Anthony Clapes, IBM's former assistant general counsel and author of the book "Softwars," downplays the sinister aspect of this trading. "They're not doing it to be unfair or conspire," he says. "In the Cold War, there was a certain amount of making available information about what was going on on either side. They had the red phones. There was a certain amount of pressure being released by providing information through back channels. That's what this is like. I'll cross-license, you'll cross-license, and we'll get enough freedom of operation.
He also downplays the disadvantage to smaller inventors. "In theory and in philosophy, I don't think there is anything that favors the larger," he says, but adds, "It's just that life favors the larger entity."
Stick to law, dipshit. Life favors the more adaptive entity. Business, on the other hand, favors the entity with the most or best scumsucking lawyers like you.
How prescient of you to compare the issue of patent claims with the Cold War. Last I checked, the legacy of the Cold War was massive debt, human misery, and a lingering mistrust between nations. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Pretty slanderous to a certain corporation in the 1600's.
And Galileo Galilei got "sued" for it.
Point is, if courts of law were to agree faceless corporations, with financial or political resources far beyond that of any one person's, have the right to put individuals on trial, for what they say or what they write the truth may get lost. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
As far as what "non-nerds" want, they do not know what they want. They get told what they want by zealous hucksters. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Either you view computers and software as tools to enhance our collective understanding of the world and each other, or you view them as toys; toasters; products to be marketed and hawked to gullible, illiterate consumers
Douglas Engelbart and Richard Stallman fall into the the former category; Steve Jobs and William Gates III into the latter.
RealNetworks; Id Software; the Macintosh?
Quite obvious which category you fall into. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
In paragraph one, line two, discernable ought to be spelled discernible.
However, I did not get paid to write my response. I am assuming that Eisenberg was paid for writing that column, which is also my point; these people, journalists, men and women both, get paid to write, yet they cannot write, it seems, above the level of a high school freshman.
I am as equally harsh about Katz's pieces, that is, when I feel like trudging through them. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
The phrase "value-laden, ideological generalities" has no discernable meaning, even read in context of the whole column.
It is the type of phrase one might find in a high school student essay, which, if the teacher who received it had any sense, would be immediately returned with a request for clarification.
There is no mistake, per se, in the sentence, other than that of the nonexistent word "value-laden". No harm in making up words, if they serve to add to the reader's enjoyment, or no word that already exists serves the writer's purpose. What is a writer's purpose, if not to communicate an idea to the reader? NO idea has been communicated here; only so much padding of a hopelessly weak structure.
As far as factual errors go, her attempt at a conclusion to the column is only the most glaring:
Fractionalized and weakened, its[the open source development's] products -- minus its process and licenses -- may be snatched up and stolen by a company like Microsoft.
One cannot steal free software! --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...that being anyone who thinks not being able to view a Microsoft Word document has anything to do with Linux.
Or "the ability to run Microsoft Word" is a "feature most people need to get their work done".
Or, for that matter, believes Linux might have something to do with a "katzian divine revolution"; the thought of which makes me ill, even though I have no idea what such a thing might be. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
I am only making a point of that function because the writer of the column did.
The issues are twofold:
That she puts Linux in the title of the column, and the column has nothing to do with Linux. Nevertheless, and due to a general lack of reading comprehension, people will read the title, read the column, and come away thinking that it was about Linux; that is most evident by a good number of the responses here.
That she resigned herself to the fact that a lot of people think exchanging documents saved in proprietary file formats is acceptable in 1999.
I do not give a flying fuck what people use to author their documents or that people make spelling and grammatical errors. I do care about perpetuating idiocy via resignation to its assumed insurmountable dominance. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
It is about some wench who cannot spell check her own documents, and whose friends all send her documents in some strange format which needs some strange program to decipher.
Before you get your panties in a bunch about that, let me ask you this:
Did Shakespeare need Microsoft Word?
What about the framers of the U.S. Constitution?
Feel free to make up your own questions, pursuing a similar line of investigation, children. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...and for a longer, equally profane response to your idiocy, see my other post on this topic. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...as far as word processors/spreadsheets/databases go.
In Microsoft's Office 2000 Preview they concur. Notice how every page of that brochure touts Office 2000's Web integration and how documents created with it can easily be viewed with a Web browser.
Ignorant sheeple have placidly accepted the numerous incompatible file formats when what they should have been doing is breaking down the doors of software vendors. "What do you mean I need a plugin/viewer to open this document?"
Fuck that.
Fuck Mac bigots and PC weenies.
