I don't think we should make it any harder to explain science (or make it easier to distort it - "those crazy scientists always change their minds; one day there are 9 planets, now there are only 8. They always get it wrong and change their answer later") to the masses by redefining a common use word into something perhaps technically useful, but not close to the common meaning.
Well, then why aren't the asteroids considered planets? The first few that were discovered were, you know. Even the sun and the moon were initially labelled as "planets". There's no need for this to make science harder to explain. In fact, it can lead into a good lesson on what asteroids are, what the asteroid belt is, what the ecliptic is, what the kuiper belt is, etc. Chances are this "tenth planet" isn't going to be the last, and inevitably there will be more items like pluto than 8. I think at that point it will make more sense to introduce pluto as the first of its kind to be discovered, rather than the last of the planets to be discovered. It can't really be both, and it fits more with the other trans-neptunian objects than with the planets.
We first noticed planets were different from stars because we could resolve them into DISCS, not merely points of light
Umm, no we didn't. We first noticed planets were different from stars because planets don't move in the same orbit as stars. They move in one direction, then they zig zag back in the other direction. The word planet comes from the Greek word plants, which means "wanderer". The actual phases of the planets weren't discovered until much much much later.
Why is google any more different than any other successful IT company?
It's not, really. I feel pretty much the same way about Google today as I felt about Yahoo years ago. "Geeky name, great products, God I hope they kill Microsoft." Look back in the Slashdot archives. I'm almost sure that Slashdot was saying the same thing about Yahoo, and even Netscape.
Microsoft (and AOL) killed Netscape. Yahoo just kind of stopped being cool. I'm not sure why, and the management of Google needs to really study that one. One difference is that the founders of Yahoo didn't retain anywhere near the level of control that the Google founders so far have. Right now Google is the big story, and it's really up to them what they're going to do next.
The company has billions of dollars in cash, some of which they just raised in a secondary offering. No is really sure what it is they plan on doing with that money, and where Google goes from here is going to be largely determined by that.
If there is one company I see succeeding in bringing linux to the masses it is Google.
That's scary. I don't want my OS to be a service. I don't want ads on my desktop, nor do I want to pay a monthly fee. I don't want all my data stored on someone else's computer. If Google succeeds in bringing Linux to the masses I don't see how these things could be avoided.
I do hope they won't try any clever name (like googlix)
What I have been doing (in firefox) is to allow cookies from gmail.com and google.com just to get Gmail to work. Then I do all my searches/map queries through google.co.uk, and block cookies from google.co.uk.
Nice. I tried a bunch of different things to get this to work, but they were all a pain. I never thought to use google.co.uk.
One question though: Does blocking third party cookies only block the receiving of cookies, or does it block the sending of them too? If Google puts an image from google.com on google.co.uk, will it get the cookie from google.com in the request for the image?
What would be great is a greasemonkey-style script that works on Gmail and Google pages, removing the tracking from links, and dealing with cookies (can greasemonkey deal with cookies?). This would stop Google from having any knowledge of which links I click on in search results and email bodies.
I'm pretty sure all you have to do is turn off javascript to remove the click-tracking. There is an extension for firefox which lets you turn javascript on and off for certain domains.
I've had one too many webmail clients go bad on me to start using GMail.
Personally I've had one too many local email clients go bad on me to stop using GMail. It's nice to be able to install a new operating system without having to worry about figuring out how to save the emails and preferences and everything. It's nice being able to check my mail through https at work. Yeah, I could set up a server to do this, but to get a hosting service I'd really trust and be willing to stay with pretty much forever, I'd have to pay a lot more per month than I currently am.
At some point, they will cut down on free features, and start charging for anything useful. It happend at yahoo, it happened at msn, it has happened at many other webmail sites i've had. What makes people think that google is any different.
Well, I do have Google automatically forward every message to my server, just in case. But I doubt Google is going to abandon POP access, especially without notice.
At least that way, I'm pretty sure that I won't lose features, or have to change my email address ever again.
I don't give out my gmail address. I have an address on my own domain name, which I forward to Google using a free email forwarding service. Gmail has a feature that lets me change my from address on outgoing mail to match.
Everyone says Google maps is so good.
