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Kazaa Sues Record Labels
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· Score: 5, Interesting
...Service if you are a copyright holder of infringing works traded with our Product or Service, if you are a law enforcement officer active in a jurisdiction which recognizes this copyright, or if your use of our Product or Service will otherwise lead to charges of infringement against any of our Users.
If you do not agree to these terms then you must immediately terminate use of our Service and must destroy all copies of our Product or face prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.
vim on a 80x25 character terminal. dict for word selection. ispell for spell checking. latex for typesetting.
I just don't know that we've come very far with word processing in the past 10 or even 20 years. Looking at Microsoft Word, for example, why is it that we need those many menus of complex and technical features? If someone were to ask me, without looking, what sort of features these are, I wouldn't even be able to imagine what they might be. What more could Microsoft Word possibly provide that we don't have in the above four tools?
Computers were supposed to make our lives easier, not create more tedious tasks for us to perform.
With the above four tools, anyone, from a grade school student to a professional writer can create high quality documents ready for printing. All of these tools are freely available and will run on even a i386 machine.
I will take a document typeset with LaTeX to one "formatted" with Microsoft Word, anyday.
Look at how long these tools (or some near ancestor of) have been available.
Microsoft Word is an exercise in tedium. Unfortunately I need to be able to produce documents compatible with its.doc format.
What's really so very sad is that even in our public school systems Word is sold on the students as being almost necessary for quality composition these days.
Yes, yes, you are right of course. I've looked into the Knoppix remastering before.
But since Knoppix is the LiveCD with the name recognition, it's just that I had hoped it might bring wider exposure to the many improvements coming with OOo 1.1.
It will have to wait until next time.
Why no OpenOffice.org 1.1.0?
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Knoppix 3.3 Is Out
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· Score: 4, Interesting
That's dissapointing. I had hoped to see OpenOffice.org 1.1.0. OpenOffice.org 1.1 is available in Debian unstable (contrib). Seeing as Knoppix is a modified Debian system, I can't imagine what the holdup might be. Does anyone have any insight into the situation?
What, is the U.S. going to just stop trade with China because China won't support the latest Microsoft DRM system? Hah! Or even reduce trade over it? Hah! If your business depends on communication and interoperability with systems in the Asian market, either you will adapt or you will be needing to explain to your shareholders just why you have made poor management decisions, leading to vendor lock-in and an inability to interoperate with the rest of the world. Good luck.
The worst possible outcome for Asian consumers is that they will not be able to download shitty RIAA-owned albums and play them in shiny new Windows Media Player 11 (or whatever it is up to these days).
But this won't be a problem, because those consumers who want to will be playing this same music on their free open source OSes, "illegally", and enjoying every minute of it.
The parent post is an exact repost of this post in a thread attached to a review of two Red Hat Linux books.
The original post was made by someone else, one "Bob-o-Matic!".
I suggest that the parent either provide a damn good explanation for this behavior, or be modded down for either or both plagerizing or "karma-whoring".
In fact, I don't care what his excuse is. Even if it is, "We're the same person", the post is off-topic, irrelelvant to this thread.
As far as I am concerned the parent is a karma-whoring troll who will fool the moderators no longer.
It's only a matter of time -- and not a very long time at all -- until free open source solutions will replace or strongly compete with proprietary solutions in all but the most peculiar of applications, and even there they had best worry.
Does Sun really believe that they can, in so far as they may now, maintain any technical superiority at all? They can not, not with big money funding the development and deployment of free open source solutions.
In a few short years, either Sun will change its tune, or Sun will join SCO in the gutter.
Well, at most (depending upon what components are tweaked) Sun only needs to provide modifiied source to those it distributes a modified binary.
And even if those receiving the modified source make it available publically (which under the GPL, for example, they can), Sun certainly isn't going to provide any support whatsoever for a system you have compiled yourself from the modified sources.
There's really nothing incorrect about that statement.
It is not, (great, minor) evil. It is great (minor evil). It's similar to how we might say, "a large category 2 hurricane". That is, "for a category 2 hurricane, it is large."
"For a minor evil, it is great".
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with "vast minority of the group". Here what we reference is, for example, "the most significant or numerous part of that subgroup constituting the minority".
