I actually wrote an (albeit crappy) essay on the topic of wether Bazaars obeyed Brooks' Law or not. Or, more accurately, wether they obeyed the Law of Diminishing Returns.
I submitted it to Slashdot... but I'm not ESR, now am I:)
It's been suggested that a co-operative would be a good way to provide indie artists with a means of getting 'exposure' and the like. I'd like to help.
I'm a piss-poor, two-buck shyster who has trouble working normal hours, and who sells fairly rudimentary webpages for not very much. I also have a year or so of spare time on my hand, and I will happily sink some time and maybe some money into helping a muso's cooperative get off the ground.
If you're interested, email me directly and we can discuss a more detailed outline. A muso's coop could do for indie musicians what XNot and SourceForge do for opensource projects: provide the hosting service; top to bottom and sideways too.
If this has already been suggested, just slap me:)
Because they own the network. The network which Australian taxpayers funded. The network which was built by the now-defunct Telecom. The network which is still one of the best in the world.
This network was not paid for by Telstra. Telstra inherited it when they came into existence from the remnants of Telecom. Yet they own it, they control it. Competition in the Australian telco industry is basically about companies fighting amongst themselves to see who can pay Telstra the most money. For every dollar made on Australia's publicly-built, privately-owned network, Telstra takes a cut.
Telstra should be demoted to the same level as other phone companies. The network should revert to public ownership, on par with the National Highways. Then, to govern use, the government can issue "bandwidth bonds", a promise to provide a certain amount of bandwidth within a 3-month time period (say).
These bonds are tradeable and transferrable. This means that telcos can trade capacity back and forth amongst themselves. It also means that if you want telecom. access, you don't need a middle-man: you can directly purchase bandwidth for yourself every few months.
Problems arising from the current setup (government-supervised monopoly) are neatly solved. Nobody can abuse pricing. The market sets its own value on comms. Telstra is forced to compete on services. The network's maintainence is no longer short-changed for profit reasons (a classical failing of monopolies is their productive inefficiencies). The network becomes a freely-accessible public asset.
Why Seattle? Because Boeing has shipped endless jobs out of there in the last few years. Japan, China - they're all getting a slice. When a Chinese machinist costs $20 less per hour than their US counterpart, you can bet your bottom dollar that job will move.
Why the WTO? Because the theory is sound. Mind you, the theory is sound, it just happens to not actually exist as described. International trade theory - as espoused by the WTO - is based on 'comparative advantage'. Real trading practice - as carried out by nations such as China and companies such as Boeing - is based on market-access/offset deals and transfer pricing. The short form is that everyone - repeat - everyone is guilty of some dodgy bullshit here.
There's too much production capacity in the world; and it's getting worse. China was thought to be the Great White Hope of overstocked western firms, but that's going to vanish. Why? Because China will have say 200-300 million US-level affluent customers. But it will still have nigh on a billion dirt-poor dirt-cheap workers too. And that will severely fuck up the system.
The answer is not to back up on trade, to invoke protectionist measures. All that will do is exacerbate current oversupply problems (no exports possible) and cause a world-wide shrinkage in output. The short-form is that to go protectionist now is to replay the events of the Great Depression and the prelude to WWII. Even the stockmarket is acting eerily like it did before the Great Crash.
The answer is to realise that neo-liberal economic theory is bullshit when people are as poor as piss and there's a lot of them. We need to solve our over-capacity problems by radically increasing demand.
To do so in the developed economies would be destructive and inflationry. The answer is to give a shit about the 2.something billion people who live below the absolute poverty line. The UN's Development Program can create enough demand to fairly much solve this problem for about 80bn a year for a decade. 800bn is a lot for one country; but it's not so much for a half dozen or so. It'll cost a helluva lot more if the current system crashes; still more if war errupts.
... and the scuttlebutt has it that the Australian Defense Minister knew about stealth planes before at least one US president.
Stealth bombers are designed to be 'invisible'. They are a 'hole' in the air. This works well because most radars searching for bombers are on the ground. Air with nothing in it is blank, so a B2 blends right in.
It's when you scan downwards that things fall apart. In Australia the the CSIRO built the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar. It works by bouncing radar signals off magnetised sections of the far upper atmosphere.
The short form is: "Hmmm... what's this in Nevada? It's a batwing-shaped hole moving at 600mph. Now I wonder what that is?"
Australia. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the south-east pacific...
Firstly, the WTO is a toothless tiger. Let's be completely painfully blunt here: it has no powers to enforce its rulings. When the WTO was established, President Clinton took great pains to prove this to Congress before they ratified the treaty.
The US has said - in essence - "the WTO plays our tune, or we quit". China has said "the WTO will play our tune, or we won't join". Japan's up the creek. Asia was always playing "if you want in to our markets, you need to invest here first". This clearly violated both the spirit and the letter of the WTO treaty, but it's been happening for years.
