ICANN's authority extends only so far as ISPs are willing to abide by their edicts. Fact is that ICANN is often ignored (what are they going to do? send in the troops) which is one of the factors that led to this proposal.
The U.S. can pass whatever laws it likes. These laws will have little effect on the rest of the world. If non-U.S. countries get annoyed with ICANN they'll simply replace the root server structure and any ISP that wants to can point it's DNS queries to the new root servers. This effectively means the end of ICANN no matter how many U.S. laws are passed or how loudly ICANN members throw a hissy fit.
As a U.S. citizen I find both your arrogance and ignorance rather annoying. Please, educate yourself about how voluntary compliance is required to get anything done on the internet before spouting off your neo-patriotic rhetoric.
And, as you clearly aren't keeping up with developments, less than half the backbone is now situated in the U.S.; the world could firewall us and keep on trucking, quite likely with the added benefit of reducing the spam they have to deal with.
Ultimately the battle expressed over copyright reduces to something more simple: a battle over change. Change always challenges the status quo, always upsets the apple cart; as such it tends to provoke strong protest amongst the reactionary elements in society.
Who are these elements? Essentially they fall into two camps:
- the folks who profit from the status quo and suspect that the change will reduce their favored status; and
- the Luddites, people who're afraid of change simply because they want things to remain the way that they are, or more likely the way that they imagine things are, and refuse to adapt to what the future might bring.
So far in human history very few societies have been successful in suppressing change. And all of these societies have eventually fallen to others who didn't repress the changes and instead used them to gain an advantage over their neighbors. In today's world, where change is coming at an ever-accelerating pace, a society that refuses to embrace change is doomed to be left behind to flounder about in the past while others move into the future.
People who accept change and attempt to use it to better the lives of themselves or others are wheat; those who refuse change, the Luddites and those like them, are chaff. In the grand scheme of things nobody misses the chaff when it's gone, because it was useless to begin with. Chaff is discarded, with nary a thought given to its fate.
We see the battle between the wheat and the chaff quite clearly in the 21st century because change is occurring at such a rapid pace. The Luddites scream loudly and long, picking this change or that to vent their fears upon, because there are so many new things that challenge their desire for life to remain stagnant. This isn't a slow process as in past centuries, eventually gaining steam over the course of lifetimes; today it happens in the space of years or months, one revolution of technology after another. The Luddites don't have a chance to die out and be replaced by newer, younger generations who aren't so invested in the status quo. They're being challenged, again and again, by the change they fear so much, changes which are increasingly alien to a mind-set that refuses to accept that the world is rushing into the future regardless of their personal whims.
What this means to those of us who do accept the future and try to make sense of it, or even to shape it in a fashion that does more good than harm, is that the Luddites represent a powerful, if minority, view backed by all the money invested in the status quo. And as money and power are always concentrated in the status quo, since those who have the power and money maintain the status quo to preserve their own privilege, this is a force to be reckoned with.
Since the Luddites don't have time to die off and be replaced, they instead try to put the brakes on the future through the passage of legislation designed to halt progress in its tracks. As a solution this is a damned silly way to do things; in today's world it's impossible to make change 'stop' in any real sense of the word. The Luddite solution is a pathetic one, in essence a retaliatory backlash of little effect or importance. Instead of offering real solutions to thorny problems posed by new technology and innovation, they instead attempt to ban innovation altogether and return society to a past where the technology didn't exist. Trying to put the genie back in the bottle is a futile effort, one that often ends up harming people in the process.
Not that the negative effects of trying to prevent change ever trouble the Luddites. By definition these folks are invested in a world view solely defined by their own ideas of how things should be; if the reality challenges the fantasy they indulge in they have no qualms about trying to force reality into a more pleasing mold regardless of who gets harmed in the process. Luddites are inherently selfish lot with little regard for others.
In today's world the Luddites are attempting to legislate their fantasies into reality; the fact that such legislation does nothing whatsoever to halt progress hasn't yet made an impact upon them. They think that if they just pass enough laws that somehow, in some mysterious way, change will stop. For the rest of us this is mostly annoying; although a few of us have been harmed by these laws the vast majority are relatively unaffected. This won't last.
Eventually the Luddites will discover that their laws aren't putting the brakes on progress and that the majority of their neighbors are happily walking into the future regardless of their efforts. When this occurs the Luddites will become violent, as pitiful reactionaries always do, although their violence will almost certainly be orchestrated through the instrument of government. When this happens, when the majority finally clue into the fact that the Luddites will use any means at their disposal to keep their fellow citizens trapped in the 20th century with them, that's when the real war will begin. This is when you'll see flagrant violations of the Constitution in the name of 'the common good', as well as government-backed efforts involving force to shut down any enterprise which challenges the status quo. It could be argued that such things are already beginning to take place in the United States as the Luddites become increasingly vocal and ever-more-willing to enforce their views at the expense of others, with a government eager to accommodate whoever has the cash.
It's possible that the Luddites might win in the U.S. They have the money and the power, and Americans are far removed from their freedom-loving ancestors. The heritage that formed a nation through blood and death is thin indeed in today's society, where so long as the people get their bread and circuses they're willing to look the other way. Most Americans today don't think freedom is worth fighting for, much less dying for, especially if they can still catch their favorite TV shows for a decent price.
