Because you seem to think that everyone who utilizes mp3s are pirates, thieves and whatnot.
We are talking about Napster here, not mp3.com. Nearly everyone who is using Napster _is_ a pirate, a thief, or whatnot.
And if you like the music of Jeff Mills, but it from CDnow or some other on-line music seller. It doesn't make any difference that his CD's can't be found where you live. the Internet makes the whole world local.
I a m a Napster user. Yes, that makes everything that I say in the next few paragraphs hypocritical. However, you know and the RIAA knows that Napster exists solely for the distribution of pirated music. If Napster could legitimately claim that they had not engineered their product to promote theft - and they can't, despite any disingenuous claims to the contrary - then maybe the defenders of Napster would have a point.
Let's suppose that I distribute a product called "Wickster." Wickster is a remote-control device that allows me to stroll by the homes of strangers, point the device at the house, and BLAM! all of the electronics in the house are rendered useless. I distribute 50,000 of them. Out of that 50,000, 49,800 are used by miscreants to nuke the televisions, computers, and stereos of anonymous strangers. The remaining 200 users use the device to test their own equipment for EMP susceptibility.
Oh, I did include a cheesey disclaimer to protect myself.
Cassette tapes are used by millions of people to back-up their own music collections. Guns are oned by millions to defend themselves and for target practice. Napster has no dual-purpose. Of the tens of thousands of MP3's distributed via Napster, HOW MANY DO YOU THINK WERE AUTHORIZED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY THEIR COPYRIGHT OWNERS?
Think about it.
Now, I applaud Napster. I hate the RIAA. I know and you know that the pimpled teen with 18GB of MP3's hasn't cost the artists a penny, because he couldn't have afforded all of the CD's they MP3's were copied from, anyway, on his McBurger wages. As many copies of Brittney Spears' latest drek exist to pollute our store shelves as existed before. Or she just might have sold a few more copies because he wondered whether her tits looked good on the cover of the CD after hearing her yodelling on the MP3.
Theft is theft. Legally, downloading MP3's that you don't own is theft (and, in some parts of the world, you have no right to make archival copies. I don't think the absolute right to an archival copy exists in the UK). When that law is changed (probably never), Napster will have legal legs. Until then, their case is rather defenseless.
Who gives a shit? Do you really know any 14 years who are such dorks that a non-enforceable clause in a EULA would stop them from downloading anything? I mean, it certainly doesn't stop them from downloading mp3's, or NES ROM's, or porn, or warez, or super-strength versions of PGP (disregarding nationality), so why should we care about a stupid clause included by Corel's clueless legal department? Le's get up in arms about things that actually impact our lives.
I know, now that I have broached the subject, a few dorks will identify themselves and try to make an issue out of this dead horse. Others will mis-read my words and accuse me of encouraging the deliquency of minors.
Bruce Perens, any respect that I might have had for you has been destroyed utterly.
Everyone in my experience would agree that tying an old lady to a fence and beating her to death is a "bad thing." However, sadly, there is a large minority which don't feel the same way when the victim is homosexual. Yes, the victim is dead in both cases, so the loss to the families is the same, but the loss to society is greater in the latter case. When an entire segment of society is afraid to go out at night because of a few testosterone-driven inadequates, we all suffer. To tolerate hate crimes (and we are tolerating them when we don't reserve special punishment for the perpetrators) is to tolerate pogroms and genocide.
'And you are going to treat people differently based on the results, otherwise doing it is pointless, so yes there is soething (sic) to defend yourself against, whether it's punishment, surveilance or "treatment".'
As much as I hate to admit it, having re-thought my position in light of your comments, I absolutely agree with you. As I wouldn't want to be subject to punishment, surveilance or treatment based on what I _might_ do, I have changed my mind and thrown in with your camp.
There is a big difference between the two scenarios YOU paint - but I wasn't painting a scenario at all.
Psychological profiling with Mosaic 2000 does not look to the "guilt" or "innocence" of anyone. It compares the reponses of myriad known offenders with the responses of suspected pre-offenders (the scariest bit of the analysis, IMHO) and looks for correlations.
When I was in the Air Force, we had a gentleman who would become violently angry at the slightest upset, and would frequently swear that he would make the Air Force "pay" (and we are not talking in the monetary sense) for his imagined grievances. In my presence he promised that his revenge would make the McDonald's massacre (anyone else remember that mad gunman during the Las Angeles Olympics?) look like a picnic. Now, this was a sick man (the LA gunman and my Air Force acquaintance). In my estimation, he needed observation. I believe that he was put out of the Air Force soon after. No, I don't know what happened to him later, but I wish that I did. It wouldn't have been unreasonable, again IMHO, to have committed this individual (perhaps permanently) to psychiatric care.
Of course, most cases of derangemant are not that obvious. But many are more obvious than it is popular to think ("I never would have suspected" is a more likely headline than "Yeah, we knew they were psycho shit-for-brains, but what could we do?" says High School Superintendant.), and any tools that help identify the not-so-obvious cases should be welcomed.
How sad. The "Big Brother!" chorus rings again within the/. community without wetware being engaged. Another example of Basic Input Output Stupidity.
When we involve Jodie Foster/Clarice Starling and the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (in Quantico, Virginia) everyone says "cool" (or "kewl"). Psychological profiling is okay if we can say "Hannibal Lecter" in the same breath. However, when someone tries to apply this technology to denizens of the geek world (read: the heavily stereotyped Quake fanatics/Linux zealots/potential-actual/.'ers), the specter of Big Brother is seen galloping across the Plains of Civil Liberty. Yes, Big Brother is on this occasion a program named Mosaic 2000 wearing Darth Maul's discarded Halloween mask, but, hey, it's fun to be scared, and no one has ever been faulted, here, for conforming to the/. idea of Political Correctness. Besides, the software probably runs on M$ Windows, so of course it's evil.
Go to the Mosaic 2000 website: http://www.gdbinc.com/
Go to Amazon and read reviews of a few of the books by Gavin de Becker (the author of Mosaic 2000). After you have done something as apparently non-essential as RESEARCH, then come back and criticize.
For those of you who are too busy to think before they post (and this especially targets some of the Anonymous Cowards who claim that they don't have the time to create an account or login), I'll provide an overview.
