With reiser4, you can store the metadata in the filesystem where any program can access it. Instead of using a special program to read the id3 tag, you could type something like "cat foo.mp3/author". If you want to add a new type of metadata, then it is as easy "echo something > foo.mp3/some_new_type_of_metadata"
ReiserFS is quick in many day-to-day operations, not just benchmark test cases.
So what does that do for me? Save me 1 second on a kernel compile? Actually, kernel compile would be a bad example, because adding reiserfs is going to increase my kernel compile time.
The only real response I can give to this is, try it and decide for yourself.
I can't afford wasting all that time reinstalling my entire linux system without some promise of an actual benefit. I'm not even sure I could do it, since I don't have any install CDs which support reiserfs.
Or, is there any reason to use ext3 instead of reiserfs?
Sure. It's what my install CD supported. I'm not even sure how I'd go about installing reiserfs. I'd have to shrink my ext3 partition, create a second partition, move all the stuff over there, boot off that second partition, install a reiserfs root on the first partition, install linux there, boot off that, copy everything over, delete the second partition, and extend the first back to the whole hard drive. I'm not even sure there are even tools available to do all that.
The point is, this is the way all filesystems should have been handling metadata.
If you say so. In any case, they didn't.
Personally I don't think there should be filesystems in the first place. The "Right Way" is for all that nonsense to be in libraries. But it's too late for that, too.
Now, any type of metadata for any type of file can be stored and accessed in a consistant (and backwards compatable) format.
It's not really backwards compatable though. If you use the software with a non-reiserfs filesystem it'll be slow as shit.
Re:Phasing Out Social Security
on
Saving the Net
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· Score: 1
Umm, that's exactly what I suggested when I said that we should phase out social security.
It's useful because of two things: fine-grained permissions and the ability to store arbitary metadata for any file.
I don't need fine-grained permissions. My computer has one user on it: me.
Storing metadata for any file. It isn't clear to me how that is useful.
The best example of permissions is their scenerio where thay show what can be done with/etc/passwd, where each field can have seperate permissions and modification times, yet still be completely backwards compatable.
I fail to see how that is useful to me.
If a file can also be a directory, then you can store any metadata you want by just creating a file. You can create and use new types of metadata without needing special tools.
Can you give me an example? I'm not sure I understand. What tools would I use, vi? And what kind of metadata would this be useful for? I tend to let my special tools handle my data and my metadata. This seems like just another tool for software programmers who want to create software which will only work on a single filesystem.
Maybe you would if the filesystem actually supported these uses.
No. I wouldn't. Having 10,000 files in a single directory is not useful to me.
Perhaps your mail box would keep each seperate piece of mail as a seperate file, all 100,000 pieces of it.
Why would I want my mail box to do that? This is a software programming issue. It makes no sense for someone to write a mail program which only works on a single filesystem. If you want to solve the problem once instead of having each program solve it separately, write a dynamic library, not a kernel module.
If you look at the website, then you will see that their goal is to redefine the role of a filesystem.
Yeah, but that part seems dumb to me. You're not going to get many programmers to write software utilizing a filesystem which requires the software users to install a kernel modules. Maybe if they come out with a reiserfs shared library. That would be cool.
plugin-based architecture
new semantics that allow files to also be directories
Yeah but what does this do for me? I'm not even sure what it means to allow files to also be directories. Is this something actually useful?
When was the last time you remember hearing about new features in a filesystem?
I think the fact that filesystems haven't changed is a good thing. The main reason that filesystems are useful in the first place is because they make command line administration easy. Secondarily, a hierarchical folder system is currently the best widely implemented organizational system for documents, but a whole lot of work still needs to be done in this regard, and reiserfs isn't helping anything in that area.
Journaling was the last one I can remember and that's a few years old now.
A few years old for linux. Many years old for unix. And journaling has been a great improvement. I really hated those constant fsck's every time I would be forced to turn off my computer without shutting down properly.
I don't mean to disparage reiserfs. I'm sure it's great for certain types of servers, most likely those with tons of user accounts. But I'm thinking of it from more the typical single-user (maybe a small family at the most) perspective.
I'm not putting thousands of files in a single directory. I'm not using tons of small files, and my hard drives are more than big enough to hold my data. Is there any reason to use reiserfs instead of ext3?
they have a right against self-incrimination with respect to testimony they give in a criminal case. they have no right to bar public statements they made willingly.
Yes but they are not willingly making the statements they are making in civil court. The court is forcing them to make them. If the government could do that, they'd just have a civil trial before every criminal trial so they could force the victim to incriminate himself.
