English has different words for "freedom" and "free" too.. "freedom" and "free" why they decided to use the moniker "free" in FSF instead of Freedom is anyones guess really.
No doubt... especially when we're talking about the French KDE team!!
Actually, yes. Marvel has been releasing complete collections of the early XMen comics, along with other comics, for a while as bound, telephone-book sized collections. I can't remember the name, I believe it was "Absolute Xmen," but they may have gone out of print by now. (The first printing was some time around 1997)
You're referring to Marvel's "Essentials" line. They do it for X-Men and Wolverine both, as well as other Marvel characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, etc. You get a whole ton of issues in one fairly cheap format -- paper cover, black and white art on the inside. Cover price is typically about $15.
Even better would be a way to make the copyright charge based on the "value" of the property. Like you'd pay more for a long copyright on Star Wars than you would for a long copyright on Battlestar Galactica. I have no idea how that would work, but it would obviously be a better system than a fixed rate since people who make less from their item don't pay as much to register it.
Sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Registering a copyright costs next to nothing -- USD $30, plus postage and maybe a trip to Kinko's. In fact, merely owning a copyright is totally free. So it's not like people who don't expect to make money from their copyrights are at some kind of disadvantage.
But seriously, O'Reilly has done a lot more important stuff in copyright but this is laughable. He is not publishing Steamboat Willie or Moby Dick.
Oh fer cryin' out loud. He's a publisher, a fairly successful one within his trade, and he's making a statement about copyright law. What's wrong with that? He releases a bunch of press releases, maybe some newspaper takes notice, and we get more press about the problem with copyright extensions. If you agree that this is a good thing, maybe you buy some more O'Reilly books instead of another publishers. Or, maybe it impacts your decision to buy O'Reilly books not one bit. But how is it "laughable"?
You act like O'Reilly is doing this out of some kind of insidious, venal self-interest or something. If Tim O'Reilly really spent his days thinking up new ways to swindle the people out of their hard-earned dollars, I hope to God he could think up something better than running a publishing company, hanging out with nerds and wearing the same brown shirt every day. So maybe he's not publishing the world's most widely-read, important books -- but if publishers are ever going to take a stand against copyright bullshit (the way most of us hope they will), doesn't somebody have to be first?
It was a fundamental assumption of the Founding Fathers that no man could own an idea or an invention, that all creative work was derivate of work that came before it... Copyrights are not about protecting property but about protecting the motivation of people to create, by giving them a decent time to profit from creativity. There is no 'property' in these endeavors, nor has there ever been any property.
Jesus... in the words of somebody's crazy uncle, what are you, a friggin' Commie?!
If you want to make this argument, you may as well say that nobody owns anything... if I have a desk that my computer sits on, I don't really own that desk, because nobody really created the desk, because the desk came from wood, which was independently grown by a plant, not by some desk-maker, and hell, after all, the wood is just made out of a bunch of molecules and nobody made those, not even the plant, so basically everything is just derived from something that already existed, so how can there be any property?
To put it as politely as possible, you, sir, are an ass.
Since he claims its new, but he actually is incapable of thinking something new, its probably not really new. More likely he's just combining old elements from the past.
Our Take: The TI/Munsell is anecdotal, and cannot predict with any certainty that your particular usage scenario or LCD projector model will be problematic over time.
This is a major threat to the big vendors. In fact I would say it is even more of a threat to Oracle than it is to MS!
Maybe -- except that Oracle has been the one aggressively pushing clustering applications for the last few years, with its Real Application Clustering (RAC). If anything, most admins are going to view this as the open source community trying to catch up with Oracle, not leaping ahead.
In reality, though, this actually sounds closer to IBM's implementation of database clustering than Oracle's. Oracle uses a "shared disk" clustering system -- many database servers pulling information from the same data store. In IBM's implementation, each database server is only responsible for part of the data, and transactions are distributed across the various servers based on what data needs to be accessed. It's known as "shared nothing" clustering.
