I don't want to get in any kind of fight about this, but I feel I should respond to that comment. Yes, I have an @gnu.org mail alias, because I have contributed and continue to contribute to free software projects. But no, I'm not really from gnu.org, in that I'm not affiliated with them other than supporting their mission. So ignore the @gnu.org if that helps you hear what I said better.
I also don't feel that who I'm associated with should affect what I've said. My point, I feel, remains valid no matter who I am. Both phrases, I feel, are easily misconstrued by those not familiar with the meanings we give them. Wouldn't matter if I were RMS, ESR, or God; the point remains.
Last, but not least, did you really read my comment? At worst, you could interpret it as me saying "Open Source is just as bad a phrase as Free Software in terms of ambiguity."
I know that some of the confusion is the original story submitters, and some comes from Hemos' comments, but it's at times like this that I think the term Open Source is just as confusing as Free Software. People look at something where the source is available, and ask themselves, isn't this open source? In both cases, the words don't mean quite what they look like. Something that has available source code isn't necessarily Open Source; something that is no cost isn't necessarily Free Software. I don't see how the new phrase we have all adopted has cleared much up at all. What we're really after is source code we can modify, redistribute, not just read. Witness this Sun Community license as an example of where that confusion can come back to haunt us.
I wouldn't call it "knuckl[ing] under to the 31337 weenies", really. If you need to be running a 2.3.x kernel, you're following development elsewhere. End of story. I think it was fine to announce the beginning of the 2.3's, but if you need more than that, use the LinuxHQ slashbox or LinuxHQ (kernelnotes.org), or follow linux-kernel.
GNOME will be using the GtkMozilla widget, embedded as a Bonobo object (work progresses as we speak). All will be well. And the licenses aren't a problem, with the way the widget is embedded rather than linked.
Debian unstable (US and non-US main, contrib, and non-free) total to 3389 packages. Regardless of differences in what is packaged, I do think that Debian has a simply amazing selection of packages to choose from.
It would be really nice to see and end to this fairly stupid and devisive conflict. I understand many people's annoyance at being asked to call their Linux box GNU/Linux, but at the same time, I think that the FSF does deserve credit here. It's not just RMS looking for the limelight; a lot of people have put in a lot of time, from the early 80s to today, to create a damn fine collection of essential utilities. Utilities that, without which, much other free software would never have been written. Utilities that are far and away better than their counterparts on other UNIXes. I think the LOC argument is misleading; how much of our current software base would exists without things like a compiler, a C library, a linker, shells, editors, etc etc? I agree that it's dumb to have to trip over my tongue to say the name of my operating system, but at the same time, let's honestly recognize those who have put in thousands of hours of work for our benefit.
I'd say this post serves as a fairly accurate measure of how many slashdot readers actually read and/or finish the stories posted, and how many just skim the title, maybe the first paragraph, look at 1 or 2 comments, and then spout off.
As noted in my post above, the decision doesn't make any decision regarding binaries. Rather, they note that the decision doesn't affect machine code, but they don't deal with the legality at all. As it stands now, the previous regulations still stand, but I find it hard to believe that the government won't overhaul crypto law in light of this decision.
Regarding obfuscated code, well, I'd like to see you make a good legal argument about what distinguishes obfuscated code. There are certainly people who would be able to read obfuscated code, which makes it expressive... just a thought.
We express no opinion regarding whether object code manifests a "close enough nexus to expression" to warrant application of the prior restraint doctrine. Bernstein's Snuffle did not involve object code, nor does the record contain any information regarding expressive uses of object code in the field of cryptography.
They're very clear when they say that this decision affects source code only.
Interesting... so you're saying, initially you were closed minded, but then you decided you'd try the graffiti thing. And that worked out, but why risk it by being open minded again?
I don't think of them as oil and water, impossible to mix. I tend to look at it as a curve, which we'd like to maximize. I'm the first to speak up for freedom, which is what I value most about the Free Software community. But there are some things that, if chosen appropriately, won't hurt that freedom.
