Probably not any programmers with real Unix/Linux experience,
Aye, there's the rub!
there are a lot of developers out there who don't know about this stuff.
See, if they were finding it easy to hire coders of the required standard, then they'd hardly need to pull a stunt like this one in order to attract talent. And if they are having problems todays job market where there are still coders unemployed from the dot bomb crash, then I suspect word must have pretty much permeated the *nix community.
Unless of course the whole thing is purely a scam to bilk developers out of their fees. That I might believe.
Personally I think I'm tending toward Option C: "Both of the above"
Think of it as a lottery with your integrity against winning a fast car.
I think even as sole contestant, the odds are against anyone winning these prizes. For a start, I don't think the money is going to be there by the time it comes to payout. Although I don't expect Darl would have any qualms about standing up and saying "Sadly none of the entries reached the professional standard we were looking for, so we've decided to withold the prize until we get an entrant the meets the minimum requirements." Where the requirements are the sole decision of the judges, of course, and where Darl is the judge. I mean he hasn't shown any great reluctance thus far when it comes to blatant dishonesty or borderline fraud.
But I expect they'll keep the rights to the code in any event, unless it gets awarded to IBM in lieu of compensation. Hmmm... what do you want to be the IPR from this boondoggle is going to be owned by a separate company to SCO, hmm?
You may be prepared to find that the supposed hatred is all talk when a recently-laid off developer gets a new car wafted under his nose.
Ooooh... I don't think anyone's prepared to find that. 'course I don't think it's going to happen, so the preparedness probably isn't an issue.
I expect that they'll probably find people to come work for them. Not because of any automobile inspired conversion on the road to Damascus, but just because some people will be desperate enough to work for someone they hate. But they'd have to be desperate. And if they're wise they'll get they're money up front, because SCO probably won't have anything to pay them with by the time development finishes.
Only of course they can't can they? Because it's a "prize", and you don't award prizes until the end. So I guess they'd have to be gullible as well as desperate.
I still don't think anyone's going to stop hating them though.
I do think it is hypocritical of people to demand a high quality site with no ads and no fee to use.
Funny that. We're well used to being told that company exploiting its users to the nth degree is justifided. Invariably cited are "market forces", "supply and demand" or the holy of holies "capitalism".
How odd that when consumers apply the same yardstick, suddenly it's "hypocrisy".
I expect it's Jolly inconsiderate of Cragslist. Encouraging that sort of thinking in the marketplace.
When talking about precedents, it is appropriate to speak in extremes.
That's a little too broad for my liking. Certainly, it is appropriate to consider the eventual results of setting a precedent, and in that context we can suggest the extremes to which a policy may take us. However, that doesn't mean that the discussion of precedent justifies the introduction of arbitrary extremities without regard for context.
If the GP (not yourself I assume) had said "Curbing GoDaddy in this action will inevitably lead to the very worst murderous mobsters operating massive criminal enterprises from websites hosted in an anarchistic countries.
" then that would be fair enough. I would still take issue with the prognostication, but I'd have to accept the validity of the argument.
On the other hand, by presenting these extremes in the present tense, our GP strongly implies (at least to my reading) that the "the worst murderous mobsters are right this moment operating massive criminal enterprises from websites hosted in an anarchistic country and unilateral boycotts from third party registrars can possibly stop them!"
And that's a very different kettle of fish. In fact, along with the factual error that followed on (GoDaddy is not the registrar of the sites being blocked) it leads me to wonder if the intent behind the post was not deliberate deception.
This is not trolling, it is testing the boundaries.
And which boundaries are these that are being tested - apart perhaps from the gullibility of slashdotters?
Personally, I feel trolling is the kinder conclusion to draw.
I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that software released under the GPL requires you to distribute the source code if it is asked for.
right enough.
If SCO were to release a version of Linux with their so called proprietary code removed then it could be compared, not easily, to other distros to see what code they are claiming ownership of, since it would be missing in the GPL code.
mmm... the thing is, they already did that. They were releasing Caldera Linux (with Caldera devloped code, obviously) before, this whole kerfuffle started. Even odder, they continued to do so after they brought their lawsuit against IBM. SCO, of course challenge the validity of the GPL and say that an illegal licence should not bind them. However in the Real World, they've been oddly reticent to make that claim in court. That can't last long though: If IBM don't force them to it, Novell surely will.
