The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet) ...apparently it's about money as much as anything
Here's an interesting story about GPS, but details aren't available yet, and it's not actually about GPS (but I've written the first half of the story submission, so I'll just click Submit anyway.)
> Yeah, baby. Print a picture of the Tyco or > Enron buildings in the paper. That'll deter 'em.
If I said that drink drivers should be given free space for a personal ad, your sarcastic reply would make sense. But I didn't.
The topic of this discussion is Name'n'Shame campaigns. So how about making Enron pay for a full page ad that lists their real accounts, the number of lay-offs, the average cost to US industry, etc.
Maybe the RIAA should have to list the number of minors they have sued, Bush could print the real election results and the number of WMDs found in Iraq, etc...
Okay, so we have sex-offenders and over-the-limit drivers. If this is a good idea for two crimes, it follows that it might be a good idea for others.
Maybe this should be extended to: Corporations convicted of tax evasion Police that assault members of the public Politicians convicted of area re-zoning or taking back handers.
If it's good enough for the public, why isn't it good enough for the law makers? the law enforcers? and the "Legal People"/Corporations?
This reminds me of lawyers advocating software patentability, but they'd never suggest that "legal innovations" should be patentable.
I agree that a revolution will happen eventually, but I just think that people don't realise how badly the cards are stacked.
> where the local authority doesn't give a > rat's ass about a donkey cart full of warez
If copyright enforcement isn't satisfactory, trade barriers go up. These countries are constantly on the verge of collapse, they can't afford to lose trade. So despite the need for more funding of industry and education, the government must divert cash toward copyright enforcement. (whether they'd like to give a rats ass or not.) One problem is that these countries want to appear to be as developed as possible, and they associate Microsoft with the developed nations. If they really looked at Free Software, I think they'd jump at it, but polititians don't have time. (and without seeing GNU/Linux, the idea of a completely free OS sounds preposterous)They can't risk upsetting the US unless they can afford to make a clean break.
Whether the government switches to Free Software or not, they are required to stop the population from making illegal copies of MS Windows. Probably the best thing they could do is to move the government and schools to Free Software, and launch a national campaign promoting Free Software as independence.
One problem is that these countries want to appear to be as developed as possible, and they associate Microsoft with the developed nations. If they really looked at Free Software, I think they'd jump at it, but polititians don't have time. (and without seeing GNU/Linux, the idea of a completely free OS sounds preposterous)
As for the WTO, they are Big Brother of trade. WIPO is part of WTO.
The failing of the Cancun round of WTO talks was good news. And Richard Stallman and Georg Greve have managed to lobby their way onto a few WSIS committees now, which is pretty amazing really (WSIS is another part of WTO). Laurence Lessig and Robin Gross have put their time at Stallmans disposal should he need them. Stuff could start to get better, but there are only a handful of people that are working really hard on this issue.
It's a hard issue to work on. It takes a lot of time, knowledge, and experience (I'm only at the spectator/student level), so I'm working on a smaller project of trying to get Ireland to move to Free Software:-)
> I wonder if the inability to enforce a global IP paradigm > will be the Great Undoing of Western Capitalism
Oh to be an optimist again. WIPO has 179 members, most of which are third world nations. Every few years, they all meet to make agreements. America agrees to lower it's trade barriers for agricultural and manufacture goods, if the other countries agree to implement copyright and patent laws similar to those of the US. (In practice, the trade barriers of the US don't come down in useful ways.)
The size, wealth, and military might of the US gives it a lot of bargining power. Nations are played against eachother. "If you don't agree to this, we'll trade with all of your neighbours but not you". No developing nation can offord to stand up for itself.
When the US wants a nation to increase it's copyright or patent enforcement, it threatens to cease trading. These countries rely on selling agricultural and factory goods, so they comply. How could they reject DRM if they aren't making their own DRM-less computers?
"The Revolution" will be very hard, and the developing nations know that if it fails, they may never recover. It will take decades (hopefully just two) for them to be ready for a revolution. Free Software offers a complete solution to one part of their problem, but they have many more to deal with, and the west is making sure that the roots of these problems are growing ever deeper.and their problems are growing.