I don't think we can blame the players here. The MNCs (multinational corporations) are not really doing what they do out of spite, they do it because they simply must. If they don't play hardball, they lose. The market is not a self-correcting mechanism, it is a Darwinian jungle.
The WTO is not to blame. It's an attempt to regulate something that doesn't actually exist. Free trade is a lie; a sham-faced lie. For example, for the US company Boeing to enter China, they had to do an 'offset' deal. That is, the price of any Boeing planes sold to China had to be offset by Boeing spending money inside China's borders. So right away, a good deal of what is 'free trade' is deal-making that (once again) violates WTO rules.
Then you have 'transfer pricing'. For tax and profit purposes, MNCs will trade things at very precise prices back and forth between their various international incarnations. This happens so much that at least 20% of the world's 'free trade' is companies buying and selling stuff to themselves.
The upshot of all this is that according to some estimates, only about 20-30% of the world's trade is 'free trade'. The rest is swallowed up by transfer pricing, market-access deals and other such hocus pocus.
The system that has emerged is itself at fault. I can't think of any solutions that really don't have enormous drawbacks for someone; or that will be impossible to deploy. For example, to give the WTO real enforcable powers would cut out a lot of the unchecked bullshit that does happen. But to do so would mean signing away certain portions of sovereignty to a non-representative body. Or perhaps a 'world government' is established to deal with international problems that nations would bicker about. Oh dear, it's fifty years later and I want to live under some other system of government - but there's no alternative.
I have no idea where this will lead us. Something will give.
PS: did anyone catch MS's insistence that software be a 'good'? They know damn well that software is a service industry made artificially into a goods industry. It's why they are so rich...
Let's be completely clear here: What RMS calls "Free Software" and what he calls "Copylefted software" are two related but seperate concepts.
Free Software has certain rights protected for the user. He wrote:
``Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3).
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.
Copyleft inherits all the properties of Free Software and adds another one: that Copylefted software must only be combined with other Copylefted software; and that non-Copylefted software becomes Copylefted if combined with Copylefted software.
This is the 'viral' clause of the GPL. It is the clause which causes the most angst and anger out there. I've criticised it myself as Freedom From Above; akin to 'liberation' by the Red Army (you are Free, under our terms).
But be very, very clear on this: while all Copylefted Software is Free Software, not all Free Software is Copylefted Software. Just today, I got an email from RMS in reply to a question of mine:
One thing that is *not* clear to me is the FSF's position on the modified BSD license (minus the advertising clause).
Both versions of the BSD license count as free software.
However, the BSDL is not necessarily a GPL-style Copyleft license.
People, you severely misunderstand slashdot. Slashdot is not your grandfather's news service.
Firstly, the majority of its content is derived from outside sources. Not in terms of taking a source and basing something on it, but really just providing a pointer to it.
Secondly, slashdot gives away old notions of editorialism. Completely, out-the-window. I think we all know that now. It's not a newspaper, and it doesn't try to significantly 'back up' any news posted. The news comes as-is.
It is these properties that make slashdot a real marketplace in information. It's a real laissez-faire thing; caveat emptor is very much the rule of thumb. If anything, slashdot holds a closer resemblance to its historical precedents (mailing lists and usenet) than to any 'real' news group.
This gives it a distinct disadvantage for certain people: ye gods, you actually have to think. Heavens forbid such an awful imposition on you poor suckers. You actually have to take your mouth off the teat and realise that slashdot is fallible, and that it should always, always be taken with a grain of ionised salt.
Suddenly you may realise this is true of every single thing you have ever heard, ever read, ever known. All of it is subject to bullshit. If anything, I am more prepared to rely on slashdot. Why? Not because of some long-winded document about editorial method. I prefer to rely on the collective brainpower of people whose job it is to think about things. They will surely fuck up, but at least they will argue first.
If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of truth is eternal criticism.
Yes, indeed, Big Brother living in England is somewhat ironic. Why? Because Orwell's 1984 was actually set in England. Coincidence? Prophetic foresight? You decide.
Thomas Jeffrey (the US count him fondly as one of their much-admired 'founding fathers') was pretty spot on when it comes to abuses of power: the only path to safety is an active, informed citizenry. You simply can't rely on someone else.
Civil liberty through empowered institutions are a great idea - now show me the code.
be well;
JC.
Freedom and Documentation - Go to the Source :)
on
Free Books Online
·
· Score: 2
Hi there;
I've been doing a lot of emailing with RMS of late, and something that I think must annoy him is silly twats like me failing to go to the ever-useful philosophy section of his website.
Just a few notes about Free Books. Richard has - I may be hearing FUD here - previously called O'Reilly the "parasite of Free Software". O'Reilly was and is the de facto "Publisher to Hackerdom", and their license terms used to inspire RMS to say:
Once upon a time, many years ago, I thought I would learn Perl. I got a copy of a free manual, but I found it hard to read. When I asked Perl users about alternatives, they told me that there were better introductory manuals--but those were not free.
