Apart from the fact that the Walgreens camera is a different concept (see above post), there's also the price issue: $25 Australian, $11 US: not twice as much:P
People who treat technology like sports teams or political parties need to find some other way to define their identity.
You could say the same thing about people who define their identity by sports teams... all depends on what you treat as important. It's a deontological question, and by treating as teleological, you are presupposing an answer to a question without supporting the answer.
sk0pe, first I apologise for being unnecessarily rude in the last post.
Regarding your employers' concerns: it's still opt-out dude. What's the problem? Your publisher doesn't like it, opt-out. Here's just one reason why opt-out is better than opt-in:
You can read a whole lot of literature about 'orphan' works (look for stuff written by Lawrence Lessig especially) . There are multitudes of works for which the copyright holder is no longer clear. The publisher may have gone out of businesss, been sold, merged, spun out, bought up... the documentation relating to the copyright may be lost, the author's dead so you can't ask him/her who s/he assigned copyright to -- exacerbated by the ridiculous length of copyright these days. No one gives a shite about these works, but because of copyright law's defaults, without using opt-out... you can't use them at all. (By the way, even if they're out of print, Google Print may help you find it in a public library, etc).
There are dozens more. I really don't see the serious threat in Google having a whole copy of your work. Does anyone really believe Google will ever give away whole books? Come on. It would be litigated straight into liquidation. You refer to the catalogue as an asset. But the nature of the catalogue is that it is only an asset because people are able to find your works using it. Without that functionality, your catalogue is an expensive index that has zero value. Again, this is especially true if you're a small publisher. Penguin or McGraw Hill might potentially set up seperate catalogues, and people would actually go to them to find books they're interested. The only way smaller publishers gain eyeballs is through a metacatalogue of catalogues: exactly what Google Print is doing.
As an aside, about the low-res images: I'm pretty sure that if you specifically approach Google, you can provide them with alternate versions of your work. So go for it. Besides, hi-res images take up hella-lots-of-bandwidth, pretty sure Google would scale down any images of yours that they offer anyway.
Finally, I see the meta-point you were trying to make about control over copyrighted works: it's not an individual publisher vs Google question, you are talking about changing legal norms over time because of a perception that certain uses of copyrighted works do not require the copyright holder's permission. The inverse of such a move is, of course, what got us to where we are now. Publishers just kept acting as though *everything* needs explicit permission. Over time, this became the dominant view of copyright law. So yes, your employers would be right to be nervous about a move away from 'permission culture' (as Lessig dubs it), but it does not necessarily mean their profits will go south, and even if they do it will be Good For Society (tm).
As an Australian law graduate, let me put you right on some mistakes you've made here and also propose some alternate arguments:
'This is an opt-OUT program. Fundamentally, this is flawed. I mean even webpage search engines are opt-in.'
Nope, submitting your website/page just means it gets indexed faster. Most search-engines worth their salt go out and actively look for pages. You can opt *out* by putting a simple instruction in your robots.txt file instructing the search-engine spider to bugger off. Opt-out, this is the dominant paradigm on the web. I think it's time it were extended to all IP regimes. It's important to note that historically copyright was a *very* limited set of rights. Now the assumption has shifted to 'you can't do anything unless the copyright holder lets you, here's a few token exceptions...'. Bad for society, and because copyright holders are generally short-sighted, often bad for them too.
'Since they are not gaining permission from the publisher (or copyright holder), and it is debatable whether the program falls under the Australian Copyright Act provisions for permissable reproduction, storage and retrieval,'
Yep, gotta agree with you on that one. But since the Australian Copyright Act regime also forbids me from ripping my CDs to my freakin iPod, I think the law's broke not the intent, which seems to be the main thrust of your argument.
'the whole Australian section of the project is under a legal cloud. '
More complicated than is implied here. No books are being scanned in Australia (see list of libraries on Google's Print site). As has been shown by numerous cases in Australia, the US, France, Germany, and god only knows how many other countries, it is hideously difficult to agree on which jurisdictional laws govern information accessible on the Internet. See cases involving Yahoo, Joseph Gutnik, etc (too lazy to find you the links). I doubt any type of injunctive relief granted in Oz will have much impact anyway: most books are published by the local arm of an international publisher, and if they manage to get a legal restrait on this project, we'll have more problems than missing a few authors from an unknown publisher (sorry to be harsh, but it's true)
'The real reason that publishers have to pursue this, even if it is ascertained that the program IS legal, is that copyright can be reneged if you are not seen to be defending your rights. It sets a precedent'
WRONG FSCKING WRONG!!! Reading shit like this makes me want to be physically violent at times. Stop spreading it!! Trademarks can be revoked unless you defend them against misuse. This actually *shock horror* makes sense for trademarks: if you don't care that your business name is being used by all and sundry, then it loses its association with your products/services, and there's no reason a court should enforce it against one particular person you don't like.
