"I don't personally care any more whether Python will ever be
GPL-compatible -- I'm just trying to do the FSF a favor because they
like to use Python. With all the grief they're giving me, I wonder
why I should be bothered any more."
Guido's quote in the very interview you reference.
You're committing the classic fallacy of the excluded middle. Either authors must have absolute control over works, or society must ensure that they have no control over works. But it doesn't work that way. The Founding Fathers made the decision...
The fallacy of the excluded middle relies on the presentation of two options falsely described as the only options. There is no fallacy if the premises allow no middle ground. I did not say that systems other than that of consistent IP rights and nonexistance of IP could not exist or did not exist. The current copyright system would be an obvious counterexample. I did say that the two positions were the only intellectually (ie philosophically) defendable ones for the reasons I described. It is not consistent to allow creators of works any control over the distribution, attribution, etc. of those works and not allow them to set the terms of control that they prefer.
I have to point out again that you, like many, miss an important point. RMS is not on the opposite end of any spectrum from 'absolute copyright'. RMS is squarely in the IP camp. The GPL makes some very specific and non-negotiable demands of me whether or not I sign any contract, just as copyright does. All that's required to be bound by either is to possess a copy of the work. (And you conflate IP issues with shrinkwrap licenses - the controversy in that case is of the nature of contract, with IP simply not relevant.)
The issue of free speech vs. intellectual property is an important one, especially if you agree that IP rights exist. "Fair use" is merely the realm of communication about works where IP can't properly be said to apply. It's a "my right to flail my hands ends at your face" issue, though not nearly as clear-cut. Both sides of the Evil Media Corporations vs. Whiny Software Pirate debate (to cast it into the typical stereotypes) tend to try to claim the right to infringe the one right of their opponents by virtue of themselves possessing the other right.
Sadly, the incoherent nature of the copyright system and modern IP law in general truly creates this problem. It sets down one major license with conditions that various interest groups fight to alter for their own benefit in the courts and Congress. It amounts to unilaterally rewriting a contract and forcing the other parties to be bound to it. Without government forcing everyone to follow one major licensing agreement (which tends to be used to "power" alternatives - look how many copyrights Linus and Richard have) and instead enforcing intellectual property based on licenses, Whiny Pirates and Evil Suits could come to their own peace on licenses they mutually approve of. Instead of wondering whether copyleft could ever survive a court challenge, FSF fans could rest assured that selling proprietary Linux was illegal.
(And yes, it might require altering the Constitution to do it. And yes, what I'm proposing is really just consistently applying principles of the common law and property rights (hence, "IP").)
There isn't a solitary element to the Open Audio License not covered by simply releasing music into the public domain. Not one. And even nasty old copyright can work the same way.
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
Woody Guthrie songbook, late 1930s
Except, of course, he didn't have the hip little (O).
Stupid publicity stunts aside ("Hey, let's patent a trademark for the public domain!"), there are two intellectually defendable theories of intellectual property. One is that a person can create a work and place any conditions on its use and distribution that the creator wishes (and people who dislike the conditions can do without the creation), including giving that control to someone else. The other is that once a person allows another to have some method of copying or otherwise emulating a creation, that person can make no demand on what any other person does with it.
Notice that "Free Software" (as folks like Stallman snap if you accidentally call it "Open Source") is actually an example of the first type. Actually, releasing any work under any license besides "We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do" is just selecting what conditions you place on it and what demands you make on anyone else who comes across it.
It's ridiculous to claim that copyright or any other license is "wrong" unless you agree that all licenses, all licenses, are immoral violations of free speech. You can't cheer pirating a commercial piece of software if you can cry foul at someone violating the GPL.
So, absent any honest, significant opposition to the premises of some form of intellectual property, why don't we just discuss the aspects of licenses that we like or dislike and choose which ones we support (by spurning works with restrictions we dislike) without any pretense of moral superiority?
Then why is it that ever since the creation of the welfare system, there is both more poverty and more multi-generational poverty than existed when only private citizens engaged in charity?
