Now the fun starts when a couple of years from now someone tries to set up another "googler", and argues in court that the word is genericized, and google enters this slashdot thread as evidence to the contrary!
So spell check your posts -- they could be legal documents!
I think Tim O'Reilly out it more clearly (quoting from memory:
Recently I was talking to a friend who didn't own a computer. He said he was thinking about getting one so that he could shop at amazon.com. Now
that's the definition of a killer app -- something that makes you want to go out and buy a computer. Note that the killer app of today is no longer a game, or an office suite -- it's a website.
That's his point. What do I spend time on my computer doing? Well, I use emacs (for coding), freeciv (for fun), slashdot and indymedia (for news).... What's out there on the net is as important as what's in here on my computer. It's a big shift -- and one M$ has been trying to ignore.
Of course, what's on the computer seems to make a whole lot more money than what's on the net, so this decision has done well for them so far. They just can't keep it up.
The FSF has historically helped to enforce the GPL, even when they were not the copyright holders (to go to court, they would need power of attorney from the actual authors, but that hasn't come up yet). Standard procedure seems to be to meet quietly with the offender, explain how ironclad the GPL is, explain options for compliance, and offer to accept a simple correction of the problem. Eben Moglen wrote an interesting essay about this, which is worth reading now (for those who haven't).
Here's a pertinant quotation:
We have even, once or twice, faced enterprises which, under US copyright law, were engaged in deliberate, criminal copyright infringement: taking the source code of GPL'd software, recompiling it with an attempt to conceal its origin, and offering it for sale as a proprietary product. I have assisted free software developers other than the FSF to deal with such problems, which we have resolved--since the criminal infringer would not voluntarily desist and, in the cases I have in mind, legal technicalities prevented actual criminal prosecution of the violators--by talking to redistributors and potential customers. ``Why would you want to pay serious money,'' we have asked, ``for software that infringes our license and will bog you down in complex legal problems, when you can have the real thing for free?'' Customers have never failed to see the pertinence of the question. The stealing of free software is one place where, indeed, crime doesn't pay.
But perhaps we have succeeded too well. If I had used the courts to enforce the GPL years ago, Microsoft's whispering would now be falling on deaf ears. Just this month I have been working on a couple of moderately sticky situations. ``Look,'' I say, ``at how many people all over the world are pressuring me to enforce the GPL in court, just to prove I can. I really need to make an example of someone. Would you like to volunteer?''
Let this be a lesson to all system archetechts: don't put stuff in only one place -- it could catch fire. With all the debian mirrors out there, I don't expect this to cause all that much trouble (obviously, if people had been hurt, that would be another matter, but apparently everyone got out in time).
I think this should actually shield the virus-writer from any sort of prosecution, shouldn't it? I suppose you could do all sorts of nasty stuff and be completely protected so long as you could prove the user clicked "ok" to the license.
As I understand the worm, it is legitimately sent to one person, and then asks permission and forwards itself to their address-book, then asks permission of these new recipients and messes with their computers. Now, let us consider from the perspective of one of these last people:
Receives message telling of a card from a friend
Is told to sign contract to view card
assumes friend wouldn't send anyhting bad, so agrees w/o reading
card turns out not to be from a friend
installed spyware breaks some vital existing program -- and cannot be uninstaleld.
Now, this person has suffered damage, but supposedly in accordance with a contract s/he signed -- but a contract presented under false pretenses! IANAL, but I think the law should be with the victim here. Selling goods under false pretenses is illegal (roughly speaking), and this is very similar.
While the "informed consent" standard is just for medical issues, I'm pretty sure that blatantly fraudulant contracts are illigitemite.
Funny, but not just a joke. I have my room set up so that I cn lie in bed and use my computer (sort of an L arrangement), and I need a multitude of pillows to keep my head vertical enough to read the moniter conviniently. Now I'll just rotate the image -- perfect for lazy computing!
A lot of nearly-ubiquitous software packages have audit-terms in their EULAs. Here's term 2c from Flash Player's EULA:
You agree that Macromedia may audit your use of the Software for compliance with these terms at any time, upon reasonable notice.