While you are modded funny, I still do not hesitate to reply, as I've encountered many who are quite serious about it, many wannabe grammar-nazis. If you what to be a grammar nazi, or whatever, if you want to hold a grudge or a pet peeve, why don't you start by at least thinking the matter through?
Did that occur to you? It's really quite easy to understand what is referenced by phrases of that sort.
Did it occur to you to think?
No, I didn't think so. Now crawl back into your cave.
I don't know that I've ever had a problem with suspend-to-ram on my Inspiron 8200 laptop with apm. I don't have suspend-to-disk (because while the bios has a key combo for it, there is no bios code to actually handle it).
I've also heard a lot of success stories with apci.
Are there really a lot of people running reasonably modern systems who absolutely can not get at least suspend-to-ram to work reliably?
There is a long tradition of reduced price or no price alternative access to software and services for non-commercial, personal or educactional use.
It's a perfectly legitimate thing to request. It also potentially betters the provider's image among that community. And some companies -- suprise -- are willing to provide free or reduced price software and services even if the benefit is negligible, just because it is a nice thing to do.
And what is this nonsense about market, profit, blah, blah, blah. Yes, it's quite well understood that Ayn Rand is your personal saviour, but can we perhaps have just one single conversation without dragging the great and powerful Market into it?
Obviously their measurements are uncertain, and yet in the reporting we at best hear only vague suggestions that the present approximation may not be entirely accurate.
To take into account uncertainty in measurement, 50%, for example, must be appended with, for example, a +-20% margin of error, unless they are already reporting the maximum possible chance of impact, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Assuming that this uncertainty is made more explicit -- given more specifically -- in the actual scientific agency (or what not) releases, this is absolutely a case of sensationalist journalism.
I'm currently an OpenOffice.org Writer for various informal to semi-formal tasks. Although for anything "serious" I use LaTeX. Something like Abiword, which integrates better with my GNOME desktop, is just the sort of application I would like to use.
Also, the story claims that one of Abiword's distinctive features is, "includes proper footnotes". Well what is this supposed to mean? I've never had any difficulty making OpenOffice.org Writer do footnotes properly. Is there some widely known deficiency of which I am completely unaware?
There were also a number of other issues last I tried; perhaps this have since been resolved:
Seemingly no support for automated numbering of a proper outline (i.e. cycle Roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, etc.). I can't even get it to work manually, changing the sort of "numbering" I want at each level of indent.
select+delete or cut text fails to properly redraw the screen, leaving a line of the removed text visible, and leaving me to wonder whether I actually removed the section properly, or if it is just due to improper redraw.
In "Web Layout", strange breaking occurs where page breaks "should be", leaving me to wonder whether it hit "Enter" accidently, or if it is merely this bug.
Scrolling results in text distortion, making one or more lines unreadable until scrolled off the screen again, or until the application window is covered and redrawn (although disabling "smooth scrolling" seems to "fix" this).
Also, Abiword doesn't appear to allow the insertion of any "objects" other than "pictures". Of course this isn't a "fault", as I suppose it is waiting for a framework to be standardized for this sort of thing.
No, between everything else, I don't have the time now to get a handle on the code base and fix or implement these things myself, and so please don't tell me to.
I'm simply stating that as I found it last I checked, it was not sufficient to meet my needs, and I will, if most of these issues still remain, have to wait a while longer before I can adopt or endorse it for regular use.
Will the fines apply to users of buggy software for which no patch is available? Surely this is unacceptable, although not in principle. While perhaps common sense would suggest that you not run an httpd daemon from l33t_D00d357, it seems that drawing a line of what is and is not "sufficiently buggy" software is not a decision we want the Congress in the business of making.
Conceivably we could fine sites running exploitable servers for which patches exist, and say, have existed for two weeks or more.
However, this still seems incorrect. Then, what could we do with users, for whatever reason, running servers on now unsupported OSes? Clearly these people, if anyone, ought to be fined, but by these criteria they will not be.
Also, we can not correct this situation by requiring that all public servers be supported OSes, and then define what level of attention and testing constitutes "supported". This could be a nightmare for Open Source OSes and servers.
Just think, how much do you forsee the government charging to get an OS on its list of "approved" supported OSes? Or how much will they charge for a software producer to renew his or her "certification" that the OS produced is "supported"?
At the very best, we could fine sites exhibiting "gross negligence" in their system administration. The idea that, "any reasonable system administrator would have corrected or forseen this problem".
