Think how much money, time & effort could be saved if resources were pooled.
Who will head the pool? That's the big question... there's hardly any point in joining a syndicate, if the Board is excusively controlled by an elite few, whose only claim to power is their nation's military might.
Whether it's satellites, rockets, missions to the moon or supersonic jets, few BIG nations want to co-operate or pool - just exploit hi-tech low-paid manpower from abroad.
If people just learn how to use their computers (you shouldn't download exe's from people you don't know, a firewall is a good thing to have, ActiveX controls aren't safe and your default response shouldn't be to install them no matter what IE says) a huge number of problems would be eliminated.
I can see many practically feasible solutions, if the above is true:
1. Eliminate all people - that would guarantee security. 2. Eliminate ActiveX controls and IE - can't see that happening even 50 years from now - DOS continues to live, years after being pronounced dead. 3. Implement DRM in hardware - lock out all 'unauthorised' programs - I think this will happen in the next 10 years or so, beginning with the release after Vista. 4. Make phishing, malware-writing and distribution, spam etc. a criminal offence, punishable by life-term imprisonment. 5. Have a tiered internet, with only 'approved' sites and service in 'public' tier - this might get implemented in about the same time schedule as (3). 6. Close down all closed-source anti-virus and anti-spyware firms; making it mandatory for such firms to sell/license code only on open source terms - as things stand now, these guys would love it for computers to remain insecure forever.
Being a bass player, I'm concerned about what's left over for the musician. Very concerned.
Just bcos someone's making lots of money out of your music shouldn't mean all musicians have a right to profit. Why not distribute yourself, the music you create?
I don't think it's a Free Software issue at all... even in France. It's Apple's product and technology - they can do whatever they please. If their product became a monopoly.. then, maybe the specs for inter-operation to be dislosed. And unlike MS, Apple hasn't used any illegal means to obtain leading market share.
I once attended some Japanese language classes, and I believe Japs took pride in working long hours and coming home late after a hard day's work. And also, the 10 days of holidays used to be spent climbing up Mt. Fuji carrying a bicycle, for exercise!
I guess it's basically an issue of culture. People in the US seem to take a laid-back, can-be-set-right-by-medicines approach to health. Unlike the rest of the World. -
I remember reading somewhere (Paul Krugman maybe)that Cuba scores better than the US in health and fertility. Many other nations with just 10 days of statutory holidays do better. Should be something else...
Education, Culture, Family systems and values... many more probable likely causes, NOT holidays. Work NEVER killed anyone, idleness has proved fatal often.
Seriously.... is there anything which makes America a preferred place to live? Most Americans hardly seem to know much... make that anything, about other peoples, cultures, food habits etc. The images on TV during the Great Power Outage over New York.. well, even young people seem overly bloated.
Ingenious health insurance schemes making it even more difficult and expensive to stay reasonably healthy... not much political will to change things anytime soon.. why not dump it all and relocate elsewhere? The culture of "Each Man to Himself" seems largely to blame for the inertia. -
Your first point isn't relevant to anything at all, because taking pictures doesn't constitute infringment. Publishing those pictures constitutes infringement under French law, but the pictures weren't distributed in France, they were distributed on the Internet by an American company.
Uh... doesn't the internet exist in France? How can you assert that the 'pictures weren't distributed in France?'... they were accessible from France, and that is what prompted the litigation. And hence my point about democracy not being a protected Chinese creation is valid.
International copyright treaties like the Berne Convention don't even give protected status to fashions, so publication of the images in this case is only infringement if you argue that the Internet as a whole is subject to the regulatory practices of every nation simeltaneously.
Again.. I implied in my orig. post that it would be ideal for the UN or similar agency to regulate the internet. And until then I suggested the 'content' on the internet be subjected to the regulatory practices of the 'source' of such content, not those of a specific nation.
By enforcing a foreign intellectual property law on content hosted and distributed by an American server, the court would essentially be creating a legal precedent that would allow other countries to enforce other kinds of laws on American servers.
