1. It is not about ODF, it is about a usable open standard with available usable implementation. ODF naturally fits the bill. If there was something else available, it would have been on the table.
2. Yes, open format document is easy to spot -- if you get it into your email box regardless of the OS, and can open it with tools from several different vendors without trouble, it is probably open. Sorta like PDF or ODF.
3. There are a lot of good explanations on the web about it, try your favourite search engine.
As software openness becomes a mainstream issue, the political types _will have_ to form an opinion about, and that is good, because at least some of them will start paying attention and hopefully reading online.
The discussions mean more interest and wider coverage of the topic, and more awareness -- in the politico circles as well as the general public.
What is hitting the general public now is the first level of awareness -- they start to realize that there is this issue of open formats, free software, "IP" abuse etc. In a few short years the awareness will progress, and some people may even figure out what this issue is about.
And, since the issue is mainstream, this will also lend more credibility to the openness proponents easier, as they won't be seen as tinfoil hat nerdy types anymore.
It is not unthinkable to expect getting the point where government will accept the necessity of open standards and open software for their services -- in another hundred years or so.
Actually, for people (like me) who read all their licenses this is not a bad thing. That way I can read the license and compare it to other licenses and so it becomes one more incentive to use the free software. I have avoided more than one embarrassment by reading the license, and I have had more than one manager-level/lawyer idiot get embarrassed because THEY didn't know their license.
there is no "intellectual property". the term property refers to items that are exclusive, and cannot be consumed by two or more parties simultaneously. once a technology is discovered, the products of that technology can be used in a non-exclusive manner, i.e. once a drug is developed somewhere, anyone else can mass-produce it, if they know how. the original inventor still has the know-how though, it hasn't been taken away from them. the benefits from the invention to the society are also present. the only thing that may not be there is the opportunity for the inventors to cash from their invention.
the logic behind copyright, patents, trademarks and similar rights is that this opportunity to cash is essential for more invention (whether this logic holds should be matter of debate. standard economic theory would suggest it doesn't hold very well, but nevermind). the deal is as follows:
the society part: 1. the society gives the inventor a limited monopoly to make cash (in addition to the social framework and infrastructure that make the existence of the inventor possible) 2. the society loses out during that limited time, because if the invention could have been copied, it would have delivered cheaper benefits. 3. the society makes the losses in (2) back from increased investment on inventions and because in the long term the ideas passing into the public domain, enriching all members
the inventor/copyright owner part: 1. has opportunity to make cash for limited time 2. has to eventually give up on the monopoly and 3. has to produce more new inventions
The problem is that IFPI and its members fight to make the deal look more like:
The IFPI member part part: 1. owns whatever ideas they can buy up forever, regardless of further innovation
the society part: 2. pays up or else
This would be a fine arrangement, if the IFPI members existed in a vacuum and were not using the society facilities at all. But they don't, they can't have it both ways. They'll have to either accept the original deal, or the society will eventualy give up on the original deal, and on the IFPI members.
Come on now, you don't get to use free software only because _you_ choose not to. Why are you blaming your choice on the community? Blame it on yourself -- YOU are not willing to accept the GPL.
Again, the community neither wins, nor loses. If you feel like you're losing out, it is your problem. Same situation as Tivo;)
"In my day to day work I avoid using any software that is GPLed because of commercial concerns (out side of my control) I cannot release details of software. So I have to reinvent everything and the open source community loses out on anything beneficial I may have done. A lose lose situation."
A lose-lose situation? How? If you aren't planning on giving derivative work back to the free software community in exchange for the free use of their software, they don't benefit.
