Isn't it just standard practise that you can't play old games with the new game console?
The Sony Playstation 2 is backwards-compatible with the Playstation 1. It's a selling point for consoles, since it means that there is already a huge library of games made for the older console that already play on the newer one.
Having said that, the solution is obvious: hack the XBox 2 to run Linux, then hack an emulator for the XBox 1 under XBox 2 Linux. How hard can it be, really.
The trouble is that the information is being collected at all. So while most regular users might trust TiVo, it's important to know that they could, in principle, collect very complete statistics concerning your viewing habits. Either by accident or by subpoena, those records could be released.
By contrast, if you created a TiVo equivalent from a home computer with a TV tuner card, it would be completely anonymous -- nobody would ever know what you watched unless they had access to your machine.
I have to get to work... so this is my last post in the thread. I'll give you the last word if you respond.
So, we should think about open energy and food distribution model of the future. Perhaps many other people spare some electricity or food just by using your software. So they are motivated to share their products with you just for the same reason.
I give you a program, you give me food and electricity. Basically, you want to set up a system that is indistinguishable from existing economics.
A little example: Why do you think stock quotes are 20 minutes delayed for nonprivileged non-market "normal" people?
I don't see that this is true at all. The "real-time" (non-delayed) quotes are available to anyone at a small cost; just go to any online brokerage.
Let's demand a complete removal of privileges, nothing more.
Agreed, but I think discarding IP protection would hurt that goal, not help.
And more, your argument is valid only for a tiny closed fragment of the universe, only to be a commercial nonreality fragment of human interactions. Not every open source software has purpose of commerce. Building IP on legal nonreality just to keep commercial nonreality running looks a little bit psychotic.
Psychotic, maybe, but much of any nation's legal system is to facilitate commerce and protect value. Going further, the entire notion of private property of any kind, not merely intellectual, is a legal fiction. If I park my car on a city street and leave it unprotected, why shouldn't anyone be able to drive it away if they want? However, these legal fictions are useful in a stable society.
And more effective social structures will prevail. I see open source movement as an end of economics, as we know it. Open technology, open art and open science will follow soon.
Many thinkers have proposed systems that would end economics, but they all run into the fact that people need food to eat, clothes to wear, and shelter to keep them warm. I don't think free software, or any other philosophy, will solve this problem, until a universal and non-economic means is found to motivate people to work.
And you still haven't explained why I would want to share my source code with you, if you are not compelled to share back, as under the GPL.
I'm going to assume I have your permission to quote.
GPL is just an exploration in logical flaw inherent in the U.S. IP legal system. Without IP protection, no one would need a GPL.
I've read that argument before, and I think it makes no sense. If the GPL makes IP protection unnecessary, then why is the GPL not equivalent to public domain? It's because without (mild) restrictions on what the end user can do, nobody would share source code.
Suppose we lived in a world without IP protection. Certainly, I could freely copy and distribute any software in binary form. However, since the binary is now commercially worthless, the real value is in the ideas underlying the software, which are contained in the source code. Because these ideas -- once released -- could be stolen by others and incorporated in binary-only distributions, there is no incentive to release source code. I sure wouldn't release any of mine.
And yet, without IP protection, the GPL would be impossible. I think it's ironic that the GPL's greatest contribution is to show the power and versatility of copyright law.
Re:What is the *source* of the "RMS" controversy?
on
Stallman Goes to India
·
· Score: 1
I'll tell you why he annoys me. Three things:
Firstly, the GPL is a remarkable idea and an excellent contribution. But I strongly reject the idea that the use of anything other than the GPL is immoral. I think free, Free, and proprietary software all have their role to play and can coexist. In fact the GPL depends completely on the same copyright law that protects proprietary software -- was the "morality" of the GPL invented to counteract this paradox?
Secondly, his general obnoxiousness. Nearly every time RMS opens his mouth, it is to generate some controversy that ends up dividing the community (just look at his behaviour on lkml, or the whole GNU/Linux naming debacle). This has happened sufficiently often that I have started to think his statements demanding "freedom" are disingenuous, and that what he wants is not freedom, but his own brand of power.