Why was this? The authors of the good manuals had written them for O'Reilly Associates, which published them with restrictive terms--no copying, no modification, source files not available--which exclude them from the free software community.
That wasn't the first time this sort of thing has happened, and (to our community's great loss) it was far from the last. Proprietary manual publishers have enticed a great many authors to restrict their manuals since then.
Many times I have heard a GNU user eagerly tell me about a manual that he is writing, with which he expects to help the GNU project--and then had my hopes dashed, as he proceeded to explain that he had signed a contract with a publisher that would restrict it so that we cannot use it.
Of course, things have changed now. O'Reilly has begun to talk about their Open Publishing License (or whatever it is), and have begun to put certain books online. I would be interested in seeing if Richard considers these to be "Free Documentation" or not.
BTW, I'll agree that the GPL does not really address documentation very well. The OpenContent License is aimed at this sort of stuff.
As someone else pointed out: Richard's constant mantra is "Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price".
Books still have their advantages over online docs, mind you. For example, a book has a near-zero boot time, has effectively infinite uptime, has extremely high definition displays, allows you to add your own notes directly to the 'file' (requires a Pen (tm) or Pencil (tm)), it is highly portable, it is compatible with most People, it can be found in alternate formats for non-compatible people (ie Braille), it can be given as a gift, it can be thrown at a faulty TV screen, it can be used to attract attention from others (thy fellow geek) or to drive it away (thy fellow 'blond').
Online documentation is searchable, so that you can curse and swear when you don't have the precise phrase you need. It's quick, and cross-linked and whatnot, and utterly inscrutable. Oh, and you can print it out yourself...
Those of you who have endured the gloriously inconsistent rambling that is Katz will remember the day(s) last year that he lept onto just this platform.
Alas, I came to the issue about three days late, so my beautifully-crafted post was ignored. Perhaps this time it will be read.
For your enjoyment, warts and all.
WARNING: What follows will likely be opinionated, arrogant, badly spelt, badly edited, quick, not really thought through, and liable to incite flamewars and - in particular - piss off US citizens.
I read with interest your articles "Digital Democracy" and "Digital Democracy II", and it is my personal belief that you have missed the point.
It's quite simple: the problems with the US system are simple, critical flaws, that have been well understood for some time by mathematicians.
I hasten to add that no country enjoys a 'perfect' system of voting. Indeed, no country employs classical Greek Democracy, for example. I myself have heard words from "Hierocracy" and "Ogliocracy" through to "Stupidocracy" and "Bloody pollies" employed to describe the elected people at Australia's own Parliament House (a very nice Parliament house it is too - all $1.1Bn of it).
However, the US Pluralist system has been long since shown to be less than optimal in providing 'fair' and 'reasonable representation'.
There are two reasons: Voluntary voting and the "first past the post" system.
First Past the Post
In a typical US election, every US citizen has a single vote to use; the "one man, one vote" maxim so popularly quoted. Who is then chosen to lead is based on who gets the most votes.
This leads to some troublesome paradoxes. It is noted by mathematicians that Plurality is the only in-use voting system where the majority may actually prefer A over B, but where B can win.
This is because of the way the field is divided. If there are five canidates, there is every possibility that one canidate could win with a 'majority' of 30%. I submit that 30% of the vote is not very representive.
This means, in essence, that whilst I support lower taxes (canidate A's platform), I place higher value on protecting the right to bear arms (canidate B's platform). I must choose between them. The level of preference is not taken into account. My attitude towards each canidate and their entire platform is assumed to be binary in nature: I am absolutely for or absolutely against.
This tends to mean that moderate canidates get washed out by the more voiciforous and extremist factions. These factions can dump negativity upon opponents, scare the electorate, or generally make a lot of noise. This can convince a quite a few voters to hand over their single votes to a canidate who they marginally prefer. Whereas the largest common body of preference might rest with A, the binary majority (even if the number is well below 50%) might eventually rest with B.
Voluntary Voting
The problems of plurality are severely exacerbated by voluntary voting. Whilst I respect what I understand to be the ethical basis of that idea - voluntary abstention from difficult choices - I do not believe that voluntary voting achieves this end at all.
Voluntary voting is noted for leading to voter apathy. Because many people aren't forced to make a choice, they don't. Instead, they assume that the elected representative - about whom they have expressed their non-interest - will simply read their minds and do their will anyway.
Not at all. These representatives will cater to those who voted for them. And, in the way that voluntary voting and plurality encourages, these people will often be more extremist than moderate.
So why does voluntary voting encourage extremism? Perhaps another example.
