First, atheism is a category, not a religion. Atheism has no dogmas, no creeds, no forms of worship...
(and it certainly does need more in order to become a belief system, much less a religion)
Well, technically, true atheism is a belief system. The word literally means "no God", and describes someone who holds the belief that there is no God. (This is distinct from simply not believing in God.)
Likewise, an agnostic is someone who believes that God is unknowable (ie, that it is impossible to determine one way or the other the existence of God).
I'm not sure what the correct term would be for someone without no belief system; perhaps "heathen" will suffice?
I just had a thought on a possible watermarking trick for theatres. I haven't tested this theory or even know if it works in principle, but I thought I'd share:)
As far as I know, the CCDs of most video cameras are sensitive to infra-red. (If you point a remote control at the lens, you can see the transmitter flashing.) The idea is to set up a second projector next to the film projector using an infra-red lamp. It doesn't have to produce a high quality image, because it won't be visible to the human eye. This secondary system projects a completely different image over the top of the real image, which is invisible to the audience, but shows up on digital cameras.
(The image could be anything, from a theatre or print ID to 'DIRTY STINKING PIRATE' splashed across the screen. It could also strobe or do other nasty things to mess up compression.)
I'm not necessarily advocating the idea; it was just an interesting concept to me. It might not be possible to get a cheap IR lamp that was pure enough not to project visible light as well, and it's only useful until cameras stop picking up IR anyway...
I'm surprised by the lack of mention of his work in the replies here. The Mars trilogy is undoubtedly one of the greats of modern science fiction. I'm working my way through "The Martians" companion stories right now. If anyone hasn't read the Mars books yet, get to it!
I'm doing a graphic novel story, rather than a funnies-style strip.
Updates are a bit erratic at the moment, but I hope to improve on that once I make the move to Keenspace ("any day now"). There's some technical issue with the domain... sigh
Web publishing of comics (or any other creative media, for that matter) is important, because it gives everybody the ability to contribute something to the world, if they want to. This project wouldn't have got off the ground at all, without the option of putting it on the web; there's no way I could afford to self-publish Morningstar in print at this point.
(If you decide to check it out, I'd appreciate receiving any feedback... morningstar at tpg dot com dot au.)
Watching television isn't living your life. At best it's setting aside your life for an hour or four every day. At worst, it's vicariously living someone else's idea of what your life should be.
What's your opinion of books?
Sure, you can read them at your own pace, so you have more control over the time you spend on them (but only marginally so, when VCRs are taken into account -- and this flag would take away that control); but it takes a lot longer to read a book than it does to watch a TV program...
Don't your above comments hold for books as well? If not, why not?
Still, it depends on whether you want those other 13 tracks, doesn't it?
I wouldn't do this all the time. But on the occasion that I find an artist who's released just one or two songs I like, I might rather download that one song for $1, than shell out $5+ for the single (if there is one) -- or worse, have to buy the whole album.
A demand would include "or else", Stallman is merely reiterating a request...
Such as "Change the way to refer to this product, or else I refuse to speak at your conference"?:)
It's not there because they've long realized how onerous an exhaustive credits list can be to maintain...
So, it's not allowed to be a requirement of the GPL, but he wants special treatment under the license that he wrote? I could take the bulk of a Linux distribution (GNU components included), slap on some extras, and use a new name, never mentioning Linux or GNU once. I have a protected right to do so, under the GPL.
In fact, the only reason distributions can call their products "Linux" is because Linus says so. Linux(R) is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. He chose to grant royalty-free use of the trademark, but was under no obligation to do so. If he did not grant use, every distribution would have to come up with their own name. That is reason enough not to have naming rules in the GPL.
There are better ways to garner publicity for the GNU/FSF... I wish RMS would pursue alternatives instead.
There's no clause in the GPL regarding naming rights. In fact, I think RMS' demands (let's face it -- he's demanding, not requesting) for a name change run counter to his own Free Software guidelines.
If someone produces a derivative work of Free software, but is then required by the owner to follow a specific naming convention, then it is no longer Free in all the senses RMS outlines.
Even worse, there could be legal restrictions on Freedom if this were to happen... a developer could create a project, and trademark it's name. The owner could place strict guidelines on the use of the trademark (as is his right). But if he could also require others who build on his work to use his project name, he could also exercise his trademark restrictions over them.
I understand the reasoning behind the GNU/Linux crusade (sort of). But by continuing with this demand, I think RMS is undermining his own philosophy without realising it.
I'm not sure what the trademark situation is with JBoss, but couldn't this be managed with a combination of the license and trademark grants?
ie, Sun states that the JBoss(tm) framework is a certified J2EE implementation, while the JBoss group does not grant use of the JBoss trademark to derivative projects (unless they also pass certification).
Still, I'm sure there are issues I haven't considered...
As far as I know, most of the concepts relating to DRM are patented, and most of those patents are held by Microsoft. (Not that it matters who holds them, really...)
To mandate that all digital media devices incorporate technologies patented by a single corporation is ridiculous. It would effectively grant them enormous power over the entire electronics industry, as well as an unprecedented revenue stream.