Over on Groklaw PJ reckons that this release is most likely a hoax. I think I'm inclined to agree. I can't see anything SCO stand to gain from this, but loads of ways they could lose.
Whether or not what spammers or DDOS attackers or virus writers do is legal in some particular locale is beside the point.
And my point is that you don't treat your back yard for an infestation of snails by dropping a cobalt bomb on it. For one thing, it tends to have unfortunate consequences for the whole area, and for another it is probably less precise than you intended. The fact that it would be an illegal act, while worthy of consideration, is not the primary concern for any sane individual.
Similarly here, GoDaddy are being woefully imprecise, shaking down all the clients of a registrar simply because some of them have been listed by spamhaus. Similarly again, GoDaddy's actions will surely have negative consequences for the net as whole. Nore registrars will see the possibility of making extra chash by blackmailing other registrar's ciustomers. We can expect them to be fairly agressive in their policing, since it is, after all, so very profitable. I would also expect to see retaliatory blockages, leading to general disruption all round. I cannot see this as a good thing.
Of course the cobalt bomb analogy breaks down in one crucial area. We could safely expect a nuke to at least kill the moluscs at ground zero. GoDaddy aren't proposing a lasting blockade here - they're jsut demanding a piece of the action. Of course, the spammers will be making enough to pay this, and will carry on operations unhindered. It's the ordinary customers of Majordomo.ru that will be put to trouble.
So, much detest spammers, we have to consider the degree to which GoDaddy's actions are appropriate, effective and precise. As far as I can see, they fall lamentably short fo the mark in all three categories.
Sadly, I fear that this particular "cure" may turn out to be far worse than the disease.
I believe he means closing ALL the code (owned by them or otherwise) and having the courts very efficiently tear them to pieces for copyright infringement.
The point is that they can't close the code. To do that they'd have to hack every ftp mirror world wide - and even then, it'd still be restored from backups and local copies on home computers. I suppose they can distribute binary only mods of GPL software in defiance of the licence, but really, who does that inconvenince? I wouldn't touch binary only at the best of times, let alone after SCO have mess about with it.
The only meaningful way they can close anything, would be to declare the GPL invalid, assert ownership over the Linux codebase, and start suing... which would have been +5 insightful in 2002, but is just plain confusing at this late stage.
And the suicide option to close the code also exist i guess
Which code would that be?
Not the GPL code in the kernel, because that's not owned by them. I suppose the courts could still rule in SCS's favour, but if they could prove ownership of anything, we'd have seen it by now. And if they can't, all they can close is their own contributions.
And, thinking about, not all of those. Stuff released under the GPL before all 2002 is still GPL'd, since the licence wasn't challenged at that point. They can cease to distribute their own code under the GPL, but that doesn't affect the code already distributed, since it remains under that licence - which allows unlimited redistribution under the same terms.
So, all they can really close are those parts of the UNIX codebase to which they can show clear title and which they have not so far incorporated into the kernel. Since they are disputing the GPL, they could probably withdraw the stuff they're adding in now, but they're modding an obsolete development version of the kernel with code that we've survived quite nicely without for years.
So I guess I missed something. How did that suicide option work again?
When the spammers stop forcing their views on me... I'll be more sympathetic to the notion that they should be able to carry on without interference from us.
No argument from me on that point. However, the GP was talking about legitimate law enforcement efforts.
The point to keep sight of is that GoDaddy hasn't been duly appointed as a law enforcement agency by anyone. And even if they should be so appointed, I't still be a bonehead idea.
There's a good reason why the policeman that keeps order in the marketplace doesn't get to run a stall in that same market.
If you want to enforce that registrars cannot impose restrictions on their clients...
I rather read that as GoDaddy imposing restrictions on the clients of another registrar. That hardly seems like behaviour we would wish to encourage.
...then what kind of slippery slope are you encouraging?
Speaking of slipperly slopes, GoDaddy stand to make almost 300k from this stick up. I mean, it isn't as if this is going to solve anything, and it isn't as if GoDaddy are blocking them unconditionally. They're just saying "we want a slice of you're ill gotten gains or we drop all your packets.