Again, we have five canidates. Canidates B thru E are all fairly moderate, arguing on quite reasonable platforms. Canidate A, however, is a real rabble-rouser. He rants, he raves, he invokes all sorts of biblical curses on his rivals. He's hardcore, and he incites "all true Americans" or "all true Christians" to vote for him, and him alone.
Due to voter apathy, most of the voters who might have otherwise voted for canidates B thru E do not turn up at the polls. A, however, having mobilised a small army of single-issue, single-vision zealots, easily manages to overwhelm his 20% bracket to take an absolute win.
So those moderates don't get a word in edgewise. And A, knowing just who voted for him, and how the system works, will play his A-game from beginning to end - no matter how the polls read.
Digital Democracy?
What I must ask you, Mr. Katz, is wether the problem lies with the politicians, or wether it lies with the voting system that - in a fairly Darwinian process - weeds out moderates and provides sustenance to extremism.
These electoral officials aren't interested in people who didn't vote for them. They know full well that in 2 years time, the voters will be back to their apathetic selves, but that the zealots who put them in office will have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything they voted for.
Digital Democracy might help a bit, but if it is merely to be a net-based US voting system, it will tend towards the same problems. If it is, as the current system is, pluralist and voluntary, then your Digital Democracy will not solve the problems you have advanced.
As my father once pointed out to me: "Son, you can have all the technology in the world, but people will remain people. If you want something done, think about people first, and technology second."
Thankyou, Mr. Katz, for your interesting articles. And thanks to Slashdot for allowing me such a free and open forum in which to convey my shoddy little arguments:)
JC.
Authors Notes: It's not as bad as I thought. Not being a US citizen and no constitutional lawyer, there may be inaccuracies in the stuff above. Apologies.
I admire the US greatly: here is a nation, which, in its foundation, was Great Ideas made flesh. You are so proud, America, and rightly. But you rest on your laurels, just as many before you. And you forget your Great Ideas, just as many before you. But for what you have given, thanks.
As for improving the way governments work, I think the key is innovative micro-reform. Governments and systems of government are large, deeply entrenched systems. They have enormous systemic inertia, gigantic forces and tensions reside within. Hence it is clear that:
The harder you push against such a system, the harder it will push back; and
Should you push hard enough, the system will break; and
breaking that system would release all those forces and tensions. Do you really want that to happen all at once?
Try other ideas. Think outside the box. For example: governments often have programs that many people object to. Why not have a system on tax forms where, up to a certain percentage of your payable tax, you can deny usage of your dollars for a given program. Don't like paying for welfare? Have those dollars withheld. Agree with military buildups? Leave the money be!
I'm sure the bright minds here could think of many other examples. The world certainly changes; but seek the path of least resistance. The brick wall does not so easily fall to the battering ram; but to the gentle removal of mortar...
Aesthetics is a field of the study and appreciation of art. For something to be 'Art' is very difficult to define.
Art happens at an intersection between Creativity, Technical Apptitude, and Experience (being formed of previous experiences and a willingness to expand them).
But then, so does everything. It's all different areas of the same picture. Where does the Artist end, and the Art begin? Where does the Coder end, and the Coder begin?
Deeper forces move here. Real scrutiny of knowledge is shaky ground; for all our confidence in the Arcana Technica, it is just as shaky...
The menu of links on the top of the page seem to have been changed. Clicking on 'home' took me to freebsd.org once, but I couldn't replicate the behaviour.
I am. His slightly egotistic writing grates with even me - but I'm an egotist too so I forgive him.
Seriously, he's an accomplished coder, writer and ambassador to the movement. His slant on the basic precepts of Free Software: "Open Source", have caused some internal angst. But shit happens, frankly.
>I'm still reeling from his comments on linux.com about gun control - > > Personal firearms are the teeth of liberty. A disarmed population is one waiting to be enslaved or massacred at the convenience of > tyrants -- as Jefferson knew, Germany's Jews found out
It surprised me, but not much. Spend some time rummagine through ESR's pages on Guns and Gun control and you'll see that he believes in this stuff very strongly.
I had an email debate with him on the topic, not long after Australia's horrific Port Arthur Massacre. For the unknowing amongst you, a psychopath - a clinical psychopath - legally got hold of a military assault weapon and slaughtered dozens of holiday-makers.
Australian gun laws were tightened dramatically after that. One local pundit observed that perhaps the massacre wouldn't have happened, if everyone had been armed - Martin Bryant would have been shot dead.
Would he though? Would these people *hit* Bryant - armed with an automatic weapon - with pistols? Would they be alive? Would they hit each other? Would they have known who the gunman was? And would they be there - would they have died earlier in an impulse murder or impulse suicide?
The defense of freedom is essential, however. But I do not agree with Raymond that I will need guns to defend mine.
>Oh those silly Jews! If they had only paid up their NRA memberships >they would have never got into that mess!