What wasn't libertarian about his book? He WAS a registered member of the party...
Let's Be Honest: Katz knows nothing about Politics
on
Selfish Society
·
· Score: 1
..."Tech" or otherwise, and neither does Paulina Borsook.
Katz goes on and on about some weird doctrine he calls "Individualism", a psuedo-democratic world that supports "the legitimacy of the individual, whose voice and vote should count for more than any other single interest or group." This apparently boils down to nothing more substantive than "people who believe as I do in free MP3s and the evil of corporations should have a veto on the votes of everyone else". If he really was as big on freedom as he thinks, he'd have to acknowledge the necessity of personal responsibility...and he might even be a libertarian.
Katz and Borsook are completely ignorant of libertarianism beyond a few slogans and a vague bugaboo of evil little selfish people who love freedom and make their associates look bad. Here's an excellent deconstruction of Borsook's book, pointing out that not only does she know little about the movement she's so worried about but that she doesn't understand the real politics of techies, anyway. She's a perpetually hostile outsider who's been casting a jaundiced view at the technical community for as long as she's been familiar with it.
"Fire" looks to be an amazing advance over huddling in drafty caves and eating raw meat. Yes, some uses of fire will not work, and others may be evil. But, we will learn from our mistakes.
The problem here is that this is a technology that has the potential to burn beyond recognition if care is not taken.. It's one thing to misuse it at first and then learn from your mistakes, but dead people don't learn much..
Compare this to flint tools. Yes, sometimes we cut ourselves with them, sometimes people died from infections or bleeding from those cuts, and sometimes people died when we used them to fight. But, we learned how to handle flint tools, and absent some warmonger running around killing people, we don't have to worry about them, much.
Umm.. and how many people suffered and died so that we could get to this point? Trial and error is easy to excuse when you don't have to deal with the errors..
To put things a little less lightly, we don't really have any other option besides stagnation and forgoing future benefits because of the possibility of future problems. It's impossible to take a technology in its infancy and try to predict what can or will be done with it. Von Nueman or Babbage certainly couldn't have predicted the World Wide Web, much less things like wireless web browsing by palmtops, the EFF, The Hunger Site, popup ads, or MAKE MONEY FAST spam. With genetic engineering, we can make some prediction and identify some possible problems or benefits, but we're just as clueless as to what we'll really do.
But maybe it's worth trying. We're humans -- "maybe it's worth trying" is what we done since the first primate touched the monolith in 2001 and invented the "tool".
THANK YOU!
People seem way too enamoured of the idea that we should subject any new advance to exhaustive analysis so we can prevent misuses. However, everyone forgets that 10 or 20 years ago, no one could realistically predict where the Internet would be. This stuff is new exactly because it hasn't existed before - we can't pretend it's possible to gravely look it over, foresee every use, and then carefully release it into the world, knowing that Evil Shall Not Be Done. We can only stop those who misuse it when they actually go to misuse it.
First, yes, a lot of traits people will select for will have little survival utility. (Well, except for increased intelligence, removal of genetic infirmaties, enhanced physical condition, those sort of things.) However, just as in natural selection, these traits will be prone to artificial selection (in the truest sense): if people find some new trait annoying, troublesome, uncomfortable, offensive, or otherwise "bad", they won't get it for their kids. Every generation may have people with "peacock" traits that turn into PITAs, but very few people in the next generation will have those particular traits.
Second, no, all Americans won't select for blue eyes and blonde hair. Part of the reason both versions of Village of the Damned were so creepy, after all, was because all the children looked alike and, perhaps more importantly, nothing like their reasonably varied parents. People generally don't want children who don't look like them! And that's just among people who are already pale. To suggest that most black, latino, Asian, etc. parents will want to give birth to Aryan Perfection Skin Cancer Victim(tm) kids is absurd. And further, even among the small minority of parents who won't care about kids looking wildly different from them, "blue eyes and blonde hair" isn't anywhere near a universal ideal. Personal preferences will produce variety: I'd suspect parents would go for ideals of various ethnic phenotypes they find attractive and charismatic.
