When I spend from $200-$500 for a video card, $50 for a decent, modern game, and a fair amount of cash for the rest of the system, I don't see myself as a moocher.
No, I didn't pay several hundred dollars for a single machine OS upgrade merely because support for an older OS that I spent over a hundred dollars on is dying. But what does the video card company care how much money I paid to M$? The only reason I'm not getting decent drivers from them is because their aren't enough of us gaming on Linux, not because we didn't purchase their expensive video cards...
Heck, if they'd release the specks for their cards, said moochers would write the darned drivers for them. I'm guessing they don't do so because of all the various problems with IP laws...It might be implied that they're allowing anybody to use patent #35987322 because they released the API for accessing it....or it might be found that they've actually used somebody else's patented methods, but nobody has bothered reverse engineering things far enough to find this out...
But why must every piece of software, outside of games, cost hundreds or thousands of dollars? Why must everything one uses be tied up in royalties?
Beyond that, if it isn't exactly what you want, often it's a so sad, too bad situation. You can request an enhancement, but good luck getting one...
A lot of the software that's used today has already been realized in one fashion or the other, but often costs staggering amounts of money for a single license, effectively eliminating small to medium sized companies from using the products, nevertheless individuals. It makes it so one can't enter an industry without being a large company, or being in thrall to one.
So how does one fix this problem? I could see a lot of not-for-profit, or for very little profit organizations that pay their open-source developers supported by a large enough base of small-medium sized firms that had a need for a particular piece of software, but couldn't afford the licensing fees and constant costs of upgrades from the major software manufacturers.
The developers, at least in terms of money, would probably earn about the same, maybe a bit less, then their proprietary counterparts. It's the company itself, and its stockholders - or lack thereof, who wouldn't amke nearly as much. (Also, there would be less potential for ending up as a multi-millionaire if you developed a truly new piece of technology as you wouldn't "own" stock in the company.)
The same thing could easily be done for standards. If your company and a number of others are tired of paying large royalties for "standard" X, band together, and create a standard that benifits all of you and leaves things open. Yes others can use it without paying for it. On the other hand, it's possible that others in the industry will contribute to it and help make it a success just because it is open.
In the end, things will probably even out a little. Large companies spend massive amounts of time/resources paying eachother for patents/licences. There would be some big losers in this scenario, and a few winners, but overall costs to the companies, as well as the consumers, should go down because there aren't so many fees and royalties being paid for any one product to get out the door.
Also, it would eliminate a lot of the "Big Brother" style control a lot of companies seem to want over how one uses a product. I find it offensive that I have to watch several minutes of FBI warnings and advertisements, each time I load most companys' movies...but that's another can of worms...
The problem, of course, is coming up with a product or standard and getting enough people to use it that it's relevant. Linux has been relevant for a long time in the server space, webservers in particular, but is just now starting to see more use as a desktop alternative.
Other things, like oggvorbis, may end up being simply too late in the game. It's there, there are a few players that support it, and a lot of new games use it, but "consumer" use of the format is a bit lacking, mainly because everybody already has MP3, and there's only a few MP3/OGG players...
How one gets past that, I don't know, but I don't see it as insurmountable. And, in the end, most people will benefit from this. Software isn't free, but it needn't cost so much that some of the richest corporations in the world are produced from it...
One thing not mentioned is the shere number of manufacturers/devices for the PC.
It becomes impossible to test X piece of software, or X driver, or what have you for every combination of hardware that is out there with PCs.
And, while it's less likely to happen with hardware, hardware vendors do sometimes do things, much like software vendors, that cause "buggy" or "flaky" hardware for the PC.
And then you have mini power outages, brown outs, driver conflicts, a piece of software written for active X 6 and we're not on 9, etc.
The PC has far and away more software and more hardware available to it than any other system on the planet. It is impossible to test your software or your hardware in all possible combinations.
Actually, I don't like any "lock in" contracts. They've been around in the business world for quite some time, but it's only been within the last 5-10 years that I've really noticed many companies tying individuals to 1+ year contracts with big pennalties for withdrawing early.
Generally the first vendor to do this will do it at a "discount" for that year, but once over half the vendors are doing it - say cell phone companies - then that discount dissappears. If you want cell service, at all, then you're locked into what seems like an ever lengthening service agreement.
