"I thought you referred to socialism in the sense of redistributing income among people and supplying health care, education, food and shelter for those that cannot finance it themselves."
Yes, again if you were to read my note I did mention just such things as well as the
general abuse of "limited liability" which the state weilds.
You weren't wrong, you just didn't read my message.
Yes. There is no doubt, if you look at the rules which have been made to control how people live their lives.
More than 50% of your income goes to taxes. Income taxes from state, federal and even local governments, sales taxes, property taxes, use taxes, school taxes, consumption taxes, Social Security taxes, and the list goes on.
If you add the costs of regulation to doing business such as licensing, taxing, administrating regulations compliance, etc, the real load on your "income" is more like 75%+.
There are lots of things you are not allowed to own. This has nothing to do with hurting other people, mere posession is punishable by fine and imprisonment.
You may not engage in any trade you wish without permission. You may not buy or sell legal property without permission.
You may not travel without permission. You may not be annonymous. You can be killed by "mistake" and as long as the killers have badges, they are not punished.
If you bother to examine the platform of the 1936 Socialist Party of America, you will find that nearly all of the items on their wish list have been implemented.
Which leaves me to ask, by what criteria do you define "socialst" that the United States does NOT satisfy?
Could it be that merely by holding elections you believe it's not "socialist"? That's what the government mandated educational system tells the children.
What they forgot to mention is that even in the "socialist" countries like the USSR and China, their popularly elected deligates lost re-election at a rate far higher than the less than 10% rate for elected deligates in the United States.
I agree with you, people "should" take care of each other.
That is why most religions state, often repeatedly, to help your neighbor when they're down.
Will you imprison one person for not giving a third person as much money as YOU believe is fair? Will YOU kill them if they continue to refuse, or try to defend themselves from you?
Never forget that ALL political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Once you make a law, be prepared to "enforce" it.
In order to download, something must already be running on the machine.
Like it or not, the machines will have to have something pre-installed.
The only question is who chooses what it is the user sees the first time they power up. The user? The government? The hardware distributer?
At the very least, this is going to be interesting no matter what's chosen.
I can imagine the Belgium Linux Users Groups putting together bootable CDs designed to support the Government Hardware Standard, then giving them away free saying something like "Don't Boot Without It!!!"
Of course, my personal preference for giving away millions of MacII-ci's running System 7.1 would piss off everyone.
Ah, so they are openly socialist. Good, thanks for the correction.
On the other hand, I'm sorry you had to insult me by calling me "right wing".
Lastly, it's easy to "fill in the cracks" here: Charity. Promote giving old hardware to Users Groups for free, let the Users Groups revamp the machines as they see fit, and give them away to people who don't have computers.
No lock-in, no monopoly OS, choice, and even the ability to say "no".
It may be unpopular to say it: There are people who don't want a computer. There are people who don't want a TV. Or a car, or a house, or a Linux driven wristwatch.
I happen to believe it is morally wrong to force those people to pay for other peoples stuff in the name of "equality" too.
I'm not "right wing", or "left wing" or anything else. I do not advocate force for any issue. Period.
I agree, IF your criteria is to buy support from one place.
This is exactly what I expect a government agent to do. I don't agree with it, I don't think it's required or even important, but then I wouldn't initiate a project like this in the first place.
If you told me to pick one OS, to foist on several tens of millions of unsuspecting non-technical people, I sure would not pick Linux alone.
Even I didn't pick Linux alone! I chose it for many reasons for myself.
You want my opinion on specific OS? MacSystem7.1. Yes, that's right, 7.1, not X, not 10. Not Win nor Lin either.
Yes, at this instant in time WinXP would minimize the initial installation support costs for a project like this. And the politicians may even go for it "monopoly" or not. But I believe the operative issue is "A project like this" where one-size-fits-all is the theory.
I much prefer cooperative efforts by interested people. That means the various users groups in Belgium organize themselves and offer support for their various preferences.
