This may come as a surprise to some Americans, but many democratic nations have laws restricting certain kinds of speech. For instance, in Canada and most European nations, there are laws against speech which promotes ethnic hatred. Some nations, such as Germany, have good historical reasons for such laws. In a country like India with lots of religious and ethnic separatist groups, many of which are violent, it's perhaps not surprising that there are laws against speech promoting separatism.
Communism is form of anarchy in which all workers contribute according to their abilities, and all receive according to their needs. In theory it is preceeded by a state known as "socialism" in which everything is owned by the working class (i.e., proletariat), but the working class is represented and governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat, which completely plans and organizes all economic activities. In the socialist phase, democratic rights are not respected, because they run counter to the central planning of the economy. Eventually, the dictatorship is supposed to "melt away" to form true Communism, but this has never happened in practice.
Pre-Communist socialism is not to be confused with democratic socialism, which has been practiced from time to time in various western countries. In this form of government, all major industries and resources are owned by the state. However, private businesses are allowed, and democratic rights are respected. Examples: pre-Thatcher Britain, pre-1990 Scandinavia
Don't worry about it too much. A Tunguska-sized event should take place only about every thousand years on average, and would be similar in severity to a major natural disaster in a local area, like a volcanic eruption (although it would most likely be a complete surprise, so evacuation might not be possible). No worldwide consequences.
For carrying two men and a life support system, 367 kg is nothing. The walls were literally the thickness of a pop can. The lunar module was so fragile that its main hatch would bulge outwards while pressurized.
All these are excellent suggestions. But as technology becomes more and more pervasive, it will become nearly impossible to fool all the potential tracking systems, without either severely inconveniencing yourself or breaking the law.
Ultimately this problem will only be solved at the political level. The government has to be aware that its citizens are concerned about privacy. Once enough people make noise about it, and once pro-privacy representatives start winning elections, the attitude of government and corporations will start to change. Strong legal protection of privacy is the only answer; voluntary "privacy policies" are a red herring.
However, in the current political climate, this will be an uphill climb. Most people are willing to trade off security against privacy. To force the issue, instances where personal privacy was abused with catastrophic results must be made widely known.
So in other words, even though you don't know what will happen once copyright is abolished, you're convinced that people will open their source, despite good reasons not to?
The law is useful with regards to attacking others who use the law.
I'm not following you. So the GPL attacks software manufacturers who use copyright? Even those who misuse copyrignt? I can't think of one example in which this would be true.
Isn't the GPL merely an alternative use of copyright?
One reason source is closed is because revealing it would negate any copy protection.
It's still illegal to misuse the source code, and people have been sued for misusing open source. Binaries are not often copy protected, either -- or they are copy protected in ways that are trivially easy to defeat (like CD keys). So that can't be the answer.
I think source is closed because it protects the idea behind the program. Let's have an example in a world without copyright protection. In such a world, companies would probably make money by putting their software on proprietary hardware, incompatible with other manufacturers' goods. Suppose company XYZ has a hot technology that is exclusive to their platform. Would they reveal their source code? Of course not -- because that would make it very easy for their competitors to rip off their idea. It would take far longer to reverse engineer an idea than to read someone's clean, indented, well-commented source.
Why would everyone suddenly be compelled to reveal their source if there were no way to control its use?
I think the better argument is: why would anyone want to open the source? If I can't say how you can use my source, what's my motivation for revealing my secrets? Again I ask, why isn't everything BSD?
The law is there now, so you might as well use it even if you want it abolished.
So you admit that the law is useful with respect to protecting the GPL?
Reverse engineering is not the same as opening source! The good idea behind the GPL is that it forces those who adapt the source to release their modifications. Can you imagine a world in which the only way to access source was through reverse compiling? Eccch.
peop;e who work for MS could release code
Abolishing copyright does not also abolish contract law, so NDAs would still be valid. And if the code covered trade secrets, it would be unusable.
To all those who say that GPL does not depend on copyright law, I say: why is GPL far more popular than the more permissive BSD license? I have never heard an effective response to this question.
1. Take a legitimate issue (e.g., touch-screen voting) 2. Take an issue that made a certain constituency angry in the past (e.g., George Bush's legal if questionable victory in the 2000 election) 3. Write an article involving a conspiracy between the two issues that makes the same constituency fearful for a future issue (e.g., George Bush committing massive fraud to win the 2004 election):: CLASS EXERCISE::
Write an article using the following for the above three aspects: 1. Suspension of civil liberties due to the war on terror; 2. RIAA cracking down on file sharing; 3. File sharers will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants.
The quest to get usable data out of Galileo has driven some of the world's most advanced communication and signal processing algorithms over the past few years. AS a result they were able to achieve a better than ten fold increase in data rate from 10 bps to a maximum of 120 bps, a pretty spectacular achievement that saved the mission. You can read the technical details here
Several years ago, demand for broadband was basically driven by demand for pornography -- just like the demand for early VCRs.
Pornography is like the space program, we love to have it, it's hard to justify, and sometimes there are spinoff benefits for everyone not involved in it.
Slashdot Mirror
The moral of this bedtime story is that companies should spend as much on their research department as they do on their legal department.
Mother nature cannot be appealed (with apologies to Feynman).
So if it's so easy to put a man in space, how's your X prize entry going? Or are you too busy being smug?
This may come as a surprise to some Americans, but many democratic nations have laws restricting certain kinds of speech. For instance, in Canada and most European nations, there are laws against speech which promotes ethnic hatred. Some nations, such as Germany, have good historical reasons for such laws. In a country like India with lots of religious and ethnic separatist groups, many of which are violent, it's perhaps not surprising that there are laws against speech promoting separatism.