Seems to me that (just like Tivo's) your dislike for the GPL comes only because you don't really want give back where you take.
installing third-party applications that connect to someplace, download something, and do something on on your machine, and being exposed when those applications are shown to have bugs is news how?
the google engineers aren't magicians. when they develop features, they do so under tight schedule, and make mistakes, especially those hired to code (as opposed to do PR). the only reason there haven't been more problems discovered is likely the fact that they don't distribute much software.
besides, google's main goal isn't promoting security. their primary goal is to hookup lotsa people -- and in their case, that means to deliver applications with lotsa features quickly, because people are hooked on the features, the competition ain't sleeping, and that first-comer advantage matters.
does that remind you of another company? it should, because all of them successful companies ain't that much different at all;)
Whether you buy or build depends a lot on whom you're buying from. Buying from people who are not in the storage business, even if it is a big corporation like Dell, gives you about the same level of support as rolling your own when the shit hits the fan. Don't believe me? See this one, and notice how long the problem kept on and on (me is one of the happy users there):
Buying from EMC or the likes (even EMC from Dell) tends to work better. The hardware is expensive, the consulting fee is expensive, and the support is expensive, but at least for that kind of money you are sure someone tries a bit harder to help.
All in all, it depends on your business. If you are making a zillion a month from that hardware working flawlessly, _not_ paying $200k for the storage is dumb. If you are making little enough so that $50k makes you think about it, rolling your own could be the way to go.
meeting someone isn't the same thing as your information being retained by a corporation, and in a context in which you aren't even aware of them collecting. it is more like you meeting someone, while at the same time someone else behind the door is sitting quietly and taking notes of your meeting.
Good for you. I certainly don't know what data they have about me, where are they getting it from, and how are they putting it together. I much rather have a legal mechanism that requires them to tell me what data they have about me if I ask, and enables me to have it removed, then not.
I used to live in a society in which detailed files on people were customarily kept, and used to make people behave. From my experience, allowing any company (or organization, for that matter) to have data files on people without any option of the people to control what's in those files and who's accessing them isn't the smart thing to do.
How, pray tell, do you know what google uses this data for? Are you on their board or something? Unless you have no access to that kind of information, you don't know. There is still this case of American phone companies providing phone call data _willingly_ to the US government. Did you know about that before someone blew the whistle? And this happens in a country in which government abuse of private information is very much under control, compared to the rest of the world.
Don't be so naive, every large corporation (and many small ones) are intimately in bed with the establishment. It is just not good business not to be;)
_willingly_ giving up privacy data is the key. willingly implies knowlingly. do you _know_ what kind of data google collects from all its services and how it uses it to track you? if you don't _know_, then you're not willingly giving up your privacy, you're being conned into giving up your data.
I for one want to know very much how are they using the data from the web stats service google provides. I see that everyone and their dog have the scripts, and while I agree to disclose some statistics to the sites that I'm visiting, I don't remember ever agreeing to disclose the same information to google.
i hear people talking about them from time to time, but i still can't figure out how they appear. ain't there query parameters in practically all database access APIs?
Nah, this isn't about people trying to run away from crimes.The US Attorney General has put it eloquently:
"This extradition represents the (US) Department of Justice's commitment to protect intellectual property rights from those who violate our laws from the other side of the globe," US Assistant Attorney-General Alice Fisher said.
This is all about extending US legislation all over the world because the US can still do it.
you're wrong. all religions serve similar function to their base, so grouping them under "religion" makes sense.
not so with the copyright and related rights. first, they aren't property rights, and second they serve different purpose. if you _must_ group them, then call them what they are -- limited monopoly rights granted in exchange for something else. for copyright, it is the (violated by the recent extensions) promise that pass some time the rights will revert to society (public domain). ditto for patent. for the trademark the justification logic is somewhat different, but nevertheless not in any way related to property rights.
the whole term "property rights" is being promoted by the same people who violate the copyright by extending it into perpetuity and the same people who abuse patents and trademarks to stifle competition and extend their monopoly over and over.
One thing I notice is that the *AA organizations have shifted the tactics of the warfare against the public domain. They seem to have increased pressure sharply for new laws in poorer countries via international bodies for protection of the so-called "intellectual property" rights, and direct pressure from the US representatives in those countries. Legislators are also lobbied (read bought) to pass such legislation; and lobbying in such countries is still way cheaper than lobbying in the US.
