>> Read-only memory is only an unfortunate circumstance; DRM and Treacherous Computing is malicious!
But that is my point! Its one thing to not be able to execute a modified version because of technical, economical, or physical limitations, and it is anothing thing to actively prevent this from occuring and wrap all sorts of legal sanctions around it. _That_ is the difference between writing on write-once/read-only memory and DRM, and the loophole that the GPLv3 is trying to cover.
This *intent* to limit the rights of users of your derivative work runs contrary to the spirit of the GPL.
>> Well, what if someone makes a piece of hardware that runs on GPLed software, and has that software burnt into write-once memory? Admittedly, most people prefer to be able to reflash their firmware, but what if for reasons of budget, simplicity, et cetera, they decided not to? That would potentially include a lot of low-end devices.
Good point, but I suppose that the difference would be that you *can* change the code and execute it -- albeit with difficulty (say, by changing the chip) -- and you are not legally restricted, which is the problem with DRM: its not that it is hard or difficult or virtually impossible to run modified code, is that if you circumvent the DRM they'll throw the DMCA book on you.
>> If you want to fight DRM's, fight the people who are creating them, fight the people who distribute them,
and fight the people who are implementing it on their devices.
>> don't fight the people who are trying to make your software more effective.
No, good heavens, of course not. Only those who are locking it up with DRM on their devices, because I will argue that limiting the rights of its users does not make my software more effective.
>> That's it. The GPL grants you the further rights to take that modified code and change it any way you like. But it does not grant you the right to install that modified software back on that same machine.
It might not grant you that right expressly, we have discovered, but this was always the intention of the GPL: to allow you access to execute your modified version.
So in essence, some hardware manufacturers have discovered a loophole. And so the GPL is been modified to compensate for this.
This means that if TiVo, Cisco, Sony, Apple, or any hardware manufacturer wants to lock their boxes up with DRM that prevents anybody from modifying their code, fine, they are within their rights -- as long as they write their own software, from scratch, or license or buy it from a third party who accepts such terms. They will not be able to use GPLv3'd software for this.
>> The answer is purely economic -- don't buy a trusted platform based machine. Don't buy an OS that supports trusted platforms (Vista.) Don't allow friends, families or your business to buy trusted platform machines. If you're in a position to purchase hardware, get "no hardware enforcement of digital signatures" written as a requirement into your RFQs.
But why is the onus on the user or developer -- possibly even the guy who originally licensed the software? Consider reversing the roles in your statement: The answer, to hardware manufacturers, is purely economic -- write your own code, or if you must use software licensed under the GPLv3 (because you are lazy, because it is easier, because it is better, because it offers faster time to market, etc.), do not impose DRM on the users of your product.
This sounds pretty radical, but it is just as radical as saying that you can only use GPLv2'd software in your commercial applications if you distribute your software under the GPL license. The user/distributor of the GPL'd software has a right to do virtually *anything* he wants with it -- except limiting the rights of those who use his derivative work. This, according to the GPLv3, includes hardware manufacturers.
The bottom line is that nobody has a God-given right to use software that is not their own -- not developers, not hardware manufacturers, not users. And those who use licensed software, must abide by the license's stipulations, or not use such software at all. This goes the same for open source licenses like the GPL, as for potentially more restrictive ones like, say, Microsoft's.
Perhaps they needed a quick pic, and instead of making their own, someone just searched Google Images for one in the public domain. Lots of people do this, it does not mean they approve or support the source, it just means they are too lazy to check.
After reading the article and, of course, ignoring the complex math behind the entire thesis, I have to say that it seems so obvious.
>> "That might explain the emergence of superstitious behaviour, with an accidental correlation or two being misinterpreted by the brain as causal. A frequentist way of doing things would reduce the risk of that happening. But by the time the frequentist had enough data to draw a conclusion, he might already be dead."
The human mind has to perform an unthinkable (pun fully tended!) amount of computations in order to assess and understand his environment. This is our primary survival mechanism and, well, what makes us human. So it would make sense that our brain is designed to correlate cause and effect from past experiences, and ultimately predict the most likely outcome, based on very little and limited information. After all, it would be great if we could sit down and think everything over until we fully comprehend its implications, and to take our time to gather and analyze all available information, but that is a luxury that no organism can take in the natural world.
Of course, this still does not explain how humans think, nor does it prove that the human mind is in fact a Bayesian engine, but it offers the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that accurate predictions can be made based on very little information, and gathering extensive amounts of data first might not always be the best approach.
