Question of what Netscape was trying to accomplish, versus what they actually did accomplish.
It's a fair question. I think the potential alone was enough to send Microsoft to Defcon One. You can see why: an iteration or two more and they might have had the bugs out. That would have given Netscape sole control of an effective and widely deployed O/S abstraction layer. That in turn would have enabled people to migrate to and from windows without penalty. If that were allowed to happen, it would spell the end of MS' platform dominance. So obviously, from a Microsoft viewpoint, it could not be allowed to happen.
And that, as I understand it, is the reason why the browser wars were fought.
MS was wrong about Netscape and Java too and eventually paid dearly for it.
So you at least concede that Microsoft did in fact see Netscape as a threat and, presumably,
that they did their best to destroy them? Jolly good, we seem to be making progress.
The only problem I have so far is that there doesn't seem to be an objective test to
distinguish between "MS were wrong" and "MS were right, but averted the problem by
means of highly aggressive action which is now a matter of public record". You're obviously
entitled to your interpretation, but I feel safe in saying that it's something of an
extremist viewpoint.
Nevertheless, just because they were afraid of Netscape doesn't mean Netscape didn't screw itself
A parable for you: A man walks down the street one night, and is set upon by a dozen thugs. They overpower him by weight of numbers,
beat him to within an inch of his life, take all his possessions and leave him to die. Nevertheless, the beaten
man manages to drag himself back to his house and into bed. Sadly, due to the chill of the journey home, he catches a
cold. In his severely weakened state he is unable to fight off the virus and dies.
And then you come along and tell us that his death is entirely his own fault for not getting a 'flu jab.
Seriously dude, I don't think you can just look at the last sentence in a story, and ascribe all blame based on that.
Life don't work that way.
Speaking of kool-aid, both MS and Netscape drank the "whoever controls the browser controls the Internet" variety.
Actually, I think the concern was more along the lines of "if the browser becomes an effective application platform, then control of the
underlying operating system may become far less important". And you're right: Google sees that too.
We all still boot an O/S and run applications on the O/S, some of which are Internet-access applications. But it's struck me for some time that the browser really *should* be the next generation O/S.
You're not the only one. IIRC, The reason Netscape had to die was that MS foresaw a day when the browser would supplant the O/S as the primary application environment. Having that sort of control in a non-MS company was unacceptable in itself, but having the browser also be cross platform and therefore capable of eroding MS' lock-in of operating systems generally... You can see how that idea would play in Redmond.
Firefox is showing lots of signs, but it's just not stepping up to the plate - I guess the vision isn't quite there - the guys at Firefox still see the browser as a browser.
Part of that may be intentional, in the hopes of not provoking MS as Netscape did. If Firefox doesn't try and encroach on MS primary domain, maybe the softies won't allocate too many resources to the "Destroy Firefox" project. That said, I think it's more likely a hold over from the original vision for the Phoenix browser (back before the name changes) when it was supposed to be an ultra-light, ultra-fast browser with all the heavy-duty code shifted out to add-ons. That was by contrast with the old Mozilla (now Seamonkey) browser, which still had a lot of the Netscape O/S convergence features in it, and which were largely considered to be bloat.
Personally, I'd sooner see Firefox move back toward to Phoenix model and shift more stuff out to add-ons than to see it adopt more of the features of a graphical shell. On the other hand, if they are determined to add everything but the kitchen sink (as sometimes seems to be the case), then I really can't see why they can't add a decent filer to the app - it would make life so much easier on occasion.
So Google's taking this trend to its logical conclusion: why bother with "local" at all?
Well, it's logical to Google. To the rest of the world, there are still issues with having your data stored on someone else's platform. What happens if your internet connection drops? What happens if the cloud service provider folds and takes your data with it? What happens if, in a decade's time they are bought out by BigEvilCo who leverage the vendor lock-in implicit in a cloud architecture and hold a decade's worth of your data to ransom?
"Local" has some compelling advantages.
Microsoft is going the other way with IE - trying to pound the web, kicking and screaming, back into Windows proprietary extensions.
I think the issue isn't so much one of search quality for most people as it is one of trust.
In the past, Microsoft have shown no compunction about distorting their search engine results
to advance their own agenda, and the recent "why is windows so expensive" debacle
suggests that they will probably do so again.
Added to that, there isn't actually anything wrong with Google's results, as such.
Room for improvement to be sure, but the reason I use Google is that it seemed to me to
deliver better results than all the other engines at the time. That hasn't really changed.
So, lack of trust on the one hand, and no particular dissatisfaction on the other...
I think MS may have a bit of a mountain to climb on this one.
Sure they do. Just the same as clever ones. The trouble is that stupid behavior doesn't necessarily imply stupid genes.
If a computer system behaves in a stupid manner, you don't immediately think "that must be a hardware error". The first place to look is the software.
Similarly, if a person behaves in stupid manner, that doesn't imply the fault is in the brain. If otherwise bright kids get trained to act in a stupid way, then their avenues for expressing that intelligence are going to be somewhat limited.
Considering Warren Spector was the lead developer for Deus Ex 2, perhaps he is not that somebody.
Well,
according to Spector, it was Harvey Smith's baby, even if Spector did end up credited as lead designer.
"For me the biggest challenge is backing off and letting Harvey Smith's team make their game... I'm definitely not the creative force on this one. I got the ball started last time, and now Harvey's running it."
Well done. Do you have any more trite and self-evident cliches you'd care to substitute for reasoned argument, or should I just get on with ignoring you?
Writing about something does not make you a journalist.
Of course it doesn't. But you're going to need to supply a definition of your own if you
want to show that this particular blogger isn't functioning as a journalist in this case
He isn't exactly interviewing hezbolah members in lebanon or sneaking into closed door sessions in russian government
Personally, I'd have thought that investigative journalism was where someone investigated something, and then wrote about it.