IBM is also much more focused on heterogeneous systems than Oracle is. Oracle wants all your databases to be Oracle databases. IBM, on the other hand, is developing products that will give you a front end that looks like IBM DB2, where the back end can be virtually anything -- competitors' databases, filesystems, even Web services. (That's the claim anyway.)
You can read some more about this, and the competition between Oracle and IBM for the database clustering market, here. (Yes, I wrote it.)
Expect Larry Ellison to start talking about the dangers of using Open Source software now...
He won't do that. That's not his (or Oracle's) style. Oracle's attitude is that Oracle will support anything. The idea is to sell expensive Oracle products to the business line managers with the deep pockets. Then they reassure everybody by emphasizing that going with Oracle won't alienate anybody -- even those developers in your organization who are dickering around with open source. "Open source is great, and your expensive Oracle database will accommodate it just fine."
I wrote an article about HD-DVD a while back for SFGate, the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle. It's probably on their site still, but I host a copy on my own site also.
Basically, it sounds like Blu-Ray will eventually become a standard for recordable DVD media, but the DVD Steering Committee wants to keep using standard formats for commercial DVD-HD, and just cram more data on there with something like MPEG-4.
Sounds like there's a standards battle in the works. But then, since nobody much is going to own HDTV sets until that standards battle gets worked out, maybe it's a moot point?
Most people can afford a cab. Therein lies the crucial difference. Well, that and one is riding a cab and the other is Free Speech.
Actually, there's a lot of nights when I can't afford a cab home.
But aside from that, what people fail to realise, when we all get up on our righteous soapboxes, is that we live in a society governed by laws, and free speech doesn't come without limitations. Yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater is one classic example. Here's another:
Suppose you were to draw up a fake ad that says "Denny's -- Where White people come first." You take a nice photo of some white people eating at Denny's, with a big Grand Slam Breakfast on the table, and they're all laughing and smiling. You slap the Denny's logo on the bottom, with the addresses of some nearby locations. Then you go and call up Gannett Outdoors, and you have these fake ads posted in bus shelters around the city.
Should you be allowed to do that? I say no. I think the courts would agree with me.
You might argue that this is totally different from what the Penny Arcade people did. Somebody else -- maybe me -- could argue that it's exactly what they did with the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon. Am I right? Are you? Well, this is where the courts have to step in and decide. If one party isn't willing to test the hypothesis, then I guess they lose.
Similarly, the threat of being buried in legal costs is going to make most people pause. I can't see why this is so hard to understand.
Right. Just like how the threat of being buried in taxi cab fares will make most people take the bus.
Bottom line is that you seem to feel this is some kind of threat to free speech, and I don't. Can't afford to hire lawyers to protect your business (making comic strips)? The other comic strip people win. It's sad, but that's the way it goes -- just like how the rich guy gets better product distribution, gets better product placement, gets higher quality advertising, has access to better tools and materials to produce his product, etc., etc.
There's no lack of access to the courts here. These guys can defend themselves just like the next guy -- provided they can afford the lawyers who will win the case for them. I agree with you that defending themselves would be stupid. But they don't want to pay a lawyer. What conclusion should I draw?
Sorry; I sympathize with them, but only to a point.
They only make their money by pumping in money into startup companies likely to succeed.
Actually, some of them make their money by pumping money into startups whether they have any merit or not, helping to generate a lot of buzz, then gutting the company when they figure the momentum has run out. Some of the happiest entrepeneurs I've spoken to keep that way precisely because they stayed the hell away from V.C. money and funded their companies in other ways.
So if I tell you to stop talking under threat of me shooting you, I'm not really censoring you since you always have the option of dodging the bullet. That you can't dodge bullets is a different issue.
I'm sorry, I do see what you're trying to get at, but your argument is so fatally flawed that I can't help but wonder why you floated it in the first place. Obviously, nobody can dodge bullets, therefore there is no option of dodging the bullets.
Perpetrating an act of violence is also a crime. If you hold a gun to my head and tell me not to say something, I have not been censored, I have been assaulted.
Furthermore, one case deals with criminal law, the other torts. This comment just doesn't hold water.
