No one knows the name of your unknown garage band. Therefore, no one will search for your songs on Napster.
Even if they did, they wouldn't find them. I just did a search for his name, several of his song titles and a couple of the album titles. Found nothing of his.
However, search for 'Chris Johnson' on Google and his stuff is the fifth thing in the list. What do you suppose is a better marketing tool?
Well, I don't frequent adult book stores, so I wouldn't know about that. But if you think that Napster has significant legitimate use then perhaps you've been buying that head cleaner.
pure accidents (a perfect example is filtering cards from that one company into the Junk folder in OE)
For those who don't know this story...
Blue Mountain Arts, who marketed email greeting cards, discovered in November of 1998 that Microsoft Outlook Express was automatically filing their cards in the user's "junk" folder. Then they found out that WebTV was also blocking their cards.
Of course Microsoft claims to have attempted in good faith to sort this problem with Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain claims that Microsoft's fix was to wait for the next release of Internet Explorer. No promises about when this would be.
And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. It turns out that Microsoft had attempted to buy Blue Mountain Arts, but when that deal fell through, they decided to create their own email greeting card service. The bug in Outlook Express (and in WebTV) appeared by pure accident just as Microsoft's service began.
Now maybe that was all just pure accident, but it does give one pause. I'm not saying it wasn't an accident, just like I'm not saying that the Crusades weren't just a silly misunderstanding.
Everyone's allowed one "me too" post in their lifetime, so here's mine...
Agreed. Agreed. Agreed!
I am a WordPerfect hater from way back. But the one thing that made me think WordPerfect had some redeaming value was Word.
The day that sodding paperclip popped onto my screen (after being dismissed by me at the beginning of the session) to say, "It looks like you're writing a letter! Would you like help writing a letter?" was the day I swore allegiance to anything that wasn't Microsoft.
Word groupies thumb their noses at things like Reveal Codes. Apparently it never occurs to them to simply not use it if that's what they want. But for me, at least I have the option when I want to know why the text is formatting screwy.
Almost every one I know who does technical writing and layout prefers WordPerfect to Word. Try making a booklet. (Booklet: Pages are printed side-by-side on a landscape-oriented page so that all you do after printing is fold the papers in half and staple them in the center.) For all its feature bloat, Word won't do this.
It's possible to be an accessary to a crime that one doesn't actually commit.
My point, which I didn't make very well, was that the original poster's statement:
Scour willingly removes the links of any copyright owner who requests that such a link be removed to their material.
did little to convince me that Scour has any respect for others' copyrights. The fact is that Scour links to material that they know full well violates copyright and then try to look like good guys by claiming that they will gladly remove the link if the copyright owner ever finds out about it and goes to the trouble of informing them.
This is sort of like those warez sites that have a disclaimer about how they don't host any of the files and the links to cracked programs are provided only for educational purposes. Does anybody actually believe that? Probably the same people who think Napster is all about trying music before buying it.
A year or 2 ago, 50% of the cds I bought sucked and I had no way to find out until after i bought it;
You actually purchased CDs having no idea what was on them?! Do you never listen to the radio? Did you actually look at a prospective purchase and say, "Gee, I've never heard any of these titles, but I'm gonna buy it anyways."
Frankly, I find this pretty incredible, and therefore conclude that the rest of your statements are lies as well.
like buying a DVD only because of the trailer of the movie.
Anybody who buys a DVD after seeing only a movie trailer is a moron. Like somebody who buys a car because the picture on the billboard looked so cool.
Many distributions have strict policies against including binary only programs/drivers. Making it binary only means it won't be included in (at least) the standard kernel, Red Hat, Debian and Mandrake.
I don't see how it is the hardware vendor's responsibility to support the OS vendor's political agenda. Now, before the knee-jerk reactions start rolling in: I agree that open drivers are preferable to closed drivers. And I agree with all of your bullets about why open drivers are better (or, in some cases, the only acceptable solution for us).
But we must remember that we don't make up a significant percentage of their total sales. Because of this, all of our ranting just causes the hardware vendor to conclude that supporting us is not worth it. Who wants to be in the unhappy position of receiving support calls from these zealots? (Especially if the problem is probably the driver, which they now aren't responsible for!)
They don't understand the philosophy. And us screaming in their face every time they make a move we don't like isn't going to make them understand. And it's not going to engender any good will toward us. It probably discourages thier cooperation, as they don't have any financial reason to succumb to the wishes of a bunch of ranting lunatics.
Instead, we should encourage baby steps toward our way of thinking. That is, applaud when they do what we like, and politely deal with it when they don't. Write even-tempered letters to the vendors involved describing your decision to buy or not buy their hardware and how the relative openness of their drivers played a part in that decision. Eventually, more vendors will see the benefit of giving us what we want, and the free market will take care of itself.