Mosaic 2000 isn't new. It is an adaptation/extension of Mosaic, described as an "artificial intuition system" which was developed in 1990 to help law enforcement officials make predictions of violence. And, as any "Silence of the Lambs" fanboy knows (fangirls, too), psychological profiling works. Disturbed personalities DO share common traits (enjoying the torture of animals is the most notorious example) which identify them as being prone to violence. We have enough sick fucks locked up in prisons that the FBI was long ago able to isolate which behavioral patterns and family histories are most likely to give birth to (clad in Matrix-noir black) clones of Norman Bates.
I know, but the slow, insidious erosion of our civil liberties disturbs you. It is right to be disturbed, but it is possible to be TOO alarmist, and I think that knee-jerk reactions won in this case. If I'm wrong, give me a good argument which persuades me. All flame-bait will be ignored.
You missed the point. The article indicates that MICROSOFT WEB LETTER is sponsored by Microsoft, not the "site," which is obvious from the quote below:
'According to Gartner's Australian vice-president of marketing, John Barrow, Gartner sold that research to Microsoft which it used for a "Webletter", which is sponsored by Microsoft but hosted on the Gartner site.'
This is not the same thing as funding the study which Gartner conducted. It would be accurate to say that Microsoft funded the study if they had commissioned the research, but what we can learn from the article is only that Microsoft paid for the research. It is nowhere stated, either implicitly or explictly, that Microsoft paid for the research beforehand, which is what funding in this context connotes.
Microsoft sponsors - supports the production of - Microsoft Web Letter, yes. I said as much in my previous message.
Note that I am not interested in arguing semantics. If you interpret the disputed terms differently, c'est la vie. You have presented no evidence which compells me to change my opinion.
As for being a "moron," while that is an interesting opinion, I feel that such insults are counter-productive. I don't need to attack those with whom I disagree, and I am puzzled by those apparently literate individuals, such as yourself, who find it necessary to engage in ad hominem attacks. Of course, you don't need to justify yourself to me, but it would be appreciated if you kept the dialogue at a higher level.
As for my signature file, I stand by my sentiment. The number of individuals who really need the blanket of anonymity is small. The rest are are either too lazy or too timid to create an account and login, and I find unattributed postings a bit like a non-fiction book with lots of quotes but no references. Besides, MOST anonymous postings seem, to me, to consist largely of noise. There are exceptions to every rule, obviously, so it would be redundant to modify my signature file to read "The postings of MOST Anonymous Cowards deserve no reply" when everyone should already know this.
Rick Moen should learn to read. It is useful when criticising or commenting on a subject to have some comprehension of it.
I quote from the small-type at the bottom of the Microsoft Web Letter in question:
'Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft.'
This is really quite easy to understand. For example, The Times is published by News International. News International also publish The Sunday Times, News of the World, and The Sun. That's not too heady a concept, is it? The content of most newspapers, newsletters and journals are partially or entirely created by outside contributors. There are many outside contributors to The Times (and indeed to/.), so it should come as no surprise that Microsoft Web Letter also uses outside contributors.
Why, then, the apparent puzzlement? I quote:
'So, we're to believe that:
-- Gartner Group wrote it all, despite what the small-type notice (quoted earlier) says in direct contradiction.'
When one has learned to read, there is no contradiction.
Another source of confusion seems to concern the idea of sponsorship. I quote from Gartner Group's rebuttal:
'According to Gartner's Australian vice-president of marketing, John Barrow, Gartner sold that research to Microsoft which it used for a "Webletter", which is sponsored by Microsoft but hosted on the Gartner site.'
This tells us that Microsoft Web Letter is sponsored by Microsoft (not an amazing revelation, considering that it is a Microsoft publication), and that the issue reporting the research results favorable to Microsoft was hosted on the Gartner site (again, not amazing considering that Gartner conducted the research, and also obvious from the URL).
Why the puzzlement? My final quote:
'So, we're to believe that:
-- Microsoft "sponsors" this "site", and paid unspecified fees to Gartner Group related to the content, but in no way did Microsoft fund the study.'
Fees are not mentioned anywhere, so if one chooses to believe that "unspecified fees" were involved, the evidence should first be presented. Failing that (the presentation of evidence), yes, one is to believe that in "no way" did Microsoft fund the study.
MZB made her first professional sale in 1953, so to claim that she was one of the "most compelling scifi/fantasy authors in recent years" is arguable on two points: first, much of her fiction prior to the more literary The Mists of Avalon was quite sloppily written; second, the longevity of her career succinctly defies the word "recent." However, before I am accused of "spitting on her memory" - as another gentleman premptively phrases it in a separate post - I will acknowledge that she was indeed a great inspiration to many young writers who sent her their work.
The main article says that her work "helped re-define female writing in the fantasy genre," which is not entirely correct. While MZB did have a talent for character development and storytelling, she was not a pioneer. That credit goes to Andre Norton, who blazed the trail that nearly all female SF authors have followed since, MZB included.
MZB was born in 1930, for any who wondered. While I was not a fan myself, I will definitely miss seeing the smiles radiate on the faces of her many admirers, now instead composed in grief at her death.
She was not a Wiccan, as was ofter surmised by those who read her Darkover sequence, but a Christian, so I wish her happiness in whatever world she now finds herself (or, as I am myself an athiest, perhaps I should more properly wish her the respite of complete oblivion). Blessed be and Amen.
What a bunch of wankers. The Finnish government passes a law which makes it easier to prosecute the miscreants who write and distribute malicious code, and you all whine about it. Laws exist to prevent the evil minority (murderers, rapists, thieves, arsonists, etc.) from harming the innocent majority. The next time some asshole vandalizes your car, how happy would you be if the judge let him go because jailing him would violate his civil liberties and deny him his freedom of expression?
Vandal: "I wasn't vandalizing his car, your Honor, I spray-painted it as an expression of my artistic individuality."
Judge: "Case dismissed."
Every human endeavor can be justified by someone. Yes, there might be some legitimate reason to write a program which formats the hard drives of complete strangers, but I'm sure the Unibomber felt justified, too. I know, it is very popular to bleat about any percieved limitation of human rights, but can't you resist the temptation once in a while and use your brain instead?
Remember that to the Iraqi government, one of their nationals who wrote a program which attacked all *.gov addresses would be a freedom fighter. To us, he would be a terrorist. No, I really don't care that someone sits in the privacy of their own home and write virii with incredibly destructive potential. I guess it is good intellectual exercise. However, if that virii gets distributed, intentionally or otherwise, then the author should face the consequences.