Literacy tests in the south were used to prevent blacks from voting, even though technically they still had that right. Just like that was found to be an illegal restriction on their right to vote
Of course it's a restriction. If black people have to do more to vote than white people do, then they've been subject to additional restrictions. It has nothing to do with statistical samples of how many of them vote.
A better analogy (supporting my point): If you could prove that virtually no black people in a certain state voted, then you would have reason to suspect that their rights were being infringed upon. If a survey revealed, however, that none of these people voted because they were blind and therefore could not read the ballot, the question of whether they were being discriminated against on the basis of race would be less clear. Maybe, had they thought about it, they could have had friends read the ballots to them? Maybe there's a machine that will do it? Have they truly exhausted all of their options, or did they just opt not to vote?
In the case of the comic strip, an avenue does exist whereby they can defend their right to publish the strip. They are choosing not to represent themselves using this avenue of debate. Whether or not it's because they can't afford a lawyer doesn't really figure into it. Technically, they could represent themselves -- but they won't, because they know they can't argue the law well enough to do so.
See what I'm saying? If they're so plainly in the right, as a lot of people on Slashdot seem to feel they are, then why don't they just represent themselves in court, if and when a lawsuit is brought against them? Surely the "truth" of the matter would be as plain to a judge as to a Slashdot reader?
Yeah, but whereas a cab ride is a service, freedom of speech is a right. If defending free speech is reduced to a service to which those without the funds to seek it have no recourse, then free speech will only apply to the people who can pay for the service.
Yes, on the surface that's true, but in this case we're not talking about political dissent or something. This seems to be very much a case of commercial speech -- whether or not Penny Arcade stands to make any significant profit notwithstanding. They're in the process of pushing their product (a comic strip), and in doing so they might step on somebody else's trademark (also a cartoon character).
But, sure, they should go for the ACLU, or the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Try whatever avenues are available.
All this is aside from my other, earlier point, though -- that I suspect few lawyers will be willing to take up this cause because it's very likely that Penny Arcade will lose. I'm not a lawyer, but you've got a hard time convincing even me that the Strawberry Shortcake picture is a defensible parody.
Hell, you've got a hard time convincing me it was even funny. But that's still another issue.
Censorship isn't only governemental and law enforced, and you do not need a gun to force censorship on somebody. Merely inconvenience them to the extrem, put them in a difficult position, which nmight make their life a hell and most except idealist will bow. This is also censorship.
Sorry, but I disagree.
We do agree on one thing -- it sucks that, in this country, you seem to need deep pockets to get truly equal representation in the courts.
However, in this case, there is an avenue available: The Penny Arcade guys could represent their side of the case in court. Ergo, no censorship has taken place. That they don't have the money to do so is a different issue.
If a taxi cab refuses to give me a ride home because I'm black, that's discrimination. If they refuse to give me a ride home because I don't have eight dollars, well, that just strikes me as the way of the world -- whether it seems fair on the surface or not.
The banned strip is clearly a work of parody, which I believe is still legal in this country, unless that too changed recently.
Well, IANAL, but frankly it's not clear to me that the drawing is a work of parody. To me, it seems like something that might infringe on somebody's trademark. If I were a big corporation, I might want to test the point in court. What's wrong with that?
And, "banned"? How so? This is yet another case of lawyers writing a cease-and-desist, and the recipients capitulating. Nobody got "censored" here, nobody's free speech was infringed.
Oh, and there's nothing illegal about owning an AK either.
I can only really speak for California, but a friend who managed to buy his Kalashnikov before recent assault weapon laws came into play says it's now illegal to own any high-powered rifle that has a pistol grip. Even his has a really strange modified stock that goes all the way around your hand, as a dodge to get around the law.
New laws designed to limit public ownership of assault rifles are being passed all the time. Remember Intratec, the company that made the 9mm pistol that could be fully concealed by the palm of your hand, and the Tec-9, the semi-automatic submachine gun that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn (hence was really only useful for drive-bys)?