Thirdly, his followers. The GNU movement has the trappings of a religion. I'm not sure to what extent I blame him for the actions of his fanboys, but it's clear that they buy into the orthodoxy without questioning it, and they are just as obnoxious. I've seen at least one thread on Slashdot in which RMS was compared favorably to Lincoln, and when criticized, the comparison was quickly defended by several users. I don't much care for cults of personality.
and stupid staetments by O'Keefe, where he completely discounted the foam
The sum total of what the NASA Administrator knew about the foam was that his subordinates were convinced that it wasn't a problem. None of the critical decisions having to do with assessing the foam strike were his, and he's not an engineer or a scientist.
I guess he could have gone on TV and contradicted the shuttle program managers, but without any good evidence (the evidence came later, remember), he would only have succeeded in undermining all his subordinates while seeming to cover his own ass.
It is not a tax cut for the W's riches friends and it is not a war, can you think of any other campaign pledges he kept?
George W. did not campaign on war; in fact the foreign policy on which he campaigned in 2000 was isolationism. So you can chalk that up to another broken promise, though 9/11 probably counts as an extenuating circumstance.
The +5 comments, other than "funny", include several on the operation of the virus and analysis of its effects. Yes, there are a few "this looks bad for us" posts, but a lot of tinfoil hat "sco did this to themselves" stuff. And a lot of the funny posts are pro-virus.
I think that is newsworthy to the general public; it shows that a significant minority of open source advocates have extreme opinions on sco.
What's too bad is that slashdot has acquired the status of open source advocate; the mental age around here is about thirteen, if not the physical age. The reporter saw a lot of the teenage, bullshit trash talk that is substituted for actual discussion of the sco issue. The lasting legacy of this case will be the code integrity and liability issues; sco will almost certainly lose, but these questions will not go away.
If that's true, the reason could be that many of the European car manufacturers are owned by American companies: Volvo - Ford, Jaguar - Ford, Mercedes - Chrysler, etc. etc.
I think the analogy is great. The problem is that your confusing "legal" for "ethical".
No, the main problem with the analogy was that in my case, the lawyer is representing the client. Thus, the client should be blamed for being a jerk, not the lawyer. In the AC's case, by leaving my door unlocked, I am not acting as an agent or representative for the burglar, nor is the burglar acting as my agent. Thus, the burglar can be blamed for his actions.
I would be disturbed if lawyers suddenly banded together and refused to represent any clients who wanted to bring, for example, patent cases. It's not their job to make the law.
Damn it, if you break the law you SHOULD be held accountable!
I'm disturbed by this line of reasoning, because down this path lies the tyrrany of the majority and incompetent policing.
In the final analysis, the only person who knows whether you were drinking and driving is you. However, few people are honorable enough to admit to their mistakes and suffer the consequences.
Most of the obscure points of law exist for a reason, and those reasons are usually to protect the rights of the accused. I think we have a right to expect that proper procedures will be followed in a criminal case -- it keeps the authorities reasonably competent and honest, and prevents jumping to conclusions based on partial or sloppy investigation. Otherwise, we get into a situation where people are convicted because "everybody knows" they're guilty, not on the strength of the evidence. In that case, the law is nothing but a theater for show trials.
If you leave your door unlocked and I go in your house and steal your money, why blame me ? Why not blame *you* (for leaving the door unlocked), the police (for not catching me in the act) or the capitalist system (for making money such an important thing in order to get stuff you want)?
Terrible analogy. In my example, everything is perfectly legal, and the lawyer is acting as an agent for the person. In your example, the act of burglary is illegal, and I am in no way acting as your "agent" or "representative" by leaving my door unlocked.
When you hire a lawyer, that lawyer's job is to his/her best job at representing your legal position. If you are an asshole who is abusing the law (though staying within its bounds), that means the lawyer has to be an asshole on your behalf. So what I'm saying is -- who is to blame, the lawyer, or the original asshole?
Usually people like to blame the lawyers, and there are ambulance-chasers who are worthy of blame. But the lawyer's job is to represent the client as aggressively as the law allows. If I were facing a legal situation, I would certainly expect no less from my lawyer. I remember an injury lawyer's TV ad from Boston: "Other lawyers call me an S.O.B., but I'm your S.O.B.".
If a person wants to take advantage of a legal loophole, why blame the lawyer? Why not blame the law (for being bad), the legislators (for not fixing it) or the person (for unethically exploiting it)?
The RIAA used an altered version of their Kazaa client to find all those people that they then subpeonaed, which Sherman Networks feels violates their rights.
