You (or more typically, your elderly parents) ring up and say "my mouse won't work", someone comes around to your house and plugs it in / cleans the mouse ball / upsells you an optical mouse.
What's unscientific about trying something and observing the results? As for whether or not we should do something to remedy climate change, we don't have much choice. Doing nothing is not an option. The popular political sentiment towards climate change is that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You have to admit that we have no idea what effect that will have on climate change either. So why is it unthinkable to do something proactive about climate change?
We didn't induce the so called greenhouse effect. If it wasn't for the greenhouse effect the planet would be an ice ball.
Just denying your limits with some kind of macho strawman about "shouldn't know" is what got us into this mess.
What mess? Slightly elevated average temperatures? That's why people are talking about correcting and maintaining the temperatures now: because there is not yet a crisis. If we do nothing the crisis will happen. And yes, stopping all the factories on Earth is the same as doing nothing.
Uhhh, there's a temperature at which humans are comfortable, therefore that is what the temperature should be. Personally I'm for undoing some of the inclination of the planet too - get rid of these pointless seasons. It'd also be nice if we could make it rain less in the cities and more in the agricultural regions.
Riiiiiight. Better to modify ourselves to the environment than modifying the environment to ourselves. Oh wait, no, making the world the way we want is what being human is all about.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
So if Debian is offering binary packages of something that is under the GPL they MUST be offering a written offer under section (b) and therefore you are clearly free to pass that written offer third parties under section (c). Assuming you're not commercially distributing the work, but this guy probably is, so what's so hard about replacing their name with yours. All this is supposed to encourage you to use section (a) and distribute the source code with the binaries.. why is that so hard?
His mistake seems to have been the assumption that, so long as the source code was available somewhere, he did not have to provide it himself if he hadn't modified it.
It's called passing on an offer to supply source code.. it's a part of the GPL. What a load of shit.
No-one gives a shit now because 1) being able to copy music/movies isn't all that important and 2) no-one can stop you anyways - the laws are completely unenforcable. Both those things will change when you can copy a car or food.
No. See, the Open Source movement has moved on from declaring that "pragmatism > ethics". The movement now defines itself as an ethical one that cares more about freedom than how to make the best software. RMS doesn't see that because he's not a part of this movement. The Open Source movement would love to have him as a member but he continues to place himself outside (and above) it.
I believe one day you will be able to copy physical objects, and when that day comes you can say goodbye to any DRM laws that have been passed for digital media, because people just won't stand for having the government prohibiting them from copying whatever they want.
It's a waste of resources while there are much more serious threats to our freedoms.
Meh. Human resources are not interchangable. You can't just claim that people who are currently protesting DRM could be out protesting, I don't know, the PATRIOT act. Different things drive different people to action.
I think it's better to say that protesting against DRM is just silly, because there's no-one to listen to your greviences. Educating the public about why they shouldn't like DRM is a great idea, except I think most everyone understands it already, they're just willing to accept it. Trying to educate people as to why they shouldn't accept it is much harder, and pretty much doomed to failure I suspect.
Better. There's a fundamental disconnect between the PETA loon and the rest of society. He considers animals just as ethically important as humans. The rest of society doesn't. If he wants to get across his message (that we should treat animals no worse than humans) then he is going to have to come down to earth and deal with the reality that society doesn't agree with him. He's going to have to find some middle ground and stand that ground. The PETA loon is just as bad as Stallman because neither are willing to listen to the argument that maybe, just maybe, they're wrong and calmly explain why they are not wrong. If he can't even answer a question that is not phrased in the exact terminology of his dogmatic belief then that is a clear indication that he is unable to explain why the current held beliefs of society are wanting.
So when the media personality with the plastic hair asks the PETA representative why they believe animals should be treated ethically (which BTW, I think is a pretty reasonable question, it *is* their acroynm in question form after all) a sensible representative will simply say "we believe animals are just as ethically valuable as humans". To dwell on the word "animals" or even to prefix it with the term "non-human" is just going to alienate those folks at home who have tuned in for the 5 second sound-bite.
Similarly with RMS. But you'll never see RMS on the 6 o'clock news because even if he did manage to answer a question in less than 50 words he'd still be using terms that no-one but his domatic followers can understand.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you could try again and this time be 1) less hostile; 2) less foul; 3) making an actual argument of some sort.