But even if the Luddites win here, there are plenty of places elsewhere that'll happily seize on what the future has to offer and use it to their advantage. And then, like empires of the past, the nation of America will become chaff and left to rot in it's own backward, Luddite garbage, a second-class 20th century power in a 21st century world. As an American I'll mourn what happens my nation, but the rest of the world will treat us like the chaff we are - useless and best forgotten.
The question is: is there still enough of that revolutionary heritage left in the majority of us to embrace the future and fight the Luddites, even if it means that the fight might become violent? Or are there simply not enough of us left that care that much? By violence I don't mean armed revolution, but rather a willingness to say "that law isn't right, that law doesn't make sense in this new world, and I won't obey it even if it means that the government might hurt me and punish me for my disobedience". As someone who will someday soon be a father and wishes his daughter to grow up in a free society this question isn't at all academic.
I'm beginning to think that there aren't enough of us willing to take that risk, and that America will indeed fall by the wayside. If that's the case, if the battle is already lost before it's even picked up steam, then perhaps I'd better serve my child by moving her to a place that's still invested in the future. Letting her grow up in a country trapped in the past seems to be the worst possible disservice I could do her, especially if she's surrounded by moralistic Luddites bent on shaping her to their backwards, anachronistic point of view - or punishing her if she refuses to conform.
If you don't like the content of a website you can simply not go there. No case can be made for imminent harm when the act of browsing is a selective one based entirely on personal choice.
But banning hate speech is never about preventing harm; it's about enforcing your own morals on others, to the point where they no longer have the right to voice an opinion that you disapprove of. The goal is not to make a better society but to wield power to such a degree that you can effectively silence your opponents. This makes the 'ban hate speech folks' just as malicious and evil as the people engaged in the hate speech itself.
Of coure, Europe can engage in any silliness it wants. If it decides to restrict its own folks in this manner, then that's something that I, as a U.S. citizen, am really not concerned about. However, Europe will have a difficult time with U.S. web sites that lie within the purview of the First Amendment and are not bound by European laws - or morality - in any way, shape, or form. Unless Europe decides to wall itself off from the U.S. in much the same way that China has, this attempt at banning speech on the internet is nothing more than pissing into the wind.
Which is as it should be. It's incumbent on Europe to 'protect' its citizens from the dangers of free speech, not upon American web site owners to conform to foreign laws. The French aside, Europe has no business trying to regulate internet activity outside of its own borders.
Linux is still finding it's place in the computer world and right now it's greatest strengths are in the server and back end world.
Which is just another tired variation of the theme "Linux isn't ready for the desktop". Perhaps it isn't ready for your desktop, but quite a few others seem to be content with it.
As for the graphics software I'd hazard a guess that less than 1 out of a 1000 people use any of this stuff. In fact, I'd put good money down on the claim that most people - aside from games - could find whatever they needed on the default GNOME/KDE installs that come with, say, the SuSe distribution. For home or work.
So Linux is ready for the desktop of the vast majority of users, who never go beyond word processing, spreadsheets, and email. The fact that it doesn't have what you think is necessary is irrelevant. Claiming that it isn't ready for the desktop just because it isn't ready for your desktop is an exercise in ego.
Then you need to leave "Final Fantasy" out of the mix. The creators specifically said, over and over again, that they *weren't* going for realism but more of a realism/anime cross.
It seems lately with Sun floundering about the market and pulling silly moves re Java that all this really points to is that Sun really, really, really wants to be Microsoft.
And they aren't. And they're pissed about it.
Imagine for a moment that Sun has the hugely dominant market share in server revenues that it wished it had, and that cross-platform Java programming and their version of.Net rules the world. Do you honestly think that this company would be any more ethical than Microsoft?
Given the way they've been acting, I think that Sun - if it had the opportunity - might even turn out to be *less* ethical. Much of what they've done lately reminds me of a five-year-old screaming "my toys are better than your toys! And they're my toys! And you can't touch them unless I say so, and only if you'll play with them the way I want you to!"
I don't trust IBM any more than I do Sun when it comes to their motivations re Linux, but at least IBM has some class....
The mainframe can sometimes be more cost effective. Once you scale up to a certain size in your server farm the cost of floorspace, hardware, electricity, and technical support time actually outstrips that of comparable computing power in a mainframe. The initial invest on the mainframe is higher at the outset but you save money over time.
The server farm is certainly the better option when you don't have that many machines. But when you start getting in the range of a hundred or more then it's time to buy a mainframe.
Linux is already a contender in the home. At the end of every year a larger percentage of people use it than the last year, on their home computers. By definition that's a 'contender'.
people are going to choose Windows and Mac OS over Linux
No, they aren't, and that was precisely my point. The folks who stick with the Mac and Win machines are those that are older and who don't want to invest energy in change, even if the change is for the better. Teenagers migrate to Linux with nary a thought on the matter because an OS is just an OS to them - no brain ossification has set in.
These teenagers will be the work force in a few years, and they won't give a rats ass about Windows or the Mac. Their parents, who whine and moan about "how Linux isn't ready for the desktop" (read: I don't want to spend any of my beer-and-football time reading a computer manual) will no longer be in a position to make decisions.
