Well, when Microsoft collapses under the weight of their defunct business model, Billg can always get a job defending Disney's right to innovate. He'd be real good at it...
The Register has an article up questioning ICANN's motives and suggesting that they plan to twist the survey results to suit their own purposes. But I'm sure ICANN would never do that...</sarcasm>
It's a shame the admins chose to put this off in a corner instead of on the front page - I think a lot of readers would be able to suggest ideas, and a whole lot would benefit from reading them.
BTW Raj, thanks for using the right name (GNU/Linux).
Sigh...your comment is semantically flawed. To wit: American[1] is not American[2]. The huge American corporations that "talk about global markets" (and more to the point, lobby for them and otherwise try to shove them down our throats) are established around the world. Look around in any country where people have money. See all the Coca-Cola billboards? McDonald's franchises? People wearing Nikes?
You make some good points. If it can be defeated politically, great. Now me, I have no skills in that area. Convincing non-geeks to get excited about technical issues like free speech on the net is not my strong point. So personally I concentrate on technical solutions, where I can do some good.
Problem is, things like this just keep coming at us, like Night of the Living Dead. CDA. DMCA. UCITA. CPRM. Software patents. There are a whole lot of powerful people, with money and media control and lobbyists, who want to take away our freedoms to criticize them, to print and read what we want, to use our computers as we wish. And they have lots of money and staff to keep coming up with these things and get them implemented.
I think of Freenet and similar efforts as a form of civil disobedience, much like samizdat in the Soviet Union. I'm pessimistic enough to think we'll need them.
Well, 100% of the machines (1) in my apartment came with no operating system at all. So in this part of the country I guess the dominant OS would be AMIBIOS 95.
We don't need to fight this politically. We can fight it technologically. One word: Freenet. You can't be sued if no one knows your real name.
Software patents? Create an anonymous ID, digitally sign everything, build a reputation so people know they can trust your work, put any source code you want on the net. Crypto. RSA. One Click. Clients for Microsoft services. Lists of filtered words.
Parodies? Criticism? Secrets of the Co$? Whistle-blowing? Rabble rousing? Sedition? You name it. If anyone can make your life miserable for saying something, say it with Freenet.
In principle this is no different from what Google did to Deja, or the cute format incompatibilities Microsoft has been springing on Office users for years.
If you use something controlled by someone else, you have to expect them to put a very high priority on their interests, and a very low one on yours. They will change it if that serves them, or not change it (eg, bug fixes) if that serves them. They will pretend to care about your concerns, but they will only act on them when it makes sense in terms of their concerns.
Everyone who reads SlashDot knows the answer. Free software (but not necessarily "Open Source" - eg, Mozilla). Open standards. Free documentation. Community ownership of knowledge. FreeNet. No one entity controlling the things that everyone uses.
A lot of people have pointed out this is nothing new. But that's a good thing. It makes it slightly less probable that the USPTO will issue them a patent. (Maybe. If someone challenges it. And has enough money to pursue the case.)
I find an interesting similarity between law and shared source. They're both big crufty kluges that don't work very well, are full of bugs, and are hard to fix. Changes are often made for political reasons and have little practical merit. And you can't fix it yourself; you can only ask the vendor to fix it and hope they'll get around to it sooner or later.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, when Microsoft collapses under the weight of their defunct business model, Billg can always get a job defending Disney's right to innovate. He'd be real good at it...
...I knew we shouldn't have let that guy Strangelove design the arm!
1.21 gigawatts! (Tearing hair out) 1.21 gigawatts!
The Register has an article up questioning ICANN's motives and suggesting that they plan to twist the survey results to suit their own purposes. But I'm sure ICANN would never do that...</sarcasm>
Gosh, only 1000 ips? I overclocked mine to 1800...
No, no...that's rw-rw-rw-. You know, the number of the 733ts.
Not to mention having to know how to spell, before there were spell-checkers.
> CAST FIREBALL AT TROLL
68 hp damage. Troll destroyed.
BTW Raj, thanks for using the right name (GNU/Linux).
Sigh...your comment is semantically flawed. To wit: American[1] is not American[2]. The huge American corporations that "talk about global markets" (and more to the point, lobby for them and otherwise try to shove them down our throats) are established around the world. Look around in any country where people have money. See all the Coca-Cola billboards? McDonald's franchises? People wearing Nikes?
Problem is, things like this just keep coming at us, like Night of the Living Dead. CDA. DMCA. UCITA. CPRM. Software patents. There are a whole lot of powerful people, with money and media control and lobbyists, who want to take away our freedoms to criticize them, to print and read what we want, to use our computers as we wish. And they have lots of money and staff to keep coming up with these things and get them implemented.
I think of Freenet and similar efforts as a form of civil disobedience, much like samizdat in the Soviet Union. I'm pessimistic enough to think we'll need them.
Well, 100% of the machines (1) in my apartment came with no operating system at all. So in this part of the country I guess the dominant OS would be AMIBIOS 95.
Software patents? Create an anonymous ID, digitally sign everything, build a reputation so people know they can trust your work, put any source code you want on the net. Crypto. RSA. One Click. Clients for Microsoft services. Lists of filtered words.
Parodies? Criticism? Secrets of the Co$? Whistle-blowing? Rabble rousing? Sedition? You name it. If anyone can make your life miserable for saying something, say it with Freenet.
If you use something controlled by someone else, you have to expect them to put a very high priority on their interests, and a very low one on yours. They will change it if that serves them, or not change it (eg, bug fixes) if that serves them. They will pretend to care about your concerns, but they will only act on them when it makes sense in terms of their concerns.
Everyone who reads SlashDot knows the answer. Free software (but not necessarily "Open Source" - eg, Mozilla). Open standards. Free documentation. Community ownership of knowledge. FreeNet. No one entity controlling the things that everyone uses.
A lot of people have pointed out this is nothing new. But that's a good thing. It makes it slightly less probable that the USPTO will issue them a patent. (Maybe. If someone challenges it. And has enough money to pursue the case.)
...imagine reading Beowulf on a cluster of these.
One of those abandoned missile silos would make a nice hosting site, too.
"So there I was, hacking away on a tax reporting program...and suddenly my computer says, 'Would you like to play a game?'"
I find an interesting similarity between law and shared source. They're both big crufty kluges that don't work very well, are full of bugs, and are hard to fix. Changes are often made for political reasons and have little practical merit. And you can't fix it yourself; you can only ask the vendor to fix it and hope they'll get around to it sooner or later.