Yes, genetic testing may lead to people with genetic conditions having to pay higher premiums for health insurance, just as people who smoke, engage in other risky activities, or have an existing medical condition have to pay higher premiums. That's the way insurance works: the idea is for someone to pay a bit more, over time, than the average person with his or her circumstances will require in medical costs. Otherwise, insurance doesn't work.
Considering how many health conditions are believed to have genetic components now, how many more are likely to be found to have such components, and how most people will probably be found to have something that will be considered a genetic condition, no matter how minor (in other words, we'll find predispositions to a lot of things we don't even think of as genetic illnesses), the insurance agencies wouldn't be able to survive without covering people who test positive for various genetic problems. Instead, just as we're starting to slowly see now, insurance companies are going to emphasize preventative medicine. It will be much cheaper to test someone and say, for example, "Oh, he's got much greater-than-normal susceptability to influenza, let's have him go get flu shots every year on our dime so we don't have to pay for him going into the emergency room with a high fever, again." And, as genetic treatments become more common, more refined, and less expensive, insurance companies will start using tests to recommend those treatments to permanently avoid the hassle and expense of certain health problems.
O'Reilly generally doesn't bother matching the animals much to the subject on their books. Generally....(Ie, the Python Pocket Reference has a snake on it, but none of their other Python books.)
If the movies stayed on TV and were never released theatrically, then no.. this would not be a surprise. What the Academy is saying is that even if you do release the movie theatrically, you're out of the running for an Oscar if you disseminate it using any method other than theatrical exhibition.
No, the issue is initial release. Theatrical movies end up on video and cable, after all. However, just as the Sunday night network showing of THE SIXTH SENSE won't be eligible to contend for an Emmy, movies released in another medium first (like THE LAST SEDUCTION, IIRC) are considered ineligible for the Oscars.
And as to whether this makes it harder on indie filmmakers...Maybe. As suggested elsewhere, some could get around it by doing a few early screenings in a rented theatre. But test screenings and focus groups? Why not leave those sort of things to corporate productions?
I'm quite aware of Stalin's holding the #1 position for mega-murderer, thank you. That's why I have to really work to show patience for any Communists and have none for Stalinists (and yes, they are still around, just like neo-nazis). However, while Stalin killed more, his purges were in the same order of magnitude as the Holocaust, and indeed, Hitler's crime put quite a "dent" in that number.
Also note that I listed war, then death-camps. The Russian front managed to chew up even more people than the camps.
Ultimately, yes, I do disagree with you completely on the issue of anti-trust. It's my opinion that as the laws were originally framed, Microsoft didn't even violate them, but also that the original laws were unjustified. There's ample historical evidence to suggest that the only viable long-term monopolies are those enforced by law (both the original AT&T monopoly and local phone companies later, local utilities, and local cable companies, for example). However, if you disagree, you've every right to your opinion.
As to the bias I mention on the part of Judge Jackson, he started off the proceedings by appointing Lawrence Lessig, an outspoken opponent of Microsoft, as a special master in the case. When Microsoft objected to this appointment on the grounds of bias and personal relationship to someone working at Netscape, Jackson accused them of defaming Lessig. Thoughout the entire trial, Jackson was unremittingly hostile to Microsoft. It really looks to me as if he came to the case with some sort of prejudice. (I'm willing to bet that will be one of the grounds for appeal.)
As to unfair strong-arming, I don't buy it. Microsoft behaved in precisely the same manner as hundreds of law-abiding businesses in trying to promote multiple lines of products. Even Jackson himself reluctantly admitted that while he claimed Microsoft was a rapacious monopoly, it sold Windows far below the so-called "extortion" price a monopoly could supposedly force consumers to pay. (This, of course, raises the question: if Windows really is a monopoly, and now a company will be split off purely to handle that sole product, what's to prevent Windows Inc. from hiking the price, since it has no other sources of revenue?)
But, as I think we've answered each other's points, we shall indeed simply have to agree to disagree. See you around.