This is a place where they have some good and bad points. I really like the overlay maps, the ability to drag things around, and the ability to search within the map "UPS store in tampa". But their driving directions suck.
Both of these things are only potential evils though, not actual evils. To answer your question:
The clincher here is it's [sic] Web Proxy (good spin to call it Accelerator) How does this product help google?
Same way as Google News. Google tends to be a company that focuses on making a great product first and then figuring out how to monetize it later. I think the potential for their web proxy is tremendous. In fact, I have my own web proxy which I use, that records every URL I go to and caches the information. I use this all the time. It's especially useful for going back and creating new web scraping sessions, but the obvious uses like looking up the history of what pages I've been to and searching through the cache are good too.
Now granted, I'd never use Google's web proxy, at least not for my day-to-day browsing. I think you'd kind of have to be stupid to do so.
A cellphone? What, you think they're tracking people's every movements via GPS? It's not true, you know. Your cell phone only sends GPS information when you make a phone call, you can set up most phones not to send it unless the number dialed is 911, and the information that's sent isn't useful unless it's processed by the phone company. I seriously doubt the phone company is processing and storing all that GPS information. Sure, they know what cell you used, which is a bit of a privacy issue, but not much unless you're calling your wife from your girlfriend's place or something.
And really, how sensitive of information is where you have been to someone who already knows where you live and work? Anyone worried about this must have a much more interesting life than I do.
I just thought about this, and maybe you're talking about someone recording all your telephone conversations. Unless you're under investigation by the government, I doubt this is happening.
At least Google is a little more upfront about it, and their invasion of our privacy isn't in the same way that the government (and God only knows who else) is attempting to invade our privacy.
Google is about as upfront about it as the government. You know they have a lot of information about you, but they won't tell you what it is. Actually, in that sense the government is in some ways better - you can file a freedom of information act request to find out just what it is the government knows about you (although they will likely only give you a partial answer). The big difference is that most people have a reasonable choice whether or not to interact with Google. It's much harder to avoid interacting with the government.
Google is supported by advertising, and I really don't mind the way that they're going about creating a more personalized brand of advertising.
My main problem with them is their lack of a data retention policy. You don't need the full history of every search a person has made over his entire lifetime just to send some ads.
It's not as though they're using any of the information that they're collecting to persecute anyone.
Companies change. The management changes, the ownership changes, etc. Google probably isn't using any of the information in a bad way now, but who knows what they're going to do 5, 10 years from now. Right now, the government probably can't access very much of Google's data unless they have a specific court order. Who knows how true that's going to be 5, 10 years from now. A data retention policy is key. IP addresses, browser information, and anything else which could help identify a person should be decoupled from the rest of the data after a few years. If it is kept at all, it should be limited to how many hits came from a particular IP address on a particular day. Cookie information should be wiped after a while. As much as possible, the information should be aggregated.
Yes, there also need to be tight controls over who can access the data at all, it should be limited to those with a need to know and audit trails should be kept on who is accessing what. This part is already being done according to the reports I've read. But data retention is key.
By what mechanism would you compel authors to release their source code if it weren't for the combination of copyright and the GPL?
There's always reverse engineering.
They're going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts?
A lot of people will, yes. A lot of others will do it because it's much easier to contribute back your changes and let others merge them in than to keep your changes hidden and merge them back with every single new release of the base product.
No, more likely the binaries would become even more "black box" than before to protect them from prying eyes. You can copy all you want, but you're still dependent on the company to add features and support their software.
Like I said, in extreme situations there's always reverse engineering. Binaries might become even more black box, but reverse engineering techniques will become much more widespread. But c'mon, most free software projects are run by individuals and/or non-profit organizations, not by for-profit corporations. These projects aren't distributing the source because they have to, they're doing it because they want to. Will some companies come up with innovative products that are based on open-source software, and protect those products with DRM and not releasing the source? Of course they will, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If the closed-source product really is that much better, then the company deserves to make *some* profit off of it. Eventually open-source will catch up, and it'll happen a lot quicker when reverse engineering and copying closed-source products is legal.
Look around the software market today. It is comparatively rare that companies can make money off GPL software, and even more rare that they can make money off software that has no strings attached.