'But your Honor, I didn't mean for the super-toxin I formulated in my kitchen to escape into the outside world and poison millions of children. I designed it to kill rats in my cellar. Honest!"
"Case dismissed."
And do you know what? Even if the Finnish law does criminalize the mere writing of virii or trojan horses, I don't care, either. It is against the law to build bombs in your basement, as well. "But I need the intellectual exercise! My cerebral cortex was getting flabby!" Read a fucking book. The library is full of 'em.
Lastly, no one will KNOW that you are secretly concocting virii or trojan horses in your basement if you don't distribute them. If you are breaking the law and are such a dork that you are publicizing the offense, you deserve what happens to you. "But it is my RIGHT to distribute the fruits of my intellectual endeavors!" Or: "It is for educational purposes only!" Yeah, right. And the links to cracks on www.astalavista.box.sk aren't really intended to be used by anyone. How about putting a bowl of poisoned Snickers in a busy shopping mall. Put a big sign above it that says "DO NOT EAT - DEATH WILL RESULT IMMEDIATELY." Put it in multiple languages. I'm sure the judge will be lenient when you explain that it wasn't YOUR fault that anybody died. You were merely the distributor, and you DID put a disclaimer!
There was no "public" adoration, pseudo or otherwise. Kubrick and Spielberg kept their friendship a secret until the end. So whatever you've "heard" was from uninformed morons. Or possibly, and more likely, pulled out of your own ass.
You live in a very Utopian and strange world. Sometimes, I wish I lived there. Then I wake up.
All of life is about trading services and physical resources with other members of our species (and, arguably, with other species). We are acting not out of benevolence, but out of self-love. I will give you this-for-that, is the nature of any transaction. Some will claim altrustic exceptions. However, I even dispute these exceptions. I will give you 'Z' at no cost because it pleases _ME_(including the example from the famous story "The Man Who Was Nailed To A Tree"). If I spend my time and sweat creating 'Z' then I have the perfect right to restrict or dictate the use of 'Z' in any way that pleases me. I am not forcing you to use 'Z.' If you require the use of a product that performs the functions of 'Z' but cannot abide by my restrictions, then spend your own time and sweat. Create your own 'Z.'
You make so many interesting points that, despite my signature line, I feel compelled to respond.
"Have you been using a computer long enough to remember when Netscape 4 was better than IE3?"
Yes. I have been using a computer since the CBM "Personal Electronic Transactor" was still a neat idea. I've been around for the entire life of the home computer revolution, both as a consumer and as someone deeply involved in the business. As such, I feel qualified to address (and make an expansive digression on) one of your next comments:
"Now add on to this that the company holding that monopoly does not have a history of innovation..."
I used to hate Microsoft (long before it became fashionable). I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the opinion expressed above. However, I think my long-term experience has modifed (perhaps mollified) my perspective. Here is my take, for those who care to read it, on why I believe that Microsoft is _THE_ pivotal player in the whole PC revolution (and I am not equating PC with "IBM compatible" or Political Correctness).
I started out my PC adventure using CP/M. I used to "pip" my files from one location to another, and used "ED" as my text editor. Digital Research wrote CP/M, and, yes, DOS is a clone of CP/M that Microsoft didn't even program themselves, but bought off of another company. Strike one against Microsoft and innovation.
Incidentally, in this extended ramble I am not arguing for Microsoft's innovation (when they _DO_ innovate - or when they blatantly steal - I will mention it, only because "innovation" was the core point of the message from which I have responded and diverged).
However, Microsoft did remarkably improve their CP/M-clone acquisition, and continued improving it for many years. When that "improving" stopped and bloat began is a subject of argument that I really don't want to spend time on. It is useful to note that Microsoft found themselves in this position because Digital Research fucked up. DR had the opportunity to supply the OS for IBM, but they dropped the ball and MS scooped it up. No, that isn't innovation on MS's part, but it is an early demonstration of the shrewdness which has allowed MS to remain the dominant player.
I spent many frustrating years as a salesman fighting against the MS/Intel duopoly. Almost any computer system on the market gave you more bang for your buck that did that combination. A lowly C64 was a better buy for many years than an MS/Intel machine. Still, the computer illiterate in those days, and many of the literate, were seduced by the letters I-B-M that was attached to the MS/Intel machines (and this included the clones and compatibles). They scoffed at graphics and sound. They were buying a BUSINESS machine for SERIOUS uses, and only someone interested in buying a TOY would buy THAT (THAT being anything which was better than what they were buying but not as magic, in their minds, because it lacked the association with IBM).
Digital Research dropped the ball again when they succumbed to bullying by Apple. GEM was a better MacOS copy than was Windows, but MS, either through bluster or negotiation (often the same thing) soon won the day with Windows. By Windows 3.1 they had invented a new market. So they copied the look-and-feel portion of another OS, and they got all of the credit. Strike two against MS for innovation. Apple _did_ deserve it, as they had ripped off Xerox and then bullied DR for following their example.
However, as before, MS improved their knocked-off copy until it was far superior to what they had copied (I expect that the Macintosh faithful will howl here). AmigaDOS was better, as was even the Atari version of GEM, but the IBM lemmings guaranteed that those systems would be marginalzed.
You know the rest of the story (maybe you already knew the preceeding. I don't know. But I felt the rehash was necessary to make my wordy penultimate point). Microsoft and Intel win the which-platform-has-the-largest-installed-user-base war. They didn't win it because they were better. The genesis of their victory was in the IBM worshipping mentality of millions of early buyers. In those days, no one cared who wrote the OS - in fact, most didn't know what an OS was - as long as it ran IBM software. Initially, this was because users held the not entirely delusional belief that I-B-M was synonymous with SUPPORT, and later because it was easier to find IBM-compatible software in the stores as a result of the earlier massive buying of SUPPORT! chanting businesses and the lemmings who just KNEW that it had to be better if it was made by IBM. IBM was an incredibly powerful name in those days. This was before the debacle of the MCA bus had corroded their reputation.
Anyway, for the penultimate point and the cause of this lengthy digession (Part I): the conformity that MS and Intel accomplished was a GOOD thing! Before, with the splintered market, computer technology proceeded at a snail's pace. Programmers had to develop for marginal platforms. This is very much akin to the VHS, Betamax and (in the UK) Philips 2000 days. Beta _WAS_ a better system, but fewer of the machines could be found in stores (there were no compatibles. Remind anyone of Apple?), so fewer titles were sold, and sales were hugely diminished. An inferior product wins. Just like Microsoft and Intel (Motorola had always produced a superior microprocessor).
