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Hahahahahah... I'm sure this is some kind of joke.
The real question is, when are we going to have better speeds for home users? Even "broadband" connections are slow. Is there any progress being made in this arena right now? Perhaps faster data transfers over cable lines?
I won't deny that Richard Stallman has made significant contributions to the open-source community, but his insistence that everything be done his way is a little over the top. BTW, you make it sound like Linus grabbed all the GNU stuff to make his kernel useful. In reality, Richard Stallman had all these other components for his OS, but he didn't have a kernel to use them with. Keep in mind that GNU existed quite a while before Linux, but it had virtually no user community because there was no kernel to go with it.
There's a good reason that Linus chooses not to comment on Richard Stallman's attitude - they've been there and done that. They've had their share of disagreements, and he doesn't want to get into it again. Essentially, they agree to disagree.
IMO, the main problem that Richard Stallman has is that he DEMANDS freedom - as long as he can dictate what you do with it.
I'd like to see more technical details. How does the posting work? This model would be different from a normal data-driven website where PHP and a DBMS could reside on a central server and retrieve information. Will the server at MIT be a P2P client that gathers posts from clients together on the fly for each http request?
Anybody have more info? Maybe I'm just blind, but I don't see any links to technical info on the site itself.
I have windows installed on both of my PC's. Why? Because there isn't enough application and driver support on Linux, and because the Linux desktop hackers STILL haven't figured out what Apple has known for eons: A consistent user interface is the number one demand for usability.
On the other hand, I've also installed litestep and cygwin to give me some real customizability and a decent command shell.
I've got desktop consistency, a real CLI, application and driver support... All I need now is a real OS kernel that all this stuff will work with. OSS preferred. Any suggestions?
I don't think that gene therapy will do much for somebody who isn't already a good athelete. Nearly every atheletic competition I can think of involves a lot of practiced skill -- the type of thing that will improve the over-all posture and the kinetics of the athelete. No amount of gene therapy will ever replace that.
According to the human genome project information page, gene therapy is still in a very experimental state, and it could potentially be very dangerous for atheletes to engage in.
Check the title. Spamming the spammers has been tried.
[innocent websites could get hit
RTFA.]
The blacklist could be manipulated or abused. I did RTFA.
[I remember a time when auto-responders were popular...
This has nothing to do with sending or replying to email. RTFA.]
We're talking about E-mail spam here. It has EVERYTHING to do with sending and RESPONDING to e-mail, and if you automate a counter-attack, the counter-attack measure can potentially be abused.
The only thing that even makes this idea remotely interesting is the blacklist idea, but that could easily backfire.. for one thing, the blacklist itself would be DDoSed in a BIG way. You think one crawl attack on one spam server is bad? Imagine 50,000,000 requests to a central blacklist at the same time.
If somebody can come up with a blacklist implimentation that seems workable, it might be something worth considering, but I would STILL be careful about it, because I still think the blacklist could potentially be manipulated or abused by clever spammers.
I saw a local news report last night about the same thing. In Utah. I don't remember what channel it was on, but I assumed it was an isolated incident. Maybe there's something more to it...
The logistics of sharing digital content can work (this is/., I don't need to cite the OSS example here).
In the context of music, for an undiscovered musician, being heard is priority #1. The more we get heard, the more we can expand our fanbases, and the more swag and concert tickets we can sell so we can afford to make more music.
For big-name musicians 1) they should already have plenty of money, and 2) the swag and concert tickets thing still holds. A lot of major-label acts get screwed out of CD royalties anyway.
Napster was replaced with better systems a long time ago. Same name, different cat.
The real question is, does the new napster offer advantages over competing services, such as iTunes, and if they do, what are they? Anybody in the know here? Is it easy to preview content without paying for it? Do the downloads include DRM? Watermarking? How does this new Napster work, and why should we all be rushing to sign up?
This has been tried, and there are a lot of reasons why it doesn't work.
1) innocent websites could get hit (already pointed out)
2) I remember a time when auto-responders were popular. I remember a time when somebody with an auto-respender would mail somebody else with an auto-responder. Of course, this caused a bot-war between two innocent auto-responder bots.
I know this is a different technology, but in my experience, such bots can easily be baited into self-destructive patterns.
Don't give spammers and hax0rs any more weapons than they already have, please.
Here's what I think is needed for a service like this to gain any real wide-spread market share:
1) NO DRM 2) Unlimitted downloads 3) Wide selection (including indie music) 4) At least some top40 music 5) An easy way to find browse for music you're not familiar with (perhaps integrating a user rating system)
This might be really cool in combination with things like distributed genetic programming. =) Are there any open source projects that combine various distributed programming/bug tracking techniques with a central web interface to track stats/view results, etc..?