It seems to me that something like this would be workable.
It would catch sites running open relays, not due to bugs, but due to improper configuration.
It would catch sites running exploitable servers for which a patch or solution has been made prominently available through the particular distributor's "standard means of issuing alerts or updates".
All of us together suffer at the hand of systematic institutionalized oppression. It is by its very nature an oppression -- and suppression -- into which we are all born.
It was already firmly enshrined at the dawn of recorded philosophical thought, some 2500 years before the present.
It is not a matter of having to think to further it, though I'm sure some do to a greater or lesser extent. We are born into it, and left unexamined, we are too often blind to it.
It is instead a matter of having to think to avoid it.
There was never any need for a grand plot or scheme, and suggesting there is some great intention behind it all would be giving the matter more credit than it is due. Instead, it has derived primarily as natural progression of social and biological norms having originated long ago. That they were (and still are) norms, and that they have persisted, though, does not make them right, or acceptable.
The dominant male story must yield to the voice of the oppressed, the systematically suppressed.
The very language of our institutions serves to impose and enforce a hierarchy of social classes in which the conservative male remains dominant politically and "morally". Oh how his world is about to change!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with benefiting at the expense of those better off than yourself.
Attempting to bind others to some sort of unspoken social contract is oppressive and underhandedly coercive.
If it is a public good, let's fund it together, up front, and effectively through taxation and the reallocation of our public wealth.
If not, and if you really want to keep it just for yourself, stop trying to make it out to be "honor" or "manners", and come out and say it; just say that you want it all for yourself and are unwilling to share, "because I deserve it". You don't deserve it.
These sorts of "unspoken" social and political contracts are nothing but the means of the powerful and the wealthy to impose and enforce a hierarchy of social classes in which they are seated at the top, politically and "morally".
How does it feel to be a pawn? Wake up. You are being used.
I'm really interested; are there any high profile tech industry leaders who are not largely Libertarian? I mean, is a progressive liberal tech industry leader completely unheard of? It's seem that so very often I see this same trend in the tech workforce, especially the younger people.
"The market economy is all about winners and losers. You can't have winners without losers. Without losers, you don't have winners.
I'm just a raging libertarian. I'm not a believer in anarchy or no regulation. I believe there is a role for government in state, in defense."
There's nothing like the discovery of another "raging libertarian" directing billions of dollars and thousands of workers to bring just a little more gloom to my day.
Ah, wonderful. You see folks, even though he's "raging", he doesn't believe in "anarchy or no regulation", it's just that what comes to mind for him as the only significant role of government is...er, "in defense".
"Defense" from dirty, no-good progressive social programs, no doubt!
And so, more or less folks, if you lose your job, Scott just isn't interested in doing anything about it, because you are just a loser. It's just the way things are; unfortunate as it may be, we just can't change it. I'm really sorry.
But, do not dispair! For if it weren't for you being as big a loser as you are, people like Scott wouldn't be able to be as big of winners as they are. I'm sure he's quite grateful for your contribution.
Now, if you'll please just work for a little bit less, drop this unionizing crap, and stop demanding minimal levels of health care, that would be just dandy.
Aren't you glad, you hard working Libertarian party members, that your bosses are upstanding Libertarians themselves? They truly are splendid examples of the truth of the Libertarian party line and the undeniable truth of "Objectivist" ethics.
Yes? I couldn't agree more. You are in good company.
Don't you think you're over-simplifying things just a bit? It's hardly a choice between: a) fund these goods and services on the free market, or b) they will cease to exist.
"If with respect to DVDs, CDs and video games everyone adopted your attitude, you would have to do without them because they would not be available."
I don't think you understand. It is not a "problem", because it is not worth any price at all to me to fund them on the free market. What's the problem? Yet, we will not fail to fund what we must.
I have never in my life purchased a cassette.
I have never in my life purchased an audio CD.
I have purchased only one DVD (2001: A Space Oddessy), and that was with my first DVD drive just to see it work.
Except when I was in school, I have never purchased a book.
I do not and have never subscribed to a magazine.
The last movie I saw in a theater was the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy.
I have never rented a movie.
I very rarely watch television, and when I do, it is usually only PBS; I can live without that and not give it a second thought.
I very rarely listen to the radio, and when I do, it is usually my local NPR affiliate; I can live without that and not give it a second thought.
