Holy shit is this ever bad. Stuff blocking other stuff. Controls that don't work. Wasted space. Did these guys even try this thing out on a few common browsers? I'm using a somewhat older version of Firefox here and the rendering of these pages is just trash. I shudder to think what this will look like when I get home and try it under Opera...
Tired of seeing software that he and others had written appropriated
(without acknowledgment or compensation) by disreputable software
companies and then told to pay for software they had written, Stallman
took action, creating the foundation
The anonymous contributor needs to get a better grip on reality.
The software in question was mostly written by programmers who were MIT
staff members and students. MIT held the copyright on the software that
they developed. MIT subsequently licensed the software to at least three
companies: Symbolics, LMI and Texas Instruments. (I don't recall if there
were any others.)
The founders of Symbolics and LMI included many of the same people who had
worked on the software as MIT staff. Stallman remained an MIT employee.
Nothing in this story makes Symbolics or LMI or Texas Instruments a
"disreputable software company". MIT has a long history of licensing
technology developed within its walls to industry, often to startups formed
by ex-MIT employees. This was no different. (At least, at the time this
was no different. I have no idea what MIT's current practice is for
software developed by its employees.)
Stallman's unhappiness with the fate of the software he had worked on
motivated him to invent the GPL. This was indeed a wonderful idea that has
done an enormous amount of good for the world. He deserves a great deal of
credit for this.
But there is no need to over dramatize the birth of the GPL by painting the
companies who licensed the Lisp Machine software as some kind of evil
villains. They weren't doing anything different from what many other
computer companies of the day were doing.
And (as many others have noted) Stallman was never the director of the MIT
AI Lab.
Indeed, this doesn't seem to have any connection to the Network Solutions problem. It looks like another DDoS attack that just happens to be taking place at the same time. There may be some devious connection between the two, but nobody seems to be making that case.
(And of course nothing is "originating from isprime" -- those source addresses are forged.)
Sure, you can sign over your copyright to the FSF, and people even have. You could also sign your copyright over to your employer or your mother. But nothing about the GPL requires you to reassign it to anyone. The original poster sounded like he might not realize that.
You might not have noticed this, but the SMTP protocol has several places where the server is allowed to refuse a message based on things like the client's IP address, the destination email address, or even the content of the message body. So no, just speaking SMTP does not mean you've "already given your permission" to anything.
...and Fleischmann is no scientist. He probably never was.
Actually, Fleischmann was definitely a real and successful scientist at
least up until 1989. He's a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was head of
the chemistry department at Southhampton University. Not someone you would
expect to turn crackpot.
But this doesn't mean that Cold Fusion isn't bunk. The point is that
even serious scientists like Fleischmann can go fringe.
The analogy you are trying to make doesn't work.
Refusing to accept your electronic mail is
not the same thing as killing you. Killing
you is immoral and illegal. Configuring my mailer to
refuse electronic mail from your ISP is neither.
I suppose the problem here is the use of the phrase
"collateral damage". It is an unfortunate military
metaphor which does tend to suggest the analogy you are
trying to draw. But it won't work.
I happen to agree that the bandwidth eaten by spam is the ultimate
problem, and that filtering doesn't really address that. But out of
fairness I thought I would mention the counter-argument made by the
proponents of filtering:
If you get enough of the large ISPs and electronic mail services to
filter all their customer's mail - enough to eliminate (say) 95% of the
spam currently getting delivered - then the spammers will only be making 5%
of the sales they are currently making. Which may be enough to drive them
out of business.
I don't believe it will work, but that's the party line I expect you'll be
hearing at the conference.
Actually, the idea isn't all that outdated. Other people periodically
re-invent it. See, for example, this
paper about the kernel API for the Fluke kernel. These guys basically
reinvented PCLSRing - motivated by much the same reasoning as the ITS
developers.
I suppose I should confess that I'm the author of that PCLSR paper.
I was one of the very first users of ITS Emacs (in 1976 I think it was). They guy who put it together and maintained it sure looked and acted like RMS, so I'm pretty sure you are wrong!