So wait just a minute. On the one hand, we have the record companies trying to shut down P2P. On the other hand, we have Kazaa trying to enforce an EULA. Which do you want to win?
Somewhere in an underground lair deep beneath the Hollywood hills, a deranged genius is stroking a cat and laughing maniacally.
Seriously now. This sounds like a lose-lose scenario.
Well, the truth is that NASA is well known for changing the colors in images. The spectacular images from Hubble are almost always in false (or exaggerated) color, though this is almost never acknowledged.
Not yet. Give it time. DRM + Trusted Computing can very easily equal No More Free Speech.
When you can only view content that's been approved by corporate America, when the barriers to producing your own content are so high that ordinary people cannot possibly afford to -- then human rights are being violated, and proprietary software is helping.
I think this is a gross exaggeration. In particular, this is exactly what the situation was 10-15 years ago, and there were no fears of oppression then.
Furthermore, the best DRM schemes involve hardware. In this case the source can be as open as you like, and you still have the effects of DRM.
Finally, let me reiterate that I like the GPL. What I don't like is the shrill ideology surrounding it, which is so silly that it's almost a parody of itself. This thread is a great example; already it has been argued that RMS is as great as Lincoln; that the effects of viruses are equivalent to war and slavery; and that paying for software is oppression. These merely seem like a lot of inconveniences, blown way out of proportion using the overused (and fear-mongering) slippery slope argument.
On the side of "SCO is wrong" we also have Novell, IBM, HP, SGI and the FSF. We also have Linus Torvalds who isn't a lawyer but does seem to have some knowledge of Linux's history.
Don't all these organizations stand to benefit from SCO being wrong?
Also, the argument that "All these people agree with me, so I am right" is a fallacy.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it just standard practise that you can't play old games with the new game console?
The Sony Playstation 2 is backwards-compatible with the Playstation 1. It's a selling point for consoles, since it means that there is already a huge library of games made for the older console that already play on the newer one.
Having said that, the solution is obvious: hack the XBox 2 to run Linux, then hack an emulator for the XBox 1 under XBox 2 Linux. How hard can it be, really.
The trouble is that the information is being collected at all. So while most regular users might trust TiVo, it's important to know that they could, in principle, collect very complete statistics concerning your viewing habits. Either by accident or by subpoena, those records could be released.
By contrast, if you created a TiVo equivalent from a home computer with a TV tuner card, it would be completely anonymous -- nobody would ever know what you watched unless they had access to your machine.
How about giving away free software, and every taker gets a cream pie in the face.
I have to get to work ... so this is my last post in the thread. I'll give you the last word if you respond.
So, we should think about open energy and food distribution model of the future. Perhaps many other people spare some electricity or food just by using your software. So they are motivated to share their products with you just for the same reason.
I give you a program, you give me food and electricity. Basically, you want to set up a system that is indistinguishable from existing economics.
A little example: Why do you think stock quotes are 20 minutes delayed for nonprivileged non-market "normal" people?
I don't see that this is true at all. The "real-time" (non-delayed) quotes are available to anyone at a small cost; just go to any online brokerage.
Let's demand a complete removal of privileges, nothing more.
Agreed, but I think discarding IP protection would hurt that goal, not help.
Nice talking to you.
And more, your argument is valid only for a tiny closed fragment of the universe, only to be a commercial nonreality fragment of human interactions. Not every open source software has purpose of commerce. Building IP on legal nonreality just to keep commercial nonreality running looks a little bit psychotic.
Psychotic, maybe, but much of any nation's legal system is to facilitate commerce and protect value. Going further, the entire notion of private property of any kind, not merely intellectual, is a legal fiction. If I park my car on a city street and leave it unprotected, why shouldn't anyone be able to drive it away if they want? However, these legal fictions are useful in a stable society.
And more effective social structures will prevail. I see open source movement as an end of economics, as we know it. Open technology, open art and open science will follow soon.
Many thinkers have proposed systems that would end economics, but they all run into the fact that people need food to eat, clothes to wear, and shelter to keep them warm. I don't think free software, or any other philosophy, will solve this problem, until a universal and non-economic means is found to motivate people to work.
And you still haven't explained why I would want to share my source code with you, if you are not compelled to share back, as under the GPL.
I'm going to assume I have your permission to quote.
GPL is just an exploration in logical flaw inherent in the U.S. IP legal system. Without IP protection, no one would need a GPL.