COPYRIGHT IS NOT TRADEMARK LAW. Just for future reference, Patents and Designs are also different. They are governed by different Acts, they have different intentions, and they are different. As stupid as the idea is, I'm almost attempted to agree with RMS that we should stop using the term 'intellectual property'. People are very clearly confused by it.
'Google, if you're reading this, how about just making it opt-in? That'll solve all the issues, and we can all still benefit from this amazingly ambitious project.'
sk0pe, if you're reading this, hire a freaking IP lawyer for your publishing house. Discuss with someone who knows something about anything how you could use this to your advantage. As an unknown publisher, I'm guessing you aren't getting prime bookshelf space in book stores. Hey presto! Google Print, the great equaliser. If you've got a book on a topic someone's interested in, people are more likely to find it. This technology thing is really neato eh?
(I really don't know why I had to be so aggresive there, apologies, but people talking out their arse about law really does piss me off).
Just a minor correction: habeus corpus is a writ that is issued against the government by a court demanding that they release a person who is wrongly or unjustly imprisoned. Thus if the government locks you up (or attempts to do so), your lawyer can walk into any court, demand that whatever they are doing they stop, and hear a motion for the writ of habeus corpus.
What would more realistically happen is that your lawyer would apply to the court registrar to be the next thing heard by the first available judge in a federal (or state if it's a state government action) court. So no, habeus corpus does not help you if the FBI are just hassling you. That would be a writ of prohibition, demanding the government stop doing something that it does not have a good legislatively mandated reason (itself allowable under the Constitution) to do.
How about this for a (relatively) non-intruisve location-based ad idea. Install electronic billboards near wifi access points and based on *aggregate* data, serve up relevant ads. Make sure they're not _too_ targeted or people start getting seriously freaked out by the minority-report style holo-ads;)
This is basically about torts law as far as I can tell (and modifying it through contract). So basics of tort law:
I do X. It affects you. It was reasonably forseeable to me that doing X would/could affect you negatively. X really was the cause of your negative experience (not combining X with Y which was totally in your control) [last step varies in various Anglo-derived jurisdictions]
A lot of the screaming lately is about b0rked torts law: medical malpractice suits out of control, city councils held to ransom, schools expected to act as babysitters, blah blah blah.
This is more of the same: tort law is basically a policy choice (as is proved by the fact that many jurisdictions, New Zealand, a few of the US states - can't remember which ones) are either altering or abolishing torts as explained above. What has happened in the computer industry is that there was a policy choice (mainly implicit since it evolved over time, from the point where users were tech geeks who were qualified to have written the stuff to the point where shrink-wrapped components were the norm and everyone had a couple of PCs at home) to limit liability to a great extent and risk a lot of security vulnerabilities in favour of racing ahead at breakneck speed.
For most shrink-wrap users in the early days, a computer crash was annoying but nothing more. Now, when computers have become so central even to people who don't have any interest in the box at all, these policy choices are being reexamined.
Personally, and this is probably because I'm comfortable with fixing the box and backing up etc, I say give me more features. I've had iPhoto and iTunes crash on me, but if Apple were held responsible and had been for the last ten years, mp3s may not have been developed and digicams would be the stuff of scifi...
I fear we've really gotten OT here, but I'm assuming we're the only ones reading this far, so I might as well answer. Firstly let me reiterate that I prefer Safari too, the only point I'm trying to make is that Firefox does fill some niches and does have some promising capabilities that other browers don't offer. Again, I never meant to suggest Firefox ought to be hailed as The Ultimate Solution.
But to respond to your points, I think we're speaking at cross-purposes. You're explaining why *you* don't use Firefox - your focus is on UI, efficient workflow, etc. And obviously Safari fits the bill for you. (It does for me too). But I don't think that Safari, Omniweb, etc fits that bill for everyone. Going back to my original post on the subject, I know of a number of people who use Firefox because they use Windows, Linux and Mac OS because of work and Firefox is one of the few solutions that presents a consistent interface across all.