The thing is, if we let this pass, that gives lots of registrars an incentive to start eforcing the law as they see it, and for material gain. That's going to encourage them to define ill-doing on the net loosely, since they get tp shake down more nets
Are you saying that the worst murderous mobsters can operate massive criminal enterprises on a website hosted in an anarchistic country and their registrar should be prevented from denying them service?
You're either trolling, or else you're taking way too much for granted here.
For example it's far from clear that murderous mobsters are involved, let along the worst sort (unless you define unsoilicited junk email as being identical to the unlawful taking of human life, that is). The criminality is open to question too since spamming is not (sadly) universally illegal.
And that's just the domains registered to MajorDomo.ru. GoDaddy are demanding money with manaces from all those domains. Unless Majordomo have some weird negative vetting process for thier clients, then the chances are that not all of them are crooks.
I can't see how GoDaddy have any ethical justification for their actions here, and I can't think of a single pargmatic reason why we should condone their behaviour
It is starting the debate on whether or not just releasing some code qualifies an application as 'open source.'"
I haven't seen anyone else mention this so far, but wasn't that debate ended some time ago?
I thought Bruce Perens' Open Source Definitition was the final word on the matter.
If it conforms to the definition, it's open source. By definition.
If the recording companies sold unemcumbered music, then they could sell to all the media player using public, including iPod users. Which could effectively push Apple out of the game.
No argument there. The problem is that they don't want to sell unencumbered music.
They have this belief system that says that if they ever sell unencumbered music, the track will go straight to limewire and kazaar and they'll only ever sell one copy of it. They'd sooner sell nothing at all thn sell naked MP3s, but they want a popular legal donload market because it bolsters their arguments when attacking file sharers.
So what I'm sugesting is that they like the iTunes DRM. They just don't like that Apple has sole control over it, and they don't like the power that gives to Apple at the negotiating table.
That, I think, is why record label shills are popping up all over at the moment saying "downloads are cool but Apple is evil". They're tryin to create grassroots support for some government intervention to give them access to Apple's DRM.
It doesn't hurt that it draw attention away from other players in the DRM market. Sony and Microsoft both spring to mind.
As for Apple's DRM being "a pain," I don't know how she could possibly think that. I've never even hit a limitation with it, and I forget it's there. It's the most liberal DRM in existence.
I think the question that needs to be asked is "a pain for whom?"
As a candidate, let me propose the major record labels. I expect they'd like Apple to licence the DRM.
That would allowing them to cut Apple out of the distribution loop while still being able to sell to the lucrative iPod market.
Without Apple's blessing, the lables have no to sell restricted music to the lucrative iPod market. This gives Apple some leverage, and probably explains how they've been able to resist recording industry pressure to raise the cost per download.
If Apple are forced to open their DRM, then the labels can sell direct to the iPod owning public, It also means they can cut off iTunes supply of new music without losing sales. As iTunes starts to die, they can finally raise download prices. If that kills the download market, that's okay too, since they can go back to their artificial scarcity pricing for CDs backed by aggresivly suing P2P users.
So if Apple were forced to open thier DRM, I expect a lot of Ms.Rosen's pain might just go away.
As for Ms.Rosen, I find myself skeptical of any change of heart. In particular, this sounds like a classic case of pace and lead. Tell the kids what they want to hear and then try and redirect some of their anger against someone you don't like.
Well, the article states "Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime."
Maybe it's just an error in operator precedence. We're all reading it as
(Windows led Red Hat) with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime
where as we should be reading it as
Windows led (Red Hat with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime)
As in "Red Hat had 20% more uptime, but windows were nevertheless the leaders (by some undisclosed criteria)".
And I apologies for slightly editing the words of TFA, but found it helpful to omit some words for concision and clarity. In particular the phrase "in fact" seems semantically null when used by the Yankee Group.
Re:All fun and no work...
on
Just Let Me Play!
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
That sounds as if you're assuming that there's a constant amount of work required before games get fun, and further assuming that said value is the same for all people in all circumstances. I don't think that is the case, as amount of debate on this thread should demonstrate.
I think the relationship is more complicated than that. Not only do people achieve maximum fun levels for different amounts of work, but there are other factors that skew the curve. TFA seems to be suggesting that the amount of time a gamer has free to devote to his hobby is one such variable. From my own experience, I'd tend to agree.