Macromedia is one of the BSA's founders, IIRC, so the permission probably carries over (these things usually include the company's "agents"). Flash player is not the only common program to have such a term, but it's one of the few that may even find it's way onto a Debian system,
Just another reason to be paranoid, another reason to use exclusively free software, and another reason to avoid Flash.
I don't have the energy to scan through the full text of the CBPDTA, so I may be wrong, but doesn't DNA store data in a digital format (base four is still digital)? Doesn't that make any naturally occurring enzyme (none of which have DRM) a violation? DNA Polymerase is already a suspect in numerous patent violations, and Monsanto has lost millions of dollars due to this criminal enzyme's interfearance with their business model.
Even so, they can have my DNA Polymerase when they extract it from my cold, dead fingers (and arms, blood, liver, etc.)
And live concerts, I do believe, will be the real money makers in the future as opposed to CD sales.
Live concerts are already the primary source of income for artists. They get barely anything from CDs or merchandising, except in a handful of extraordinary cases. There's some figures here.
Any artist who has enough legal status to make their own decisions will probably start using recordings as a way to boost concert attendance -- yeah, both of them.
We've been seeing a lot lately how the mass media wants to attack computers and the internet wherever possible, usually on the basis of piracy, even though all available evidence suggests piracy is good for them. OTOH, if the main function of the internet (and this is true for me) is to produce and distribute content independantly of the mass media, and they know they can't control it, no wonder they're trying to shut it down!
If this keeps up a few more years, they won't even be able to censure the news anymore.
Seriously, all distros I've tried (RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, SuSe) ship with a woefully inadequate supply of fonts. There are thousands of quality free (roughly speech) fonts out there, and I at one time simply ran through free font sites downloading them. While I'm not 100% clear on copyrightability of fonts, there are plenty distributed un-encumbered by their authors. Why doesn't RedHat or somebody pick them up?
Here's an online auction for a bunch of legos in 1994. It's just the first thing I spotted on google groups. Granted, this was USENET, not web, but that's not a big difference, and I think dejanews existed back then. There are older references too.
BTW, isn't obviousness suposed to be an adequate defense?
The principle of pattents is to offer a temporary monopoly to encourage both invention and full description of invention. Even in the rare cases where patents are granted for valid innovations, they are inneffective tools:
They do not promote innovation, but merely fast patenting. The nature of CS is such that many ideas are independantly developed, and would be available without patents
Software progresses faster without them. Here[PDF] is a (very) detailed analysis of the topic.
Patents Don't encourage disclosure -- it's not very disclosed if no-one who might implement it will read it for fear of a lawsuit! I think M$ has this as a policy, but I can't find proof.
Limited times are a joke -- many products are obsolete in 6 monthes. Others take 6 monthes to get going.
This technology has not made the leap from Science Fiction to reality, but from Science Fiction to a U.S. (EU?) Patent -- just a form of Science Fiction with a lousy plot and massive credibility holes. It thus follows in the path of the Universal Translator, and many other such devices. Sadly, if this actually is developed in the next decade, we won't be able to use it, because it's been patented.
Observe, a model doesn't need to work to be patented, but it does to be prior art. Something's wrong here...
Of course Apple is going to do what is in Apple's best intrest. They are a company, not a charity. They exist in order to make money, not to make your life easier or better.
I realize this is something of a formality by now, but corporate charters are supposed to be granted "in the public interest". It's entirely reasonable (in a capitalist society) that they charge enough money to operate, and even to attract investors with profits, but if they cause more harm than good, then by all rights they deserve to be disbanded. I don't think this qualifies as such a case, but it's worth keeping in mind.
Remember, only real people matter. Fictional people (such as Apple) exist only so long as we (and our courts) believe in them, and only because we think it benefitial to do so.
Re:Oh that's very responsible of you, SlashDot
on
Microsoft News Update
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Yes, it is very responcible, you think any script kiddie's server can withstand slashdot? Without the link, black-hats could get it through a google search (or whatever) -- now no one can get it at all!
If the CS department is worth a 1/2 a crap it doesn't really matter what language[s] they teach the classes in.