The other points were just examples of other reasons why Firefox may be useful. To clarify, *A business* such as a law firm might find they need some feature that is not present in Firefox or Omniweb or Safari. Out of these, Firefox is the only one they can get their local IT guru to write an extension for - because it's open source. I agree that neither you nor I would use it to "foster somebody else's business". I'm suggesting that *a business* might use it to foster their own business... *phew*
I really do think that we're arguing over misunderstandings than a genuine disagreement, but whatever.
You're right, I've never done this. But I don't think it's a white elephant.
In your reply, you snipped the main point of my argument, that you can usually get multiple implementations of a plug-in that have already been written. The second two options, which you take exception to, were just minor additions.
The comment was made in reply to the 'what advantages does firefox have over [insert browser here]'? question, and this is one. The fact that the possibility exists is important. (Refer to various RMS rants about free as in speech).
But even if you or I as individuals don't write or pay someone to write mouse-gestures, a business (eg, a web design co, library, etc) that could streamline its work by implementing specific behaviours without writing a new browser might significantly benefit from this. This feeds into the software writing as a service idea that is important to oss... just some thoughts.
I agree with all your specific observations, western civilization (itself a loaded term) has made a lot of mistakes. If, however, we'd seen the rise of Eastern Civilization (or some other nonsense term) instead, it would have made its fair share of mistakes also.
Importantly, most - actually probably all - civilizations have borrowed from each other, improved on culture, knowledge, etc etc and at some stage passed it back.
Anyway, as a first generation Westerner (there's another weird concept for ya), I prefer what I'm comfortable with. I'd prefer to improve Western society, with all its ills, than swap it for a cultural framework that in offers liberties where we have strictures and strictures where we have liberties, etc.
I use Safari, but Firefox does have its advantages. Due to its 'open' nature, it's easy to extend it a thousand different ways. And if mouse gestures don't work *exactly* like you want them to, you can likely find another plug-in that caters to your quirks (or if all else fails, write one yourself or pay someone more talented to write the trivial code for you).
More importantly, if you use a number of different platforms (eg, at work and at home) Firefox's cross-platform consistency means you don't have to adapt your behaviour as much. I think this will actually become more important if web-apps start to take over more and more from their desktop counterparts (see the Slashdot story today about Gmail vs Yahoo!'s new beta).
Fair enough, but think a bit beyond the the specifics of software 'piracy' (yarr!)
Why should judicial systems that are trying to create a culture of constitutionalism (already exists in US, where courts for the first hundred years set up norms subsequently adopted *around the world* in newer democracies and did not enforce foreign copryight *at all*)
What about IP outside of software? Medicines for instance. A Supreme Court ruling in South Africa held that local companies were allowed to make generic versions of patented AIDS drugs under the SA Constitution, which includes a right to health, and under the TRIPs Convention (a US-sponsored international treaty on the enforcement of IP) which has an emergency public health clause. The IMF, which is well-known to pander to US interests, tried to claim that this JUDICIAL DECISION was an unfair impediment to trade!
I could go on, but the basic message is this: no, software piracy (yarr!) is not right, but this War on IP Infringement (tm) goes well beyond that, and blows a relatively unimportant issue way out of proportion.
The basic premise of your post is correct, but you've overstated your argument. Imgaine the following scenario: the US executive (headed by the President) signs a treaty on subject X. The Congress begins to consider the treaty, but does not legislate on it (yet). Thus the treaty has not been ratified by the US and there are no domestic legal rights created.
Subject X actually allows the executive to affect citizens' rights directly. Citizen Joe sues executive in order to stop it from affecting his right apropos subject X.
Shouldn't the court be allowed to refer to the previous actions of the executive and say, you have evinced your intention to adhere to this _international_ treaty. While you're not bound to do or not do anything under US domestic law, as a method of interpretation, we will assume that you do not wish to adversely affect Citizen Joe unless you make it _very_ clear that you want to do that.
This exact scenario occured with regard to the rights of the child in Australia. Google the 'Teoh case' if you're interested.
