I know that copyright laws are not ethical. And my argument has been backed up many times by many people. And that's just here at Slashdot. For me to spell it out again would merely be redundant. Check them out and try to refute them. I would like to see if you can do better than anyone else so far. Oh what the hell... Copyright laws are nothing more than a bad reaction to new technology(the printing press in this case). They were designed to protect an obsolete industry. That industry had friends in high places. Laws were bought and sold, just like today. There is nothing ethical about that. I don't give a damn if somebody keeps their ideas to themselves because they can't make million bucks overnight. They're greedy bastards. Somebody will come along with the same or better idea later, because they will understand the value of the idea is the idea itself, not the guy who invented it. To demand a monopoly on an idea is extremely selfish. Airplanes and steam engines(to name a few) might have developed much faster if not for the stranglehold the the inventers had on the patents. The patent on the diesel engine had to expire before anyone could improve it enough to be practical. The tired old cliche still holds true: It's like prohibiting the use of the automobile to protect the blacksmiths, carriage, and buggy whip manufacturers. I hope that can hold you over until you check out what others have to say.
For me, two words can describe moral -- "Be nice." A bit more elaborate one -- "Cause no harm." I believe you can call yourself moral when you will not harm anyone, even if it means your own death. If the stories about Jesus in the bible are true, then I could say he was a moral person. Same goes for Gandhi, as well as others I have no knowledge of. There is nothing complex about it. It really can be that simple. Not only that, MY dog eats broccoli(Well, he did once). My point has always been that if you wish to dictate morality, you MUST live by that morality. Hypocrisy cannot be tolerated. So as long as I support the system that encourages SCO's actions, I can't bitch about how they use the tools I helped to supply. I should never preach about morality unless I can live by it. Same goes for everybody. The good effect of all this is that it shows the absurdity of the laws in place. It would be cool if that was their real intention. And unless there's a mind reader in the house, we can't even begin to divine their intentions. I'm sure the smart money is on what's been stated on Slashdot and elsewhere.
There is a baseline morality/norm on which most human beings agree.
And there lies the rub. Mores change over time and vary from place to place. Who's right? Listen, I'm not disagreeing with you. What I'm trying to say that if we when we tolerate immoral acts by others, then we ourselves are just as immoral. It's the whole "Let he who is without sin..." thing. I like to think of myself as "somewhat" moral in that I try to minimized my support of these systems. I don't want to tear it down by force. That is just as bad. A good example of morality in recent times is Mahatma Gandhi. He didn't want fight against the British. He just wanted to stop all support for them, and let them "wither" on their own. Passive resistance really is the only moral way to win.
You claim people don't have the right to make that judgement but I disagree.
I believe I said most people. I haven't met any of the ones that might be qualified.
If not humans then who?
If so humans then which ones? I understand that we have not evolved far enough for "self rule", but we need to be careful of who we put in charge. Right now we live under a system where half the people believe one thing and the other half something else entirely. Which half is right? I have extremely strong feelings about my personal morality, but it's not my place to force those beliefs upon you. The reverse also applies.
Things such as lying, stealing, cheating, murder, rape etc are considered to be universally wrong...
If we would only stop doing those things...All too often the same poeple who want to dictate and enforce morality are the biggest liars, thieves, cheaters, murderers, rapists on the planet. This can throw the whole morality thing out of whack. How can we accepts the morals of people who won't practice those same morals? If our leaders want morality, they must rule by example. Otherwise, what they say is crap. One of my Slackware login messages reads(paraphrasing) "The lawgiver, above all others must be beholden to the law...".(Slackware is cool). If morality has an "enemy", it's hypocrisy. And when it's bad enough, it makes enforcement impossible. It destroys belief in all morality. When there are too many bad laws on the books, it makes all law contemptable. Then you have a revolution, and the whole thing starts over and over and over... It's the story of our existance.
That's why I also check the task manager. Between that and the registry, I've been able to nail everything...for now. I havent even checked out a good process monitor yet. When it gets too heavy, it is usually faster(and cheaper for the customer) to back up and format the drive. With a good imaging program, I'm up and running in as little as ten minutes, and everything is squeaky clean...until the next day when they re-install one of those damn search bars. With those kind of people around, it rains money, hard enough to need a hard hat sometimes:-)
So if you need one, do you ask for a facial tissue or a "Kleenex"? Do you ask for that green scratchy thing or a "Scotch Brite"? Do you ask for steel wool covered with detergent or a "Brillo Pad"?