I've read that argument before, and I think it makes no sense. If the GPL makes IP protection unnecessary, then why is the GPL not equivalent to public domain? It's because without (mild) restrictions on what the end user can do, nobody would share source code.
Suppose we lived in a world without IP protection. Certainly, I could freely copy and distribute any software in binary form. However, since the binary is now commercially worthless, the real value is in the ideas underlying the software, which are contained in the source code. Because these ideas -- once released -- could be stolen by others and incorporated in binary-only distributions, there is no incentive to release source code. I sure wouldn't release any of mine.
Intellectual property is an oxymoron.
And yet, without IP protection, the GPL would be impossible. I think it's ironic that the GPL's greatest contribution is to show the power and versatility of copyright law.
I'll tell you why he annoys me. Three things:
Firstly, the GPL is a remarkable idea and an excellent contribution. But I strongly reject the idea that the use of anything other than the GPL is immoral. I think free, Free, and proprietary software all have their role to play and can coexist. In fact the GPL depends completely on the same copyright law that protects proprietary software -- was the "morality" of the GPL invented to counteract this paradox?
Secondly, his general obnoxiousness. Nearly every time RMS opens his mouth, it is to generate some controversy that ends up dividing the community (just look at his behaviour on lkml, or the whole GNU/Linux naming debacle). This has happened sufficiently often that I have started to think his statements demanding "freedom" are disingenuous, and that what he wants is not freedom, but his own brand of power.
Thirdly, his followers. The GNU movement has the trappings of a religion. I'm not sure to what extent I blame him for the actions of his fanboys, but it's clear that they buy into the orthodoxy without questioning it, and they are just as obnoxious. I've seen at least one thread on Slashdot in which RMS was compared favorably to Lincoln, and when criticized, the comparison was quickly defended by several users. I don't much care for cults of personality.
and stupid staetments by O'Keefe, where he completely discounted the foam
The sum total of what the NASA Administrator knew about the foam was that his subordinates were convinced that it wasn't a problem. None of the critical decisions having to do with assessing the foam strike were his, and he's not an engineer or a scientist.
I guess he could have gone on TV and contradicted the shuttle program managers, but without any good evidence (the evidence came later, remember), he would only have succeeded in undermining all his subordinates while seeming to cover his own ass.
So how is this "stupid"?
It is not a tax cut for the W's riches friends and it is not a war, can you think of any other campaign pledges he kept?
George W. did not campaign on war; in fact the foreign policy on which he campaigned in 2000 was isolationism. So you can chalk that up to another broken promise, though 9/11 probably counts as an extenuating circumstance.
I checked the Slashdot article. Look for yourself.
The +5 comments, other than "funny", include several on the operation of the virus and analysis of its effects. Yes, there are a few "this looks bad for us" posts, but a lot of tinfoil hat "sco did this to themselves" stuff. And a lot of the funny posts are pro-virus.
I think that is newsworthy to the general public; it shows that a significant minority of open source advocates have extreme opinions on sco.
What's too bad is that slashdot has acquired the status of open source advocate; the mental age around here is about thirteen, if not the physical age. The reporter saw a lot of the teenage, bullshit trash talk that is substituted for actual discussion of the sco issue. The lasting legacy of this case will be the code integrity and liability issues; sco will almost certainly lose, but these questions will not go away.
True, except that Mercedes owns Chrysler, not the other way around.
... mmmmm, goodness!
In that case I would say Chrysler has infected Mercedes. Where the hell were the "K" cars on that list? Ugly and unreliable
If that's true, the reason could be that many of the European car manufacturers are owned by American companies: Volvo - Ford, Jaguar - Ford, Mercedes - Chrysler, etc. etc.
Why not blame all three? If any one of them was doing their job better, the problem wouldn't exist.
So you're saying that lawyers should decide which laws are good and which are bad? Funny, I don't remember electing any of them.
I think the analogy is great. The problem is that your confusing "legal" for "ethical".
No, the main problem with the analogy was that in my case, the lawyer is representing the client. Thus, the client should be blamed for being a jerk, not the lawyer. In the AC's case, by leaving my door unlocked, I am not acting as an agent or representative for the burglar, nor is the burglar acting as my agent. Thus, the burglar can be blamed for his actions.
I would be disturbed if lawyers suddenly banded together and refused to represent any clients who wanted to bring, for example, patent cases. It's not their job to make the law.