For the proposed legislation to work at all, those patents would have to be removed from Microsoft, or nullified. I wonder if they would still support the bill under those circumstances?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, technically, true atheism is a belief system. The word literally means "no God", and describes someone who holds the belief that there is no God. (This is distinct from simply not believing in God.)
Likewise, an agnostic is someone who believes that God is unknowable (ie, that it is impossible to determine one way or the other the existence of God).
I'm not sure what the correct term would be for someone without no belief system; perhaps "heathen" will suffice?
As far as I know, the CCDs of most video cameras are sensitive to infra-red. (If you point a remote control at the lens, you can see the transmitter flashing.) The idea is to set up a second projector next to the film projector using an infra-red lamp. It doesn't have to produce a high quality image, because it won't be visible to the human eye. This secondary system projects a completely different image over the top of the real image, which is invisible to the audience, but shows up on digital cameras.
(The image could be anything, from a theatre or print ID to 'DIRTY STINKING PIRATE' splashed across the screen. It could also strobe or do other nasty things to mess up compression.)
I'm not necessarily advocating the idea; it was just an interesting concept to me. It might not be possible to get a cheap IR lamp that was pure enough not to project visible light as well, and it's only useful until cameras stop picking up IR anyway...
Ironically, which of these two bands is vocally against file sharing...?
I'm surprised by the lack of mention of his work in the replies here. The Mars trilogy is undoubtedly one of the greats of modern science fiction. I'm working my way through "The Martians" companion stories right now. If anyone hasn't read the Mars books yet, get to it!
http://morningstar.curvedspaces.com
I'm doing a graphic novel story, rather than a funnies-style strip.
Updates are a bit erratic at the moment, but I hope to improve on that once I make the move to Keenspace ("any day now"). There's some technical issue with the domain... sigh
Web publishing of comics (or any other creative media, for that matter) is important, because it gives everybody the ability to contribute something to the world, if they want to. This project wouldn't have got off the ground at all, without the option of putting it on the web; there's no way I could afford to self-publish Morningstar in print at this point.
(If you decide to check it out, I'd appreciate receiving any feedback... morningstar at tpg dot com dot au.)
What's your opinion of books?
Sure, you can read them at your own pace, so you have more control over the time you spend on them (but only marginally so, when VCRs are taken into account -- and this flag would take away that control); but it takes a lot longer to read a book than it does to watch a TV program...
Don't your above comments hold for books as well? If not, why not?
I wouldn't do this all the time. But on the occasion that I find an artist who's released just one or two songs I like, I might rather download that one song for $1, than shell out $5+ for the single (if there is one) -- or worse, have to buy the whole album.
A demand would include "or else", Stallman is merely reiterating a request...
Such as "Change the way to refer to this product, or else I refuse to speak at your conference"? :)
It's not there because they've long realized how onerous an exhaustive credits list can be to maintain...
So, it's not allowed to be a requirement of the GPL, but he wants special treatment under the license that he wrote? I could take the bulk of a Linux distribution (GNU components included), slap on some extras, and use a new name, never mentioning Linux or GNU once. I have a protected right to do so, under the GPL.
In fact, the only reason distributions can call their products "Linux" is because Linus says so. Linux(R) is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. He chose to grant royalty-free use of the trademark, but was under no obligation to do so. If he did not grant use, every distribution would have to come up with their own name. That is reason enough not to have naming rules in the GPL.
There are better ways to garner publicity for the GNU/FSF... I wish RMS would pursue alternatives instead.
There's no clause in the GPL regarding naming rights. In fact, I think RMS' demands (let's face it -- he's demanding, not requesting) for a name change run counter to his own Free Software guidelines.
If someone produces a derivative work of Free software, but is then required by the owner to follow a specific naming convention, then it is no longer Free in all the senses RMS outlines.
Even worse, there could be legal restrictions on Freedom if this were to happen... a developer could create a project, and trademark it's name. The owner could place strict guidelines on the use of the trademark (as is his right). But if he could also require others who build on his work to use his project name, he could also exercise his trademark restrictions over them.
I understand the reasoning behind the GNU/Linux crusade (sort of). But by continuing with this demand, I think RMS is undermining his own philosophy without realising it.
Or music the face. Or something. Whatever.
I'm not sure what the trademark situation is with JBoss, but couldn't this be managed with a combination of the license and trademark grants?
ie, Sun states that the JBoss(tm) framework is a certified J2EE implementation, while the JBoss group does not grant use of the JBoss trademark to derivative projects (unless they also pass certification).
Still, I'm sure there are issues I haven't considered...
As far as I know, most of the concepts relating to DRM are patented, and most of those patents are held by Microsoft. (Not that it matters who holds them, really...)
To mandate that all digital media devices incorporate technologies patented by a single corporation is ridiculous. It would effectively grant them enormous power over the entire electronics industry, as well as an unprecedented revenue stream.
For the proposed legislation to work at all, those patents would have to be removed from Microsoft, or nullified. I wonder if they would still support the bill under those circumstances?