We are animals, acting morally is acting in accordance with out animal instincts, acting immorally is acting against our animal instincts.
Exactly the opposite. We are animals, acting amorally(or immorally, since we have a choice, unlike the animals) is acting in accordance with our animal instincts, acting morally is rising above our animal instincts. Presently, almost all humans are the former. Our support of a system that permits(encourages) SCO's behavior for example can be considered immoral. This makes us the same as they(SCO) are.
Morality is a judgement that humans make on words and actions.
Then you should understand that morality is a purely human concept. Nature makes no such judgements. Also, being a human concept makes morality relative to which human you're talking to. That is an aberration. If morality is to be an absolute, it must occur in nature. Something like light and dark. We have nothing to base morality on, except our own concepts of it. In my little world, yes, I do consider it "more" moral to rise above our instincts, not necessarily to act against them. One way of doing that is to assure that one would never, ever cause harm to anything, ever.
All your words and actions are subject to judgement.
Only by other humans. Most of them are in no position to judge anybody. Certainly not the ones we put in charge.
BTW there is no such thing as amoral.
amoral --- Please note, I DO care about right and wrong, but in this case, I'm looking for a deeper resolution than simply winning it. If what I'd like to see happen actually happens, I might be saying "Thank you, SCO" for helping to eliminate(indirectly) some truly horrible laws. Nature does fit the first definition.
if there was a program that just checks the "run" key in the registry and comapre it to what is normal after a fresh install. The same could apply to the task manager(looking for "strange" processes). It's what I do when looking for programs that shouldn't be running. I get suspicious when I see rundll32.exe in the task manager, among other things. I wouldn't mind having a one click button do that for me. For reasons already mentioned, I just don't care for these spyware removal programs. There are times that "I'd rather do it myself."
So I guess you're not going to even try...eh? I, for one, am interested in what you base your premises on. Or even simpler than that, what are your premises? Oh, well. So much for that.
It would be like a chinese person arguing with a martian.
What could possibly be wrong with that? If comunication with extraterrestial(sp) was possible, it seems that these are precisely the kind of discussions thay would have. When people discovered a new formerly unvisited place, do you think that they just sat and talked about the weather? Some people are interested in what other thinks. I'm one of them. With that out of the way, they could then discuss whatever philosophical differences that exist. When I talk basics, I mean basics. I try to speak 1's and 0's and most everyone else is talking C++. You don't need all that high folutin' fancy talk to discuss what makes things work. To me, it's a distraction. And most people use it to sound like they're better than the other. They try to make things appear more complicated than they are in an attempt to belittle the other. "Oh, you wouldnt understand. It's too complex." people will say. In the end, I guess all I can say to you is, "Bummer". Of course "My door is always open":-)
Back to SCO: As I said, if this case leads to a solution to the bigger problem here, then SCO could become the inadvertent hero. It appears that you might be looking for morality where there simply is none. What's going on is not immoral. It's amoral. It's not bad morality. It's NO morality. There is a big difference. And even though we would like to think that we know right from wrong, we really don't. It shows in our actions.
In nature there is no right and wrong, fair and unfair, moral and immoral. All human actions and motivations can be found in nature. This is no different. We have the potential to act differently, but we aren't actually doing it. I guess I could call that immoral.
I really don't think two people with such opposite value systems can have a converstation on this topic.
These are precisely the type of people who should discuss this topic. It would be boring and pointless if we agreed. We would be just preaching to the choir. There's already too much of that here. I need to hear opposing viewpoints, providing they can be backed up by logic.
These are publically traded companies with special privledges at public expense. To me, they have no right to privacy. If they wish to continue with these privledges, they should have to open all their books.
Why should I hate SCO? I don't hate a lion when it kills a baby zebra. SCO is doing what comes natural under the present circumstances. We gave them the tools to do this. If you want them to stop, then you have to make it impossible for them to continue. The business world is no different from the African wilderness. The principles(principals?) here are exactly the same. Big, fast, healthy animal eats little, slow, sick animal. Sometimes one feels the need to challenge the dominant male. If SCO does win, it will just shed more light on and might force us to resolve the bigger problem. So, I'm not really sure on who's side I'm on.