This points to more fundamental flaws in your argument. Domestic law has *never* existed in a vacuum. And judges have always created law to some extent (derisively, though inaccurately described as judicial legislating). The idea of the judiciary simply mechanically applying legislation without 'creating' legal norms that did not exist prior to a judicial decision is a Victorian-English fantasy long disproved in jurisprudence and philosophy of literature./rant.
But seriously, it's a genuinely difficult and non-trivial thing to ask students to stick it up the administration. Especially at a time when the demand for education is such that your staying or going won't make a big difference to the university. And while collective action is great, you need to get people pretty pissed off to get them to risk 2 years, or even 2 months that they've invested in their degree (which is what many students want more than an education) to get a reduction in class sizes.
One real underlying problem in all of this, at least in Australia (but I suspect in many other universities around the world that now have to 'face up to commercial realities') is the power of administrators. Put some power back in the hands of the academics. Most of the a*seholes won't bother making a difference, and if they try, teachers like your good self who know better should be able to shout them down...
The difference, as someone from UChicago pointed out in the article, is that rather than trying to reimplement a standard (with all the concommitant problems you point out) MS is taking the reference implementation already done by the uni lab and extending it...
Some of you may have concerns about embrace/extend, I know I do:o)
I'm guessing you're American, so it's an understandable mistake, but Asia is *not* a country. When your president calls Africa a country, I can understand why you're confused. Get an atlas.
Let me summarise your point of view (from my point of view):
1. I don't like blogs 2. Any blogs I do like, I will classify as not being a blog 3. Thus, through a feat of amazingly selective definition, I can confidently anounce that I don't care about any of the sites I don't enjoy reading.
Thank you, thank you, more lessons in deceptive arguments in the future (by which I mean any part of the future I feature in, cuz the other stuff that is going to happen after the present, I don't really count as the future, since I don't care about it).
Slashdot Mirror
fair enough - probably should've read the posts more clearly :)
Settle down deconstructionist boy, or I'll have to get post-modern on yo ass.
Seriously though, query google for textualism - it's not as straight forward as you've made out methinks.
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan
Apart from the fact that the Walgreens camera is a different concept (see above post), there's also the price issue: $25 Australian, $11 US: not twice as much :P
You could say the same thing about people who define their identity by sports teams... all depends on what you treat as important. It's a deontological question, and by treating as teleological, you are presupposing an answer to a question without supporting the answer.
sk0pe, first I apologise for being unnecessarily rude in the last post.
;)
Regarding your employers' concerns: it's still opt-out dude. What's the problem? Your publisher doesn't like it, opt-out. Here's just one reason why opt-out is better than opt-in:
You can read a whole lot of literature about 'orphan' works (look for stuff written by Lawrence Lessig especially) . There are multitudes of works for which the copyright holder is no longer clear. The publisher may have gone out of businesss, been sold, merged, spun out, bought up... the documentation relating to the copyright may be lost, the author's dead so you can't ask him/her who s/he assigned copyright to -- exacerbated by the ridiculous length of copyright these days. No one gives a shite about these works, but because of copyright law's defaults, without using opt-out... you can't use them at all. (By the way, even if they're out of print, Google Print may help you find it in a public library, etc).
There are dozens more. I really don't see the serious threat in Google having a whole copy of your work. Does anyone really believe Google will ever give away whole books? Come on. It would be litigated straight into liquidation. You refer to the catalogue as an asset. But the nature of the catalogue is that it is only an asset because people are able to find your works using it. Without that functionality, your catalogue is an expensive index that has zero value. Again, this is especially true if you're a small publisher. Penguin or McGraw Hill might potentially set up seperate catalogues, and people would actually go to them to find books they're interested. The only way smaller publishers gain eyeballs is through a metacatalogue of catalogues: exactly what Google Print is doing.
As an aside, about the low-res images: I'm pretty sure that if you specifically approach Google, you can provide them with alternate versions of your work. So go for it. Besides, hi-res images take up hella-lots-of-bandwidth, pretty sure Google would scale down any images of yours that they offer anyway.
Finally, I see the meta-point you were trying to make about control over copyrighted works: it's not an individual publisher vs Google question, you are talking about changing legal norms over time because of a perception that certain uses of copyrighted works do not require the copyright holder's permission. The inverse of such a move is, of course, what got us to where we are now. Publishers just kept acting as though *everything* needs explicit permission. Over time, this became the dominant view of copyright law. So yes, your employers would be right to be nervous about a move away from 'permission culture' (as Lessig dubs it), but it does not necessarily mean their profits will go south, and even if they do it will be Good For Society (tm).