Communism is form of anarchy in which all workers contribute according to their abilities, and all receive according to their needs. In theory it is preceeded by a state known as "socialism" in which everything is owned by the working class (i.e., proletariat), but the working class is represented and governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat, which completely plans and organizes all economic activities. In the socialist phase, democratic rights are not respected, because they run counter to the central planning of the economy. Eventually, the dictatorship is supposed to "melt away" to form true Communism, but this has never happened in practice.
Pre-Communist socialism is not to be confused with democratic socialism, which has been practiced from time to time in various western countries. In this form of government, all major industries and resources are owned by the state. However, private businesses are allowed, and democratic rights are respected. Examples: pre-Thatcher Britain, pre-1990 Scandinavia
In the article, Microsoft objects to the site because it misrepresents the settlement and encourages people to submit claims that are invalid.
It's just as likely that Lindows is being self-serving as it is that Microsoft is being malicious.
today's corporate culture is not about who's doing what uniquely, or even who "owns" what, but who can best convince/bribe a judge and/or jury.
If that's true (about the bribing), why did Microsoft lose that recent patent case against a tiny opponent?
Don't worry about it too much. A Tunguska-sized event should take place only about every thousand years on average, and would be similar in severity to a major natural disaster in a local area, like a volcanic eruption (although it would most likely be a complete surprise, so evacuation might not be possible). No worldwide consequences.
whoops, my bad
For carrying two men and a life support system, 367 kg is nothing. The walls were literally the thickness of a pop can. The lunar module was so fragile that its main hatch would bulge outwards while pressurized.
Software patents are like nuclear weapons, their scare value is far superior to their actual use.
All these are excellent suggestions. But as technology becomes more and more pervasive, it will become nearly impossible to fool all the potential tracking systems, without either severely inconveniencing yourself or breaking the law.
Ultimately this problem will only be solved at the political level. The government has to be aware that its citizens are concerned about privacy. Once enough people make noise about it, and once pro-privacy representatives start winning elections, the attitude of government and corporations will start to change. Strong legal protection of privacy is the only answer; voluntary "privacy policies" are a red herring.
However, in the current political climate, this will be an uphill climb. Most people are willing to trade off security against privacy. To force the issue, instances where personal privacy was abused with catastrophic results must be made widely known.
It is my purpose in life to get Slashdot to post a link to a station wagon full of DVDs.
Yes, most people certainly ignore closed source code today. /sarcasm
All that is left of SCO are a couple of talking head executives and a computer that churns out press releases:
...
for (i=1; i num_companies; i++) {
if ( !indemnify(company[i]) ) {
press_release(company[i], NO_INDEMNIFY);
else {
press_release(company[i], INDEMNIFY);
}
}
OMG, I just released their source code! The horror
So in other words, even though you don't know what will happen once copyright is abolished, you're convinced that people will open their source, despite good reasons not to?
The law is useful with regards to attacking others who use the law.
I'm not following you. So the GPL attacks software manufacturers who use copyright? Even those who misuse copyrignt? I can't think of one example in which this would be true.
Isn't the GPL merely an alternative use of copyright?
One reason source is closed is because revealing it would negate any copy protection.
It's still illegal to misuse the source code, and people have been sued for misusing open source. Binaries are not often copy protected, either -- or they are copy protected in ways that are trivially easy to defeat (like CD keys). So that can't be the answer.
I think source is closed because it protects the idea behind the program. Let's have an example in a world without copyright protection. In such a world, companies would probably make money by putting their software on proprietary hardware, incompatible with other manufacturers' goods. Suppose company XYZ has a hot technology that is exclusive to their platform. Would they reveal their source code? Of course not -- because that would make it very easy for their competitors to rip off their idea. It would take far longer to reverse engineer an idea than to read someone's clean, indented, well-commented source.
Why would everyone suddenly be compelled to reveal their source if there were no way to control its use?
I think the better argument is: why would anyone want to open the source? If I can't say how you can use my source, what's my motivation for revealing my secrets? Again I ask, why isn't everything BSD?
The law is there now, so you might as well use it even if you want it abolished.
So you admit that the law is useful with respect to protecting the GPL?
Reverse engineering is not the same as opening source! The good idea behind the GPL is that it forces those who adapt the source to release their modifications. Can you imagine a world in which the only way to access source was through reverse compiling? Eccch.
peop;e who work for MS could release code
Abolishing copyright does not also abolish contract law, so NDAs would still be valid. And if the code covered trade secrets, it would be unusable.
To all those who say that GPL does not depend on copyright law, I say: why is GPL far more popular than the more permissive BSD license? I have never heard an effective response to this question.
Describing your opinion over a $200 dinner and a 1965 Merlot = Lobbying
Describing your opinion to an aide in the lobby after waiting for hours to talk to someone = Harassment
1. Take a legitimate issue (e.g., touch-screen voting) :: CLASS EXERCISE ::
2. Take an issue that made a certain constituency angry in the past (e.g., George Bush's legal if questionable victory in the 2000 election)
3. Write an article involving a conspiracy between the two issues that makes the same constituency fearful for a future issue (e.g., George Bush committing massive fraud to win the 2004 election)
Write an article using the following for the above three aspects:
1. Suspension of civil liberties due to the war on terror;
2. RIAA cracking down on file sharing;
3. File sharers will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants.
The quest to get usable data out of Galileo has driven some of the world's most advanced communication and signal processing algorithms over the past few years. AS a result they were able to achieve a better than ten fold increase in data rate from 10 bps to a maximum of 120 bps, a pretty spectacular achievement that saved the mission. You can read the technical details here
Several years ago, demand for broadband was basically driven by demand for pornography -- just like the demand for early VCRs.
Pornography is like the space program, we love to have it, it's hard to justify, and sometimes there are spinoff benefits for everyone not involved in it.
n/m
News flash: Career politicians, like every other human, are not experts in everything.