Regardless of who might look bad, if unsealing the docs brings us one step closer to the truth, then they should be unsealed, but like too many cases, it's not about the truth. It's about winning. It doesn't matter how. If the truth shows that SCO is right, then so be it. It just provides us yet one more reason to abolish IP.
Let's use the Ford Pinto's exploding gas tank as an example. The records show the Lee Iaccoca(sp) was personally responsible for the decision to use the defective part because he thought it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits than to replace the part. It should be very easy to charge him personally with at least manslaughter, conspiracy, etc. So, yes, find the people repsonsable and nail them to the wall, AND take away their corporate charter. Each individual person's rights MUST prevail over ANY corporation's. Just like a power boat shall yield the right of way to a sail boat. All powered aircraft shall yield to an unpowered one(glider, balloon). All cars shall yield to pedestrians(and trains for obvious reasons).
That may be true for private individuals, but for publicly traded companies to use a publicly funded forum to settle their differences, I don't buy it. It should all come out. Most trade secrets aren't about protection from competing companies. It's about protection from us. Just like the government's classified documents. Russia and China have better access to those docs than we, the citezens, do.
Yeah. Implants(not the silicon type, though that would be cool). It has already started. After that, you will recieve a visit from the "handicapper general".
Instead, though, the law acts to stifle and constrain new advances and developments, rather than to encourage them.
Obviously it's all working exactly as intended then. There are very few laws this old that have worked that "well". This brings us one step closer to a fightin' war.
...Put down yer keyboards an' pick up a gun we're gonna have a whole lotta fun And it's one, two, three what are we fightin' for... Don't ask me I dont give a damn Next stop is Disneyland
Slashdot Mirror
I know that copyright laws are not ethical. And my argument has been backed up many times by many people. And that's just here at Slashdot. For me to spell it out again would merely be redundant. Check them out and try to refute them. I would like to see if you can do better than anyone else so far.
Oh what the hell...
Copyright laws are nothing more than a bad reaction to new technology(the printing press in this case). They were designed to protect an obsolete industry. That industry had friends in high places. Laws were bought and sold, just like today. There is nothing ethical about that. I don't give a damn if somebody keeps their ideas to themselves because they can't make million bucks overnight. They're greedy bastards. Somebody will come along with the same or better idea later, because they will understand the value of the idea is the idea itself, not the guy who invented it. To demand a monopoly on an idea is extremely selfish. Airplanes and steam engines(to name a few) might have developed much faster if not for the stranglehold the the inventers had on the patents. The patent on the diesel engine had to expire before anyone could improve it enough to be practical. The tired old cliche still holds true: It's like prohibiting the use of the automobile to protect the blacksmiths, carriage, and buggy whip manufacturers. I hope that can hold you over until you check out what others have to say.
For me, two words can describe moral -- "Be nice." A bit more elaborate one -- "Cause no harm." I believe you can call yourself moral when you will not harm anyone, even if it means your own death. If the stories about Jesus in the bible are true, then I could say he was a moral person. Same goes for Gandhi, as well as others I have no knowledge of. There is nothing complex about it. It really can be that simple. Not only that, MY dog eats broccoli(Well, he did once). My point has always been that if you wish to dictate morality, you MUST live by that morality. Hypocrisy cannot be tolerated. So as long as I support the system that encourages SCO's actions, I can't bitch about how they use the tools I helped to supply. I should never preach about morality unless I can live by it. Same goes for everybody. The good effect of all this is that it shows the absurdity of the laws in place. It would be cool if that was their real intention. And unless there's a mind reader in the house, we can't even begin to divine their intentions. I'm sure the smart money is on what's been stated on Slashdot and elsewhere.
I have no idea wtf Brillo even is...
Kinda like an SOS pad. I didn't know that they quit making them(Brillo). I've been away for a while.
There is a baseline morality/norm on which most human beings agree.
And there lies the rub. Mores change over time and vary from place to place. Who's right? Listen, I'm not disagreeing with you. What I'm trying to say that if we when we tolerate immoral acts by others, then we ourselves are just as immoral. It's the whole "Let he who is without sin..." thing. I like to think of myself as "somewhat" moral in that I try to minimized my support of these systems. I don't want to tear it down by force. That is just as bad. A good example of morality in recent times is Mahatma Gandhi. He didn't want fight against the British. He just wanted to stop all support for them, and let them "wither" on their own. Passive resistance really is the only moral way to win.