(The computer factories in Asia are mostly owned by US companies. If Asia decided to take over the factory, I can see Bush taking it as an act of war.)
> When was the last time someone forced you to > share your toys with the other kids?
You're comparing information to a physical object.
Toys are an "excludable good". Stallman doesn't ask you to let others use your copy of a program, he asks that you don't try to exert control over others that also happen to have a copy of a program.
> Stallman's point is that everyone should be > COMPELLED to share whether they want to or not.
This is not true. I don't *have* to give anyone a copy of a GPL'd program that I have. I can even make changes and still not have to give anyone a copy. If I *distribute* copies, I can't prohibit others from sharing. That's all.
If people want to find out more about the copyright and patent politics & tricks of global trade, I highly recommend "Information Feudalism", by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite.
"Information Rules!" has been recommended to me by the same person that recommened "Information Feudalism", so it's probably also very good.
"Globalisation and it's Discontents" is an okay book. It focuses on economics though, and the malpractice of the IMF and World Bank.
On my homepage, I keep a list of good books, and online sources of information. (and from working on the EU software patentability directive, and the EUCD, I know that educated individuals can make a difference.)
Microsoft have to say "oh, we wish this wasn't happening". If they didn't say that, the west would get annoyed, and complain about unfairness. (because we all know how badly off the west is:-)
Microsoft can get enforcement whenever they want, but in poorer countries, the market saturation is more important. (and that these illegal copies will train people to know Microsoft).
When they want to flip the table, they complain to the US govt, the US govt threatens to put malasia on the 301 Watch List (list of countries where the US aren't happy with "IP enforcement). Once they go on this list, people are afraid to trade with them, the IMF stops loaning them cash, and the World Bank stops rolling over it's existing loans. This happened to Korea already (and it was Microsoft that made it happen).
Add to this that the US delegation to the WIPO summits always contains Microsoft representatives (as "industry experts"), and you have a lot of control, without being visible, whenever they want.
It summarises the observations of a FreeBSD hacker, on feature disputes. Also from the FreeBSD pages, is pretty ontopic: How many FreeBSD developers does it take to change a lightbulb?
(these articles made me consider giving FreeBSD a try, but I haven't gotten around to it yet..)
If we view Free Software only as a convenience, we won't progress. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to develop a Free Software package, or to migrate a system to use Free Software. It makes no sense to put a lot of effort into seeking a convenience.
Idealism is a more long term motivator, and it's not unjustified when the focus of the idealism has already proved to be very practical.
> it isn't 'the Kernel development model' rather, the open > source development model that they would be giving the ok for.
Actually, it's the "open development model". The term "OpenSource" was created in 1998. Before this, many Free Software projects used the open development model. Linux was the first big one and it's use of this model really took off in 1992.
(and anyway, they're not certifying a development model, they're certifying a specific box set.)
I'm not a fan of computers in schools, well maybe one or two hours per week in a designated computer room is okay, but Stallmans point is important about how we shouldn't teach our kids not to share.
An audio and a video recording that includes most of this essay is also available on the GNU philosophy recordings page.
The EUCD, and DMCA, allow publishers to rent books for limited times, etc. If a work is encrypted, you can only access it with publisher-authorised software. Anything else is circumvention, which is a criminal offence. So the software can disable your access after 10 months.
Kids can't take the computer home, so they can't take the book home, they can't buy second hand books etc.
We have to fight the DMCA and the EUCD. Make technology safe before making it a standard part of school. Do we really want to create a new schooling system where the motto is "sharing is violating"?
The content industry has worked this pretty well. Make fair use of "e-books" impossible *before* e-books become popular. So when e-books become popular, the publishers already have complete control of the public.
And hey, I just had a great idea: Sex Offender Text Alerts!
and an arm band. I forgot that. (or a bell if an arm band is unacceptable.)
Brilliant. You get a text message every time a sex offender is in the same geographic location as you. Then you just look around to see who's wearing an arm band:-)
"Support our kids", and "it's unamerican to be a sex offender", and other good slogans will also be needed. This brave new world is gonna kick ass. No one will ever oppose this, "you don't support sex offenders, do you?". This will be nothing at all like a witch hunt.