It also says something about our ability for induction and intuition. That first "gut-feeling" we get about something -- that usually tends to be right -- is nothing magical or ethereal, but perhaps the most probable outcome of a very rapid and complex statistical computation of significant pieces of currently available data, and as it now seems, mathematically provable or reproducible, and therefore should not be ignored.
That is precisely the premise of The Truth Machine: That it eventually became the de facto method to prove veracity; people would wear the device like a wristwatch all the time; and the way we interact in society was forever changed: lawyers and jury were no longer needed in trials; common and mundane interactions between people, such as talking to your wife or neighbor, became flat and lifeless, as everyone made sure to say what others were expecting them to say, and avoid conflict and confrontations. Society was then "safe", yet so sterile as to be worhtless to some.
I agree, the article is just a bitch-list of pure nitpicking.
- It mentions that the Shuttle didn't "technically" explode, but that it broke apart, really fast, and the fuel ignited into a fireball. I'd call that an explosion.
- It complains about NASA commemorating the Challenger's "73 seconds of flight", claiming that it took almost 3 more minutes for it to hit the ground after breaking up. I guess he subscribes to the Toy Story definition of flight: Falling With Style.
- It dismisses the assertion that millions of people saw the tragedy unfold as false, claiming instead that most cable networks cut-away during launch, and then quickly returned with taped relays. He seems to forget that a lot of hoopla was made about the first civilian/teacher to go on the shuttle, and that there was a lot of attention put on the launch -- even if most networks did not follow it for more than a few seconds after blast-off. Millions of people were still attentive to the Challenger's goings-on even if they couldn't see it live on TV as it exploded -- and when it did, almost immediately after, those taped relays kicked in, so millions of people saw the tragedy unfold, albeit after a few seconds delay.
So many people imagine artificial semantic differences between certain synonyms without considering reading a dictionary for their correct usage, it really irks me.
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: sex Pronunciation: 'seks Function: noun 1 : either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as male or female 2 : the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of living things that are involved in reproduction by two interacting parents and that distinguish males and females 3 a : sexually motivated phenomena or behavior b : SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
Hint: What you carelessly call "Sex", is properly called "Sexual Intercourse", or coitus, which is the act that puts into effect the properties and mechanisms of sex of two individual organisms duly empowered.
And if their introduction to the console market is any indication, it'll be the size of a bible on paper-back, as heavy as an 32" woofer driver magnet, and occasionally burst into flames.
It'll be "portable" in the academic sense (i.e. it'll have a strap).
>> Think about it, if you were going to write a virus to screw with the world, would you spend time finding a way to infect 5% of the world's computers or the other 95%?
Think about this, if you were going to write a virus to screw up with the world, would you spend time finding a way to infect the same computers that *every* script kiddie and their dog has been -- and is still trying to -- infect, and get lost in the crowd; or would you rather spend the effort writing one of the *very* few Mac OSX/*NIX viruses, and become a legend?
You know, I think "The guy who brought Mac OSX to its knees, and wiped the smug smile off its users' faces" sounds pretty appealing:)
I wonder why it hasn't happened... Oh yeah, marketshare. Right.
Perhaps its those little pellets that they eat? Or maybe the bloodworms, they like bloodworms. Or perhaps its because they do not have the same requirements as other exotic fish, such as goldfish or clown-fish; they can live in low oxigenated water, and eat pretty much anything a fish could eat. It also helps not having other fish around for it to fight with (they usually fight to the death!).
I know I have a Beta (his name is Fishy, by the way), and it has lasted so far almost a whole year! (We got it for Christmas last year).
>> Hell, just go back to Space Police, Blacktron, Castle, and Forest legos.
As I remember them, when as a kid back in the 70s, they were Legoland Space, Legoland Town, and later on, Legoland Castle.
I do not need to say that Legoland Space was the coolest one (well, I'll say it anyway!!) But once in a while an aunt or grandma would buy the wrong type by "mistake" (grammy, didn't you read the Santa letter?? *Space* Legos!!!) and I'd be stuck with a fire-engine or gas-station set. No worries, because I discovered that putting angled pieces, antennae, colored studs, and those "computer console" blocks on anything would make it "spacey":)
And add a spare helmet* and/or oxigen tank to a fireman or policeman figure, and you have some really cool looking space cowboys!!
-dZ.
* (Of course, every one knows that to get a spare helmet all you need to do is to take it from a regular astronaut figure, and replace his head with a colored cilinder -- plus you get an instant Robot as a bonus!)