You are focussing only on 'hosting' and 'distribution'... whereas my entire post is about 'source' and 'ownership'.
Doing so would fundamentally alter the definitive nature of comity. Are you arguing that only intellectual property laws should be enforced this way, but not other laws regarding content regulation?
I agree it would fundamentally alter the nature of the internet, and the attitudes of people who distribute content over it towards things like origin and ownership. And I suggested that it would be better for a multi-lateral agency such as the UN to take up enforcement issues over the internet.
French law applies to actions taken in France. The publication of the photos (even if not the taking) took place in the US, and is therefore subject to US, not French, law.
I agree with you fully. Hence the closing point in my original post... If the internet were put under UN law, rather than a (specific nation's) law, it would bring in some kind of regulation over the publication of photos, articles etc. over the internet.
Copyright is violated upon publication - the medium is ir-relevant, in my opinion.
However, neither of the links is providing where the pictures were taken. It's a shame, as a I think it's the crux of the matter.
Right on! I think even more shameful is the moderation system that makes it "+5 Insightful" for a post that deliberately misses the crux, and twists it into a Flamebait:-(
By your reasoning you could just as easily say an internationally accessible server with web sites about democracy should be subject to Chinese censorship laws even if the server is physically in America and operated by an American company.
Is democracy a Chinese invention? Read the part about 'source' in my original post.
Do you seriously want to see the censorship laws of oppressive nations applied universally to the Internet?
I would like the censorship laws of nations applied locally on the ISPs. In fact my post was on the legal rights of content creators, not the viewers.
And do you really think that every American company should be personally responsible for filtering and censoring their own content so that it meets the legal requirements of countless nations each with a highly diverse and dynamic set of laws?
That kind of reasoning is exactly what the EFF is concerned about.
My point was about companies worrying about content they create... not on filtering / distribution. When companies import content from abroad, they need to respect local laws of that nation - there's no need to twist my point to something I neither said nor implied.
IP laws are specific to nations... the internet is not, hence my post.
Let's consider these points: 1.From TFA: " Viewfinder took numerous photographs at a fashion show..." one would imagine the show was in France, and local laws would apply. 2. Just because the server is hosted elsewhere... should not mean the laws of the 'hosting' nation should apply. 3. In case the 'server' is violating local laws of the 'source' of material hosted, the server ought to make the content invisible in source nation. 4. It should not be the job of the aggreived party to foot the bill for the arrangements in 3.
Actually, this case seems another reason why an international entity like the UN needs to regulate the internet. One suspects the responses would be stronger if the opposite had happened... would the EFF defend other nation's rights?
"Of course it is! Remember the fiasco any time Microsoft try bundling anything useful with Windows? It ends up in an anti-trust trial! Of COURSE Microsoft aren't going to bundle anything useful with Windows any more."
Hmmm... here's a list of 'applications' MS could've bundled if it really wantd to improve the OS:
1. A simple nice way to take a 'working' backup of a 'working' system - specially useful considering how often Windows gets hosed.
2. Remove the hideous beast called 'registry'.
3. Remove the ActiveX control thingy - no issues with anti-trust.
4. Remove the media player thingy - same as above.
And so on... most problems with Windows occur with existing features, this anti-trust excuse is just a ruse for not providing features we really need.
is this. 1.Simply install OOo on a Linux box. 2.Install Cygwin-X on all systems in the office network. 3. Customise the Startxwin batch file to set the DISPLAY variable and xhost + (Office Server), and ssh -l (username) to the Linux box without prompting for password. 4. On the Linux box - edit the user's profile to mount his desktop's 'Doc' folder, say/home/docs for all users, and launch OOo. 5. Done.