If people could do that, confessions would be inadmissable in court.
They commonly are.
It's not illegal to apply a binary-only license to works protected under the GPL
i disagree.
Tell me what law is being broken.
I believe the GPL specifically requires any code under the GPL that is distributed to have its source made available to anyone who requests it.
Yeah, that's pretty much accurate.
A binary only license would put a further restriction on it's distribution and would then be a violation of the GPL.
A license does not place restrictions on things, a license allows you to do things.
The only caveat to that would be if you owned the specific code, you could release it as GPL and also license it in non-GPL forms, like MySQL does. That, however, wouldnt apply in SCO's case because they are extending their restriction to cover code in the kernel that they do not hold copyright to.
Clearly SCO's license would not be binding on third parties. I could grant you a license to copy and distribute Microsoft, but that doesn't mean that license is valid. It would probably be considered fraud or something, but when I said that it wasn't illegal I really meant it wasn't copyright infringement.
It also seems like if they fail in the civil suit, it opens them up to charges of fraud by everyone who buys one of their licenses.
Well, that's a completely different argument. I was specifically talking about criminal copyright infringement.
Re:Phasing Out Social Security
on
Saving the Net
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· Score: 1
Agreed, but isn't it simpler to stop the whole thing, and give everyone a check for the amount that they paid in?
No. People were promised more than they paid in. Many built there entire retirement plans around that. It's not fair to not live up to that promise.
because evidence brought out in the SCO case can be used against it when it is a matter of public record.
Actually I'm not so sure about that. After all, SCO has a right against self-incrimination in a criminal case.
With respect to proving willful intent to violate copyright, SCO having no case in it's contract dispute will go a long way to showing that their attempt to apply a binary only license to works protected under the GPL is a willful infringement of the GPL.
It's not illegal to apply a binary-only license to works protected under the GPL. What is illegal is creation of a derivative work without licensing that derivative work under the GPL. Now once SCO claims that they did not license the derivative work under the GPL in civil court, they will be estopped from claiming otherwise in criminal court. But it seems to me that they could claim that there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not they failed to license the derivative work willfully. In fact, the mere question of whether or not they did in fact license the derivative work under the GPL is a legal question which is much in dispute. It seems to me to be a difficult if not impossible case to win.
Re:Republicans give entitlements too
on
Saving the Net
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· Score: 1
FICA isn't "income tax", per se
Yes it is. The Supreme Court has even ruled it as such in the case which decided whether that FICA was constitutional under the 10th Amendment.
It's a tax based on your earned income. How could that possibly not be considered an income tax?
and social security should be abolished anyway
No arguments from me on that one. Let's start by getting rid of the regressive FICA tax.
Only a socialist (or a communist) could believe the government will do a better job planning your retirement than you could.
True. But the government will do a better job of investing money than many people.
I'm in agreement with you though. The FICA tax should be repealed immediately, and social security should be phased out in a manner which still gives benefits to those who were promised them, and even allows voluntary contributions for those who already have an account established. But first and foremost, replace the FICA tax with a something progressive, not regressive. A self-employed single person with no dependents making only $10,000/year shouldn't have to pay any income taxes.
If freenet preserves your anonymity, they can't sue you.
Freenet preserves your anonymity no more than Kazaa. The IP address of the computer sending you the file cannot be hidden.
If you're hosting someone else's file without knowledge of it, you're probably in the clear. Under the DMCA they should notify you that you are hosting it, and then you can remove it and be protected by the "safe harbor" provision.
Maybe. In order to qualify though, you have to "[designate] an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement." How many Freenet users are going to do that?
If freenet nodes are liable, so is every mail server on the internet.
Yep, mail servers whichh have not registered as a service provider under the DMCA technically are liable. No one's going to actually sue them, because they're not doing any harm to anyone, but it is legally possible.
I fail to see how SCO's civil case is related in any way to its violation of the GPL. The SCO case is about breach of contract, not copyright infringement.
Re:Republicans give entitlements too
on
Saving the Net
·
· Score: 1
The fact of the matter is that tax cuts help people who have money because people who don't have money DON'T PAY TAXES.
I have yet to meet these mythical people. The only way to avoid taxes completely is to be rich. Then you can live off unearned income.
The top five percent earners STILL PAY 50% of the tax burden, while nearly 50% of income earners pay NO income tax.
would [capitalism] need to [survive] at this point?
No. Clearly it wouldn't need to survive, since it couldn't. We'd still need some sort of economic system though. At least until we reach the point where the robots are creating and maintaining themselves (just add sunlight).
