Although I don't think reasoning by analogy is always particularly effective, I think I could give it a try here.
What if you told me the following: "You have locks on your doors. Your doors are two-part doors, and the key only opens the lower half, forcing me to crawl inside in an uncomfortable position whenever I enter. I'd really rather not do that.
"But, since you asked, I just wanted to let you know that I can safely, effectively, and anonymously remove those locks whenever I chose. However, I don't really want to steal anything from you, I just want to see if there are circumstances under which you'd allow me to come in standing up. If there are, I'd be happy to play ball. Hell, I'd even pay you or watch your ads for the privelege. And I'll bring my friends, too. Anyway, I'd also be happy to hang up my lock-breaking tools."
Now, we're getting into ridiculous territory. But that's what happens when you reason by analogy. Still, I think we're somewhat closer to the truth now. I have no interest in hacking AOL - I just want to be able to communicate with my sister, who uses AIM, without having to run their client. Like I've said before, it makes much better business sense working with people like me than fighting us. Because I use Jabber and its AIM transport, many people who want to talk to me have switched to AIM - because they prefer it to Jabber. That's money in AOL's pocket.
I mean, do you really think AOL has spent less money on these blocking tactics than they have lost due to individual third-party access?
Many people have correctly pointed out on this thread that AOL is under no obligation to allow us access to their network. They own it. They paid for it. They continue to pay for its maintenance. That is why they are within their rights in blocking access by third-party clients.
However, that is not the whole story. Members of various AIM-interoperability groups (most notably, Jabber) have repeatedly offered to work with AOL to find a mutually acceptable solution to this problem. People with legitimate AOL IM accounts want to access those accounts through non-AIM clients. AOL, though not legally required to, ought to work with them instead of fighting them. It is never good business sense (IMHO) to fight, sue, or otherwise harrass your customers.
AOL is exploring the limits of their legal and technical abilities to exclude people from their network. They are within their rights. But we are also within our rights in exploring our legal and technical abilities to fight back. At the very least, we ought to find out what is and is not legal. And, more importantly, we should do whatever we can to make it clear to big corporations that they are better off working with us than against us.
I know it can sometimes be hazardous to bring facts into this kind of argument, but here goes. You clearly have not read what RMS wrote in this article. In fact, since you write:
Richard Stallman is a moron who has no concept of economics and how what he propses would never work in a capitalist society.
I'm guessing that you haven't read any of his writing. But that's just a guess. On to some facts.
You write: Eliminating copyright forces a political view on EVERYONE. Further it forces an incorrectly assumed point of view on EVERYONE.
RMS writes: United States copyright law considers copyright a bargain between the public and "authors" (although in practice, usually publishers take over the authors' part of the bargain). The public trades certain freedoms in exchange for more published works to enjoy. Until the White Paper, our government had never proposed that the public should trade *all* of its freedom to use published works. Copyright involves giving up specific freedoms and retaining others. This means that there are many alternative bargains that the public could offer to publishers. So which bargain is the best one for the public? Which freedoms are worth while for the public to trade, and for what length of time? The answers depend on two things: how much additional publication the public will get for trading a given freedom, and how much the public benefits from keeping that freedom.
RMS also writes: Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman Verbatim copying and distribution are permitted in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
I hope this clearly demonstrates that RMS believes in copyright and does not advocate eliminating it. In this respect you are correct: if we eliminated copyright, we would eviscerate the GPL. Luckily, he does not believe this, nor does any reasonable proponent of copyright reform. The key is to shift the balance out of the hands of the publisher/distributors and back towards the public/individuals.
I especially recommend it to those who only know RMS by reputation, and not from his actual writings. This one is particularly cogent, concise and undesrtandable. I consider it mandatory reading for any layperson interested in modern copyrigyt issues.
2001-04-09 19:15:01 Hacker creates entirely new game based on original 8-bit Zelda (articles,games) (rejected)
Oh well, just kidding, no hard feelings. Kudos to the guy who did this - I'm amazed at the raw power of reverse engineering here. I mean, you can't even buy an NES any more. I guess the idea of a "platform" transcends hardware in some important ways.
Oh, and note to future commercial enterprises: if you are thinking to yourself "Hey, if we just make our file formats/protocols/etc. obscure binary-only, nobody will have enough time on their hands to figure them out, right?" Wrong.