You see that as a good thing? I see it as a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with adding value to something that's free and making a profit.
In a world without copyright, all software has no strings attached. The profit stream has got to come from somewhere, so it will tend towards the only remaining options: patents and secrecy.
Well, I'd certainly like to see software patents eliminated too:).
Without the high prices we're paying now but with the federal tax break the numbers were close over 10 years of ownership.
Did you factor in interest rates and battery replacement? I don't think the battery is supposed to last 10 years.
After much thought I decided I'd rather have my money go to engineers than, at best, corrupt governments (oil resources & corruption correlate nicely globally), and at worst some dude who's dream is to kill my kids.
If I could break even in 10 years I'd probably go for it. But they don't make hybrids anywhere near the $11,000 range, which is what I paid for my car.
Yes, I was always responding to this point with "skip the hybrid and donate the money to an environmental group". But the environmental credits and green electricity shows that you don't even have to trade one environmental factor for another.
I think I'd go for a hybrid if I could plug it in. On top of the fact that electricity is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than gasoline, I'd almost never have to go to the gas station. Of course I live in an apartment, on the second floor at that, so this wouldn't be feasible for me.
For anyone who really cares about the environment the difference in pollution between hybrids and non-hybrids is negligible, because that person doesn't drive very much anyway. The environment would be much better off if that person took the $3000 and donated it to an environmental group instead of wasting it on a hybrid.
Yeah, I like the idea of using copyright law against itself, but the GPL goes beyond that, using copyright law to try to force people into a particular view of how software should work. I think releasing source code makes sense in the vast majority of cases, but I don't think you should have to threaten people with lawsuits in order to make that happen.
ShareAlike is useful in essence only for guarding against copyright lawsuits. There are a few other technicalities, like including a copy or link to the license, but that's trivial enough that it's unlikely a court would assign any damages over such a breach. On the other hand, unlike the BSD license, you can't get sued for distributing a derivative of your own work, if the work is licensed under ShareAlike. That's where I see the advantage to the BSD license.
Except the Apache HTTPD Server (I assume this is what you meant by "anyone who compiles apache") is licenced under the Apache Licence v2.0, which happens to be GPL v2 compatible.
Yeah. Good thing for that.
Also, although IANAL I would disagree that binarys are considered derivative works unless you modified the source of said binarys
If they're not derivative works, then what are they, verbatim copies?
they're the explicit intended result of making source available to download in this context, following your logic running Microsoft Windows on my desktop would create derivative works of some of the programs that make it up - I am afterall loading parts of them into memory aren't I?
Yes, running Windows does create derivative works. You have permission to create such derivative works, though. And even the Microsoft EULA lets you do that.
As for your apocalyptic (for the Free/Open Source world) prediction, I really don't see it ever happening.
Me neither, but that's because the FSF wouldn't be dumb enough to do what Mark suggests they do.
How come you got modded informative but every time I say this I get moderated a troll? Note that "Person A" and "Person B" could be corporations, possibly even corporations owned by the same person.
The other thing is, this only allows you to get away with not distributing the source. The software would still be free as in beer, sort of. The author of the derivative did not have permission to prepare the derivative, so the modifications are not subject to copyright. However, the original program is still subject to copyright, so someone copying and distributing the modified version couldn't be sued by Person A or Person B, but could be sued by the original author(s).
PersonA must trust PersonB, because PersonB is allowed to give out GPL copies to 3rd parties if he chooses. There is no way PersonA can prevent this, except by enticement of future profitable sales.
Since it's only an offer, it can easily be prevented, by grinding the source code into powder. Now you could argue that Person B can then go ahead and sue Person A for damages, but this would be a tough lawsuit to win. If Person A is a corporation, and has already distributed its profits, a lawsuit might not even make any sense.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think we should make it any harder to explain science (or make it easier to distort it - "those crazy scientists always change their minds; one day there are 9 planets, now there are only 8. They always get it wrong and change their answer later") to the masses by redefining a common use word into something perhaps technically useful, but not close to the common meaning.