Part II: So, Microsoft continued updating its products and OS to stay ahead of the competition (particularly their products. WordPerfect used to occupy the throne currently occupied by Word. Before WordPerfect, it was occupied by WordStar. Ditto Excel and Lotus and VisiCalc). It did NOT update products because it wanted to waste the money. I'm sure that MS would have been perfectly content to sell you the same product forever, never spending another dime on development costs. But competition drove the products forward. When products get bigger, they almost invariably get bloated. A (perhaps) nearly irrelevant aside: Think of StarOffice. What a bloated piece of shit. I hope Sun fixes it before they start hawking it as a viable aternative to MS-Office. No, wait, they don't have to - they can just hawk it as a non-MS alternative, and a certain large (and growing larger) market segment will come running.
Part III: Fatter products and OS's pushed forward hardware development. Accelerated it, in fact. Hand in hand Microsoft and Intel (and other conspirators) pushed the PC platform into the 600Mhz 13GB HD state that it is today. And I like it that way. If you don't want it or need it, there are plenty of 386's that you can buy at the Salvation Army or the Good Will or auctions, cheap, and Linux in console mode will run brilliantly. I, for one, am glad that it happened. A homogenized market is required for that type of development cycle, folks. And MS was/is the great homogenizer. "Oh, no!" some of you will gasp. "He is encouraging bloat to push the development of faster hardware!" No, I'm not. Bloat is never desirable. However, I maintain that it is often the BY-PRODUCT of rapid development, and that it produced some very desirable side-effects. I am grateful for my 380MZ PC with 64MB of RAM and 16MB Riva TNT video card. Do you think they would have come into existance without the market-collusion of MS and Intel? And, as the market matures (as it is in the process of doing now), alternative (better) OS's emerge which are leaner and use that fantastic hardware to maximum advantage. Then the cycle possibly repeats itself. We are only now nearing the end of the first cycle, so time will tell how it finishes. I mean, MS is very shrewd. It is relatively unlikely, but still possible, that MS will pull a rabbit out of its hat and surpise us all. It might be the victor in two cycles, this and the next.
As for MS innovation, I think that we owe the major improvments in browser technology to MS. CSS and XML were implemented by MS long before Netscape had thought about them. CSS in Navigator is shit. Now, I know that MS did not have pure motives. I don't care. But MS introduced CSS support (limited) in IE 3, and changed the entire picture. CSS support got better in IE 4 and 5, and now Opera and Mozilla are re-drawing the picture again. If (for their own greedy reasons, namely to wipe Netscape off the map) MS had not championed CSS, it is very doubtful that CSS and XML would be so integral to Mozilla. Score on for Microsoft innovation. Further, Mozilla would not exist if MS had not clobbered Netscape in the browser market.
Regarding MS's predatory tactics: all is fair in business, folks. We live in a free market economy. The company with the biggest stick and the most money wins, like it or not. We gave MS that stick by giving them our money.
Anyway, that closes this opus. I hope I see some thoughtful responses.
Interesting that you didn't respond to a single one of my points, but did take the time to indulge in a subtle (or not so subtle) slam: "linux is easier to use than most unixes and you simply dont have either the knowledge or capability to use it (unix)."
I assure you that I have both the knowledge and the capability. But ad hominem attack is easier than a thoughtful reply, which is why you used it. Much better would have been a reponse along the lines of:
"X should have font-rendering in version 4, so there is one of your quibbles taken care of," or something else that would have been germane and constructive.
How typical of the Linux community to prance around chortling whenever MS screws up. Believe it or not, those in the Microsoft community (which is about 95% of the PC using world) don't have similar orgasms when they read that Netscape now only holds about 25% of the browser market. WHO wins is totally irrelevant. I'm sure that I'll use Navigator 5 when it comes out, and I could care less who wrote it or for what motive. As it will probably be the best browser available when it is released, I'll use it. When IE 6 comes out, if it is better, I'll swap again. Let's not be children. Years ago, those with C64's feuded with those who owned Atari 8-bits. Later, Amiga owners feuded with Atari ST owners. People who own Chevy's get in heated arguments with Ford owners. Pepsi drinkers quarrel with Coke drinkers. And think of all of the childish Mac bashing games that have existed over the years. Who gives a shit, people? Use whatever OS floats your boat. If your simple WP'ing needs are met on a C64 with a 9-pin dot matrix printer, use it. Let's stop this fanboy stupidty and stop the propagandizing. If we are going to act like this is a competitive sports event, then let's put the Linux penguin in a cheerleaders skirt and call it the macho-posturing-testosterone-driven-bullshit-boys- with their toys farce that it really is. If it is really about OS's, then let's keep the conversation on that level and stop the infantile bashing.
For the record, I don't use Linux because it isn't ready to meet my needs. The font-rendering in X is shit, and the installation/removal of software is still mired in RPM/tarball feuds. When browsing the web is as enjoyable in KDE or Gnome as it is under Win32, and when I don't have to spend half a day searching for the components and RPM's on Rufus, etc., I'll gladly switch. It is faster, cleaner, and cheaper. But it still isn't a consumer product. And no, I'm far from a computer newbie. I like fiddling with my OS. Utilities and tweaks float MY boat. Still, I don't want to deal with any of that shit when I've come home from work after a long day and want to install some new toy that I've downloaded off the 'net. Maybe I read about it on Freshmeat. I go to the respective website, and it is there, but the author is of the opinion that RPM's or similar are for "lamers," so he doesn't distribute the program in a convenient form. Or is is uncompiled. Fuck that shit. I've been at work twelve hours, my dinner is cold, and I haven't had my first beer. I certainly don't care about software boffin Linux-Purist's politics. So what do I do? I re-boot into Windows and download a program for that much-reviled OS and install it with a mouse-click while I drink my beer.
I have never read such incoherent gibberish in my life. Every sentence is tortured beyond measure.
Here is his first sentence:
"This paper was necessitated by an overwhelming desire; an attempt to end the apparent disparity in the dissemination of information absent of the logical and thoroughness in rendering an explanation of the IP Addressing Scheme."
I _think_ that this is a rough translation:
"I wrote this paper because I found all existing descriptions of the IP Addressing Scheme to be inadequate."
I suggest that either Mr. Terrell has ensnared us in some rather bizzare joke, or that English is not a language he has ever learned.