Damn it, if you break the law you SHOULD be held accountable!
I'm disturbed by this line of reasoning, because down this path lies the tyrrany of the majority and incompetent policing.
In the final analysis, the only person who knows whether you were drinking and driving is you. However, few people are honorable enough to admit to their mistakes and suffer the consequences.
Most of the obscure points of law exist for a reason, and those reasons are usually to protect the rights of the accused. I think we have a right to expect that proper procedures will be followed in a criminal case -- it keeps the authorities reasonably competent and honest, and prevents jumping to conclusions based on partial or sloppy investigation. Otherwise, we get into a situation where people are convicted because "everybody knows" they're guilty, not on the strength of the evidence. In that case, the law is nothing but a theater for show trials.
If you leave your door unlocked and I go in your house and steal your money, why blame me ? Why not blame *you* (for leaving the door unlocked), the police (for not catching me in the act) or the capitalist system (for making money such an important thing in order to get stuff you want)?
Terrible analogy. In my example, everything is perfectly legal, and the lawyer is acting as an agent for the person. In your example, the act of burglary is illegal, and I am in no way acting as your "agent" or "representative" by leaving my door unlocked.
When you hire a lawyer, that lawyer's job is to his/her best job at representing your legal position. If you are an asshole who is abusing the law (though staying within its bounds), that means the lawyer has to be an asshole on your behalf. So what I'm saying is -- who is to blame, the lawyer, or the original asshole?
It all gets back to lawyers...who are bored.
Usually people like to blame the lawyers, and there are ambulance-chasers who are worthy of blame. But the lawyer's job is to represent the client as aggressively as the law allows. If I were facing a legal situation, I would certainly expect no less from my lawyer. I remember an injury lawyer's TV ad from Boston: "Other lawyers call me an S.O.B., but I'm your S.O.B.".
If a person wants to take advantage of a legal loophole, why blame the lawyer? Why not blame the law (for being bad), the legislators (for not fixing it) or the person (for unethically exploiting it)?
The Martyr Award or the like.
Oh, they already did that. Too bad it hasn't been hip since the sixties, but hey, retro is in these days.
The RIAA used an altered version of their Kazaa client to find all those people that they then subpeonaed, which Sherman Networks feels violates their rights.
So wait just a minute. On the one hand, we have the record companies trying to shut down P2P. On the other hand, we have Kazaa trying to enforce an EULA. Which do you want to win?
Somewhere in an underground lair deep beneath the Hollywood hills, a deranged genius is stroking a cat and laughing maniacally.
Seriously now. This sounds like a lose-lose scenario.
Agent: This is a simple lie detector. I'll ask you a few yes or no questions and you just answer truthfully. Do you understand?
McBride: Yes.
(The polygraph explodes.)
Well, the truth is that NASA is well known for changing the colors in images. The spectacular images from Hubble are almost always in false (or exaggerated) color, though this is almost never acknowledged.
Not yet. Give it time. DRM + Trusted Computing can very easily equal No More Free Speech.
When you can only view content that's been approved by corporate America, when the barriers to producing your own content are so high that ordinary people cannot possibly afford to -- then human rights are being violated, and proprietary software is helping.
I think this is a gross exaggeration. In particular, this is exactly what the situation was 10-15 years ago, and there were no fears of oppression then.
Furthermore, the best DRM schemes involve hardware. In this case the source can be as open as you like, and you still have the effects of DRM.
Finally, let me reiterate that I like the GPL. What I don't like is the shrill ideology surrounding it, which is so silly that it's almost a parody of itself. This thread is a great example; already it has been argued that RMS is as great as Lincoln; that the effects of viruses are equivalent to war and slavery; and that paying for software is oppression. These merely seem like a lot of inconveniences, blown way out of proportion using the overused (and fear-mongering) slippery slope argument.
Would you say the money lost on recent viruses like Blaster would compare to the bloodiest war in US history? It might come close...
So you're saying that human lives and rights can be exchanged for money?
On the side of "SCO is wrong" we also have Novell, IBM, HP, SGI and the FSF. We also have Linus Torvalds who isn't a lawyer but does seem to have some knowledge of Linux's history.
Don't all these organizations stand to benefit from SCO being wrong?
Also, the argument that "All these people agree with me, so I am right" is a fallacy.