The C library is a good example. For a long time, GNU/Linux has just operated on an understanding of what the current targets are. With increasing commercial interest, it may become necessary to point out to these developers how such things work. Suits like standards, and acronyms, so we get something like the LSB.
Similarly, I've had commercial packages trample all over my file system, rather than respecting the understood way things work. Perhaps having a good, widely accepted FSH will help this.
The difficulty is in making the standard acceptable to hackers who are already used to the way things are. I think Alan Cox makes a good point, when he emphasizes that a smaller standard is much more likely to succeed than a larger one.
I'm glad to see some calmer heads in this discussion. I agree, flaming this guy is, at best, a waste of effort, and at worst, playing right into what he wants.
In large part, I agree with your breakdown of points for/against the GNU/Linux system. Where I have problems, though, is the slant he approaches this with. I think most of us understand current weaknesses with our operating system of choice. And steps are being taken to address it. KDE a very polished, useable desktop. GNOME, to which I contribute time and code (albeit not as much as I'd like!), is already impressive looking, if not as polished as KDE. Just the other day, I was playing with AbiWord, since it had been a while since I'd last looked, and was amazed by how far it has come. We're not there yet, but lots of people are trying.
The problem, for me, is his assertion that we're squandering valuable resources by trying. I have to ask myself what this man's point was in writing this article. It certainly isn't constructive to tell someone "Hey, your dinky little operating system is no good! Quit playing around right now and fall in line!", without making anything approaching a cogent argument. This isn't even very effective FUD, because it's so obviously biased.
Certainly, there are valuable messages we can take from this article, but these aren't new messages. The Free Software community, as a group, is a pretty smart bunch, and there are well-written articles in the mainstream press (maybe not as many as we'd like...) which address the shortcomings of GNU/Linux already.
This is exactly the kind of article I've hoped for from LinuxWorld for a while. I know that they've got to serve a diverse market, and so some of their articles come across, to us, as preaching to the choir, but it's good to see some that address the Linux community directly.
It's a shame to see the article above this one (" Linux is a waste of time?") getting so much more attention. It's obvious flame bait, the kind of FUD you can hear anytime you want. This story is much more relevant to the Linux community, but I guess it's easier to be defensive than it is to be introspective.
I think this article does a good job of pointing out the various interests at work; where they align, and where they collide. I especially think Bob Young makes some good points about Red Hat's position in the marketplace. Many people seem to judge them on the potential trouble they could cause, rather than examining past actions. As far as I can tell, Red Hat is one of the best (commercial) distributions as far as contributing back to the Free Software community. I hope that the level or paranoia in the community doesn't end up hindering us more than is necessary.
I remember this issue was really hot a couple of months ago, and I'm glad to see the level of rhetoric toned down considerably. Perhaps it's time to go back and read some of those old Freshmeat editorials again, with a more open mind. I think that this effort is at least as relevant, or more so, as it was when it was first proposed, so I hope we can maintain a focus on progress without things getting out of hand again.
Hopefully, this won't be too much of a problem. The 2.1 release of glibc, as I understand it, finally introduces solid binary versioning, so that we won't have interoperability problems or stuff like the infamous `__register_frame_info' crap to deal with.
Internal symbols are also shielded much better, so that people like StarOffice (who ignored repeated requests not to use internal symbols of the library which were not going to stay the same from release to release) won't be able to write such stupid code in the future.
Flaming the guy is pointless. Make a coherent argument against him, and try not to resort to the kind of blatant assertion that makes his article so weak. So take "have at it" with a grain of salt.:-)
Something which should be pointed out to the author (which I have done via private email, in as polite a manner as possible) is that the billions of programming hours put into Windows programs hasn't been anywhere near as efficient as Free Software promises to be.
By his own logic, companies shouldn't bother to compete, because we only really need one application to fill every niche. Anything else is wasteful of effort, right?