This is almost true. A real CS department does teach at a deeper level than the language, but language also shapes how you can think. Only an idiot or a masochist would teach recursion in basic, or OOP in prolog, or lambda-calculas in Java, or manual memory management in Lisp. Any decent education will show all fundamental designs (though not all combinations). This should include functional/procedural/OOP/rule-based as well as static/dynamic/weak typing etc. Once they've introduced this, each course should use the best language for it (e.g. AI in Lisp, Kernels in C). They should probably even teach the skill of choosing a language for a given project.
Now, there is still the question of what language to teach first. The first language taught will set up patterns that are rather hard to break. I think Dijkstra made a comment about basic.... I started with Hypertalk (don't ask why) and I never had trouble with event-based programming. This is not a coincidence. What language to start with is an important decision, and should be made on the language's merits -- not corporate contributions.
Now, C# may actually be a good choice. Many schools use C, which is awfully difficult on beginners, and many use Java, which IMO beats in OOP the wrong way. I might start a class in PERL, but I would have to be careful to stress readability. I would look for a procedural language with some OOP and functional capabilities, and a generally sane design. C# may be this. I would also want something with some history behind it, a user community, and developement tools I really trusted. C# IMO fails here, but these aren't the most vital charactoristics.
So what languages they teach does matter, and what language they start with does matter, though they certainly should teach well beyond that. It also matters whether they show their students to make choices on a technical basis or a marketing/bribery basis. It probably doesn't matter as much as it looks like at first glance, though.
Now if UWaterloo starts publishing research papers on how reliable and secure WinXP is, then we'll know they were up to something.
The Art of Unix Programming [was: How about how to
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Think Python
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This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but have you checked out The Art of Unix Programming by ESR? Only the first four chapters are written (plus the preface and TOC), but it looks like it covers a lot of what you're thinking of.
Obviously we need to check the orbit before we conclude anything, but with this much time to spare we should be able to push it away from us. Even a miniscule change in angle would become a massive change in actual location by the time it came near us, and we only need about 4000 miles. While they don't give an exact number, it will have to travel well over 100 million to reach us.
Probably our best bet (if it is a risk) would be to land an unmanned craft on it the next time it nears earth, then have it burrow it's head into the ground and fire a rocket. It could do lots of scientific tests while it was there, of course. There should be no need for exotica like nuclear bombs.
So, as they said, we have more to fear from llamas (though exploiting irrational fear of the asteroid could get us some interesting scientific data).
Freeciv is paying more attention to graphics now. The new version ships with a new tileset, and two others are available for download (not counting the old one). Some code has been altered as well (e.g. oil wells now look different from coal mines, fortresses have four sides). I intend to keep working on this, so detailed criticism is appreciated.
I've also written a patch (not yet included, but probably soon, now that feature-freeze is over) that breaks up some of the map's monotony, You can see a screenshot here. (BTW: if this screenshot seems too busy, remember that there are more specials here than in a default game, and that some the pure eye-candy disappears when tile is built upon.)
The windows port is reasonably stable, and protocol-compatible with the *nix version. It's client features are somewhat out of date, but it's playable. (And no, it doesn't require X)
All these screenshots show either the old rectangular view or the old (ugly) HiRes tileset. While both of these are still available, Freeciv now ships by default with isotrident -- the trident images (old overhead default) in an isometric arrangement. Two other new isometric tilesets (Lexxy and Cevo) are also available. There are screenshots on freeciv's site (or will be once the slashdotting ends), but google doesn't have any of them.
They have put up some of their books. Like Using Samba. The online version is free (full text, nicely HTML-ized) and the sell the dead tree version in stores. They sell a lot of copies.
Sort of like the Baen free library, which does the same thing with fiction. I don't know if you could do the same with software, but putting the full text of a book online tends to increase sales.
I'm rampantly speculating, here, but so Moby, so maybe it cancels out.
Nobody likes being called a thief. Nobody likes having their freedom threatened. Nobody who's been paying attention likes the RIAA. More than most people, geems are paying attention.