Well, then why aren't the asteroids considered planets? The first few that were discovered were, you know. Even the sun and the moon were initially labelled as "planets". There's no need for this to make science harder to explain. In fact, it can lead into a good lesson on what asteroids are, what the asteroid belt is, what the ecliptic is, what the kuiper belt is, etc. Chances are this "tenth planet" isn't going to be the last, and inevitably there will be more items like pluto than 8. I think at that point it will make more sense to introduce pluto as the first of its kind to be discovered, rather than the last of the planets to be discovered. It can't really be both, and it fits more with the other trans-neptunian objects than with the planets.
We first noticed planets were different from stars because we could resolve them into DISCS, not merely points of light
Umm, no we didn't. We first noticed planets were different from stars because planets don't move in the same orbit as stars. They move in one direction, then they zig zag back in the other direction. The word planet comes from the Greek word plants, which means "wanderer". The actual phases of the planets weren't discovered until much much much later.
The sun orbits the earth. So do all the stars, and all the planets.
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS A CIVIL MATTER, NOT A CRIME.
Actually, since Bill Clinton signed the No Electronic Theft Act, most copyright infringement over P2P *is* a crime.
I wonder who Google is going to sue after they lose the case over the book scanning.
Because Google will likely give you no answer at all.
Google Earth was purchased by Google, not designed by them.
Why is google any more different than any other successful IT company?
It's not, really. I feel pretty much the same way about Google today as I felt about Yahoo years ago. "Geeky name, great products, God I hope they kill Microsoft." Look back in the Slashdot archives. I'm almost sure that Slashdot was saying the same thing about Yahoo, and even Netscape.
Microsoft (and AOL) killed Netscape. Yahoo just kind of stopped being cool. I'm not sure why, and the management of Google needs to really study that one. One difference is that the founders of Yahoo didn't retain anywhere near the level of control that the Google founders so far have. Right now Google is the big story, and it's really up to them what they're going to do next.
The company has billions of dollars in cash, some of which they just raised in a secondary offering. No is really sure what it is they plan on doing with that money, and where Google goes from here is going to be largely determined by that.
If there is one company I see succeeding in bringing linux to the masses it is Google.
That's scary. I don't want my OS to be a service. I don't want ads on my desktop, nor do I want to pay a monthly fee. I don't want all my data stored on someone else's computer. If Google succeeds in bringing Linux to the masses I don't see how these things could be avoided.
I do hope they won't try any clever name (like googlix)
Screw Linus and his trademarks. Call it Gnugle.
What I have been doing (in firefox) is to allow cookies from gmail.com and google.com just to get Gmail to work. Then I do all my searches/map queries through google.co.uk, and block cookies from google.co.uk.
Nice. I tried a bunch of different things to get this to work, but they were all a pain. I never thought to use google.co.uk.
One question though: Does blocking third party cookies only block the receiving of cookies, or does it block the sending of them too? If Google puts an image from google.com on google.co.uk, will it get the cookie from google.com in the request for the image?
What would be great is a greasemonkey-style script that works on Gmail and Google pages, removing the tracking from links, and dealing with cookies (can greasemonkey deal with cookies?). This would stop Google from having any knowledge of which links I click on in search results and email bodies.
I'm pretty sure all you have to do is turn off javascript to remove the click-tracking. There is an extension for firefox which lets you turn javascript on and off for certain domains.
I've had one too many webmail clients go bad on me to start using GMail.
Personally I've had one too many local email clients go bad on me to stop using GMail. It's nice to be able to install a new operating system without having to worry about figuring out how to save the emails and preferences and everything. It's nice being able to check my mail through https at work. Yeah, I could set up a server to do this, but to get a hosting service I'd really trust and be willing to stay with pretty much forever, I'd have to pay a lot more per month than I currently am.
At some point, they will cut down on free features, and start charging for anything useful. It happend at yahoo, it happened at msn, it has happened at many other webmail sites i've had. What makes people think that google is any different.
Well, I do have Google automatically forward every message to my server, just in case. But I doubt Google is going to abandon POP access, especially without notice.
At least that way, I'm pretty sure that I won't lose features, or have to change my email address ever again.
I don't give out my gmail address. I have an address on my own domain name, which I forward to Google using a free email forwarding service. Gmail has a feature that lets me change my from address on outgoing mail to match.