No, that's because providing free advertising in a TV show lessens the value of the commerical time that FOX-TV sells. It's the same reason why (mostly) hip-hop videos on MTV have blurred-out logos on clothing - companies would LOVE people to see top-rated musicians wearing their clothes on national TV 20 times a day, but MTV (reasonably enough) wants to be paid for advertising on its network.
No, truly expensive and fasionable clothing has something perhaps better - wearers who will tell the name of the manufacturer to those who so much as look at the outfit.
"Hi, new suit?" "Yeah, it's," and then that subtle emphasis, "Armani/Gucci/Whatever."
That's why I've never (and I mean never) bought a t-shirt that had a logo on it. I buy plain t-shirts (the ones that are exactly the same as the expensive ones, except for not having logos and, well, not being expensive). I do indeed own several shirts that have logos, but they were given to me free, as promotions, at my last job.
I don't get angry at Tommy Hillfinger and Nike for selling hyperexpensive t-shirts...I mock them and regard people using the logos on their clothes to assert social status (and the people this works on) as pathetic.
What an interesting way to trivialize the horrors of Nazism by comparing it to a politically incorrect shoe company.
Yeah, over-advertising to the point of annoyance and producing goods in locations where labor is cheap is just like setting up a fascist political system and killing millions of people in war and death-camps...
So, you won't explain why you don't think that the DoJ prosecution of Microsoft was political in origin?
But, to be fair, yes, my claim is the one that requires support. Previously, I missed out on the opportunity to explain and support this (I wasn't at the computer for a couple of days, and I didn't think anyone would actually SEE the reply), so I will do so now, briefly.
Before the anti-trust case, Microsoft avoided both the subtler and grosser forms of lobbying and contributing money to politicians.
Until a few years ago, Microsoft proudly refused to open a Washington office. Oddly, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman viewed this as demonstrating contempt for "rules and institutions."
From "Social Engineering by Legal Brief", The Washington Times, HTMLed here.
In contrast, the instigating companies in the case all happened to come from states (particularly California) with much more Congressional clout than Washington. Orrin Hatch, the Senator from Utah (the home of Novell) chaired the hearings where he personally blasted Microsoft and Bill Gates.
As pointed out in "Texas Swing", which appeared in the August/September 1998 issue of Reason, it's silly to try to pretend that anti-trust proceedings are disinterested government actions. Like most actions in our government, they involve the advancement of personal and corporate agendas and the application of political leverage in the form of favors and political contributions. Essentially, this entire trial is a big political favor to some of Microsoft's competitiors that also serves to promote the career of Joel Klein, one of the most active (and hence, famous) heads of the DoJ Antitrust Division in decades. (It's had little benefit to anyone else trying to jump on the bandwagon, and in fact, G.W. Bush got a little boost in the polls from announcing his opposition to the whole thing.) "The New Trustbusters" from the March 1999 Reason gives an interesting look at the curious history of antitrust, but more usefully, at its present application by those such as Klein. "Barbarians at Bill Gates" from the web site of the Foundation for Economic Education expands some of the points from that article with regards to MS's case.
Ultimately, this trial is a joke. The actions Microsoft is being punished for are only considered crimes because Microsoft holds a "monopoly" (meaning that it has no competition). This accusation of monopoly was brought by its competitors, of course. The trial showed that the presiding judge was biased against MS from the start, and the proposed and actual "remedies" wouldn't do anything to remove a monopoly if it really existed. (Or does anyone actually have a cogent explanation of how, if Windows is a monopoly, spinning it off into its own company will stop it from being a monopoly?)
What really gets me about this is that Linux and other forces would have brought down Microsoft in the marketplace in about the same timeframe this case will, assuming it doesn't get thrown out. And now, of course, when Windows slips from its current dominant position in (desktop intel-based system) OSes, as Lotus slipped away from its dominant position in spreadsheets years ago, interventionists will claim it was somehow due to the trial and not the workings of the free market. And Joel Klein will claim credit for that for the rest of his life.