I really thought that his point about making PCs first-class citizens of the 'Net was the most important, and one that needs to be driven home as much as possible. I still think that true freedom for web users (who must always rely on corporate connection providers) will derive from widespread, mainstream adoption of something like Freenet. I argued this point in an article I wrote for freshmeat called the World Free Web. I had hoped that we could jump-start that process by integrating Freenet with web browsers, effectively using Freenet as a huge, decentralized backup to the web - on that was out of any entity's control. I'm still working on getting people to work on this idea, so email me if you are interested...
interesting subject, slow read
on
Crypto
·
· Score: 2
"addictive page-turning thriller"
I wish it were so. I'm reading the book right now, actually, and although the information contained in it (especially the many funny anecdotes about the development of public key crypto) is absolutely fascinating, the book itself is not that well written, IMHO. I haven't ready the author's earlier works, but compared to other true-life-drama books (and I'm thinking particularly of _When Genius Failed_ which I also just read) it falls a bit short. Most of the outcomes are heavily foreshadowed, and for those of us who know which algorithms are now widely used, there is little to no suspsense.
Still, an enjoyable book - just not as good as the reviews make it out to be.
Articles, and especially courses, will often include software--for example, to display a simulation of a chemical reaction, or teach you how often to stir a sauce so it won't burn. To ensure that the encyclopedia is indeed free, all software included in articles and courses should meet the criteria of free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) and open source software (http://www.opensource.org).
</i>
<p>
Good for RMS, not launching into a rant about Free Software vs. open source software, but instead embracing both philosophies as acceptable in this case. Since every time he gest sidetracked, he gets massively criticized, let's see a massive groundswell of positive feedback this time...
Follow the link from the article, it's a pretty amazing concept. US$14K buys you a new high-tech elementary school in Cambodia, with matching funds from the World Bank and donations from various multinationalcorps. Anybody know anything about this project? This is the first I've heard of it, and although having such remote donors leaves open the possibility of fraud, I think it's really exciting.
Maybe 1000 Team/.ers, instead hitting refresh on the SETI@home stats page all day, could each get together $14 for this. If anybody is interested in helping to organize such an effort, pleaes let me know.
cool idea. easily implemented using a scripting setup like PHP, IMHO. The key is the text. Let me know when you've got a beta running, or if you need help setting it up.
The miniseries was kind of like reading the Cliffs Notes of Dune, as has been pointed out on past threads on this subject. It was just a (more-or-less) literal retelling of the events of the book. No internal dialogue, no psychological struggle, no suspense of any kind. Ugh.
I mean, do we really need to see what the "place-that-we-cannot-look" looks like? Although there are many problems with the Lynch retelling, I think he managed to capture the tone, feeling, and drama of the book very well.
I agree with you on almost every point. The series really makes me realize how lucky we were to have a first-class director like Lynch do the movie. If only he'd had less constraints.
Or, if only the series had picked up quality actors and given a symphony orchestra to Toto for the score. That would have salved my wounds.
They do a great nonpartisan analysis of every ballot initiative. More importantly, they show you who the top 10 contributors for and against each initiative were.
So, for instance, in case you were shocked to find out that VC-guru Tim Draper had given $30MM to fight for school vouchers (prop 38), you can then find out the much-less-publicized-fact that the teachers unions are richer than he is, and have spent even more money to defeat it!
I've contacted several "Open Source" advocates (Bruce Perens being one of them) about a recent licensing issue I thought was of some importance, but never received any response.
RMS responded to me immediately (modulo his usual 24-48hr time lag) and although he was always very insistent that I speak very precisely, he was extremely helpful, and completely willing to carry on an extended conversation with me about the issue that I raised.
Now, I understand that some people, who are used to speaking with fast and loose definitions, find RMS pedantic. But I don't think that really should be a cause for complaint. I wish our political leaders insisted on speaking as precisely...
OK, fair enough. But I fail to see how (as the original story suggests) reducing or eliminating the estate tax is going to make much difference, if just about everyone is dodging it anyway.
Look, I'm no Bush fan, but there are three things I can't help but point out:
Estate tax: the only people who actually pay any estate taxes in this country are the not-quite-so-rich people who can't afford to hire an army of lawyers and accountants to package their millions into the plnetiful loopholes in our ludicrous tax scheme. The really-really-really-rich don't pay a dime as far as I can tell.
Social Security Privitization: this is a great idea, and I encourage anyone who is curious to try and get some facts about it (I don't have a link handy). The Bush plan is hardly that revolutionary, but taking your own retirement money, making it your property and then putting it into the markets is a real win-win, and much stronger than any "lock box" idea.
School Choice: It's really simple. Gore is (and has been for a long time) in the pockets of the teachers' unions. That's not bad in and of itself (we all like teachers, right?) but the problem is that he is forced to be against any kind of meaningful school reform.
OK, that's my $.02. Neither candidate really matters, but I won't get into my long rant about why Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned, and why you should be in favor of this even if you are pro-choice, but IMHO these candidates are both pretty much the same, with the exception of a few promises. They both are in the pocket of corporate interests. So, if you really care that much, vote third party.
From all I've heard, MFC is a total nightmare. Does anyone actually use it for game-programming? Ok, maybe it's great for building an installer or something - but a FPS? How and where is it used?