I'm not sure where we, as a community, decided that we have the right to demand open drivers and expect them to jump to it. How would we react if some hardware vendor demanded that the open source community provide them with drivers?
[Since I'm replying to bero, I have to say that I think companies like Red Hat are supremely positioned to show these vendors the enlightened way and assure them that the risk they associate with opening their drivers is worth the potential benefit.] --
That "pisses you off"? I shudder to imagine your reaction when asked if you want your drink sized medium or large when only two sizes are available. Does it make you go buggy? Do your eyes bug out?
Don't let it bug you. They have counselling for stuff like this. Get over it. "A disease-causing microorganism" is an informal but accepted meaning of "bug" in each of my dictionaries, even those dating back to early in the century.
Can you imagine the outrage if someone proposed.msft?.att?.sun?
Can you imagine Stallman's outrage when Disney registers disney.gnu? He won't have any say in who does or does not get a.gnu domain, so it will just turn into another reason for him to start more boycotts.
The original claim was "GPL enforcers are hypocritical
No. The original claim was that there is a certain irony in the fact that people who are detractors of copyright law are also staunch defenders of the GPL. This is true. The original poster did not anywhere use the word 'hypocrite'.
You responded that the original poster and those who think similarly are 'misinformed'. This is not true. Many poeple who see this irony know what they believe and why they believe it. You called them misinformed because they disagreed with you.
But you couldn't silence your opponents by calling them ignorant, so you had to bring in the big guns: "non-sequitors" [sic.] and "ad hominems". I suppose that big words such as this must occasionally win arguments. At least they allow you to feel superior.
But I called you bluff on that one too. You wisely decide that it's a good time to "leave aside the confusion of who is using what fallacy and get to the point." Your point: "The law... is WRONG." (All capitals should strengthen your argument.) But you need to use the law in order to convince everyone that the law deserves no respect. And as an example, there are some people who are obeying all relevant laws in order to accomplish their political goals.
Since that failed to convince, it's time to say that further disagreement about the clarity of your message will be ignored.
Frankly, it might be a good time to go over the notes from your debate class again.
How is it that you get from ignoring laws that you don't like to environmentalists doing something which is completely legal in order to stifle activities that they don't like? I don't see the connection at all.
Non-sequitur: "This has got to be the most ignorant statement I've heard all day. It's still early, though."
This literally "does not follow" from anything. It is irrelevant even if true.
I don't think you know what a non sequitur is, nor how to spell it.
My "argument" was not ad hominem because it's not an argument.
Your "argument" was that 1. The law shouldn't be respected because it can't protect against illegal use of information, and 2. The law regarding the GPL should be respected by others apparently since it supports your beliefs.
This is not only ad hominem, but could be credibly described as hypocritical by some people.
I'm not talking about in-house code. I'm asking about non-GPL software that does runtime linking to GPL functions which are not distributed with the non-GPL product. Listening to anyone here gives the impression that this is a big no-no. But the best I can tell, the GPL washes its own hands of this issue.
This is actually my only real gripe about the GPL; it screws with the end user by not allowing all the software on his system to use common libraries if the user chooses to use non-GPL software. But if that's not an issue, cheers.
claim that the very action of running software is actually 'copying' it into RAM
Of course that's just silly. If they want to get picky about that then it's easy enough to credibly claim that it's the kernel that does the copying when client software requests a library service. Besides, the GPL specifically disclaims the issue of running software.
It's easy to say that you're not being a hypocrite when you can choose your own terms. On the other hand, becoming angry because a law is being broken (information could still be "free" without the GPL) while at the same time you claim that you have no respect for the rule of law could be considered hypocritical.
And even if it shouldn't, it's too late now.
This seems to sum up the intellectual defense of every would-be Napster defender.
If you distribute electrons AT ALL, they WILL be copied. You might as well change your business model to accomodate that.
Then we could just en-masse trade any software we like Napster style and then just claim that it's too late to do anything about it. There's nothing really wrong with that since information wants to be free. While you're at it come download my extensive collection of OCR scanned books. Remember, there's nothing wrong since it's just information.
You see, music copyrights are about money and control. The GPL is about neither of these.
This has got to be the most ignorant statement I've heard all day. It's still early, though.
Really!?! Though I know plenty of people who use Napster, I don't know even one who uses it legally in the sense that they aren't doing anything illegal with it (as opposed to the sense that, since it's free, merely using it is legal).
It is difficult to speculate on exactly how the license will be tested, since we don't know who or what the litigation is about.
However, if the lawsuit has anything to do with dynamic linking to a GPL library then I see the potential for trouble. Section 0 of the GPL states:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
Now if I write a program that does dynamic linking to a GPL library that I assume already exists on the client's computer, then how exactly am I copying, distributing, or modifying GPL code. I'm merely running the code and using it's result, which is not restricted unless the resulting action of the library call is somehow covered by the GPL (unlikely).