So, did this supposed "monopoly power" spring up early in the history of PCs or is it a new power that MS started abusing? You say both.
Market forces have been at work, are at work, and will be at work, DoJ case or no DoJ case. Microsoft's dominance of the market has been eroding ever since the explosion of Linux. Windows NT (2005, whatever they call it then) will be near death, if not utterly dead, in the server market in 5 years The breakup, if it's not overturned (which I actually exprect), will not make that happen any faster or slower.
The way the system works in America is to let consumers make choices and let companies compete, not to let the government try to pick winners and losers.
Have they? Every single national public opinion poll of Americans that I've heard of has shown the public as a whole to be pretty squarely against the antritrust case and the DoJ.
Slashdot Mirror
Guido's quote in the very interview you reference.
The fallacy of the excluded middle relies on the presentation of two options falsely described as the only options. There is no fallacy if the premises allow no middle ground. I did not say that systems other than that of consistent IP rights and nonexistance of IP could not exist or did not exist. The current copyright system would be an obvious counterexample. I did say that the two positions were the only intellectually (ie philosophically) defendable ones for the reasons I described. It is not consistent to allow creators of works any control over the distribution, attribution, etc. of those works and not allow them to set the terms of control that they prefer.
I have to point out again that you, like many, miss an important point. RMS is not on the opposite end of any spectrum from 'absolute copyright'. RMS is squarely in the IP camp. The GPL makes some very specific and non-negotiable demands of me whether or not I sign any contract, just as copyright does. All that's required to be bound by either is to possess a copy of the work. (And you conflate IP issues with shrinkwrap licenses - the controversy in that case is of the nature of contract, with IP simply not relevant.)
The issue of free speech vs. intellectual property is an important one, especially if you agree that IP rights exist. "Fair use" is merely the realm of communication about works where IP can't properly be said to apply. It's a "my right to flail my hands ends at your face" issue, though not nearly as clear-cut. Both sides of the Evil Media Corporations vs. Whiny Software Pirate debate (to cast it into the typical stereotypes) tend to try to claim the right to infringe the one right of their opponents by virtue of themselves possessing the other right.
Sadly, the incoherent nature of the copyright system and modern IP law in general truly creates this problem. It sets down one major license with conditions that various interest groups fight to alter for their own benefit in the courts and Congress. It amounts to unilaterally rewriting a contract and forcing the other parties to be bound to it. Without government forcing everyone to follow one major licensing agreement (which tends to be used to "power" alternatives - look how many copyrights Linus and Richard have) and instead enforcing intellectual property based on licenses, Whiny Pirates and Evil Suits could come to their own peace on licenses they mutually approve of. Instead of wondering whether copyleft could ever survive a court challenge, FSF fans could rest assured that selling proprietary Linux was illegal.
(And yes, it might require altering the Constitution to do it. And yes, what I'm proposing is really just consistently applying principles of the common law and property rights (hence, "IP").)
There isn't a solitary element to the Open Audio License not covered by simply releasing music into the public domain. Not one. And even nasty old copyright can work the same way.
Except, of course, he didn't have the hip little (O).
Stupid publicity stunts aside ("Hey, let's patent a trademark for the public domain!"), there are two intellectually defendable theories of intellectual property. One is that a person can create a work and place any conditions on its use and distribution that the creator wishes (and people who dislike the conditions can do without the creation), including giving that control to someone else. The other is that once a person allows another to have some method of copying or otherwise emulating a creation, that person can make no demand on what any other person does with it.
Notice that "Free Software" (as folks like Stallman snap if you accidentally call it "Open Source") is actually an example of the first type. Actually, releasing any work under any license besides "We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do" is just selecting what conditions you place on it and what demands you make on anyone else who comes across it.
It's ridiculous to claim that copyright or any other license is "wrong" unless you agree that all licenses, all licenses, are immoral violations of free speech. You can't cheer pirating a commercial piece of software if you can cry foul at someone violating the GPL.