When I was younger, single and unemployed, I'd quite happy through the latest games very-hard-indeed or whatever the game called the hardest setting. These days, I don't have time to go through the play-get fragged-reload loop that you need to suffer in order to acquire the necessary skills to play the game at the highest levels. But if major sections of content are only available at those levels of difficulty, then the value of the game is lessened to people without the requisite free time. Ultimately, that means paying customers who abandon gaming for a less time-demanding passtime. I can't believe the industry views that as a desirable outcome.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that we do away with the work aspect of gaming altogether. Nor are we suggesting that the hard play levels be made easier. Just that it would be nice to able to play the full game without having to make a life-altering commitment in time and effort.
See, your basic trouble here is that you're just not thinking big enough.
Sure, we can catch people mixing up homebrew TNT or crystal meth, but that only scratches the surface.
Just think of the benefits to be gained in hygene. Currenly there's no point in passing laws making hand washing mandatory after performing an excretory function, but with video evidence such a law would be enforceable. We could write automatic image processing routines to detect those occasions when you got to the loo and don't wash up afterwards. Three strikes and your're doing time - let's have a zero tolerance policy here. Later versions could evaluate for the thoroughness of the cleasing and make sure that only government apporved brands of soap were employed in the cleansing operations. Just think of the epidemics that could be avoided.
And it's not just physical hygene we could enforce. We can address spiritual cleanliness. All we need to do it pass a law making it illegal to play with yourself. You could put all the names on a sex offenders register perhaps. We could criminalise millions who might otherwise remain beyond the reach of law enorcement. Oh what a great day for mankind!
Go to an arthouse cinema and you'll see better movies, but not many people, and not many arthouse cinemas.
Here's the thing though: worse movies don't sell either.We can tell this, because they've been trying it for a decade now, and all we hear about is the MPAA moaning about falling attendances and DVD sales.
Do you not think you mey be confusing "better" with here "pretentious and inaccesable and aggressively anti-populist"?
In the British Parliamentary System (used in a lot more countries than you may think), someone can become the Prime Minister with less than 1% of the popular vote (theoretically).
Yes indeed. The difference is that the US President gets a lot of executive powers and therefore should be directly elected. The British PM on the other hand isn't supposed to to much more than chair cabinet meetings and report to the head of state. So when the system works as it is supposed to work, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. As long as the MPs are elected fairly (another discussion, that) then who cares who they elect to manage governmental meetings as long as he's a competant organiser.
Alas, the system has been increasingly undermined by recent UK governments, with Blair in particular making a bid to vest primary legislative power in the hands of the PM and the cabinet that he or she appoints.
So you tell me which is preferable, being hated by extremist members of other countries, or being hated by the general population of your own country. Take your time, I'll wait.
You make it sound like an either/or choice, but I don't see why any government should have to choose one option over another. There's no reason at all why they can't be hated both domestically and worldwide.
Tony Blair seems to be making excellent progress in this direction.
The freedom in question is the freedom to make changes to GPL'ed source.
Of course it isn't. GPL'd source will remain freely available, and no one will
be prohibited from making changes to that source. What you lose is
the ability to force those who modify GPL source to re-licence their changes
under the GPL. Which means that since the changes aren't GPL'd then you can't
demand the source for those changes, and therefore you can't hack on the modified
version. But nothing stops you from changing GPL source. It just loses that
pardon-the-term viral quality.
What it does force them to do is to release the source if they release binaries
Yes, yes, yes. Can we take the "if they release binaries" proviso as read? I'll thank you, and my keyboard will thank you.
Realistically, very few people are going to go to the trouble of
reverse engineering or decompiling a large program just to make a few
modifications.
Realistically, they won't have to. Starting with the original codebase
is not the same as clean-room reverse engineering. Unless of course
they've made massive changes, in which case they could probably have written
the whole thing from scratch for less effort.
This is what worries me about The Pirate Party's stance: the party's
goal is to give everyone more freedom, but in doing so, they run the risk
of removing some freedom (that is, the freedom to modify the program by
means of modifying the source).
So on the one hand, I gain unfettered access to the music, literature,
imagery, and software of an entire planet, mine to modify in any way I
can, and without threat of legal reprisal. And the cost for that is
that I can no longer force people changing my code to re-licence
under the GPL?