Nothing is new. There's prior art on the prior art's prior art. The patent system is seriously flawed, and it seems to me that it hinders technological development more than it aids technological development.
Maybe I'm wrong, but if I am, will somebody please show me some evidence (rather than say, an educated guess) that patents are actually GOOD?
The problem with this "unfettered free market" is that city governments are more likely than not unwilling to disturb city infrastructure to lay line for competition. This was the downfall of a local ISP here. They promissed cable modem connection speeds for $20/mo, but the local city governments didn't let them expand their coverage, so they never had a chance to even try to compete.
It's a numbers game, really. What is the bigger pain the the public's arse? 60 phonecalls / day that we don't want to get, or some regulation that gives us a central place to say, "don't call me, or I'll SUE YOU."
The fact is, for consumers, the numbers are against us. There are LOTS of businesses out there competing for our interest, and they will use any outlet they think is valid for their marketing purposes.
The more people they can get their message to, the better. That means that as they all expand their marketing efforts, we all get a lot more calls. The problem is, there's a limit to how many unwanted solicitations we as individuals can tolerate, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I've reached mine.
I agree that music should not be treated differently from other content, such as videos, software, whatever. That said:
Problems with compulsory licensing for digital media:
1) Proponents say that copyright holders will get paid. Which ones will get paid, and how much? Who decides this? Everybody that writes, sings, or creates any type of content is a "copyright holder." The term is too broad, too general, and I fear there is NO WAY to distribute the money from compulsory licensing fairly.
2) The market no longer sets the prices. It's dictated by some pencil pusher in Washington who may or may not have a clue about the market.
3) Copyright holders will have even LESS control over the distribution of their work than they do now, and they will have no legal option if something happens with it that they don't like. I don't mind this, but a LOT of artists will.
4) Compulsory licensing would make payment for content MANDITORY. Even if something like the open-source movement takes off for music and film, you'll still end up paying for content that may very well be free. I personally look for free content whenever I can, just because I believe in the philosophy. People like me would end up paying for a lot of content we don't even use.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anybody else think it's a BAD idea to try to legislate software features? Am I the only one who thinks that could cause a lot of problems? - Eric
This is good news. The next month or so will be a great time to buy those boring 32-bit CPU's that nobody cares about anymore. Moore's law rocks.
The real question is, when are we going to have better speeds for home users? Even "broadband" connections are slow. Is there any progress being made in this arena right now? Perhaps faster data transfers over cable lines?
I won't deny that Richard Stallman has made significant contributions to the open-source community, but his insistence that everything be done his way is a little over the top. BTW, you make it sound like Linus grabbed all the GNU stuff to make his kernel useful. In reality, Richard Stallman had all these other components for his OS, but he didn't have a kernel to use them with. Keep in mind that GNU existed quite a while before Linux, but it had virtually no user community because there was no kernel to go with it.
There's a good reason that Linus chooses not to comment on Richard Stallman's attitude - they've been there and done that. They've had their share of disagreements, and he doesn't want to get into it again. Essentially, they agree to disagree.
IMO, the main problem that Richard Stallman has is that he DEMANDS freedom - as long as he can dictate what you do with it.
I'd like to see more technical details. How does the posting work? This model would be different from a normal data-driven website where PHP and a DBMS could reside on a central server and retrieve information. Will the server at MIT be a P2P client that gathers posts from clients together on the fly for each http request?
Anybody have more info? Maybe I'm just blind, but I don't see any links to technical info on the site itself.
I have windows installed on both of my PC's. Why? Because there isn't enough application and driver support on Linux, and because the Linux desktop hackers STILL haven't figured out what Apple has known for eons: A consistent user interface is the number one demand for usability.
On the other hand, I've also installed litestep and cygwin to give me some real customizability and a decent command shell.
I've got desktop consistency, a real CLI, application and driver support... All I need now is a real OS kernel that all this stuff will work with. OSS preferred. Any suggestions?
I don't think that gene therapy will do much for somebody who isn't already a good athelete. Nearly every atheletic competition I can think of involves a lot of practiced skill -- the type of thing that will improve the over-all posture and the kinetics of the athelete. No amount of gene therapy will ever replace that.
According to the human genome project information page, gene therapy is still in a very experimental state, and it could potentially be very dangerous for atheletes to engage in.
[This has been tried...
Wrong. This has only now been suggested. RFTA.]
Check the title. Spamming the spammers has been tried.
[innocent websites could get hit
RTFA.]
The blacklist could be manipulated or abused. I did RTFA.
[I remember a time when auto-responders were popular...
This has nothing to do with sending or replying to email. RTFA.]
We're talking about E-mail spam here. It has EVERYTHING to do with sending and RESPONDING to e-mail, and if you automate a counter-attack, the counter-attack measure can potentially be abused.