So, absent any honest, significant opposition to the premises of some form of intellectual property, why don't we just discuss the aspects of licenses that we like or dislike and choose which ones we support (by spurning works with restrictions we dislike) without any pretense of moral superiority?
Then why is it that ever since the creation of the welfare system, there is both more poverty and more multi-generational poverty than existed when only private citizens engaged in charity?
What wasn't libertarian about his book? He WAS a registered member of the party...
Katz goes on and on about some weird doctrine he calls "Individualism", a psuedo-democratic world that supports "the legitimacy of the individual, whose voice and vote should count for more than any other single interest or group." This apparently boils down to nothing more substantive than "people who believe as I do in free MP3s and the evil of corporations should have a veto on the votes of everyone else". If he really was as big on freedom as he thinks, he'd have to acknowledge the necessity of personal responsibility...and he might even be a libertarian.
Katz and Borsook are completely ignorant of libertarianism beyond a few slogans and a vague bugaboo of evil little selfish people who love freedom and make their associates look bad. Here's an excellent deconstruction of Borsook's book, pointing out that not only does she know little about the movement she's so worried about but that she doesn't understand the real politics of techies, anyway. She's a perpetually hostile outsider who's been casting a jaundiced view at the technical community for as long as she's been familiar with it.
Try looking at it this way:
"Fire" looks to be an amazing advance over huddling in drafty caves and eating raw meat. Yes, some uses of fire will not work, and others may be evil. But, we will learn from our mistakes.
Compare this to flint tools. Yes, sometimes we cut ourselves with them, sometimes people died from infections or bleeding from those cuts, and sometimes people died when we used them to fight. But, we learned how to handle flint tools, and absent some warmonger running around killing people, we don't have to worry about them, much.
To put things a little less lightly, we don't really have any other option besides stagnation and forgoing future benefits because of the possibility of future problems. It's impossible to take a technology in its infancy and try to predict what can or will be done with it. Von Nueman or Babbage certainly couldn't have predicted the World Wide Web, much less things like wireless web browsing by palmtops, the EFF, The Hunger Site, popup ads, or MAKE MONEY FAST spam. With genetic engineering, we can make some prediction and identify some possible problems or benefits, but we're just as clueless as to what we'll really do.
THANK YOU!
People seem way too enamoured of the idea that we should subject any new advance to exhaustive analysis so we can prevent misuses. However, everyone forgets that 10 or 20 years ago, no one could realistically predict where the Internet would be. This stuff is new exactly because it hasn't existed before - we can't pretend it's possible to gravely look it over, foresee every use, and then carefully release it into the world, knowing that Evil Shall Not Be Done. We can only stop those who misuse it when they actually go to misuse it.
You're forgetting two things.
First, yes, a lot of traits people will select for will have little survival utility. (Well, except for increased intelligence, removal of genetic infirmaties, enhanced physical condition, those sort of things.) However, just as in natural selection, these traits will be prone to artificial selection (in the truest sense): if people find some new trait annoying, troublesome, uncomfortable, offensive, or otherwise "bad", they won't get it for their kids. Every generation may have people with "peacock" traits that turn into PITAs, but very few people in the next generation will have those particular traits.
Second, no, all Americans won't select for blue eyes and blonde hair. Part of the reason both versions of Village of the Damned were so creepy, after all, was because all the children looked alike and, perhaps more importantly, nothing like their reasonably varied parents. People generally don't want children who don't look like them! And that's just among people who are already pale. To suggest that most black, latino, Asian, etc. parents will want to give birth to Aryan Perfection Skin Cancer Victim(tm) kids is absurd. And further, even among the small minority of parents who won't care about kids looking wildly different from them, "blue eyes and blonde hair" isn't anywhere near a universal ideal. Personal preferences will produce variety: I'd suspect parents would go for ideals of various ethnic phenotypes they find attractive and charismatic.
Yes, genetic testing may lead to people with genetic conditions having to pay higher premiums for health insurance, just as people who smoke, engage in other risky activities, or have an existing medical condition have to pay higher premiums. That's the way insurance works: the idea is for someone to pay a bit more, over time, than the average person with his or her circumstances will require in medical costs. Otherwise, insurance doesn't work.
