My initial reaction to your posting was predictable, I thought you were outright wrong and suspected that you were a spammer even though you stated that you are not.
After some research I am willing to give you some benefit of the doubt. But at this point I will still disagree with your conclusion and suggest the following reading and points:
From the Declaration of Independence all people are ...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...
And from the 9th Ammendment in the Bill of Rights you were eager to refer to
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Conclusion
In the same way that the vagueness of the 1st ammendment provides commercial freedom of speech rights, the Decleration of Independance and the 9th Ammendment provide some vagueness for other rights which the rest of us have which spammers rights cannot "deny or disparage".
While you will find some support for free speech rights that allow for spamming it is obvious to me from doing some research that the individuals and the business entities that are bearing the brunt of the financial, productivity, and annoyance affects brought about by these spammers also have rights that are trampled by the spammer's free speech rights.
Furthermore, it is important to make a distinction between "free speech" and "commercial free speech" as they are not the same thing and in some cases have different tests they must pass before they can be guranteed the free speech right. While I agree, as does the Supreme Court, that commercial entities require the freedom of speech right, it does not play the same role or hold the same level of importance as our individual right to freedom of speech. To me this seems like simple logic, however, in recent history logic has been twisted or dumbed down in many cases so that free speech can cover just about anything to some people.
And finally, I would say to you that spamming should be banned based on the tests proposed by the Supreme Court:
Government may ban "forms of communication more likely to deceive the public than to inform it, or commercial speech related to illegal activity."
A high percentage of spam is mis-leading, deceptive, or outright illegal. Of course this would have to be tested in court, but I'm giving you my judgement first hand from reading the crap.
And I would say that "bulk commercial e-mail" should be regulated based on the additional test proposed by the court. But as I think you were pointing out in your post, completely eliminating this marketing method just to make life easier may not only be bad, but may be wrong.
I should also point out that I make a distinction between spam and what you are calling bulk commercial e-mailing. In our culture spam has a negative connotation which has been derived from the fact that all that crap you want to protect is quite negative. Now bulk commercial e-mailing on the other hand could be acceptable if implemented with some manners and ethics.
If you look at the pie charts at the bottom of the pages, it seems that only retail traders are willing to let anyone know they are buying/selling SCOX. For the most part the known SCOX traders are people using online trading or calling up their broker and making a trade request.
There are virtually no institutional traders who are willing to publicly advertise they are trading SCOX.
Now all of these charts show a large portion of traders that are unknown, however, I have a suspicion that the unknown traders in SCOX are the driving force behind raising the stock price. And my suspicion tells me that it may be for two reasons, 1) it creates an impression that the market has faith in the SCO case and expects a big windfall coming to SCO, and 2) with SCO execs dumping stock this is one way that someone could provide a payoff without directly transfering cash to SCO or its execs.
Of course this is purely speculation and I could just be paranoid. You'll have to make your own judgement as to what the numbers mean.
I think the responses should continue for two reasons:
1) While some people have become bored of the rhetoric, I am still enjoying the responses from the OSS leaders and representatives.
2) There are many people out there who on occasion happen to read an article about the SCO debate. If the response from the community is to stay silent then the masses will presume that all McBride says is true. Granted you may not care what the rest of the world thinks of you, however, as an OSS advocate I for one become angry when I'm portrayed as a commie, thief, drug addict, etc, etc.
I say keep the rebuttals coming.
burnin
Re:Quick question.
on
SCO Roundup
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Bad idea.
When reading all available information from both sides it appears that SCO has a weak case against linux (I am biased, but com'on, non-sensicle statements, back pedaling, inconsistencies, the only evidence shown has been refuted with facts not with "our word against theirs").
With that in mind you might think that shorting their stock would be a good way to make some quick bucks. But beware.
If these people are as deceitful as they appear then there is a high likelihood that they are manipulating the stock price by any means possible.
And if that is the case normal logic will not hold. If you short and they start to play some of their manipulation tricks you will lose big time.