I rather hope that global warming is real. Imagine - natural changes generally take place over thousands or tens of thousands of years. If global warming is real and extreme, I might be able to witness widespread planetary alterations in my lifetime! How exciting!
Once again the naysayers flock to the scene of the battle, claiming that if "my mom/dad can't do it then Linux isn't ready for the desktop." Two points:
- if your mom or dad can't do it you must have stupidly given them the wrong distribution. Toss out Slackware and give them a set of SuSe 7.3 CDs instead.
- if your mom and dad can't master something as simple as SuSe it really doesn't matter that much. Soon they'll no longer be making decisions more important than "do I need to buy a new package of Depends?", as the next generation seizes the market place from their stale Boomer fingers.
Kids, I've found out, have no more difficulties using Linux than they do Windows - in fact, they generally prefer Linux because they can do more with it. These kids, who grew up with computers and have an intuitive grasp of the machines that older generations lack, will soon be the primary labor pool for every non-geriatric corporation in America.
So if Mom or Dad can't handle anything but Windows, let them have their Windows. In a few years they'll cycle out of the job market and then what they think or don't think about computers won't matter in the slightest.
The opinions that *really* count aren't those of the old and soon-to-be-warehoused; the opinions that matter most are those who're teenagers right now. And those kids, when it comes to computers, aren't clueless idiots like their parents before them.
And I won't. I've already told the folks at Blizzard that if that's how they're going to act then they won't be getting any more money from me - it's obvious they have too much already if they can afford to let the legal dogs loose on something like bnetd.
Hey, voting with my dollars, right? Capitalism in action. Democracy in action. Refusing to purchase Blizzard products is damned American of me!
I doubt Blizzard will care much. I've spent hundreds of dollars on their games over the years but I'm just one joe. Even so, I'm a joe who insists on doing the deed even if it won't count for squat at the end of the day.
Way it goes. Goodbye, Blizzard - too bad you guys opted to stick your heads so far up your asses on this one. I was looking forward to Warcraft III.
First you talk about bringing Unix, not Linux, to the desktop, and claim that's important because - in some vague fashion which eludes comprehension - Linux is somehow in competition with Windows.
Then you claim that joining forces with the Mac folks is a good thing because Linux apps can be ported to OS X. Excuse me? Good for Apple, yes, *just like I originally claimed* - does nothing whatsoever for Linux.
Then, like other posters, you extrapolate nebulous potential future benefits for Linux based upon the real benefits available to Apple right now if collaberation becomes a reality. We can see concrete evidence of how Apple might benefit, but in the other direction it's all "maybe", "might", "could possibly". Potential vaporware doesn't amount a hill of beans to what actual Linux developers are doing at this very moment, for real, in a fashion you can easily track through tools like Sourceforge.
As for extrapolating to the 'entire Linux community':
- there is no Linux community. People who make this claim are the same sorts of folks who think Linux is at war with Microsoft and Windows. Carping on and on about 'capturing the desktop', yada yada.
- I extrapolate nothing. I challenged folks to back their claims with facts since I myself could see little supporting evidence for their positions. So far, nothing but unsupported speculation.
What larger user base? Are you claiming that with OS X all Mac users just became Linux users overnight? If not, *the user base of Linux hasn't changed a whit with the adoption of OS X*.
This is simply a move by Jobs and company to tie the fate of Apple with Linux, since Apple clearly can't fight Microsoft on it's own and Linus wasn't at all interested in supporting Apple when offered the opportunity. Make OS X Linux-like and maybe Apple can harvest some of that anti-MS fanaticism especially rampant among the non-technical Linux users.
And sure, I ignore the Mac because (aside from supporting it in my current job) I don't use it. This doesn't make me short-sighted, but practical, as I have no use for the Mac on my own time. However, you don't see me running around claiming that Mac users are short-sighted because they don't pay attention to the intricacies of Windows or Linux - because the statement is just plain silly.
Please note I don't try to *discourage* Linux folks from working with Mac folks. If that's what they want to do with their time, that's up to them - semi-free country and all. What I challenge are claims that seem perilously akin to snake oil, as well as the silly fanaticism of people who think that some kind of goddamned OS war is going on. These idiots need to get a life.
Which means that you raise prices to cover costs and we as the consumer ultimately pay for it. Don't be deliberately obtuse.
When a former employee of mine claims unemployement, my rate goes up.
Just as when I make a claim against insurance my insurance company has to pay more cash out of hand that month. The fact that you're legally mandated to pay into the fund is no more telling than the fact that I'm legally mandated to pay into Social Security, or premiums on my car and house. So what?
Or are you going to tell me that a individual unemployed somehow oppresses you personally through higher taxes? I might expect this, given your contempt towards volunteer labor.
If the Mac [Apple] does well, it means more Unix base. It means more people not under the Windows hegemony.
Look, I'm not an evangelist. If people want their Windows that's fine by me. But you still haven't shown how 'Mac and Linux people sticking together' helps Linux. It's easy to see how this benefits Apple but there's no corresponding gain for Linux development.
