Can't patent a plot device, so that's right out, there is no "protection device" on the Asimov novels to be circumvented, so you are really thinking more about copyright than DMCA, but of course, copyright does not prevent the borrowing of ideas, only exact words.
You may want to re-examine whether the copyright issues that exist in software translate so specifically to published books, which are, of course, always open source (at least in dead-tree format).
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore... in the old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long. Seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will only be about a mile and three-quarters long.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such a wholesome return of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
-- Mark Twain
^^^ Just about says it all about this bit of reasoning, don't you think?
It is great to have you back on slashdot. Unfortunately, since you have been away, your account has been locked. If you would please reply to this post with your username and password, I would be happy to fix your account for you.
This has got to be a troll, but i'll (briefly) reply.
Your line of reasoning seems to be to compare intellectual property with normal physical property, where in a socialist society, physical property is often nationalized, versus in a capitalistic society, where property belongs to its owner in perpetuity (except in certain situations, such as the right of eminent domain, but I digress...).
The reasoning is wrong because intellectual property is _not_ analogous to physical property in several very important ways:
1) Intellectual property is non-rivalrous. That is, unlike the car in your driveway, if you share a song, or the text of a book, or any intellectual property, you do not lose your ability to use it.
2) All creativity somewhat depends on the creativity of others who have come before. Are your ideas truly ever yours alone?
It is because of these two reasons (and others, i'm being very brief) that the framers of the constitution believed that the rights to intellectual property should not be in perpetuity.
There are certainly many other cases where the greater good of society as a whole is deemed to outway the "rights" of an individual to do whatever they please, hell, that is the basis of all laws really. In the case of copyright, the benefit to society of a striking a balance between creating a financial incentive for creators to produce new works, and making it possible for others to continue the "progress of the arts and sciences" is many times greater than the benefit produced by treating IP as other property, and allowing creators of works to forever control any derivative work (and everything, everything is derivative of something.) It has nothing to do with socialism.
I think the key part of that statement is "a secret which cannot be readily changed". Of course, changing a key pair can be a hassle if many people have and use your old key, but it is certainly far easier than if your entire cryptosystem has to be redesigned from the ground up.
The idea is that the number and size of the secrets you have to maintain should be as small as possible, and they should be as easy as possible to change. A key in crypto meets that requirement much better than a whole proprietary operating system, if the security of the OS is dependent upon keeping the code a secret. (I realize i'm mixing metaphors here, but you get the idea.)
I don't think this is a free speech issue, it's more of an issue about lawyers and businesses not groking the nature of the web. The whole point of hypertext is to provide linking capabilities between documents. (After all, there are certainly more attractive formats for marking up information. The web is what it is because it's so easy to "browse" from one place to another.) If you don't want people linking, it would make far more sense to implement some kind of technological solution (a la url rewrites, or HTTP basic auth, etc) than to add a bunch of silly legalese to your privacy policy which noone ever reads anyway.
It seems kind of like if Wal-mart put a large neon-painted trash can in the middle of the parking parking lot, and then in small print on the side of the can, wrote "Please do not use this trash can". Legally, they have the right to do that I suppose, but trying to sue everyone who uses it anyway is pretty dumb, considering they could just move the trash can (i.e the technical solution).
Perhaps it should become public when it may no longer be easily connected to me. That is, while the trash is sitting next to my house, then it is considered as protected from unreasonable search and seizure. Once the trash guys haul it away, then it's public. This solution would seem to provide a logical transition that provides for my privacy as well as legal sanity.
PHP is not a be-all language, and it'd turn ugly quickly if they tried to force it to be one.
I don't think the PHP developers have any real intention to try and force it to be. However, besides using PHP for scripting web site db-driven apps, i've also found PHP (compiled as a cgi app) to be useful for writing scripts to be run by cron that need to easily tie in to the same database that runs the web site. I probably wouldn't try to write GTK apps in PHP, but building scripts that are not web-driven (but that interact with a web-driven system) in PHP (instead of say perl) has been handy, they can tie into your existing libraries and code.
I can't really weigh in on the whole Java vs. Perl vs. PHP vs Python vs ASP vs... debate, because I haven't done enough development in most of those languages, but I don't understand people who dismiss PHP off hand as being "only for rinky-dink personal websites".
PHP isn't perfect, but it is fast, stable, feature-rich, and easy to develop web apps in. It certainly has its place in the toolbox, IMNSHO. The biggest thing lacking right now is good OO support. Right now it's clunky and sloooow. Zend 2.0 (when it's ready) should make great strides forward.
Re:Standing on the shoulders of Giants
on
Who Owns Science?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
In computer science, we stand on each other's toes.
Distribution Models and the 'net
on
Who Owns Science?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"It sounds very sympathetic to say this should be available to the public," he said. "But this kind of material is only used by experts."
I have to disagree with this viewpoint. Just because the majority of people who want to get to this information are "experts" doesn't mean you shouldn't make it available to everyone. There are plenty of people (I am one of them) who have an interest in various scientific fields and like to read papers and yet who aren't studying for their PHDs. When are they going to start one of these journals for physics! (I guess there is Arxiv.)