It's evil when MS does it. It's evil when Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T does it. It's evil when your cable company does it, etc., etc., etc.
What really sucks is it generally doesn't cost the company any more to have you on a month to month basis. Charge me a fair price for the (*$## equiptment - once, let me buy it - then let me decide when I want to switch services.
I agree that even the 4L model was a workhorse. Okay, so it isn't fast. The tray isn't one of the old "standard" trays that stuck out and took a full ream of paper, and doesn't hold as much paper as it could, and it is REALLY slow when graphics are printed.
It works. And works. And works....for 10 years or so. I just recently ran low on toner, and was able to easily purchase two more cartridges. They were pricey, but I expect to get YEARS of service from the cartridges. I get weeks or months of service from the stupid inkjet cartridges, and the price for them adds up quickly.
I can't talk about the quality of modern lasers. I haven't had to purchase one. Mine prints out text that looks crisper on cheap paper than most new inkjets print out on expensive, somewhat specialty paper - the stuff just shy of the photographic paper nonsense. (I mainly print text. Sometimes maps. Hardly ever do I print a picture, so I've never felt the lack of color.)
If I put a photo on my computer, I generally don't want to print it out again. I don't like boxes of anonymous photos from god knows when. It's generally very easy for me to label a directory and know exactly the date/location of the photos therein, whereas with photos I end up with envelopes I have to crack open and shuffle through quite a few pictures before I can really pin down time and place.
From pricing out the cost of ink and paper, I believe most people would be better served with a cheap 35mm camera and 1-hour photo. If they want their images on the computer too, buy a scanner.
The only people an inkjet really benefits, in my mind, are those who, on a more or less regular basis, actually print out color things - newsletters, collages for people, whatever. But it would need to be a regular practice of printing things that really would suffer for not being in color, and not just making their text red or blue to "stand out."
Also, on inkjets, maybe the space of the e is filled in, or the bar over the l is a little bigger than it should be. That never happens with my 4L, despite no maintenance, never being dusted, and very little padding during moves over 10 years of use. (I think it's 10 years. My parents got it when I was in high-school...)
I can't think of a single inkjet I've seen that looks like it would stand anywhere close to ten years of use.
I agree. The 4L is a consumer printer, but mine just keeps on cranking the pages. It was when HP made every laser a robust product. I've never felt that any of the inkjets were as reliable....
I've printed many, many manuals, tax forms, what have you on it, no problem. It's slow, but so what? It STILL looks better with cheap paper than an inkjet with expensive paper - at least where plain text is concerned. (And that's 99% of what I do with it. Once in a while I print out a map. I don't print out any photos. I like them better on the computer.) I find that even modern inkjet prineters have the occasional "blob" around the letters. Maybe the whole in the e is almost filled in. Maybe the bar over the top of the l is a little too thick. Stuff like that never happens on the laser, and it's been going for 10 years or more.
From one of the greatest minds out there: Thomas Jefferson in the declaration of independence:
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal..." This is not, nor in my opinion has it ever been, a silly idea.
It can be a somewhat difficult idea to wrap one's head around, since, as you pointed out, there are those who accomplish more than others.
But these words and this idea does not speak to a person's accomplishments. It speaks to the idea that each individual is worthy of being treated with dignity, respect, and the rights granted to even those who are considered "leaders," "achievers," or any other name you'd like to conjure up.
Without this as a governing concept, with only the idea that one's accomplishments and/or holdings makes one valuable, then it becomes okay to run sweatshops with children in them, or any number of attrocious things because that person who doesn't have as much money, or who hasn't accomplished as much as Mr. factory owner isn't worth as much as a human.
Even with this idea as a governing philosophy, these situations can and do happen. Most of the founders owned slaves, and slavery, by definition, does not fit with the idea that all men are created equal.
But if you discard this idea, or maybe ideal, then it becomes way to easy to think of all the grief and suffering that still happens in the world as okay because those people are not as equal as the ones with the money and/or accomplishments.
It all depends on who your family is, and how reasonable they are.
Some people are willing to let you go over, fix whatever problems you encounter, then listen to you if you tell them they've done something that might've caused them grief - i.e. downloading virus X.