I don't really see where international espionage like activities form a necessary part of that.
AP and reuters don't do that many local news bits. So this doesn't overlap at all.
I take it you mean "there's no overlap at all with Reuters and AP, because they don't do local news", and not "Reuters and AP don't do local news, therefore this doesn't overlap with investigative journalism at all". I'm not disputing the former.
I agree entirely. There's this meme going around that holds that if newspapers die, investigative journalism will vanish from the face of the earth.
I think this case could well serve as a counter example.
Incidentally, is it me or is there a a strong subtext of "don't try this at home, kids!" to many of the posts on this topic? You'd almost think some people were worried in case this sort of grass roots political activism should catch on....
If we believe all the media hype - that this guy's blog did actually have any bearing on the resignations of these people, then it's a bad day for democracy.
Much as I appreciate your concern, I think I can set your mind at rest here. Such abuses of the the system are rare and usually confined to the level of local politics. In this day and age, no one at a national level would consider resigning over something so trivial as criticism from the media or public. In fact even such one-time misdemeanors such as being caught outright fiddling expenses, or embarking on a war of aggression that no one on the country wanted are considered cause to resign. Of course, it has occasionally been considered prudent for a minister to step down if the furore should happen at an awkward time, such as shortly before an election. But you may rest assured that in all such cases, the minister in question has been returned to a position of power as soon as the election was safely past.
So as you can see, there really is nothing amiss with the democratic process in the UK.
That said, I do take your point. It really isn't fair of the public to go around making a fuss every time a politicians actions fail to match up with their election promises, seem ill-considered in terms of achieving those objectives, or when they generally fail to comport themselves with the high moral and ethical standards they expect of the general public. If only we as voters would learn to shut our collective gobs, turn a blind eye to such minor matters as dishonesty and hypocrisy and let them get on with the vital business of feathering their nests, I'm sure the world would be a much better place.
But your argument breaks down here: Had you not bought the iPhone, you wouldn't have to buy from the iTMS
Like if I hadn't bought my laptop from Acer, I wouldn't have to buy all my software from the Acer online store. And in fact I don't. Or if I hadn't bought a machine a with a Microsoft OS preloaded (hard to avoid with laptops) then I wouldn't have to buy all my software from MS' online store. Which as it turns out, I also don't have to do.
So there's nothing particular in Apple's providing either the hardware or software that justifies their enforced control of the distribution channel for software. So don't think that's enough to break the GPs argument.
Apple has contracts with ATT and the fellow app makers.
Well, yes. And I'm sure those contracts work to the benefit of Apple and ATT and all the other parties. It's just not clear that they work to benefit of Apple's customers. So I'm not convinced that the GP's argument breaks down on that account, either.
Ultimately, the question isn't whether Apple have the right (or even a good reason) for their lockdown on iPhone software distribution. The question is whether this is behaviour we really want to encourage.
By your logic, it's time we start outlawing Usenet.
Why? TPB trial wasn't a trial on BitTorrent as a protocol or technology;
I think the comment is in response to westlake's final line:
That is all anyone needs to know. The interior mechanics of the system are irrelevant.
So, the logic appears to be: you have an internet connection. You have infringing content. The mechanics of delivery are irrelevant. Therefore the internet must die.
Of course, that doesn't mean that the original pointer comparison argument would hold up in court of law. But to say that the interior mechanics
are irrelevant is to justify shutting down a black box whose boundaries are purely arbitrary. That's probably not a good thing, on balance.
By your logic, it's time we start outlawing Usenet.
The World Wide Web is looking pretty dubious too. In fact, the safest thing is probably just to shut down the Internet.
I know the head of Sony would be keen.
Incidentally, I think westlake may be slipping. He referred to "a geek" rather than "The Geek". Maybe someone told him that there's more than one of us?
Actually logic is the very defining mark of my point.
If you prefix it with the word "contradictory", anyway.
Your right that I would be making an uninformed opinion but your wrong that the opinion couldn't be made
I don't object you presenting an opinion. If that's all you want to claim, then fair enough. It's when you present that opinion as fact, that the problems start. By all means say "I think the RIAA are behaving entirely morally". Just don't try and tell me that "The RIAA's behaviour is utterly moral and correct because they have broken no laws".
Your right that I would be making an uninformed opinion but your wrong that the opinion couldn't be made
So what your saying here is that cheaters are moral by default and I can't claim otherwise. Interesting outlook on morality that you have there.
I see you took my advice and patched up the straw man. I think it's going take more than a couple of patches to make this one convincing, however.
No, you brought the law into the sentence in much the same way the understood you works in the sentence "go take out the trash".
That's either absurd, or incoherent. Most likely both.
No, you brought the law into the sentence in much the same way the understood you works in the sentence "go take out the trash".
Actually, it does follow nicely if the builder followed building codes and got inspections as the code requires. However, being of sound construction does not mean it remains fit to support your weight. But yes, you can safely assume that any public building that has a floor that you are allowed to walk on will be of sound construction and be able to support your weight. If it isn't, you have recourse to sue for their failures.
Yes, yes, yes. You absolutely right except in all those cases where you are wrong. That doesn't help however.
If reading and logic hurts your brain or something, you should check into another past times instead of creating false dichotomies and uninformed opinions when the information is actually present.
We seem to be rapidly leaving civility behind, so I'm going to bow out at this point before the discussion degenerates any further. As a final thought: earlier, you were keen to suggest that the reason I failed to agree with you was that I had a problem. Allow me to return that favour.
Your problem here is that you want to have your cake and eat it. You don't want to claim the law as absolute morality, since that would get in the way of
defending the actions of those corporate interests that you so vigorously uphold here on Slashdot. But you don't want to stop presenting the law as such when the
law works in the favour of your clients. And so you introduce some wooly, ill-defined and untestable notion of justifying yourself to society, and then use that
to try and hide the fact that you're changing your position from one paragraph to the next.