I honestly don't know whether to vote for the former or the latter.
Some people need to learn to read. M$ does not say that "hidden remote control software is malicious." In fact, M$ states, and cDC quotes: "Remote control software is not malicious in and of itself." M$ criticizes BO2K because, they maintain, "it is intended to be used for malicious purposes."
You know and I know that of the 128,776 boasted downloads of BO2K (from cDc's servers alone), very few were for benign purposes. Most of the downloads, protestations aside, were by pimpled teenage boys who thought it would be "kewl" to remotely fuck with the hardware of innocent users. In some misguided way it made them "l33t" and one of the "hackerz." I know, that's not why YOU downloaded it, of course (and you don't subscribe to Playboy to look at the pictures, either).
Who you work for is irrelevant. Whether you bite the hand of your employer or lick it does not change the fact you offhandedly decided I must be lying because I described "a different picture than I've ever seen."
Wow. I saw something that WebTV employee "Anonymous Coward" hadn't seen before. It would be a pretty small world if that weren't true. Your arrogance is amazing.
As for making it into the "real world," only when (or if) you know something about me you will be qualified to make that judgement.
It isn't important to me that you believe my statements. In fact, your opinion is rather moot, considering that it comes from someone whose only attribution is "Anonymous Coward." However, I have no vested interest in lying; I'm not a MS crony, I am a self-professed Linux newbie who wished to contribute some balance to a dialogue based on his own observations. I stopped playing the "Did not!" "Did to!" game a long time ago, and I have no desire to resume it now. Should you wish to discuss the content of my message rather than act the mindless repudiator, I am willing. Otherwise, I will consider this subject closed, at least until you offer a more substantive comment than merely "I don't believe you."
I suggest that Anonymous Coward has not spent much time on IRC as a Linux newbie. After installing Redhat 5.2 recently, I decided to visit the #linux channels on dalnet and undernet, looking for advice. One of the newbie questions I asked was about dial-up connectivity, and, boy, what a sh*t-fest erupted when it was discovered I was using mIRC, and on Win98, no less.
The hate-mail Mindcraft posted was tame by comparison.
When I later connected using KSirc and KVIRC, I was called all sorts of obscenities for choosing KDE over Gnome. When I politely asked whether X font-rendering would be improved, I was kick/banned. And this was not an isolated incident: I'm a patient sort, so I hung in there for several days before finally being pointed to Slashdot. The ranting illiterates may be the minority, but they are sufficiently vocal to alienate many from the Linux community.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you seem to think that everyone who utilizes mp3s are pirates, thieves and whatnot.
We are talking about Napster here, not mp3.com. Nearly everyone who is using Napster _is_ a pirate, a thief, or whatnot.
And if you like the music of Jeff Mills, but it from CDnow or some other on-line music seller. It doesn't make any difference that his CD's can't be found where you live. the Internet makes the whole world local.
I a m a Napster user. Yes, that makes everything that I say in the next few paragraphs hypocritical. However, you know and the RIAA knows that Napster exists solely for the distribution of pirated music. If Napster could legitimately claim that they had not engineered their product to promote theft - and they can't, despite any disingenuous claims to the contrary - then maybe the defenders of Napster would have a point.
Let's suppose that I distribute a product called "Wickster." Wickster is a remote-control device that allows me to stroll by the homes of strangers, point the device at the house, and BLAM! all of the electronics in the house are rendered useless. I distribute 50,000 of them. Out of that 50,000, 49,800 are used by miscreants to nuke the televisions, computers, and stereos of anonymous strangers. The remaining 200 users use the device to test their own equipment for EMP susceptibility.
Oh, I did include a cheesey disclaimer to protect myself.
Cassette tapes are used by millions of people to back-up their own music collections. Guns are oned by millions to defend themselves and for target practice. Napster has no dual-purpose. Of the tens of thousands of MP3's distributed via Napster, HOW MANY DO YOU THINK WERE AUTHORIZED FOR DISTRIBUTION BY THEIR COPYRIGHT OWNERS?
Think about it.
Now, I applaud Napster. I hate the RIAA. I know and you know that the pimpled teen with 18GB of MP3's hasn't cost the artists a penny, because he couldn't have afforded all of the CD's they MP3's were copied from, anyway, on his McBurger wages. As many copies of Brittney Spears' latest drek exist to pollute our store shelves as existed before. Or she just might have sold a few more copies because he wondered whether her tits looked good on the cover of the CD after hearing her yodelling on the MP3.
Theft is theft. Legally, downloading MP3's that you don't own is theft (and, in some parts of the world, you have no right to make archival copies. I don't think the absolute right to an archival copy exists in the UK). When that law is changed (probably never), Napster will have legal legs. Until then, their case is rather defenseless.
Who gives a shit? Do you really know any 14 years who are such dorks that a non-enforceable clause in a EULA would stop them from downloading anything? I mean, it certainly doesn't stop them from downloading mp3's, or NES ROM's, or porn, or warez, or super-strength versions of PGP (disregarding nationality), so why should we care about a stupid clause included by Corel's clueless legal department? Le's get up in arms about things that actually impact our lives.
I know, now that I have broached the subject, a few dorks will identify themselves and try to make an issue out of this dead horse. Others will mis-read my words and accuse me of encouraging the deliquency of minors.
Bruce Perens, any respect that I might have had for you has been destroyed utterly.
Everyone in my experience would agree that tying an old lady to a fence and beating her to death is a "bad thing." However, sadly, there is a large minority which don't feel the same way when the victim is homosexual. Yes, the victim is dead in both cases, so the loss to the families is the same, but the loss to society is greater in the latter case. When an entire segment of society is afraid to go out at night because of a few testosterone-driven inadequates, we all suffer. To tolerate hate crimes (and we are tolerating them when we don't reserve special punishment for the perpetrators) is to tolerate pogroms and genocide.
As much as I hate to admit it, having re-thought my position in light of your comments, I absolutely agree with you. As I wouldn't want to be subject to punishment, surveilance or treatment based on what I _might_ do, I have changed my mind and thrown in with your camp.
Suddenly, I'm feeling strangely humble.
There is a big difference between the two scenarios YOU paint - but I wasn't painting a scenario at all.
Psychological profiling with Mosaic 2000 does not look to the "guilt" or "innocence" of anyone. It compares the reponses of myriad known offenders with the responses of suspected pre-offenders (the scariest bit of the analysis, IMHO) and looks for correlations.
