First, even though slashdot sucks, a lot of the people who post on it are truly righteous. I was very pleased to see that many people actually care about what happened to Gene Kan, and totally stunned to see the parent post get modded up to Score: 5 at one point.
Second, the administration of slashdot is totally corrupt. I watched as my three secondary posts got modded down within less than a minute. Given the traffic this topic is receiving at this hour, that is just bullshit. It's clear to me that some monkey at OSDN has unlimited mod power and that they just routinely run through the posts doing what they please.
If I want PDA ads, I'll go to ZDNet. If I want Star War spoilers, I'll go to starwars. And if I want to slum with overbooked whores who sold their collective ass for the chance to lick out any and every used condom thrown their way, I'll come to slashdot.
JXTA has amongst its many features giving developers the opportunity to deal with firewall issues, things like Network Address Translation, that usually spell the end for more homegrown P2P efforts.
The way I see it, it was a P2P toolkit, that would let any idiot, even me, construct their own P2P application as easily as most any other Java application and freely distribute it and enjoy the ability to work despite firewalls and NAT and whatever other issues JXTA is able to tame.
Something like this released into the wild poses a much more difficult scenario than, say, applications that aren't designed to be extended or piggybacked in any way, doesn't it?
And, isn't time an issue here? Once a technology becomes widely used, it is much more difficult to censor than when in infancy, no?
Does anybody here really believe that the bicycle, if introduced today, would stand a chance against overzealous legislators once the first child experienced a serious accident?
Killing the true P2P capabilities inherent in JXTA now, before they became widely available, could easily be seen as being key to any number of players on global-economic stage.
And in any case, even if I am wearing the tin-foil hat, you should all become better acquainted with the facts necessary to prove that. Right now we know squat. That is simply unacceptible.
I want to know the details of Gene's contract with Sun.
I want to know why it is we didn't learn of his death until a week after the fact.
I want to know what he was cremated before the public did get to know of his death.
Yes, we know it was a stock swap, but was there language that allowed Kan to pursue the technology independently if Sun didn't follow through with Gene's original vision?
If you look at JXTA it seems Sun is selling it as server-enabled peer-to-peer. I take that to mean that the P2P stuff only happens after the server makes the necessary introductions. It seems to me that Sun is thinking they can market this technology not as a way of returning power to individual users as was Gene's ideal but rather as a way of saving bandwidth costs for businesses.
And yeah, to those who say that Sun is a corporation that is about making money so why should they care about a free Internet, I say this: first, Gene may have been naive enough to believe they'd do the right thing (has was only 25) and second, can you honestly say with a straight face that Sun has the first clue about what they're doing business-wise? With AMD 64-bit systems on the horizon running Linux tell me exactly why we're all going to be buying Sun systems in the future?
If Gene had rights to pursue JXTA development outside the scope of Sun's server-enabled P2P model, then he's a threat.
What tie ins to conspiracy theories? You mean the update? That wasn't part of my original story submission.
Gene Kan was a guy who was developing the most feared technology in America. The RIAA, MIAA, Microsoft... all these guys absolutely loath him. And then he supposedly kills himself, and we only get to find out about this a week after?
And only after the body is cremated? Think about that for a moment.
The story has been submitted to/. a zillion times by now I'm sure, and no doubt at least one was expressed in less diabolical tones. Why wasn't that submission posted?
Story I submitted that got rejected follows. That slashdot refuses to carry this story tells me that the people who run it have sold their souls. My karma here is worthless.
The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions. Update: 07/11 23:45 GMT by corebreech: Missed this before, but news of his death was withheld until after the body was cremated.
But surely you don't mean to say that this isn't news for nerds. That this isn't stuff that matters.
All stories have mean and nasty comments associated with them. Why do we not cringe at the sight of a new story. OK, maybe we do, but does that mean we shouldn't be posting new stories?
Peer-to-peer is seen by many to be a threat to their very way of life. Gene was working on JXTA (why is this site down?) which could easily have threatened to become an unstoppable peer-to-peer toolkit that would've let anyone easily write P2P software that would run atop of anything.