My point is that the GPL is no longer able to provide you with the freedom to study and modify a program if the GPL is no longer valid.
mmm... You need to GPL to force people to release their changes. However that is not the same thing as providing you with the freedom to study and make changes. That's just an assertion Stallman makes to give this mechanism an apparent ethical dimension.
It isn't that I disagree with his intention, but clearly access to source is not a pre-requisite to this freedom. A legion of dedicated game protecton crackers stand as eloquent testimony to that fact.
This means the only Freedom lost is the freedom to force other people tell you how they modded your code - and I'm not at all comfortable with "freedoms" that force other people to do anything - if only because someday one of those people is probably going to be me.
Which is probably why Stallman indulged in such uncharacteristic circumlocutions in the first place. heh.
Whether or not this is a big deal is another discussion entirely.
Maybe in the context of current laws. Whether or not this would be a big deal in the context of the Pirate Party's proposed legislation most certainly is not.
Slashdot Mirror
Aye, there's the rub!
there are a lot of developers out there who don't know about this stuff.
See, if they were finding it easy to hire coders of the required standard, then they'd hardly need to pull a stunt like this one in order to attract talent. And if they are having problems todays job market where there are still coders unemployed from the dot bomb crash, then I suspect word must have pretty much permeated the *nix community.
Unless of course the whole thing is purely a scam to bilk developers out of their fees. That I might believe.
Personally I think I'm tending toward Option C: "Both of the above"
I think they'd still have to be pretty gullible or very foolish. I really don't think anyone's going to get paid for their work here.
I think even as sole contestant, the odds are against anyone winning these prizes. For a start, I don't think the money is going to be there by the time it comes to payout. Although I don't expect Darl would have any qualms about standing up and saying "Sadly none of the entries reached the professional standard we were looking for, so we've decided to withold the prize until we get an entrant the meets the minimum requirements." Where the requirements are the sole decision of the judges, of course, and where Darl is the judge. I mean he hasn't shown any great reluctance thus far when it comes to blatant dishonesty or borderline fraud.
But I expect they'll keep the rights to the code in any event, unless it gets awarded to IBM in lieu of compensation. Hmmm... what do you want to be the IPR from this boondoggle is going to be owned by a separate company to SCO, hmm?
Ooooh... I don't think anyone's prepared to find that. 'course I don't think it's going to happen, so the preparedness probably isn't an issue.
I expect that they'll probably find people to come work for them. Not because of any automobile inspired conversion on the road to Damascus, but just because some people will be desperate enough to work for someone they hate. But they'd have to be desperate. And if they're wise they'll get they're money up front, because SCO probably won't have anything to pay them with by the time development finishes.
Only of course they can't can they? Because it's a "prize", and you don't award prizes until the end. So I guess they'd have to be gullible as well as desperate.
I still don't think anyone's going to stop hating them though.
Funny that. We're well used to being told that company exploiting its users to the nth degree is justifided. Invariably cited are "market forces", "supply and demand" or the holy of holies "capitalism". How odd that when consumers apply the same yardstick, suddenly it's "hypocrisy".
I expect it's Jolly inconsiderate of Cragslist. Encouraging that sort of thinking in the marketplace.
That's a little too broad for my liking. Certainly, it is appropriate to consider the eventual results of setting a precedent, and in that context we can suggest the extremes to which a policy may take us. However, that doesn't mean that the discussion of precedent justifies the introduction of arbitrary extremities without regard for context.
If the GP (not yourself I assume) had said "Curbing GoDaddy in this action will inevitably lead to the very worst murderous mobsters operating massive criminal enterprises from websites hosted in an anarchistic countries. " then that would be fair enough. I would still take issue with the prognostication, but I'd have to accept the validity of the argument.
On the other hand, by presenting these extremes in the present tense, our GP strongly implies (at least to my reading) that the "the worst murderous mobsters are right this moment operating massive criminal enterprises from websites hosted in an anarchistic country and unilateral boycotts from third party registrars can possibly stop them!"
And that's a very different kettle of fish. In fact, along with the factual error that followed on (GoDaddy is not the registrar of the sites being blocked) it leads me to wonder if the intent behind the post was not deliberate deception.
This is not trolling, it is testing the boundaries.