Perhaps I just don't know what I'm talking about, but I've never heard a good explanation of this. Elsewhere, the GPL indicates that linking is a bad thing and is covered by the license, though I can't tell how exactly.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if they did, they wouldn't find them. I just did a search for his name, several of his song titles and a couple of the album titles. Found nothing of his.
However, search for 'Chris Johnson' on Google and his stuff is the fifth thing in the list. What do you suppose is a better marketing tool?
--
Then why do you have to opt out of it every time?
--
Well, I don't frequent adult book stores, so I wouldn't know about that. But if you think that Napster has significant legitimate use then perhaps you've been buying that head cleaner.
--
For those who don't know this story...
Blue Mountain Arts, who marketed email greeting cards, discovered in November of 1998 that Microsoft Outlook Express was automatically filing their cards in the user's "junk" folder. Then they found out that WebTV was also blocking their cards.
Of course Microsoft claims to have attempted in good faith to sort this problem with Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain claims that Microsoft's fix was to wait for the next release of Internet Explorer. No promises about when this would be.
And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. It turns out that Microsoft had attempted to buy Blue Mountain Arts, but when that deal fell through, they decided to create their own email greeting card service. The bug in Outlook Express (and in WebTV) appeared by pure accident just as Microsoft's service began.
Now maybe that was all just pure accident, but it does give one pause. I'm not saying it wasn't an accident, just like I'm not saying that the Crusades weren't just a silly misunderstanding.
--
Agreed. Agreed. Agreed!
I am a WordPerfect hater from way back. But the one thing that made me think WordPerfect had some redeaming value was Word.
The day that sodding paperclip popped onto my screen (after being dismissed by me at the beginning of the session) to say, "It looks like you're writing a letter! Would you like help writing a letter?" was the day I swore allegiance to anything that wasn't Microsoft.
Word groupies thumb their noses at things like Reveal Codes. Apparently it never occurs to them to simply not use it if that's what they want. But for me, at least I have the option when I want to know why the text is formatting screwy.
Almost every one I know who does technical writing and layout prefers WordPerfect to Word. Try making a booklet. (Booklet: Pages are printed side-by-side on a landscape-oriented page so that all you do after printing is fold the papers in half and staple them in the center.) For all its feature bloat, Word won't do this.
And I don't even like WordPerfect.
--
My point, which I didn't make very well, was that the original poster's statement:
Scour willingly removes the links of any copyright owner who requests that such a link be removed to their material.
did little to convince me that Scour has any respect for others' copyrights. The fact is that Scour links to material that they know full well violates copyright and then try to look like good guys by claiming that they will gladly remove the link if the copyright owner ever finds out about it and goes to the trouble of informing them.
This is sort of like those warez sites that have a disclaimer about how they don't host any of the files and the links to cracked programs are provided only for educational purposes. Does anybody actually believe that? Probably the same people who think Napster is all about trying music before buying it.
--
You actually purchased CDs having no idea what was on them?! Do you never listen to the radio? Did you actually look at a prospective purchase and say, "Gee, I've never heard any of these titles, but I'm gonna buy it anyways."
Frankly, I find this pretty incredible, and therefore conclude that the rest of your statements are lies as well.
like buying a DVD only because of the trailer of the movie.
Anybody who buys a DVD after seeing only a movie trailer is a moron. Like somebody who buys a car because the picture on the billboard looked so cool.
--
Copyright is not an opt-out system.
--
Microsoft is barely the running at number 84, and Cisco is right out, ranking 146.
Of course, if you include national governments in the list of "organizations" then even GM doesn't stand a chance.
--
I don't see how it is the hardware vendor's responsibility to support the OS vendor's political agenda. Now, before the knee-jerk reactions start rolling in: I agree that open drivers are preferable to closed drivers. And I agree with all of your bullets about why open drivers are better (or, in some cases, the only acceptable solution for us).
But we must remember that we don't make up a significant percentage of their total sales. Because of this, all of our ranting just causes the hardware vendor to conclude that supporting us is not worth it. Who wants to be in the unhappy position of receiving support calls from these zealots? (Especially if the problem is probably the driver, which they now aren't responsible for!)
They don't understand the philosophy. And us screaming in their face every time they make a move we don't like isn't going to make them understand. And it's not going to engender any good will toward us. It probably discourages thier cooperation, as they don't have any financial reason to succumb to the wishes of a bunch of ranting lunatics.
Instead, we should encourage baby steps toward our way of thinking. That is, applaud when they do what we like, and politely deal with it when they don't. Write even-tempered letters to the vendors involved describing your decision to buy or not buy their hardware and how the relative openness of their drivers played a part in that decision. Eventually, more vendors will see the benefit of giving us what we want, and the free market will take care of itself.