If the Belgian government were interested in real computer litteracy, it could simply give the UG's support, and let the chips fall where they may.
Belgium is one of those openly socialist countries, like the United States, that doesn't use the word "socialist" because of the generally bad reputation that the word brings.
Instead, they use words like "equality" with the meaning of "equal outcome" rather than just "equal under the law." Their tax rates are very high, and as long as people go along with what the government programs provide, people are "happy" the same way that worker ants are "happy".
Problems occur in such a situation if you introduce too much choice. This leads to un-equal outcomes, resentment or resistance to one-size-fits-all government programs, and increasing unease since someone always feels "left out" because their outcome wasn't as good, in their opinion, as someone elses.
I really hope this program does not come to pass. 25 years ago, France decided to do this same thing, with their Mintel program. Its 300 baud command line time sharing system was advanced, at the time, but France was left in the toilet as the rest of the world developed graphical applications and interfaces, distributed information sources and efficient IP networks.
However, the only cost to government is the rare risk that a politician might not get re-elected. There is no other "cost", since they spend other peoples money. For that reason, the politicians of today may very well repeat the Mintel disaster simply because it looks good in time for the next election. Everything else is secondary.
I'm curious, what "resources to supply"? Blank CD's?
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm as much against foisting Linux/BSD/Win/Mac off on anyone as I am for Mac/Win/BSD/Linux. Either way, someone loses.
The problem with this is that government is force. They cannot make everyone happy, and by trying they aren't going to make anyone happy. The biggest decision they're going to make is to standardize the application space, and that very likely means Microsoft Word just because of the theory that "everyone uses it."
Let us not forget that in TV's early years, even the high and mighty bastions of Ethical News were not immune to the power of the Almighty Buck.
I refer, in part, to the ash tray with the lit Winston cigarette eternally burning on the front left of Walter Cronkite's desk during his readings of the evening news.
...to see their book,
The Space Merchants coming to life in such interesting ways.
I enjoy "Art in Advertizing". I like commercials that catch my interest, that teach me something, or that are just plain funny.
"Advertizing in Art", is the logical and emotional opposite. Just like Yahoo hiding ads in "news", to subvert the emotional "idea space" that art occupies merely for the purpose of advertizing only makes me angry.
Much like the gun control organizations and mass media news who report each others "editorials" as if they're headlines, building the scam on a foundation of misrepresented opinion.
I still use the term "MokeCoke", decades after reading The Space Merchants. "Oh, don't worry, it's just a harmless alcoloid, and you could break yourself from the habit if you REALLY wanted to..."
RFC1918 addresses will show up any time your ISP uses it.
RFC1918 source/destination packets are dropped at the *edge* routers, not "every" router. By edge I mean AS-Number borders, my experience is that anyone with the technical know-how and need for their own AS-number also usually knows to filter those packets to and from their BGP peers and default providers.
Yes, to and from. For laughs I used to put logging on the border routers, to catch packets to/from RFC1918 addresses, as well as BGP advertizements of RFC1918 address blocks. It was amazing the otherwise reputable ISP's and major companies who forgot to filter those things out! Lets just say that it was one reason for my buying my first AMD chip!
I've been doing this WAN/LAN thing since 1982. Ever IP shop save one that I have worked in has used RFP1918 addresses.
I cannot think of a situation, even a single end-point PC, that would not benefit from intellegent and thoughtful use of RFC1918, and even that single PC, if it offers no externally accesses services, has no need for a globally routed IP address of its own.
For all its faults, AOLs use of externally invisible addresses has meant 33 million surfing consumers without wasting routable IP addresses. The masses are (comparitively) secure from DOS and crack attacks, and the technically astute ones can still get little patches that let IP native software on their AOL attached machine work fine.
Even the Mom&Pop dial-up ISP customer, or DSL or Cable subscribers can benefit by only paying for globally routable addresses if/when they want to offer services, or the service provider can simply not offer such routable addresses. The vast majority of home users won't notice the difference.