Considering how many health conditions are believed to have genetic components now, how many more are likely to be found to have such components, and how most people will probably be found to have something that will be considered a genetic condition, no matter how minor (in other words, we'll find predispositions to a lot of things we don't even think of as genetic illnesses), the insurance agencies wouldn't be able to survive without covering people who test positive for various genetic problems. Instead, just as we're starting to slowly see now, insurance companies are going to emphasize preventative medicine. It will be much cheaper to test someone and say, for example, "Oh, he's got much greater-than-normal susceptability to influenza, let's have him go get flu shots every year on our dime so we don't have to pay for him going into the emergency room with a high fever, again." And, as genetic treatments become more common, more refined, and less expensive, insurance companies will start using tests to recommend those treatments to permanently avoid the hassle and expense of certain health problems.
So, I don't see testing as such a horrible thing.
No, unless you're trying to imply that Katz is subject to it.
*grin*
O'Reilly generally doesn't bother matching the animals much to the subject on their books. Generally....(Ie, the Python Pocket Reference has a snake on it, but none of their other Python books.)
Heh.
You're trolling and perhaps the most stupid person I've seen on Slashdot. No, I'm not going to wrestle with you in your sty.
I'm quite aware of Stalin's holding the #1 position for mega-murderer, thank you. That's why I have to really work to show patience for any Communists and have none for Stalinists (and yes, they are still around, just like neo-nazis). However, while Stalin killed more, his purges were in the same order of magnitude as the Holocaust, and indeed, Hitler's crime put quite a "dent" in that number.
Also note that I listed war, then death-camps. The Russian front managed to chew up even more people than the camps.
Ultimately, yes, I do disagree with you completely on the issue of anti-trust. It's my opinion that as the laws were originally framed, Microsoft didn't even violate them, but also that the original laws were unjustified. There's ample historical evidence to suggest that the only viable long-term monopolies are those enforced by law (both the original AT&T monopoly and local phone companies later, local utilities, and local cable companies, for example). However, if you disagree, you've every right to your opinion.
As to the bias I mention on the part of Judge Jackson, he started off the proceedings by appointing Lawrence Lessig, an outspoken opponent of Microsoft, as a special master in the case. When Microsoft objected to this appointment on the grounds of bias and personal relationship to someone working at Netscape, Jackson accused them of defaming Lessig. Thoughout the entire trial, Jackson was unremittingly hostile to Microsoft. It really looks to me as if he came to the case with some sort of prejudice. (I'm willing to bet that will be one of the grounds for appeal.)
As to unfair strong-arming, I don't buy it. Microsoft behaved in precisely the same manner as hundreds of law-abiding businesses in trying to promote multiple lines of products. Even Jackson himself reluctantly admitted that while he claimed Microsoft was a rapacious monopoly, it sold Windows far below the so-called "extortion" price a monopoly could supposedly force consumers to pay. (This, of course, raises the question: if Windows really is a monopoly, and now a company will be split off purely to handle that sole product, what's to prevent Windows Inc. from hiking the price, since it has no other sources of revenue?)
But, as I think we've answered each other's points, we shall indeed simply have to agree to disagree. See you around.
That doesn't say much good about the person who just dumped thousands of dollars on a product from a dealership. :)
No, that's because providing free advertising in a TV show lessens the value of the commerical time that FOX-TV sells. It's the same reason why (mostly) hip-hop videos on MTV have blurred-out logos on clothing - companies would LOVE people to see top-rated musicians wearing their clothes on national TV 20 times a day, but MTV (reasonably enough) wants to be paid for advertising on its network.
No, truly expensive and fasionable clothing has something perhaps better - wearers who will tell the name of the manufacturer to those who so much as look at the outfit.
"Hi, new suit?"
"Yeah, it's," and then that subtle emphasis, "Armani/Gucci/Whatever."