(And I'm spent...
Wrong, wrong, wrongitty wrong!
As an Australian law graduate, let me put you right on some mistakes you've made here and also propose some alternate arguments:
'This is an opt-OUT program. Fundamentally, this is flawed. I mean even webpage search engines are opt-in.'
Nope, submitting your website/page just means it gets indexed faster. Most search-engines worth their salt go out and actively look for pages. You can opt *out* by putting a simple instruction in your robots.txt file instructing the search-engine spider to bugger off. Opt-out, this is the dominant paradigm on the web. I think it's time it were extended to all IP regimes. It's important to note that historically copyright was a *very* limited set of rights. Now the assumption has shifted to 'you can't do anything unless the copyright holder lets you, here's a few token exceptions...'. Bad for society, and because copyright holders are generally short-sighted, often bad for them too.
'Since they are not gaining permission from the publisher (or copyright holder), and it is debatable whether the program falls under the Australian Copyright Act provisions for permissable reproduction, storage and retrieval,'
Yep, gotta agree with you on that one. But since the Australian Copyright Act regime also forbids me from ripping my CDs to my freakin iPod, I think the law's broke not the intent, which seems to be the main thrust of your argument.
'the whole Australian section of the project is under a legal cloud. '
More complicated than is implied here. No books are being scanned in Australia (see list of libraries on Google's Print site). As has been shown by numerous cases in Australia, the US, France, Germany, and god only knows how many other countries, it is hideously difficult to agree on which jurisdictional laws govern information accessible on the Internet. See cases involving Yahoo, Joseph Gutnik, etc (too lazy to find you the links). I doubt any type of injunctive relief granted in Oz will have much impact anyway: most books are published by the local arm of an international publisher, and if they manage to get a legal restrait on this project, we'll have more problems than missing a few authors from an unknown publisher (sorry to be harsh, but it's true)
'The real reason that publishers have to pursue this, even if it is ascertained that the program IS legal, is that copyright can be reneged if you are not seen to be defending your rights. It sets a precedent'
WRONG FSCKING WRONG!!! Reading shit like this makes me want to be physically violent at times. Stop spreading it!! Trademarks can be revoked unless you defend them against misuse. This actually *shock horror* makes sense for trademarks: if you don't care that your business name is being used by all and sundry, then it loses its association with your products/services, and there's no reason a court should enforce it against one particular person you don't like.
COPYRIGHT IS NOT TRADEMARK LAW. Just for future reference, Patents and Designs are also different. They are governed by different Acts, they have different intentions, and they are different. As stupid as the idea is, I'm almost attempted to agree with RMS that we should stop using the term 'intellectual property'. People are very clearly confused by it.
'Google, if you're reading this, how about just making it opt-in? That'll solve all the issues, and we can all still benefit from this amazingly ambitious project.'
sk0pe, if you're reading this, hire a freaking IP lawyer for your publishing house. Discuss with someone who knows something about anything how you could use this to your advantage. As an unknown publisher, I'm guessing you aren't getting prime bookshelf space in book stores. Hey presto! Google Print, the great equaliser. If you've got a book on a topic someone's interested in, people are more likely to find it. This technology thing is really neato eh?
(I really don't know why I had to be so aggresive there, apologies, but people talking out their arse about law really does piss me off).
why is parent modded 'funny'? shouldn't it be 'insightful'?
- I think typing "I, for one" is redundant and annoying. Stop it.
I, for one copied and pasted: no typing involved.
Done and done! </homer>
Just a minor correction: habeus corpus is a writ that is issued against the government by a court demanding that they release a person who is wrongly or unjustly imprisoned. Thus if the government locks you up (or attempts to do so), your lawyer can walk into any court, demand that whatever they are doing they stop, and hear a motion for the writ of habeus corpus.
What would more realistically happen is that your lawyer would apply to the court registrar to be the next thing heard by the first available judge in a federal (or state if it's a state government action) court. So no, habeus corpus does not help you if the FBI are just hassling you. That would be a writ of prohibition, demanding the government stop doing something that it does not have a good legislatively mandated reason (itself allowable under the Constitution) to do.
Mr Muhammar, this is your boss, please report to level 45 for a performance evaluation, thank you.