Oh, "you dirty, freeloading copyright violator!," you might be thinking. No, I do not violate copyrights. I have no infringing materials in my possession.
How can one get by without such things, that is, unless one lives in a run-down cabin in Montana?
There is an enormous quantity of classic literature made available electronically by educational institutions and non-profit organizations.
Dialogue with real people.
Brick-and-mortar libraries offer a truly wonderful environment and a tremendous wealth of information. You'll also find in them some delightful individuals and opportunities.
"Tape trading" of freely distributable live performances of music of all sorts.
On the road again. Going places where you've never been. Making music with your friends. How do you think my great-great-great-grandparents entertained themselves? With the help of neighbors and family they built an addition to the farm house (which still stands today) with a high ceiling, a good solid dancing floor, plenty of room for a chair and a fiddle, and whole lot of foot-tapping and hand-clapping. The fiddle squeaked, the voices were off-key, but albeit anything they knew how to have as good a time or better than anyone these days will find at a "concert".
Contrary to what you might suggest, most or all of these sources will not disappear even I fail to directly support them on the free market. They either cost little to nothing to distribute and are made available "because it is the right thing to do" or are funded (indirectly by me and other tax payers) as a public good.
The thirst of human beings for knowledge of their past and present, and their capacity for intelligent discourse and the sharing of creative expression within communities will not disappear.
This is why we, through our government, endorse and further scientific achievement, and artistic and literary expression.
We must make a priority of expanding this funding, not by fiat, but by further creating in the hearts of the people a will and passion to better themselves and their future, that they will not fail to pay and to sacrifice what is necessary for the betterment of the whole.
Inevitably, many are saying that while it is fine if the government uses or funds the best tool for the job, it would be wrong for the government to act on principle.
These are principles:
Every citizen has a right to utilize and benefit from electronic government services from the privacy of their own homes, without having to agree to an invasive and limiting EULA to acquire a "license", which can be revoked at the whim of a private corporation. The software tools which realize this right must be understandable, reliable, secure, auditable, and accessible.
Every citizen has a legitimate expectation to access to the wealth of enabling information available electronically, for education, for health, for justice, to better themselves and help to provide a better future for their children and their children's children, in the privacy of their own homes. This access must not be only on the whim of a private corporation on the string of an invasive and limiting EULA. The software tools which realize this access must be understandable, reliable, secure, auditable, and accessible.
The list goes on...
We, through our government, have an obligation to, as we are able, fund the realization of these rights and legitimate expectations of our fellow citizens through the development, distribution, and deployment of Free Open Source Software.
No longer must private entities be permitted to benefit from holding back -- monopolizing -- that right and legitimate expectation possessed by every modern person to better himself or herself, and his or her children through the increase and greater securing of knowledge, education, privacy, skill, and generally acecess to those services and goods each funds with his or her hard earned tax dollars, in this age of great information.
I think perhaps it is time for a sidebar; it seems relevant to this story given the position many seem to be supposing.
"The attitude appears to be that a producer does not have a right to produce and offer for sale a good or service on the terms it deems satisfactory, but instead must offer that good or service to you on terms you feel are satisfactory, or not at all."
Yes, because it is we who set the terms on which those privileged entities, corporations, may profit and prosper within our great nation.
Corporations are permitted to exist in that manner which and only for a time which pleases us and benefits us.
Do you understand perfectly what we are saying? Corporate and powerful private interests have no right or expectation to exploit the great majority that they might raise themselves up over and against their peers.
The state of things is as it is only so far and for so long as we permit it to be. These corporate and powerful private interests have nothing we have not allotted them for a time and for limited purposes, and through our rich democratic process we may just as easily take it again from them when and so far as they abuse it.
We are not pawns. We control our own destiny. Our rights will be respected.
If it turns out, as has been suggested, that Eolas is looking primarily to hurt Microsoft and licenses free of charge the technology to OSS browsers, should OSS browsers accept it?
On the one hand, it could give them an enormous edge over Microsoft.
On the other hand, it would be benefiting at the hand of a deeply flawed patent system.
But on the other hand, massively popularizing a OSS, standards-compliant browser would do a great amount of good for many people and businesses.
On the other hand though, it could be seen as implicitly endorsing Eolas' behavior.
...the parent poster makes his or her living from marketing?
A "fetish"?