Why not post their daily movements as tracked by their mobile phone? or insert a tag into them if they have no phone. People deserve to know the every movement of these ever-guilty people. This is reasonable because no court case has ever been incorrect.
And phone records too. That should be public.
and,.. oh let me think.. oh yeh, the names of their sibblings, in case "sex crimes" is a genetic problem, and..
1984 anyone?
"It was only an 'opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!"
With a mobile phone, if your government ever suspects that you are a dissident, not only can they pull up a complete travel log for your life since you got the phone, but they can also check who you have been talking to, and the movements of those people too.
We must value our rights, such as privacy, before we accept technology. Electronic voting was the latest disaster. E-books will be the next.
.. I've run into more than one GPL nut who just happened to be running unlicensed copies of [proprietary M$ software].. This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
To use proprietary software, the license usually requires that you promise not to share with your friends. It's wrong to make this promise, and wrong to keep it if you made it.
The courts of most countries will disagree though, so I avoid proprietary software completely.
(and you have to supply the code if someone takes you up on the offer.) So if Sigma aren't shipping such an offer with their product, they are violating.
this article is yet another nail in the coffin of the patent system
Hopefully, but that is somewhere far off in the future. Right now we have to stop expansion of the patent system, like the way the EU is considering expanding it to cover all ideas implementable through software. How would patent examiners possibly get better by increasing their workload?
Plus it will be a lot harder to revise the patent system if it is embedded in every industry.
Slashdot Mirror
us American's have a natural and benificial mistrust of big business and big government!
hahhhah *cough* PATRIOT ACT *cough* ahahaha
RIAA, MPAA, Bush, Haliburton, Enron, DMCA, Microsoft, etc. etc..
The latest seems to be that they have reached a compromise (no details yet)
...apparently it's about money as much as anything
Here's an interesting story about GPS, but details aren't available yet, and it's not actually about GPS (but I've written the first half of the story submission, so I'll just click Submit anyway.)
table of contents
> Dell provides special CDs to restore Dell programs...
Debian provide some pretty special CDs too.
> Yeah, baby. Print a picture of the Tyco or
> Enron buildings in the paper. That'll deter 'em.
If I said that drink drivers should be given free space for a personal ad, your sarcastic reply would make sense. But I didn't.
The topic of this discussion is Name'n'Shame campaigns. So how about making Enron pay for a full page ad that lists their real accounts, the number of lay-offs, the average cost to US industry, etc.
Maybe the RIAA should have to list the number of minors they have sued, Bush could print the real election results and the number of WMDs found in Iraq, etc...
Okay, so we have sex-offenders and over-the-limit drivers. If this is a good idea for two crimes, it follows that it might be a good idea for others.
Maybe this should be extended to:
Corporations convicted of tax evasion
Police that assault members of the public
Politicians convicted of area re-zoning or taking back handers.
If it's good enough for the public, why isn't it good enough for the law makers? the law enforcers? and the "Legal People"/Corporations?
This reminds me of lawyers advocating software patentability, but they'd never suggest that "legal innovations" should be patentable.
I agree that a revolution will happen eventually, but I just think that people don't realise how badly the cards are stacked.
:-)
> where the local authority doesn't give a
> rat's ass about a donkey cart full of warez
If copyright enforcement isn't satisfactory, trade barriers go up. These countries are constantly on the verge of collapse, they can't afford to lose trade. So despite the need for more funding of industry and education, the government must divert cash toward copyright enforcement. (whether they'd like to give a rats ass or not.)
One problem is that these countries want to appear to be as developed as possible, and they associate Microsoft with the developed nations. If they really looked at Free Software, I think they'd jump at it, but polititians don't have time. (and without seeing GNU/Linux, the idea of a completely free OS sounds preposterous)They can't risk upsetting the US unless they can afford to make a clean break.
Whether the government switches to Free Software or not, they are required to stop the population from making illegal copies of MS Windows. Probably the best thing they could do is to move the government and schools to Free Software, and launch a national campaign promoting Free Software as independence.
One problem is that these countries want to appear to be as developed as possible, and they associate Microsoft with the developed nations. If they really looked at Free Software, I think they'd jump at it, but polititians don't have time. (and without seeing GNU/Linux, the idea of a completely free OS sounds preposterous)
As for the WTO, they are Big Brother of trade. WIPO is part of WTO.