The problem here is not my failure to understand. It is yours to adopt a consistent ethical position.
Enjoy your final summing up, counselor. I shan't be reading it.
You mean will I throw out logic and reality so you can inject a hypothetical that not only hasn't happened in real life
I wouldn't count on logic and reality to help you out here. You abandoned logic when you started repeatedly contradicting yourself about whether it was possible to infer the moral status of an act from its legal state. And you turned your back on reality with your refusal to countenance that they could be any difference at all between the illegal copying of a bunch of bits and bytes which left the original unchanged, and the equally illegal removal of physical property that must be replaced if the business is to be resumed.
Neither nor reality seem to have much interested you so far in this discussion; it seems a bit late to appeal to them now.
I have been arguing the morality of the actions directly. You need to be lawful to be moral unless there is a conflict.
Do you really not see the contradiction in those two sentences? I ask you to argue the point based on the morality of the action rather than
legality of same. You state that you have been doing so, and then in the next sentence construct an argument entirely dependent on the legality
of the action. You started out contradicting yourself from one post to the next. Now you're doing it from one sentence to the next. Do you want to see
if you can get the contradiction inside a sentence, just for the exercise? I'll be impressed if you can.
In other words, you have to set out playing by the same rules as everyone else in bound by until it becomes somehow unconscionable. At that point, you have to justify at least to yourself why not following the law or actually violating it would be moral.
But since you cannot know the other party's justifications (since I assume you are not telepathic either) then you cannot say whether or not their actions are moral or immoral based solely upon whether or not those actions violate the law. So, what I have been asking is that, if you believe the action is (im)moral in its own right and without reference to the law, then you argue the case without reference to the law. It's not a difficult notion, really.
Why is it fallacious to try and justify their moral position by pointing to the law.
Because you can't know the other party's justification (or even lack of same) and therefore cannot assume (im)morality. Therefore it does not follow that a person who is in violation of the law is therefore behaving in an immoral manner, nor that one in compliance is behaving morally. The two concepts are fundamentally orthogonal.
SO you think it's moral to ignore the law and not play by the same rules as everyone else?
No, I think it is illegal to ignore the law. The distinction exists because the difference is important. Breaking the law in itself is neither moral nor immoral.
That was my answer the last two times you asked that question. It is my answer this time, and it will be my answer the next time. Perhaps you could take that on board and go shopping for a new straw man; your current one is starting to look a little ragged.
Actually, my point is that morality is personal, the law has nothing to do with morality, and that you neither justify nor condemn any action simply because of its legal status.
Nonsense. If that were true, you could never make a statement about someone else' morals
So then it should be logically impossible to construct a moral judgment without bringing the law into it? Let's test that: "by illegally downloading Super Visual Foo++ you are unfairly depriving other people of the reward for their hard work". Hmmm.... I just made a statement about someone's morality without reference to the law. So, no, that objection doesn't work.
Of course not. Don't be silly. I'm simple stating that if you create X, the law allow you control of it to the point you can charge Y for it's copying and distribution. When that happens without the fee being paid, you have a loss because X=Y becomes X alone. It's proper to count the difference between X and Y as a loss. It's simple logic and copying and distribution is only the mechanism to get X to equal Y.
So you were using "real" in a precise, technical sense. Good lord man, is your entire argument so very fragile that you can't afford to concede even such a tiny, common-sense point?
Then stop trying to over-simplify it.
It's not that difficult in the first place. It basically comes down to as stated above, X=Y. Now if 4X happened, then 4Y is expected. When the law is violated and someone illegally copies and distributes X you end up with 4X=2Y which is a loss of 2Y. What you attempting to say is that if no one violated the law and things were magically different from reality, only 2X would happen at all. That may be true or not, we do not know because it hasn't happened. But that's all good and all, it just doesn't reflect the reality that the law was violated and and the current expectation is 4X. If you think that's overly simplified, then there is probably problems with your pretext that doesn't conform to the real world.
Most droll. Very Danny Kaye:)
It's not the damn law, it's your actions which are moral or immoral.
Then, as I may have mentioned before, argue the morality or immorality of the actions directly, rather than bringing up the damn law every time there's a question as to morality.
The law can be either but what it boils down to is if you are willing to play buy the same rules that bind everyone else or are you going to be a cheating, perhaps lieing ass who ignores the laws and rules everyone else is stuck with
And you're going to wind up doing serious jail time for the rape and torture of harmless old grannies, seeing as how we're back being hypothetica, again.
And here is your problem
I think you misspelled "opinion" there.
It's not a hypothetical loss, it's a real loss in profit.
In the technical sense of accountancy. Assuming we're not talking about estimated downloads, which we always are in these cases, since there's no way to know how many downloads have occurred. So the BSA or the RIAA or what-have-you say "we estimate everyone on the planet downloaded our IP. Twice, thats 12 billion downloads at the full price of the product (which is whatever figure I pull out of my ass) which mean we have a real tangible loss of more money than there is on the planet". Meanwhile the apple seller says "unless I can find $100 to replace the stolen stock, I can't trade".
To try and present these cases as equivalent is asinine.
But you know what? It's also utterly irrelevant. The BSA could be being completely honest and utterly scrupulous in their claims and it wouldn't matter a damn. Because it's still fallacious to try and justify their moral position by pointing to the law.
Wrong, it's immoral to act in an illegal manner unless it's more moral to do so.
Well, yes. In much the same way as up is up until it becomes down. It's immoral to do anything unless it is more moral to do so.
That doesn't really help, however.
If you know nothing else about the law, then you must follow the same laws and rules that bind everyone else otherwise you are taking an unfair advantage.