Fuck Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
And Judith? Fuck her. Fuck her and fuck her Word.doc bearing journalist friends. Their kind is dead, too.
Anyone who takes issue with that should read the piece on Douglas Englebart, a.k.a. The Man Who Invented The Mouse, that was mentioned on Slashdot a while back. He saw it all. Pervasively networked computers and hyperlinked documents. Information flowing and being shared, all for the good of humanity.
Instead what we got was a bunch of money grubbing, near sighted bastards who have perpetuated bug ridden applications and unstable operating systems.
15 years to accept a common file format for documents?!!!
15 years to give your operating system memory protection and preemptive multi-tasking?!!!
L O S E R S.
These people have made billions off people's misery; by keeping them in the dark; by feeding and playing off their ignorance.
No longer. The Internet is the "killer application". All "Independant Software Vendors", as they like to call themselves, will conform to it, or die. I cite as proof the fact that the maker of the world's number one application is trumpeting not the spell checker in the next version of its product, but its ability to integrate with the Web.
So take your "Linux will suceed when it has a killer desktop application" and shove it up your ass. First of all, Linux is not the X Window System. Linux does not have an "easy to use desktop", and never will. Of course there will be mass confusion over this, because of companies like Red Hat and Corel. "Making Linux easier to use." "Linux for the everyman."
No, you are piling crap on top of the X Window System; and by the way, if your crap does not compile, with minimal tweaking, on every other UNIX running X, it is a failure. Of course, you think people are too stupid to understand the distinction between X and Linux. Well, you are wrong. People are ignorant because you keep them that way.
Why? So you can ensure your business's continued existance, of course. Breeding ignorance ensures they will be back for that upgrade, or will sign that service agreement.
"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day..."...you know the rest.
Standardize your company/office/school/home/girl scout troop on HTML/XML/Java(well...not until Sun really opens it up) now. When Office 2000 come out, you will be hailed as a visionary; and hopefully people will think twice before assuming the necessity of "upgrading" to it. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
This was about Microsoft Word and the self- fulfilling standard it has become for word processing. Self-fulfilling because of OEMs' bundling Microsoft Office with new PCs for so many years.
This woman is an ignorant coward.
As I see you read Alan Cox's great essay, I am sure you saw the part about having to gently remind "suits" about the way things are done in the free software community, and do likewise for AOLers about the Internet.
It is the same thing that must be done in respect to information exchange in general. When people post PowerPoint presentations and Word documents to the Web, they need to be gently reminded that it is Not The Right Thing To Do.
How long does it take to learn the needed features in a GUI based word processor, especially the modern gargantuan bloatware, to become marginally proficient with it? I would submit it takes far less time to learn some basic HTML, especially if all you are going to do is write a few paragraphs of text, like Judith's column.
I do not think that the use of word processing software has elevated the quality of journalism or writing in general in any medium. If you are incapable of spell checking your documents sans the aid of word processor, do not write. Do not call yourself a writer, and do not have your trash published, especially on the Web; where so much trash exists already, thanks to the likes of Microsoft Word, Claris HomePage, Microsoft FrontPage, et al. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Seriously though, this is great news, provided that they follow through with the idea of governing it through an advisory panel from the Linux community.
Thank you, VA Research! --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Nice summary. You *are* finished, right?
on
World Without Walls
·
· Score: 1
The variations on the theme of "Geeks against the world; the Internet will be the champion of freedom and justice; etcetera..." has lost its novelty.
I realize Rob is young, and decidely lacking in discrimination, as are most persons of all ages these days, but I am still not certain why he feels your presence necessary here. The majority of persons who read this site are technologically literate.
The majority of people in general, are not. Tell them about the wonders of which you speak.
They wonder why they cannot open a document made in a later version of a program with an earlier version of the same program,made by the same company. The Web flowered in no small part because of this problem; a medium to exchange documents easily among different computer platforms. Yet you come bearing long-winded opinion pieces about the Web and the Internet, written with Microsoft Word.
Irony? Ignorance. Ignoramus.
Now go off and preach to your peers. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Russia has had many hundreds of years of culture that has produced some of the humankind's greatest writers, musicians, mathematicians, and scientists. Dostoevsky, Horowitz, Sakharov; just to name a few.
They are more than capable of formulating such a chip design. Fabricating it is another matter.