The end result is that more and more countries (especially countries where the electorate isn't particularly sensitive about the _laws_ that govern copyright and related rights -- as they aren't enforced much) not only pass draconian laws with stiff penalties, but use more and more the "intellectual property rights" language, and that may lead to a funny situation in which most of the world outside the US will match, or overdo US; at which point the *AA industry will possibly make the claim that this is "the state of art", and move on to further limits rights in the US.
So, while this development is good, there is still more to come on the copyright front;)
are by far a larger and more present danger than a flood caused by a human epidemic. just remember the mssql virus from a few years ago... it chocked a few networks.
come on, with all the downloads and botnets running from a home PC, will ANYONE AT ALL notice the few extra clicks from the humans?
The real problem is not the fact that many companies want their copyrights protected within the bounds of the law. That is okay, and even welcome as long as the goal of copyright -- rewarding creativity and fostering more of it -- is achieved by the law.
Rather, the problem is the abuse of the copyright laws (and legislature in general) that is done by some of the corporate copyright holders. The laws are constantly extended for longer and longer period in many countries, often by pressure from countries like the US, where bribing legislature is a legit business; this happens in violation of the reason for which the said laws exist. This is, of course, only possible because politicians are corrupt and largely unchecked, and succumb to bribes, in this case, from the media and entertainment companies.
The said companies have generated enormous wealth via the copyright monopoly, and have strong interest to use this wealth to do two things -- the first is to extend their monopoly power over existing works, and the second is to create bareers to entry for new players. That unfortunately includes players with new business models and technologies.
So, until there is strong enough pressure on politicos from all of us for fairer laws regarding copyright so that the damned bribed assholes that vote the laws get a clue and take action, the laws will get more draconian, and the abuses more egregious. Just look at Sweden and their pirate party.
i didn't read TF blog post, but since i saw a radical view and the word "server" in the same summary, i'll add my 2 yen here. Since we see the word "server", we assume we're talking competent system administrators here. A competent system administrator usually reads and understands the documentation of a software package before making a decision. Having read the documentation of gentoo, I can suggest at least the following ways to ensure a stable distribution:
- one can create a copy of the source files repository - one can create a repository for self-compiled binary packages and install from there - one can use the global repositories, and still get a stable version by restricting available packages by version - finally, as others say, one can use the stable version.
Since the blogger seems to have missed these obvious ways, he hasn't read the documentation, and hence is not a competent administrator, hence his opinion is not very valuable.
yep, if it helps break the pigopolistic group that has brought this situation by bribing politicians into accepting laws that violate the principles on which copyright monopoly is granted to the creators of art, infringing copyright is okay. of course, the people doing it may end up being prosecuted by the establishment. this, however isn't new either -- a lot of protests against unjust laws based on violence or bribery in history have ended with the protesters suffering from the establishment from their protests.
Yawn... Google is a company. Regardless of the marketing bullshit they spew on, they aren't in the business of providing APIs (or whatever), they are in the business of making money. Anything else is subject to change.
Their responsibility is more towards their shareholders, not so much towards their users. So, if they think one of their products -- be that APIs, ajax apps or whatever are providing diminishing returns for some reason, they'll axe it unless it is popular enough so that too many users feel ripped off. APIs aren't in the category at all.
Also, the bigger they get, the more expensive the stock becomes, and the more their ownership sreads, the more clout the bean counters have over any other management ideology.
So, if one relies exclusively to Google for anything, better check your contract with Google carefully and assess all risks (including risk from expensive litigation) first.
Slashdot Mirror
1. It is not about ODF, it is about a usable open standard with available usable implementation. ODF naturally fits the bill. If there was something else available, it would have been on the table.
s +OpenXML&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0i =UTF-8&fr=moz2X ML&sourceid=Mozilla-search&form=CHROME
2. Yes, open format document is easy to spot -- if you get it into your email box regardless of the OS, and can open it with tools from several different vendors without trouble, it is probably open. Sorta like PDF or ODF.