Come on now. So you don't find advertising offensive; ok, but do you really need to insult others in order to rationalize your position?
I don't want to be an armchair psychologist here, but what is this with putting others down in order to rationalize or attempt to command respect for your generally unfavorable position?
Does it make you feel strong?
It is you who are being childish. You do not speak for me, and I do not think you speak for many other Human Persons here.
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If you do not agree to these terms then you must immediately terminate use of our Service and must destroy all copies of our Product or face prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.
Do you agree to these terms? Yes[ ] No [ ]
vim on a 80x25 character terminal.
.doc format.
dict for word selection.
ispell for spell checking.
latex for typesetting.
I just don't know that we've come very far with word processing in the past 10 or even 20 years. Looking at Microsoft Word, for example, why is it that we need those many menus of complex and technical features? If someone were to ask me, without looking, what sort of features these are, I wouldn't even be able to imagine what they might be. What more could Microsoft Word possibly provide that we don't have in the above four tools?
Computers were supposed to make our lives easier, not create more tedious tasks for us to perform.
With the above four tools, anyone, from a grade school student to a professional writer can create high quality documents ready for printing. All of these tools are freely available and will run on even a i386 machine.
I will take a document typeset with LaTeX to one "formatted" with Microsoft Word, anyday.
Look at how long these tools (or some near ancestor of) have been available.
Microsoft Word is an exercise in tedium. Unfortunately I need to be able to produce documents compatible with its
What's really so very sad is that even in our public school systems Word is sold on the students as being almost necessary for quality composition these days.
Yes, yes, you are right of course. I've looked into the Knoppix remastering before.
But since Knoppix is the LiveCD with the name recognition, it's just that I had hoped it might bring wider exposure to the many improvements coming with OOo 1.1.
It will have to wait until next time.
That's dissapointing. I had hoped to see OpenOffice.org 1.1.0. OpenOffice.org 1.1 is available in Debian unstable (contrib). Seeing as Knoppix is a modified Debian system, I can't imagine what the holdup might be. Does anyone have any insight into the situation?
What, is the U.S. going to just stop trade with China because China won't support the latest Microsoft DRM system? Hah! Or even reduce trade over it? Hah! If your business depends on communication and interoperability with systems in the Asian market, either you will adapt or you will be needing to explain to your shareholders just why you have made poor management decisions, leading to vendor lock-in and an inability to interoperate with the rest of the world. Good luck.
The worst possible outcome for Asian consumers is that they will not be able to download shitty RIAA-owned albums and play them in shiny new Windows Media Player 11 (or whatever it is up to these days).
But this won't be a problem, because those consumers who want to will be playing this same music on their free open source OSes, "illegally", and enjoying every minute of it.
The parent post is an exact repost of this post in a thread attached to a review of two Red Hat Linux books.
The original post was made by someone else, one "Bob-o-Matic!".
I suggest that the parent either provide a damn good explanation for this behavior, or be modded down for either or both plagerizing or "karma-whoring".
In fact, I don't care what his excuse is. Even if it is, "We're the same person", the post is off-topic, irrelelvant to this thread.
As far as I am concerned the parent is a karma-whoring troll who will fool the moderators no longer.
It's only a matter of time -- and not a very long time at all -- until free open source solutions will replace or strongly compete with proprietary solutions in all but the most peculiar of applications, and even there they had best worry.
Does Sun really believe that they can, in so far as they may now, maintain any technical superiority at all? They can not, not with big money funding the development and deployment of free open source solutions.
In a few short years, either Sun will change its tune, or Sun will join SCO in the gutter.
Well, at most (depending upon what components are tweaked) Sun only needs to provide modifiied source to those it distributes a modified binary.
And even if those receiving the modified source make it available publically (which under the GPL, for example, they can), Sun certainly isn't going to provide any support whatsoever for a system you have compiled yourself from the modified sources.
Taxes are to fund the common good.
It's not so far fetched, is it?
There's really nothing incorrect about that statement.
It is not, (great, minor) evil. It is great (minor evil). It's similar to how we might say, "a large category 2 hurricane". That is, "for a category 2 hurricane, it is large."
"For a minor evil, it is great".
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with "vast minority of the group". Here what we reference is, for example, "the most significant or numerous part of that subgroup constituting the minority".
