states that short stories, which are far more substantial than most posts, can be used in their entirety. The caveat is that this specific example only applies to classroom use (these are the provisions for educational use), but it would seem to imply that shorter works can be reprinted safely. (Of course 'imply' doesn't mean much, legally.)
IalsoANAL[0], but I believe you have to factor in attribution of the quotes as well. It's simple enough to see who posted an archived comment: just look up. It's the anonymity of the quotes in the book that are bothering many people.
Quotes are attributed. Period. The only exceptions I've seen are for people who request anonymity and for idiotically obvious public speech, e.g., yelling on a crowded street corner. If you are willing to attribute the quote to the author then you're fine (though in a case like this it would be nice to get permission, if possible). Maybe I'll start posting under a BSD license;-)
(/. keeps stripping my HTML tags off in preview, so this is being posted in plain text. I would apologize, but I'm a victim of CmdrTaco;-)
"I do not and never ever will care a fleeting fuck about their nurishment, their rights or their suffering which may have influenced their actions."
There is some small irony here: you state that, unlike them, you have a conscience and can tell right from wrong, yet you don't care about their rights or whatever suffering they may have experienced.
Actually, I can sympathize a bit, but I don't believe I could suspend my feelings on moral grounds. I simply can't stand seeing people in pain--any people, regardless of their crimes. I'm glad Klebold and Harris are dead, and had I been offered the chance I would have happily helped them to the Great Beyond, but that doesn't mean I can condone their suffering. Like you, I don't give a fuck about Harris and Klebold, the murderers. But I absolutely give a fuck about Harris and Klebold, the individuals capable of suffering. That they happen to be the same people is inconsequential.
"One of the fundamental properties which separates humans from animals is the fact that humans can determine right from wrong, good from bad."
Actually, this isn't true: many animals--primates especially--have some minimal sense of morality. Caring for others and whatnot. More than many people, anyway.
"When you say "the killers were victims of a different sort", you're simply filling in the void of cause and justifying their actions."
You seem to be confusing victimization with justification; the former can exist very easily without the latter. If you are robbed, you're a victim. If you respond by tracking down the thief and killing him, you're a murderer who happens to have been a victim. You are most definitely not justified, but that doesn't alter the fact that you were robbed, or that the robbery is the reason you committed murder.
"Regardless of whether someone truly is a victim of some form of abuse, you never ever encourage vengeance by justifying their violence."
I disagree. There are times when it is appropriate to take revenge, including killing the abuser. They are rather extreme cases, certainly well beyond being teased in school, but "revenge is wrong" is not the first thing that comes to mind when someone is using a 3 year old as a handball.
He was kidding. Or trolling. Something like that;-)
I agree that they weren't geeks, but for a very different reason. I don't remember any reports that they were actually all that knowledgeable about any technical subjects. They had a Web page and gamed, maybe even made a few levels for Doom. (Can that be right? From the reports you'd think they'd never heard of Quake.) The same can be said of jocks and members of every other not-blatantly-Luddite group in High School. Media opinion aside, knowing how to use Frontpage does not make you a geek.
I don't think, however, that morality is relevant to whether one is a geek. I consider your average Evil Genius to be a geek just as much as the Heroic Scientist who vanquishes him before going to commercial. There are certainly geeks who have jobs oriented toward violence (gunsmiths, combat engineers, a lot of weapons crews in Today's {Army,Navy,Air Force}). There are geeks with fairly flexible beliefs about right and wrong, who do consider violence to be a solution at times, who lie to their bosses, and who steal from their equipment suppliers (not that I have anyone specific in mind;-). I just don't see any basis for putting a morality clause in geekdom, especially if it would mean excluding thousands of geeks.
The last sentence was supposed to be a para, but/. ate my HTML. This makes me the third victim this week, that I know of, to have comments mutilated after submission, despite appearing correctly in preview.
Methinks the important issue in quoting is fair use, not that this is a public forum. Quoting for the purpose of responding is covered by fair use, AFAIK, as long as you don't simply repost the comment verbatim. Even then there's little doubt about where the comment originated, since it's easily accessible, so there would be relatively little damage done (which is not to say that it would be okay). (BTW, works produced by public officials in the course of their duties--speeches included--are owned by the public.)
Sure, but that's beyond the scope of licenses. Any code is subject to that threat, and there's damn little you can do about it (though I don't think you're giving the courts enough credit). In fact, this is one of my problems with GPL: I think it offers people a comfortable delusion that their code is safe. I wouldn't be all that suprised to find GNU code (sans GPL) in Win2000, assuming I ever see the Win2000 source.
"Functionally equivalant" code, incidentally, wouldn't be covered anyway. If it were, the GNU Project (and BSD projects, and Sun, and...) would be violating copyrights all over the place. Even binary-identical code is probably fine as long as it isn't actually derived from copyrighted code, since you (apparently) can't copyright executables themselves.