Indeed. It's driving me totally nuts. It doesn't matter if you accept or
reject them either, you still get offered a cookie with every new page. If
course if my browser had decent cookie control (e.g. I was using Lynx
instead of Netscape 4.something) this wouldn't be a problem...
Slashdot Mirror
Holy shit is this ever bad. Stuff blocking other stuff. Controls that don't work. Wasted space. Did these guys even try this thing out on a few common browsers? I'm using a somewhat older version of Firefox here and the rendering of these pages is just trash. I shudder to think what this will look like when I get home and try it under Opera...
The anonymous contributor needs to get a better grip on reality.
The software in question was mostly written by programmers who were MIT staff members and students. MIT held the copyright on the software that they developed. MIT subsequently licensed the software to at least three companies: Symbolics, LMI and Texas Instruments. (I don't recall if there were any others.)
The founders of Symbolics and LMI included many of the same people who had worked on the software as MIT staff. Stallman remained an MIT employee.
Nothing in this story makes Symbolics or LMI or Texas Instruments a "disreputable software company". MIT has a long history of licensing technology developed within its walls to industry, often to startups formed by ex-MIT employees. This was no different. (At least, at the time this was no different. I have no idea what MIT's current practice is for software developed by its employees.)
Stallman's unhappiness with the fate of the software he had worked on motivated him to invent the GPL. This was indeed a wonderful idea that has done an enormous amount of good for the world. He deserves a great deal of credit for this.
But there is no need to over dramatize the birth of the GPL by painting the companies who licensed the Lisp Machine software as some kind of evil villains. They weren't doing anything different from what many other computer companies of the day were doing.
And (as many others have noted) Stallman was never the director of the MIT AI Lab.
Indeed, this doesn't seem to have any connection to the Network Solutions problem. It looks like another DDoS attack that just happens to be taking place at the same time. There may be some devious connection between the two, but nobody seems to be making that case.
(And of course nothing is "originating from isprime" -- those source addresses are forged.)
But they didn't have to, did they?
For the record, I'm no fan of Mr. Stallman or of the GPL. But that's no reason to help spred FUD about the GPL.
Sure, you can sign over your copyright to the FSF, and people even have. You could also sign your copyright over to your employer or your mother. But nothing about the GPL requires you to reassign it to anyone. The original poster sounded like he might not realize that.
Just checking...
You might not have noticed this, but the SMTP protocol has several places where the server is allowed to refuse a message based on things like the client's IP address, the destination email address, or even the content of the message body. So no, just speaking SMTP does not mean you've "already given your permission" to anything.
Actually, Fleischmann was definitely a real and successful scientist at least up until 1989. He's a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was head of the chemistry department at Southhampton University. Not someone you would expect to turn crackpot.
But this doesn't mean that Cold Fusion isn't bunk. The point is that even serious scientists like Fleischmann can go fringe.
Groves's own book, "Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project" is also well worth reading.
The analogy you are trying to make doesn't work. Refusing to accept your electronic mail is not the same thing as killing you. Killing you is immoral and illegal. Configuring my mailer to refuse electronic mail from your ISP is neither.
I suppose the problem here is the use of the phrase "collateral damage". It is an unfortunate military metaphor which does tend to suggest the analogy you are trying to draw. But it won't work.
I happen to agree that the bandwidth eaten by spam is the ultimate problem, and that filtering doesn't really address that. But out of fairness I thought I would mention the counter-argument made by the proponents of filtering:
If you get enough of the large ISPs and electronic mail services to filter all their customer's mail - enough to eliminate (say) 95% of the spam currently getting delivered - then the spammers will only be making 5% of the sales they are currently making. Which may be enough to drive them out of business.
I don't believe it will work, but that's the party line I expect you'll be hearing at the conference.
I suppose I should confess that I'm the author of that PCLSR paper.
I was one of the very first users of ITS Emacs (in 1976 I think it was). They guy who put it together and maintained it sure looked and acted like RMS, so I'm pretty sure you are wrong!
Indeed. It's driving me totally nuts. It doesn't matter if you accept or reject them either, you still get offered a cookie with every new page. If course if my browser had decent cookie control (e.g. I was using Lynx instead of Netscape 4.something) this wouldn't be a problem...