If you know nothing about the law, you must do what you think is right and be prepared to accept the consequences of that action. To do otherwise is to abdicate m
So copying isn't real? Distributing something isn't real?
My objection was not so much with the adjective "real" as to the way in which you applied it to the losses claimed by the BSA. You are now trying to establish the reality of Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy by pointing to the existence of Mud. It doesn't work. Sorry.
So stop attempt to conflate the issue.
Then stop trying to over-simplify it.
Yes you can infer morality. That is unless you think breaking the law is always moral
Uh-uh. If I thought breaking the law was always moral, that would be inferring morality from law, just as much as it would be if I thought it law-breaking was always immoral. Either way I'd be drawing an inference about morality from the legality of an action.
I know you're fond of telling people to look up the meaning of the words you use; why don't you take your own advice, and go and see if the word "infer" actually means what you think it means.
You only need to convince others of the morality of your actions when you want or need them to believe the same as you. You do not need a community consensus to act morally or ethically, you can derive your values from your own experiences. But you as a person are morally obligated to be law abiding and follow all the rules that bind you and everyone else legally until there is a conflict in those rules and your morality. At that point, you have to justify to yourself and anyone you expect to side with you.
I agree entirely. What's your point?
You seem to be saying that when following the historical accurate path, it's disingenuous because some hypothetical set of circumstances could have made it different. That seems to me like you are attempting to ignore it.
OK, that's a little clearer, thank you. And no, I'm not saying that, at all. You seem to want to talk about apples and oranges, so let's do that for a moment.
Suppose Joe sells apples. We'll keep the math easy and say he buys them for $1 and sells for $2, and that he's got a hundred apples in stock. One night a burglar steals all his apples. Joe now has a tangible, real loss of $100 worth of apples which he needs to replace (costing him another $100) before he can resume business. He also has a hypothetical loss of $200 for all the apple sales he might have made. Joe being basically an optimist assumes he would have sold the lot, and so he's out of pocket by $300.
Now let's consider Pete, who sells digital oranges. If someone steals 100 units of his stock one night, his real loss is $0, since he still has his entire stock in hand and can continue business as before. He has the same hypothetical losses as Joe of course. However, since Pete's burglar can be expected to engage in some distribution of his own, then Pete's hypothetical losses are potentially somewhat than Joe's. In fact, Pete can pretty much pluck a figure out the air as to the extent of his losses. To present that hypothetical loss as "real" is outright intellectual dishonesty.
Do note that I am not saying that burglar's actions are legal in either case. Nor am I saying that either party is not entitled to recompense for their stolen (or illegally downloaded) product. What I am saying is that there is a clear cut qualitative difference between the two cases, with the losses of one being far more precisely defined than the other. Attempting to present the two cases as identical is just plain deceitful.
Look at the problem this way. I print a book of all the laws and rules everyone in our location has to follow and give it away to everyone in our area. Is it moral for you to randomly open the book, point to a law and violate it knowing nothing else about it?
It is neither moral nor immoral. It is illegal. The distinction exists because the diff
As I attempted to state before, because someone has copied and distributed it, and because it's in use outside your explicit control as the law allows, then you are entitles to a payment or restitution for each time it happened.
So going back the question that I asked, that would be "Yes, I am using the term 'real' in a highly specific, complex, technical sense, since the hypothetical theft of imaginary property would not be considered 'real' in the everyday sense of the word, except perhaps by those experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, or undergoing a psychotic breakdown". Do please note that I am not disputing that the law entitles the rights holders to compensation, so you can probably stop explaining that part now.
This is no different then someone taking 25,000 units from a warehouse
Of course it's different. You've found a single point of similarity under law, That doesn't make all other differences go away.
So your saying that breaking the law when everyone else is following it is moral?
No, I'm saying that breaking the law when everyone else is following it is illegal. You cannot infer the morality of the action from its legality. Either way.
If somehow they can justify that action, then the immoral can become moral but until it's justified, it's just someone choosing not to play by the same rules that bind everyone else.
I'm fairly certain you already conceded this point. You do not need social consensus for your actions to be moral, any more than you need legislation. You probably need that social
consensus to change the law (having a lot of money has been known to work, too) but since law != morality, that has no bearing on the morality of the initial action.
Violating the law is automatically immoral unless it can be justified as moral and proper.
The Devil take your "automatically!" Violating the law is automatically illegal, unless it can be justified in a court of law. It is not automatically immoral. The distinction exists because
the difference is important.
No, it's not disingenuous. While it's true that not as many people would use X is they had to follow the law and pay for it, it's also true that when the law says you can control and charge a fee for X and X is in use without you getting that fee, then each unauthorized version of X is a loss
Yes, but that's not how they present the data. These figures are always presented with a strong subtext of "this is actual money that we would have had in out pockets if it hadn't been stolen from us by filthy pirates". It's the intention to deceive that I find immoral here. And since I doubt that they think that on-paper loss would have translated into actual sales, you don't think it, and I don't think it, then I don't think "disingenuous" is too harsh a term. If anything, I'm being rather restrained.
You seem to be thinking that doing a do over and not considering the law being broken is proper
Did you perhaps mis-edit that sentence? It doesn't make sense to me as written, and the most likely interpretations don't sound like
anything I'm actually claiming.
However, it's ignoring the fact that people are breaking the law and your product is in use without payment to you.
I'm only ignoring it to the extent that I don't dispute either point.
Again, your attempting to argue specifics
Hurm. When I point out that your argument is broken in the general case, you howl with outrage and demand that I furnish a specific case. When I offer something tangible, you
try to tell me that my point is not valid because I'm arguing specifics. Why not just admit that you're out on a limb with this one?
Your right but at the same time, because of the infringement, it is a real loss.
Mmmm.... It's not as though anyone's been around their warehouses and stolen 25,000 units of product,
so I can only assume you're using "real" in some complex, technical sense here. Feel free to enlighten me.