Free Software efforts tend to naturally select the most promising alternative(s) and focus programming effort on those. Programmers are free to borrow and share code as the license permits, making their projects develop at a staggering pace.
We may have already invested billions of programmer hours into Windows software, but if so, it's been a losing investment. At worst, Free Software fails to capture the mainstream market to any significant degree. Most of these programmers wouldn't (happily) code on a Microsoft platform anyway.
Economic theory is a little bit more complicated, but what you're looking for is this -- in this case, the "risk" of pirating this movie carries a lower cost, in the consumer's eyes, than paying to see the movie in a theater. So they tend to evaluate pirating the movie as the cheaper alternative. This is why they'll pirate movies when it's this easy, but not everyone will rob a bank.
They're right, at this point. Nobody (well, pretty close) gets in trouble for stealing music and video. So of course they'll continue to do it. This doesn't justify it in any way, however.
So in a way you're right about the positive feedback loop, but another way of looking at it is we're failing to adequately inforce the current copyright laws. If the consumers viewed the associated "risk" higher, then they would be less inclined to pirate.
Bear in mind that this is just economic theory, the key word being `theory'.
First of all, it's not pirating, it must be known as "unauthorised copying." How did making copies suddenly get confused with treachery and killing on the high seas?
From Webster's 1828 dictionary, the second definition is The robbing of another by taking his writings. I suspect that it is this definition which is being extended to cover music, video, and computer programs.
If unauthorised copying is to stop, it's the copyright holder's responsibility. After all, they're getting a free ride by holding a virtual monopoly on an idea.
You're getting very confused here. The issue at hand is not the idea of a movie, but the movie itself. We're not debating whether it's ok for everyone to make, say, a movie featuring a giant lizard; rather, the question is, is it ok to copy Godzilla?
In the second case, some party has invested a large amount of money in producing a film. They aren't getting a free ride in any way; they produce the film, and then they sell, to you, the right to view the film. You're not purchasing the right to copy or to distribute the film.
If CD's and DVD's actually stuck to realistic prices then none of this would happen, because it wouldn't be economically feasible to download MP3's and VCD's if CD's and DVD's were cheap. I can't believe DVD's cost so much even though the media costs less than a dollar to make.
First of all, they're not selling the media to you, except as a means to an end. If you want to buy the media cheap, avoid getting a copy of "The Matrix" thrown in along with it. And in no way are they inviting piracy by charging so much. This argument is analagous to, say, "He was asking to be killed by being such a jerk!" It holds little water morally, and certainly none legally.
I agree completely. Parents, authority figures, all seem to be abdicating their positions of responsibility, clutching to some contributing factor and claiming that this is the fundamental cause. I believe that video games which portray and encourage violence are probably not healthy. This is not the relevant fact, however. What is relevant is that parents are not watching what effect this is having on their children and making personal, case by case decisions.
There isn't anything necessarily bad about the internet or even games like Doom. They're just "things" and as such don't have any inherent moral value. They're neither good nor bad.
This is technically accurate, but also naive and completely non-constructive. Everything is just a thing. It's the message we take away from things that is important.
I think its safe to assume that these kids were socially deviant, and would have been regardless of their exposure to the internet, combat role-playing games, or any other "thing" that we could choose to blame for this mess.
You really should share this amazing insight of yours with the experts, so they can stop wasting their time doing research. Because of/course/ your environment has no effect on you! What a rediculous idea!
Ok, I'm getting really tired of seeing this logic over and over. Nobody is saying we're all going to be killers! Just like nobody says that/everyone/ who smokes will die of cancer, merely that it is a health risk. And yes, I'm sure people blame the kids, as they are the ones finally responsible. They're also dead, which makes that point rather stupid. Besides, if we just blame the kids, than you've done nothing to prevent a tragedy like this from reoccuring. If, however, you make some effort to determine/why/ this happened, even if you are wrong, you are at least making an effort to stop this trend.