When I was in the Air Force, we had a gentleman who would become violently angry at the slightest upset, and would frequently swear that he would make the Air Force "pay" (and we are not talking in the monetary sense) for his imagined grievances. In my presence he promised that his revenge would make the McDonald's massacre (anyone else remember that mad gunman during the Las Angeles Olympics?) look like a picnic. Now, this was a sick man (the LA gunman and my Air Force acquaintance). In my estimation, he needed observation. I believe that he was put out of the Air Force soon after. No, I don't know what happened to him later, but I wish that I did. It wouldn't have been unreasonable, again IMHO, to have committed this individual (perhaps permanently) to psychiatric care.
Of course, most cases of derangemant are not that obvious. But many are more obvious than it is popular to think ("I never would have suspected" is a more likely headline than "Yeah, we knew they were psycho shit-for-brains, but what could we do?" says High School Superintendant.), and any tools that help identify the not-so-obvious cases should be welcomed.
When we involve Jodie Foster/Clarice Starling and the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (in Quantico, Virginia) everyone says "cool" (or "kewl"). Psychological profiling is okay if we can say "Hannibal Lecter" in the same breath. However, when someone tries to apply this technology to denizens of the geek world (read: the heavily stereotyped Quake fanatics/Linux zealots/potential-actual
Go to the Mosaic 2000 website:
http://www.gdbinc.com/
Go to Amazon and read reviews of a few of the books by Gavin de Becker (the author of Mosaic 2000). After you have done something as apparently non-essential as RESEARCH, then come back and criticize.
For those of you who are too busy to think before they post (and this especially targets some of the Anonymous Cowards who claim that they don't have the time to create an account or login), I'll provide an overview.
Mosaic 2000 isn't new. It is an adaptation/extension of Mosaic, described as an "artificial intuition system" which was developed in 1990 to help law enforcement officials make predictions of violence. And, as any "Silence of the Lambs" fanboy knows (fangirls, too), psychological profiling works. Disturbed personalities DO share common traits (enjoying the torture of animals is the most notorious example) which identify them as being prone to violence. We have enough sick fucks locked up in prisons that the FBI was long ago able to isolate which behavioral patterns and family histories are most likely to give birth to (clad in Matrix-noir black) clones of Norman Bates.
I know, but the slow, insidious erosion of our civil liberties disturbs you. It is right to be disturbed, but it is possible to be TOO alarmist, and I think that knee-jerk reactions won in this case. If I'm wrong, give me a good argument which persuades me. All flame-bait will be ignored.
You missed the point. The article indicates that MICROSOFT WEB LETTER is sponsored by Microsoft, not the "site," which is obvious from the quote below:
'According to Gartner's Australian vice-president
of marketing, John Barrow, Gartner sold that
research to Microsoft which it used for a
"Webletter", which is sponsored by Microsoft but
hosted on the Gartner site.'
This is not the same thing as funding the study which Gartner conducted. It would be accurate to say that Microsoft funded the study if they had commissioned the research, but what we can learn from the article is only that Microsoft paid for the research. It is nowhere stated, either implicitly or explictly, that Microsoft paid for the research beforehand, which is what funding in this context connotes.
Microsoft sponsors - supports the production of - Microsoft Web Letter, yes. I said as much in my previous message.
Note that I am not interested in arguing semantics. If you interpret the disputed terms differently, c'est la vie. You have presented no evidence which compells me to change my opinion.
As for being a "moron," while that is an interesting opinion, I feel that such insults are counter-productive. I don't need to attack those with whom I disagree, and I am puzzled by those apparently literate individuals, such as yourself, who find it necessary to engage in ad hominem attacks. Of course, you don't need to justify yourself to me, but it would be appreciated if you kept the dialogue at a higher level.
As for my signature file, I stand by my sentiment. The number of individuals who really need the blanket of anonymity is small. The rest are are either too lazy or too timid to create an account and login, and I find unattributed postings a bit like a non-fiction book with lots of quotes but no references. Besides, MOST anonymous postings seem, to me, to consist largely of noise. There are exceptions to every rule, obviously, so it would be redundant to modify my signature file to read "The postings of MOST Anonymous Cowards deserve no reply" when everyone should already know this.
I quote from the small-type at the bottom of the Microsoft Web Letter in question:
'Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft.'
This is really quite easy to understand. For example, The Times is published by News International. News International also publish The Sunday Times, News of the World, and The Sun. That's not too heady a concept, is it? The content of most newspapers, newsletters and journals are partially or entirely created by outside contributors. There are many outside contributors to The Times (and indeed to
Why, then, the apparent puzzlement? I quote:
'So, we're to believe that:
-- Gartner Group wrote it all, despite what the small-type notice
(quoted earlier) says in direct contradiction.'
When one has learned to read, there is no contradiction.
Another source of confusion seems to concern the idea of sponsorship. I quote from Gartner Group's rebuttal:
'According to Gartner's Australian vice-president
of marketing, John Barrow, Gartner sold that
research to Microsoft which it used for a
"Webletter", which is sponsored by Microsoft but
hosted on the Gartner site.'
This tells us that Microsoft Web Letter is sponsored by Microsoft (not an amazing revelation, considering that it is a Microsoft publication), and that the issue reporting the research results favorable to Microsoft was hosted on the Gartner site (again, not amazing considering that Gartner conducted the research, and also obvious from the URL).
Why the puzzlement? My final quote:
'So, we're to believe that:
-- Microsoft "sponsors" this "site", and paid unspecified fees to
Gartner Group related to the content, but in no way did Microsoft
fund the study.'
Fees are not mentioned anywhere, so if one chooses to believe that "unspecified fees" were involved, the evidence should first be presented. Failing that (the presentation of evidence), yes, one is to believe that in "no way" did Microsoft fund the study.
The main article says that her work "helped re-define female writing in the fantasy genre," which is not entirely correct. While MZB did have a talent for character development and storytelling, she was not a pioneer. That credit goes to Andre Norton, who blazed the trail that nearly all female SF authors have followed since, MZB included.
MZB was born in 1930, for any who wondered. While I was not a fan myself, I will definitely miss seeing the smiles radiate on the faces of her many admirers, now instead composed in grief at her death.
She was not a Wiccan, as was ofter surmised by those who read her Darkover sequence, but a Christian, so I wish her happiness in whatever world she now finds herself (or, as I am myself an athiest, perhaps I should more properly wish her the respite of complete oblivion). Blessed be and Amen.