And which boundaries are these that are being tested - apart perhaps from the gullibility of slashdotters?
Personally, I feel trolling is the kinder conclusion to draw.
right enough.
If SCO were to release a version of Linux with their so called proprietary code removed then it could be compared, not easily, to other distros to see what code they are claiming ownership of, since it would be missing in the GPL code.
mmm... the thing is, they already did that. They were releasing Caldera Linux (with Caldera devloped code, obviously) before, this whole kerfuffle started. Even odder, they continued to do so after they brought their lawsuit against IBM. SCO, of course challenge the validity of the GPL and say that an illegal licence should not bind them. However in the Real World, they've been oddly reticent to make that claim in court. That can't last long though: If IBM don't force them to it, Novell surely will.
Over on Groklaw PJ reckons that this release is most likely a hoax. I think I'm inclined to agree. I can't see anything SCO stand to gain from this, but loads of ways they could lose.
And my point is that you don't treat your back yard for an infestation of snails by dropping a cobalt bomb on it. For one thing, it tends to have unfortunate consequences for the whole area, and for another it is probably less precise than you intended. The fact that it would be an illegal act, while worthy of consideration, is not the primary concern for any sane individual.
Similarly here, GoDaddy are being woefully imprecise, shaking down all the clients of a registrar simply because some of them have been listed by spamhaus. Similarly again, GoDaddy's actions will surely have negative consequences for the net as whole. Nore registrars will see the possibility of making extra chash by blackmailing other registrar's ciustomers. We can expect them to be fairly agressive in their policing, since it is, after all, so very profitable. I would also expect to see retaliatory blockages, leading to general disruption all round. I cannot see this as a good thing.
Of course the cobalt bomb analogy breaks down in one crucial area. We could safely expect a nuke to at least kill the moluscs at ground zero. GoDaddy aren't proposing a lasting blockade here - they're jsut demanding a piece of the action. Of course, the spammers will be making enough to pay this, and will carry on operations unhindered. It's the ordinary customers of Majordomo.ru that will be put to trouble.
So, much detest spammers, we have to consider the degree to which GoDaddy's actions are appropriate, effective and precise. As far as I can see, they fall lamentably short fo the mark in all three categories.
Sadly, I fear that this particular "cure" may turn out to be far worse than the disease.
The point is that they can't close the code. To do that they'd have to hack every ftp mirror world wide - and even then, it'd still be restored from backups and local copies on home computers. I suppose they can distribute binary only mods of GPL software in defiance of the licence, but really, who does that inconvenince? I wouldn't touch binary only at the best of times, let alone after SCO have mess about with it.
The only meaningful way they can close anything, would be to declare the GPL invalid, assert ownership over the Linux codebase, and start suing ... which would have been +5 insightful in 2002, but is just plain confusing at this late stage.
Which code would that be?
Not the GPL code in the kernel, because that's not owned by them. I suppose the courts could still rule in SCS's favour, but if they could prove ownership of anything, we'd have seen it by now. And if they can't, all they can close is their own contributions.
And, thinking about, not all of those. Stuff released under the GPL before all 2002 is still GPL'd, since the licence wasn't challenged at that point. They can cease to distribute their own code under the GPL, but that doesn't affect the code already distributed, since it remains under that licence - which allows unlimited redistribution under the same terms.
So, all they can really close are those parts of the UNIX codebase to which they can show clear title and which they have not so far incorporated into the kernel. Since they are disputing the GPL, they could probably withdraw the stuff they're adding in now, but they're modding an obsolete development version of the kernel with code that we've survived quite nicely without for years.
So I guess I missed something. How did that suicide option work again?
No argument from me on that point. However, the GP was talking about legitimate law enforcement efforts.
The point to keep sight of is that GoDaddy hasn't been duly appointed as a law enforcement agency by anyone. And even if they should be so appointed, I't still be a bonehead idea.
There's a good reason why the policeman that keeps order in the marketplace doesn't get to run a stall in that same market.
I rather read that as GoDaddy imposing restrictions on the clients of another registrar. That hardly seems like behaviour we would wish to encourage.
Speaking of slipperly slopes, GoDaddy stand to make almost 300k from this stick up. I mean, it isn't as if this is going to solve anything, and it isn't as if GoDaddy are blocking them unconditionally. They're just saying "we want a slice of you're ill gotten gains or we drop all your packets.