Um, shouldn't that be 'GNU/Linux'?
How about this for a (relatively) non-intruisve location-based ad idea. Install electronic billboards near wifi access points and based on *aggregate* data, serve up relevant ads. Make sure they're not _too_ targeted or people start getting seriously freaked out by the minority-report style holo-ads ;)
just a thought...
This is basically about torts law as far as I can tell (and modifying it through contract). So basics of tort law:
.02c (AUD)
I do X.
It affects you.
It was reasonably forseeable to me that doing X would/could affect you negatively.
X really was the cause of your negative experience (not combining X with Y which was totally in your control)
[last step varies in various Anglo-derived jurisdictions]
A lot of the screaming lately is about b0rked torts law: medical malpractice suits out of control, city councils held to ransom, schools expected to act as babysitters, blah blah blah.
This is more of the same: tort law is basically a policy choice (as is proved by the fact that many jurisdictions, New Zealand, a few of the US states - can't remember which ones) are either altering or abolishing torts as explained above. What has happened in the computer industry is that there was a policy choice (mainly implicit since it evolved over time, from the point where users were tech geeks who were qualified to have written the stuff to the point where shrink-wrapped components were the norm and everyone had a couple of PCs at home) to limit liability to a great extent and risk a lot of security vulnerabilities in favour of racing ahead at breakneck speed.
For most shrink-wrap users in the early days, a computer crash was annoying but nothing more. Now, when computers have become so central even to people who don't have any interest in the box at all, these policy choices are being reexamined.
Personally, and this is probably because I'm comfortable with fixing the box and backing up etc, I say give me more features. I've had iPhoto and iTunes crash on me, but if Apple were held responsible and had been for the last ten years, mp3s may not have been developed and digicams would be the stuff of scifi...
just my
Insightful, but I'd like to add one:
...
If you have any fetishes at all, and wish to be allowed to enjoy them
"Other people's fetishes are... none of my concern"
Well, we can dream...
Hey,
I fear we've really gotten OT here, but I'm assuming we're the only ones reading this far, so I might as well answer. Firstly let me reiterate that I prefer Safari too, the only point I'm trying to make is that Firefox does fill some niches and does have some promising capabilities that other browers don't offer. Again, I never meant to suggest Firefox ought to be hailed as The Ultimate Solution.
But to respond to your points, I think we're speaking at cross-purposes. You're explaining why *you* don't use Firefox - your focus is on UI, efficient workflow, etc. And obviously Safari fits the bill for you. (It does for me too). But I don't think that Safari, Omniweb, etc fits that bill for everyone. Going back to my original post on the subject, I know of a number of people who use Firefox because they use Windows, Linux and Mac OS because of work and Firefox is one of the few solutions that presents a consistent interface across all.
The other points were just examples of other reasons why Firefox may be useful. To clarify, *A business* such as a law firm might find they need some feature that is not present in Firefox or Omniweb or Safari. Out of these, Firefox is the only one they can get their local IT guru to write an extension for - because it's open source. I agree that neither you nor I would use it to "foster somebody else's business". I'm suggesting that *a business* might use it to foster their own business... *phew*
I really do think that we're arguing over misunderstandings than a genuine disagreement, but whatever.
You're right, I've never done this. But I don't think it's a white elephant.
In your reply, you snipped the main point of my argument, that you can usually get multiple implementations of a plug-in that have already been written. The second two options, which you take exception to, were just minor additions.
The comment was made in reply to the 'what advantages does firefox have over [insert browser here]'? question, and this is one. The fact that the possibility exists is important. (Refer to various RMS rants about free as in speech).
But even if you or I as individuals don't write or pay someone to write mouse-gestures, a business (eg, a web design co, library, etc) that could streamline its work by implementing specific behaviours without writing a new browser might significantly benefit from this. This feeds into the software writing as a service idea that is important to oss... just some thoughts.
I agree with all your specific observations, western civilization (itself a loaded term) has made a lot of mistakes. If, however, we'd seen the rise of Eastern Civilization (or some other nonsense term) instead, it would have made its fair share of mistakes also.
Importantly, most - actually probably all - civilizations have borrowed from each other, improved on culture, knowledge, etc etc and at some stage passed it back.