Of course, no journalist would *dare* put the blame were it rightfully belongs: with the person responsible. Somehow it seems unacceptable to them that an 18-year-old can truly be a criminal.
Nobody is really talking about putting the blame on the person responsible, because of course they're to blame. They're also dead, so in this case, it's a completely moot point. However, it/does/ make a lot of sense to try to figure out why it happened, if only to prevent any more tragedies like this one. And contrary to popular slashdot opinion, bombarding children with the message that violence is acceptable, fun, and cool may just have a detrimental effect.
To continue with my rant, I think that violence in media is something that needs to be looked at, but not in isolation. In combination with other factors, children are being left to their own devices, with very little guidance from responsible adults. When they are faced with messages like the one I mentioned above, well, I don't think it causes them to become killers, but I don't think it's healthy, either. Certainly it's easy to just claim that portrayed violence is the sole cause, which isn't fair, but isn't it slightly ludicrous to claim that it has no effect whatsoever?
Regarding the `Goth' scene -- I'll be the first to admit that I know relatively little of what is actually entailed in being a Goth. However, from what I have seen, it seems to focus or dwell on death, depression, pain... I'm struggling for a point here. While I don't think it's fair to claim that this is bad out of hand, I do think that parents should be worried if their children are growing up in an environment like this. In combination with other factors, I think that this can certainly be detrimental to their well being.
Hmm. It's early, and I didn't sleep last night, so this is coming out a lot more ranty than I'd like. I guess my main point is this -- yes, the media is being narrow minded to try to blame this tragedy on one cause, but we would be equally narrow minded not to consider the effects of portrayed violence on our youth.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want to get in any kind of fight about this, but I feel I should respond to that comment. Yes, I have an @gnu.org mail alias, because I have contributed and continue to contribute to free software projects. But no, I'm not really from gnu.org, in that I'm not affiliated with them other than supporting their mission. So ignore the @gnu.org if that helps you hear what I said better.
I also don't feel that who I'm associated with should affect what I've said. My point, I feel, remains valid no matter who I am. Both phrases, I feel, are easily misconstrued by those not familiar with the meanings we give them. Wouldn't matter if I were RMS, ESR, or God; the point remains.
Last, but not least, did you really read my comment? At worst, you could interpret it as me saying "Open Source is just as bad a phrase as Free Software in terms of ambiguity."
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Ian Peters
I know that some of the confusion is the original story submitters, and some comes from Hemos' comments, but it's at times like this that I think the term Open Source is just as confusing as Free Software. People look at something where the source is available, and ask themselves, isn't this open source? In both cases, the words don't mean quite what they look like. Something that has available source code isn't necessarily Open Source; something that is no cost isn't necessarily Free Software. I don't see how the new phrase we have all adopted has cleared much up at all. What we're really after is source code we can modify, redistribute, not just read. Witness this Sun Community license as an example of where that confusion can come back to haunt us.
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Ian Peters
I wouldn't call it "knuckl[ing] under to the 31337 weenies", really. If you need to be running a 2.3.x kernel, you're following development elsewhere. End of story. I think it was fine to announce the beginning of the 2.3's, but if you need more than that, use the LinuxHQ slashbox or LinuxHQ (kernelnotes.org), or follow linux-kernel.
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Ian Peters
Besides being the "right" way, this is also, coincidentally, exactly the way it is being done. Have no fear, little one. :)
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Ian Peters
GNOME will be using the GtkMozilla widget, embedded as a Bonobo object (work progresses as we speak). All will be well. And the licenses aren't a problem, with the way the widget is embedded rather than linked.
--
Ian Peters
Debian unstable (US and non-US main, contrib, and non-free) total to 3389 packages. Regardless of differences in what is packaged, I do think that Debian has a simply amazing selection of packages to choose from.