The failing of the Cancun round of WTO talks was good news. And Richard Stallman and Georg Greve have managed to lobby their way onto a few WSIS committees now, which is pretty amazing really (WSIS is another part of WTO). Laurence Lessig and Robin Gross have put their time at Stallmans disposal should he need them. Stuff could start to get better, but there are only a handful of people that are working really hard on this issue.
It's a hard issue to work on. It takes a lot of time, knowledge, and experience (I'm only at the spectator/student level), so I'm working on a smaller project of trying to get Ireland to move to Free Software
> I wonder if the inability to enforce a global IP paradigm
> will be the Great Undoing of Western Capitalism
Oh to be an optimist again.
WIPO has 179 members, most of which are third world nations. Every few years, they all meet to make agreements. America agrees to lower it's trade barriers for agricultural and manufacture goods, if the other countries agree to implement copyright and patent laws similar to those of the US. (In practice, the trade barriers of the US don't come down in useful ways.)
The size, wealth, and military might of the US gives it a lot of bargining power. Nations are played against eachother. "If you don't agree to this, we'll trade with all of your neighbours but not you". No developing nation can offord to stand up for itself.
When the US wants a nation to increase it's copyright or patent enforcement, it threatens to cease trading. These countries rely on selling agricultural and factory goods, so they comply. How could they reject DRM if they aren't making their own DRM-less computers?
"The Revolution" will be very hard, and the developing nations know that if it fails, they may never recover. It will take decades (hopefully just two) for them to be ready for a revolution. Free Software offers a complete solution to one part of their problem, but they have many more to deal with, and the west is making sure that the roots of these problems are growing ever deeper.and their problems are growing.
(The computer factories in Asia are mostly owned by US companies. If Asia decided to take over the factory, I can see Bush taking it as an act of war.)
> When was the last time someone forced you to
> share your toys with the other kids?
You're comparing information to a physical object.
Toys are an "excludable good". Stallman doesn't ask you to let others use your copy of a program, he asks that you don't try to exert control over others that also happen to have a copy of a program.
> Stallman's point is that everyone should be
> COMPELLED to share whether they want to or not.
This is not true. I don't *have* to give anyone a copy of a GPL'd program that I have. I can even make changes and still not have to give anyone a copy. If I *distribute* copies, I can't prohibit others from sharing. That's all.
People must be *allowed* to share.
If people want to find out more about the copyright and patent politics & tricks of global trade, I highly recommend "Information Feudalism", by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite.
"Information Rules!" has been recommended to me by the same person that recommened "Information Feudalism", so it's probably also very good.
"Globalisation and it's Discontents" is an okay book. It focuses on economics though, and the malpractice of the IMF and World Bank.
On my homepage, I keep a list of good books, and online sources of information. (and from working on the EU software patentability directive, and the EUCD, I know that educated individuals can make a difference.)
Microsoft have to say "oh, we wish this wasn't happening". If they didn't say that, the west would get annoyed, and complain about unfairness. (because we all know how badly off the west is :-)
Microsoft can get enforcement whenever they want, but in poorer countries, the market saturation is more important. (and that these illegal copies will train people to know Microsoft).
When they want to flip the table, they complain to the US govt, the US govt threatens to put malasia on the 301 Watch List (list of countries where the US aren't happy with "IP enforcement). Once they go on this list, people are afraid to trade with them, the IMF stops loaning them cash, and the World Bank stops rolling over it's existing loans. This happened to Korea already (and it was Microsoft that made it happen).
Add to this that the US delegation to the WIPO summits always contains Microsoft representatives (as "industry experts"), and you have a lot of control, without being visible, whenever they want.
just because 'I want it a different color'.
You'll probably like this:
A shed, any color will do
It summarises the observations of a FreeBSD hacker, on feature disputes. Also from the FreeBSD pages, is pretty ontopic:
How many FreeBSD developers does it take to change a lightbulb?
(these articles made me consider giving FreeBSD a try, but I haven't gotten around to it yet..)