The powers that be may shut off access to this port or this service, but with JXTA, you could easily piggyback over whatever existing channels they leave open via some kind of tunnelling protocol thing. JXTA was about figuring out how to deal with the Network Address Translation and firewall issues that prevented P2P from being ubiquitous.
I can't imagine a technology more hated by the status quo than what Gene was working on.
We have every right to ask questions about his death. I'm sorry, but his privacy has to take a backseat here to what it might mean for our future should this turn out to be foul play.
If you'd read the article, you'd see he has apparently solved this problem by using "an insulating, but microwave transparent, ceramic fibre block" as insulation.
How do you think microwave-safe cookware works? Do you really think anybody could actually be using these things if the container ended up being the same temperature as the macaroni-and-cheese inside?
I like Star Trek too, but c'mon, that's a lame name.
Let's see... the feature of this laptop is that it has two monitors, monitors are something we're always looking at...
What's a good name for two of something we're always looking at? I'm reminded of when/. was discussing ternary computing, and how since binary digits are bits, ternary digits should be called...
And who on Voyager had the best set of tits? Seven of nine!
It is suspected by many that archive.org also removes archives based on content.
For instance, try accessing news sites back in the days immediately before and after 9/11. It is a very spotty record.
I have seen this for myself as well, as a web site I am struggling to find the time to build, and which has controversial content, was at one time retrievable under archive.org, but no longer is.
For that matter, it seems impossible to get Google to index it anymore either (though they too once included the site.)
By presenting themselves as having a complete record of the Internet's web sites, and then selectively deleting or restricting access to sites based on content is a very pernicious form of censorship. It isn't a First Amendment issue perhaps since dotgov assumedly isn't the one restricting content, but it is worrisome nonetheless.
Any reproduction of a copyrighted-work will constitute grounds for civil suits with fines and lawyer fees and so on...
Why should it stop with pre-owned CD's? Aren't the lyrics copyrighted? Isn't the score for the music itself copyrighted?
What's to prevent their taking us to court for merely humming a copyrighted work?
The new big brother Mssrs. Ashcroft and Ridge are creating would excel at tuning in to our barely-audible humming of copyrighted works. With the right kind of software you'd get busted every time.
Indeed, with the advent of immersive virtual reality, where our every thought is analyzed for use as input, the mere recollection of more than three adjacent musical notes in a copyrighted work would spell disaster! It would constitute an unauthorized digital-reproduction of the artist's (read recording label's) property and immediately flagged as such.
And why should that stop with music? Literature, software, porn... it's hard to see how we would be able to get through a moment let alone a day without unlawfully summoning somebody else's intellectual property.
Mobile whatever is just plain bad. It's best to sit in a stationary position and pretend that you don't work for a company that thinks entry-level programmers should be confined to the header files.
I worked at such a company, and now I'm insane.
I tried to #include "beer.h", and it #included "coconut-strawberry-ring-dings.h"
Slashdot Mirror
It hasn't been ruled a suicide yet, so how can you say that?
Also, since when do they announce somebody's death after cremating the body?
Mr. Kan's death screams of foul play. That slashdot chose not to run the story is indefensible.
And tell me, exactly how do you know it was a suicide?
Oh, CHINA!
For a moment I thought he was talking about AMERICA.
How would you know they're not giants?
Ever fought one?
Ooops, typo.
That should read:
I'll come on slashdot.
Hehe, fuck you Malda. When somebody blows your brains out with a gun I hope I'm there to put down everybody who gives a shit.
It's interesting watching your post get modded.
I just have two observations.
First, even though slashdot sucks, a lot of the people who post on it are truly righteous. I was very pleased to see that many people actually care about what happened to Gene Kan, and totally stunned to see the parent post get modded up to Score: 5 at one point.
Second, the administration of slashdot is totally corrupt. I watched as my three secondary posts got modded down within less than a minute. Given the traffic this topic is receiving at this hour, that is just bullshit. It's clear to me that some monkey at OSDN has unlimited mod power and that they just routinely run through the posts doing what they please.