Can anyone with actual experience (as opposed to my IANAgameprogrammeronwin9x disclaimer) comment?
Since they've got all that extra space and bandwidth, why not automatically incorporate some kind of weblog format into the site structure. That way, every document in the vast repository can become the starting point for discussion and commentary.
Many ancient/medieval texts were printed with the original text on the inside of a page, with commentary from various generations running around the side of the page. This would be the modern equivalent...
Slashdot Mirror
Although I don't think reasoning by analogy is always particularly effective, I think I could give it a try here.
What if you told me the following: "You have locks on your doors. Your doors are two-part doors, and the key only opens the lower half, forcing me to crawl inside in an uncomfortable position whenever I enter. I'd really rather not do that.
"But, since you asked, I just wanted to let you know that I can safely, effectively, and anonymously remove those locks whenever I chose. However, I don't really want to steal anything from you, I just want to see if there are circumstances under which you'd allow me to come in standing up. If there are, I'd be happy to play ball. Hell, I'd even pay you or watch your ads for the privelege. And I'll bring my friends, too. Anyway, I'd also be happy to hang up my lock-breaking tools."
Now, we're getting into ridiculous territory. But that's what happens when you reason by analogy. Still, I think we're somewhat closer to the truth now. I have no interest in hacking AOL - I just want to be able to communicate with my sister, who uses AIM, without having to run their client. Like I've said before, it makes much better business sense working with people like me than fighting us. Because I use Jabber and its AIM transport, many people who want to talk to me have switched to AIM - because they prefer it to Jabber. That's money in AOL's pocket.
I mean, do you really think AOL has spent less money on these blocking tactics than they have lost due to individual third-party access?
However, that is not the whole story. Members of various AIM-interoperability groups (most notably, Jabber) have repeatedly offered to work with AOL to find a mutually acceptable solution to this problem. People with legitimate AOL IM accounts want to access those accounts through non-AIM clients. AOL, though not legally required to, ought to work with them instead of fighting them. It is never good business sense (IMHO) to fight, sue, or otherwise harrass your customers.
AOL is exploring the limits of their legal and technical abilities to exclude people from their network. They are within their rights. But we are also within our rights in exploring our legal and technical abilities to fight back. At the very least, we ought to find out what is and is not legal. And, more importantly, we should do whatever we can to make it clear to big corporations that they are better off working with us than against us.
Richard Stallman is a moron who has no concept of economics and how what he propses would never work in a capitalist society.
I'm guessing that you haven't read any of his writing. But that's just a guess. On to some facts.
You write: Eliminating copyright forces a political view on EVERYONE. Further it forces an incorrectly assumed point of view on EVERYONE.
RMS writes: United States copyright law considers copyright a bargain between the public and "authors" (although in practice, usually publishers take over the authors' part of the bargain). The public trades certain freedoms in exchange for more published works to enjoy. Until the White Paper, our government had never proposed that the public should trade *all* of its freedom to use published works. Copyright involves giving up specific freedoms and retaining others. This means that there are many alternative bargains that the public could offer to publishers. So which bargain is the best one for the public? Which freedoms are worth while for the public to trade, and for what length of time? The answers depend on two things: how much additional publication the public will get for trading a given freedom, and how much the public benefits from keeping that freedom.
RMS also writes: Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman Verbatim copying and distribution are permitted in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
I hope this clearly demonstrates that RMS believes in copyright and does not advocate eliminating it. In this respect you are correct: if we eliminated copyright, we would eviscerate the GPL. Luckily, he does not believe this, nor does any reasonable proponent of copyright reform. The key is to shift the balance out of the hands of the publisher/distributors and back towards the public/individuals.
I especially recommend it to those who only know RMS by reputation, and not from his actual writings. This one is particularly cogent, concise and undesrtandable. I consider it mandatory reading for any layperson interested in modern copyrigyt issues.
Coincidentally, a piece I wrote for Newsforge about this very topic just went live in time for this story: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/16/1 931237
Oh well, just kidding, no hard feelings. Kudos to the guy who did this - I'm amazed at the raw power of reverse engineering here. I mean, you can't even buy an NES any more. I guess the idea of a "platform" transcends hardware in some important ways.
Oh, and note to future commercial enterprises: if you are thinking to yourself "Hey, if we just make our file formats/protocols/etc. obscure binary-only, nobody will have enough time on their hands to figure them out, right?" Wrong.
I really thought that his point about making PCs first-class citizens of the 'Net was the most important, and one that needs to be driven home as much as possible. I still think that true freedom for web users (who must always rely on corporate connection providers) will derive from widespread, mainstream adoption of something like Freenet. I argued this point in an article I wrote for freshmeat called the World Free Web. I had hoped that we could jump-start that process by integrating Freenet with web browsers, effectively using Freenet as a huge, decentralized backup to the web - on that was out of any entity's control. I'm still working on getting people to work on this idea, so email me if you are interested...