Some people have said that lots of scientific work is copyrighted/patented, but that doesn't prevent free distribution. The whole _point_ of the patent process is to give the patentee a guaranteed limited monopoly so that they _will_ immediately publish their works, instead of hording them as secrets. Free distribution doesn't mean noone can make any money.
Really, this seems like the trend that is happening in many areas where distribution has hitherto been controlled by a small group of publishers, due to the high cost of publishing. The internet can change the way we distribute information without killing commerce!
At least Nature (the magazine) isn't passing their own version of the DMCA...
One of the odd phenomena observed in quantum mechanics is the creation of tandem photons from certain kinds of light sources that have the odd characteristic that their dynamic properties are very strongly correlated. That is, if two observers measure the polarization of one photon each, they will observe the same value for the polarization. Quantum mechanically speaking however, if, say, the two photons are polarized at some angle perpendicular to its line of travel, and you set up your measurement apparatus to measure the polarization at a different angle, then QM does not tell you what polarization value you will observe, but gives you a probability. The observed polarization for one photon is essentially random, but the distribution of values for many photons will follow the probability predicted.
Now several physicists, notably Einstein, took this bizarre feat of the correlated photons to mean that the polarization values for the two photons had to be dependent on some hidden variables that QM just didn't know about, but that became apparent in the experiment, which became known as the Einstein-Podalsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox.
Now, in the '60s, along came Bell, who was working on the EPR paradox hoping to prove Einstein et al correct. Bell's inequality reasons what the maximum possible correlation between the two photons should be, assuming that once the two are created, the one cannot affect the other. The problem is, the EPR paradox, when carried out in real experiments, has been shown to violate this inequality: the two photons are much more strongly correlated than they have any right to be according to a hidden-variables-locality-preserved interpretation of QM.
In the mathematical description of QM, this behavior has to do with the fact that in QM the two photons are not treated separately, but must be modelled by one function in hilbert space. The two photons are "phase entagled". Einstein particularly disliked this property of QM because it seems to throw out the principle of locality (no action-at-a-distance), although currently I believe the accepted idea is that no "information" can be sent non-locally using entaglement. I'll leave those questions to a real physicist.
Slashdot Mirror
That's easy, we'll keep moving all the big skyscrapers around so the blind terrorists can't find them anymore...
"Integrity. We've heard of it."
:D
-- From everyone's favorite news outlet, The Register
Oh, well now I feel like a moron for missing the joke...
:)
Use an emoticon next time, you insensitive clod
Can't patent a plot device, so that's right out, there is no "protection device" on the Asimov novels to be circumvented, so you are really thinking more about copyright than DMCA, but of course, copyright does not prevent the borrowing of ideas, only exact words.
You may want to re-examine whether the copyright issues that exist in software translate so specifically to published books, which are, of course, always open source (at least in dead-tree format).
*ahem*
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore... in the old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long. Seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will only be about a mile and three-quarters long.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such a wholesome return of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
-- Mark Twain
^^^ Just about says it all about this bit of reasoning, don't you think?
Seriously, Dave, who cuts your hair? Beavers?
It would have been the title of the article but it wasn't. Those spelling errors are just so random...
Hmmm...
How about 'Segway XXX' =D
Dear Kevin,
It is great to have you back on slashdot. Unfortunately, since you have been away, your account has been locked. If you would please reply to this post with your username and password, I would be happy to fix your account for you.
Sincerely,
CmdrTaco
This has got to be a troll, but i'll (briefly) reply.
Your line of reasoning seems to be to compare intellectual property with normal physical property, where in a socialist society, physical property is often nationalized, versus in a capitalistic society, where property belongs to its owner in perpetuity (except in certain situations, such as the right of eminent domain, but I digress...).
The reasoning is wrong because intellectual property is _not_ analogous to physical property in several very important ways:
1) Intellectual property is non-rivalrous. That is, unlike the car in your driveway, if you share a song, or the text of a book, or any intellectual property, you do not lose your ability to use it.
2) All creativity somewhat depends on the creativity of others who have come before. Are your ideas truly ever yours alone?
It is because of these two reasons (and others, i'm being very brief) that the framers of the constitution believed that the rights to intellectual property should not be in perpetuity.
There are certainly many other cases where the greater good of society as a whole is deemed to outway the "rights" of an individual to do whatever they please, hell, that is the basis of all laws really. In the case of copyright, the benefit to society of a striking a balance between creating a financial incentive for creators to produce new works, and making it possible for others to continue the "progress of the arts and sciences" is many times greater than the benefit produced by treating IP as other property, and allowing creators of works to forever control any derivative work (and everything, everything is derivative of something.) It has nothing to do with socialism.
Nononono...
And God told Noah to put every story on Slashdot, two of every story...
=D
I think the key part of that statement is "a secret which cannot be readily changed". Of course, changing a key pair can be a hassle if many people have and use your old key, but it is certainly far easier than if your entire cryptosystem has to be redesigned from the ground up.