You claim people don't have the right to make that judgement but I disagree.
I believe I said most people. I haven't met any of the ones that might be qualified.
If not humans then who?
If so humans then which ones? I understand that we have not evolved far enough for "self rule", but we need to be careful of who we put in charge. Right now we live under a system where half the people believe one thing and the other half something else entirely. Which half is right? I have extremely strong feelings about my personal morality, but it's not my place to force those beliefs upon you. The reverse also applies.
Things such as lying, stealing, cheating, murder, rape etc are considered to be universally wrong...
If we would only stop doing those things...All too often the same poeple who want to dictate and enforce morality are the biggest liars, thieves, cheaters, murderers, rapists on the planet. This can throw the whole morality thing out of whack. How can we accepts the morals of people who won't practice those same morals? If our leaders want morality, they must rule by example. Otherwise, what they say is crap. One of my Slackware login messages reads(paraphrasing) "The lawgiver, above all others must be beholden to the law...".(Slackware is cool). If morality has an "enemy", it's hypocrisy. And when it's bad enough, it makes enforcement impossible. It destroys belief in all morality. When there are too many bad laws on the books, it makes all law contemptable. Then you have a revolution, and the whole thing starts over and over and over... It's the story of our existance.
That's why I also check the task manager. Between that and the registry, I've been able to nail everything...for now. I havent even checked out a good process monitor yet. When it gets too heavy, it is usually faster(and cheaper for the customer) to back up and format the drive. With a good imaging program, I'm up and running in as little as ten minutes, and everything is squeaky clean...until the next day when they re-install one of those damn search bars. With those kind of people around, it rains money, hard enough to need a hard hat sometimes :-)
So if you need one, do you ask for a facial tissue or a "Kleenex"? Do you ask for that green scratchy thing or a "Scotch Brite"? Do you ask for steel wool covered with detergent or a "Brillo Pad"?
We are animals, acting morally is acting in accordance with out animal instincts, acting immorally is acting against our animal instincts.
Exactly the opposite. We are animals, acting amorally(or immorally, since we have a choice, unlike the animals) is acting in accordance with our animal instincts, acting morally is rising above our animal instincts. Presently, almost all humans are the former. Our support of a system that permits(encourages) SCO's behavior for example can be considered immoral. This makes us the same as they(SCO) are.
Morality is a judgement that humans make on words and actions.
Then you should understand that morality is a purely human concept. Nature makes no such judgements. Also, being a human concept makes morality relative to which human you're talking to. That is an aberration. If morality is to be an absolute, it must occur in nature. Something like light and dark. We have nothing to base morality on, except our own concepts of it. In my little world, yes, I do consider it "more" moral to rise above our instincts, not necessarily to act against them. One way of doing that is to assure that one would never, ever cause harm to anything, ever.
All your words and actions are subject to judgement.
Only by other humans. Most of them are in no position to judge anybody. Certainly not the ones we put in charge.
BTW there is no such thing as amoral.
amoral --- Please note, I DO care about right and wrong, but in this case, I'm looking for a deeper resolution than simply winning it. If what I'd like to see happen actually happens, I might be saying "Thank you, SCO" for helping to eliminate(indirectly) some truly horrible laws. Nature does fit the first definition.
if there was a program that just checks the "run" key in the registry and comapre it to what is normal after a fresh install. The same could apply to the task manager(looking for "strange" processes). It's what I do when looking for programs that shouldn't be running. I get suspicious when I see rundll32.exe in the task manager, among other things. I wouldn't mind having a one click button do that for me. For reasons already mentioned, I just don't care for these spyware removal programs. There are times that "I'd rather do it myself."
If we are going endow animals with human emotions, then I think we need to allow them human rights. So far, I don't see it.
So I guess you're not going to even try...eh? I, for one, am interested in what you base your premises on. Or even simpler than that, what are your premises? Oh, well. So much for that.
:-)
It would be like a chinese person arguing with a martian.