If we view Free Software only as a convenience, we won't progress. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to develop a Free Software package, or to migrate a system to use Free Software. It makes no sense to put a lot of effort into seeking a convenience.
Idealism is a more long term motivator, and it's not unjustified when the focus of the idealism has already proved to be very practical.
This is party highlighted by the OpenSource Vs. Free Software terminology, but we are not enemies, it's just a choice of where you put the emphasis.
> it isn't 'the Kernel development model' rather, the open
> source development model that they would be giving the ok for.
Actually, it's the "open development model". The term "OpenSource" was created in 1998. Before this, many Free Software projects used the open development model. Linux was the first big one and it's use of this model really took off in 1992.
(and anyway, they're not certifying a development model, they're certifying a specific box set.)
SuSE already have it.
Next question, will someone fund a community owned distro to get this certification?
(i.e. Debian etc.)
Richard Stallman recently pubished an article about why schools should use Free Software exclusively:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
I'm not a fan of computers in schools, well maybe one or two hours per week in a designated computer room is okay, but Stallmans point is important about how we shouldn't teach our kids not to share.
An audio and a video recording that includes most of this essay is also available on the GNU philosophy recordings page.
The EUCD, and DMCA, allow publishers to rent books for limited times, etc. If a work is encrypted, you can only access it with publisher-authorised software. Anything else is circumvention, which is a criminal offence. So the software can disable your access after 10 months.
Kids can't take the computer home, so they can't take the book home, they can't buy second hand books etc.
We have to fight the DMCA and the EUCD. Make technology safe before making it a standard part of school. Do we really want to create a new schooling system where the motto is "sharing is violating"?
The content industry has worked this pretty well. Make fair use of "e-books" impossible *before* e-books become popular. So when e-books become popular, the publishers already have complete control of the public.
And hey, I just had a great idea:
:-)
Sex Offender Text Alerts!
and an arm band. I forgot that. (or a bell if an arm band is unacceptable.)
Brilliant. You get a text message every time a sex offender is in the same geographic location as you. Then you just look around to see who's wearing an arm band
"Support our kids", and "it's unamerican to be a sex offender", and other good slogans will also be needed. This brave new world is gonna kick ass. No one will ever oppose this, "you don't support sex offenders, do you?". This will be nothing at all like a witch hunt.
Just their name, photo, crime, and life history?
.. oh let me think .. oh yeh, the names of their sibblings, in case "sex crimes" is a genetic problem, and ..
Why not post their daily movements as tracked by their mobile phone? or insert a tag into them if they have no phone. People deserve to know the every movement of these ever-guilty people. This is reasonable because no court case has ever been incorrect.
And phone records too. That should be public.
and,
I'm no Wi-Fi expert, but couldn't a wi-fi-enabled cpu transmit data without your permission?
Unique cpu ids? Treacherous Computing Group data?
1984 anyone?
"It was only an 'opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!"
Please help stop software patentability in the EU. (coz I want to write this program! okay, not really)
With a mobile phone, if your government ever suspects that you are a dissident, not only can they pull up a complete travel log for your life since you got the phone, but they can also check who you have been talking to, and the movements of those people too.
We must value our rights, such as privacy, before we accept technology. Electronic voting was the latest disaster. E-books will be the next.
.. I've run into more than one GPL nut who just happened to be running unlicensed copies of [proprietary M$ software] .. This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
To use proprietary software, the license usually requires that you promise not to share with your friends. It's wrong to make this promise, and wrong to keep it if you made it.
The courts of most countries will disagree though, so I avoid proprietary software completely.
> only that it is supplied on request
You have to provide an offer to supply the code.
(and you have to supply the code if someone takes you up on the offer.) So if Sigma aren't shipping such an offer with their product, they are violating.
> I'm having a hell of a time installing this under Mac OS X
;-p
Then try installing it *over* MacOS, and add GNU and you'll finally have a real OS
this article is yet another nail in the coffin of the patent system
Hopefully, but that is somewhere far off in the future. Right now we have to stop expansion of the patent system, like the way the EU is considering expanding it to cover all ideas implementable through software. How would patent examiners possibly get better by increasing their workload?
Plus it will be a lot harder to revise the patent system if it is embedded in every industry.