--
Ian Peters
It would be really nice to see and end to this fairly stupid and devisive conflict. I understand many people's annoyance at being asked to call their Linux box GNU/Linux, but at the same time, I think that the FSF does deserve credit here. It's not just RMS looking for the limelight; a lot of people have put in a lot of time, from the early 80s to today, to create a damn fine collection of essential utilities. Utilities that, without which, much other free software would never have been written. Utilities that are far and away better than their counterparts on other UNIXes. I think the LOC argument is misleading; how much of our current software base would exists without things like a compiler, a C library, a linker, shells, editors, etc etc? I agree that it's dumb to have to trip over my tongue to say the name of my operating system, but at the same time, let's honestly recognize those who have put in thousands of hours of work for our benefit.
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Ian Peters
I'd say this post serves as a fairly accurate measure of how many slashdot readers actually read and/or finish the stories posted, and how many just skim the title, maybe the first paragraph, look at 1 or 2 comments, and then spout off.
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Ian Peters
As noted in my post above, the decision doesn't make any decision regarding binaries. Rather, they note that the decision doesn't affect machine code, but they don't deal with the legality at all. As it stands now, the previous regulations still stand, but I find it hard to believe that the government won't overhaul crypto law in light of this decision.
... just a thought.
Regarding obfuscated code, well, I'd like to see you make a good legal argument about what distinguishes obfuscated code. There are certainly people who would be able to read obfuscated code, which makes it expressive
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Ian Peters
From the decision,
We express no opinion regarding whether object code manifests a "close enough nexus to expression" to warrant application of the prior restraint doctrine. Bernstein's Snuffle did not involve object code, nor does the record contain any information regarding expressive uses of object code in the field of cryptography.
They're very clear when they say that this decision affects source code only.
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Ian Peters
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Ian Peters
Interesting ... so you're saying, initially you were closed minded, but then you decided you'd try the graffiti thing. And that worked out, but why risk it by being open minded again?
... :-)]
[All in good humour
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Ian Peters
I don't think of them as oil and water, impossible to mix. I tend to look at it as a curve, which we'd like to maximize. I'm the first to speak up for freedom, which is what I value most about the Free Software community. But there are some things that, if chosen appropriately, won't hurt that freedom.
The C library is a good example. For a long time, GNU/Linux has just operated on an understanding of what the current targets are. With increasing commercial interest, it may become necessary to point out to these developers how such things work. Suits like standards, and acronyms, so we get something like the LSB.
Similarly, I've had commercial packages trample all over my file system, rather than respecting the understood way things work. Perhaps having a good, widely accepted FSH will help this.
The difficulty is in making the standard acceptable to hackers who are already used to the way things are. I think Alan Cox makes a good point, when he emphasizes that a smaller standard is much more likely to succeed than a larger one.
--
Ian Peters
I'm glad to see some calmer heads in this discussion. I agree, flaming this guy is, at best, a waste of effort, and at worst, playing right into what he wants.
...) which address the shortcomings of GNU/Linux already.
In large part, I agree with your breakdown of points for/against the GNU/Linux system. Where I have problems, though, is the slant he approaches this with. I think most of us understand current weaknesses with our operating system of choice. And steps are being taken to address it. KDE a very polished, useable desktop. GNOME, to which I contribute time and code (albeit not as much as I'd like!), is already impressive looking, if not as polished as KDE. Just the other day, I was playing with AbiWord, since it had been a while since I'd last looked, and was amazed by how far it has come. We're not there yet, but lots of people are trying.
The problem, for me, is his assertion that we're squandering valuable resources by trying. I have to ask myself what this man's point was in writing this article. It certainly isn't constructive to tell someone "Hey, your dinky little operating system is no good! Quit playing around right now and fall in line!", without making anything approaching a cogent argument. This isn't even very effective FUD, because it's so obviously biased.
Certainly, there are valuable messages we can take from this article, but these aren't new messages. The Free Software community, as a group, is a pretty smart bunch, and there are well-written articles in the mainstream press (maybe not as many as we'd like
--
Ian Peters
This is exactly the kind of article I've hoped for from LinuxWorld for a while. I know that they've got to serve a diverse market, and so some of their articles come across, to us, as preaching to the choir, but it's good to see some that address the Linux community directly.