I absolutely agree that the rules should be clearly posted if there is any expectation that they will be followed. The problem is that the rules aren't coming from Rob, they're coming from us (those of us with accounts). If you picked a dozen moderators at random do you think you could reach consensus on how any given post should be moderated? How about just two moderators?
/. has ambiguous rules because the creation, comprehension, and enforcement of those rules is a responsibility of every individual moderator, not of the community as a whole or it's creators. There are no mechanisms in place to allow formal discussion of those rules, let alone adoption by the community as a whole, and no way at all to ensure that they are actually obeyed by either the moderators or posters. Everything rests on the judgement of individuals and I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that this is not a good thing.
There are two solutions, in my opinion. Either we just live with the system the way it is and accept the flaws, or we designate a (probably large) team of moderators and charge them with enforcement of a clearly defined set of rules created with input from the community. (I say 'input' because I'm dubious about the possibility that/. could reach any sort of consensus on any rules. I'd rather have them handed down from benevolent authorities than suffer the effects of a true democracy.)
I don't believe this is (completely) correct. The BSD license has nothing in it AFAICT that resembles permission to relicense, and quite a bit requiring that the (text of the) license stay intact. You can stack a new license on top, but I wouldn't consider that changing the license.
That aside, by your own definition a few posts up changing the license would be unethical, regardless of the legality.
Yes, I know, I was countering your FUD with my own. Incidentally, go back and read my post. Did I say anything about license changes being retroactive? Did you even read my post before hitting reply?
My point was that while it's true that the BSD developers could close their source, it's equally true that the FSF could close its source. Because the FSF alone holds the copyrights, a great deal of GPL'ed software is in just as much jeopardy of being closed as FreeBSD. The copyrights essentially negate the differences in the licenses because neither offers any protection.
However, in neither case would software available now be affected, as you so thoughtfully (that is, needlessly) pointed out. The issue is moot, though, because neither will ever happen. The BSD developers have more than proven their allegiance to the ideals of Open Source, as has the FSF. If anything, I credit BSD teams for resisting a temptation that doesn't exist for so many Linux developers.
Let's see. If I remember correctly, the FSF has the copyrights on a great deal of GNU software. Copyright owners can change liscensing as they please. Therefore, it's quite possible that the FSF will offer binary only versions of their software and will hide away changes.
What does this have to do with my post? He commented on the price, I responded with a listing and mentioned that you get a nice machine for $6,000. I never said it was a good deal, just that the box was nice, and, oh, it happens to cost six grand. Nowhere did I say that it was worth it.
That aside, some of us like quality, and quality is expensive. Homebrew machines are wonderful, and I'm quite happy with both of mine, but do you think that I wouldn't trade them for an Alpha if I had the cash? Or that I wouldn't pass over the best PC's in the world in favor of a RS/6000?
I have my priorities, and all of them feast on ungodly portions of floating-point ops.
The 'Ultimate' G4 from the Apple store weighs in at $7,498. The interesting thing is that if you scan across the table the only difference between it and the 'Fastest' is the display. I'm sure it's a great screen, but $3,001 just so you tell everyone about you 31337 flat-panel monitor. Yikes.
Their next most expensive box is a server at $6,000, which actually looks like it would make a nice little PC. You could probably get an Alpha for that price, but still, it's a nice box.
you'll find that he is not claiming that a computer that is a simple extension of what we make now
...which I never claimed he was.
does not in any way preclude our developing different machines in the future
Sure. We're doing quite well modelling neural systems in hardware, which naturally leads to a form of AI. In fact, I think that's were the safe money is for making intelligent machines (esp. considering how much of that research goes into robots). I expect to live to see them created.
I'm actually fairly confident that GOFAI will succeed in the medium term (40-200yrs), but I don't expect it anytime soon. It is, IMO, more interesting than models, but also far more difficult. (Ray seems a bit overly-optimistic about this as well. It could easily take a decade just to code an AI once you've figured how, regardless of the resources available.) The hardware requirements for such an AI are probably quite a bit lower than provided by the brain, as well. (Silly example, but if the blind can function without too much difficulty, it's at least possible that we can get away without the massive portion of the cortex devoted to visual processing. That might cut a quarter to a third off the hardware requirements.)
and see if it changes your estimate
What estimate?
You seem to have missed the point of my post. I was simply saying that stating "We will computers powerful enough to implement x by the year y" is absurd when you don't even understand what 'x' is. Assuming that brain is a computer (which I think is largely true), it would be helpful to know how it computers before commenting on when we'll be able to build one. Kurzweil's prediction works for synapse*firing_rate estimate for ops (within an order of magnitude or so according to my napkin), but falls short if you take into account the work on computation in neurons. I wasn't saying that AI is impossible, or even that we won't have one by 2020. I was simply saying that compsci people tend to know just enough about neuroscience to get everything wrong, and then follow in AI's grand tradition of making bold statements based on those errors.