You ought to be careful to distinguish between Soviets and Russians. They are not the same. --------------------------------- "The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Slashdot Mirror
As an opportunity to get some cheap shots at
Microsoft and/or Intel, as they did in this story
on their website.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Stick to law, dipshit. Life favors the more
adaptive entity. Business, on the other
hand, favors the entity with the most or best
scumsucking lawyers like you.
How prescient of you to compare the issue of
patent claims with the Cold War. Last I checked,
the legacy of the Cold War was massive debt,
human misery, and a lingering mistrust between
nations.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
1600's.
And Galileo Galilei got "sued" for it.
Point is, if courts of law were to agree faceless
corporations, with financial or political
resources far beyond that of any one person's,
have the right to put individuals on trial, for
what they say or what they write the
truth may get lost.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
against claims made by a bunch of yahoos on
Yahoo, you have something to hide.
Grow up.
The mature thing to do is to offer considered,
well substantiated facts in rebuttal to each of
the posters' claims, if they bother you so much.
If they do, see paragraph one.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Operating System.
None of which seem to help him very much.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Was not.
Is not.
Never will be.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
As far as what "non-nerds" want, they do not know
what they want. They get told what they want by
zealous hucksters.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Ok; if you say so.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Either you view computers and software as tools
to enhance our collective understanding of the
world and each other, or you view them as toys;
toasters; products to be marketed and hawked to
gullible, illiterate consumers
Douglas Engelbart and Richard Stallman fall into
the the former category; Steve Jobs and William
Gates III into the latter.
RealNetworks; Id Software; the Macintosh?
Quite obvious which category you fall into.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
an operating system and its attendant utilities?
Monkey see acronym. Monkey repeat acronym.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
There are so many things wrong with that
phrase, the mind boggles.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
be spelled discernible.
However, I did not get paid to write my response.
I am assuming that Eisenberg was paid for
writing that column, which is also my point;
these people, journalists, men and women both,
get paid to write, yet they cannot write, it seems,
above the level of a high school freshman.
I am as equally harsh about Katz's pieces, that
is, when I feel like trudging through them.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
has no discernable meaning, even read in context
of the whole column.
It is the type of phrase one might find in a high
school student essay, which, if the teacher who
received it had any sense, would be immediately
returned with a request for clarification.
There is no mistake, per se, in the sentence,
other than that of the nonexistent word
"value-laden". No harm in making up words, if they
serve to add to the reader's enjoyment, or no word
that already exists serves the writer's purpose.
What is a writer's purpose, if not to communicate
an idea to the reader? NO idea has been
communicated here; only so much padding of a
hopelessly weak structure.
As far as factual errors go, her attempt at a
conclusion to the column is only the most
glaring:
One cannot steal free software!
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
her near total ignorance of the topics upon which
she writing?
If so, the column was a remarkable success.
You were able to graduate from Harvard LawSchool crafting sentences like that one?!!!
Ohhhh...right...Affirmative Action; forgot
about that...nevermind!
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Silly person.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
view a Microsoft Word document has anything to do
with Linux.
Or "the ability to run Microsoft Word" is a
"feature most people need to get their work
done".
Or, for that matter, believes Linux might have
something to do with a "katzian divine revolution";
the thought of which makes me ill, even though
I have no idea what such a thing might be.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
My post had nothing to do with Linux.
Your post had nothing to do with Linux.
The following profanity has everything to do
with your lack of reading comprehension:
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
the writer of the column did.
The issues are twofold:
column, and the column has nothing to do with Linux.
Nevertheless, and due to a general lack of
reading comprehension, people will read the title,
read the column, and come away thinking
that it was about Linux; that is most evident by a
good number of the responses here.
lot of people think exchanging documents saved in
proprietary file formats is acceptable in 1999.
I do not give a flying fuck what people use to
author their documents or that people make
spelling and grammatical errors. I do care about
perpetuating idiocy via resignation to its
assumed insurmountable dominance.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
The "Loneliness of Linux" column had nothing to do with Linux.
Read it.
It is about some wench who cannot spell check
her own documents, and whose friends all send her
documents in some strange format which needs some
strange program to decipher.
Before you get your panties in a bunch about
Feel free to make up your own questions, pursuingthat, let me ask you this:
a similar line of investigation, children.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...and for a longer, equally profane response
to your idiocy, see my other post on this topic.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
In Microsoft's Office 2000 Preview they concur. Notice how every page of that brochure touts Office 2000's Web integration and how documents created with it can easily be viewed with a Web browser.
Ignorant sheeple have placidly accepted the numerous incompatible file formats when what they should have been doing is breaking down the doors of software vendors. "What do you mean I need a plugin/viewer to open this document?"