As for the rest of your argument you somehow try to fallaciously link past Apple developments with future, unspecified benefits to Linux. Once again: I claim that if Apple went down in flames tomorrow it wouldn't affect Linux development at all. So far no one has even addressed this statement, much less refuted it.
Heck, by your own logic if Apple failed we'd have more developers - former Apple employees - working on Linux packages. A rather strange claim, I think.
I'm sick of people wasting bytes rehashing the same anti-mac rhetoric over and over.
This isn't anti-Mac rhetoric. What I'm doing is pointing out that the fate of Linux and Apple have nothing to do with one another; Apple could fail tomorrow and it would have no impact on Linux development whatsoever.
If this were a well thought out criticism, I'd welcome it, but this is just yet another kneejerk Linux geek shouting the same crap again.
No, it's another brain-dead moron who didn't bother to read either the original statement (i.e., 'the Linux and Mac folks should stick together') or my response ('what possible good could this do Linux')?
I don't care about the Mac. It means nothing to me whether Apple succeeds or fails because it won't have any effect on Linux development. Instead of blowing hot air out of your ass, why don't you instead try to prove that I'm wrong in my assertion?
I happen to use the more than enything else and find them to be very nimble and useful tools.
Too bad they didn't teach you to read for content.
Maybe because they're doing the best job of bringing Unix to the desktop? Most software written for Linux can easily be ported to OS X, so it gives you a larger potential market.
It gives who a larger potential market? Or have you forgotten that the folks who contribute to kernel development have no stake whatsoever in market share?
The only people who'd tangibly benefit from such a relationship is Apple. Even most of the folks who work on the apps wouldn't see a dime of profit because their work is volunteer anyway. User base is of no consequence if you aren't making a profit from it. Part and parcel of the strength of Linux is that market share is irrelevent; only the will and interest of the developers is significant.
In specific for this case, it is much more valuable to society as a whole that a person earn a living rather than collect unemployement and do volunteer work
I suppose if you're one of those idiots who believes in the myth of the welfare state, this may very well be true. But then such a fool wouldn't be aware of how unemployment works, who pays into it, and why it's no different than insurance.
Frankly put, why should us linux-using folks give a rats ass if the Mac does well or poorly? I don't see how Mac marketshare or 'cooperation' with the open-source crowd could be of any benefit whatsoever to Linux. To Apple, yes; to Linux, no.
Apple isn't and will never be a competitor. Apple has zero chance of negatively affecting the the development or use of Linux. And Apple has nothing to offer Linux. If Apple goes belly-up tomorrow it would have no effect at all on the development of the kernel, KDE, Gnome, various apps, etc.
I don't like Macs any more than I like Windows. In fact, I'd say I like the OS less because it's even more restrictive than Windows is (you have to buy very specific hardware, all approved by Apple, and most of it overly expensive). I see no justification or need for cooperation between Linux developers and Apple.
So, were you born an asshole or do you have to work at it? In case simple economic theory is beyond you, volunteer effort *always adds value* regardless of what the person volunteering does with the rest of his or her day.
Think about it. If you can't grasp such a basic concept then perhaps you should do a bit of research before making a fool out of yourself. Assuming it would help.
Representing those comments as "raving about Microsoft" is a deliberate misrepresentation.
No, it isn't. Miguel's interview reads like an ad for Microsoft and.NET. My first thought was "how much did he get paid to bend over and let Billy ream him?". His comments were nicely summed up in excerpt below.
He also had praise for the new Microsoft security model, dismissed the notion that Redmond was employing embrace and extend to its web services protocols, and put the message that the community should get over its beef with The Beast.
Clearly either the man is smoking way too much crack or he's sold out.
So let's see...corporate society finally wakes up to the fact that *everyone* timeshifts and virtually no one watches commercials. Shitty TV shows are pulled off-air because there aren't enough suckers to pay to watch them now that no one makes those useless commercials anymore.
What's left? Pay TV! Y'know, like we have right now on digital cable - watch a show or six hours of shows (depending) for $2.95. Or series just like "Sex..." on HBO, produced within a budget but still popular.
Exactly how is this a bad thing? If this were to replace the 'basic cable' service my bill would drop to $3 a week, $12 a month - alot less than what it is right now. Even for the addicted, say 18 hours a week, that's still only $36 a month. (Anyone who watches more TV than this needs to be cleansed from the gene pool).
Not only would you have pay-per-view and pay-per-block, but specific pay-per-channel as well - again like HBO and Showtime. Once more, how is this bad?
Oh, and if anyone argues that this somehow 'disenfranchises' the poor, please - pull your head out of your ass before you walk off that cliff. There is no Constitutional right to entertainment, and the "Jeff Corwin" show hardly counts as 'necessary education that can't be obtained elsewhere' (although he's certainly nice to look at).
How about sucking it up and moving on? The whining of college brats who can't get "Sex and the City" isn't particularly impressive as a reason for pirating.
Slashdot Mirror
ICANN's authority extends only so far as ISPs are willing to abide by their edicts. Fact is that ICANN is often ignored (what are they going to do? send in the troops) which is one of the factors that led to this proposal.