And if you go around raping and torturing defenseless grandmothers and then brag about it in public, then people are going to spit on you as you walk by...
OK, we can work with that. Suppose I make the case for why that behavior is proper
Oh, well played, sir! Well done:)
If I keep those justifications to myself, then I will be prosecuted/persecuted without anything coming of my actions. I mean your missing the entire point. If there is actually a good reason for the behavior or is the law is immoral/unconscionable, then claiming so would require an explanation.
That's making a good case for the notion that the law isn't going to change unless the point is argued. I've never contested that. And if you find someone engaged in illegal activity then you're
certainly entitled to demand an explanation. I don't dispute that, either.
However, none of that means, in and of itself, that the action is immoral. And if the illegality of the action is your only basis for claiming immorality, if you can't show the immoral nature of the activity without bringing the law into the argument, then to my way of thinking, you can't support your argument at all.
Going back to the example: in your hypothetical career as a multiple grandmother rapist, you have by definition committed acts of violence against one of the segments of the population least able to defend themselves, you have undoubtedly caused considerable mental trauma, and you've additionally created great anguish among the families of these unfortunate women. It is not difficult to
show actual harm and clear immorality based on the actions themselves. I don't need to say "rape is illegal, and therefore you are behaving immorally" in order to make my argument stick in this case.
All I'm asking of you is that, if you think the activity under debate is immoral, that you argue your point based on the actual immorality of the action.
As opposed to trying to intimidate them with the law as though that were some absolute and unwavering moral compass. I honestly don't see what's
so terrible about that.
It actually is morally justified because the current laws claim someone is entitles to payment for each copy and distribution
Hum. You've just expended considerable time and effort, and no small amount of sarcasm explaining to me that the law does not
in fact imply anything about the morality of the actions it governs. Now you're telling me that an action is moral because
the law permits it. I think you need to go into a little bit more detail here, because right now, it looks like you've just
done a complete about face. Again.
Furthermore, the fact that they may be entitled under law to payment does nothing to justify presenting the data in a disingenuous and
self serving manner, which I believe is the case here.
What I said was nothing about the laws themselves but the environment they create. And in that environment, the accounting of losses based on pirated software is moral and justified
So presumably if I could cause to be enacted a law entitling me to seize all your property and sell your family into slavery, then I would be morally justified
in doing so. The law would be immoral beyond a doubt, but I would be quite beyond reproach as I would merely operate within the framework created by that law.
I'm sorry, but that still doesn't work for me.
Under the current system, as I have stated in the past, once something is pirated, the copyright/patent holder are at a loss which they can count as a loss.
Sure they can. But that doesn't mean that the loss the claim is in any way representative of the revenues they would have gained had their copyright not been infringed.
And my point is that if you want me or anyone else to look at you as anything other then immoral or a thief, then you need to explain your actions
And if you go around raping and torturing defenseless grandmothers and then brag about it in public, then people are going to spit on you as you walk by.
I just thought I'd drop that in, since we seem to be making purely hypothetical comments that nevertheless seem to suggest the other person might
be engaged in wholly reprehensible activity.
You spent quite a bit of time attempting to convince me a moral argument could be made but failed because you never presented one.
I did nothing of the sort. My point was that you can't morally justify the BSA's slanted and deceptive presentation of the numbers is morally justified by citing the legality of their accounting
procedures. Now since that point, you have appear to have explained that you meant to use the terms "fair" and "justified" in a purely legal sense. That was, as I said, the clarification I wanted initially. If you want to go back that far, then it's a mystery to me why we're still having, this discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a fair question. I think the potential alone was enough to send Microsoft to Defcon One. You can see why: an iteration or two more and they might have had the bugs out. That would have given Netscape sole control of an effective and widely deployed O/S abstraction layer. That in turn would have enabled people to migrate to and from windows without penalty. If that were allowed to happen, it would spell the end of MS' platform dominance. So obviously, from a Microsoft viewpoint, it could not be allowed to happen.
And that, as I understand it, is the reason why the browser wars were fought.
So you at least concede that Microsoft did in fact see Netscape as a threat and, presumably, that they did their best to destroy them? Jolly good, we seem to be making progress.
The only problem I have so far is that there doesn't seem to be an objective test to distinguish between "MS were wrong" and "MS were right, but averted the problem by means of highly aggressive action which is now a matter of public record". You're obviously entitled to your interpretation, but I feel safe in saying that it's something of an extremist viewpoint.
A parable for you: A man walks down the street one night, and is set upon by a dozen thugs. They overpower him by weight of numbers, beat him to within an inch of his life, take all his possessions and leave him to die. Nevertheless, the beaten man manages to drag himself back to his house and into bed. Sadly, due to the chill of the journey home, he catches a cold. In his severely weakened state he is unable to fight off the virus and dies.
And then you come along and tell us that his death is entirely his own fault for not getting a 'flu jab.
Seriously dude, I don't think you can just look at the last sentence in a story, and ascribe all blame based on that. Life don't work that way.
Actually, I think the concern was more along the lines of "if the browser becomes an effective application platform, then control of the underlying operating system may become far less important". And you're right: Google sees that too.
Oddly enough, no one at Microsoft saw it that way at the time. And there's a body of evidence to that effect.
But hey, don't let me put you off the delicious looking kool-aid.
Interesting post.
You're not the only one. IIRC, The reason Netscape had to die was that MS foresaw a day when the browser would supplant the O/S as the primary application environment. Having that sort of control in a non-MS company was unacceptable in itself, but having the browser also be cross platform and therefore capable of eroding MS' lock-in of operating systems generally... You can see how that idea would play in Redmond.
