Sonny Bono was a musician. He died some time ago. I fail to see how extending the term of copyright for another three centuries would incentivise him to produce any more music. This is why copyright of a reasonable duration is a reasonable idea, but copyright extensions until effectively forever are a very bad idea.
So you're arguing that the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA don't apply to Google? I expect that there is a case for that, given that not benefitting financially is one of the requirements (and if they're not benefitting financially, I'd like to see the due diligence reports that justified spending that amount of money to buy YouTube). On the other hand, it doesn't seem cut and dried to me as a non-US non-lawyer, given that the stated intent of those provisions was to protect service providers who aren't directly ripping stuff themselves from becoming liable because of the actions of their users.
[Copyright law] is supposed to stir innovation, but it is now stifles innovation in the name of profit.
I'm sorry, you've lost me. How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?
How many _true_ geeks are going to be for any of those bills?
Fair point. On the other hand, how representative of the best interests of the general population are true geeks? To be sure, there's a lot of overlap, but often with legal or regulatory frameworks, what's reasonable and in the interests of the well-informed and able specialists may be unreasonable or have an overall negative effect on the population as a whole. Surely legislators must take this into account when deciding what laws to pass, and any appropriate exemptions to include?
Except, of course, that even when you've wiped out 99.99% of your opposition in a swift and bloody coup, the odd ones that got away can still come up with a better option and bring down your whole empire if you upset enough of the people.
Yep, I think you're right. The Gowers Review is the official government review, which is due to report to various Secretaries of State shortly. (I was asked for permission to publish my submission on their web site around a month ago now, so they're obviously in the process of preparing the material they've produced for publication.)
The British Library tried a similar stunt a few weeks ago, basically publishing their own "manifesto" document to preempt Gowers. How much effect these things will have, given that they presumably submitted a formal response to the review's call for evidence anyway, is a moot point.
I don't doubt that they are understaffed and overworked but the simple fact is that there are plenty of cases for abuse of personal information where they simply don't care. They essentially said recently that they will just go after the big guys/cases and the little ones will be left by the wayside due to the staffig problems.
What would you do in their position? Not going after cases affecting a few people because you only have the resources to pursue cases affecting many people is probably the least of evils, and it's very different to not caring about the cases you can't follow up.
They do need to get more staff if they're to fulfil their mandate, it's true, but it's not like Thomas can just say "OK, I'm increasing the size of this department by 200%" on his own authority.
As you say, the other obvious alternative is to allow the public to initiate direct legal action against those breaching the data protection or freedom of information legislation. I'm not sure I agree with going down the regulatory route instead -- any law where a breaker cannot be taken directly to court by a damaged party has questionable value -- but on the other hand, I can see some sensible reasons for it as well. For example, while organisations should be required to meet reasonable data protection obligations, they're also entitled IMHO not to suffer a "DoS attack by court", where an aggrieved party can file repeated claims against them at relatively little cost, just to keep their resources tied up.
I call bullshit. Blair has got through some pretty creepy things -- look at the Civil Contingencies Act, for example -- but nothing that far-fetched. The closest he's come so far was the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, and the really bad stuff in there was dropped very quietly one fast news day a few weeks after it started getting noticed.
And even if some of the armed forces did follow orders, at least at first, there would likely be a lot of dissent in the ranks, they'd be vastly outnumbered, they'd have no advantage in terms of stealth/surprise, and they wouldn't be able to use military-style heavy weaponry without inflicting wounds on themselves. And if you think they're untrained, you should go watch the keen ones practice at the range, and compare their skills with small arms to those of the average military foot soldier.
So yeah, in reply to the original question, I'd say your "bunch of civilians" would stand a pretty good chance. In any case, if things really got that bad, I'd bet on the administration being forced from office within days, if not hours, and certainly well before either side of an armed conflict got "serious".
I suspect you're being a little harsh on Richard Thomas and his team. If you look at the position statements on the ICO's web site, they're generally very reasonable, and the office does take action against organisations that don't respect data protection and freedom of information rules. However, he has stated that to do the job properly, he would need 3x the team he's been given, and unlike most government empire-builders, I'm actually prepared to give him credit for being realistic there.
The irony, of course, is that if all those IT types actually understood the reasoning behind and implications of Sarbanes-Oxley, they'd be able to comply without reducing their productivity to that of a newbie intern.:-)
Enormous, faceless corporations which are having no trouble turning a profit did.