MS may not prevent your game from running on their OS, but what they may do is develop their own game that directly competes with yours and use their marketing prowess and monopoly skills to take over enough of your market share to run you out of business. Hence you are forced off their land.
burnin
The metaphor fits - no more plantations
on
Don't Be a Sharecropper
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I believe you are wrong, there is new land to sow (read: open market for software applications) in the form of the web and a new software foundation with a better licensing scheme (read: OSS, GPL, BSD, etc.).
If your objective is to build a plantation (read: monopoly) then yes you are doomed to failure. You will not be allowed to own the land (read: internet, software applications) upon which all other farmers (read: developers) are also working.
The metaphor fits perfectly, its just that you are stuck in the old ideology and its barren and infertile soil (read: the MS monopoly upon which many devlopers are dependant and susceptible to the whim of their master).
The majority of the RFID tags in use are the read only type that repsond with an identification number. This number is useless without a database to cross reference the number to some item, person, whatever.
If anything should be feared it is the database not the tag. There are many other methods of tracking besides RFID, i.e. finger prints, retinal scans, your face! Any of these distinct features can also be cross referenced to a database.
So attacking some simple technology like RFID tags is pretty stupid. Instead there should be concerns, attacks, legislation, etc. against the data that goes into a database and how it is used.
burnin
We are using RFID tags for manufacturing automation and the tags we are using become temporarily unreadable above 120 degrees C and are destroyed at around 160 degrees C if I recall.
I have digital satellite, rabbit ears, and a dvd player connected to my 55" 16:9 Mitsubish HDTV.
Digital satellite provides limited HDTV programming and you have to pay anywhere from an extra $8/month to as high as $50/month. Additionally you have to put around $700 into your receiver to pick up the HDTV dish broadcast. Needless to say I currently don't receive HDTV from sattelite.
DVD looks great on the TV but it is no where near the quality of HDTV.
The rabbit ears currently provide 4 local channels in full 1080i HDTV. Much of the programming sucks, but the rabbit ears cost me $10. (the Mitsubishi has a built in HDTV tuner)
So until the dish, cable, and recorded media start to provide inexpensive HDTV content then the air waves must remain open to networks who are currently taking the lead in HDTV broadcasting.
Read the article, this was not a budget meeting, it was "the New York City Council's Select Committee on Technology in Government".
The presentation touched on the financial aspect of OSS in government along with several other points.
What the people of NYC need to hope for now is that the Business Management and Accounting types catch wind of the article so they can reduce IT costs to bring the defict in instead of laying people off.
burnin
Is it any coincidence that this guy hails from New Jersey and makes the following statement?
Charlie suggests that a license might also be helpful in mitigating the liabilities of companies being sued by other companies for some sort of Web services infringement.
Sounds like Mob extortion to me. Pay up the protection money so we can protect you from what we'll do to you if you don't pay up.
burnin1965
Just thought I'd point out that there is already an open source solution you can use to avoid this invasion of privacy, its called linux.
Just had to say that, but on a more serious note, I use Red Hat Network to keep a few Red Hat Linux boxes updated with current patches and it does much the same thing. But there is a big difference.
When you register a box it tells you exactly what information will be sent to RHN about software on your box and allows you to opt out.
The benefit here is two fold in that RHN only sends you updates for the software that is installed on your system and you get updates for any software package that Red Hat supports beyond patches for just the kernel.
What I'm not sure of is if they track all applications you've installed even if they don't support them. Although I still wouldn't be concerned because they tell you up front what information you will be sending to them and you can say NO.
I found the japanese hybrids very interesting but not too useful unless you have a long commute. For me the utility of a pickup was a much more interesting proposition.
Now if they could get more than the 1 or 2 MPG improvement it might be worth it. I can get an extra 1 or 2 MPG out of my 95 Sierra if I pay extra attention to driving habits and tire pressure.