Advantages: 1. No need to install anything on the desktops - except Cygwin-X, that is. 2. For road warrors, a local instln to edit on the road (files are created on the local drive remember?). 3. If Step 4 is removed for 90% users, interesting apps like sharing Office files, managing them in a central location for quick backup etc. is easily achieved. 4. Easy roadmap to Groupware applications. 5. Concept easily extend for apps like Opera and Gaim for all desktops without exposing the desktop.
Since many users in poorer countries don't have existing systems there is no "switch" from one system to another.
This does not apply in the corporate segment, even in poorer countries, like India - computers have been there for decades. And in the home segment, hardware integration and drivers is a big issue even now, with vendors like HPaq not supporting Linux. They give FreeDOS and don't seem to mind the piracy...
The users can start out using open source without having the baggage of expectations of how things SHOULD work. They have to start out by learning how to use an OS.
As above, this is only in the corporate segment - and the OS is a bad example, there. The OS comes bundled with branded h/w, so the real drive for Open Source is the servers. Exchange Server for a mid-sized firm could cost a few hundred thousand rupees - Open Source alternatives built around Sendmail look attractive. Same for groupware, webservers etc.
Even better answer would be detect it as SCOndomware.... and then say it is 'probably spyware, but cannot be clssified as such for probably legal reasons'.
Just a thought... what if Microsoft started suing the anti-virus firms over calling malware names? What will we call the viruses, worms, spiders and ticks? AIDS? SARS? STD? I think 'non-user-non-MS-unintentionally-installed-softwar e' is too long...
Slashdot Mirror
would've been a juicier title, methinks! /. editors sleeping?
Simply too expensive. The accident was just an excuse.
What'd make the Japanese hope the NASA design would lead to a cheaper product?
Five reasons already for my question, and ALL DIFFERENT! Really mysterious, it appears.
Why can't the 'DESIGN' of the Concorde be shared? That's got nothing to do with the economics and all these speculative conspiracy theories.
It appears the single largest cause for the failure of the Concorde was bad management, not bad design.
Think how much money, time & effort could be saved if resources were pooled.
Who will head the pool? That's the big question... there's hardly any point in joining a syndicate, if the Board is excusively controlled by an elite few, whose only claim to power is their nation's military might.
Whether it's satellites, rockets, missions to the moon or supersonic jets, few BIG nations want to co-operate or pool - just exploit hi-tech low-paid manpower from abroad.
Why was the Conconrde retired? Something very mysterious there, considering the success of that design over several years.
-
If people just learn how to use their computers (you shouldn't download exe's from people you don't know, a firewall is a good thing to have, ActiveX controls aren't safe and your default response shouldn't be to install them no matter what IE says) a huge number of problems would be eliminated.
I can see many practically feasible solutions, if the above is true:
1. Eliminate all people - that would guarantee security.
2. Eliminate ActiveX controls and IE - can't see that happening even 50 years from now - DOS continues to live, years after being pronounced dead.
3. Implement DRM in hardware - lock out all 'unauthorised' programs - I think this will happen in the next 10 years or so, beginning with the release after Vista.
4. Make phishing, malware-writing and distribution, spam etc. a criminal offence, punishable by life-term imprisonment.
5. Have a tiered internet, with only 'approved' sites and service in 'public' tier - this might get implemented in about the same time schedule as (3).
6. Close down all closed-source anti-virus and anti-spyware firms; making it mandatory for such firms to sell/license code only on open source terms - as things stand now, these guys would love it for computers to remain insecure forever.
-
Being a bass player, I'm concerned about what's left over for the musician. Very concerned.
Just bcos someone's making lots of money out of your music shouldn't mean all musicians have a right to profit. Why not distribute yourself, the music you create?
I don't think it's a Free Software issue at all... even in France. It's Apple's product and technology - they can do whatever they please. If their product became a monopoly.. then, maybe the specs for inter-operation to be dislosed. And unlike MS, Apple hasn't used any illegal means to obtain leading market share.