It's a shame to see the article above this one (" Linux is a waste of time?") getting so much more attention. It's obvious flame bait, the kind of FUD you can hear anytime you want. This story is much more relevant to the Linux community, but I guess it's easier to be defensive than it is to be introspective.
I think this article does a good job of pointing out the various interests at work; where they align, and where they collide. I especially think Bob Young makes some good points about Red Hat's position in the marketplace. Many people seem to judge them on the potential trouble they could cause, rather than examining past actions. As far as I can tell, Red Hat is one of the best (commercial) distributions as far as contributing back to the Free Software community. I hope that the level or paranoia in the community doesn't end up hindering us more than is necessary.
I remember this issue was really hot a couple of months ago, and I'm glad to see the level of rhetoric toned down considerably. Perhaps it's time to go back and read some of those old Freshmeat editorials again, with a more open mind. I think that this effort is at least as relevant, or more so, as it was when it was first proposed, so I hope we can maintain a focus on progress without things getting out of hand again.
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Ian Peters
Hopefully, this won't be too much of a problem. The 2.1 release of glibc, as I understand it, finally introduces solid binary versioning, so that we won't have interoperability problems or stuff like the infamous `__register_frame_info' crap to deal with.
Internal symbols are also shielded much better, so that people like StarOffice (who ignored repeated requests not to use internal symbols of the library which were not going to stay the same from release to release) won't be able to write such stupid code in the future.
--
Ian Peters
Flaming the guy is pointless. Make a coherent argument against him, and try not to resort to the kind of blatant assertion that makes his article so weak. So take "have at it" with a grain of salt. :-)
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Ian Peters
Something which should be pointed out to the author (which I have done via private email, in as polite a manner as possible) is that the billions of programming hours put into Windows programs hasn't been anywhere near as efficient as Free Software promises to be.
By his own logic, companies shouldn't bother to compete, because we only really need one application to fill every niche. Anything else is wasteful of effort, right?
Free Software efforts tend to naturally select the most promising alternative(s) and focus programming effort on those. Programmers are free to borrow and share code as the license permits, making their projects develop at a staggering pace.
We may have already invested billions of programmer hours into Windows software, but if so, it's been a losing investment. At worst, Free Software fails to capture the mainstream market to any significant degree. Most of these programmers wouldn't (happily) code on a Microsoft platform anyway.
--
Ian Peters
Economic theory is a little bit more complicated, but what you're looking for is this -- in this case, the "risk" of pirating this movie carries a lower cost, in the consumer's eyes, than paying to see the movie in a theater. So they tend to evaluate pirating the movie as the cheaper alternative. This is why they'll pirate movies when it's this easy, but not everyone will rob a bank.
They're right, at this point. Nobody (well, pretty close) gets in trouble for stealing music and video. So of course they'll continue to do it. This doesn't justify it in any way, however.
So in a way you're right about the positive feedback loop, but another way of looking at it is we're failing to adequately inforce the current copyright laws. If the consumers viewed the associated "risk" higher, then they would be less inclined to pirate.
Bear in mind that this is just economic theory, the key word being `theory'.
--
Ian Peters
First of all, it's not pirating, it must be known as "unauthorised copying." How did making copies suddenly get confused with treachery and killing on the high seas?
From Webster's 1828 dictionary, the second definition is The robbing of another by taking his writings. I suspect that it is this definition which is being extended to cover music, video, and computer programs.
If unauthorised copying is to stop, it's the copyright holder's responsibility. After all, they're getting a free ride by holding a virtual monopoly on an idea.
You're getting very confused here. The issue at hand is not the idea of a movie, but the movie itself. We're not debating whether it's ok for everyone to make, say, a movie featuring a giant lizard; rather, the question is, is it ok to copy Godzilla?