The U.S. can pass whatever laws it likes. These laws will have little effect on the rest of the world. If non-U.S. countries get annoyed with ICANN they'll simply replace the root server structure and any ISP that wants to can point it's DNS queries to the new root servers. This effectively means the end of ICANN no matter how many U.S. laws are passed or how loudly ICANN members throw a hissy fit.
As a U.S. citizen I find both your arrogance and ignorance rather annoying. Please, educate yourself about how voluntary compliance is required to get anything done on the internet before spouting off your neo-patriotic rhetoric.
And, as you clearly aren't keeping up with developments, less than half the backbone is now situated in the U.S.; the world could firewall us and keep on trucking, quite likely with the added benefit of reducing the spam they have to deal with.
Max
Ultimately the battle expressed over copyright reduces to something more simple: a battle over change. Change always challenges the status quo, always upsets the apple cart; as such it tends to provoke strong protest amongst the reactionary elements in society.
Who are these elements? Essentially they fall into two camps:
- the folks who profit from the status quo and suspect that the change will reduce their favored status; and
- the Luddites, people who're afraid of change simply because they want things to remain the way that they are, or more likely the way that they imagine things are, and refuse to adapt to what the future might bring.
So far in human history very few societies have been successful in suppressing change. And all of these societies have eventually fallen to others who didn't repress the changes and instead used them to gain an advantage over their neighbors. In today's world, where change is coming at an ever-accelerating pace, a society that refuses to embrace change is doomed to be left behind to flounder about in the past while others move into the future.
People who accept change and attempt to use it to better the lives of themselves or others are wheat; those who refuse change, the Luddites and those like them, are chaff. In the grand scheme of things nobody misses the chaff when it's gone, because it was useless to begin with. Chaff is discarded, with nary a thought given to its fate.
We see the battle between the wheat and the chaff quite clearly in the 21st century because change is occurring at such a rapid pace. The Luddites scream loudly and long, picking this change or that to vent their fears upon, because there are so many new things that challenge their desire for life to remain stagnant. This isn't a slow process as in past centuries, eventually gaining steam over the course of lifetimes; today it happens in the space of years or months, one revolution of technology after another. The Luddites don't have a chance to die out and be replaced by newer, younger generations who aren't so invested in the status quo. They're being challenged, again and again, by the change they fear so much, changes which are increasingly alien to a mind-set that refuses to accept that the world is rushing into the future regardless of their personal whims.
What this means to those of us who do accept the future and try to make sense of it, or even to shape it in a fashion that does more good than harm, is that the Luddites represent a powerful, if minority, view backed by all the money invested in the status quo. And as money and power are always concentrated in the status quo, since those who have the power and money maintain the status quo to preserve their own privilege, this is a force to be reckoned with.
Since the Luddites don't have time to die off and be replaced, they instead try to put the brakes on the future through the passage of legislation designed to halt progress in its tracks. As a solution this is a damned silly way to do things; in today's world it's impossible to make change 'stop' in any real sense of the word. The Luddite solution is a pathetic one, in essence a retaliatory backlash of little effect or importance. Instead of offering real solutions to thorny problems posed by new technology and innovation, they instead attempt to ban innovation altogether and return society to a past where the technology didn't exist. Trying to put the genie back in the bottle is a futile effort, one that often ends up harming people in the process.
Not that the negative effects of trying to prevent change ever trouble the Luddites. By definition these folks are invested in a world view solely defined by their own ideas of how things should be; if the reality challenges the fantasy they indulge in they have no qualms about trying to force reality into a more pleasing mold regardless of who gets harmed in the process. Luddites are inherently selfish lot with little regard for others.
In today's world the Luddites are attempting to legislate their fantasies into reality; the fact that such legislation does nothing whatsoever to halt progress hasn't yet made an impact upon them. They think that if they just pass enough laws that somehow, in some mysterious way, change will stop. For the rest of us this is mostly annoying; although a few of us have been harmed by these laws the vast majority are relatively unaffected. This won't last.
Eventually the Luddites will discover that their laws aren't putting the brakes on progress and that the majority of their neighbors are happily walking into the future regardless of their efforts. When this occurs the Luddites will become violent, as pitiful reactionaries always do, although their violence will almost certainly be orchestrated through the instrument of government. When this happens, when the majority finally clue into the fact that the Luddites will use any means at their disposal to keep their fellow citizens trapped in the 20th century with them, that's when the real war will begin. This is when you'll see flagrant violations of the Constitution in the name of 'the common good', as well as government-backed efforts involving force to shut down any enterprise which challenges the status quo. It could be argued that such things are already beginning to take place in the United States as the Luddites become increasingly vocal and ever-more-willing to enforce their views at the expense of others, with a government eager to accommodate whoever has the cash.
It's possible that the Luddites might win in the U.S. They have the money and the power, and Americans are far removed from their freedom-loving ancestors. The heritage that formed a nation through blood and death is thin indeed in today's society, where so long as the people get their bread and circuses they're willing to look the other way. Most Americans today don't think freedom is worth fighting for, much less dying for, especially if they can still catch their favorite TV shows for a decent price.
But even if the Luddites win here, there are plenty of places elsewhere that'll happily seize on what the future has to offer and use it to their advantage. And then, like empires of the past, the nation of America will become chaff and left to rot in it's own backward, Luddite garbage, a second-class 20th century power in a 21st century world. As an American I'll mourn what happens my nation, but the rest of the world will treat us like the chaff we are - useless and best forgotten.