I once attended some Japanese language classes, and I believe Japs took pride in working long hours and coming home late after a hard day's work. And also, the 10 days of holidays used to be spent climbing up Mt. Fuji carrying a bicycle, for exercise!
I guess it's basically an issue of culture. People in the US seem to take a laid-back, can-be-set-right-by-medicines approach to health. Unlike the rest of the World.
-
I remember reading somewhere (Paul Krugman maybe)that Cuba scores better than the US in health and fertility. Many other nations with just 10 days of statutory holidays do better. Should be something else...
Education, Culture, Family systems and values... many more probable likely causes, NOT holidays. Work NEVER killed anyone, idleness has proved fatal often.
Seriously.... is there anything which makes America a preferred place to live? Most Americans hardly seem to know much... make that anything, about other peoples, cultures, food habits etc. The images on TV during the Great Power Outage over New York.. well, even young people seem overly bloated.
Ingenious health insurance schemes making it even more difficult and expensive to stay reasonably healthy... not much political will to change things anytime soon.. why not dump it all and relocate elsewhere? The culture of "Each Man to Himself" seems largely to blame for the inertia.
-
Your first point isn't relevant to anything at all, because taking pictures doesn't constitute infringment. Publishing those pictures constitutes infringement under French law, but the pictures weren't distributed in France, they were distributed on the Internet by an American company.
Uh... doesn't the internet exist in France? How can you assert that the 'pictures weren't distributed in France?'... they were accessible from France, and that is what prompted the litigation. And hence my point about democracy not being a protected Chinese creation is valid.
International copyright treaties like the Berne Convention don't even give protected status to fashions, so publication of the images in this case is only infringement if you argue that the Internet as a whole is subject to the regulatory practices of every nation simeltaneously.
Again.. I implied in my orig. post that it would be ideal for the UN or similar agency to regulate the internet. And until then I suggested the 'content' on the internet be subjected to the regulatory practices of the 'source' of such content, not those of a specific nation.
By enforcing a foreign intellectual property law on content hosted and distributed by an American server, the court would essentially be creating a legal precedent that would allow other countries to enforce other kinds of laws on American servers.
You are focussing only on 'hosting' and 'distribution'... whereas my entire post is about 'source' and 'ownership'.
Doing so would fundamentally alter the definitive nature of comity. Are you arguing that only intellectual property laws should be enforced this way, but not other laws regarding content regulation?
I agree it would fundamentally alter the nature of the internet, and the attitudes of people who distribute content over it towards things like origin and ownership. And I suggested that it would be better for a multi-lateral agency such as the UN to take up enforcement issues over the internet.
French law applies to actions taken in France. The publication of the photos (even if not the taking) took place in the US, and is therefore subject to US, not French, law.
I agree with you fully. Hence the closing point in my original post... If the internet were put under UN law, rather than a (specific nation's) law, it would bring in some kind of regulation over the publication of photos, articles etc. over the internet.
Copyright is violated upon publication - the medium is ir-relevant, in my opinion.
However, neither of the links is providing where the pictures were taken. It's a shame, as a I think it's the crux of the matter.
:-(
Right on! I think even more shameful is the moderation system that makes it "+5 Insightful" for a post that deliberately misses the crux, and twists it into a Flamebait
By your reasoning you could just as easily say an internationally accessible server with web sites about democracy should be subject to Chinese censorship laws even if the server is physically in America and operated by an American company.
Is democracy a Chinese invention? Read the part about 'source' in my original post.
Do you seriously want to see the censorship laws of oppressive nations applied universally to the Internet?
I would like the censorship laws of nations applied locally on the ISPs. In fact my post was on the legal rights of content creators, not the viewers.
And do you really think that every American company should be personally responsible for filtering and censoring their own content so that it meets the legal requirements of countless nations each with a highly diverse and dynamic set of laws?
That kind of reasoning is exactly what the EFF is concerned about.
My point was about companies worrying about content they create... not on filtering / distribution. When companies import content from abroad, they need to respect local laws of that nation - there's no need to twist my point to something I neither said nor implied.