And anyone with an internal point to point circuit can use RFC1918, anyone who uses a "real" router to link to their ISP (that includes *nix running IPMasquerade) benefits by putting their internal office on RFC1918 address except those few machines that are offering services to the outside world. And if their business depends on it, why are they putting the server in their office anyway? That's what professional datacenters are for.
Of course it can cause problems if done randomly or without consideration that yes indeed this same "10.0.0.1" is used by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of other 'Nets around the world.
However, the benefits of implementing RFC1918 far outweigh the potential problems. At the absolute worst, two sites might have to use masquerade between them to hide the fact that years before they knew they would be working together, they both used 10.0.0.1. That's it, that is the one "danger", and it's little more than another option on the (hopefully used, like a condom) firewall that is also installed between the two offices.
Re-reading, this is in fact a "big picture" spewing on my part. I really wish the "doom and gloom" nay-sayers on both sides, the "We're Running Out Of Addresses" and "RFC1918 Use Is Dangerous" would take cold showers and relax.
Extensive use of RFC1918 is saving lots of money in those places like Asia where routable addresses cost a bundle, and putting off IPv6. Renumbering at some point is the greatest "danger" that any use of RFC1918 can cause, and not using it will require renumbering any time someone changes ISP's anyway. Such is not the case if you're already using unrouted addresses. Something to think about, with the merger/failure cycle in ISP's, ne?
So my advice, do RFC1918 where ever you can!
And for the "I'm Sid, so there" urge, the CCIE "certification" didn't exist yet at the time when I took all the Cisco classes. So There!
Since Linux already whups Windows in so many other ways, I am looking forward to it beating Win's SMP integration and scaling. Yes, I know it's likely just FUD, but my memory of the last time I read a scaling test was that Win did CPU.gt.2 better.
Clustering and SMP are different answers to different questions, but they both lead to multiplying your firepower without multiplying your cost. Add that to the issue of purchase cost for Win and Lin, and the differences become even more severe. Every effective Linux improvement multiplies Linux effectiveness overall.
As an individual user, I have little use for SMP. Games run just fine on one CPU. So for now, I'm just a fan. We shall see what happens.
BTW, is it just me, or is the fact that these two developers, with different ideas of "right", are working together to make something even better, lighting up other peoples days too?
The game was not a commercial success. Your alternative? Hmm???
Really, I'm interested Petree. You don't like to see something of quality go away just because the authors don't want to support it any more. Do you have an alternative to offer, or are you just complaining?
Have you offered to take over the operation of the game due to your support of it?
Have you communicated to EA urging them to open the source now that they're abandoning the game, and you take over as maintainer?
Do you have some alternative to "capitalism", or anything what so ever to offer in a positive direction to change the situation to something you would prefer?
And last, do you actually know what
"capitalism" is?
There is no need for a new "law" for this, there is already ample (and supplied in this forum) legal precident for charging the spammer for your time. Theft is theft, before there was a "spam" law it was no less illegal. How unfortunate that people have been taught to think "what isn't prohibitted is manditory".
It is already a Federal law that if you notify a commercial caller, when they call, to "add me to your no-call list", if they call you again it's $1500 fine. Unsolicited fax ads are also covered. I cannot think two more apropriate and obvious analogies to email. Both demand your time and your resources to "receive" the spam.
Sure, the receiver must do the prosecuting, and it's darned hard to sue everyone who trespasses, but only when spammers start to loose in court, just like crackers, will they back off.
In order to work, a spam has to have a workable method for you to get back in touch with them. Web page, email, smail, telephone number. All of these are evidence to be used against them.
No, I haven't yet. But when I see an 800-number, I cost them a pretty penny for their having sent me that spam.
This last weekend, I received spam with the following:
"You are receiving this because you joined our opt-in list. However, we have become aware that some people have been placed on our list in error. If that is true, please click on our 'Remove' link below."