The question is: is there still enough of that revolutionary heritage left in the majority of us to embrace the future and fight the Luddites, even if it means that the fight might become violent? Or are there simply not enough of us left that care that much? By violence I don't mean armed revolution, but rather a willingness to say "that law isn't right, that law doesn't make sense in this new world, and I won't obey it even if it means that the government might hurt me and punish me for my disobedience". As someone who will someday soon be a father and wishes his daughter to grow up in a free society this question isn't at all academic.
I'm beginning to think that there aren't enough of us willing to take that risk, and that America will indeed fall by the wayside. If that's the case, if the battle is already lost before it's even picked up steam, then perhaps I'd better serve my child by moving her to a place that's still invested in the future. Letting her grow up in a country trapped in the past seems to be the worst possible disservice I could do her, especially if she's surrounded by moralistic Luddites bent on shaping her to their backwards, anachronistic point of view - or punishing her if she refuses to conform.
What do you think?
Max
If you don't like the content of a website you can simply not go there. No case can be made for imminent harm when the act of browsing is a selective one based entirely on personal choice.
But banning hate speech is never about preventing harm; it's about enforcing your own morals on others, to the point where they no longer have the right to voice an opinion that you disapprove of. The goal is not to make a better society but to wield power to such a degree that you can effectively silence your opponents. This makes the 'ban hate speech folks' just as malicious and evil as the people engaged in the hate speech itself.
Of coure, Europe can engage in any silliness it wants. If it decides to restrict its own folks in this manner, then that's something that I, as a U.S. citizen, am really not concerned about. However, Europe will have a difficult time with U.S. web sites that lie within the purview of the First Amendment and are not bound by European laws - or morality - in any way, shape, or form. Unless Europe decides to wall itself off from the U.S. in much the same way that China has, this attempt at banning speech on the internet is nothing more than pissing into the wind.
Which is as it should be. It's incumbent on Europe to 'protect' its citizens from the dangers of free speech, not upon American web site owners to conform to foreign laws. The French aside, Europe has no business trying to regulate internet activity outside of its own borders.
Max
Linux is still finding it's place in the computer world and right now it's greatest strengths are in the server and back end world.
Which is just another tired variation of the theme "Linux isn't ready for the desktop". Perhaps it isn't ready for your desktop, but quite a few others seem to be content with it.
As for the graphics software I'd hazard a guess that less than 1 out of a 1000 people use any of this stuff. In fact, I'd put good money down on the claim that most people - aside from games - could find whatever they needed on the default GNOME/KDE installs that come with, say, the SuSe distribution. For home or work.
So Linux is ready for the desktop of the vast majority of users, who never go beyond word processing, spreadsheets, and email. The fact that it doesn't have what you think is necessary is irrelevant. Claiming that it isn't ready for the desktop just because it isn't ready for your desktop is an exercise in ego.
Max
Then you need to leave "Final Fantasy" out of the mix. The creators specifically said, over and over again, that they *weren't* going for realism but more of a realism/anime cross.
This they achieved admirably.
Max
It seems lately with Sun floundering about the market and pulling silly moves re Java that all this really points to is that Sun really, really, really wants to be Microsoft.
.Net rules the world. Do you honestly think that this company would be any more ethical than Microsoft?
And they aren't. And they're pissed about it.
Imagine for a moment that Sun has the hugely dominant market share in server revenues that it wished it had, and that cross-platform Java programming and their version of
Given the way they've been acting, I think that Sun - if it had the opportunity - might even turn out to be *less* ethical. Much of what they've done lately reminds me of a five-year-old screaming "my toys are better than your toys! And they're my toys! And you can't touch them unless I say so, and only if you'll play with them the way I want you to!"
I don't trust IBM any more than I do Sun when it comes to their motivations re Linux, but at least IBM has some class....
Max
The mainframe can sometimes be more cost effective. Once you scale up to a certain size in your server farm the cost of floorspace, hardware, electricity, and technical support time actually outstrips that of comparable computing power in a mainframe. The initial invest on the mainframe is higher at the outset but you save money over time.
The server farm is certainly the better option when you don't have that many machines. But when you start getting in the range of a hundred or more then it's time to buy a mainframe.
Max
Linux is not going to be a contender in the home
Linux is already a contender in the home. At the end of every year a larger percentage of people use it than the last year, on their home computers. By definition that's a 'contender'.
people are going to choose Windows and Mac OS over Linux
No, they aren't, and that was precisely my point. The folks who stick with the Mac and Win machines are those that are older and who don't want to invest energy in change, even if the change is for the better. Teenagers migrate to Linux with nary a thought on the matter because an OS is just an OS to them - no brain ossification has set in.
These teenagers will be the work force in a few years, and they won't give a rats ass about Windows or the Mac. Their parents, who whine and moan about "how Linux isn't ready for the desktop" (read: I don't want to spend any of my beer-and-football time reading a computer manual) will no longer be in a position to make decisions.
This is a good thing.
Max
I rather hope that global warming is real. Imagine - natural changes generally take place over thousands or tens of thousands of years. If global warming is real and extreme, I might be able to witness widespread planetary alterations in my lifetime! How exciting!