Part of that may be intentional, in the hopes of not provoking MS as Netscape did. If Firefox doesn't try and encroach on MS primary domain, maybe the softies won't allocate too many resources to the "Destroy Firefox" project. That said, I think it's more likely a hold over from the original vision for the Phoenix browser (back before the name changes) when it was supposed to be an ultra-light, ultra-fast browser with all the heavy-duty code shifted out to add-ons. That was by contrast with the old Mozilla (now Seamonkey) browser, which still had a lot of the Netscape O/S convergence features in it, and which were largely considered to be bloat.
Personally, I'd sooner see Firefox move back toward to Phoenix model and shift more stuff out to add-ons than to see it adopt more of the features of a graphical shell. On the other hand, if they are determined to add everything but the kitchen sink (as sometimes seems to be the case), then I really can't see why they can't add a decent filer to the app - it would make life so much easier on occasion.
Well, it's logical to Google. To the rest of the world, there are still issues with having your data stored on someone else's platform. What happens if your internet connection drops? What happens if the cloud service provider folds and takes your data with it? What happens if, in a decade's time they are bought out by BigEvilCo who leverage the vendor lock-in implicit in a cloud architecture and hold a decade's worth of your data to ransom?
"Local" has some compelling advantages.
No argument there :)
Just for the sake of clarity. The way the sentence was structured, it read as though you didn't think SVG was XML based.
I think the issue isn't so much one of search quality for most people as it is one of trust. In the past, Microsoft have shown no compunction about distorting their search engine results to advance their own agenda, and the recent "why is windows so expensive" debacle suggests that they will probably do so again.
Added to that, there isn't actually anything wrong with Google's results, as such. Room for improvement to be sure, but the reason I use Google is that it seemed to me to deliver better results than all the other engines at the time. That hasn't really changed.
So, lack of trust on the one hand, and no particular dissatisfaction on the other... I think MS may have a bit of a mountain to climb on this one.
Minor nitpick accepted. The problem is not necessarily in the "hardware" of the brain, in which case.
Sure they do. Just the same as clever ones. The trouble is that stupid behavior doesn't necessarily imply stupid genes.
If a computer system behaves in a stupid manner, you don't immediately think "that must be a hardware error". The first place to look is the software. Similarly, if a person behaves in stupid manner, that doesn't imply the fault is in the brain. If otherwise bright kids get trained to act in a stupid way, then their avenues for expressing that intelligence are going to be somewhat limited.
Well, according to Spector, it was Harvey Smith's baby, even if Spector did end up credited as lead designer.
Well done. Do you have any more trite and self-evident cliches you'd care to substitute for reasoned argument, or should I just get on with ignoring you?
Of course it doesn't. But you're going to need to supply a definition of your own if you want to show that this particular blogger isn't functioning as a journalist in this case
Personally, I'd have thought that investigative journalism was where someone investigated something, and then wrote about it. I don't really see where international espionage like activities form a necessary part of that.
I take it you mean "there's no overlap at all with Reuters and AP, because they don't do local news", and not "Reuters and AP don't do local news, therefore this doesn't overlap with investigative journalism at all". I'm not disputing the former.
bah. messed up closing the italics ... teach me not to get sloppy with my previews, I guess.
I agree entirely. There's this meme going around that holds that if newspapers die, investigative journalism will vanish from the face of the earth. I think this case could well serve as a counter example.
Incidentally, is it me or is there a a strong subtext of "don't try this at home, kids!" to many of the posts on this topic? You'd almost think some people were worried in case this sort of grass roots political activism should catch on....
Much as I appreciate your concern, I think I can set your mind at rest here. Such abuses of the the system are rare and usually confined to the level of local politics. In this day and age, no one at a national level would consider resigning over something so trivial as criticism from the media or public. In fact even such one-time misdemeanors such as being caught outright fiddling expenses, or embarking on a war of aggression that no one on the country wanted are considered cause to resign. Of course, it has occasionally been considered prudent for a minister to step down if the furore should happen at an awkward time, such as shortly before an election. But you may rest assured that in all such cases, the minister in question has been returned to a position of power as soon as the election was safely past.
So as you can see, there really is nothing amiss with the democratic process in the UK.
That said, I do take your point. It really isn't fair of the public to go around making a fuss every time a politicians actions fail to match up with their election promises, seem ill-considered in terms of achieving those objectives, or when they generally fail to comport themselves with the high moral and ethical standards they expect of the general public. If only we as voters would learn to shut our collective gobs, turn a blind eye to such minor matters as dishonesty and hypocrisy and let them get on with the vital business of feathering their nests, I'm sure the world would be a much better place.
Like if I hadn't bought my laptop from Acer, I wouldn't have to buy all my software from the Acer online store. And in fact I don't. Or if I hadn't bought a machine a with a Microsoft OS preloaded (hard to avoid with laptops) then I wouldn't have to buy all my software from MS' online store. Which as it turns out, I also don't have to do.
So there's nothing particular in Apple's providing either the hardware or software that justifies their enforced control of the distribution channel for software. So don't think that's enough to break the GPs argument.
Well, yes. And I'm sure those contracts work to the benefit of Apple and ATT and all the other parties. It's just not clear that they work to benefit of Apple's customers. So I'm not convinced that the GP's argument breaks down on that account, either.
Ultimately, the question isn't whether Apple have the right (or even a good reason) for their lockdown on iPhone software distribution. The question is whether this is behaviour we really want to encourage.
I entirely agree.
I think the comment is in response to westlake's final line:
So, the logic appears to be: you have an internet connection. You have infringing content. The mechanics of delivery are irrelevant. Therefore the internet must die.
Of course, that doesn't mean that the original pointer comparison argument would hold up in court of law. But to say that the interior mechanics are irrelevant is to justify shutting down a black box whose boundaries are purely arbitrary. That's probably not a good thing, on balance.
The World Wide Web is looking pretty dubious too. In fact, the safest thing is probably just to shut down the Internet. I know the head of Sony would be keen.