3. There are a lot of good explanations on the web about it, try your favourite search engine.
http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=ODF+v
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ODF+vs+OpenXML&e
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=ODF+vs+Open
This is not a problem, this is a hope.
As software openness becomes a mainstream issue, the political types _will have_ to form an opinion about, and that is good, because at least some of them will start paying attention and hopefully reading online.
The discussions mean more interest and wider coverage of the topic, and more awareness -- in the politico circles as well as the general public.
What is hitting the general public now is the first level of awareness -- they start to realize that there is this issue of open formats, free software, "IP" abuse etc. In a few short years the awareness will progress, and some people may even figure out what this issue is about.
And, since the issue is mainstream, this will also lend more credibility to the openness proponents easier, as they won't be seen as tinfoil hat nerdy types anymore.
It is not unthinkable to expect getting the point where government will accept the necessity of open standards and open software for their services -- in another hundred years or so.
Actually, for people (like me) who read all their licenses this is not a bad thing. That way I can read the license and compare it to other licenses and so it becomes one more incentive to use the free software. I have avoided more than one embarrassment by reading the license, and I have had more than one manager-level/lawyer idiot get embarrassed because THEY didn't know their license.
there is no "intellectual property". the term property refers to items that are exclusive, and cannot be consumed by two or more parties simultaneously. once a technology is discovered, the products of that technology can be used in a non-exclusive manner, i.e. once a drug is developed somewhere, anyone else can mass-produce it, if they know how. the original inventor still has the know-how though, it hasn't been taken away from them. the benefits from the invention to the society are also present. the only thing that may not be there is the opportunity for the inventors to cash from their invention.
the logic behind copyright, patents, trademarks and similar rights is that this opportunity to cash is essential for more invention (whether this logic holds should be matter of debate. standard economic theory would suggest it doesn't hold very well, but nevermind). the deal is as follows:
the society part:
1. the society gives the inventor a limited monopoly to make cash (in addition to the social framework and infrastructure that make the existence of the inventor possible)
2. the society loses out during that limited time, because if the invention could have been copied, it would have delivered cheaper benefits.
3. the society makes the losses in (2) back from increased investment on inventions and because in the long term the ideas passing into the public domain, enriching all members
the inventor/copyright owner part:
1. has opportunity to make cash for limited time
2. has to eventually give up on the monopoly and
3. has to produce more new inventions
The problem is that IFPI and its members fight to make the deal look more like:
The IFPI member part part:
1. owns whatever ideas they can buy up forever, regardless of further innovation
the society part:
2. pays up or else
This would be a fine arrangement, if the IFPI members existed in a vacuum and were not using the society facilities at all. But they don't, they can't have it both ways. They'll have to either accept the original deal, or the society will eventualy give up on the original deal, and on the IFPI members.
Come on now, you don't get to use free software only because _you_ choose not to. Why are you blaming your choice on the community? Blame it on yourself -- YOU are not willing to accept the GPL.
;)
Again, the community neither wins, nor loses. If you feel like you're losing out, it is your problem. Same situation as Tivo
"In my day to day work I avoid using any software that is GPLed because of commercial concerns (out side of my control) I cannot release details of software. So I have to reinvent everything and the open source community loses out on anything beneficial I may have done. A lose lose situation."
A lose-lose situation? How? If you aren't planning on giving derivative work back to the free software community in exchange for the free use of their software, they don't benefit.
Seems to me that (just like Tivo's) your dislike for the GPL comes only because you don't really want give back where you take.
installing third-party applications that connect to someplace, download something, and do something on on your machine, and being exposed when those applications are shown to have bugs is news how?