Slashdot Mirror
I actually wrote an (albeit crappy) essay on the topic of wether Bazaars obeyed Brooks' Law or not. Or, more accurately, wether they obeyed the Law of Diminishing Returns.
I submitted it to Slashdot ... but I'm not ESR, now am I :)
Check it out at:
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/docs/extess/
It's been suggested that a co-operative would be a good way to provide indie artists with a means of getting 'exposure' and the like. I'd like to help.
I'm a piss-poor, two-buck shyster who has trouble working normal hours, and who sells fairly rudimentary webpages for not very much. I also have a year or so of spare time on my hand, and I will happily sink some time and maybe some money into helping a muso's cooperative get off the ground.
If you're interested, email me directly and we can discuss a more detailed outline. A muso's coop could do for indie musicians what XNot and SourceForge do for opensource projects: provide the hosting service; top to bottom and sideways too.
If this has already been suggested, just slap me :)
be well;
JC.
This network was not paid for by Telstra. Telstra inherited it when they came into existence from the remnants of Telecom. Yet they own it, they control it. Competition in the Australian telco industry is basically about companies fighting amongst themselves to see who can pay Telstra the most money. For every dollar made on Australia's publicly-built, privately-owned network, Telstra takes a cut.
Telstra should be demoted to the same level as other phone companies. The network should revert to public ownership, on par with the National Highways. Then, to govern use, the government can issue "bandwidth bonds", a promise to provide a certain amount of bandwidth within a 3-month time period (say).
These bonds are tradeable and transferrable. This means that telcos can trade capacity back and forth amongst themselves. It also means that if you want telecom. access, you don't need a middle-man: you can directly purchase bandwidth for yourself every few months.
Problems arising from the current setup (government-supervised monopoly) are neatly solved. Nobody can abuse pricing. The market sets its own value on comms. Telstra is forced to compete on services. The network's maintainence is no longer short-changed for profit reasons (a classical failing of monopolies is their productive inefficiencies). The network becomes a freely-accessible public asset.
Now isn't that just a potload better?
be well;
JC.
Why the WTO? Because the theory is sound. Mind you, the theory is sound, it just happens to not actually exist as described. International trade theory - as espoused by the WTO - is based on 'comparative advantage'. Real trading practice - as carried out by nations such as China and companies such as Boeing - is based on market-access/offset deals and transfer pricing. The short form is that everyone - repeat - everyone is guilty of some dodgy bullshit here.
There's too much production capacity in the world; and it's getting worse. China was thought to be the Great White Hope of overstocked western firms, but that's going to vanish. Why? Because China will have say 200-300 million US-level affluent customers. But it will still have nigh on a billion dirt-poor dirt-cheap workers too. And that will severely fuck up the system.
The answer is not to back up on trade, to invoke protectionist measures. All that will do is exacerbate current oversupply problems (no exports possible) and cause a world-wide shrinkage in output. The short-form is that to go protectionist now is to replay the events of the Great Depression and the prelude to WWII. Even the stockmarket is acting eerily like it did before the Great Crash.
The answer is to realise that neo-liberal economic theory is bullshit when people are as poor as piss and there's a lot of them. We need to solve our over-capacity problems by radically increasing demand.
To do so in the developed economies would be destructive and inflationry. The answer is to give a shit about the 2.something billion people who live below the absolute poverty line. The UN's Development Program can create enough demand to fairly much solve this problem for about 80bn a year for a decade. 800bn is a lot for one country; but it's not so much for a half dozen or so. It'll cost a helluva lot more if the current system crashes; still more if war errupts.
Think about it.
JC.
Stealth bombers are designed to be 'invisible'. They are a 'hole' in the air. This works well because most radars searching for bombers are on the ground. Air with nothing in it is blank, so a B2 blends right in.
It's when you scan downwards that things fall apart. In Australia the the CSIRO built the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar. It works by bouncing radar signals off magnetised sections of the far upper atmosphere.
The short form is: "Hmmm ... what's this in Nevada? It's a batwing-shaped hole moving at 600mph. Now I wonder what that is?"
Australia. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the south-east pacific...
be well;
JC.
Firstly, the WTO is a toothless tiger. Let's be completely painfully blunt here: it has no powers to enforce its rulings. When the WTO was established, President Clinton took great pains to prove this to Congress before they ratified the treaty.
The US has said - in essence - "the WTO plays our tune, or we quit". China has said "the WTO will play our tune, or we won't join". Japan's up the creek. Asia was always playing "if you want in to our markets, you need to invest here first". This clearly violated both the spirit and the letter of the WTO treaty, but it's been happening for years.
I don't think we can blame the players here. The MNCs (multinational corporations) are not really doing what they do out of spite, they do it because they simply must. If they don't play hardball, they lose. The market is not a self-correcting mechanism, it is a Darwinian jungle.