In the second case, some party has invested a large amount of money in producing a film. They aren't getting a free ride in any way; they produce the film, and then they sell, to you, the right to view the film. You're not purchasing the right to copy or to distribute the film.
If CD's and DVD's actually stuck to realistic prices then none of this would happen, because it wouldn't be economically feasible to download MP3's and VCD's if CD's and DVD's were cheap. I can't believe DVD's cost so much even though the media costs less than a dollar to make.
First of all, they're not selling the media to you, except as a means to an end. If you want to buy the media cheap, avoid getting a copy of "The Matrix" thrown in along with it. And in no way are they inviting piracy by charging so much. This argument is analagous to, say, "He was asking to be killed by being such a jerk!" It holds little water morally, and certainly none legally.
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Ian Peters
I believe the core issue is responsibility.
I agree completely. Parents, authority figures, all seem to be abdicating their positions of responsibility, clutching to some contributing factor and claiming that this is the fundamental cause. I believe that video games which portray and encourage violence are probably not healthy. This is not the relevant fact, however. What is relevant is that parents are not watching what effect this is having on their children and making personal, case by case decisions.
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Ian Peters
There isn't anything necessarily bad about the internet or even games like Doom. They're just "things" and as such don't have any inherent moral value. They're neither good nor bad.
/course/ your environment has no effect on you! What a rediculous idea!
This is technically accurate, but also naive and completely non-constructive. Everything is just a thing. It's the message we take away from things that is important.
I think its safe to assume that these kids were socially deviant, and would have been regardless of their exposure to the internet, combat role-playing games, or any other "thing" that we could choose to blame for this mess.
You really should share this amazing insight of yours with the experts, so they can stop wasting their time doing research. Because of
--
Ian Peters
Ok, I'm getting really tired of seeing this logic over and over. Nobody is saying we're all going to be killers! Just like nobody says that /everyone/ who smokes will die of cancer, merely that it is a health risk. And yes, I'm sure people blame the kids, as they are the ones finally responsible. They're also dead, which makes that point rather stupid. Besides, if we just blame the kids, than you've done nothing to prevent a tragedy like this from reoccuring. If, however, you make some effort to determine /why/ this happened, even if you are wrong, you are at least making an effort to stop this trend.
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Ian Peters
Of course, no journalist would *dare* put the blame were it rightfully belongs: with the person responsible. Somehow it seems unacceptable to them that an 18-year-old can truly be a criminal.
/does/ make a lot of sense to try to figure out why it happened, if only to prevent any more tragedies like this one. And contrary to popular slashdot opinion, bombarding children with the message that violence is acceptable, fun, and cool may just have a detrimental effect.
Nobody is really talking about putting the blame on the person responsible, because of course they're to blame. They're also dead, so in this case, it's a completely moot point. However, it
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Ian Peters
Sorry, I accidentally hit submit prematurely.
... I'm struggling for a point here. While I don't think it's fair to claim that this is bad out of hand, I do think that parents should be worried if their children are growing up in an environment like this. In combination with other factors, I think that this can certainly be detrimental to their well being.
To continue with my rant, I think that violence in media is something that needs to be looked at, but not in isolation. In combination with other factors, children are being left to their own devices, with very little guidance from responsible adults. When they are faced with messages like the one I mentioned above, well, I don't think it causes them to become killers, but I don't think it's healthy, either. Certainly it's easy to just claim that portrayed violence is the sole cause, which isn't fair, but isn't it slightly ludicrous to claim that it has no effect whatsoever?
Regarding the `Goth' scene -- I'll be the first to admit that I know relatively little of what is actually entailed in being a Goth. However, from what I have seen, it seems to focus or dwell on death, depression, pain
Hmm. It's early, and I didn't sleep last night, so this is coming out a lot more ranty than I'd like. I guess my main point is this -- yes, the media is being narrow minded to try to blame this tragedy on one cause, but we would be equally narrow minded not to consider the effects of portrayed violence on our youth.
--
Ian Peters