Everyone says Google maps is so good.
This is a place where they have some good and bad points. I really like the overlay maps, the ability to drag things around, and the ability to search within the map "UPS store in tampa". But their driving directions suck.
Both of these things are only potential evils though, not actual evils. To answer your question:
The clincher here is it's [sic] Web Proxy (good spin to call it Accelerator) How does this product help google?
Same way as Google News. Google tends to be a company that focuses on making a great product first and then figuring out how to monetize it later. I think the potential for their web proxy is tremendous. In fact, I have my own web proxy which I use, that records every URL I go to and caches the information. I use this all the time. It's especially useful for going back and creating new web scraping sessions, but the obvious uses like looking up the history of what pages I've been to and searching through the cache are good too.
Now granted, I'd never use Google's web proxy, at least not for my day-to-day browsing. I think you'd kind of have to be stupid to do so.
A cellphone? What, you think they're tracking people's every movements via GPS? It's not true, you know. Your cell phone only sends GPS information when you make a phone call, you can set up most phones not to send it unless the number dialed is 911, and the information that's sent isn't useful unless it's processed by the phone company. I seriously doubt the phone company is processing and storing all that GPS information. Sure, they know what cell you used, which is a bit of a privacy issue, but not much unless you're calling your wife from your girlfriend's place or something.
And really, how sensitive of information is where you have been to someone who already knows where you live and work? Anyone worried about this must have a much more interesting life than I do.
I just thought about this, and maybe you're talking about someone recording all your telephone conversations. Unless you're under investigation by the government, I doubt this is happening.
At least Google is a little more upfront about it, and their invasion of our privacy isn't in the same way that the government (and God only knows who else) is attempting to invade our privacy.
Google is about as upfront about it as the government. You know they have a lot of information about you, but they won't tell you what it is. Actually, in that sense the government is in some ways better - you can file a freedom of information act request to find out just what it is the government knows about you (although they will likely only give you a partial answer). The big difference is that most people have a reasonable choice whether or not to interact with Google. It's much harder to avoid interacting with the government.
Google is supported by advertising, and I really don't mind the way that they're going about creating a more personalized brand of advertising.
My main problem with them is their lack of a data retention policy. You don't need the full history of every search a person has made over his entire lifetime just to send some ads.
It's not as though they're using any of the information that they're collecting to persecute anyone.
Companies change. The management changes, the ownership changes, etc. Google probably isn't using any of the information in a bad way now, but who knows what they're going to do 5, 10 years from now. Right now, the government probably can't access very much of Google's data unless they have a specific court order. Who knows how true that's going to be 5, 10 years from now. A data retention policy is key. IP addresses, browser information, and anything else which could help identify a person should be decoupled from the rest of the data after a few years. If it is kept at all, it should be limited to how many hits came from a particular IP address on a particular day. Cookie information should be wiped after a while. As much as possible, the information should be aggregated.
Yes, there also need to be tight controls over who can access the data at all, it should be limited to those with a need to know and audit trails should be kept on who is accessing what. This part is already being done according to the reports I've read. But data retention is key.
The big step forward was the addition of "-starlight" to the search.
By what mechanism would you compel authors to release their source code if it weren't for the combination of copyright and the GPL?
There's always reverse engineering.
They're going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts?
A lot of people will, yes. A lot of others will do it because it's much easier to contribute back your changes and let others merge them in than to keep your changes hidden and merge them back with every single new release of the base product.
No, more likely the binaries would become even more "black box" than before to protect them from prying eyes. You can copy all you want, but you're still dependent on the company to add features and support their software.
Like I said, in extreme situations there's always reverse engineering. Binaries might become even more black box, but reverse engineering techniques will become much more widespread. But c'mon, most free software projects are run by individuals and/or non-profit organizations, not by for-profit corporations. These projects aren't distributing the source because they have to, they're doing it because they want to. Will some companies come up with innovative products that are based on open-source software, and protect those products with DRM and not releasing the source? Of course they will, but I don't see that as a bad thing. If the closed-source product really is that much better, then the company deserves to make *some* profit off of it. Eventually open-source will catch up, and it'll happen a lot quicker when reverse engineering and copying closed-source products is legal.