The thing is, if we let this pass, that gives lots of registrars an incentive to start eforcing the law as they see it, and for material gain. That's going to encourage them to define ill-doing on the net loosely, since they get tp shake down more nets
Are you saying that the worst murderous mobsters can operate massive criminal enterprises on a website hosted in an anarchistic country and their registrar should be prevented from denying them service?
You're either trolling, or else you're taking way too much for granted here.
For example it's far from clear that murderous mobsters are involved, let along the worst sort (unless you define unsoilicited junk email as being identical to the unlawful taking of human life, that is). The criminality is open to question too since spamming is not (sadly) universally illegal.
And that's just the domains registered to MajorDomo.ru. GoDaddy are demanding money with manaces from all those domains. Unless Majordomo have some weird negative vetting process for thier clients, then the chances are that not all of them are crooks.
I can't see how GoDaddy have any ethical justification for their actions here, and I can't think of a single pargmatic reason why we should condone their behaviour
In other news, Kellogs say Corn Flakes "taste nice". Film at eleven.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this so far, but wasn't that debate ended some time ago? I thought Bruce Perens' Open Source Definitition was the final word on the matter.
If it conforms to the definition, it's open source. By definition.
If it doesn't, it's something else.
This is not complicated.
No argument there. The problem is that they don't want to sell unencumbered music. They have this belief system that says that if they ever sell unencumbered music, the track will go straight to limewire and kazaar and they'll only ever sell one copy of it. They'd sooner sell nothing at all thn sell naked MP3s, but they want a popular legal donload market because it bolsters their arguments when attacking file sharers.
So what I'm sugesting is that they like the iTunes DRM. They just don't like that Apple has sole control over it, and they don't like the power that gives to Apple at the negotiating table.
That, I think, is why record label shills are popping up all over at the moment saying "downloads are cool but Apple is evil". They're tryin to create grassroots support for some government intervention to give them access to Apple's DRM.
It doesn't hurt that it draw attention away from other players in the DRM market. Sony and Microsoft both spring to mind.
I think the question that needs to be asked is "a pain for whom?"
As a candidate, let me propose the major record labels. I expect they'd like Apple to licence the DRM. That would allowing them to cut Apple out of the distribution loop while still being able to sell to the lucrative iPod market. Without Apple's blessing, the lables have no to sell restricted music to the lucrative iPod market. This gives Apple some leverage, and probably explains how they've been able to resist recording industry pressure to raise the cost per download.
If Apple are forced to open their DRM, then the labels can sell direct to the iPod owning public, It also means they can cut off iTunes supply of new music without losing sales. As iTunes starts to die, they can finally raise download prices. If that kills the download market, that's okay too, since they can go back to their artificial scarcity pricing for CDs backed by aggresivly suing P2P users.
So if Apple were forced to open thier DRM, I expect a lot of Ms.Rosen's pain might just go away.
As for Ms.Rosen, I find myself skeptical of any change of heart. In particular, this sounds like a classic case of pace and lead. Tell the kids what they want to hear and then try and redirect some of their anger against someone you don't like.
Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!"
Maybe it's just an error in operator precedence. We're all reading it as
(Windows led Red Hat) with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime
where as we should be reading it as
Windows led (Red Hat with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime)
As in "Red Hat had 20% more uptime, but windows were nevertheless the leaders (by some undisclosed criteria)".
And I apologies for slightly editing the words of TFA, but found it helpful to omit some words for concision and clarity. In particular the phrase "in fact" seems semantically null when used by the Yankee Group.
I think the relationship is more complicated than that. Not only do people achieve maximum fun levels for different amounts of work, but there are other factors that skew the curve. TFA seems to be suggesting that the amount of time a gamer has free to devote to his hobby is one such variable. From my own experience, I'd tend to agree.
When I was younger, single and unemployed, I'd quite happy through the latest games very-hard-indeed or whatever the game called the hardest setting. These days, I don't have time to go through the play-get fragged-reload loop that you need to suffer in order to acquire the necessary skills to play the game at the highest levels. But if major sections of content are only available at those levels of difficulty, then the value of the game is lessened to people without the requisite free time. Ultimately, that means paying customers who abandon gaming for a less time-demanding passtime. I can't believe the industry views that as a desirable outcome.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that we do away with the work aspect of gaming altogether. Nor are we suggesting that the hard play levels be made easier. Just that it would be nice to able to play the full game without having to make a life-altering commitment in time and effort.