The only thing that even makes this idea remotely interesting is the blacklist idea, but that could easily backfire.. for one thing, the blacklist itself would be DDoSed in a BIG way. You think one crawl attack on one spam server is bad? Imagine 50,000,000 requests to a central blacklist at the same time.
If somebody can come up with a blacklist implimentation that seems workable, it might be something worth considering, but I would STILL be careful about it, because I still think the blacklist could potentially be manipulated or abused by clever spammers.
I saw a local news report last night about the same thing. In Utah. I don't remember what channel it was on, but I assumed it was an isolated incident. Maybe there's something more to it...
Great info. How does the DRM work?
The logistics of sharing digital content can work (this is /., I don't need to cite the OSS example here).
In the context of music, for an undiscovered musician, being heard is priority #1. The more we get heard, the more we can expand our fanbases, and the more swag and concert tickets we can sell so we can afford to make more music.
For big-name musicians 1) they should already have plenty of money, and 2) the swag and concert tickets thing still holds. A lot of major-label acts get screwed out of CD royalties anyway.
Theft is theft, but sharing is not theft.
Vote with your pocket book. I'll vote by sharing my music legally, thank you very much.
The world is not so black and white.
Napster was replaced with better systems a long time ago. Same name, different cat.
The real question is, does the new napster offer advantages over competing services, such as iTunes, and if they do, what are they? Anybody in the know here? Is it easy to preview content without paying for it? Do the downloads include DRM? Watermarking? How does this new Napster work, and why should we all be rushing to sign up?
This has been tried, and there are a lot of reasons why it doesn't work.
1) innocent websites could get hit (already pointed out)
2) I remember a time when auto-responders were popular. I remember a time when somebody with an auto-respender would mail somebody else with an auto-responder. Of course, this caused a bot-war between two innocent auto-responder bots.
I know this is a different technology, but in my experience, such bots can easily be baited into self-destructive patterns.
Don't give spammers and hax0rs any more weapons than they already have, please.
DRM = fewer customers.
People like to do whatever they want with the music they buy.
Here's what I think is needed for a service like this to gain any real wide-spread market share:
1) NO DRM
2) Unlimitted downloads
3) Wide selection (including indie music)
4) At least some top40 music
5) An easy way to find browse for music you're not familiar with (perhaps integrating a user rating system)
Who will be the first to offer this?
This might be really cool in combination with things like distributed genetic programming. =) Are there any open source projects that combine various distributed programming/bug tracking techniques with a central web interface to track stats/view results, etc..?
Nothing is new. There's prior art on the prior art's prior art. The patent system is seriously flawed, and it seems to me that it hinders technological development more than it aids technological development.
Maybe I'm wrong, but if I am, will somebody please show me some evidence (rather than say, an educated guess) that patents are actually GOOD?
Anybody with a clue want to compare and contrast this with the coolchips.com technology?
The problem with this "unfettered free market" is that city governments are more likely than not unwilling to disturb city infrastructure to lay line for competition. This was the downfall of a local ISP here. They promissed cable modem connection speeds for $20/mo, but the local city governments didn't let them expand their coverage, so they never had a chance to even try to compete.
Call that a free market?
It's a numbers game, really. What is the bigger pain the the public's arse? 60 phonecalls / day that we don't want to get, or some regulation that gives us a central place to say, "don't call me, or I'll SUE YOU."
The fact is, for consumers, the numbers are against us. There are LOTS of businesses out there competing for our interest, and they will use any outlet they think is valid for their marketing purposes.
The more people they can get their message to, the better. That means that as they all expand their marketing efforts, we all get a lot more calls. The problem is, there's a limit to how many unwanted solicitations we as individuals can tolerate, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I've reached mine.
I agree that music should not be treated differently from other content, such as videos, software, whatever. That said:
Problems with compulsory licensing for digital media:
1) Proponents say that copyright holders will get paid. Which ones will get paid, and how much? Who decides this? Everybody that writes, sings, or creates any type of content is a "copyright holder." The term is too broad, too general, and I fear there is NO WAY to distribute the money from compulsory licensing fairly.
2) The market no longer sets the prices. It's dictated by some pencil pusher in Washington who may or may not have a clue about the market.
3) Copyright holders will have even LESS control over the distribution of their work than they do now, and they will have no legal option if something happens with it that they don't like. I don't mind this, but a LOT of artists will.
4) Compulsory licensing would make payment for content MANDITORY. Even if something like the open-source movement takes off for music and film, you'll still end up paying for content that may very well be free. I personally look for free content whenever I can, just because I believe in the philosophy. People like me would end up paying for a lot of content we don't even use.
I guess what it comes down to is, "Hey! No fair!"
IMO, that's equivalent to spam-blocking -- something most ISP's at least try to accomplish.