Sure, and that profit is what builds up your pension fund and pays the salary of the kid across the street, just like any other big corporation. Where do you think the money they make goes, into some black hole that has no benefit to society? Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, not all corporatations are crooked organisations that divert 98% of their profits to the board, and not all investors are multibillionaires.
Are you surprised? They've been doing this with people's Usenet posts (Google Groups) and web sites (Google Cache) for years, and they're planning to do it with books as well.
Stallman labors mightily to control how others think, speak and act, arguing, in Orwellian doublespeak, that his rules are necessary for people to be "free."
That one, at least, is hard to challenge credibly. As H. L. Mencken once remarked, "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." I don't see why Stallman is different to anyone else in this regard.
Well, I can see "useful", but job boards pretty much define what languages are "in demand". After all, isn't that where the demands are made?
Well, they are where some vague statements of things that might be in demand are made.:-)
Seriously, though, I've never found job boards to be particularly representative of my experiences from either side of the recruitment process. Again, a lot of the more useful tools are "smaller market" things where the people with the skills and the people who need them meet by other means (networking being the obvious one, but also via technical discussion forums on-line, for example). Also, a lot of the job board ads are written by HR weenies with no clue about what the long words mean: take a look six months after any trendy new technology goes mainstream, and look at the number of ads for people with 5+ years' experience using that tech. Those aren't real demands, and there are no real vacancies that require 5+ years' experience in a technology that's only a year old, but that's what the boards will often tell you.
In other words, if the boards were realistic and everyone used then, then yes, they'd be a fair indicator of what's in demand. In reality, I don't think either of those things is true to a useful approximation, and the boards lack credibility accordingly.
I see why you would want a fast language and a language that lets you write things concisely, but why not a language that has both features? OCaml, for example.
Because there is such a thing as the right tool for the job, and often it's best to go with a specialised tool that does one thing very well, rather than a hybrid that does most things OK. To use your own example, OCaml can certainly be fast and obviously it supports a functional programming style, but how often do you see an example where it's doing both at the same time? (This isn't a dig at OCaml; I'm just saying that from a personal development perspective, hybrid approaches aren't necessarily the best way to learn.)
Of course, there is also the practical aspect: what languages are actually being used in the workplace? That one is easy: just look at the job ads, and learn the languages they ask for if you feel the need.
I'm not sure that's really the way to go. Job boards are a notoriously inaccurate way of gauging which programming languages are actually useful or in demand, not least because people using good languages to solve interesting problems tend not to change jobs very much. If you want a job, sure, read the boards and get some experience with the top couple of languages listed. If you want an interesting job, you might want to look a little deeper. After all, you're going to take at most one of the positions advertised, so any skill that has at least one job advertised that requires it might be the right thing for you.
I'm curious about this, partly for the specifics and partly because I'm aware from other areas I know well that geeks picking up a new tool on their own can sometimes get the wrong idea.
I've recently been developing a few databases for a local non-profit I work with, just things like simple financial record-keeping and the like, and hooking these into the organisation's web site. I've been using MySQL, as much because it was what was installed on our host's system as anything else. However, as far as I've seen so far, it works perfectly well for the sorts of fairly routine SQL query I need, and its tools and configuration also seem flexible enough for anything I need.
So, what sorts of bad habit am I likely to be picking up? I know the MySQL manual mentions a few "non-standard" features, but I don't think I've had cause to use them yet. Is this just one of those things where you don't notice the differences on small-scale projects?
Expecting never to make a mistake in this process in a big multinational is naive.
Conclusion: walk softly, but carry a big stick. Or, in these terms, respect your employees' privacy wherever possible and don't unduly restrict them, but also make damn sure you can lock down your entire system against anyone or look up any data you might legally be required to provide if you have to.
Both Fox News and the BBC often trumpet their supposed impartiality, while their respective left and right wing biases appear obvious to all those who don't blindly dance along to the same tune.
That's fascinating, when someone else just replied to my earlier post, citing an article in which BBC people claim to be left-leaning liberals.:-)
So I heard, and it kept me from installing it for a good few weeks until I was reasonably confident I knew what the potential dangers were. In practice, when I did install it, it caused me absolutely no problems at all.
There were a handful of major applications that did have problem reports linked to SP2 for a while. However, the developers were generally quick to fix these, and I haven't heard of an SP2-related problem report for any legitimate software other than system tools for a very long time now.