The WTO is not to blame. It's an attempt to regulate something that doesn't actually exist. Free trade is a lie; a sham-faced lie. For example, for the US company Boeing to enter China, they had to do an 'offset' deal. That is, the price of any Boeing planes sold to China had to be offset by Boeing spending money inside China's borders. So right away, a good deal of what is 'free trade' is deal-making that (once again) violates WTO rules.
Then you have 'transfer pricing'. For tax and profit purposes, MNCs will trade things at very precise prices back and forth between their various international incarnations. This happens so much that at least 20% of the world's 'free trade' is companies buying and selling stuff to themselves.
The upshot of all this is that according to some estimates, only about 20-30% of the world's trade is 'free trade'. The rest is swallowed up by transfer pricing, market-access deals and other such hocus pocus.
The system that has emerged is itself at fault. I can't think of any solutions that really don't have enormous drawbacks for someone; or that will be impossible to deploy. For example, to give the WTO real enforcable powers would cut out a lot of the unchecked bullshit that does happen. But to do so would mean signing away certain portions of sovereignty to a non-representative body. Or perhaps a 'world government' is established to deal with international problems that nations would bicker about. Oh dear, it's fifty years later and I want to live under some other system of government - but there's no alternative.
I have no idea where this will lead us. Something will give.
PS: did anyone catch MS's insistence that software be a 'good'? They know damn well that software is a service industry made artificially into a goods industry. It's why they are so rich ...
be well;
JC.
Free Software has certain rights protected for the user. He wrote:
``Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3).
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.I refer you to the original article for more detail.
Copyleft inherits all the properties of Free Software and adds another one: that Copylefted software must only be combined with other Copylefted software; and that non-Copylefted software becomes Copylefted if combined with Copylefted software.
This is the 'viral' clause of the GPL. It is the clause which causes the most angst and anger out there. I've criticised it myself as Freedom From Above; akin to 'liberation' by the Red Army (you are Free, under our terms).
But be very, very clear on this: while all Copylefted Software is Free Software, not all Free Software is Copylefted Software. Just today, I got an email from RMS in reply to a question of mine:
Both versions of the BSD license count as free software.However, the BSDL is not necessarily a GPL-style Copyleft license.
That's enough of my preaching for now.
be well;
JC.
People, you severely misunderstand slashdot.
Slashdot is not your grandfather's news service.
Firstly, the majority of its content is derived from outside sources. Not in terms of taking a source and basing something on it, but really just providing a pointer to it.
Secondly, slashdot gives away old notions of editorialism. Completely, out-the-window. I think we all know that now. It's not a newspaper, and it doesn't try to significantly 'back up' any news posted. The news comes as-is.
It is these properties that make slashdot a real marketplace in information. It's a real laissez-faire thing; caveat emptor is very much the rule of thumb. If anything, slashdot holds a closer resemblance to its historical precedents (mailing lists and usenet) than to any 'real' news group.
This gives it a distinct disadvantage for certain people: ye gods, you actually have to think. Heavens forbid such an awful imposition on you poor suckers. You actually have to take your mouth off the teat and realise that slashdot is fallible, and that it should always, always be taken with a grain of ionised salt.
Suddenly you may realise this is true of every single thing you have ever heard, ever read, ever known. All of it is subject to bullshit. If anything, I am more prepared to rely on slashdot. Why? Not because of some long-winded document about editorial method. I prefer to rely on the collective brainpower of people whose job it is to think about things. They will surely fuck up, but at least they will argue first.
If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, then the price of truth is eternal criticism.
be well;
JC.
Yes, indeed, Big Brother living in England is somewhat ironic. Why? Because Orwell's 1984 was actually set in England. Coincidence? Prophetic foresight? You decide.
Thomas Jeffrey (the US count him fondly as one of their much-admired 'founding fathers') was pretty spot on when it comes to abuses of power: the only path to safety is an active, informed citizenry. You simply can't rely on someone else.
Civil liberty through empowered institutions are a great idea - now show me the code.
be well;
JC.
I've been doing a lot of emailing with RMS of late, and something that I think must annoy him is silly twats like me failing to go to the ever-useful philosophy section of his website.
Just a few notes about Free Books. Richard has - I may be hearing FUD here - previously called O'Reilly the "parasite of Free Software". O'Reilly was and is the de facto "Publisher to Hackerdom", and their license terms used to inspire RMS to say:
Of course, things have changed now. O'Reilly has begun to talk about their Open Publishing License (or whatever it is), and have begun to put certain books online. I would be interested in seeing if Richard considers these to be "Free Documentation" or not.
BTW, I'll agree that the GPL does not really address documentation very well. The OpenContent License is aimed at this sort of stuff.
As someone else pointed out: Richard's constant mantra is "Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price".