While you are modded funny, I still do not hesitate to reply, as I've encountered many who are quite serious about it, many wannabe grammar-nazis. If you what to be a grammar nazi, or whatever, if you want to hold a grudge or a pet peeve, why don't you start by at least thinking the matter through?
Did that occur to you? It's really quite easy to understand what is referenced by phrases of that sort.
Did it occur to you to think?
No, I didn't think so. Now crawl back into your cave.
I don't know that I've ever had a problem with suspend-to-ram on my Inspiron 8200 laptop with apm. I don't have suspend-to-disk (because while the bios has a key combo for it, there is no bios code to actually handle it).
I've also heard a lot of success stories with apci.
Are there really a lot of people running reasonably modern systems who absolutely can not get at least suspend-to-ram to work reliably?
...nethack?
How do you think I should react? I mean, I could switch to Slash'Em, but don't you think that's a bit extreme?
There is a long tradition of reduced price or no price alternative access to software and services for non-commercial, personal or educactional use.
It's a perfectly legitimate thing to request. It also potentially betters the provider's image among that community. And some companies -- suprise -- are willing to provide free or reduced price software and services even if the benefit is negligible, just because it is a nice thing to do.
And what is this nonsense about market, profit, blah, blah, blah. Yes, it's quite well understood that Ayn Rand is your personal saviour, but can we perhaps have just one single conversation without dragging the great and powerful Market into it?
It just isn't funny anymore; really.
Obviously their measurements are uncertain, and yet in the reporting we at best hear only vague suggestions that the present approximation may not be entirely accurate.
To take into account uncertainty in measurement, 50%, for example, must be appended with, for example, a +-20% margin of error, unless they are already reporting the maximum possible chance of impact, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Assuming that this uncertainty is made more explicit -- given more specifically -- in the actual scientific agency (or what not) releases, this is absolutely a case of sensationalist journalism.
Also, the story claims that one of Abiword's distinctive features is, "includes proper footnotes". Well what is this supposed to mean? I've never had any difficulty making OpenOffice.org Writer do footnotes properly. Is there some widely known deficiency of which I am completely unaware?
There were also a number of other issues last I tried; perhaps this have since been resolved:
Seemingly no support for automated numbering of a proper outline (i.e. cycle Roman numerals, capital letters, numbers, etc.). I can't even get it to work manually, changing the sort of "numbering" I want at each level of indent.
select+delete or cut text fails to properly redraw the screen, leaving a line of the removed text visible, and leaving me to wonder whether I actually removed the section properly, or if it is just due to improper redraw.
In "Web Layout", strange breaking occurs where page breaks "should be", leaving me to wonder whether it hit "Enter" accidently, or if it is merely this bug.
Scrolling results in text distortion, making one or more lines unreadable until scrolled off the screen again, or until the application window is covered and redrawn (although disabling "smooth scrolling" seems to "fix" this).
Also, Abiword doesn't appear to allow the insertion of any "objects" other than "pictures". Of course this isn't a "fault", as I suppose it is waiting for a framework to be standardized for this sort of thing.
No, between everything else, I don't have the time now to get a handle on the code base and fix or implement these things myself, and so please don't tell me to.
I'm simply stating that as I found it last I checked, it was not sufficient to meet my needs, and I will, if most of these issues still remain, have to wait a while longer before I can adopt or endorse it for regular use.
I look forward to switching.
Conceivably we could fine sites running exploitable servers for which patches exist, and say, have existed for two weeks or more.
However, this still seems incorrect. Then, what could we do with users, for whatever reason, running servers on now unsupported OSes? Clearly these people, if anyone, ought to be fined, but by these criteria they will not be.
Also, we can not correct this situation by requiring that all public servers be supported OSes, and then define what level of attention and testing constitutes "supported". This could be a nightmare for Open Source OSes and servers.
Just think, how much do you forsee the government charging to get an OS on its list of "approved" supported OSes? Or how much will they charge for a software producer to renew his or her "certification" that the OS produced is "supported"?
At the very best, we could fine sites exhibiting "gross negligence" in their system administration. The idea that, "any reasonable system administrator would have corrected or forseen this problem".
It seems to me that something like this would be workable.
It would catch sites running open relays, not due to bugs, but due to improper configuration.
It would catch sites running exploitable servers for which a patch or solution has been made prominently available through the particular distributor's "standard means of issuing alerts or updates".