;)
the google engineers aren't magicians. when they develop features, they do so under tight schedule, and make mistakes, especially those hired to code (as opposed to do PR). the only reason there haven't been more problems discovered is likely the fact that they don't distribute much software.
besides, google's main goal isn't promoting security. their primary goal is to hookup lotsa people -- and in their case, that means to deliver applications with lotsa features quickly, because people are hooked on the features, the competition ain't sleeping, and that first-comer advantage matters.
does that remind you of another company? it should, because all of them successful companies ain't that much different at all
look up truecrypt. it has had that plausible deniability thing for years now ;)
Whether you buy or build depends a lot on whom you're buying from. Buying from people who are not in the storage business, even if it is a big corporation like Dell, gives you about the same level of support as rolling your own when the shit hits the fan. Don't believe me? See this one, and notice how long the problem kept on and on (me is one of the happy users there):
m essage?board.id=pv_raid&message.id=214&view=by_dat e_ascending&page=1
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/
Buying from EMC or the likes (even EMC from Dell) tends to work better. The hardware is expensive, the consulting fee is expensive, and the support is expensive, but at least for that kind of money you are sure someone tries a bit harder to help.
All in all, it depends on your business. If you are making a zillion a month from that hardware working flawlessly, _not_ paying $200k for the storage is dumb. If you are making little enough so that $50k makes you think about it, rolling your own could be the way to go.
I thought the compilers recompiled the software, not the average user. Besides, I know this grandmother ... her mobile server runs Gentoo ....
meeting someone isn't the same thing as your information being retained by a corporation, and in a context in which you aren't even aware of them collecting. it is more like you meeting someone, while at the same time someone else behind the door is sitting quietly and taking notes of your meeting.
;)
thankyouvermuch, but I don't like it
Good for you. I certainly don't know what data they have about me, where are they getting it from, and how are they putting it together. I much rather have a legal mechanism that requires them to tell me what data they have about me if I ask, and enables me to have it removed, then not.
I used to live in a society in which detailed files on people were customarily kept, and used to make people behave. From my experience, allowing any company (or organization, for that matter) to have data files on people without any option of the people to control what's in those files and who's accessing them isn't the smart thing to do.
But to each their own.
How, pray tell, do you know what google uses this data for? Are you on their board or something? Unless you have no access to that kind of information, you don't know. There is still this case of American phone companies providing phone call data _willingly_ to the US government. Did you know about that before someone blew the whistle? And this happens in a country in which government abuse of private information is very much under control, compared to the rest of the world.
;)
Don't be so naive, every large corporation (and many small ones) are intimately in bed with the establishment. It is just not good business not to be
_willingly_ giving up privacy data is the key. willingly implies knowlingly. do you _know_ what kind of data google collects from all its services and how it uses it to track you? if you don't _know_, then you're not willingly giving up your privacy, you're being conned into giving up your data.
I for one want to know very much how are they using the data from the web stats service google provides. I see that everyone and their dog have the scripts, and while I agree to disclose some statistics to the sites that I'm visiting, I don't remember ever agreeing to disclose the same information to google.
pray tell, how does (using the example above, and an imaginary access api)
this:
st = api.createStatement('select * from employees where fullName like ' + mySQLInjectedInputFromUser);
st.execute
take more time to write than this:
st = api.createStatement('select * from employees where fullName like ?' )
st.execute(mySQLInjectedInputFromUser);
i hear people talking about them from time to time, but i still can't figure out how they appear.
ain't there query parameters in practically all database access APIs?
Nah, this isn't about people trying to run away from crimes.The US Attorney General has put it eloquently:
"This extradition represents the (US) Department of Justice's commitment to protect intellectual property rights from those who violate our laws from the other side of the globe," US Assistant Attorney-General Alice Fisher said.
This is all about extending US legislation all over the world because the US can still do it.
you're wrong. all religions serve similar function to their base, so grouping them under "religion" makes sense.
not so with the copyright and related rights. first, they aren't property rights, and second they serve different purpose. if you _must_ group them, then call them what they are -- limited monopoly rights granted in exchange for something else. for copyright, it is the (violated by the recent extensions) promise that pass some time the rights will revert to society (public domain). ditto for patent. for the trademark the justification logic is somewhat different, but nevertheless not in any way related to property rights.
the whole term "property rights" is being promoted by the same people who violate the copyright by extending it into perpetuity and the same people who abuse patents and trademarks to stifle competition and extend their monopoly over and over.
and so on.