Fuck that.
Fuck Mac bigots and PC weenies.
Fuck Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
And Judith? Fuck her. Fuck her and fuck her Word.doc bearing journalist friends. Their kind is dead, too.
Anyone who takes issue with that should read the piece on Douglas Englebart, a.k.a. The Man Who Invented The Mouse, that was mentioned on Slashdot a while back. He saw it all. Pervasively networked computers and hyperlinked documents. Information flowing and being shared, all for the good of humanity.
Instead what we got was a bunch of money grubbing, near sighted bastards who have perpetuated bug ridden applications and unstable operating systems.
15 years to accept a common file format for documents?!!!
15 years to give your operating system memory protection and preemptive multi-tasking?!!!
L O S E R S.
These people have made billions off people's misery; by keeping them in the dark; by feeding and playing off their ignorance.
No longer. The Internet is the "killer application". All "Independant Software Vendors", as they like to call themselves, will conform to it, or die. I cite as proof the fact that the maker of the world's number one application is trumpeting not the spell checker in the next version of its product, but its ability to integrate with the Web.
So take your "Linux will suceed when it has a killer desktop application" and shove it up your ass. First of all, Linux is not the X Window System. Linux does not have an "easy to use desktop", and never will. Of course there will be mass confusion over this, because of companies like Red Hat and Corel. "Making Linux easier to use." "Linux for the everyman."
No, you are piling crap on top of the X Window System; and by the way, if your crap does not compile, with minimal tweaking, on every other UNIX running X, it is a failure. Of course, you think people are too stupid to understand the distinction between X and Linux. Well, you are wrong. People are ignorant because you keep them that way.
Why? So you can ensure your business's continued existance, of course. Breeding ignorance ensures they will be back for that upgrade, or will sign that service agreement.
"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day..." ...you know the rest.
Standardize your company/office/school/home/girl scout troop on HTML/XML/Java(well...not until Sun really opens it up) now. When Office 2000 come out, you will be hailed as a visionary; and hopefully people will think twice before assuming the necessity of "upgrading" to it.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
This was about Microsoft Word and the self-
fulfilling standard it has become for word
processing. Self-fulfilling because of OEMs'
bundling Microsoft Office with new PCs for so
many years.
This woman is an ignorant coward.
As I see you read Alan Cox's great essay, I am
sure you saw the part about having to gently
remind "suits" about the way things are done in
the free software community, and do likewise for
AOLers about the Internet.
It is the same thing that must be done in
respect to information exchange in general.
When people post PowerPoint presentations and
Word documents to the Web, they need to be gently
reminded that it is Not The Right Thing To Do.
How long does it take to learn the needed
features in a GUI based word processor,
especially the modern gargantuan bloatware, to
become marginally proficient with it? I would
submit it takes far less time to learn some basic
HTML, especially if all you are going to
do is write a few paragraphs of text, like
Judith's column.
I do not think that the use of word processing
software has elevated the quality of journalism
or writing in general in any medium. If you are
incapable of spell checking your documents sans
the aid of word processor, do not write. Do not
call yourself a writer, and do not have your trash
published, especially on the Web; where so much
trash exists already, thanks to the likes of
Microsoft Word, Claris HomePage, Microsoft
FrontPage, et al.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Seriously though, this is great news, provided
that they follow through with the idea of
governing it through an advisory panel from the
Linux community.
Thank you, VA Research!
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
The variations on the theme of "Geeks against the
world; the Internet will be the champion of
freedom and justice; etcetera..." has lost its
novelty.
I realize Rob is young, and decidely lacking in
discrimination, as are most persons of all ages
these days, but I am still not certain why he
feels your presence necessary here. The majority
of persons who read this site are technologically
literate.
The majority of people in general, are not. Tell
them about the wonders of which you speak.
They wonder why they cannot open a document made
in a later version of a program with an earlier
version of the same program,made by
the same company . The Web flowered
in no small part because of this problem; a medium
to exchange documents easily among different
computer platforms. Yet you come bearing
long-winded opinion pieces about the Web and the
Internet, written with Microsoft Word.
Irony? Ignorance. Ignoramus.
Now go off and preach to your peers.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
that has produced some of the humankind's greatest
writers, musicians, mathematicians, and
scientists. Dostoevsky, Horowitz, Sakharov; just
to name a few.
They are more than capable of formulating such a
chip design. Fabricating it is another matter.
You ought to be careful to distinguish between
Soviets and Russians. They are not the same.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,