Which, of course, confirms to them that the email address you want removed WORKS, that the person who receives the email reads it, and while you may very well never receive that particular spam email again, you have now been added to a much more valuable list for sale (or use?) for other offers.
Spammers are a lose-lose event. Not only am I charged for downloading and my time wasted deleting, any effort I make to get off their list is futile at best.
In order for a spam to work, in order for them to receive money or sell their product, they MUST have some valid contact information in the message. Use It! Make anyone who puts a true address or telephone number rue the day they decided to send that email. I actually look forward to 800-numbers now.
On a related note, filtering software is getting easier and easier to install. "ADV:" = delete.
One point: If someone whos business depends on closed source software were to GPL their earlier and no-longer-supported program, they endanger their own re-use of that code in their new software.
So if Microsoft released Win95 under GPL merely because it's no longer supported, any code they re-used from Win95 may very well also then fall under the GPL. Looking at Win2K and XP, not to mention 98, that could be a lot of code.
I've read the GPL, and that seems obvious to me. Does anyone else see an "out" for works derived prior to the application of the GPL on a specific code?
Personally, I'd prefer just releasing it as Public Domain, exactly like would happen if the patent/copyright were to expire.
Slashdot Mirror
"I thought you referred to socialism in the sense of redistributing income among people and supplying health care, education, food and shelter for those that cannot finance it themselves."
Yes, again if you were to read my note I did mention just such things as well as the
general abuse of "limited liability" which the state weilds.
You weren't wrong, you just didn't read my message.
Bob-
Yes. There is no doubt, if you look at the rules which have been made to control how people live their lives.
More than 50% of your income goes to taxes. Income taxes from state, federal and even local governments, sales taxes, property taxes, use taxes, school taxes, consumption taxes, Social Security taxes, and the list goes on.
If you add the costs of regulation to doing business such as licensing, taxing, administrating regulations compliance, etc, the real load on your "income" is more like 75%+.
There are lots of things you are not allowed to own. This has nothing to do with hurting other people, mere posession is punishable by fine and imprisonment.
You may not engage in any trade you wish without permission. You may not buy or sell legal property without permission.
You may not travel without permission. You may not be annonymous. You can be killed by "mistake" and as long as the killers have badges, they are not punished.
If you bother to examine the platform of the 1936 Socialist Party of America, you will find that nearly all of the items on their wish list have been implemented.
Which leaves me to ask, by what criteria do you define "socialst" that the United States does NOT satisfy?
Could it be that merely by holding elections you believe it's not "socialist"? That's what the government mandated educational system tells the children.
What they forgot to mention is that even in the "socialist" countries like the USSR and China, their popularly elected deligates lost re-election at a rate far higher than the less than 10% rate for elected deligates in the United States.
Bob-
Ivop,
I agree with you, people "should" take care of each other.
That is why most religions state, often repeatedly, to help your neighbor when they're down.
Will you imprison one person for not giving a third person as much money as YOU believe is fair? Will YOU kill them if they continue to refuse, or try to defend themselves from you?
Never forget that ALL political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Once you make a law, be prepared to "enforce" it.
"Forced" charity is not charity.
Bob-
In order to download, something must already be running on the machine.
Like it or not, the machines will have to have something pre-installed.
The only question is who chooses what it is the user sees the first time they power up. The user? The government? The hardware distributer?
At the very least, this is going to be interesting no matter what's chosen.
I can imagine the Belgium Linux Users Groups putting together bootable CDs designed to support the Government Hardware Standard, then giving them away free saying something like "Don't Boot Without It!!!"
Of course, my personal preference for giving away millions of MacII-ci's running System 7.1 would piss off everyone.
Bob-
I'm certain that the SuSE and Debian developers in Belgium would love to take the job!
Bob-
Ah, so they are openly socialist. Good, thanks for the correction.