It's pretty hard to argue that DRM is anything but anti-freedom. Sure, it's not anti-freedom-of-speech or anti-freedom-of-religion, the "big" freedoms, but it certainly is anti-freedom-to-copy, but hey, so is copyright law. What confuses me about the FSF stance is that when it comes to software they took this tact of appealing to the creator of the work's sense of fairness and asked them to make a concious decision to use the power of (copyright) law to free the users of their work. But when it comes to DRM they've taken this completely different tact of declaring the proponents of it evil and calling on the users to put pressure on the creators of the devices to not make them. It seems to me that the strategy that worked so well on programmers should work just as well on the makers of music, or movies or whatever other works you care to mention, and the existence of the Creative Commons licenses shows that this is the case. So why do we need this new anti-DRM-device-makers strategy? If people want to consume proprietary software, they should be free to do so. We should tell them what freedoms they are giving up and what ill effects they are having on their community, but they have to make the decision not to use it themselves and the same goes for DRM. It seems to me that demonizing DRM enabled devices is just as silly as demonizing obsfucators or compilers. In fact, some would call an obsfucator a form of DRM.. it restricts your freedom to inspect, and modify a piece of software and, in that sense, a compiler is just a weak obsfucator (in the case of bytecode compilers, a very weak one). Does the FSF demonize compilers? No, they make them.
Far from being an outsider, he is now seen as being the ethical heart of us all, even those in the Open Software community
You mean the Open Source community? The one he rejects? I don't think you read my post at all. He continues to declare himself an outsider of the Open Source community. As for this "Open Software" community you speak of, perhaps you're thinking of the Sun community? That's how they refer to themselves. And I assure you, they do not think of RMS as anything approximating a "heart".. although I can think of some other parts of anatomy they have used to refer to him.
Yes, RMS makes a strong ethical stance, but the problem is not with his message - the problem is with him.
"all that and more" was refering to the technology Larry Niven described to enable Dolphins to do stuff the humans find interesting. The point being you don't need to give Dolphins advanced technology to find a sentient creature with interests similar to humans, the apes already exist.
Slashdot Mirror
especially when I hear that.
You (or more typically, your elderly parents) ring up and say "my mouse won't work", someone comes around to your house and plugs it in / cleans the mouse ball / upsells you an optical mouse.
Hey! I wear a tie and frankly I find it offensive that... nah, I can't pull that off. :)
Some people need that kind of support.
What's unscientific about trying something and observing the results? As for whether or not we should do something to remedy climate change, we don't have much choice. Doing nothing is not an option. The popular political sentiment towards climate change is that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You have to admit that we have no idea what effect that will have on climate change either. So why is it unthinkable to do something proactive about climate change?
I don't think I denied anything.
We didn't induce the so called greenhouse effect. If it wasn't for the greenhouse effect the planet would be an ice ball.
Just denying your limits with some kind of macho strawman about "shouldn't know" is what got us into this mess.
What mess? Slightly elevated average temperatures? That's why people are talking about correcting and maintaining the temperatures now: because there is not yet a crisis. If we do nothing the crisis will happen. And yes, stopping all the factories on Earth is the same as doing nothing.
Uhhh, there's a temperature at which humans are comfortable, therefore that is what the temperature should be. Personally I'm for undoing some of the inclination of the planet too - get rid of these pointless seasons. It'd also be nice if we could make it rain less in the cities and more in the agricultural regions.
If we don't try, we'll never know.
Riiiiiight. Better to modify ourselves to the environment than modifying the environment to ourselves. Oh wait, no, making the world the way we want is what being human is all about.
Fuckin' Luddites.
People who are afraid of "messing with" natural phenomona make me anxious. People who say "there's some things man shouldn't know" is another.
Who gives a shit if humans are causing it. We can't stop being human. The only solution is planetary engineering.
The world has changed, and it'll do it again.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
So if Debian is offering binary packages of something that is under the GPL they MUST be offering a written offer under section (b) and therefore you are clearly free to pass that written offer third parties under section (c). Assuming you're not commercially distributing the work, but this guy probably is, so what's so hard about replacing their name with yours. All this is supposed to encourage you to use section (a) and distribute the source code with the binaries.. why is that so hard?
His mistake seems to have been the assumption that, so long as the source code was available somewhere, he did not have to provide it himself if he hadn't modified it.
It's called passing on an offer to supply source code.. it's a part of the GPL. What a load of shit.
No-one gives a shit now because 1) being able to copy music/movies isn't all that important and 2) no-one can stop you anyways - the laws are completely unenforcable. Both those things will change when you can copy a car or food.