Vandal: "I wasn't vandalizing his car, your Honor, I spray-painted it as an expression of my artistic individuality."
Judge: "Case dismissed."
Every human endeavor can be justified by someone. Yes, there might be some legitimate reason to write a program which formats the hard drives of complete strangers, but I'm sure the Unibomber felt justified, too. I know, it is very popular to bleat about any percieved limitation of human rights, but can't you resist the temptation once in a while and use your brain instead?
Remember that to the Iraqi government, one of their nationals who wrote a program which attacked all *.gov addresses would be a freedom fighter. To us, he would be a terrorist. No, I really don't care that someone sits in the privacy of their own home and write virii with incredibly destructive potential. I guess it is good intellectual exercise. However, if that virii gets distributed, intentionally or otherwise, then the author should face the consequences.
'But your Honor, I didn't mean for the super-toxin I formulated in my kitchen to escape into the outside world and poison millions of children. I designed it to kill rats in my cellar. Honest!"
"Case dismissed."
And do you know what? Even if the Finnish law does criminalize the mere writing of virii or trojan horses, I don't care, either. It is against the law to build bombs in your basement, as well. "But I need the intellectual exercise! My cerebral cortex was getting flabby!" Read a fucking book. The library is full of 'em.
Lastly, no one will KNOW that you are secretly concocting virii or trojan horses in your basement if you don't distribute them. If you are breaking the law and are such a dork that you are publicizing the offense, you deserve what happens to you. "But it is my RIGHT to distribute the fruits of my intellectual endeavors!" Or: "It is for educational purposes only!" Yeah, right. And the links to cracks on www.astalavista.box.sk aren't really intended to be used by anyone. How about putting a bowl of poisoned Snickers in a busy shopping mall. Put a big sign above it that says "DO NOT EAT - DEATH WILL RESULT IMMEDIATELY." Put it in multiple languages. I'm sure the judge will be lenient when you explain that it wasn't YOUR fault that anybody died. You were merely the distributor, and you DID put a disclaimer!
Jaws? Yawn. IMHO, so boring that I could have watched it while scuba diving (okay, so the logistics would have been difficult, but you get my point).
And lets' not forget that he was responsible for that abomination "*batteries not included."
All of life is about trading services and physical resources with other members of our species (and, arguably, with other species). We are acting not out of benevolence, but out of self-love. I will give you this-for-that, is the nature of any transaction. Some will claim altrustic exceptions. However, I even dispute these exceptions. I will give you 'Z' at no cost because it pleases _ME_(including the example from the famous story "The Man Who Was Nailed To A Tree"). If I spend my time and sweat creating 'Z' then I have the perfect right to restrict or dictate the use of 'Z' in any way that pleases me. I am not forcing you to use 'Z.' If you require the use of a product that performs the functions of 'Z' but cannot abide by my restrictions, then spend your own time and sweat. Create your own 'Z.'
"Have you been using a computer long enough to remember when Netscape 4 was better than IE3?"
Yes. I have been using a computer since the CBM "Personal Electronic Transactor" was still a neat idea. I've been around for the entire life of the home computer revolution, both as a consumer and as someone deeply involved in the business. As such, I feel qualified to address (and make an expansive digression on) one of your next comments:
"Now add on to this that the company holding that monopoly does not have a history of innovation..."
I used to hate Microsoft (long before it became fashionable). I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the opinion expressed above. However, I think my long-term experience has modifed (perhaps mollified) my perspective. Here is my take, for those who care to read it, on why I believe that Microsoft is _THE_ pivotal player in the whole PC revolution (and I am not equating PC with "IBM compatible" or Political Correctness).
I started out my PC adventure using CP/M. I used to "pip" my files from one location to another, and used "ED" as my text editor. Digital Research wrote CP/M, and, yes, DOS is a clone of CP/M that Microsoft didn't even program themselves, but bought off of another company. Strike one against Microsoft and innovation.
Incidentally, in this extended ramble I am not arguing for Microsoft's innovation (when they _DO_ innovate - or when they blatantly steal - I will mention it, only because "innovation" was the core point of the message from which I have responded and diverged).
However, Microsoft did remarkably improve their CP/M-clone acquisition, and continued improving it for many years. When that "improving" stopped and bloat began is a subject of argument that I really don't want to spend time on. It is useful to note that Microsoft found themselves in this position because Digital Research fucked up. DR had the opportunity to supply the OS for IBM, but they dropped the ball and MS scooped it up. No, that isn't innovation on MS's part, but it is an early demonstration of the shrewdness which has allowed MS to remain the dominant player.
I spent many frustrating years as a salesman fighting against the MS/Intel duopoly. Almost any computer system on the market gave you more bang for your buck that did that combination. A lowly C64 was a better buy for many years than an MS/Intel machine. Still, the computer illiterate in those days, and many of the literate, were seduced by the letters I-B-M that was attached to the MS/Intel machines (and this included the clones and compatibles). They scoffed at graphics and sound. They were buying a BUSINESS machine for SERIOUS uses, and only someone interested in buying a TOY would buy THAT (THAT being anything which was better than what they were buying but not as magic, in their minds, because it lacked the association with IBM).
Digital Research dropped the ball again when they succumbed to bullying by Apple. GEM was a better MacOS copy than was Windows, but MS, either through bluster or negotiation (often the same thing) soon won the day with Windows. By Windows 3.1 they had invented a new market. So they copied the look-and-feel portion of another OS, and they got all of the credit. Strike two against MS for innovation. Apple _did_ deserve it, as they had ripped off Xerox and then bullied DR for following their example.
However, as before, MS improved their knocked-off copy until it was far superior to what they had copied (I expect that the Macintosh faithful will howl here). AmigaDOS was better, as was even the Atari version of GEM, but the IBM lemmings guaranteed that those systems would be marginalzed.
You know the rest of the story (maybe you already knew the preceeding. I don't know. But I felt the rehash was necessary to make my wordy penultimate point). Microsoft and Intel win the which-platform-has-the-largest-installed-user-bas
Anyway, for the penultimate point and the cause of this lengthy digession (Part I): the conformity that MS and Intel accomplished was a GOOD thing! Before, with the splintered market, computer technology proceeded at a snail's pace. Programmers had to develop for marginal platforms. This is very much akin to the VHS, Betamax and (in the UK) Philips 2000 days. Beta _WAS_ a better system, but fewer of the machines could be found in stores (there were no compatibles. Remind anyone of Apple?), so fewer titles were sold, and sales were hugely diminished. An inferior product wins. Just like Microsoft and Intel (Motorola had always produced a superior microprocessor).