If I want PDA ads, I'll go to ZDNet. If I want Star War spoilers, I'll go to starwars. And if I want to slum with overbooked whores who sold their collective ass for the chance to lick out any and every used condom thrown their way, I'll come to slashdot.
The p2p cat is already out of the bag.
Is it?
JXTA has amongst its many features giving developers the opportunity to deal with firewall issues, things like Network Address Translation, that usually spell the end for more homegrown P2P efforts.
The way I see it, it was a P2P toolkit, that would let any idiot, even me, construct their own P2P application as easily as most any other Java application and freely distribute it and enjoy the ability to work despite firewalls and NAT and whatever other issues JXTA is able to tame.
Something like this released into the wild poses a much more difficult scenario than, say, applications that aren't designed to be extended or piggybacked in any way, doesn't it?
And, isn't time an issue here? Once a technology becomes widely used, it is much more difficult to censor than when in infancy, no?
Does anybody here really believe that the bicycle, if introduced today, would stand a chance against overzealous legislators once the first child experienced a serious accident?
Killing the true P2P capabilities inherent in JXTA now, before they became widely available, could easily be seen as being key to any number of players on global-economic stage.
And in any case, even if I am wearing the tin-foil hat, you should all become better acquainted with the facts necessary to prove that. Right now we know squat. That is simply unacceptible.
I want to know the details of Gene's contract with Sun.
I want to know why it is we didn't learn of his death until a week after the fact.
I want to know what he was cremated before the public did get to know of his death.
What were the details of his agreement with Sun?
Yes, we know it was a stock swap, but was there language that allowed Kan to pursue the technology independently if Sun didn't follow through with Gene's original vision?
If you look at JXTA it seems Sun is selling it as server-enabled peer-to-peer. I take that to mean that the P2P stuff only happens after the server makes the necessary introductions. It seems to me that Sun is thinking they can market this technology not as a way of returning power to individual users as was Gene's ideal but rather as a way of saving bandwidth costs for businesses.
And yeah, to those who say that Sun is a corporation that is about making money so why should they care about a free Internet, I say this: first, Gene may have been naive enough to believe they'd do the right thing (has was only 25) and second, can you honestly say with a straight face that Sun has the first clue about what they're doing business-wise? With AMD 64-bit systems on the horizon running Linux tell me exactly why we're all going to be buying Sun systems in the future?
If Gene had rights to pursue JXTA development outside the scope of Sun's server-enabled P2P model, then he's a threat.
What tie ins to conspiracy theories? You mean the update? That wasn't part of my original story submission.
/. a zillion times by now I'm sure, and no doubt at least one was expressed in less diabolical tones. Why wasn't that submission posted?
Gene Kan was a guy who was developing the most feared technology in America. The RIAA, MIAA, Microsoft... all these guys absolutely loath him. And then he supposedly kills himself, and we only get to find out about this a week after?
And only after the body is cremated? Think about that for a moment.
The story has been submitted to
Story I submitted that got rejected follows. That slashdot refuses to carry this story tells me that the people who run it have sold their souls. My karma here is worthless.
The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions. Update: 07/11 23:45 GMT by corebreech: Missed this before, but news of his death was withheld until after the body was cremated.
Additional links:
CNN story
San Jose Mercury News stories: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Kan's web log
JXTA
Free Republic discussion on Gene Kan
Google search
But surely you don't mean to say that this isn't news for nerds. That this isn't stuff that matters.
All stories have mean and nasty comments associated with them. Why do we not cringe at the sight of a new story. OK, maybe we do, but does that mean we shouldn't be posting new stories?
Peer-to-peer is seen by many to be a threat to their very way of life. Gene was working on JXTA (why is this site down?) which could easily have threatened to become an unstoppable peer-to-peer toolkit that would've let anyone easily write P2P software that would run atop of anything.