That's why I've never (and I mean never) bought a t-shirt that had a logo on it. I buy plain t-shirts (the ones that are exactly the same as the expensive ones, except for not having logos and, well, not being expensive). I do indeed own several shirts that have logos, but they were given to me free, as promotions, at my last job.
I don't get angry at Tommy Hillfinger and Nike for selling hyperexpensive t-shirts...I mock them and regard people using the logos on their clothes to assert social status (and the people this works on) as pathetic.
Oops. We forgot that impoverished people in third-world countries had easy access to free public schools. Silly us.
"Swooshstika"
What an interesting way to trivialize the horrors of Nazism by comparing it to a politically incorrect shoe company.
Yeah, over-advertising to the point of annoyance and producing goods in locations where labor is cheap is just like setting up a fascist political system and killing millions of people in war and death-camps...
So, you won't explain why you don't think that the DoJ prosecution of Microsoft was political in origin?
But, to be fair, yes, my claim is the one that requires support. Previously, I missed out on the opportunity to explain and support this (I wasn't at the computer for a couple of days, and I didn't think anyone would actually SEE the reply), so I will do so now, briefly.
Before the anti-trust case, Microsoft avoided both the subtler and grosser forms of lobbying and contributing money to politicians.
From "Social Engineering by Legal Brief", The Washington Times, HTMLed here.
In contrast, the instigating companies in the case all happened to come from states (particularly California) with much more Congressional clout than Washington. Orrin Hatch, the Senator from Utah (the home of Novell) chaired the hearings where he personally blasted Microsoft and Bill Gates.
As pointed out in "Texas Swing", which appeared in the August/September 1998 issue of Reason, it's silly to try to pretend that anti-trust proceedings are disinterested government actions. Like most actions in our government, they involve the advancement of personal and corporate agendas and the application of political leverage in the form of favors and political contributions. Essentially, this entire trial is a big political favor to some of Microsoft's competitiors that also serves to promote the career of Joel Klein, one of the most active (and hence, famous) heads of the DoJ Antitrust Division in decades. (It's had little benefit to anyone else trying to jump on the bandwagon, and in fact, G.W. Bush got a little boost in the polls from announcing his opposition to the whole thing.) "The New Trustbusters" from the March 1999 Reason gives an interesting look at the curious history of antitrust, but more usefully, at its present application by those such as Klein. "Barbarians at Bill Gates" from the web site of the Foundation for Economic Education expands some of the points from that article with regards to MS's case.
Ultimately, this trial is a joke. The actions Microsoft is being punished for are only considered crimes because Microsoft holds a "monopoly" (meaning that it has no competition). This accusation of monopoly was brought by its competitors, of course. The trial showed that the presiding judge was biased against MS from the start, and the proposed and actual "remedies" wouldn't do anything to remove a monopoly if it really existed. (Or does anyone actually have a cogent explanation of how, if Windows is a monopoly, spinning it off into its own company will stop it from being a monopoly?)
What really gets me about this is that Linux and other forces would have brought down Microsoft in the marketplace in about the same timeframe this case will, assuming it doesn't get thrown out. And now, of course, when Windows slips from its current dominant position in (desktop intel-based system) OSes, as Lotus slipped away from its dominant position in spreadsheets years ago, interventionists will claim it was somehow due to the trial and not the workings of the free market. And Joel Klein will claim credit for that for the rest of his life.
So, did this supposed "monopoly power" spring up early in the history of PCs or is it a new power that MS started abusing? You say both.
Market forces have been at work, are at work, and will be at work, DoJ case or no DoJ case. Microsoft's dominance of the market has been eroding ever since the explosion of Linux. Windows NT (2005, whatever they call it then) will be near death, if not utterly dead, in the server market in 5 years The breakup, if it's not overturned (which I actually exprect), will not make that happen any faster or slower.
The way the system works in America is to let consumers make choices and let companies compete, not to let the government try to pick winners and losers.
Have they? Every single national public opinion poll of Americans that I've heard of has shown the public as a whole to be pretty squarely against the antritrust case and the DoJ.