Books still have their advantages over online docs, mind you. For example, a book has a near-zero boot time, has effectively infinite uptime, has extremely high definition displays, allows you to add your own notes directly to the 'file' (requires a Pen (tm) or Pencil (tm)), it is highly portable, it is compatible with most People, it can be found in alternate formats for non-compatible people (ie Braille), it can be given as a gift, it can be thrown at a faulty TV screen, it can be used to attract attention from others (thy fellow geek) or to drive it away (thy fellow 'blond').
Online documentation is searchable, so that you can curse and swear when you don't have the precise phrase you need. It's quick, and cross-linked and whatnot, and utterly inscrutable. Oh, and you can print it out yourself ...
Be well;
JC.
inconsistent rambling that is Katz will
remember the day(s) last year that he lept onto
just this platform.
Alas, I came to the issue about three days late,
so my beautifully-crafted post was ignored.
Perhaps this time it will be read.
For your enjoyment, warts and all.
WARNING: What follows will likely be opinionated,
arrogant, badly spelt, badly edited, quick, not
really thought through, and liable to incite
flamewars and - in particular - piss off US
citizens.
Sounds like a real Katz article to me
Anyway
--------------------[begin]-----------------------
Mr Katz;
I read with interest your articles "Digital
Democracy" and "Digital Democracy II", and it is
my personal belief that you have missed the point.
It's quite simple: the problems with the US system
are simple, critical flaws, that have been well
understood for some time by mathematicians.
I hasten to add that no country enjoys a 'perfect'
system of voting. Indeed, no country employs
classical Greek Democracy, for example. I myself
have heard words from "Hierocracy" and
"Ogliocracy" through to "Stupidocracy" and "Bloody
pollies" employed to describe the elected people
at Australia's own Parliament House (a very nice
Parliament house it is too - all $1.1Bn of it).
However, the US Pluralist system has been long
since shown to be less than optimal in providing
'fair' and 'reasonable representation'.
There are two reasons: Voluntary voting and the
"first past the post" system.
First Past the Post
In a typical US election, every US citizen has a
single vote to use; the "one man, one vote" maxim
so popularly quoted. Who is then chosen to lead is
based on who gets the most votes.
This leads to some troublesome paradoxes. It is
noted by mathematicians that Plurality is the
only in-use voting system where the majority may
actually prefer A over B, but where B can win.
This is because of the way the field is divided.
If there are five canidates, there is every
possibility that one canidate could win with a
'majority' of 30%. I submit that 30% of the vote
is not very representive.
This means, in essence, that whilst I support
lower taxes (canidate A's platform), I place
higher value on protecting the right to bear arms
(canidate B's platform). I must choose between
them. The level of preference is not taken into
account. My attitude towards each canidate and
their entire platform is assumed to be binary
in nature: I am absolutely for or absolutely
against.
This tends to mean that moderate canidates get
washed out by the more voiciforous and extremist
factions. These factions can dump negativity upon
opponents, scare the electorate, or generally
make a lot of noise. This can convince a quite a
few voters to hand over their single votes to
a canidate who they marginally prefer. Whereas
the largest common body of preference might rest
with A, the binary majority (even if the number is
well below 50%) might eventually rest with B.
Voluntary Voting
The problems of plurality are severely exacerbated
by voluntary voting. Whilst I respect what I
understand to be the ethical basis of that idea -
voluntary abstention from difficult choices - I do
not believe that voluntary voting achieves this
end at all.
Voluntary voting is noted for leading to voter
apathy. Because many people aren't forced to
make a choice, they don't. Instead, they assume
that the elected representative - about whom they
have expressed their non-interest - will simply
read their minds and do their will anyway.
Not at all. These representatives will cater to
those who voted for them. And, in the way that
voluntary voting and plurality encourages, these
people will often be more extremist than moderate.
So why does voluntary voting encourage extremism?
Perhaps another example.
Again, we have five canidates. Canidates B thru
E are all fairly moderate, arguing on quite
reasonable platforms. Canidate A, however, is a
real rabble-rouser. He rants, he raves, he invokes
all sorts of biblical curses on his rivals. He's
hardcore, and he incites "all true Americans" or
"all true Christians" to vote for him, and him
alone.
Due to voter apathy, most of the voters who might
have otherwise voted for canidates B thru E do
not turn up at the polls. A, however, having
mobilised a small army of single-issue,
single-vision zealots, easily manages to overwhelm
his 20% bracket to take an absolute win.
So those moderates don't get a word in edgewise.
And A, knowing just who voted for him, and how
the system works, will play his A-game from
beginning to end - no matter how the polls read.
Digital Democracy?
What I must ask you, Mr. Katz, is wether the
problem lies with the politicians, or wether it
lies with the voting system that - in a fairly
Darwinian process - weeds out moderates and
provides sustenance to extremism.
These electoral officials aren't interested in
people who didn't vote for them. They know full
well that in 2 years time, the voters will be
back to their apathetic selves, but that the
zealots who put them in office will have an
encyclopaedic knowledge of everything they voted
for.