Others will insist on sitting with you every moment you try to work on the computer. Anything you do they want to know why. They want to see what's in the control panel and the registry, even though they don't even really know where notepad is. They blame you that a modern PC isn't as easy to use as their SYSTEM X if they had one.
They want to know, while you're trying to re-connect them to the internet by looking up some off-brand, almost non-existent ISP's phone number because they didn't keep their connection info, why Word Basic and Visual Basic are not exactly the same.
They will use you and abuse you, fully knowing that they are doing so, until you cut them off.
It would be a similiar situation if, rather than letting your uncle install the plumbing, you insisted on knowing where he bought monkey wrench X, and why he wasn't using monkey wrench Y - you heard it was much better really, and let me use the monkey wrench, and which way do I turn it, and why aren't you welding/sweating/using tape, or whatever, even though you know he knows what he's doing, and that you have no experience with plumbing.
I can think of at least one group this would hurt: freelance writers. To be able to maintain themselves, freelancers typically sell articles as many times as they can. They sell first time rights to the "largest", best paying magazines first.
Later, they sell this article to a magazine that's probably less known, and doesn't mind selling things that have already been published. They make less money, but if they can do this once or twice with every article, it really helps their income.
The problem turns up when you look at how much work a true freelance writer produces. It's already a large task keeping track of a dozen magazine articles, and even more newspaper articles, all at the same time. (And this is at one go. They have to keep track of much more over time...)Now they have to tag all their dozens, if not hundreds of articles and file for copyright renewal as well, each one expiring at different times?
If we were to do something like this, I'd put the onus on a company that buys rights to publish material X indefinately. (Not first time rights. That already has a more or less set timeframe on it.) I wouldn't make it the onus of individuals. Those who truly rely on the system for their bread and butter would be hurt by it.
Hmm...
What about the railroads?
Automobile industry?
Telephone?
Utilities?
Printing press....
Any industrial process related to mining...
Navies, even those driven by conquistidors
Were driven for economic reasons first.
If there was a barren wasteland in the
new world, you can bet that the old world
would've stopped sending ships to it...it
would've cost too much for no return.
And, if you look at war, there are a number of things that start it, and certainly economic factors take a big part of this. They have more money than us, let's raid them. They have control over a parcel of land that has X natural resources, let's take it from them...
No, though I don't know that it would've made much difference in this case, or that they should be forced to do this.
The troll was so pervasive that he would've noticed he was being modded down. I'd guess he'd just try to open enough accounts that he could use his own mod points to mod up his posts.
Besides this, the site isn't really a general, post anything you want style site. It's a site for professionals who probably have a low tollerance for putting up with childish junk.
I'd guess that the extermination company has a small IT staff, and neither has the time, nor inclination, to try out half a dozen or more ways to stop a troll.
Since the Slashdot story went public I hear that they have several "professional" trolls trashing their site. I'd guess in this case they have a number of options, none palatable. They can invest more time than it's really worth trying to put up enough technology to knock out a troll once identified, though this is tougher than it may look for a determined troll.
They could use up their resources by having a moderator decide what can go up on the board.
They could go to the time and expense of tracking down as many trolls as possible and open a civil suit on all of them for $5k a pop, or more.
They could try abandoning the site to the trolls in a hope that eventually they'll tire themselves out.
Or, they could just take the site down.
What they did try doing was canceling his accounts. They may have even tried blocking his IP, I don't recall.
What I find sad is that they have to do anything to fight the trolls. I find trolling to be a very sad thing to do, and it wastes TIME, which is the most valuable commodity anybody has, because he can never get it back.
Free speech is not, and has never been, an absolute. Even on public grounds I cannot legally go up to a stranger and threaten him. Said person could have me arrested for doing so.
If I print outright lies about somebody I can be held accountable for libel.
Even without these directly actionable exceptions to free-speech, just because you CAN say something doesn't mean that there aren't going to be consequences for saying it. Some may be legal, others social, and many may have unanticipated consequences given the circumstances.
But put that aside for a moment. You have things backwards anyway. The right to free-speech is a right everybody has on PUBLIC property, with a number of fairly well defined exceptions.
What this person is doing isn't happening on public property. It's happening on private property - that property being the forum they put up.