Incidentally, I think westlake may be slipping. He referred to "a geek" rather than "The Geek". Maybe someone told him that there's more than one of us?
If you prefix it with the word "contradictory", anyway.
I don't object you presenting an opinion. If that's all you want to claim, then fair enough. It's when you present that opinion as fact, that the problems start. By all means say "I think the RIAA are behaving entirely morally". Just don't try and tell me that "The RIAA's behaviour is utterly moral and correct because they have broken no laws".
I see you took my advice and patched up the straw man. I think it's going take more than a couple of patches to make this one convincing, however.
That's either absurd, or incoherent. Most likely both.
Yes, yes, yes. You absolutely right except in all those cases where you are wrong. That doesn't help however.
We seem to be rapidly leaving civility behind, so I'm going to bow out at this point before the discussion degenerates any further. As a final thought: earlier, you were keen to suggest that the reason I failed to agree with you was that I had a problem. Allow me to return that favour.
Your problem here is that you want to have your cake and eat it. You don't want to claim the law as absolute morality, since that would get in the way of defending the actions of those corporate interests that you so vigorously uphold here on Slashdot. But you don't want to stop presenting the law as such when the law works in the favour of your clients. And so you introduce some wooly, ill-defined and untestable notion of justifying yourself to society, and then use that to try and hide the fact that you're changing your position from one paragraph to the next.
The problem here is not my failure to understand. It is yours to adopt a consistent ethical position.
Enjoy your final summing up, counselor. I shan't be reading it.
I wouldn't count on logic and reality to help you out here. You abandoned logic when you started repeatedly contradicting yourself about whether it was possible to infer the moral status of an act from its legal state. And you turned your back on reality with your refusal to countenance that they could be any difference at all between the illegal copying of a bunch of bits and bytes which left the original unchanged, and the equally illegal removal of physical property that must be replaced if the business is to be resumed.
Neither nor reality seem to have much interested you so far in this discussion; it seems a bit late to appeal to them now.
Do you really not see the contradiction in those two sentences? I ask you to argue the point based on the morality of the action rather than legality of same. You state that you have been doing so, and then in the next sentence construct an argument entirely dependent on the legality of the action. You started out contradicting yourself from one post to the next. Now you're doing it from one sentence to the next. Do you want to see if you can get the contradiction inside a sentence, just for the exercise? I'll be impressed if you can.
But since you cannot know the other party's justifications (since I assume you are not telepathic either) then you cannot say whether or not their actions are moral or immoral based solely upon whether or not those actions violate the law. So, what I have been asking is that, if you believe the action is (im)moral in its own right and without reference to the law, then you argue the case without reference to the law. It's not a difficult notion, really.
Because you can't know the other party's justification (or even lack of same) and therefore cannot assume (im)morality. Therefore it does not follow that a person who is in violation of the law is therefore behaving in an immoral manner, nor that one in compliance is behaving morally. The two concepts are fundamentally orthogonal.
No, I think it is illegal to ignore the law. The distinction exists because the difference is important. Breaking the law in itself is neither moral nor immoral.
That was my answer the last two times you asked that question. It is my answer this time, and it will be my answer the next time. Perhaps you could take that on board and go shopping for a new straw man; your current one is starting to look a little ragged.
So then it should be logically impossible to construct a moral judgment without bringing the law into it? Let's test that: "by illegally downloading Super Visual Foo++ you are unfairly depriving other people of the reward for their hard work". Hmmm.... I just made a statement about someone's morality without reference to the law. So, no, that objection doesn't work.
So you were using "real" in a precise, technical sense. Good lord man, is your entire argument so very fragile that you can't afford to concede even such a tiny, common-sense point?
Most droll. Very Danny Kaye :)
Then, as I may have mentioned before, argue the morality or immorality of the actions directly, rather than bringing up the damn law every time there's a question as to morality.
And you're going to wind up doing serious jail time for the rape and torture of harmless old grannies, seeing as how we're back being hypothetica, again.
I think you misspelled "opinion" there.
In the technical sense of accountancy. Assuming we're not talking about estimated downloads, which we always are in these cases, since there's no way to know how many downloads have occurred. So the BSA or the RIAA or what-have-you say "we estimate everyone on the planet downloaded our IP. Twice, thats 12 billion downloads at the full price of the product (which is whatever figure I pull out of my ass) which mean we have a real tangible loss of more money than there is on the planet". Meanwhile the apple seller says "unless I can find $100 to replace the stolen stock, I can't trade".
To try and present these cases as equivalent is asinine.
But you know what? It's also utterly irrelevant. The BSA could be being completely honest and utterly scrupulous in their claims and it wouldn't matter a damn. Because it's still fallacious to try and justify their moral position by pointing to the law.
Well, yes. In much the same way as up is up until it becomes down. It's immoral to do anything unless it is more moral to do so. That doesn't really help, however.
If you know nothing about the law, you must do what you think is right and be prepared to accept the consequences of that action. To do otherwise is to abdicate m
My objection was not so much with the adjective "real" as to the way in which you applied it to the losses claimed by the BSA. You are now trying to establish the reality of Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy by pointing to the existence of Mud. It doesn't work. Sorry.
Then stop trying to over-simplify it.
Uh-uh. If I thought breaking the law was always moral, that would be inferring morality from law, just as much as it would be if I thought it law-breaking was always immoral. Either way I'd be drawing an inference about morality from the legality of an action.
I know you're fond of telling people to look up the meaning of the words you use; why don't you take your own advice, and go and see if the word "infer" actually means what you think it means.
I agree entirely. What's your point?
OK, that's a little clearer, thank you. And no, I'm not saying that, at all. You seem to want to talk about apples and oranges, so let's do that for a moment.