What could possibly be wrong with that? If comunication with extraterrestial(sp) was possible, it seems that these are precisely the kind of discussions thay would have. When people discovered a new formerly unvisited place, do you think that they just sat and talked about the weather? Some people are interested in what other thinks. I'm one of them. With that out of the way, they could then discuss whatever philosophical differences that exist. When I talk basics, I mean basics. I try to speak 1's and 0's and most everyone else is talking C++. You don't need all that high folutin' fancy talk to discuss what makes things work. To me, it's a distraction. And most people use it to sound like they're better than the other. They try to make things appear more complicated than they are in an attempt to belittle the other. "Oh, you wouldnt understand. It's too complex." people will say. In the end, I guess all I can say to you is, "Bummer". Of course "My door is always open"
Back to SCO:
As I said, if this case leads to a solution to the bigger problem here, then SCO could become the inadvertent hero. It appears that you might be looking for morality where there simply is none. What's going on is not immoral. It's amoral. It's not bad morality. It's NO morality. There is a big difference. And even though we would like to think that we know right from wrong, we really don't. It shows in our actions.
In nature there is no right and wrong, fair and unfair, moral and immoral. All human actions and motivations can be found in nature. This is no different. We have the potential to act differently, but we aren't actually doing it. I guess I could call that immoral.
I really don't think two people with such opposite value systems can have a converstation on this topic.
These are precisely the type of people who should discuss this topic. It would be boring and pointless if we agreed. We would be just preaching to the choir. There's already too much of that here. I need to hear opposing viewpoints, providing they can be backed up by logic.
These are publically traded companies with special privledges at public expense. To me, they have no right to privacy. If they wish to continue with these privledges, they should have to open all their books.
Why should I hate SCO? I don't hate a lion when it kills a baby zebra. SCO is doing what comes natural under the present circumstances. We gave them the tools to do this. If you want them to stop, then you have to make it impossible for them to continue. The business world is no different from the African wilderness. The principles(principals?) here are exactly the same. Big, fast, healthy animal eats little, slow, sick animal. Sometimes one feels the need to challenge the dominant male. If SCO does win, it will just shed more light on and might force us to resolve the bigger problem. So, I'm not really sure on who's side I'm on.
Regardless of who might look bad, if unsealing the docs brings us one step closer to the truth, then they should be unsealed, but like too many cases, it's not about the truth. It's about winning. It doesn't matter how. If the truth shows that SCO is right, then so be it. It just provides us yet one more reason to abolish IP.
Let's use the Ford Pinto's exploding gas tank as an example. The records show the Lee Iaccoca(sp) was personally responsible for the decision to use the defective part because he thought it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits than to replace the part. It should be very easy to charge him personally with at least manslaughter, conspiracy, etc. So, yes, find the people repsonsable and nail them to the wall, AND take away their corporate charter. Each individual person's rights MUST prevail over ANY corporation's. Just like a power boat shall yield the right of way to a sail boat. All powered aircraft shall yield to an unpowered one(glider, balloon). All cars shall yield to pedestrians(and trains for obvious reasons).
That may be true for private individuals, but for publicly traded companies to use a publicly funded forum to settle their differences, I don't buy it. It should all come out. Most trade secrets aren't about protection from competing companies. It's about protection from us. Just like the government's classified documents. Russia and China have better access to those docs than we, the citezens, do.
Yeah well, Some of us dont have a tv or access to a newspaper that would report those kind of things. Thanks for the heads up, though.
for the spoiler alert.
Can you even imagine what the next step might be?
Yeah. Implants(not the silicon type, though that would be cool). It has already started. After that, you will recieve a visit from the "handicapper general".
All the little debian, gentoo, and suse freaks come out of the word work and freak out. Its like werewolves on a full moon.
Hey, what about us Slackware freaks? Ooooowwww...
a million geek march to...Hollywood!
Instead, though, the law acts to stifle and constrain new advances and developments, rather than to encourage them.
...Put down yer keyboards
Obviously it's all working exactly as intended then. There are very few laws this old that have worked that "well". This brings us one step closer to a fightin' war.
an' pick up a gun
we're gonna have a whole lotta fun
And it's one, two, three
what are we fightin' for...
Don't ask me I dont give a damn
Next stop is Disneyland
You DO understand that the U.S. has a Navy AND an Air Force?? I would mention the Marines, but they're just part of the Navy :-)
I'm gonna patent YeahBut,
Not if you're Bruce Willis