Too late, SGI already has a trademark.
I wish it were so. I'm reading the book right now, actually, and although the information contained in it (especially the many funny anecdotes about the development of public key crypto) is absolutely fascinating, the book itself is not that well written, IMHO. I haven't ready the author's earlier works, but compared to other true-life-drama books (and I'm thinking particularly of _When Genius Failed_ which I also just read) it falls a bit short. Most of the outcomes are heavily foreshadowed, and for those of us who know which algorithms are now widely used, there is little to no suspsense.
Still, an enjoyable book - just not as good as the reviews make it out to be.
Articles, and especially courses, will often include software--for example, to display a simulation of a chemical reaction, or teach you how often to stir a sauce so it won't burn. To ensure that the encyclopedia is indeed free, all software included in articles and courses should meet the criteria of free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) and open source software (http://www.opensource.org).
</i>
<p>
Good for RMS, not launching into a rant about Free Software vs. open source software, but instead embracing both philosophies as acceptable in this case. Since every time he gest sidetracked, he gets massively criticized, let's see a massive groundswell of positive feedback this time...
Follow the link from the article, it's a pretty amazing concept. US$14K buys you a new high-tech elementary school in Cambodia, with matching funds from the World Bank and donations from various multinationalcorps. Anybody know anything about this project? This is the first I've heard of it, and although having such remote donors leaves open the possibility of fraud, I think it's really exciting.
/.ers, instead hitting refresh on the SETI@home stats page all day, could each get together $14 for this. If anybody is interested in helping to organize such an effort, pleaes let me know.
Maybe 1000 Team
cool idea. easily implemented using a scripting setup like PHP, IMHO. The key is the text. Let me know when you've got a beta running, or if you need help setting it up.
see subject.
More live albums? More live tracks? More live LPs? CDs? Tapes? Downloads? More live albums? More live albums?
Malcovich.
The miniseries was kind of like reading the Cliffs Notes of Dune, as has been pointed out on past threads on this subject. It was just a (more-or-less) literal retelling of the events of the book. No internal dialogue, no psychological struggle, no suspense of any kind. Ugh.
I mean, do we really need to see what the "place-that-we-cannot-look" looks like? Although there are many problems with the Lynch retelling, I think he managed to capture the tone, feeling, and drama of the book very well.
I agree with you on almost every point. The series really makes me realize how lucky we were to have a first-class director like Lynch do the movie. If only he'd had less constraints.
Or, if only the series had picked up quality actors and given a symphony orchestra to Toto for the score. That would have salved my wounds.
calvoter.org
They do a great nonpartisan analysis of every ballot initiative. More importantly, they show you who the top 10 contributors for and against each initiative were.
So, for instance, in case you were shocked to find out that VC-guru Tim Draper had given $30MM to fight for school vouchers (prop 38), you can then find out the much-less-publicized-fact that the teachers unions are richer than he is, and have spent even more money to defeat it!
I've contacted several "Open Source" advocates (Bruce Perens being one of them) about a recent licensing issue I thought was of some importance, but never received any response.
RMS responded to me immediately (modulo his usual 24-48hr time lag) and although he was always very insistent that I speak very precisely, he was extremely helpful, and completely willing to carry on an extended conversation with me about the issue that I raised.
Now, I understand that some people, who are used to speaking with fast and loose definitions, find RMS pedantic. But I don't think that really should be a cause for complaint. I wish our political leaders insisted on speaking as precisely...
OK, fair enough. But I fail to see how (as the original story suggests) reducing or eliminating the estate tax is going to make much difference, if just about everyone is dodging it anyway.
Nice and reasonable response. Just what I was thinking. Thanks
OK, that's my $.02. Neither candidate really matters, but I won't get into my long rant about why Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned, and why you should be in favor of this even if you are pro-choice, but IMHO these candidates are both pretty much the same, with the exception of a few promises. They both are in the pocket of corporate interests. So, if you really care that much, vote third party.
From all I've heard, MFC is a total nightmare. Does anyone actually use it for game-programming? Ok, maybe it's great for building an installer or something - but a FPS? How and where is it used?
Can anyone with actual experience (as opposed to my IANAgameprogrammeronwin9x disclaimer) comment?
Check out <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&si<nobr>d<wbr></wbr></nobr> =2000/9/18/175017/284">this story</a> on Kuro5hin.
Sh*t, I never knew the *nix was a dirty word all this time.
Since they've got all that extra space and bandwidth, why not automatically incorporate some kind of weblog format into the site structure. That way, every document in the vast repository can become the starting point for discussion and commentary.
Many ancient/medieval texts were printed with the original text on the inside of a page, with commentary from various generations running around the side of the page. This would be the modern equivalent...