But what about home users?
All of us together suffer at the hand of systematic institutionalized oppression. It is by its very nature an oppression -- and suppression -- into which we are all born.
It was already firmly enshrined at the dawn of recorded philosophical thought, some 2500 years before the present.
It is not a matter of having to think to further it, though I'm sure some do to a greater or lesser extent. We are born into it, and left unexamined, we are too often blind to it.
It is instead a matter of having to think to avoid it.
There was never any need for a grand plot or scheme, and suggesting there is some great intention behind it all would be giving the matter more credit than it is due. Instead, it has derived primarily as natural progression of social and biological norms having originated long ago. That they were (and still are) norms, and that they have persisted, though, does not make them right, or acceptable.
The dominant male story must yield to the voice of the oppressed, the systematically suppressed.
The very language of our institutions serves to impose and enforce a hierarchy of social classes in which the conservative male remains dominant politically and "morally". Oh how his world is about to change!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with benefiting at the expense of those better off than yourself.
Attempting to bind others to some sort of unspoken social contract is oppressive and underhandedly coercive.
If it is a public good, let's fund it together, up front, and effectively through taxation and the reallocation of our public wealth.
If not, and if you really want to keep it just for yourself, stop trying to make it out to be "honor" or "manners", and come out and say it; just say that you want it all for yourself and are unwilling to share, "because I deserve it". You don't deserve it.
These sorts of "unspoken" social and political contracts are nothing but the means of the powerful and the wealthy to impose and enforce a hierarchy of social classes in which they are seated at the top, politically and "morally".
How does it feel to be a pawn? Wake up. You are being used.
Again, then it is not a "problem".
It's just "how things happen to be".
To say that it is a "problem" is to assign value to one outcome over the other.
I'm really interested; are there any high profile tech industry leaders who are not largely Libertarian? I mean, is a progressive liberal tech industry leader completely unheard of? It's seem that so very often I see this same trend in the tech workforce, especially the younger people.
...er, "in defense".
"The market economy is all about winners and losers. You can't have winners without losers. Without losers, you don't have winners.
I'm just a raging libertarian. I'm not a believer in anarchy or no regulation. I believe there is a role for government in state, in defense."
There's nothing like the discovery of another "raging libertarian" directing billions of dollars and thousands of workers to bring just a little more gloom to my day.
Ah, wonderful. You see folks, even though he's "raging", he doesn't believe in "anarchy or no regulation", it's just that what comes to mind for him as the only significant role of government is
"Defense" from dirty, no-good progressive social programs, no doubt!
And so, more or less folks, if you lose your job, Scott just isn't interested in doing anything about it, because you are just a loser. It's just the way things are; unfortunate as it may be, we just can't change it. I'm really sorry.
But, do not dispair! For if it weren't for you being as big a loser as you are, people like Scott wouldn't be able to be as big of winners as they are. I'm sure he's quite grateful for your contribution.
Now, if you'll please just work for a little bit less, drop this unionizing crap, and stop demanding minimal levels of health care, that would be just dandy.
Aren't you glad, you hard working Libertarian party members, that your bosses are upstanding Libertarians themselves? They truly are splendid examples of the truth of the Libertarian party line and the undeniable truth of "Objectivist" ethics.
Yes? I couldn't agree more. You are in good company.
"If with respect to DVDs, CDs and video games everyone adopted your attitude, you would have to do without them because they would not be available."
I don't think you understand. It is not a "problem", because it is not worth any price at all to me to fund them on the free market. What's the problem? Yet, we will not fail to fund what we must.
I have never in my life purchased a cassette.
I have never in my life purchased an audio CD.
I have purchased only one DVD (2001: A Space Oddessy), and that was with my first DVD drive just to see it work.
Except when I was in school, I have never purchased a book.
I do not and have never subscribed to a magazine.
The last movie I saw in a theater was the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy.
I have never rented a movie.
I very rarely watch television, and when I do, it is usually only PBS; I can live without that and not give it a second thought.
I very rarely listen to the radio, and when I do, it is usually my local NPR affiliate; I can live without that and not give it a second thought.
Oh, "you dirty, freeloading copyright violator!," you might be thinking. No, I do not violate copyrights. I have no infringing materials in my possession.
How can one get by without such things, that is, unless one lives in a run-down cabin in Montana?