The right to STOP free-speech is limited to those who have property, or rent it. I may escort you off my property should you enter it without my permission, even if you don't say anything. If I own a restaurant, I can make a rule that says no swearing, and if somebody breaks it, I can ask them to leave.
If that person doesn't leave, or persists on showing up on my property, I can take legal action. Having that person arrested for trespass, for instance.
I've seen at least one person state that taking them up in civil, rather than criminal court, shows they're just out for money. The amount they're suing for, $5000, certainly won't make them rich. It's merely meant as a deterrent to this pest. It probably won't even pay for their court costs should this go to court.
They could've, possibly, attempted to have him arrested if he were threatening or directly harassing members of his board, but that would probably be overkill for the offense, and should they win such a case, probably bring a chilling effect to message boards everywhere.
Based on the options they have, and the fact they have tried a number of ways to stop this person, suing him for what amounts to trespass isn't unreasonable.
I believe somebody mentioned this in passing, but it's possible to obtain at least a few legal CapCom ROMs if you buy the HotRod joystick or ArcadePC from HanaHo games. www.hanaho.com.
While I'd love to see all the arcade games, past and present, console games, heck any game or piece of software ever created licensed under the GPL or a BSD style license, I just don't think it's realistic to believe this will happen.
Nintendo is still releasing Mario Bros. games, and somebody else was correct in mentioning that most game manufacturers have realized that we really would pay to play the old games. They aren't going to GPL them and give up on future revenue for those games, or give up exclusive control of the characters in the games.
In that vein, I'd love to see MAME go GPL and more deals such as the Hanaho one where we can legaly obtain old ROMs on CD, even if they're not open sourced. I'd be willing to pay a fair amount if company X said they'd sell a CD filled with ROMs for X amount of money, licensed just like any other game is licensed. Backups are okay, but redistribution isn't. Say 50-200 dollars, depending on how many games were included.
A few companies might be willing to totally relinquish control of their games, but I wouldn't count on it.
I know a good type designer who worked for Adobe for quite a number of years. She's now freelancing. If anybody is interested in hiring a professional type designer for Linux, I'd be willing to put that person in contact with her. Not long ago she won a silver Morisawa award for one of her fonts.
Slashdot Mirror
When I spend from $200-$500 for a video card, $50 for a decent, modern game, and a fair amount of cash for the rest of the system, I don't see myself as a moocher.
No, I didn't pay several hundred dollars for a single machine OS upgrade merely because support for an older OS that I spent over a hundred dollars on is dying. But what does the video card company care how much money I paid to M$? The only reason I'm not getting decent drivers from them is because their aren't enough of us gaming on Linux, not because we didn't purchase their expensive video cards...
Heck, if they'd release the specks for their cards, said moochers would write the darned drivers for them. I'm guessing they don't do so because of all the various problems with IP laws...It might be implied that they're allowing anybody to use patent #35987322 because they released the API for accessing it....or it might be found that they've actually used somebody else's patented methods, but nobody has bothered reverse engineering things far enough to find this out...
Software takes time and effort to create.
But why must every piece of software, outside of games, cost hundreds or thousands of dollars? Why must everything one uses be tied up in royalties?
Beyond that, if it isn't exactly what you want, often it's a so sad, too bad situation. You can request an enhancement, but good luck getting one...
A lot of the software that's used today has already been realized in one fashion or the other, but often costs staggering amounts of money for a single license, effectively eliminating small to medium sized companies from using the products, nevertheless individuals. It makes it so one can't enter an industry without being a large company, or being in thrall to one.
So how does one fix this problem? I could see a lot of not-for-profit, or for very little profit organizations that pay their open-source developers supported by a large enough base of small-medium sized firms that had a need for a particular piece of software, but couldn't afford the licensing fees and constant costs of upgrades from the major software manufacturers.
The developers, at least in terms of money, would probably earn about the same, maybe a bit less, then their proprietary counterparts. It's the company itself, and its stockholders - or lack thereof, who wouldn't amke nearly as much. (Also, there would be less potential for ending up as a multi-millionaire if you developed a truly new piece of technology as you wouldn't "own" stock in the company.)