I'm not sure I agree with your view of the BBC. Yes, it's funded in part through a form of taxation, but it's hardly a spokesobject for the administration. On the contrary, it's often the government's biggest critic among popular media, and it has a good reputation for accuracy and impartiality, even when reporting on itself. It seems closer to the case in Finland than you're giving it credit for.
Slashdot Mirror
Sonny Bono was a musician. He died some time ago. I fail to see how extending the term of copyright for another three centuries would incentivise him to produce any more music. This is why copyright of a reasonable duration is a reasonable idea, but copyright extensions until effectively forever are a very bad idea.
So you're arguing that the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA don't apply to Google? I expect that there is a case for that, given that not benefitting financially is one of the requirements (and if they're not benefitting financially, I'd like to see the due diligence reports that justified spending that amount of money to buy YouTube). On the other hand, it doesn't seem cut and dried to me as a non-US non-lawyer, given that the stated intent of those provisions was to protect service providers who aren't directly ripping stuff themselves from becoming liable because of the actions of their users.
I'm sorry, you've lost me. How do a load of people who can't be bothered to pay the asking price for the material like everyone else innovate in any way?
Blockquoth the AC:
Fair point. On the other hand, how representative of the best interests of the general population are true geeks? To be sure, there's a lot of overlap, but often with legal or regulatory frameworks, what's reasonable and in the interests of the well-informed and able specialists may be unreasonable or have an overall negative effect on the population as a whole. Surely legislators must take this into account when deciding what laws to pass, and any appropriate exemptions to include?
Except, of course, that even when you've wiped out 99.99% of your opposition in a swift and bloody coup, the odd ones that got away can still come up with a better option and bring down your whole empire if you upset enough of the people.
Man, we're stretching now, aren't we? :-)
There are a finite number of atoms making up the planet earth, too...
Yep, I think you're right. The Gowers Review is the official government review, which is due to report to various Secretaries of State shortly. (I was asked for permission to publish my submission on their web site around a month ago now, so they're obviously in the process of preparing the material they've produced for publication.)
The British Library tried a similar stunt a few weeks ago, basically publishing their own "manifesto" document to preempt Gowers. How much effect these things will have, given that they presumably submitted a formal response to the review's call for evidence anyway, is a moot point.
What would you do in their position? Not going after cases affecting a few people because you only have the resources to pursue cases affecting many people is probably the least of evils, and it's very different to not caring about the cases you can't follow up.
They do need to get more staff if they're to fulfil their mandate, it's true, but it's not like Thomas can just say "OK, I'm increasing the size of this department by 200%" on his own authority.
As you say, the other obvious alternative is to allow the public to initiate direct legal action against those breaching the data protection or freedom of information legislation. I'm not sure I agree with going down the regulatory route instead -- any law where a breaker cannot be taken directly to court by a damaged party has questionable value -- but on the other hand, I can see some sensible reasons for it as well. For example, while organisations should be required to meet reasonable data protection obligations, they're also entitled IMHO not to suffer a "DoS attack by court", where an aggrieved party can file repeated claims against them at relatively little cost, just to keep their resources tied up.
I call bullshit. Blair has got through some pretty creepy things -- look at the Civil Contingencies Act, for example -- but nothing that far-fetched. The closest he's come so far was the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, and the really bad stuff in there was dropped very quietly one fast news day a few weeks after it started getting noticed.
And even if some of the armed forces did follow orders, at least at first, there would likely be a lot of dissent in the ranks, they'd be vastly outnumbered, they'd have no advantage in terms of stealth/surprise, and they wouldn't be able to use military-style heavy weaponry without inflicting wounds on themselves. And if you think they're untrained, you should go watch the keen ones practice at the range, and compare their skills with small arms to those of the average military foot soldier.
So yeah, in reply to the original question, I'd say your "bunch of civilians" would stand a pretty good chance. In any case, if things really got that bad, I'd bet on the administration being forced from office within days, if not hours, and certainly well before either side of an armed conflict got "serious".
I suspect you're being a little harsh on Richard Thomas and his team. If you look at the position statements on the ICO's web site, they're generally very reasonable, and the office does take action against organisations that don't respect data protection and freedom of information rules. However, he has stated that to do the job properly, he would need 3x the team he's been given, and unlike most government empire-builders, I'm actually prepared to give him credit for being realistic there.
So all this time, the "..." was just "Stab the guys who helped you in the back to make more money"? Damn, it's so obvious once you've seen it...