P.S. As far as I know, though, it's even legal to transport a firearm on an airplane. Just not in the cabin, and not assembled.
Kinda funny how Hollywood types, TV producers and comic book fans are always claiming that women need to be better represented in action roles, and by way of demonstration they point to what basically amount to shows/movies/comics about ridiculously big-tittied babes battling with samurai swords. "See? She's a strong-willed woman with intelligence as well as looks, and SHE gets to decide who she has hot, steamy animal sex in a bubble bath with -- NOT some macho male character!" Yeah, great precedent. Real earth-shattering, that one...
Slashdot Mirror
Comments refuting these statements from the other time they were posted can be found here.
You act like O'Reilly is doing this out of some kind of insidious, venal self-interest or something. If Tim O'Reilly really spent his days thinking up new ways to swindle the people out of their hard-earned dollars, I hope to God he could think up something better than running a publishing company, hanging out with nerds and wearing the same brown shirt every day. So maybe he's not publishing the world's most widely-read, important books -- but if publishers are ever going to take a stand against copyright bullshit (the way most of us hope they will), doesn't somebody have to be first?
If you want to make this argument, you may as well say that nobody owns anything ... if I have a desk that my computer sits on, I don't really own that desk, because nobody really created the desk, because the desk came from wood, which was independently grown by a plant, not by some desk-maker, and hell, after all, the wood is just made out of a bunch of molecules and nobody made those, not even the plant, so basically everything is just derived from something that already existed, so how can there be any property?
To put it as politely as possible, you, sir, are an ass.
...I'm glad I use a Mac.
In reality, though, this actually sounds closer to IBM's implementation of database clustering than Oracle's. Oracle uses a "shared disk" clustering system -- many database servers pulling information from the same data store. In IBM's implementation, each database server is only responsible for part of the data, and transactions are distributed across the various servers based on what data needs to be accessed. It's known as "shared nothing" clustering.
IBM is also much more focused on heterogeneous systems than Oracle is. Oracle wants all your databases to be Oracle databases. IBM, on the other hand, is developing products that will give you a front end that looks like IBM DB2, where the back end can be virtually anything -- competitors' databases, filesystems, even Web services. (That's the claim anyway.)
You can read some more about this, and the competition between Oracle and IBM for the database clustering market, here. (Yes, I wrote it.)
He won't do that. That's not his (or Oracle's) style. Oracle's attitude is that Oracle will support anything. The idea is to sell expensive Oracle products to the business line managers with the deep pockets. Then they reassure everybody by emphasizing that going with Oracle won't alienate anybody -- even those developers in your organization who are dickering around with open source. "Open source is great, and your expensive Oracle database will accommodate it just fine."Basically, it sounds like Blu-Ray will eventually become a standard for recordable DVD media, but the DVD Steering Committee wants to keep using standard formats for commercial DVD-HD, and just cram more data on there with something like MPEG-4.
Sounds like there's a standards battle in the works. But then, since nobody much is going to own HDTV sets until that standards battle gets worked out, maybe it's a moot point?
But aside from that, what people fail to realise, when we all get up on our righteous soapboxes, is that we live in a society governed by laws, and free speech doesn't come without limitations. Yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater is one classic example. Here's another:
Suppose you were to draw up a fake ad that says "Denny's -- Where White people come first." You take a nice photo of some white people eating at Denny's, with a big Grand Slam Breakfast on the table, and they're all laughing and smiling. You slap the Denny's logo on the bottom, with the addresses of some nearby locations. Then you go and call up Gannett Outdoors, and you have these fake ads posted in bus shelters around the city.
Should you be allowed to do that? I say no. I think the courts would agree with me.
You might argue that this is totally different from what the Penny Arcade people did. Somebody else -- maybe me -- could argue that it's exactly what they did with the Strawberry Shortcake cartoon. Am I right? Are you? Well, this is where the courts have to step in and decide. If one party isn't willing to test the hypothesis, then I guess they lose.
Bummer.