Once we get to the point were everyone can get pretty much what every they want at almost no cost there will be little need for people to work.
Sure. At that point it won't matter. The only need for humans will be for creativity, and I'm personally of the opinion that humans will continue to be creative without economic incentives. But there's an in-between step, where there will still be great costs, in terms of creating and maintaining the computers. Manual labor will be automated long before skilled labor can be. I'm not sure what we can possibly do in that middle time.
You are missing the point of the revolution, though. The USA was founded because the colonists objected to "taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION", not because they objected to taxes.
When the RIAA gives me a seat on their board of directors I'll happily stop arguing about their copying tax.
I think that's the key here. As has been pointed out before, most file sharing, CD burning, etc. goes on because the public believes that they somehow have a *right* to a song or a movie without paying for it.
No. The public believes they they have a *right* to *copy* and *distribute* a song or movie without paying for it.
Ignoring the law just because it is inconvenient is wrong.
No it isn't.
O'Leary was incorrect in stating that *all* laws should be obeyed - the civil rights movement was an proper form of law breaking - but "because I want this" is not a valid reason to break the law.
I fail to see the difference. Why is the right to sit in the front of the bus any less important than the right to copy a song? Were our founding fathers wrong for refusing to pay their taxes?
I don't see what this has to do with the matrix. People will never just let themselves die, but people without jobs may very well starve or freeze to death.
Maybe we can look at Star Trek for a more optimistic model... once robots do most of the work, then there would be no need for monetary motivation and culture would change dramatically away from the individualistic capitalism and more towards a socialistic, wealthless society.
There certainly would need to be economic changes. That's kind of my whole point. But it won't be as easy as Star Trek makes it out to be (not to mention the fact that there's money and wealth in Star Trek). How many uneducated people are there on board the Enterprise? Even the lesser characters presumably have some sort of skilled labor position.
If you want to trade content anonymously then I suggest you use Freenet.
Freenet will not protect you from civil liability for copyright infringement. Civil copyright infringement is a strict liability statute. It doesn't matter if you know what you are sending is copyrighted or not. If you send someone a copyrighted album, whether you initiated it or not you are still liable.
Slashdot Mirror
With reiser4, you can store the metadata in the filesystem where any program can access it. Instead of using a special program to read the id3 tag, you could type something like "cat foo.mp3/author". If you want to add a new type of metadata, then it is as easy "echo something > foo.mp3/some_new_type_of_metadata"
Good point. I'm switching.
Do you ever do, say, "ls /usr/share/doc"?
No. I don't even think I have a /usr/share/doc.
ReiserFS is quick in many day-to-day operations, not just benchmark test cases.
So what does that do for me? Save me 1 second on a kernel compile? Actually, kernel compile would be a bad example, because adding reiserfs is going to increase my kernel compile time.
The only real response I can give to this is, try it and decide for yourself.
I can't afford wasting all that time reinstalling my entire linux system without some promise of an actual benefit. I'm not even sure I could do it, since I don't have any install CDs which support reiserfs.
Or, is there any reason to use ext3 instead of reiserfs?
Sure. It's what my install CD supported. I'm not even sure how I'd go about installing reiserfs. I'd have to shrink my ext3 partition, create a second partition, move all the stuff over there, boot off that second partition, install a reiserfs root on the first partition, install linux there, boot off that, copy everything over, delete the second partition, and extend the first back to the whole hard drive. I'm not even sure there are even tools available to do all that.
The point is, this is the way all filesystems should have been handling metadata.
If you say so. In any case, they didn't.
Personally I don't think there should be filesystems in the first place. The "Right Way" is for all that nonsense to be in libraries. But it's too late for that, too.
Now, any type of metadata for any type of file can be stored and accessed in a consistant (and backwards compatable) format.
It's not really backwards compatable though. If you use the software with a non-reiserfs filesystem it'll be slow as shit.
Umm, that's exactly what I suggested when I said that we should phase out social security.
It's useful because of two things: fine-grained permissions and the ability to store arbitary metadata for any file.
I don't need fine-grained permissions. My computer has one user on it: me.
Storing metadata for any file. It isn't clear to me how that is useful.
The best example of permissions is their scenerio where thay show what can be done with /etc/passwd, where each field can have seperate permissions and modification times, yet still be completely backwards compatable.
I fail to see how that is useful to me.
If a file can also be a directory, then you can store any metadata you want by just creating a file. You can create and use new types of metadata without needing special tools.