I'm not sure where we, as a community, decided that we have the right to demand open drivers and expect them to jump to it. How would we react if some hardware vendor demanded that the open source community provide them with drivers?
[Since I'm replying to bero, I have to say that I think companies like Red Hat are supremely positioned to show these vendors the enlightened way and assure them that the risk they associate with opening their drivers is worth the potential benefit.]
--
Don't let it bug you. They have counselling for stuff like this. Get over it. "A disease-causing microorganism" is an informal but accepted meaning of "bug" in each of my dictionaries, even those dating back to early in the century.
--
Can you imagine Stallman's outrage when Disney registers disney.gnu? He won't have any say in who does or does not get a .gnu domain, so it will just turn into another reason for him to start more boycotts.
--
I'm not disagreeing with you or anything. It's just that I think there's a funny irony here.
--
Yeah, but most of that time was spent looking for the screwdriver.
--
No. The original claim was that there is a certain irony in the fact that people who are detractors of copyright law are also staunch defenders of the GPL. This is true. The original poster did not anywhere use the word 'hypocrite'.
You responded that the original poster and those who think similarly are 'misinformed'. This is not true. Many poeple who see this irony know what they believe and why they believe it. You called them misinformed because they disagreed with you.
But you couldn't silence your opponents by calling them ignorant, so you had to bring in the big guns: "non-sequitors" [sic.] and "ad hominems". I suppose that big words such as this must occasionally win arguments. At least they allow you to feel superior.
But I called you bluff on that one too. You wisely decide that it's a good time to "leave aside the confusion of who is using what fallacy and get to the point." Your point: "The law ... is WRONG." (All capitals should strengthen your argument.) But you need to use the law in order to convince everyone that the law deserves no respect. And as an example, there are some people who are obeying all relevant laws in order to accomplish their political goals.
Since that failed to convince, it's time to say that further disagreement about the clarity of your message will be ignored.
Frankly, it might be a good time to go over the notes from your debate class again.
--
Hey now. You're the one who started that.
No, the law should be not-respected because it is WRONG.
Opinion.
Plus, as an added bonus, it is unenforceable.
Irrelevant.
Example ... pollution futures ... environmentalists ... buy ... permits
How is it that you get from ignoring laws that you don't like to environmentalists doing something which is completely legal in order to stifle activities that they don't like? I don't see the connection at all.
--
This literally "does not follow" from anything. It is irrelevant even if true.
I don't think you know what a non sequitur is, nor how to spell it.
My "argument" was not ad hominem because it's not an argument.
Your "argument" was that 1. The law shouldn't be respected because it can't protect against illegal use of information, and 2. The law regarding the GPL should be respected by others apparently since it supports your beliefs.
This is not only ad hominem, but could be credibly described as hypocritical by some people.
--
This is actually my only real gripe about the GPL; it screws with the end user by not allowing all the software on his system to use common libraries if the user chooses to use non-GPL software. But if that's not an issue, cheers.
claim that the very action of running software is actually 'copying' it into RAM
Of course that's just silly. If they want to get picky about that then it's easy enough to credibly claim that it's the kernel that does the copying when client software requests a library service. Besides, the GPL specifically disclaims the issue of running software.
--
Please name one non sequitur in my argument. And while you're at it you could explain how your argument is not ad hominem.
--
I'm aware of the LGPL. But that doesn't answer my question: How is linking to dynamic libraries inside of the GPL's self-declared scope?
--
And even if it shouldn't, it's too late now.
This seems to sum up the intellectual defense of every would-be Napster defender.
If you distribute electrons AT ALL, they WILL be copied. You might as well change your business model to accomodate that.
Then we could just en-masse trade any software we like Napster style and then just claim that it's too late to do anything about it. There's nothing really wrong with that since information wants to be free. While you're at it come download my extensive collection of OCR scanned books. Remember, there's nothing wrong since it's just information.
You see, music copyrights are about money and control. The GPL is about neither of these.
This has got to be the most ignorant statement I've heard all day. It's still early, though.
--
Really!?! Though I know plenty of people who use Napster, I don't know even one who uses it legally in the sense that they aren't doing anything illegal with it (as opposed to the sense that, since it's free, merely using it is legal).
--
However, if the lawsuit has anything to do with dynamic linking to a GPL library then I see the potential for trouble. Section 0 of the GPL states:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
Now if I write a program that does dynamic linking to a GPL library that I assume already exists on the client's computer, then how exactly am I copying, distributing, or modifying GPL code. I'm merely running the code and using it's result, which is not restricted unless the resulting action of the library call is somehow covered by the GPL (unlikely).
Perhaps I just don't know what I'm talking about, but I've never heard a good explanation of this. Elsewhere, the GPL indicates that linking is a bad thing and is covered by the license, though I can't tell how exactly.
--
It doesn't have to.
--
CP/M was way too consumer to be worthy of a geek. MP/M was for the real geeks!
--