On the other hand, I'm sorry you had to insult me by calling me "right wing".
Lastly, it's easy to "fill in the cracks" here: Charity. Promote giving old hardware to Users Groups for free, let the Users Groups revamp the machines as they see fit, and give them away to people who don't have computers.
No lock-in, no monopoly OS, choice, and even the ability to say "no".
It may be unpopular to say it: There are people who don't want a computer. There are people who don't want a TV. Or a car, or a house, or a Linux driven wristwatch.
I happen to believe it is morally wrong to force those people to pay for other peoples stuff in the name of "equality" too.
I'm not "right wing", or "left wing" or anything else. I do not advocate force for any issue. Period.
Bob-
I agree, IF your criteria is to buy support from one place.
This is exactly what I expect a government agent to do. I don't agree with it, I don't think it's required or even important, but then I wouldn't initiate a project like this in the first place.
Bob-
If you told me to pick one OS, to foist on several tens of millions of unsuspecting non-technical people, I sure would not pick Linux alone.
Even I didn't pick Linux alone! I chose it for many reasons for myself.
You want my opinion on specific OS? MacSystem7.1. Yes, that's right, 7.1, not X, not 10. Not Win nor Lin either.
Yes, at this instant in time WinXP would minimize the initial installation support costs for a project like this. And the politicians may even go for it "monopoly" or not. But I believe the operative issue is "A project like this" where one-size-fits-all is the theory.
I much prefer cooperative efforts by interested people. That means the various users groups in Belgium organize themselves and offer support for their various preferences.
If the Belgian government were interested in real computer litteracy, it could simply give the UG's support, and let the chips fall where they may.
Bob-
Belgium is one of those openly socialist countries, like the United States, that doesn't use the word "socialist" because of the generally bad reputation that the word brings.
Instead, they use words like "equality" with the meaning of "equal outcome" rather than just "equal under the law." Their tax rates are very high, and as long as people go along with what the government programs provide, people are "happy" the same way that worker ants are "happy".
Problems occur in such a situation if you introduce too much choice. This leads to un-equal outcomes, resentment or resistance to one-size-fits-all government programs, and increasing unease since someone always feels "left out" because their outcome wasn't as good, in their opinion, as someone elses.
I really hope this program does not come to pass. 25 years ago, France decided to do this same thing, with their Mintel program. Its 300 baud command line time sharing system was advanced, at the time, but France was left in the toilet as the rest of the world developed graphical applications and interfaces, distributed information sources and efficient IP networks.
However, the only cost to government is the rare risk that a politician might not get re-elected. There is no other "cost", since they spend other peoples money. For that reason, the politicians of today may very well repeat the Mintel disaster simply because it looks good in time for the next election. Everything else is secondary.
Bob-
I'm curious, what "resources to supply"? Blank CD's?
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm as much against foisting Linux/BSD/Win/Mac off on anyone as I am for Mac/Win/BSD/Linux. Either way, someone loses.
The problem with this is that government is force. They cannot make everyone happy, and by trying they aren't going to make anyone happy. The biggest decision they're going to make is to standardize the application space, and that very likely means Microsoft Word just because of the theory that "everyone uses it."
Bob-
I don't see any reason why people cannot choose their own OS. Oh, right, this is a government project. Forgive my initial ignorance.
Or at least, this is a government project. It should be open bidding. Lets see Microsoft under-bid "free".
Bob-
Let us not forget that in TV's early years, even the high and mighty bastions of Ethical News were not immune to the power of the Almighty Buck.
I refer, in part, to the ash tray with the lit Winston cigarette eternally burning on the front left of Walter Cronkite's desk during his readings of the evening news.
Bob-
...to see their book,
The Space Merchants coming to life in such interesting ways.
I enjoy "Art in Advertizing". I like commercials that catch my interest, that teach me something, or that are just plain funny.