The same thing could easily be done for standards. If your company and a number of others are tired of paying large royalties for "standard" X, band together, and create a standard that benifits all of you and leaves things open. Yes others can use it without paying for it. On the other hand, it's possible that others in the industry will contribute to it and help make it a success just because it is open.
In the end, things will probably even out a little. Large companies spend massive amounts of time/resources paying eachother for patents/licences. There would be some big losers in this scenario, and a few winners, but overall costs to the companies, as well as the consumers, should go down because there aren't so many fees and royalties being paid for any one product to get out the door.
Also, it would eliminate a lot of the "Big Brother" style control a lot of companies seem to want over how one uses a product. I find it offensive that I have to watch several minutes of FBI warnings and advertisements, each time I load most companys' movies...but that's another can of worms...
The problem, of course, is coming up with a product or standard and getting enough people to use it that it's relevant. Linux has been relevant for a long time in the server space, webservers in particular, but is just now starting to see more use as a desktop alternative.
Other things, like oggvorbis, may end up being simply too late in the game. It's there, there are a few players that support it, and a lot of new games use it, but "consumer" use of the format is a bit lacking, mainly because everybody already has MP3, and there's only a few MP3/OGG players...
How one gets past that, I don't know, but I don't see it as insurmountable. And, in the end, most people will benefit from this. Software isn't free, but it needn't cost so much that some of the richest corporations in the world are produced from it...
One thing not mentioned is the shere number of manufacturers/devices for the PC. It becomes impossible to test X piece of software, or X driver, or what have you for every combination of hardware that is out there with PCs. And, while it's less likely to happen with hardware, hardware vendors do sometimes do things, much like software vendors, that cause "buggy" or "flaky" hardware for the PC. And then you have mini power outages, brown outs, driver conflicts, a piece of software written for active X 6 and we're not on 9, etc. The PC has far and away more software and more hardware available to it than any other system on the planet. It is impossible to test your software or your hardware in all possible combinations.
Actually, I don't like any "lock in" contracts. They've been around in the business world for quite some time, but it's only been within the last 5-10 years that I've really noticed many companies tying individuals to 1+ year contracts with big pennalties for withdrawing early.
Generally the first vendor to do this will do it at a "discount" for that year, but once over half the vendors are doing it - say cell phone companies - then that discount dissappears. If you want cell service, at all, then you're locked into what seems like an ever lengthening service agreement.
It's evil when MS does it. It's evil when Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T does it. It's evil when your cable company does it, etc., etc., etc.
What really sucks is it generally doesn't cost the company any more to have you on a month to month basis. Charge me a fair price for the (*$## equiptment - once, let me buy it - then let me decide when I want to switch services.
I agree that even the 4L model was a workhorse. Okay, so it isn't fast. The tray isn't one of the old "standard" trays that stuck out and took a full ream of paper, and doesn't hold as much paper as it could, and it is REALLY slow when graphics are printed.
It works. And works. And works....for 10 years or so. I just recently ran low on toner, and was able to easily purchase two more cartridges. They were pricey, but I expect to get YEARS of service from the cartridges. I get weeks or months of service from the stupid inkjet cartridges, and the price for them adds up quickly.
I can't talk about the quality of modern lasers. I haven't had to purchase one. Mine prints out text that looks crisper on cheap paper than most new inkjets print out on expensive, somewhat specialty paper - the stuff just shy of the photographic paper nonsense. (I mainly print text. Sometimes maps. Hardly ever do I print a picture, so I've never felt the lack of color.)
If I put a photo on my computer, I generally don't want to print it out again. I don't like boxes of anonymous photos from god knows when. It's generally very easy for me to label a directory and know exactly the date/location of the photos therein, whereas with photos I end up with envelopes I have to crack open and shuffle through quite a few pictures before I can really pin down time and place.
From pricing out the cost of ink and paper, I believe most people would be better served with a cheap 35mm camera and 1-hour photo. If they want their images on the computer too, buy a scanner.
The only people an inkjet really benefits, in my mind, are those who, on a more or less regular basis, actually print out color things - newsletters, collages for people, whatever. But it would need to be a regular practice of printing things that really would suffer for not being in color, and not just making their text red or blue to "stand out."