There is an enormous quantity of classic literature made available electronically by educational institutions and non-profit organizations.
Dialogue with real people.
Brick-and-mortar libraries offer a truly wonderful environment and a tremendous wealth of information. You'll also find in them some delightful individuals and opportunities.
"Tape trading" of freely distributable live performances of music of all sorts.
On the road again. Going places where you've never been. Making music with your friends. How do you think my great-great-great-grandparents entertained themselves? With the help of neighbors and family they built an addition to the farm house (which still stands today) with a high ceiling, a good solid dancing floor, plenty of room for a chair and a fiddle, and whole lot of foot-tapping and hand-clapping. The fiddle squeaked, the voices were off-key, but albeit anything they knew how to have as good a time or better than anyone these days will find at a "concert".
Contrary to what you might suggest, most or all of these sources will not disappear even I fail to directly support them on the free market. They either cost little to nothing to distribute and are made available "because it is the right thing to do" or are funded (indirectly by me and other tax payers) as a public good.
The thirst of human beings for knowledge of their past and present, and their capacity for intelligent discourse and the sharing of creative expression within communities will not disappear.
This is why we, through our government, endorse and further scientific achievement, and artistic and literary expression.
We must make a priority of expanding this funding, not by fiat, but by further creating in the hearts of the people a will and passion to better themselves and their future, that they will not fail to pay and to sacrifice what is necessary for the betterment of the whole.
These are principles:
Every citizen has a right to utilize and benefit from electronic government services from the privacy of their own homes, without having to agree to an invasive and limiting EULA to acquire a "license", which can be revoked at the whim of a private corporation. The software tools which realize this right must be understandable, reliable, secure, auditable, and accessible.
Every citizen has a legitimate expectation to access to the wealth of enabling information available electronically, for education, for health, for justice, to better themselves and help to provide a better future for their children and their children's children, in the privacy of their own homes. This access must not be only on the whim of a private corporation on the string of an invasive and limiting EULA. The software tools which realize this access must be understandable, reliable, secure, auditable, and accessible.
The list goes on...
We, through our government, have an obligation to, as we are able, fund the realization of these rights and legitimate expectations of our fellow citizens through the development, distribution, and deployment of Free Open Source Software.
No longer must private entities be permitted to benefit from holding back -- monopolizing -- that right and legitimate expectation possessed by every modern person to better himself or herself, and his or her children through the increase and greater securing of knowledge, education, privacy, skill, and generally acecess to those services and goods each funds with his or her hard earned tax dollars, in this age of great information.
There is no longer any excuse.
I think perhaps it is time for a sidebar; it seems relevant to this story given the position many seem to be supposing.
"The attitude appears to be that a producer does not have a right to produce and offer for sale a good or service on the terms it deems satisfactory, but instead must offer that good or service to you on terms you feel are satisfactory, or not at all."
Yes, because it is we who set the terms on which those privileged entities, corporations, may profit and prosper within our great nation.
Corporations are permitted to exist in that manner which and only for a time which pleases us and benefits us.
Do you understand perfectly what we are saying? Corporate and powerful private interests have no right or expectation to exploit the great majority that they might raise themselves up over and against their peers.
The state of things is as it is only so far and for so long as we permit it to be. These corporate and powerful private interests have nothing we have not allotted them for a time and for limited purposes, and through our rich democratic process we may just as easily take it again from them when and so far as they abuse it.
We are not pawns. We control our own destiny. Our rights will be respected.
If it turns out, as has been suggested, that Eolas is looking primarily to hurt Microsoft and licenses free of charge the technology to OSS browsers, should OSS browsers accept it?
On the one hand, it could give them an enormous edge over Microsoft.
On the other hand, it would be benefiting at the hand of a deeply flawed patent system.
But on the other hand, massively popularizing a OSS, standards-compliant browser would do a great amount of good for many people and businesses.
On the other hand though, it could be seen as implicitly endorsing Eolas' behavior.
...the parent poster makes his or her living from marketing?
A "fetish"?
Come on now. So you don't find advertising offensive; ok, but do you really need to insult others in order to rationalize your position?
I don't want to be an armchair psychologist here, but what is this with putting others down in order to rationalize or attempt to command respect for your generally unfavorable position?
Does it make you feel strong?
It is you who are being childish. You do not speak for me, and I do not think you speak for many other Human Persons here.