Floppy disks are nothing, if serial cables are a crime then its high time we shutdown all the elementary schools and jailed all the teachers. After all, it all boils down to reading and writing being the basic tools of copyright infringement.
I've used RHN's up2date at the command prompt over a network to keep a postgresql server running RH7.2 up to date. There is no keyboard or monitor and I did not install X or any of the graphics packages. Works great.
Interesting comment on how a compiled app looks. I'll have to take a closer look. I prefer Qt for many of the reasons listed but someone might think this would lead me to use KDE vs Gnome. Well, I use Gnome for my desktop because I think it looks better.
So your saying there is no longer a market for open-source software? Or the service to support such software?
Are you using open-source software today? Hmm, you obviously posted on slashdot. I guess there is a market.
You'll have to do a whole hell of alot more then just put a few files on your web space to download. Have you even tried RedHat's Network product? I have, and I think it is an extraordinary service to provide for free to the public school system.
Considering that the open-source model is working quite well with RedHat's business model I'd say that it is not surprising.
And then when you consider the public voice that RedHat has given to the open-source concept along with the contributions of RedHat to the community it is quite obvious that the statement is purely subjective and meant to draw fire.
Yeah, I can hear the rants already, "what voice?, what contributions?". Well, if you can't figure it out then you'de better pay more attention to the world around you.
I can get a very basic PC setup with no software for about $600 and if I purchase XP for $100 and XP Office for another $500 then I have a potential free system for the needy that cost a total of $1,200.
So about 50% of the cost is for MS software and the other 50% is for some lame hardware.
By the MS calcualtions the software will cost just over 80% of the total. Which leads me to wonder what kind of hardware they are purchasing to give to the needy for free?
QWest is just starting up DSL in my area so I'll be dumping my overpriced ISDN connection as soon as my DSL line is up and running. That should cancel out your DSL retreat.
Slashdot Mirror
My initial reaction to your posting was predictable, I thought you were outright wrong and suspected that you were a spammer even though you stated that you are not.
...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...
p eech.html
After some research I am willing to give you some benefit of the doubt. But at this point I will still disagree with your conclusion and suggest the following reading and points:
From the Declaration of Independence all people are
And from the 9th Ammendment in the Bill of Rights you were eager to refer to
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
And for some historical perspective on Commercial Free Speech the following article will provide some important insight
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/frees
Conclusion
In the same way that the vagueness of the 1st ammendment provides commercial freedom of speech rights, the Decleration of Independance and the 9th Ammendment provide some vagueness for other rights which the rest of us have which spammers rights cannot "deny or disparage".
While you will find some support for free speech rights that allow for spamming it is obvious to me from doing some research that the individuals and the business entities that are bearing the brunt of the financial, productivity, and annoyance affects brought about by these spammers also have rights that are trampled by the spammer's free speech rights.
Furthermore, it is important to make a distinction between "free speech" and "commercial free speech" as they are not the same thing and in some cases have different tests they must pass before they can be guranteed the free speech right. While I agree, as does the Supreme Court, that commercial entities require the freedom of speech right, it does not play the same role or hold the same level of importance as our individual right to freedom of speech. To me this seems like simple logic, however, in recent history logic has been twisted or dumbed down in many cases so that free speech can cover just about anything to some people.
And finally, I would say to you that spamming should be banned based on the tests proposed by the Supreme Court:
Government may ban "forms of communication more likely to deceive the public than to inform it, or commercial speech related to illegal activity." A high percentage of spam is mis-leading, deceptive, or outright illegal. Of course this would have to be tested in court, but I'm giving you my judgement first hand from reading the crap.
And I would say that "bulk commercial e-mail" should be regulated based on the additional test proposed by the court. But as I think you were pointing out in your post, completely eliminating this marketing method just to make life easier may not only be bad, but may be wrong.
I should also point out that I make a distinction between spam and what you are calling bulk commercial e-mailing. In our culture spam has a negative connotation which has been derived from the fact that all that crap you want to protect is quite negative. Now bulk commercial e-mailing on the other hand could be acceptable if implemented with some manners and ethics.
burnin
If you compare the data at ThomsonFN.com that shows some information on who is buying and selling you will notice something peculiar about SCOX.