IP laws are specific to nations... the internet is not, hence my post.
Let's consider these points:
1.From TFA: " Viewfinder took numerous photographs at a fashion show..." one would imagine the show was in France, and local laws would apply.
2. Just because the server is hosted elsewhere... should not mean the laws of the 'hosting' nation should apply.
3. In case the 'server' is violating local laws of the 'source' of material hosted, the server ought to make the content invisible in source nation.
4. It should not be the job of the aggreived party to foot the bill for the arrangements in 3.
Actually, this case seems another reason why an international entity like the UN needs to regulate the internet. One suspects the responses would be stronger if the opposite had happened... would the EFF defend other nation's rights?
My computer frequently send out genetic samples to some researcher somewhere in the world, everytime it dies... no one seems to have a clue yet!
"Of course it is! Remember the fiasco any time Microsoft try bundling anything useful with Windows? It ends up in an anti-trust trial! Of COURSE Microsoft aren't going to bundle anything useful with Windows any more." Hmmm... here's a list of 'applications' MS could've bundled if it really wantd to improve the OS: 1. A simple nice way to take a 'working' backup of a 'working' system - specially useful considering how often Windows gets hosed. 2. Remove the hideous beast called 'registry'. 3. Remove the ActiveX control thingy - no issues with anti-trust. 4. Remove the media player thingy - same as above. And so on... most problems with Windows occur with existing features, this anti-trust excuse is just a ruse for not providing features we really need.
is neither easy, nor amusing. It's the same from BSOD to BSD.
The day IBM sold it's PC business, this was only to be expected...
In other news, India overtakes the US as the leading Supplier of Software Services... not too long either.
is this. /home/docs for all users, and launch OOo.
1.Simply install OOo on a Linux box.
2.Install Cygwin-X on all systems in the office network.
3. Customise the Startxwin batch file to set the DISPLAY variable and xhost + (Office Server), and ssh -l (username) to the Linux box without prompting for password.
4. On the Linux box - edit the user's profile to mount his desktop's 'Doc' folder, say
5. Done.
Advantages:
1. No need to install anything on the desktops - except Cygwin-X, that is.
2. For road warrors, a local instln to edit on the road (files are created on the local drive remember?).
3. If Step 4 is removed for 90% users, interesting apps like sharing Office files, managing them in a central location for quick backup etc. is easily achieved.
4. Easy roadmap to Groupware applications.
5. Concept easily extend for apps like Opera and Gaim for all desktops without exposing the desktop.
Enjoy!
-
Since many users in poorer countries don't have existing systems there is no "switch" from one system to another.
This does not apply in the corporate segment, even in poorer countries, like India - computers have been there for decades. And in the home segment, hardware integration and drivers is a big issue even now, with vendors like HPaq not supporting Linux. They give FreeDOS and don't seem to mind the piracy...
The users can start out using open source without having the baggage of expectations of how things SHOULD work. They have to start out by learning how to use an OS.
As above, this is only in the corporate segment - and the OS is a bad example, there. The OS comes bundled with branded h/w, so the real drive for Open Source is the servers. Exchange Server for a mid-sized firm could cost a few hundred thousand rupees - Open Source alternatives built around Sendmail look attractive. Same for groupware, webservers etc.
NOT the desktop OS - atleast not YET...
Windows XP - Indian Rupees ~8,000 (average pay for an IT worker per month). Equivalent US$ 5,000. Office XP - Indian Rupees ~15,000 Eq US$ 9,000.
Even better answer would be detect it as SCOndomware.... and then say it is 'probably spyware, but cannot be clssified as such for probably legal reasons'.
Just a thought... what if Microsoft started suing the anti-virus firms over calling malware names? What will we call the viruses, worms, spiders and ticks? AIDS? SARS? STD? I think 'non-user-non-MS-unintentionally-installed-softwar e' is too long...