Also, on inkjets, maybe the space of the e is filled in, or the bar over the l is a little bigger than it should be. That never happens with my 4L, despite no maintenance, never being dusted, and very little padding during moves over 10 years of use. (I think it's 10 years. My parents got it when I was in high-school...)
I can't think of a single inkjet I've seen that looks like it would stand anywhere close to ten years of use.
I agree. The 4L is a consumer printer, but mine just keeps on cranking the pages. It was when HP made every laser a robust product. I've never felt that any of the inkjets were as reliable.... I've printed many, many manuals, tax forms, what have you on it, no problem. It's slow, but so what? It STILL looks better with cheap paper than an inkjet with expensive paper - at least where plain text is concerned. (And that's 99% of what I do with it. Once in a while I print out a map. I don't print out any photos. I like them better on the computer.) I find that even modern inkjet prineters have the occasional "blob" around the letters. Maybe the whole in the e is almost filled in. Maybe the bar over the top of the l is a little too thick. Stuff like that never happens on the laser, and it's been going for 10 years or more.
From one of the greatest minds out there: Thomas Jefferson in the declaration of independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal..." This is not, nor in my opinion has it ever been, a silly idea. It can be a somewhat difficult idea to wrap one's head around, since, as you pointed out, there are those who accomplish more than others. But these words and this idea does not speak to a person's accomplishments. It speaks to the idea that each individual is worthy of being treated with dignity, respect, and the rights granted to even those who are considered "leaders," "achievers," or any other name you'd like to conjure up. Without this as a governing concept, with only the idea that one's accomplishments and/or holdings makes one valuable, then it becomes okay to run sweatshops with children in them, or any number of attrocious things because that person who doesn't have as much money, or who hasn't accomplished as much as Mr. factory owner isn't worth as much as a human. Even with this idea as a governing philosophy, these situations can and do happen. Most of the founders owned slaves, and slavery, by definition, does not fit with the idea that all men are created equal. But if you discard this idea, or maybe ideal, then it becomes way to easy to think of all the grief and suffering that still happens in the world as okay because those people are not as equal as the ones with the money and/or accomplishments.
It all depends on who your family is, and how reasonable they are. Some people are willing to let you go over, fix whatever problems you encounter, then listen to you if you tell them they've done something that might've caused them grief - i.e. downloading virus X. Others will insist on sitting with you every moment you try to work on the computer. Anything you do they want to know why. They want to see what's in the control panel and the registry, even though they don't even really know where notepad is. They blame you that a modern PC isn't as easy to use as their SYSTEM X if they had one. They want to know, while you're trying to re-connect them to the internet by looking up some off-brand, almost non-existent ISP's phone number because they didn't keep their connection info, why Word Basic and Visual Basic are not exactly the same. They will use you and abuse you, fully knowing that they are doing so, until you cut them off. It would be a similiar situation if, rather than letting your uncle install the plumbing, you insisted on knowing where he bought monkey wrench X, and why he wasn't using monkey wrench Y - you heard it was much better really, and let me use the monkey wrench, and which way do I turn it, and why aren't you welding/sweating/using tape, or whatever, even though you know he knows what he's doing, and that you have no experience with plumbing.
Later, they sell this article to a magazine that's probably less known, and doesn't mind selling things that have already been published. They make less money, but if they can do this once or twice with every article, it really helps their income.
The problem turns up when you look at how much work a true freelance writer produces. It's already a large task keeping track of a dozen magazine articles, and even more newspaper articles, all at the same time. (And this is at one go. They have to keep track of much more over time...)Now they have to tag all their dozens, if not hundreds of articles and file for copyright renewal as well, each one expiring at different times?
If we were to do something like this, I'd put the onus on a company that buys rights to publish material X indefinately. (Not first time rights. That already has a more or less set timeframe on it.) I wouldn't make it the onus of individuals. Those who truly rely on the system for their bread and butter would be hurt by it.
Hmm... What about the railroads? Automobile industry? Telephone? Utilities? Printing press.... Any industrial process related to mining... Navies, even those driven by conquistidors Were driven for economic reasons first. If there was a barren wasteland in the new world, you can bet that the old world would've stopped sending ships to it...it would've cost too much for no return. And, if you look at war, there are a number of things that start it, and certainly economic factors take a big part of this. They have more money than us, let's raid them. They have control over a parcel of land that has X natural resources, let's take it from them...