Part II: So, Microsoft continued updating its products and OS to stay ahead of the competition (particularly their products. WordPerfect used to occupy the throne currently occupied by Word. Before WordPerfect, it was occupied by WordStar. Ditto Excel and Lotus and VisiCalc). It did NOT update products because it wanted to waste the money. I'm sure that MS would have been perfectly content to sell you the same product forever, never spending another dime on development costs. But competition drove the products forward. When products get bigger, they almost invariably get bloated. A (perhaps) nearly irrelevant aside: Think of StarOffice. What a bloated piece of shit. I hope Sun fixes it before they start hawking it as a viable aternative to MS-Office. No, wait, they don't have to - they can just hawk it as a non-MS alternative, and a certain large (and growing larger) market segment will come running.
Part III: Fatter products and OS's pushed forward hardware development. Accelerated it, in fact. Hand in hand Microsoft and Intel (and other conspirators) pushed the PC platform into the 600Mhz 13GB HD state that it is today. And I like it that way. If you don't want it or need it, there are plenty of 386's that you can buy at the Salvation Army or the Good Will or auctions, cheap, and Linux in console mode will run brilliantly. I, for one, am glad that it happened. A homogenized market is required for that type of development cycle, folks. And MS was/is the great homogenizer. "Oh, no!" some of you will gasp. "He is encouraging bloat to push the development of faster hardware!" No, I'm not. Bloat is never desirable. However, I maintain that it is often the BY-PRODUCT of rapid development, and that it produced some very desirable side-effects. I am grateful for my 380MZ PC with 64MB of RAM and 16MB Riva TNT video card. Do you think they would have come into existance without the market-collusion of MS and Intel? And, as the market matures (as it is in the process of doing now), alternative (better) OS's emerge which are leaner and use that fantastic hardware to maximum advantage. Then the cycle possibly repeats itself. We are only now nearing the end of the first cycle, so time will tell how it finishes. I mean, MS is very shrewd. It is relatively unlikely, but still possible, that MS will pull a rabbit out of its hat and surpise us all. It might be the victor in two cycles, this and the next.
As for MS innovation, I think that we owe the major improvments in browser technology to MS. CSS and XML were implemented by MS long before Netscape had thought about them. CSS in Navigator is shit. Now, I know that MS did not have pure motives. I don't care. But MS introduced CSS support (limited) in IE 3, and changed the entire picture. CSS support got better in IE 4 and 5, and now Opera and Mozilla are re-drawing the picture again. If (for their own greedy reasons, namely to wipe Netscape off the map) MS had not championed CSS, it is very doubtful that CSS and XML would be so integral to Mozilla. Score on for Microsoft innovation. Further, Mozilla would not exist if MS had not clobbered Netscape in the browser market.
Regarding MS's predatory tactics: all is fair in business, folks. We live in a free market economy. The company with the biggest stick and the most money wins, like it or not. We gave MS that stick by giving them our money.
Anyway, that closes this opus. I hope I see some thoughtful responses.
I assure you that I have both the knowledge and the capability. But ad hominem attack is easier than a thoughtful reply, which is why you used it. Much better would have been a reponse along the lines of:
"X should have font-rendering in version 4, so there is one of your quibbles taken care of," or something else that would have been germane and constructive.
For the record, I don't use Linux because it isn't ready to meet my needs. The font-rendering in X is shit, and the installation/removal of software is still mired in RPM/tarball feuds. When browsing the web is as enjoyable in KDE or Gnome as it is under Win32, and when I don't have to spend half a day searching for the components and RPM's on Rufus, etc., I'll gladly switch. It is faster, cleaner, and cheaper. But it still isn't a consumer product. And no, I'm far from a computer newbie. I like fiddling with my OS. Utilities and tweaks float MY boat. Still, I don't want to deal with any of that shit when I've come home from work after a long day and want to install some new toy that I've downloaded off the 'net. Maybe I read about it on Freshmeat. I go to the respective website, and it is there, but the author is of the opinion that RPM's or similar are for "lamers," so he doesn't distribute the program in a convenient form. Or is is uncompiled. Fuck that shit. I've been at work twelve hours, my dinner is cold, and I haven't had my first beer. I certainly don't care about software boffin Linux-Purist's politics. So what do I do? I re-boot into Windows and download a program for that much-reviled OS and install it with a mouse-click while I drink my beer.
'Nuff said.
Here is his first sentence:
"This paper was necessitated by an overwhelming desire; an attempt to end the apparent disparity in the dissemination of information absent of the logical and thoroughness in rendering an explanation of the IP Addressing Scheme."
I _think_ that this is a rough translation:
"I wrote this paper because I found all existing descriptions of the IP Addressing Scheme to be inadequate."
I suggest that either Mr. Terrell has ensnared us in some rather bizzare joke, or that English is not a language he has ever learned.
I honestly don't know whether to vote for the former or the latter.
You know and I know that of the 128,776 boasted downloads of BO2K (from cDc's servers alone), very few were for benign purposes. Most of the downloads, protestations aside, were by pimpled teenage boys who thought it would be "kewl" to remotely fuck with the hardware of innocent users. In some misguided way it made them "l33t" and one of the "hackerz." I know, that's not why YOU downloaded it, of course (and you don't subscribe to Playboy to look at the pictures, either).
Wow. I saw something that WebTV employee "Anonymous Coward" hadn't seen before. It would be a pretty small world if that weren't true. Your arrogance is amazing.
As for making it into the "real world," only when (or if) you know something about me you will be qualified to make that judgement.
I stopped playing the "Did not!" "Did to!" game a long time ago, and I have no desire to resume it now. Should you wish to discuss the content of my message rather than act the mindless repudiator, I am willing. Otherwise, I will consider this subject closed, at least until you offer a more substantive comment than merely "I don't believe you."
The hate-mail Mindcraft posted was tame by comparison.
When I later connected using KSirc and KVIRC, I was called all sorts of obscenities for choosing KDE over Gnome. When I politely asked whether X font-rendering would be improved, I was kick/banned. And this was not an isolated incident: I'm a patient sort, so I hung in there for several days before finally being pointed to Slashdot. The ranting illiterates may be the minority, but they are sufficiently vocal to alienate many from the Linux community.