There is an important lesson here: never, ever, let a computer scientist lecture about the brain. We don't even know if the brain can be characterized as a computer, let alone how powerful it maybe be. I do know that the last estimate I saw of it's performance assumed that it processed synapses*firing_rate op's per second, which was, at the time, the funniest thing I had ever read. That was before I realised how many people really believe it.
Maybe I'll send Ray a copy of Biophysics of Computation and see if changes his estimate.
Found this at RPG Planet, as an excerpt(sp?) from a story at Gamespy:
Word has reached my ears that Origin is going through a massive shakeup at this time with approximately 20 employees fired today and approximately 30 more to follow within a month!! All projects except UO2 have allegedly been cancelled. To top it all off, rumor has it that Richard Garriott has left the building! That's right, they say RG is no longer at Origin although whether by his own choice or that of the upper management is unknown at this time.
We are currently seeking confirmation or denial from official sources and will keep you up-to-date on any further information we receive.
Slashdot Mirror
Still, simply because I hate losing, the fact that the posts are nearly worthless could be taken to mean that the book will completely annihilate their minuscule value, thus making it a worse offense than if they were actually worth something and it only impacted a portion of their market. It is conceivable (just barely) that the posts could be used in another context--perhaps one of the posters was inspired by Katz and wants to write a book of his own.
*grin*
-jcl
-jcl
Because the archive isn't threaded? Presumably the book isn't either, though, so the point is moot. (Well, the book's probably is more threaded than the archive.)
I don't see why it should be restricted to only one format. At the very least I'd like to see plain text, HTML, Postscript and PDF. PDF and text are a must, IMO. HTML (or rather, CSS) lets you retain most of the formatting, chapter breaks, etc, and browse online. Postscript...um...is cool. ;-)
-jcl
Fair use is covered in Circular 21 (pdf). I found this part quite interesting:
Looking at the above list of factors, it would seem that 1 and 4 may be problematic. The book is clearly commercial (even if the profits are going to charity), and the included posts influence the market potential of the book considerably (i.e., they are the market potential for the book). There isn't clearly a problem, IMO, but I would definitely want an IP lawyer to take a look at the book before it was published.OTOH, reading down a little, it appears that comments can safely be reprinted in their entirety without violating the authors copyright--in particular, it states that short stories, which are far more substantial than most posts, can be used in their entirety. The caveat is that this specific example only applies to classroom use (these are the provisions for educational use), but it would seem to imply that shorter works can be reprinted safely. (Of course 'imply' doesn't mean much, legally.)
-jcl
[0] Hehehe...
-jcl
-jcl
How do you know he didn't take the temperatures at night?
;-)
"I do not and never ever will care a fleeting fuck about their nurishment, their rights or their suffering which may have influenced their actions."
There is some small irony here: you state that, unlike them, you have a conscience and can tell right from wrong, yet you don't care about their rights or whatever suffering they may have experienced.
Actually, I can sympathize a bit, but I don't believe I could suspend my feelings on moral grounds. I simply can't stand seeing people in pain--any people, regardless of their crimes. I'm glad Klebold and Harris are dead, and had I been offered the chance I would have happily helped them to the Great Beyond, but that doesn't mean I can condone their suffering. Like you, I don't give a fuck about Harris and Klebold, the murderers. But I absolutely give a fuck about Harris and Klebold, the individuals capable of suffering. That they happen to be the same people is inconsequential.
"One of the fundamental properties which separates humans from animals is the fact that humans can determine right from wrong, good from bad."
Actually, this isn't true: many animals--primates especially--have some minimal sense of morality. Caring for others and whatnot. More than many people, anyway.
"When you say "the killers were victims of a different sort", you're simply filling in the void of cause and justifying their actions."
You seem to be confusing victimization with justification; the former can exist very easily without the latter. If you are robbed, you're a victim. If you respond by tracking down the thief and killing him, you're a murderer who happens to have been a victim. You are most definitely not justified, but that doesn't alter the fact that you were robbed, or that the robbery is the reason you committed murder.
"Regardless of whether someone truly is a victim of some form of abuse, you never ever encourage vengeance by justifying their violence."
I disagree. There are times when it is appropriate to take revenge, including killing the abuser. They are rather extreme cases, certainly well beyond being teased in school, but "revenge is wrong" is not the first thing that comes to mind when someone is using a 3 year old as a handball.
-jcl
I agree that they weren't geeks, but for a very different reason. I don't remember any reports that they were actually all that knowledgeable about any technical subjects. They had a Web page and gamed, maybe even made a few levels for Doom. (Can that be right? From the reports you'd think they'd never heard of Quake.) The same can be said of jocks and members of every other not-blatantly-Luddite group in High School. Media opinion aside, knowing how to use Frontpage does not make you a geek.
