Oddly enough, a quick search of your blog reveals that you have, in the past, referred to Linux as "Open Source". Granted your opinion may have changed since you characterized it as such, but by the definition you give in the above comment, GPL software is not Open Source.
If I have an existing body of BSD-licensed code, I can't take a piece of GPL code and add it to my code and then release it under a BSD license.
Maybe the problem of defining "open source" isn't really as simple as you glibly suggest it is.
I heard that Linux started out as SCO Unix and was completely ripped off by Linus and then released as "Open Source".
And if you believe that, I believe the guys at SCO have a bridge they're looking to unload at a low, low price to raise some money to pay their lawyers.
For good or ill, "stealing" has come to represent copying music in many people's minds. Call it the flexibility of language or the laziness of human mind, but when someone says "stealing", I don't just think of shoplifting, I think of copying a song from a friend.
While I disagree with GP's opinion, you're attacking a straw man. No one asked if you'd prefer a censored Google to a non-censored Google. He asked if you'd prefer a censored Google or no Google at all.
Yes, a censored search engine is worthless.
So every search engine in existence is worthless? I disagree. The degree of censorship is certainly inversely proportional to the actual value to a person searching, but unless the censorship involves removing every single possible search result, it doesn't render the search engine "worthless". Would a search engine that included no hardcore pornography be "worthless" if the person using it was trying to find information about chemistry?
Actually, the FAQ doesn't say they don't have your PIN. It says that if they don't have it, they can't encrypt your data. You're assuming ((p -> q) -> p).
Nanotubes are very strong. I'd imagine that if you're subjecting a laptop to forces strong enough to damage them, powering it will be the least of your worries.
This is America. There are parents who think it's perfectly appropriate for their children to see graphic violence but that seeing an exposed nipple will permanently harm their children.
Well, they also claimed that these researchers grew 3D human cells for the first time, which is really incredibly stupid. I've been growing 3D human cells for over 30 years.
How do you think the machinism behind doing calculations can possibly stop the evolution of "human understanding"? And how is having a computer doing the calculations qualitatively different from having a human do them, except that the computer (if programmed correctly, of course) doesn't make mistakes?
It's just you. He's arguing against net neutrality. The statement you quoted is a statement of fact, not of opinion. His opinion is that having "a fast lane that is useful" is not a good thing, because it will require that there are also "slow lanes".
You state that a music download service will not work if it doesn't have a wide enough selection.
As evidence for this claim, you assert that the most commercially successful music download service in the world does not have a wide enough selection.
Anyone with a basic grasp of logic can see that your argument is completely bogus. Would iTunes be even more successful if it had an even wider selection than it does now? Maybe. But the fact that there exists music which is unavailable on iTunes hardly made it "not work".
You're right. From the beginning, consumers were unwilling to accept that Beatles songs were not available from iTunes, causing iTMS to be the most spectacular failure in the history of online music sales.
Quite frankly, it's amazing this blunder didn't completely bankrupt Apple.
Oh wait, we're living in reality, not in your delusional fantasy land where consumers care enough about such things to make any difference in profitability.
The problem is that the system is full of loopholes and every attempt at "reform" just creates more. As many commentators have pointed out, it's not the illegal actions of people like Jack Abramoff and even others who haven't been caught that are really shocking, it's how much is actually legal.
Of course, it doesn't help that many people think that giving a legislator cash in return for legislative favors is part of the definition of "free speech", and that any attempt to cut down on bribery is an assault on the civil liberties of lobbyists.
The Senate acts to protect the interests of the smaller states. Without the Senate, the smaller states would have been stupid to join the union in the first place, and they're certainly not going to consent to amending the Constitution to abolish the Senate (neither will the Senate itself, for that matter).
The imbalance in power that the Electoral college should create by assigning electoral votes based on number of members of Congress is statistically significant, but not really all that bad. The imbalance of power that the winner-take-all system of electoral voting creates, however, is enormous. Especially when combined with the incredibly stupid system of primary elections which gives voters in many larger states absolutely no say in who their party's presidential candidate should be.
If the DOJ shows up at a library wanting to know who is reading about a certain topic they have to comply,
Or so the DOJ claims. The American Library Association disagrees, and will advise any library recieving such a request to take it to court.
Until there's more case law established in this area (and note that at least one provision of the Patriot Act involved was found to be unconstitutional, as mentioned in the linked article), I'd say whether the library "has to" comply is unclear.
Is it better for the Chinese people to have access to webservices that they think are run by a Western company that actually cares about its users' privacy, is run by capitalists who one would assume would be sympathetic to any anti-Communist sentiments they might express, and who won't sell them out to their government to make a buck, or for them to not be under that delusion? I'd say they're better off without Yahoo.
Yahoo's not providing change for the better in China by creating the illusion of free exchange of information and relatively secure communications. They're just making money. They can feel free to "tight" their profits all they want (that would be the opposite of "loosing" their profits, right?), but don't pretend that they're a force for democratization when they'll gladly help the government catch and imprison anyone who agitates for some actual democracy.
If you suggested that the NSA will have a backdoor to every Intel Mac machine using TPM, I'd think you were probably paranoid but that you might have a good reason to be wary in the current political climate.
However, if you think Apple is building a machine that will give anyone the machine will accept an SSL cert from unfettered access to the machine, then yes, I'm going to classify that as FUD. The fact that your research is unable to turn up any evidence isn't evidence that Apple's planning to build a machine that will absolutely trust anyone, transitively, based on the criteria yuou suggest.
I assume Steve Jobs' personal computer would trust an SSL cert from Microsoft. You want me to believe he'd build a computer that Bill Gates has an automatic backdoor to? I'm going to need some evidence.