Sure, we can catch people mixing up homebrew TNT or crystal meth, but that only scratches the surface.
Just think of the benefits to be gained in hygene. Currenly there's no point in passing laws making hand washing mandatory after performing an excretory function, but with video evidence such a law would be enforceable. We could write automatic image processing routines to detect those occasions when you got to the loo and don't wash up afterwards. Three strikes and your're doing time - let's have a zero tolerance policy here. Later versions could evaluate for the thoroughness of the cleasing and make sure that only government apporved brands of soap were employed in the cleansing operations. Just think of the epidemics that could be avoided.
And it's not just physical hygene we could enforce. We can address spiritual cleanliness. All we need to do it pass a law making it illegal to play with yourself. You could put all the names on a sex offenders register perhaps. We could criminalise millions who might otherwise remain beyond the reach of law enorcement. Oh what a great day for mankind!
(and, yes likewise)
Here's the thing though: worse movies don't sell either.We can tell this, because they've been trying it for a decade now, and all we hear about is the MPAA moaning about falling attendances and DVD sales.
Do you not think you mey be confusing "better" with here "pretentious and inaccesable and aggressively anti-populist"?
Yes indeed. The difference is that the US President gets a lot of executive powers and therefore should be directly elected. The British PM on the other hand isn't supposed to to much more than chair cabinet meetings and report to the head of state. So when the system works as it is supposed to work, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. As long as the MPs are elected fairly (another discussion, that) then who cares who they elect to manage governmental meetings as long as he's a competant organiser.
Alas, the system has been increasingly undermined by recent UK governments, with Blair in particular making a bid to vest primary legislative power in the hands of the PM and the cabinet that he or she appoints.
And, yes, that is a bad thing.
You make it sound like an either/or choice, but I don't see why any government should have to choose one option over another. There's no reason at all why they can't be hated both domestically and worldwide.
Tony Blair seems to be making excellent progress in this direction.
Of course it isn't. GPL'd source will remain freely available, and no one will be prohibited from making changes to that source. What you lose is the ability to force those who modify GPL source to re-licence their changes under the GPL. Which means that since the changes aren't GPL'd then you can't demand the source for those changes, and therefore you can't hack on the modified version. But nothing stops you from changing GPL source. It just loses that pardon-the-term viral quality.
What it does force them to do is to release the source if they release binaries
Yes, yes, yes. Can we take the "if they release binaries" proviso as read? I'll thank you, and my keyboard will thank you.
Realistically, very few people are going to go to the trouble of reverse engineering or decompiling a large program just to make a few modifications.
Realistically, they won't have to. Starting with the original codebase is not the same as clean-room reverse engineering. Unless of course they've made massive changes, in which case they could probably have written the whole thing from scratch for less effort.
This is what worries me about The Pirate Party's stance: the party's goal is to give everyone more freedom, but in doing so, they run the risk of removing some freedom (that is, the freedom to modify the program by means of modifying the source).
So on the one hand, I gain unfettered access to the music, literature, imagery, and software of an entire planet, mine to modify in any way I can, and without threat of legal reprisal. And the cost for that is that I can no longer force people changing my code to re-licence under the GPL?
Sorry, but that sounds like a no-brainer to me.
mmm... You need to GPL to force people to release their changes. However that is not the same thing as providing you with the freedom to study and make changes. That's just an assertion Stallman makes to give this mechanism an apparent ethical dimension.
It isn't that I disagree with his intention, but clearly access to source is not a pre-requisite to this freedom. A legion of dedicated game protecton crackers stand as eloquent testimony to that fact.
This means the only Freedom lost is the freedom to force other people tell you how they modded your code - and I'm not at all comfortable with "freedoms" that force other people to do anything - if only because someday one of those people is probably going to be me.
Which is probably why Stallman indulged in such uncharacteristic circumlocutions in the first place. heh.
Whether or not this is a big deal is another discussion entirely.
Maybe in the context of current laws. Whether or not this would be a big deal in the context of the Pirate Party's proposed legislation most certainly is not.