"Advertizing in Art", is the logical and emotional opposite. Just like Yahoo hiding ads in "news", to subvert the emotional "idea space" that art occupies merely for the purpose of advertizing only makes me angry.
Much like the gun control organizations and mass media news who report each others "editorials" as if they're headlines, building the scam on a foundation of misrepresented opinion.
I still use the term "MokeCoke", decades after reading The Space Merchants. "Oh, don't worry, it's just a harmless alcoloid, and you could break yourself from the habit if you REALLY wanted to..."
Bob-
Directing people to a usable resource is in no way flamebait. Bad moderator! No cookie!
RFC1918 addresses will show up any time your ISP uses it.
RFC1918 source/destination packets are dropped at the *edge* routers, not "every" router. By edge I mean AS-Number borders, my experience is that anyone with the technical know-how and need for their own AS-number also usually knows to filter those packets to and from their BGP peers and default providers.
Yes, to and from. For laughs I used to put logging on the border routers, to catch packets to/from RFC1918 addresses, as well as BGP advertizements of RFC1918 address blocks. It was amazing the otherwise reputable ISP's and major companies who forgot to filter those things out! Lets just say that it was one reason for my buying my first AMD chip!
Bob-
I've been doing this WAN/LAN thing since 1982. Ever IP shop save one that I have worked in has used RFP1918 addresses.
I cannot think of a situation, even a single end-point PC, that would not benefit from intellegent and thoughtful use of RFC1918, and even that single PC, if it offers no externally accesses services, has no need for a globally routed IP address of its own.
For all its faults, AOLs use of externally invisible addresses has meant 33 million surfing consumers without wasting routable IP addresses. The masses are (comparitively) secure from DOS and crack attacks, and the technically astute ones can still get little patches that let IP native software on their AOL attached machine work fine.
Even the Mom&Pop dial-up ISP customer, or DSL or Cable subscribers can benefit by only paying for globally routable addresses if/when they want to offer services, or the service provider can simply not offer such routable addresses. The vast majority of home users won't notice the difference.
And anyone with an internal point to point circuit can use RFC1918, anyone who uses a "real" router to link to their ISP (that includes *nix running IPMasquerade) benefits by putting their internal office on RFC1918 address except those few machines that are offering services to the outside world. And if their business depends on it, why are they putting the server in their office anyway? That's what professional datacenters are for.
Of course it can cause problems if done randomly or without consideration that yes indeed this same "10.0.0.1" is used by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of other 'Nets around the world.
However, the benefits of implementing RFC1918 far outweigh the potential problems. At the absolute worst, two sites might have to use masquerade between them to hide the fact that years before they knew they would be working together, they both used 10.0.0.1. That's it, that is the one "danger", and it's little more than another option on the (hopefully used, like a condom) firewall that is also installed between the two offices.
Re-reading, this is in fact a "big picture" spewing on my part. I really wish the "doom and gloom" nay-sayers on both sides, the "We're Running Out Of Addresses" and "RFC1918 Use Is Dangerous" would take cold showers and relax.
Extensive use of RFC1918 is saving lots of money in those places like Asia where routable addresses cost a bundle, and putting off IPv6. Renumbering at some point is the greatest "danger" that any use of RFC1918 can cause, and not using it will require renumbering any time someone changes ISP's anyway. Such is not the case if you're already using unrouted addresses. Something to think about, with the merger/failure cycle in ISP's, ne?
So my advice, do RFC1918 where ever you can!
And for the "I'm Sid, so there" urge, the CCIE "certification" didn't exist yet at the time when I took all the Cisco classes. So There!
Bob-
Since Linux already whups Windows in so many other ways, I am looking forward to it beating Win's SMP integration and scaling. Yes, I know it's likely just FUD, but my memory of the last time I read a scaling test was that Win did CPU.gt.2 better.
Clustering and SMP are different answers to different questions, but they both lead to multiplying your firepower without multiplying your cost. Add that to the issue of purchase cost for Win and Lin, and the differences become even more severe. Every effective Linux improvement multiplies Linux effectiveness overall.