Bottom line is that you seem to feel this is some kind of threat to free speech, and I don't. Can't afford to hire lawyers to protect your business (making comic strips)? The other comic strip people win. It's sad, but that's the way it goes -- just like how the rich guy gets better product distribution, gets better product placement, gets higher quality advertising, has access to better tools and materials to produce his product, etc., etc.
There's no lack of access to the courts here. These guys can defend themselves just like the next guy -- provided they can afford the lawyers who will win the case for them. I agree with you that defending themselves would be stupid. But they don't want to pay a lawyer. What conclusion should I draw?
Sorry; I sympathize with them, but only to a point.
Yeah, but at least Mad magazine would have had the brains to call their comic strip "Blueberry Shortfake" or something.
Perpetrating an act of violence is also a crime. If you hold a gun to my head and tell me not to say something, I have not been censored, I have been assaulted.
Furthermore, one case deals with criminal law, the other torts. This comment just doesn't hold water.
Of course it's a restriction. If black people have to do more to vote than white people do, then they've been subject to additional restrictions. It has nothing to do with statistical samples of how many of them vote.A better analogy (supporting my point): If you could prove that virtually no black people in a certain state voted, then you would have reason to suspect that their rights were being infringed upon. If a survey revealed, however, that none of these people voted because they were blind and therefore could not read the ballot, the question of whether they were being discriminated against on the basis of race would be less clear. Maybe, had they thought about it, they could have had friends read the ballots to them? Maybe there's a machine that will do it? Have they truly exhausted all of their options, or did they just opt not to vote?
In the case of the comic strip, an avenue does exist whereby they can defend their right to publish the strip. They are choosing not to represent themselves using this avenue of debate. Whether or not it's because they can't afford a lawyer doesn't really figure into it. Technically, they could represent themselves -- but they won't, because they know they can't argue the law well enough to do so.
See what I'm saying? If they're so plainly in the right, as a lot of people on Slashdot seem to feel they are, then why don't they just represent themselves in court, if and when a lawsuit is brought against them? Surely the "truth" of the matter would be as plain to a judge as to a Slashdot reader?
But, sure, they should go for the ACLU, or the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Try whatever avenues are available.
All this is aside from my other, earlier point, though -- that I suspect few lawyers will be willing to take up this cause because it's very likely that Penny Arcade will lose. I'm not a lawyer, but you've got a hard time convincing even me that the Strawberry Shortcake picture is a defensible parody.
Hell, you've got a hard time convincing me it was even funny. But that's still another issue.
Notice that in this case it was Jerry Falwell, and not Campari Liqueur, who filed the suit. So it's not really the same thing.
We do agree on one thing -- it sucks that, in this country, you seem to need deep pockets to get truly equal representation in the courts.
However, in this case, there is an avenue available: The Penny Arcade guys could represent their side of the case in court. Ergo, no censorship has taken place. That they don't have the money to do so is a different issue.
If a taxi cab refuses to give me a ride home because I'm black, that's discrimination. If they refuse to give me a ride home because I don't have eight dollars, well, that just strikes me as the way of the world -- whether it seems fair on the surface or not.
And, "banned"? How so? This is yet another case of lawyers writing a cease-and-desist, and the recipients capitulating. Nobody got "censored" here, nobody's free speech was infringed.
New laws designed to limit public ownership of assault rifles are being passed all the time. Remember Intratec, the company that made the 9mm pistol that could be fully concealed by the palm of your hand, and the Tec-9, the semi-automatic submachine gun that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn (hence was really only useful for drive-bys)?
P.S. As far as I know, though, it's even legal to transport a firearm on an airplane. Just not in the cabin, and not assembled.
Kinda funny how Hollywood types, TV producers and comic book fans are always claiming that women need to be better represented in action roles, and by way of demonstration they point to what basically amount to shows/movies/comics about ridiculously big-tittied babes battling with samurai swords. "See? She's a strong-willed woman with intelligence as well as looks, and SHE gets to decide who she has hot, steamy animal sex in a bubble bath with -- NOT some macho male character!" Yeah, great precedent. Real earth-shattering, that one...