SCOX
RHAT
IBM
MSFT
If you look at the pie charts at the bottom of the pages, it seems that only retail traders are willing to let anyone know they are buying/selling SCOX. For the most part the known SCOX traders are people using online trading or calling up their broker and making a trade request.
There are virtually no institutional traders who are willing to publicly advertise they are trading SCOX.
Now all of these charts show a large portion of traders that are unknown, however, I have a suspicion that the unknown traders in SCOX are the driving force behind raising the stock price. And my suspicion tells me that it may be for two reasons, 1) it creates an impression that the market has faith in the SCO case and expects a big windfall coming to SCO, and 2) with SCO execs dumping stock this is one way that someone could provide a payoff without directly transfering cash to SCO or its execs.
Of course this is purely speculation and I could just be paranoid. You'll have to make your own judgement as to what the numbers mean.
burnin
I think the responses should continue for two reasons:
1) While some people have become bored of the rhetoric, I am still enjoying the responses from the OSS leaders and representatives.
2) There are many people out there who on occasion happen to read an article about the SCO debate. If the response from the community is to stay silent then the masses will presume that all McBride says is true. Granted you may not care what the rest of the world thinks of you, however, as an OSS advocate I for one become angry when I'm portrayed as a commie, thief, drug addict, etc, etc.
I say keep the rebuttals coming.
burnin
Bad idea.
When reading all available information from both sides it appears that SCO has a weak case against linux (I am biased, but com'on, non-sensicle statements, back pedaling, inconsistencies, the only evidence shown has been refuted with facts not with "our word against theirs").
With that in mind you might think that shorting their stock would be a good way to make some quick bucks. But beware.
If these people are as deceitful as they appear then there is a high likelihood that they are manipulating the stock price by any means possible.
And if that is the case normal logic will not hold. If you short and they start to play some of their manipulation tricks you will lose big time.
IANAFA but that is my financial opinion.
burnin
MS may not prevent your game from running on their OS, but what they may do is develop their own game that directly competes with yours and use their marketing prowess and monopoly skills to take over enough of your market share to run you out of business. Hence you are forced off their land.
burnin
I believe you are wrong, there is new land to sow (read: open market for software applications) in the form of the web and a new software foundation with a better licensing scheme (read: OSS, GPL, BSD, etc.).
If your objective is to build a plantation (read: monopoly) then yes you are doomed to failure. You will not be allowed to own the land (read: internet, software applications) upon which all other farmers (read: developers) are also working.
The metaphor fits perfectly, its just that you are stuck in the old ideology and its barren and infertile soil (read: the MS monopoly upon which many devlopers are dependant and susceptible to the whim of their master).
Just my opinion
burnin
The majority of the RFID tags in use are the read only type that repsond with an identification number. This number is useless without a database to cross reference the number to some item, person, whatever. If anything should be feared it is the database not the tag. There are many other methods of tracking besides RFID, i.e. finger prints, retinal scans, your face! Any of these distinct features can also be cross referenced to a database. So attacking some simple technology like RFID tags is pretty stupid. Instead there should be concerns, attacks, legislation, etc. against the data that goes into a database and how it is used. burnin
We are using RFID tags for manufacturing automation and the tags we are using become temporarily unreadable above 120 degrees C and are destroyed at around 160 degrees C if I recall.
Seriously, I use rabbit ears as well.
I have digital satellite, rabbit ears, and a dvd player connected to my 55" 16:9 Mitsubish HDTV.
Digital satellite provides limited HDTV programming and you have to pay anywhere from an extra $8/month to as high as $50/month. Additionally you have to put around $700 into your receiver to pick up the HDTV dish broadcast. Needless to say I currently don't receive HDTV from sattelite.
DVD looks great on the TV but it is no where near the quality of HDTV.