One thing I notice is that the *AA organizations have shifted the tactics of the warfare against the public domain. They seem to have increased pressure sharply for new laws in poorer countries via international bodies for protection of the so-called "intellectual property" rights, and direct pressure from the US representatives in those countries. Legislators are also lobbied (read bought) to pass such legislation; and lobbying in such countries is still way cheaper than lobbying in the US.
;)
The end result is that more and more countries (especially countries where the electorate isn't particularly sensitive about the _laws_ that govern copyright and related rights -- as they aren't enforced much) not only pass draconian laws with stiff penalties, but use more and more the "intellectual property rights" language, and that may lead to a funny situation in which most of the world outside the US will match, or overdo US; at which point the *AA industry will possibly make the claim that this is "the state of art", and move on to further limits rights in the US.
So, while this development is good, there is still more to come on the copyright front
http://flash.uchicago.edu/website/research/gallery /home.py
for all alternative OS users out there.
are by far a larger and more present danger than a flood caused ... it chocked a few networks.
by a human epidemic. just remember the mssql virus from a few
years ago
come on, with all the downloads and botnets running from a home PC,
will ANYONE AT ALL notice the few extra clicks from the humans?
The real problem is not the fact that many companies want their copyrights protected within the bounds of the law. That is okay, and even welcome as long as the goal of copyright -- rewarding creativity and fostering more of it -- is achieved by the law.
Rather, the problem is the abuse of the copyright laws (and legislature in general) that is done by some of the corporate copyright holders. The laws are constantly extended for longer and longer period in many countries, often by pressure from countries like the US, where bribing legislature is a legit business; this happens in violation of the reason for which the said laws exist. This is, of course, only possible because politicians are corrupt and largely unchecked, and succumb to bribes, in this case, from the media and entertainment companies.
The said companies have generated enormous wealth via the copyright monopoly, and have strong interest to use this wealth to do two things -- the first is to extend their monopoly power over existing works, and the second is to create bareers to entry for new players. That unfortunately includes players with new business models and technologies.
So, until there is strong enough pressure on politicos from all of us for fairer laws regarding copyright so that the damned bribed assholes that vote the laws get a clue and take action, the laws will get more draconian, and the abuses more egregious. Just look at Sweden and their pirate party.
i didn't read TF blog post, but since i saw a radical view and the word "server" in the same summary, i'll add my 2 yen here. Since we see the word "server", we assume we're talking competent system administrators here. A competent system administrator usually reads and understands the documentation of a software package before making a decision. Having read the documentation of gentoo, I can suggest at least the following ways to ensure a stable distribution:
- one can create a copy of the source files repository
- one can create a repository for self-compiled binary packages and install from there
- one can use the global repositories, and still get a stable version by restricting available packages by version
- finally, as others say, one can use the stable version.
Since the blogger seems to have missed these obvious ways, he hasn't read the documentation, and hence is not a competent administrator, hence his opinion is not very valuable.
yep, if it helps break the pigopolistic group that has brought this situation by bribing politicians into accepting laws that violate the principles on which copyright monopoly is granted to the creators of art, infringing copyright is okay. of course, the people doing it may end up being prosecuted by the establishment. this, however isn't new either -- a lot of protests against unjust laws based on violence or bribery in history have ended with the protesters suffering from the establishment from their protests.
Yawn... Google is a company. Regardless of the marketing bullshit they spew on, they aren't in the business of providing APIs (or whatever), they are in the business of making money. Anything else is subject to change.
Their responsibility is more towards their shareholders, not so much towards their users. So, if they think one of their products -- be that APIs, ajax apps or whatever are providing diminishing returns for some reason, they'll axe it unless it is popular enough so that too many users feel ripped off. APIs aren't in the category at all.
Also, the bigger they get, the more expensive the stock becomes, and the more their ownership sreads, the more clout the bean counters have over any other management ideology.
So, if one relies exclusively to Google for anything, better check your contract with Google carefully and assess all risks (including risk from expensive litigation) first.