No. See, the Open Source movement has moved on from declaring that "pragmatism > ethics". The movement now defines itself as an ethical one that cares more about freedom than how to make the best software. RMS doesn't see that because he's not a part of this movement. The Open Source movement would love to have him as a member but he continues to place himself outside (and above) it.
I believe one day you will be able to copy physical objects, and when that day comes you can say goodbye to any DRM laws that have been passed for digital media, because people just won't stand for having the government prohibiting them from copying whatever they want.
It's a waste of resources while there are much more serious threats to our freedoms.
Meh. Human resources are not interchangable. You can't just claim that people who are currently protesting DRM could be out protesting, I don't know, the PATRIOT act. Different things drive different people to action.
I think it's better to say that protesting against DRM is just silly, because there's no-one to listen to your greviences. Educating the public about why they shouldn't like DRM is a great idea, except I think most everyone understands it already, they're just willing to accept it. Trying to educate people as to why they shouldn't accept it is much harder, and pretty much doomed to failure I suspect.
Better. There's a fundamental disconnect between the PETA loon and the rest of society. He considers animals just as ethically important as humans. The rest of society doesn't. If he wants to get across his message (that we should treat animals no worse than humans) then he is going to have to come down to earth and deal with the reality that society doesn't agree with him. He's going to have to find some middle ground and stand that ground. The PETA loon is just as bad as Stallman because neither are willing to listen to the argument that maybe, just maybe, they're wrong and calmly explain why they are not wrong. If he can't even answer a question that is not phrased in the exact terminology of his dogmatic belief then that is a clear indication that he is unable to explain why the current held beliefs of society are wanting.
So when the media personality with the plastic hair asks the PETA representative why they believe animals should be treated ethically (which BTW, I think is a pretty reasonable question, it *is* their acroynm in question form after all) a sensible representative will simply say "we believe animals are just as ethically valuable as humans". To dwell on the word "animals" or even to prefix it with the term "non-human" is just going to alienate those folks at home who have tuned in for the 5 second sound-bite.
Similarly with RMS. But you'll never see RMS on the 6 o'clock news because even if he did manage to answer a question in less than 50 words he'd still be using terms that no-one but his domatic followers can understand.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you could try again and this time be 1) less hostile; 2) less foul; 3) making an actual argument of some sort.
It's pretty hard to argue that DRM is anything but anti-freedom. Sure, it's not anti-freedom-of-speech or anti-freedom-of-religion, the "big" freedoms, but it certainly is anti-freedom-to-copy, but hey, so is copyright law. What confuses me about the FSF stance is that when it comes to software they took this tact of appealing to the creator of the work's sense of fairness and asked them to make a concious decision to use the power of (copyright) law to free the users of their work. But when it comes to DRM they've taken this completely different tact of declaring the proponents of it evil and calling on the users to put pressure on the creators of the devices to not make them. It seems to me that the strategy that worked so well on programmers should work just as well on the makers of music, or movies or whatever other works you care to mention, and the existence of the Creative Commons licenses shows that this is the case. So why do we need this new anti-DRM-device-makers strategy? If people want to consume proprietary software, they should be free to do so. We should tell them what freedoms they are giving up and what ill effects they are having on their community, but they have to make the decision not to use it themselves and the same goes for DRM. It seems to me that demonizing DRM enabled devices is just as silly as demonizing obsfucators or compilers. In fact, some would call an obsfucator a form of DRM.. it restricts your freedom to inspect, and modify a piece of software and, in that sense, a compiler is just a weak obsfucator (in the case of bytecode compilers, a very weak one). Does the FSF demonize compilers? No, they make them.
Far from being an outsider, he is now seen as being the ethical heart of us all, even those in the Open Software community
You mean the Open Source community? The one he rejects? I don't think you read my post at all. He continues to declare himself an outsider of the Open Source community. As for this "Open Software" community you speak of, perhaps you're thinking of the Sun community? That's how they refer to themselves. And I assure you, they do not think of RMS as anything approximating a "heart".. although I can think of some other parts of anatomy they have used to refer to him.
Yes, RMS makes a strong ethical stance, but the problem is not with his message - the problem is with him.
In the case of rocketry there is absolutely no evidence of that.
"all that and more" was refering to the technology Larry Niven described to enable Dolphins to do stuff the humans find interesting. The point being you don't need to give Dolphins advanced technology to find a sentient creature with interests similar to humans, the apes already exist.