No, though I don't know that it would've made much difference in this case, or that they should be forced to do this. The troll was so pervasive that he would've noticed he was being modded down. I'd guess he'd just try to open enough accounts that he could use his own mod points to mod up his posts. Besides this, the site isn't really a general, post anything you want style site. It's a site for professionals who probably have a low tollerance for putting up with childish junk. I'd guess that the extermination company has a small IT staff, and neither has the time, nor inclination, to try out half a dozen or more ways to stop a troll. Since the Slashdot story went public I hear that they have several "professional" trolls trashing their site. I'd guess in this case they have a number of options, none palatable. They can invest more time than it's really worth trying to put up enough technology to knock out a troll once identified, though this is tougher than it may look for a determined troll. They could use up their resources by having a moderator decide what can go up on the board. They could go to the time and expense of tracking down as many trolls as possible and open a civil suit on all of them for $5k a pop, or more. They could try abandoning the site to the trolls in a hope that eventually they'll tire themselves out. Or, they could just take the site down. What they did try doing was canceling his accounts. They may have even tried blocking his IP, I don't recall. What I find sad is that they have to do anything to fight the trolls. I find trolling to be a very sad thing to do, and it wastes TIME, which is the most valuable commodity anybody has, because he can never get it back.
Free speech is not, and has never been, an absolute. Even on public grounds I cannot legally go up to a stranger and threaten him. Said person could have me arrested for doing so.
If I print outright lies about somebody I can be held accountable for libel.
Even without these directly actionable exceptions to free-speech, just because you CAN say something doesn't mean that there aren't going to be consequences for saying it. Some may be legal, others social, and many may have unanticipated consequences given the circumstances.
But put that aside for a moment. You have things backwards anyway. The right to free-speech is a right everybody has on PUBLIC property, with a number of fairly well defined exceptions.
What this person is doing isn't happening on public property. It's happening on private property - that property being the forum they put up.
The right to STOP free-speech is limited to those who have property, or rent it. I may escort you off my property should you enter it without my permission, even if you don't say anything. If I own a restaurant, I can make a rule that says no swearing, and if somebody breaks it, I can ask them to leave.
If that person doesn't leave, or persists on showing up on my property, I can take legal action. Having that person arrested for trespass, for instance.
I've seen at least one person state that taking them up in civil, rather than criminal court, shows they're just out for money. The amount they're suing for, $5000, certainly won't make them rich. It's merely meant as a deterrent to this pest. It probably won't even pay for their court costs should this go to court.
They could've, possibly, attempted to have him arrested if he were threatening or directly harassing members of his board, but that would probably be overkill for the offense, and should they win such a case, probably bring a chilling effect to message boards everywhere.
Based on the options they have, and the fact they have tried a number of ways to stop this person, suing him for what amounts to trespass isn't unreasonable.
I believe somebody mentioned this in passing, but it's possible to obtain at least a few legal CapCom ROMs if you buy the HotRod joystick or ArcadePC from HanaHo games. www.hanaho.com. While I'd love to see all the arcade games, past and present, console games, heck any game or piece of software ever created licensed under the GPL or a BSD style license, I just don't think it's realistic to believe this will happen. Nintendo is still releasing Mario Bros. games, and somebody else was correct in mentioning that most game manufacturers have realized that we really would pay to play the old games. They aren't going to GPL them and give up on future revenue for those games, or give up exclusive control of the characters in the games. In that vein, I'd love to see MAME go GPL and more deals such as the Hanaho one where we can legaly obtain old ROMs on CD, even if they're not open sourced. I'd be willing to pay a fair amount if company X said they'd sell a CD filled with ROMs for X amount of money, licensed just like any other game is licensed. Backups are okay, but redistribution isn't. Say 50-200 dollars, depending on how many games were included. A few companies might be willing to totally relinquish control of their games, but I wouldn't count on it.
I know a good type designer who worked for Adobe for quite a number of years. She's now freelancing. If anybody is interested in hiring a professional type designer for Linux, I'd be willing to put that person in contact with her. Not long ago she won a silver Morisawa award for one of her fonts.