The powers that be may shut off access to this port or this service, but with JXTA, you could easily piggyback over whatever existing channels they leave open via some kind of tunnelling protocol thing. JXTA was about figuring out how to deal with the Network Address Translation and firewall issues that prevented P2P from being ubiquitous.
I can't imagine a technology more hated by the status quo than what Gene was working on.
We have every right to ask questions about his death. I'm sorry, but his privacy has to take a backseat here to what it might mean for our future should this turn out to be foul play.
Story I submitted that got rejected follows. Yeah, it's off-topic. Bite me.
The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions.
Story I submitted that got rejected follows. Yeah, it's off-topic. Bite me.
The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions.
I was going to say the same thing, but now that you've beaten me to it, I realize that it wasn't very clever after all.
If you'd read the article, you'd see he has apparently solved this problem by using "an insulating, but microwave transparent, ceramic fibre block" as insulation.
How do you think microwave-safe cookware works? Do you really think anybody could actually be using these things if the container ended up being the same temperature as the macaroni-and-cheese inside?
You mean like the Star Trek reruns?
/. was discussing ternary computing, and how since binary digits are bits, ternary digits should be called ...
I like Star Trek too, but c'mon, that's a lame name.
Let's see... the feature of this laptop is that it has two monitors, monitors are something we're always looking at...
What's a good name for two of something we're always looking at? I'm reminded of when
And who on Voyager had the best set of tits? Seven of nine!
And what's seven minus nine?
I think I make my point.
was Ball-me?
It is suspected by many that archive.org also removes archives based on content.
For instance, try accessing news sites back in the days immediately before and after 9/11. It is a very spotty record.
I have seen this for myself as well, as a web site I am struggling to find the time to build, and which has controversial content, was at one time retrievable under archive.org, but no longer is.
For that matter, it seems impossible to get Google to index it anymore either (though they too once included the site.)
By presenting themselves as having a complete record of the Internet's web sites, and then selectively deleting or restricting access to sites based on content is a very pernicious form of censorship. It isn't a First Amendment issue perhaps since dotgov assumedly isn't the one restricting content, but it is worrisome nonetheless.
Only if you agree to give me royalties if you should decide to let someone else ride it after you.
Any reproduction of a copyrighted-work will constitute grounds for civil suits with fines and lawyer fees and so on...
Why should it stop with pre-owned CD's? Aren't the lyrics copyrighted? Isn't the score for the music itself copyrighted?
What's to prevent their taking us to court for merely humming a copyrighted work?
The new big brother Mssrs. Ashcroft and Ridge are creating would excel at tuning in to our barely-audible humming of copyrighted works. With the right kind of software you'd get busted every time.
Indeed, with the advent of immersive virtual reality, where our every thought is analyzed for use as input, the mere recollection of more than three adjacent musical notes in a copyrighted work would spell disaster! It would constitute an unauthorized digital-reproduction of the artist's (read recording label's) property and immediately flagged as such.
And why should that stop with music? Literature, software, porn... it's hard to see how we would be able to get through a moment let alone a day without unlawfully summoning somebody else's intellectual property.
Copyright has to die.
Buggy air traffic control systems can fly just as many planes into buildings as even the most talented terrorist, be he Mossad, CIA or an amateur.
I say paint big signs on the sides of all buildings near airports that read: "If you can read this, pull up NOW!"
Oh, and duck a lot.
Or if the merchant doesn't bill your credit card until they ship?
Or if they bill your credit card in installments?
Or if they require your credit card on file in order to prove your creditworthiness?
Refunds are but a single example. There are many reasons for having a CC# on file.
So when I ask for my money back you guys can figure out which account to credit.
Mobile whatever is just plain bad. It's best to sit in a stationary position and pretend that you don't work for a company that thinks entry-level programmers should be confined to the header files.
I worked at such a company, and now I'm insane.
I tried to #include "beer.h", and it #included "coconut-strawberry-ring-dings.h"
Now I have an attorney.
Honestly. I fell on the way to fridge for more beer, and on the way back some guy from Argentina logged on and stole root.
Good thing I only bought seat-licenses for me and my attorney.
When do I get a refund?