The irony, of course, is that if all those IT types actually understood the reasoning behind and implications of Sarbanes-Oxley, they'd be able to comply without reducing their productivity to that of a newbie intern. :-)
Sure, and that profit is what builds up your pension fund and pays the salary of the kid across the street, just like any other big corporation. Where do you think the money they make goes, into some black hole that has no benefit to society? Contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, not all corporatations are crooked organisations that divert 98% of their profits to the board, and not all investors are multibillionaires.
Are you surprised? They've been doing this with people's Usenet posts (Google Groups) and web sites (Google Cache) for years, and they're planning to do it with books as well.
That one, at least, is hard to challenge credibly. As H. L. Mencken once remarked, "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." I don't see why Stallman is different to anyone else in this regard.
Well, they are where some vague statements of things that might be in demand are made. :-)
Seriously, though, I've never found job boards to be particularly representative of my experiences from either side of the recruitment process. Again, a lot of the more useful tools are "smaller market" things where the people with the skills and the people who need them meet by other means (networking being the obvious one, but also via technical discussion forums on-line, for example). Also, a lot of the job board ads are written by HR weenies with no clue about what the long words mean: take a look six months after any trendy new technology goes mainstream, and look at the number of ads for people with 5+ years' experience using that tech. Those aren't real demands, and there are no real vacancies that require 5+ years' experience in a technology that's only a year old, but that's what the boards will often tell you.
In other words, if the boards were realistic and everyone used then, then yes, they'd be a fair indicator of what's in demand. In reality, I don't think either of those things is true to a useful approximation, and the boards lack credibility accordingly.
Because there is such a thing as the right tool for the job, and often it's best to go with a specialised tool that does one thing very well, rather than a hybrid that does most things OK. To use your own example, OCaml can certainly be fast and obviously it supports a functional programming style, but how often do you see an example where it's doing both at the same time? (This isn't a dig at OCaml; I'm just saying that from a personal development perspective, hybrid approaches aren't necessarily the best way to learn.)
I'm not sure that's really the way to go. Job boards are a notoriously inaccurate way of gauging which programming languages are actually useful or in demand, not least because people using good languages to solve interesting problems tend not to change jobs very much. If you want a job, sure, read the boards and get some experience with the top couple of languages listed. If you want an interesting job, you might want to look a little deeper. After all, you're going to take at most one of the positions advertised, so any skill that has at least one job advertised that requires it might be the right thing for you.
I'm curious about this, partly for the specifics and partly because I'm aware from other areas I know well that geeks picking up a new tool on their own can sometimes get the wrong idea.
I've recently been developing a few databases for a local non-profit I work with, just things like simple financial record-keeping and the like, and hooking these into the organisation's web site. I've been using MySQL, as much because it was what was installed on our host's system as anything else. However, as far as I've seen so far, it works perfectly well for the sorts of fairly routine SQL query I need, and its tools and configuration also seem flexible enough for anything I need.
So, what sorts of bad habit am I likely to be picking up? I know the MySQL manual mentions a few "non-standard" features, but I don't think I've had cause to use them yet. Is this just one of those things where you don't notice the differences on small-scale projects?
Hiring staff you can trust is a good thing.
Expecting never to make a mistake in this process in a big multinational is naive.
Conclusion: walk softly, but carry a big stick. Or, in these terms, respect your employees' privacy wherever possible and don't unduly restrict them, but also make damn sure you can lock down your entire system against anyone or look up any data you might legally be required to provide if you have to.
Blockquoth the AC:
That's fascinating, when someone else just replied to my earlier post, citing an article in which BBC people claim to be left-leaning liberals. :-)
So I heard, and it kept me from installing it for a good few weeks until I was reasonably confident I knew what the potential dangers were. In practice, when I did install it, it caused me absolutely no problems at all.
There were a handful of major applications that did have problem reports linked to SP2 for a while. However, the developers were generally quick to fix these, and I haven't heard of an SP2-related problem report for any legitimate software other than system tools for a very long time now.
I'm not sure I agree with your view of the BBC. Yes, it's funded in part through a form of taxation, but it's hardly a spokesobject for the administration. On the contrary, it's often the government's biggest critic among popular media, and it has a good reputation for accuracy and impartiality, even when reporting on itself. It seems closer to the case in Finland than you're giving it credit for.
Yes, it is. There are only 2+3-2=2 types of people in the world: those who understand Slashdot's moderation system, and those who don't.
Yeah, with Perl there's more than one way to fly your multi-billion dollar space vehicle into the moon!
Of course, if you're British, that's 1,000 times more expensive a mistake than if you're American...