Max
Once again the naysayers flock to the scene of the battle, claiming that if "my mom/dad can't do it then Linux isn't ready for the desktop." Two points:
- if your mom or dad can't do it you must have stupidly given them the wrong distribution. Toss out Slackware and give them a set of SuSe 7.3 CDs instead.
- if your mom and dad can't master something as simple as SuSe it really doesn't matter that much. Soon they'll no longer be making decisions more important than "do I need to buy a new package of Depends?", as the next generation seizes the market place from their stale Boomer fingers.
Kids, I've found out, have no more difficulties using Linux than they do Windows - in fact, they generally prefer Linux because they can do more with it. These kids, who grew up with computers and have an intuitive grasp of the machines that older generations lack, will soon be the primary labor pool for every non-geriatric corporation in America.
So if Mom or Dad can't handle anything but Windows, let them have their Windows. In a few years they'll cycle out of the job market and then what they think or don't think about computers won't matter in the slightest.
The opinions that *really* count aren't those of the old and soon-to-be-warehoused; the opinions that matter most are those who're teenagers right now. And those kids, when it comes to computers, aren't clueless idiots like their parents before them.
Max
And I won't. I've already told the folks at Blizzard that if that's how they're going to act then they won't be getting any more money from me - it's obvious they have too much already if they can afford to let the legal dogs loose on something like bnetd.
Hey, voting with my dollars, right? Capitalism in action. Democracy in action. Refusing to purchase Blizzard products is damned American of me!
I doubt Blizzard will care much. I've spent hundreds of dollars on their games over the years but I'm just one joe. Even so, I'm a joe who insists on doing the deed even if it won't count for squat at the end of the day.
Way it goes. Goodbye, Blizzard - too bad you guys opted to stick your heads so far up your asses on this one. I was looking forward to Warcraft III.
Max
First you talk about bringing Unix, not Linux, to the desktop, and claim that's important because - in some vague fashion which eludes comprehension - Linux is somehow in competition with Windows.
Then you claim that joining forces with the Mac folks is a good thing because Linux apps can be ported to OS X. Excuse me? Good for Apple, yes, *just like I originally claimed* - does nothing whatsoever for Linux.
Then, like other posters, you extrapolate nebulous potential future benefits for Linux based upon the real benefits available to Apple right now if collaberation becomes a reality. We can see concrete evidence of how Apple might benefit, but in the other direction it's all "maybe", "might", "could possibly". Potential vaporware doesn't amount a hill of beans to what actual Linux developers are doing at this very moment, for real, in a fashion you can easily track through tools like Sourceforge.
As for extrapolating to the 'entire Linux community':
- there is no Linux community. People who make this claim are the same sorts of folks who think Linux is at war with Microsoft and Windows. Carping on and on about 'capturing the desktop', yada yada.
- I extrapolate nothing. I challenged folks to back their claims with facts since I myself could see little supporting evidence for their positions. So far, nothing but unsupported speculation.
What larger user base? Are you claiming that with OS X all Mac users just became Linux users overnight? If not, *the user base of Linux hasn't changed a whit with the adoption of OS X*.
This is simply a move by Jobs and company to tie the fate of Apple with Linux, since Apple clearly can't fight Microsoft on it's own and Linus wasn't at all interested in supporting Apple when offered the opportunity. Make OS X Linux-like and maybe Apple can harvest some of that anti-MS fanaticism especially rampant among the non-technical Linux users.
And sure, I ignore the Mac because (aside from supporting it in my current job) I don't use it. This doesn't make me short-sighted, but practical, as I have no use for the Mac on my own time. However, you don't see me running around claiming that Mac users are short-sighted because they don't pay attention to the intricacies of Windows or Linux - because the statement is just plain silly.
Please note I don't try to *discourage* Linux folks from working with Mac folks. If that's what they want to do with their time, that's up to them - semi-free country and all. What I challenge are claims that seem perilously akin to snake oil, as well as the silly fanaticism of people who think that some kind of goddamned OS war is going on. These idiots need to get a life.
Max
The fact is I as the employer foot the bill.
Which means that you raise prices to cover costs and we as the consumer ultimately pay for it. Don't be deliberately obtuse.
When a former employee of mine claims unemployement, my rate goes up.
Just as when I make a claim against insurance my insurance company has to pay more cash out of hand that month. The fact that you're legally mandated to pay into the fund is no more telling than the fact that I'm legally mandated to pay into Social Security, or premiums on my car and house. So what?
Or are you going to tell me that a individual unemployed somehow oppresses you personally through higher taxes? I might expect this, given your contempt towards volunteer labor.
Max
If the Mac [Apple] does well, it means more Unix base. It means more people not under the Windows hegemony.
Look, I'm not an evangelist. If people want their Windows that's fine by me. But you still haven't shown how 'Mac and Linux people sticking together' helps Linux. It's easy to see how this benefits Apple but there's no corresponding gain for Linux development.
As for the rest of your argument you somehow try to fallaciously link past Apple developments with future, unspecified benefits to Linux. Once again: I claim that if Apple went down in flames tomorrow it wouldn't affect Linux development at all. So far no one has even addressed this statement, much less refuted it.