Now, Moby is a major-label band. I won't buy major-label music at this point. I just don't want it that much, not enough to sponsor a major label. Now, I know that most geeks don't feel as strongly, but they don't need to. If the requirenment for buying an album changes from "is it good enough for me to fork over $10 to some pretty cool people" to "is it good enough for me to fork over $10 to some pretty evil people", that's going to effect sales. Probably for a lot of people, a lot of albums fall in between those two standards.
The RIAA has been figuring they needn't fear the wrath of geeks. Maybe they're starting to be wrong?
Slashdot Mirror
So spell check your posts -- they could be legal documents!
hmm, I wonder how they'll regard this post...
That's his point. What do I spend time on my computer doing? Well, I use emacs (for coding), freeciv (for fun), slashdot and indymedia (for news).... What's out there on the net is as important as what's in here on my computer. It's a big shift -- and one M$ has been trying to ignore.
Of course, what's on the computer seems to make a whole lot more money than what's on the net, so this decision has done well for them so far. They just can't keep it up.
Here's a pertinant quotation:
Let this be a lesson to all system archetechts: don't put stuff in only one place -- it could catch fire. With all the debian mirrors out there, I don't expect this to cause all that much trouble (obviously, if people had been hurt, that would be another matter, but apparently everyone got out in time).
As I understand the worm, it is legitimately sent to one person, and then asks permission and forwards itself to their address-book, then asks permission of these new recipients and messes with their computers. Now, let us consider from the perspective of one of these last people:
Now, this person has suffered damage, but supposedly in accordance with a contract s/he signed -- but a contract presented under false pretenses! IANAL, but I think the law should be with the victim here. Selling goods under false pretenses is illegal (roughly speaking), and this is very similar.
While the "informed consent" standard is just for medical issues, I'm pretty sure that blatantly fraudulant contracts are illigitemite.
Ob.comJoke:
Funny, but not just a joke. I have my room set up so that I cn lie in bed and use my computer (sort of an L arrangement), and I need a multitude of pillows to keep my head vertical enough to read the moniter conviniently. Now I'll just rotate the image -- perfect for lazy computing!
Just another reason to be paranoid, another reason to use exclusively free software, and another reason to avoid Flash.
Even so, they can have my DNA Polymerase when they extract it from my cold, dead fingers (and arms, blood, liver, etc.)
Live concerts are already the primary source of income for artists. They get barely anything from CDs or merchandising, except in a handful of extraordinary cases. There's some figures here.
Any artist who has enough legal status to make their own decisions will probably start using recordings as a way to boost concert attendance -- yeah, both of them.
If this keeps up a few more years, they won't even be able to censure the news anymore.
Seriously, all distros I've tried (RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, SuSe) ship with a woefully inadequate supply of fonts. There are thousands of quality free (roughly speech) fonts out there, and I at one time simply ran through free font sites downloading them. While I'm not 100% clear on copyrightability of fonts, there are plenty distributed un-encumbered by their authors. Why doesn't RedHat or somebody pick them up?
BTW, isn't obviousness suposed to be an adequate defense?
- They do not promote innovation, but merely fast patenting. The nature of CS is such that many ideas are independantly developed, and would be available without patents
- Software progresses faster without them. Here[PDF] is a (very) detailed analysis of the topic.
- Patents Don't encourage disclosure -- it's not very disclosed if no-one who might implement it will read it for fear of a lawsuit! I think M$ has this as a policy, but I can't find proof.
- Limited times are a joke -- many products are obsolete in 6 monthes. Others take 6 monthes to get going.
Hope this helpsObserve, a model doesn't need to work to be patented, but it does to be prior art. Something's wrong here...
I realize this is something of a formality by now, but corporate charters are supposed to be granted "in the public interest". It's entirely reasonable (in a capitalist society) that they charge enough money to operate, and even to attract investors with profits, but if they cause more harm than good, then by all rights they deserve to be disbanded. I don't think this qualifies as such a case, but it's worth keeping in mind.
Remember, only real people matter. Fictional people (such as Apple) exist only so long as we (and our courts) believe in them, and only because we think it benefitial to do so.
Yes, it is very responcible, you think any script kiddie's server can withstand slashdot? Without the link, black-hats could get it through a google search (or whatever) -- now no one can get it at all!