Anyway, as a first generation Westerner (there's another weird concept for ya), I prefer what I'm comfortable with. I'd prefer to improve Western society, with all its ills, than swap it for a cultural framework that in offers liberties where we have strictures and strictures where we have liberties, etc.
I use Safari, but Firefox does have its advantages. Due to its 'open' nature, it's easy to extend it a thousand different ways. And if mouse gestures don't work *exactly* like you want them to, you can likely find another plug-in that caters to your quirks (or if all else fails, write one yourself or pay someone more talented to write the trivial code for you).
More importantly, if you use a number of different platforms (eg, at work and at home) Firefox's cross-platform consistency means you don't have to adapt your behaviour as much. I think this will actually become more important if web-apps start to take over more and more from their desktop counterparts (see the Slashdot story today about Gmail vs Yahoo!'s new beta).
Fair enough, but think a bit beyond the the specifics of software 'piracy' (yarr!)
Why should judicial systems that are trying to create a culture of constitutionalism (already exists in US, where courts for the first hundred years set up norms subsequently adopted *around the world* in newer democracies and did not enforce foreign copryight *at all*)
What about IP outside of software? Medicines for instance. A Supreme Court ruling in South Africa held that local companies were allowed to make generic versions of patented AIDS drugs under the SA Constitution, which includes a right to health, and under the TRIPs Convention (a US-sponsored international treaty on the enforcement of IP) which has an emergency public health clause. The IMF, which is well-known to pander to US interests, tried to claim that this JUDICIAL DECISION was an unfair impediment to trade!
I could go on, but the basic message is this: no, software piracy (yarr!) is not right, but this War on IP Infringement (tm) goes well beyond that, and blows a relatively unimportant issue way out of proportion.
The basic premise of your post is correct, but you've overstated your argument. Imgaine the following scenario: the US executive (headed by the President) signs a treaty on subject X. The Congress begins to consider the treaty, but does not legislate on it (yet). Thus the treaty has not been ratified by the US and there are no domestic legal rights created.
/rant.
Subject X actually allows the executive to affect citizens' rights directly. Citizen Joe sues executive in order to stop it from affecting his right apropos subject X.
Shouldn't the court be allowed to refer to the previous actions of the executive and say, you have evinced your intention to adhere to this _international_ treaty. While you're not bound to do or not do anything under US domestic law, as a method of interpretation, we will assume that you do not wish to adversely affect Citizen Joe unless you make it _very_ clear that you want to do that.
This exact scenario occured with regard to the rights of the child in Australia. Google the 'Teoh case' if you're interested.
This points to more fundamental flaws in your argument. Domestic law has *never* existed in a vacuum. And judges have always created law to some extent (derisively, though inaccurately described as judicial legislating). The idea of the judiciary simply mechanically applying legislation without 'creating' legal norms that did not exist prior to a judicial decision is a Victorian-English fantasy long disproved in jurisprudence and philosophy of literature.
You have tenure right?
But seriously, it's a genuinely difficult and non-trivial thing to ask students to stick it up the administration. Especially at a time when the demand for education is such that your staying or going won't make a big difference to the university. And while collective action is great, you need to get people pretty pissed off to get them to risk 2 years, or even 2 months that they've invested in their degree (which is what many students want more than an education) to get a reduction in class sizes.
One real underlying problem in all of this, at least in Australia (but I suspect in many other universities around the world that now have to 'face up to commercial realities') is the power of administrators. Put some power back in the hands of the academics. Most of the a*seholes won't bother making a difference, and if they try, teachers like your good self who know better should be able to shout them down...
The difference, as someone from UChicago pointed out in the article, is that rather than trying to reimplement a standard (with all the concommitant problems you point out) MS is taking the reference implementation already done by the uni lab and extending it...
:o)
Some of you may have concerns about embrace/extend, I know I do
I'm guessing you're American, so it's an understandable mistake, but Asia is *not* a country. When your president calls Africa a country, I can understand why you're confused. Get an atlas.
Let me summarise your point of view (from my point of view):
1. I don't like blogs
2. Any blogs I do like, I will classify as not being a blog
3. Thus, through a feat of amazingly selective definition, I can confidently anounce that I don't care about any of the sites I don't enjoy reading.
Thank you, thank you, more lessons in deceptive arguments in the future (by which I mean any part of the future I feature in, cuz the other stuff that is going to happen after the present, I don't really count as the future, since I don't care about it).