The rabbit ears currently provide 4 local channels in full 1080i HDTV. Much of the programming sucks, but the rabbit ears cost me $10. (the Mitsubishi has a built in HDTV tuner)
So until the dish, cable, and recorded media start to provide inexpensive HDTV content then the air waves must remain open to networks who are currently taking the lead in HDTV broadcasting.
burnin
Read the article, this was not a budget meeting, it was "the New York City Council's Select Committee on Technology in Government".
The presentation touched on the financial aspect of OSS in government along with several other points.
What the people of NYC need to hope for now is that the Business Management and Accounting types catch wind of the article so they can reduce IT costs to bring the defict in instead of laying people off. burnin
Is it any coincidence that this guy hails from New Jersey and makes the following statement?
Charlie suggests that a license might also be helpful in mitigating the liabilities of companies being sued by other companies for some sort of Web services infringement.
Sounds like Mob extortion to me. Pay up the protection money so we can protect you from what we'll do to you if you don't pay up. burnin1965
Just thought I'd point out that there is already an open source solution you can use to avoid this invasion of privacy, its called linux.
Just had to say that, but on a more serious note, I use Red Hat Network to keep a few Red Hat Linux boxes updated with current patches and it does much the same thing. But there is a big difference.
When you register a box it tells you exactly what information will be sent to RHN about software on your box and allows you to opt out.
The benefit here is two fold in that RHN only sends you updates for the software that is installed on your system and you get updates for any software package that Red Hat supports beyond patches for just the kernel.
What I'm not sure of is if they track all applications you've installed even if they don't support them. Although I still wouldn't be concerned because they tell you up front what information you will be sending to them and you can say NO.
burnin
I found the japanese hybrids very interesting but not too useful unless you have a long commute. For me the utility of a pickup was a much more interesting proposition.
Now if they could get more than the 1 or 2 MPG improvement it might be worth it. I can get an extra 1 or 2 MPG out of my 95 Sierra if I pay extra attention to driving habits and tire pressure.
Floppy disks are nothing, if serial cables are a crime then its high time we shutdown all the elementary schools and jailed all the teachers. After all, it all boils down to reading and writing being the basic tools of copyright infringement.
having programmed in VB for the last 8 years doing kernel level programming
:)
Now I understand why Windows sucks.
I've used RHN's up2date at the command prompt over a network to keep a postgresql server running RH7.2 up to date. There is no keyboard or monitor and I did not install X or any of the graphics packages. Works great.
Interesting comment on how a compiled app looks. I'll have to take a closer look. I prefer Qt for many of the reasons listed but someone might think this would lead me to use KDE vs Gnome. Well, I use Gnome for my desktop because I think it looks better.
So your saying there is no longer a market for open-source software? Or the service to support such software? Are you using open-source software today? Hmm, you obviously posted on slashdot. I guess there is a market.
You'll have to do a whole hell of alot more then just put a few files on your web space to download. Have you even tried RedHat's Network product? I have, and I think it is an extraordinary service to provide for free to the public school system.
Considering that the open-source model is working quite well with RedHat's business model I'd say that it is not surprising.
And then when you consider the public voice that RedHat has given to the open-source concept along with the contributions of RedHat to the community it is quite obvious that the statement is purely subjective and meant to draw fire.
Yeah, I can hear the rants already, "what voice?, what contributions?". Well, if you can't figure it out then you'de better pay more attention to the world around you.
I can get a very basic PC setup with no software for about $600 and if I purchase XP for $100 and XP Office for another $500 then I have a potential free system for the needy that cost a total of $1,200. So about 50% of the cost is for MS software and the other 50% is for some lame hardware. By the MS calcualtions the software will cost just over 80% of the total. Which leads me to wonder what kind of hardware they are purchasing to give to the needy for free?
QWest is just starting up DSL in my area so I'll be dumping my overpriced ISDN connection as soon as my DSL line is up and running. That should cancel out your DSL retreat.