This is almost true. A real CS department does teach at a deeper level than the language, but language also shapes how you can think. Only an idiot or a masochist would teach recursion in basic, or OOP in prolog, or lambda-calculas in Java, or manual memory management in Lisp. Any decent education will show all fundamental designs (though not all combinations). This should include functional/procedural/OOP/rule-based as well as static/dynamic/weak typing etc. Once they've introduced this, each course should use the best language for it (e.g. AI in Lisp, Kernels in C). They should probably even teach the skill of choosing a language for a given project.
Now, there is still the question of what language to teach first. The first language taught will set up patterns that are rather hard to break. I think Dijkstra made a comment about basic.... I started with Hypertalk (don't ask why) and I never had trouble with event-based programming. This is not a coincidence. What language to start with is an important decision, and should be made on the language's merits -- not corporate contributions.
Now, C# may actually be a good choice. Many schools use C, which is awfully difficult on beginners, and many use Java, which IMO beats in OOP the wrong way. I might start a class in PERL, but I would have to be careful to stress readability. I would look for a procedural language with some OOP and functional capabilities, and a generally sane design. C# may be this. I would also want something with some history behind it, a user community, and developement tools I really trusted. C# IMO fails here, but these aren't the most vital charactoristics.
So what languages they teach does matter, and what language they start with does matter, though they certainly should teach well beyond that. It also matters whether they show their students to make choices on a technical basis or a marketing/bribery basis. It probably doesn't matter as much as it looks like at first glance, though.
Now if UWaterloo starts publishing research papers on how reliable and secure WinXP is, then we'll know they were up to something.
This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but have you checked out The Art of Unix Programming by ESR? Only the first four chapters are written (plus the preface and TOC), but it looks like it covers a lot of what you're thinking of.
Obviously we need to check the orbit before we conclude anything, but with this much time to spare we should be able to push it away from us. Even a miniscule change in angle would become a massive change in actual location by the time it came near us, and we only need about 4000 miles. While they don't give an exact number, it will have to travel well over 100 million to reach us.
Probably our best bet (if it is a risk) would be to land an unmanned craft on it the next time it nears earth, then have it burrow it's head into the ground and fire a rocket. It could do lots of scientific tests while it was there, of course. There should be no need for exotica like nuclear bombs.
So, as they said, we have more to fear from llamas (though exploiting irrational fear of the asteroid could get us some interesting scientific data).
The launcher is not included in the current release, but the odds are very good for 1.14 (or sooner)
In the mean time, there are some third-party launchers (some mirrored on freeciv.org) that control things graphically for you,
I've also written a patch (not yet included, but probably soon, now that feature-freeze is over) that breaks up some of the map's monotony, You can see a screenshot here. (BTW: if this screenshot seems too busy, remember that there are more specials here than in a default game, and that some the pure eye-candy disappears when tile is built upon.)
The windows port is reasonably stable, and protocol-compatible with the *nix version. It's client features are somewhat out of date, but it's playable. (And no, it doesn't require X)
All these screenshots show either the old rectangular view or the old (ugly) HiRes tileset. While both of these are still available, Freeciv now ships by default with isotrident -- the trident images (old overhead default) in an isometric arrangement. Two other new isometric tilesets (Lexxy and Cevo) are also available. There are screenshots on freeciv's site (or will be once the slashdotting ends), but google doesn't have any of them.
Sort of like the Baen free library, which does the same thing with fiction. I don't know if you could do the same with software, but putting the full text of a book online tends to increase sales.
Nobody likes being called a thief. Nobody likes having their freedom threatened. Nobody who's been paying attention likes the RIAA. More than most people, geems are paying attention.
Now, Moby is a major-label band. I won't buy major-label music at this point. I just don't want it that much, not enough to sponsor a major label. Now, I know that most geeks don't feel as strongly, but they don't need to. If the requirenment for buying an album changes from "is it good enough for me to fork over $10 to some pretty cool people" to "is it good enough for me to fork over $10 to some pretty evil people", that's going to effect sales. Probably for a lot of people, a lot of albums fall in between those two standards.
The RIAA has been figuring they needn't fear the wrath of geeks. Maybe they're starting to be wrong?