Are you implying that anyone with a cert "trusted" by an Intel Mac can easily get root access to that Mac, and can your provide any evidence whatsoever?
Sure, it's "easy" to set up the infrastructure to mail "secret messages" to anyone who wants a key. It's hardly cheap to do so, though. Who's going to pay for all of this, if not the people who actually want their identities verified?
Slashdot Mirror
Why don't we just nationalize the tech industry and turn over the means of production to the proletariat while we're at it?
Normally I hate the people who complain that a new version of some random piece of software isn't really news, but come on. It's a new alpha release.
If I have an existing body of BSD-licensed code, I can't take a piece of GPL code and add it to my code and then release it under a BSD license.
Maybe the problem of defining "open source" isn't really as simple as you glibly suggest it is.
And if you believe that, I believe the guys at SCO have a bridge they're looking to unload at a low, low price to raise some money to pay their lawyers.
For good or ill, "stealing" has come to represent copying music in many people's minds. Call it the flexibility of language or the laziness of human mind, but when someone says "stealing", I don't just think of shoplifting, I think of copying a song from a friend.
While I disagree with GP's opinion, you're attacking a straw man. No one asked if you'd prefer a censored Google to a non-censored Google. He asked if you'd prefer a censored Google or no Google at all.
Yes, a censored search engine is worthless.
So every search engine in existence is worthless? I disagree. The degree of censorship is certainly inversely proportional to the actual value to a person searching, but unless the censorship involves removing every single possible search result, it doesn't render the search engine "worthless". Would a search engine that included no hardcore pornography be "worthless" if the person using it was trying to find information about chemistry?
Actually, the FAQ doesn't say they don't have your PIN. It says that if they don't have it, they can't encrypt your data. You're assuming ((p -> q) -> p).
Nanotubes are very strong. I'd imagine that if you're subjecting a laptop to forces strong enough to damage them, powering it will be the least of your worries.
One can only assume they don't breastfeed.
Well, they also claimed that these researchers grew 3D human cells for the first time, which is really incredibly stupid. I've been growing 3D human cells for over 30 years.
Atoms are not two dimensional.
How do you think the machinism behind doing calculations can possibly stop the evolution of "human understanding"? And how is having a computer doing the calculations qualitatively different from having a human do them, except that the computer (if programmed correctly, of course) doesn't make mistakes?
That'll teach me to not use Preview.
It's just you. He's arguing against net neutrality. The statement you quoted is a statement of fact, not of opinion. His opinion is that having "a fast lane that is useful" is not a good thing, because it will require that there are also "slow lanes".
You state that a music download service will not work if it doesn't have a wide enough selection.
As evidence for this claim, you assert that the most commercially successful music download service in the world does not have a wide enough selection.
Anyone with a basic grasp of logic can see that your argument is completely bogus. Would iTunes be even more successful if it had an even wider selection than it does now? Maybe. But the fact that there exists music which is unavailable on iTunes hardly made it "not work".
You're right. From the beginning, consumers were unwilling to accept that Beatles songs were not available from iTunes, causing iTMS to be the most spectacular failure in the history of online music sales.
Quite frankly, it's amazing this blunder didn't completely bankrupt Apple.
Oh wait, we're living in reality, not in your delusional fantasy land where consumers care enough about such things to make any difference in profitability.
Yes. There is something like that.
The problem is that the system is full of loopholes and every attempt at "reform" just creates more. As many commentators have pointed out, it's not the illegal actions of people like Jack Abramoff and even others who haven't been caught that are really shocking, it's how much is actually legal.
Of course, it doesn't help that many people think that giving a legislator cash in return for legislative favors is part of the definition of "free speech", and that any attempt to cut down on bribery is an assault on the civil liberties of lobbyists.
The imbalance in power that the Electoral college should create by assigning electoral votes based on number of members of Congress is statistically significant, but not really all that bad. The imbalance of power that the winner-take-all system of electoral voting creates, however, is enormous. Especially when combined with the incredibly stupid system of primary elections which gives voters in many larger states absolutely no say in who their party's presidential candidate should be.
You're one of those people who thinks that the term "history" is sexist because it begins with the root "his", right?
Or so the DOJ claims. The American Library Association disagrees, and will advise any library recieving such a request to take it to court.
Until there's more case law established in this area (and note that at least one provision of the Patriot Act involved was found to be unconstitutional, as mentioned in the linked article), I'd say whether the library "has to" comply is unclear.
Yahoo's not providing change for the better in China by creating the illusion of free exchange of information and relatively secure communications. They're just making money. They can feel free to "tight" their profits all they want (that would be the opposite of "loosing" their profits, right?), but don't pretend that they're a force for democratization when they'll gladly help the government catch and imprison anyone who agitates for some actual democracy.
Chiefly because it doesn't exist, unless Sony acquired Palm when I wasn't looking.
However, if you think Apple is building a machine that will give anyone the machine will accept an SSL cert from unfettered access to the machine, then yes, I'm going to classify that as FUD. The fact that your research is unable to turn up any evidence isn't evidence that Apple's planning to build a machine that will absolutely trust anyone, transitively, based on the criteria yuou suggest.
I assume Steve Jobs' personal computer would trust an SSL cert from Microsoft. You want me to believe he'd build a computer that Bill Gates has an automatic backdoor to? I'm going to need some evidence.
Sounds like a lot of FUD to me.
Sure, it's "easy" to set up the infrastructure to mail "secret messages" to anyone who wants a key. It's hardly cheap to do so, though. Who's going to pay for all of this, if not the people who actually want their identities verified?