I don't think, however, that morality is relevant to whether one is a geek. I consider your average Evil Genius to be a geek just as much as the Heroic Scientist who vanquishes him before going to commercial. There are certainly geeks who have jobs oriented toward violence (gunsmiths, combat engineers, a lot of weapons crews in Today's {Army,Navy,Air Force}). There are geeks with fairly flexible beliefs about right and wrong, who do consider violence to be a solution at times, who lie to their bosses, and who steal from their equipment suppliers (not that I have anyone specific in mind
-jcl
-jcl
-jcl
"Functionally equivalant" code, incidentally, wouldn't be covered anyway. If it were, the GNU Project (and BSD projects, and Sun, and...) would be violating copyrights all over the place. Even binary-identical code is probably fine as long as it isn't actually derived from copyrighted code, since you (apparently) can't copyright executables themselves.
-jcl
There are two solutions, in my opinion. Either we just live with the system the way it is and accept the flaws, or we designate a (probably large) team of moderators and charge them with enforcement of a clearly defined set of rules created with input from the community. (I say 'input' because I'm dubious about the possibility that /. could reach any sort of consensus on any rules. I'd rather have them handed down from benevolent authorities than suffer the effects of a true democracy.)
Think about that for a second. If the author wants to keep it open, who exactly is going to going to close the source?
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
That aside, by your own definition a few posts up changing the license would be unethical, regardless of the legality.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
My point was that while it's true that the BSD developers could close their source, it's equally true that the FSF could close its source. Because the FSF alone holds the copyrights, a great deal of GPL'ed software is in just as much jeopardy of being closed as FreeBSD. The copyrights essentially negate the differences in the licenses because neither offers any protection.
However, in neither case would software available now be affected, as you so thoughtfully (that is, needlessly) pointed out. The issue is moot, though, because neither will ever happen. The BSD developers have more than proven their allegiance to the ideals of Open Source, as has the FSF. If anything, I credit BSD teams for resisting a temptation that doesn't exist for so many Linux developers.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
Fair warning, it's ~250K and definitely not light reading.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
That aside, some of us like quality, and quality is expensive. Homebrew machines are wonderful, and I'm quite happy with both of mine, but do you think that I wouldn't trade them for an Alpha if I had the cash? Or that I wouldn't pass over the best PC's in the world in favor of a RS/6000?
I have my priorities, and all of them feast on ungodly portions of floating-point ops.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
Their next most expensive box is a server at $6,000, which actually looks like it would make a nice little PC. You could probably get an Alpha for that price, but still, it's a nice box.
© 2000 James Lanfear. All rights reserved.
The Conclusions of Law are up. Your choice of HTML or PDF, but could we get some mirrors before the servers goes down? ;-)
Sure. We're doing quite well modelling neural systems in hardware, which naturally leads to a form of AI. In fact, I think that's were the safe money is for making intelligent machines (esp. considering how much of that research goes into robots). I expect to live to see them created.
I'm actually fairly confident that GOFAI will succeed in the medium term (40-200yrs), but I don't expect it anytime soon. It is, IMO, more interesting than models, but also far more difficult. (Ray seems a bit overly-optimistic about this as well. It could easily take a decade just to code an AI once you've figured how, regardless of the resources available.) The hardware requirements for such an AI are probably quite a bit lower than provided by the brain, as well. (Silly example, but if the blind can function without too much difficulty, it's at least possible that we can get away without the massive portion of the cortex devoted to visual processing. That might cut a quarter to a third off the hardware requirements.)
What estimate?
You seem to have missed the point of my post. I was simply saying that stating "We will computers powerful enough to implement x by the year y" is absurd when you don't even understand what 'x' is. Assuming that brain is a computer (which I think is largely true), it would be helpful to know how it computers before commenting on when we'll be able to build one. Kurzweil's prediction works for synapse*firing_rate estimate for ops (within an order of magnitude or so according to my napkin), but falls short if you take into account the work on computation in neurons. I wasn't saying that AI is impossible, or even that we won't have one by 2020. I was simply saying that compsci people tend to know just enough about neuroscience to get everything wrong, and then follow in AI's grand tradition of making bold statements based on those errors.
Maybe I'll send Ray a copy of Biophysics of Computation and see if changes his estimate.
Word has reached my ears that Origin is going through a massive shakeup at this time with approximately 20 employees fired today and approximately 30 more to follow within a month!! All projects except UO2 have allegedly been cancelled. To top it all off, rumor has it that Richard Garriott has left the building! That's right, they say RG is no longer at Origin although whether by his own choice or that of the upper management is unknown at this time.
We are currently seeking confirmation or denial from official sources and will keep you up-to-date on any further information we receive.