Can you give me an example? I'm not sure I understand. What tools would I use, vi? And what kind of metadata would this be useful for? I tend to let my special tools handle my data and my metadata. This seems like just another tool for software programmers who want to create software which will only work on a single filesystem.
Maybe you would if the filesystem actually supported these uses.
No. I wouldn't. Having 10,000 files in a single directory is not useful to me.
Perhaps your mail box would keep each seperate piece of mail as a seperate file, all 100,000 pieces of it.
Why would I want my mail box to do that? This is a software programming issue. It makes no sense for someone to write a mail program which only works on a single filesystem. If you want to solve the problem once instead of having each program solve it separately, write a dynamic library, not a kernel module.
If you look at the website, then you will see that their goal is to redefine the role of a filesystem.
Yeah, but that part seems dumb to me. You're not going to get many programmers to write software utilizing a filesystem which requires the software users to install a kernel modules. Maybe if they come out with a reiserfs shared library. That would be cool.
plugin-based architecture
new semantics that allow files to also be directories
Yeah but what does this do for me? I'm not even sure what it means to allow files to also be directories. Is this something actually useful?
When was the last time you remember hearing about new features in a filesystem?
I think the fact that filesystems haven't changed is a good thing. The main reason that filesystems are useful in the first place is because they make command line administration easy. Secondarily, a hierarchical folder system is currently the best widely implemented organizational system for documents, but a whole lot of work still needs to be done in this regard, and reiserfs isn't helping anything in that area.
Journaling was the last one I can remember and that's a few years old now.
A few years old for linux. Many years old for unix. And journaling has been a great improvement. I really hated those constant fsck's every time I would be forced to turn off my computer without shutting down properly.
I don't mean to disparage reiserfs. I'm sure it's great for certain types of servers, most likely those with tons of user accounts. But I'm thinking of it from more the typical single-user (maybe a small family at the most) perspective.
I'm not putting thousands of files in a single directory. I'm not using tons of small files, and my hard drives are more than big enough to hold my data. Is there any reason to use reiserfs instead of ext3?
they have a right against self-incrimination with respect to testimony they give in a criminal case. they have no right to bar public statements they made willingly.
Yes but they are not willingly making the statements they are making in civil court. The court is forcing them to make them. If the government could do that, they'd just have a civil trial before every criminal trial so they could force the victim to incriminate himself.
If people could do that, confessions would be inadmissable in court.
They commonly are.
It's not illegal to apply a binary-only license to works protected under the GPL
i disagree.
Tell me what law is being broken.
I believe the GPL specifically requires any code under the GPL that is distributed to have its source made available to anyone who requests it.
Yeah, that's pretty much accurate.
A binary only license would put a further restriction on it's distribution and would then be a violation of the GPL.
A license does not place restrictions on things, a license allows you to do things.
The only caveat to that would be if you owned the specific code, you could release it as GPL and also license it in non-GPL forms, like MySQL does. That, however, wouldnt apply in SCO's case because they are extending their restriction to cover code in the kernel that they do not hold copyright to.
Clearly SCO's license would not be binding on third parties. I could grant you a license to copy and distribute Microsoft, but that doesn't mean that license is valid. It would probably be considered fraud or something, but when I said that it wasn't illegal I really meant it wasn't copyright infringement.
It also seems like if they fail in the civil suit, it opens them up to charges of fraud by everyone who buys one of their licenses.
Well, that's a completely different argument. I was specifically talking about criminal copyright infringement.
Agreed, but isn't it simpler to stop the whole thing, and give everyone a check for the amount that they paid in?
No. People were promised more than they paid in. Many built there entire retirement plans around that. It's not fair to not live up to that promise.
because evidence brought out in the SCO case can be used against it when it is a matter of public record.
Actually I'm not so sure about that. After all, SCO has a right against self-incrimination in a criminal case.
With respect to proving willful intent to violate copyright, SCO having no case in it's contract dispute will go a long way to showing that their attempt to apply a binary only license to works protected under the GPL is a willful infringement of the GPL.
It's not illegal to apply a binary-only license to works protected under the GPL. What is illegal is creation of a derivative work without licensing that derivative work under the GPL. Now once SCO claims that they did not license the derivative work under the GPL in civil court, they will be estopped from claiming otherwise in criminal court. But it seems to me that they could claim that there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not they failed to license the derivative work willfully. In fact, the mere question of whether or not they did in fact license the derivative work under the GPL is a legal question which is much in dispute. It seems to me to be a difficult if not impossible case to win.
FICA isn't "income tax", per se
Yes it is. The Supreme Court has even ruled it as such in the case which decided whether that FICA was constitutional under the 10th Amendment.