Heck, by your own logic if Apple failed we'd have more developers - former Apple employees - working on Linux packages. A rather strange claim, I think.
Max
I'm sick of people wasting bytes rehashing the same anti-mac rhetoric over and over.
This isn't anti-Mac rhetoric. What I'm doing is pointing out that the fate of Linux and Apple have nothing to do with one another; Apple could fail tomorrow and it would have no impact on Linux development whatsoever.
If this were a well thought out criticism, I'd welcome it, but this is just yet another kneejerk Linux geek shouting the same crap again.
No, it's another brain-dead moron who didn't bother to read either the original statement (i.e., 'the Linux and Mac folks should stick together') or my response ('what possible good could this do Linux')?
I don't care about the Mac. It means nothing to me whether Apple succeeds or fails because it won't have any effect on Linux development. Instead of blowing hot air out of your ass, why don't you instead try to prove that I'm wrong in my assertion?
I happen to use the more than enything else and find them to be very nimble and useful tools.
Too bad they didn't teach you to read for content.
Max
Maybe because they're doing the best job of bringing Unix to the desktop? Most software written for Linux can easily be ported to OS X, so it gives you a larger potential market.
It gives who a larger potential market? Or have you forgotten that the folks who contribute to kernel development have no stake whatsoever in market share?
The only people who'd tangibly benefit from such a relationship is Apple. Even most of the folks who work on the apps wouldn't see a dime of profit because their work is volunteer anyway. User base is of no consequence if you aren't making a profit from it. Part and parcel of the strength of Linux is that market share is irrelevent; only the will and interest of the developers is significant.
Max
In specific for this case, it is much more valuable to society as a whole that a person earn a living rather than collect unemployement and do volunteer work
I suppose if you're one of those idiots who believes in the myth of the welfare state, this may very well be true. But then such a fool wouldn't be aware of how unemployment works, who pays into it, and why it's no different than insurance.
Max
If PayPal wants the privileges enjoyed by banks they need to be regulated as a bank. It's that simple.
Max
Frankly put, why should us linux-using folks give a rats ass if the Mac does well or poorly? I don't see how Mac marketshare or 'cooperation' with the open-source crowd could be of any benefit whatsoever to Linux. To Apple, yes; to Linux, no.
Apple isn't and will never be a competitor. Apple has zero chance of negatively affecting the the development or use of Linux. And Apple has nothing to offer Linux. If Apple goes belly-up tomorrow it would have no effect at all on the development of the kernel, KDE, Gnome, various apps, etc.
I don't like Macs any more than I like Windows. In fact, I'd say I like the OS less because it's even more restrictive than Windows is (you have to buy very specific hardware, all approved by Apple, and most of it overly expensive). I see no justification or need for cooperation between Linux developers and Apple.
Let them make their own way. Assuming they can.
Max
So, were you born an asshole or do you have to work at it? In case simple economic theory is beyond you, volunteer effort *always adds value* regardless of what the person volunteering does with the rest of his or her day.
Think about it. If you can't grasp such a basic concept then perhaps you should do a bit of research before making a fool out of yourself. Assuming it would help.
Max
Representing those comments as "raving about Microsoft" is a deliberate misrepresentation.
.NET. My first thought was "how much did he get paid to bend over and let Billy ream him?". His comments were nicely summed up in excerpt below.
No, it isn't. Miguel's interview reads like an ad for Microsoft and
He also had praise for the new Microsoft security model, dismissed the notion that Redmond was employing embrace and extend to its web services protocols, and put the message that the community should get over its beef with The Beast.
Clearly either the man is smoking way too much crack or he's sold out.
Max
I have a karma of 50. What do I care. Reposted to make the moderators insane:
"Well, perhaps if the casual user is *you* then yes. Making proclamations for other 'casual users' is damned silly."
Max
The combination of "Microsoft" and "clustering" is where we get the word "clusterfuck"....
Max
So let's see...corporate society finally wakes up to the fact that *everyone* timeshifts and virtually no one watches commercials. Shitty TV shows are pulled off-air because there aren't enough suckers to pay to watch them now that no one makes those useless commercials anymore.
What's left? Pay TV! Y'know, like we have right now on digital cable - watch a show or six hours of shows (depending) for $2.95. Or series just like "Sex..." on HBO, produced within a budget but still popular.
Exactly how is this a bad thing? If this were to replace the 'basic cable' service my bill would drop to $3 a week, $12 a month - alot less than what it is right now. Even for the addicted, say 18 hours a week, that's still only $36 a month. (Anyone who watches more TV than this needs to be cleansed from the gene pool).
Not only would you have pay-per-view and pay-per-block, but specific pay-per-channel as well - again like HBO and Showtime. Once more, how is this bad?
Oh, and if anyone argues that this somehow 'disenfranchises' the poor, please - pull your head out of your ass before you walk off that cliff. There is no Constitutional right to entertainment, and the "Jeff Corwin" show hardly counts as 'necessary education that can't be obtained elsewhere' (although he's certainly nice to look at).
Max
How about sucking it up and moving on? The whining of college brats who can't get "Sex and the City" isn't particularly impressive as a reason for pirating.
Max