Look around the software market today. It is comparatively rare that companies can make money off GPL software, and even more rare that they can make money off software that has no strings attached.
You see that as a good thing? I see it as a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with adding value to something that's free and making a profit.
In a world without copyright, all software has no strings attached. The profit stream has got to come from somewhere, so it will tend towards the only remaining options: patents and secrecy.
Well, I'd certainly like to see software patents eliminated too :).
So charge the batteries at night when demand is at its lowest.
Without the high prices we're paying now but with the federal tax break the numbers were close over 10 years of ownership.
Did you factor in interest rates and battery replacement? I don't think the battery is supposed to last 10 years.
After much thought I decided I'd rather have my money go to engineers than, at best, corrupt governments (oil resources & corruption correlate nicely globally), and at worst some dude who's dream is to kill my kids.
If I could break even in 10 years I'd probably go for it. But they don't make hybrids anywhere near the $11,000 range, which is what I paid for my car.
Yes, I was always responding to this point with "skip the hybrid and donate the money to an environmental group". But the environmental credits and green electricity shows that you don't even have to trade one environmental factor for another.
I think I'd go for a hybrid if I could plug it in. On top of the fact that electricity is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than gasoline, I'd almost never have to go to the gas station. Of course I live in an apartment, on the second floor at that, so this wouldn't be feasible for me.
For anyone who really cares about the environment the difference in pollution between hybrids and non-hybrids is negligible, because that person doesn't drive very much anyway. The environment would be much better off if that person took the $3000 and donated it to an environmental group instead of wasting it on a hybrid.
Yeah, I like the idea of using copyright law against itself, but the GPL goes beyond that, using copyright law to try to force people into a particular view of how software should work. I think releasing source code makes sense in the vast majority of cases, but I don't think you should have to threaten people with lawsuits in order to make that happen.
ShareAlike is useful in essence only for guarding against copyright lawsuits. There are a few other technicalities, like including a copy or link to the license, but that's trivial enough that it's unlikely a court would assign any damages over such a breach. On the other hand, unlike the BSD license, you can't get sued for distributing a derivative of your own work, if the work is licensed under ShareAlike. That's where I see the advantage to the BSD license.
Except the Apache HTTPD Server (I assume this is what you meant by "anyone who compiles apache") is licenced under the Apache Licence v2.0, which happens to be GPL v2 compatible.
Yeah. Good thing for that.
Also, although IANAL I would disagree that binarys are considered derivative works unless you modified the source of said binarys
If they're not derivative works, then what are they, verbatim copies?
they're the explicit intended result of making source available to download in this context, following your logic running Microsoft Windows on my desktop would create derivative works of some of the programs that make it up - I am afterall loading parts of them into memory aren't I?
Yes, running Windows does create derivative works. You have permission to create such derivative works, though. And even the Microsoft EULA lets you do that.
As for your apocalyptic (for the Free/Open Source world) prediction, I really don't see it ever happening.
Me neither, but that's because the FSF wouldn't be dumb enough to do what Mark suggests they do.
How come you got modded informative but every time I say this I get moderated a troll? Note that "Person A" and "Person B" could be corporations, possibly even corporations owned by the same person.
The other thing is, this only allows you to get away with not distributing the source. The software would still be free as in beer, sort of. The author of the derivative did not have permission to prepare the derivative, so the modifications are not subject to copyright. However, the original program is still subject to copyright, so someone copying and distributing the modified version couldn't be sued by Person A or Person B, but could be sued by the original author(s).
PersonA must trust PersonB, because PersonB is allowed to give out GPL copies to 3rd parties if he chooses. There is no way PersonA can prevent this, except by enticement of future profitable sales.
Since it's only an offer, it can easily be prevented, by grinding the source code into powder. Now you could argue that Person B can then go ahead and sue Person A for damages, but this would be a tough lawsuit to win. If Person A is a corporation, and has already distributed its profits, a lawsuit might not even make any sense.
#3 and #4 also involve you being subject to a lawsuit for damages. Actually, all 4 do, but if you choose 1 or 2 you probably won't get sued.
I'd prefer Creative Commons ShareAlike. Copyleft *and* free.