Suppose Joe sells apples. We'll keep the math easy and say he buys them for $1 and sells for $2, and that he's got a hundred apples in stock. One night a burglar steals all his apples. Joe now has a tangible, real loss of $100 worth of apples which he needs to replace (costing him another $100) before he can resume business. He also has a hypothetical loss of $200 for all the apple sales he might have made. Joe being basically an optimist assumes he would have sold the lot, and so he's out of pocket by $300.
Now let's consider Pete, who sells digital oranges. If someone steals 100 units of his stock one night, his real loss is $0, since he still has his entire stock in hand and can continue business as before. He has the same hypothetical losses as Joe of course. However, since Pete's burglar can be expected to engage in some distribution of his own, then Pete's hypothetical losses are potentially somewhat than Joe's. In fact, Pete can pretty much pluck a figure out the air as to the extent of his losses. To present that hypothetical loss as "real" is outright intellectual dishonesty.
Do note that I am not saying that burglar's actions are legal in either case. Nor am I saying that either party is not entitled to recompense for their stolen (or illegally downloaded) product. What I am saying is that there is a clear cut qualitative difference between the two cases, with the losses of one being far more precisely defined than the other. Attempting to present the two cases as identical is just plain deceitful.
It is neither moral nor immoral. It is illegal. The distinction exists because the diff
So going back the question that I asked, that would be "Yes, I am using the term 'real' in a highly specific, complex, technical sense, since the hypothetical theft of imaginary property would not be considered 'real' in the everyday sense of the word, except perhaps by those experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, or undergoing a psychotic breakdown". Do please note that I am not disputing that the law entitles the rights holders to compensation, so you can probably stop explaining that part now.
Of course it's different. You've found a single point of similarity under law, That doesn't make all other differences go away.
No, I'm saying that breaking the law when everyone else is following it is illegal. You cannot infer the morality of the action from its legality. Either way.
I'm fairly certain you already conceded this point. You do not need social consensus for your actions to be moral, any more than you need legislation. You probably need that social consensus to change the law (having a lot of money has been known to work, too) but since law != morality, that has no bearing on the morality of the initial action.
The Devil take your "automatically!" Violating the law is automatically illegal, unless it can be justified in a court of law. It is not automatically immoral. The distinction exists because the difference is important.
Yes, but that's not how they present the data. These figures are always presented with a strong subtext of "this is actual money that we would have had in out pockets if it hadn't been stolen from us by filthy pirates". It's the intention to deceive that I find immoral here. And since I doubt that they think that on-paper loss would have translated into actual sales, you don't think it, and I don't think it, then I don't think "disingenuous" is too harsh a term. If anything, I'm being rather restrained.
Did you perhaps mis-edit that sentence? It doesn't make sense to me as written, and the most likely interpretations don't sound like anything I'm actually claiming.
I'm only ignoring it to the extent that I don't dispute either point.
Hurm. When I point out that your argument is broken in the general case, you howl with outrage and demand that I furnish a specific case. When I offer something tangible, you try to tell me that my point is not valid because I'm arguing specifics. Why not just admit that you're out on a limb with this one?
Mmmm.... It's not as though anyone's been around their warehouses and stolen 25,000 units of product, so I can only assume you're using "real" in some complex, technical sense here. Feel free to enlighten me.
Oh, well played, sir! Well done :)
That's making a good case for the notion that the law isn't going to change unless the point is argued. I've never contested that. And if you find someone engaged in illegal activity then you're certainly entitled to demand an explanation. I don't dispute that, either.
However, none of that means, in and of itself, that the action is immoral. And if the illegality of the action is your only basis for claiming immorality, if you can't show the immoral nature of the activity without bringing the law into the argument, then to my way of thinking, you can't support your argument at all.
Going back to the example: in your hypothetical career as a multiple grandmother rapist, you have by definition committed acts of violence against one of the segments of the population least able to defend themselves, you have undoubtedly caused considerable mental trauma, and you've additionally created great anguish among the families of these unfortunate women. It is not difficult to show actual harm and clear immorality based on the actions themselves. I don't need to say "rape is illegal, and therefore you are behaving immorally" in order to make my argument stick in this case.
All I'm asking of you is that, if you think the activity under debate is immoral, that you argue your point based on the actual immorality of the action. As opposed to trying to intimidate them with the law as though that were some absolute and unwavering moral compass. I honestly don't see what's so terrible about that.
Hum. You've just expended considerable time and effort, and no small amount of sarcasm explaining to me that the law does not in fact imply anything about the morality of the actions it governs. Now you're telling me that an action is moral because the law permits it. I think you need to go into a little bit more detail here, because right now, it looks like you've just done a complete about face. Again.
Furthermore, the fact that they may be entitled under law to payment does nothing to justify presenting the data in a disingenuous and self serving manner, which I believe is the case here.
So presumably if I could cause to be enacted a law entitling me to seize all your property and sell your family into slavery, then I would be morally justified in doing so. The law would be immoral beyond a doubt, but I would be quite beyond reproach as I would merely operate within the framework created by that law. I'm sorry, but that still doesn't work for me.
Sure they can. But that doesn't mean that the loss the claim is in any way representative of the revenues they would have gained had their copyright not been infringed.
And if you go around raping and torturing defenseless grandmothers and then brag about it in public, then people are going to spit on you as you walk by. I just thought I'd drop that in, since we seem to be making purely hypothetical comments that nevertheless seem to suggest the other person might be engaged in wholly reprehensible activity.
I did nothing of the sort. My point was that you can't morally justify the BSA's slanted and deceptive presentation of the numbers is morally justified by citing the legality of their accounting procedures. Now since that point, you have appear to have explained that you meant to use the terms "fair" and "justified" in a purely legal sense. That was, as I said, the clarification I wanted initially. If you want to go back that far, then it's a mystery to me why we're still having, this discussion.