As an individual user, I have little use for SMP. Games run just fine on one CPU. So for now, I'm just a fan. We shall see what happens.
BTW, is it just me, or is the fact that these two developers, with different ideas of "right", are working together to make something even better, lighting up other peoples days too?
Bob-
I wish SPI would get a PayPal account so I could make these "warm fuzzy" donations on the spur of the moment.
Bob-
The game was not a commercial success. Your alternative? Hmm???
Really, I'm interested Petree. You don't like to see something of quality go away just because the authors don't want to support it any more. Do you have an alternative to offer, or are you just complaining?
Have you offered to take over the operation of the game due to your support of it?
Have you communicated to EA urging them to open the source now that they're abandoning the game, and you take over as maintainer?
Do you have some alternative to "capitalism", or anything what so ever to offer in a positive direction to change the situation to something you would prefer?
And last, do you actually know what
"capitalism" is?
Bob-
There is no need for a new "law" for this, there is already ample (and supplied in this forum) legal precident for charging the spammer for your time. Theft is theft, before there was a "spam" law it was no less illegal. How unfortunate that people have been taught to think "what isn't prohibitted is manditory".
It is already a Federal law that if you notify a commercial caller, when they call, to "add me to your no-call list", if they call you again it's $1500 fine. Unsolicited fax ads are also covered. I cannot think two more apropriate and obvious analogies to email. Both demand your time and your resources to "receive" the spam.
Sure, the receiver must do the prosecuting, and it's darned hard to sue everyone who trespasses, but only when spammers start to loose in court, just like crackers, will they back off.
In order to work, a spam has to have a workable method for you to get back in touch with them. Web page, email, smail, telephone number. All of these are evidence to be used against them.
No, I haven't yet. But when I see an 800-number, I cost them a pretty penny for their having sent me that spam.
Bob-
This last weekend, I received spam with the following:
"You are receiving this because you joined our opt-in list. However, we have become aware that some people have been placed on our list in error. If that is true, please click on our 'Remove' link below."
Which, of course, confirms to them that the email address you want removed WORKS, that the person who receives the email reads it, and while you may very well never receive that particular spam email again, you have now been added to a much more valuable list for sale (or use?) for other offers.
Spammers are a lose-lose event. Not only am I charged for downloading and my time wasted deleting, any effort I make to get off their list is futile at best.
In order for a spam to work, in order for them to receive money or sell their product, they MUST have some valid contact information in the message. Use It! Make anyone who puts a true address or telephone number rue the day they decided to send that email. I actually look forward to 800-numbers now.
On a related note, filtering software is getting easier and easier to install. "ADV:" = delete.
Bob-
Hey! Look! A confirmed email address!
Take this one off our list, Jimmy, and put it on our "Get 50,000 CONFIRMED email addresses for $24.95 list!
Bob-
Excellent, that is exactly the twist of logic I was looking for.
Contrary to many pundants, I enjoy being shown how my speculation is wrong. I didn't like the concept, and I am thrilled that it's a false conclusion.
So there truly is no reason not to GPL old and unsupported software.
Bob-
Actually, I have said the same thing several times. Just not as well.
Bravo, JMS. Bravicimo! Omedito! Salud!
Bob-
One point: If someone whos business depends on closed source software were to GPL their earlier and no-longer-supported program, they endanger their own re-use of that code in their new software.
So if Microsoft released Win95 under GPL merely because it's no longer supported, any code they re-used from Win95 may very well also then fall under the GPL. Looking at Win2K and XP, not to mention 98, that could be a lot of code.
I've read the GPL, and that seems obvious to me. Does anyone else see an "out" for works derived prior to the application of the GPL on a specific code?
Personally, I'd prefer just releasing it as Public Domain, exactly like would happen if the patent/copyright were to expire.
Bob-