It's a tax based on your earned income. How could that possibly not be considered an income tax?
and social security should be abolished anyway
No arguments from me on that one. Let's start by getting rid of the regressive FICA tax.
Only a socialist (or a communist) could believe the government will do a better job planning your retirement than you could.
True. But the government will do a better job of investing money than many people.
I'm in agreement with you though. The FICA tax should be repealed immediately, and social security should be phased out in a manner which still gives benefits to those who were promised them, and even allows voluntary contributions for those who already have an account established. But first and foremost, replace the FICA tax with a something progressive, not regressive. A self-employed single person with no dependents making only $10,000/year shouldn't have to pay any income taxes.
If freenet preserves your anonymity, they can't sue you.
Freenet preserves your anonymity no more than Kazaa. The IP address of the computer sending you the file cannot be hidden.
If you're hosting someone else's file without knowledge of it, you're probably in the clear. Under the DMCA they should notify you that you are hosting it, and then you can remove it and be protected by the "safe harbor" provision.
Maybe. In order to qualify though, you have to "[designate] an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement." How many Freenet users are going to do that?
If freenet nodes are liable, so is every mail server on the internet.
Yep, mail servers whichh have not registered as a service provider under the DMCA technically are liable. No one's going to actually sue them, because they're not doing any harm to anyone, but it is legally possible.
Fourth solution: Make these idiots smarter. Think that won't be an option?
Yes, I think some people are intrinsically stupid.
I fail to see how SCO's civil case is related in any way to its violation of the GPL. The SCO case is about breach of contract, not copyright infringement.
The fact of the matter is that tax cuts help people who have money because people who don't have money DON'T PAY TAXES.
I have yet to meet these mythical people. The only way to avoid taxes completely is to be rich. Then you can live off unearned income.
The top five percent earners STILL PAY 50% of the tax burden, while nearly 50% of income earners pay NO income tax.
You forgot FICA.
If you're greedy, you vote democrat
Or republican. Or green. Or libertarian. Or socialist.
would [capitalism] need to [survive] at this point?
No. Clearly it wouldn't need to survive, since it couldn't. We'd still need some sort of economic system though. At least until we reach the point where the robots are creating and maintaining themselves (just add sunlight).
Once we get to the point were everyone can get pretty much what every they want at almost no cost there will be little need for people to work.
Sure. At that point it won't matter. The only need for humans will be for creativity, and I'm personally of the opinion that humans will continue to be creative without economic incentives. But there's an in-between step, where there will still be great costs, in terms of creating and maintaining the computers. Manual labor will be automated long before skilled labor can be. I'm not sure what we can possibly do in that middle time.
Why should I give a shit about my network admins?
You are missing the point of the revolution, though. The USA was founded because the colonists objected to "taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION", not because they objected to taxes.
When the RIAA gives me a seat on their board of directors I'll happily stop arguing about their copying tax.
I think that's the key here. As has been pointed out before, most file sharing, CD burning, etc. goes on because the public believes that they somehow have a *right* to a song or a movie without paying for it.
No. The public believes they they have a *right* to *copy* and *distribute* a song or movie without paying for it.
Ignoring the law just because it is inconvenient is wrong.
No it isn't.
O'Leary was incorrect in stating that *all* laws should be obeyed - the civil rights movement was an proper form of law breaking - but "because I want this" is not a valid reason to break the law.
I fail to see the difference. Why is the right to sit in the front of the bus any less important than the right to copy a song? Were our founding fathers wrong for refusing to pay their taxes?
SCO's new license agreement for Linux violates the GPL...
True, but I wouldn't say that SCO's infringement is willful, which is a requirement for criminal prosecution.
I don't see what this has to do with the matrix. People will never just let themselves die, but people without jobs may very well starve or freeze to death.
Maybe we can look at Star Trek for a more optimistic model... once robots do most of the work, then there would be no need for monetary motivation and culture would change dramatically away from the individualistic capitalism and more towards a socialistic, wealthless society.
There certainly would need to be economic changes. That's kind of my whole point. But it won't be as easy as Star Trek makes it out to be (not to mention the fact that there's money and wealth in Star Trek). How many uneducated people are there on board the Enterprise? Even the lesser characters presumably have some sort of skilled labor position.
That's not a job.
If you want to trade content anonymously then I suggest you use Freenet.
Freenet will not protect you from civil liability for copyright infringement. Civil copyright infringement is a strict liability statute. It doesn't matter if you know what you are sending is copyrighted or not. If you send someone a copyrighted album, whether you initiated it or not you are still liable.