The idea is that the number and size of the secrets you have to maintain should be as small as possible, and they should be as easy as possible to change. A key in crypto meets that requirement much better than a whole proprietary operating system, if the security of the OS is dependent upon keeping the code a secret. (I realize i'm mixing metaphors here, but you get the idea.)
I don't think this is a free speech issue, it's more of an issue about lawyers and businesses not groking the nature of the web. The whole point of hypertext is to provide linking capabilities between documents. (After all, there are certainly more attractive formats for marking up information. The web is what it is because it's so easy to "browse" from one place to another.) If you don't want people linking, it would make far more sense to implement some kind of technological solution (a la url rewrites, or HTTP basic auth, etc) than to add a bunch of silly legalese to your privacy policy which noone ever reads anyway.
It seems kind of like if Wal-mart put a large neon-painted trash can in the middle of the parking parking lot, and then in small print on the side of the can, wrote "Please do not use this trash can". Legally, they have the right to do that I suppose, but trying to sue everyone who uses it anyway is pretty dumb, considering they could just move the trash can (i.e the technical solution).
Well, that's my 2e^-2 dollars anyway.
I mean, at what point DOES trash become public?
Perhaps it should become public when it may no longer be easily connected to me. That is, while the trash is sitting next to my house, then it is considered as protected from unreasonable search and seizure. Once the trash guys haul it away, then it's public. This solution would seem to provide a logical transition that provides for my privacy as well as legal sanity.
What do you think?
PHP is not a be-all language, and it'd turn ugly quickly if they tried to force it to be one.
... debate, because I haven't done enough development in most of those languages, but I don't understand people who dismiss PHP off hand as being "only for rinky-dink personal websites".
I don't think the PHP developers have any real intention to try and force it to be. However, besides using PHP for scripting web site db-driven apps, i've also found PHP (compiled as a cgi app) to be useful for writing scripts to be run by cron that need to easily tie in to the same database that runs the web site. I probably wouldn't try to write GTK apps in PHP, but building scripts that are not web-driven (but that interact with a web-driven system) in PHP (instead of say perl) has been handy, they can tie into your existing libraries and code.
I can't really weigh in on the whole Java vs. Perl vs. PHP vs Python vs ASP vs
PHP isn't perfect, but it is fast, stable, feature-rich, and easy to develop web apps in. It certainly has its place in the toolbox, IMNSHO. The biggest thing lacking right now is good OO support. Right now it's clunky and sloooow. Zend 2.0 (when it's ready) should make great strides forward.
In computer science, we stand on each other's toes.
"It sounds very sympathetic to say this should be available to the public," he said. "But this kind of material is only used by experts."
I have to disagree with this viewpoint. Just because the majority of people who want to get to this information are "experts" doesn't mean you shouldn't make it available to everyone. There are plenty of people (I am one of them) who have an interest in various scientific fields and like to read papers and yet who aren't studying for their PHDs. When are they going to start one of these journals for physics! (I guess there is Arxiv.)
Some people have said that lots of scientific work is copyrighted/patented, but that doesn't prevent free distribution. The whole _point_ of the patent process is to give the patentee a guaranteed limited monopoly so that they _will_ immediately publish their works, instead of hording them as secrets. Free distribution doesn't mean noone can make any money.
Really, this seems like the trend that is happening in many areas where distribution has hitherto been controlled by a small group of publishers, due to the high cost of publishing. The internet can change the way we distribute information without killing commerce!
At least Nature (the magazine) isn't passing their own version of the DMCA...
Here goes...
One of the odd phenomena observed in quantum mechanics is the creation of tandem photons from certain kinds of light sources that have the odd characteristic that their dynamic properties are very strongly correlated. That is, if two observers measure the polarization of one photon each, they will observe the same value for the polarization. Quantum mechanically speaking however, if, say, the two photons are polarized at some angle perpendicular to its line of travel, and you set up your measurement apparatus to measure the polarization at a different angle, then QM does not tell you what polarization value you will observe, but gives you a probability. The observed polarization for one photon is essentially random, but the distribution of values for many photons will follow the probability predicted.
Now several physicists, notably Einstein, took this bizarre feat of the correlated photons to mean that the polarization values for the two photons had to be dependent on some hidden variables that QM just didn't know about, but that became apparent in the experiment, which became known as the Einstein-Podalsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox.
Now, in the '60s, along came Bell, who was working on the EPR paradox hoping to prove Einstein et al correct. Bell's inequality reasons what the maximum possible correlation between the two photons should be, assuming that once the two are created, the one cannot affect the other. The problem is, the EPR paradox, when carried out in real experiments, has been shown to violate this inequality: the two photons are much more strongly correlated than they have any right to be according to a hidden-variables-locality-preserved interpretation of QM.
In the mathematical description of QM, this behavior has to do with the fact that in QM the two photons are not treated separately, but must be modelled by one function in hilbert space. The two photons are "phase entagled". Einstein particularly disliked this property of QM because it seems to throw out the principle of locality (no action-at-a-distance), although currently I believe the accepted idea is that no "information" can be sent non-locally using entaglement. I'll leave those questions to a real physicist.
See EPR Paradox