Digital Democracy might help a bit, but if it is
merely to be a net-based US voting system, it will
tend towards the same problems. If it is, as the
current system is, pluralist and voluntary, then
your Digital Democracy will not solve the problems
you have advanced.
As my father once pointed out to me: "Son, you
can have all the technology in the world, but
people will remain people. If you want something
done, think about people first, and technology
second."
Thankyou, Mr. Katz, for your interesting articles.
And thanks to Slashdot for allowing me such a
free and open forum in which to convey my shoddy
little arguments
JC.
Authors Notes: It's not as bad as I thought. Not being a US citizen and no constitutional lawyer, there may be inaccuracies in the stuff above. Apologies.
I admire the US greatly: here is a nation, which, in its foundation, was Great Ideas made flesh. You are so proud, America, and rightly. But you rest on your laurels, just as many before you. And you forget your Great Ideas, just as many before you. But for what you have given, thanks.
As for improving the way governments work, I think the key is innovative micro-reform. Governments and systems of government are large, deeply entrenched systems. They have enormous systemic inertia, gigantic forces and tensions reside within. Hence it is clear that:
forces and tensions. Do you really want that to happen all at once?
Try other ideas. Think outside the box. For example: governments often have programs that many people object to. Why not have a system on tax forms where, up to a certain percentage of your payable tax, you can deny usage of your dollars for a given program. Don't like paying for welfare? Have those dollars withheld. Agree with military buildups? Leave the money be!
I'm sure the bright minds here could think of many other examples. The world certainly changes; but seek the path of least resistance. The brick wall does not so easily fall to the battering ram; but to the gentle removal of mortar
Be well.
JC.
Aesthetics is a field of the study and appreciation of art. For something to be 'Art' is
very difficult to define.
Art happens at an intersection between Creativity,
Technical Apptitude, and Experience (being formed of previous experiences and a willingness to expand them).
But then, so does everything. It's all different areas of the same picture. Where does the Artist end, and the Art begin? Where does the Coder end, and the Coder begin?
Deeper forces move here. Real scrutiny of knowledge is shaky ground; for all our confidence in the Arcana Technica, it is just as shaky
seem to have been changed. Clicking on
'home' took me to freebsd.org once, but
I couldn't replicate the behaviour.
Queue flamewar
--
Anyone? --
My father (an old radio/comms hacker from the valve
...
era) tells me that telecom (what telstra *used* to be
called) was a good telco.
Essentially, it was set up to provide universal phone
access within Australia, for a low price. The engineers
ran the show, top to bottom. They had to, to do what
they did.
Telstra/telecom has deployed what is possibly *the* most
advanced integrated phone network of its size anywhere
in the world. To do that cost the Australian people many
billions of dollars.
So why, may I ask, is it considered Telstra's sole
property?
Here's what *ought* to happen:
Keep the hardware. Sell Telstra. Set up a bandwidth
market, where telcos can buy and sell the capacity that
is available. Some of the money on these bandwidth bonds
can then be put towards new hardware.
That way:
1) No free lunch for Telstra. We The People keep
what we payed for.
2) The network is still run by engineers, not
MS-wannabes.
3) Telstra competes on a level field with everyone
else.
Here's to dreaming
JC.
> "Glad to see ESR back?"
..."
I am. His slightly egotistic writing grates with
even me - but I'm an egotist too so I forgive
him.
Seriously, he's an accomplished coder, writer and
ambassador to the movement. His slant on the basic
precepts of Free Software: "Open Source", have
caused some internal angst. But shit happens,
frankly.
>I'm still reeling from his comments on linux.com about gun control -
>
> Personal firearms are the teeth of liberty. A disarmed population is one waiting to be enslaved or massacred at the convenience of
> tyrants -- as Jefferson knew, Germany's Jews found out
It surprised me, but not much. Spend some time rummagine through
ESR's pages on Guns and Gun control and you'll see that he
believes in this stuff very strongly.
I had an email debate with him on the topic, not long after
Australia's horrific Port Arthur Massacre. For the unknowing
amongst you, a psychopath - a clinical psychopath - legally
got hold of a military assault weapon and slaughtered dozens
of holiday-makers.
Australian gun laws were tightened dramatically after that.
One local pundit observed that perhaps the massacre wouldn't
have happened, if everyone had been armed - Martin Bryant
would have been shot dead.
Would he though? Would these people *hit* Bryant - armed with
an automatic weapon - with pistols? Would they be alive?
Would they hit each other? Would they have known who the
gunman was? And would they be there - would they have died
earlier in an impulse murder or impulse suicide?
The defense of freedom is essential, however. But I do not
agree with Raymond that I will need guns to defend mine.
>Oh those silly Jews! If they had only paid up their NRA memberships
>they would have never got into that mess!
"And God so loved the world
Be well;
JC.