I heard that there was this Grammar Ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude misspelled a word the Grammar Ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a Grammar Ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid used a comma wrong.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But you are again referring to information as a physical property. The reason all you say applies to physical things is because some *thing* cannot exist in two places at the same time, and therefore, by necessity, there can be only one owner and user for it at any given time. And this ownership is dictated by possession. Ideas are not things. Information is not a thing. They are perceived by your senses and influence others in unpredictable and unquantifiable ways.
>> The public, or society, cannot grant rights to an author, for any reason, because, in this instance, society has no rights to grant. How can society grant rights to a creation unless it holds those rights in the first place?
Because the moment an author lets loose an idea, or an experience, for others to perceive, it no longer belongs to him. This is human nature, and it is unreasonable to expect otherwise: you cannot make me forget something I experieced, nor can you prevent it from influencing my existence in any way. Art, by its very nature, is a collective endeavor. If it weren't, there wouldn't be a need for rights or protections, since every author would only create for himself, and the rest of the world would not get any access to it at all. The same way that, say, a tradesman has little to fear from thieves -- and no need for laws against robbery -- if no man knows of the existence of his products. But this is not the case, is it?
Art is an individual *expression* meant to share an experience with, or to stir a reaction in others. And since this common experience has value to us as individuals, and as a collective society, we hold it in high regard, and recognize the need to offer an incentive for future creation.
Ideas are yours, while in your own head. In contrast, *things* are owned as long as they are possessed -- which gives birth to other social contracts such as Property Rights. The fact that a piece of land is "yours", is not due to the fact that God gave it to you, or that you discovered it first. It is due to the social contract respected by others, for various reasons, who won't take it from you so that others won't take theirs. And when they violate the social contract, you have suffered a *real* loss: you no longer possess that which you had. Contrast this with an information, an idea, or an experience; that which when "stolen" (i.e. copied, re-distributed, etc.) does not deprive you *at all* of of its original. The former can cause real physical harm, the latter the dissuasion of future artists, authors, and inventors to create. Both have value to society, and should be protected, but in different ways, and for different reasons.
I am not saying that authorship has no meaning and that authors and creators should not have any rights over their works. On the contrary, I am all for copyrights and patents, in order to promote the advancement of the state of the arts and sciences. But I acknowledge that this is a man-made right, granted by a social contract, which is increasingly being distorted and corrupted.
>> All information is unfree at the moment of creation. Whatever degree of right and ownership the rest of us may later obtain is solely determined by the information's creator.
NO. You are dead wrong. Creating something and wanting to distribute it for others to use while at the same time retaining full control of it is an artifact of our modern distortion of copyrights. That is to say, it has never existed before, and applying it to information has no analogy in human history, whether civilized or not. It is tantamount to "having your cake and eating it too". The moment you are inspired with an idea -- as you say, at the moment of creation -- it is yours and yours alone. But the moment you say it, explain it, speak it, broadcast it, hang it on a public wall, or in any way communicate it to others, it is part of the human consciousness and you cannot reasonably expect to control in any way how it will affect or influence others by the mere act of perceiving it through their senses. Society -- i.e. the common public, and by proxy, government -- grants authors certain rights in order to reward them and promote further creation, which is in its own interest. It is important to recognize this distinction. If your creation is to have any meaning to the rest of the world, by its external usage or application, that is, if you want to gain something from it other than from your own personal use of it, then you must necessarily relinquish it, at least to some extent.
Information -- ideas! -- are not physical things, which is why nobody ever before expected to reasonably compare them to property. But being so ethereal, a social contract is established in which authors and creators gain a temporary monopoly on their works, as reward for advancing the state of the arts and technology, and as an enticement for further creation. Thus the public surrenders its nature-borne right and urge to adopt, apply, and be influenced by all it perceives from its surroundings as the price to enhance and advance its existence.
You can infer by context that the original poster was talking about Programming Languages, and thus my response. HyperText Markup Language is not a programming language, but an SGML-based language designed to describe hyper-text documents. My comment was a response to the common perception, particularly by the lay-person, that making a web page using HTML and CSS qualifies as "programming", and that when you add something like JavaScript to it, the creation now involves 3 "[programming] languages".
>> The purpose of copyrights and patents is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. It's purpose is not to make inventors rich.
Although I agree with the article that our "Intellectual Property" system is broken, and that we must do something about it, I think your argument is flawed and one of the reasons why it is hard for us to fight the Real Problem. You see, the purpose of copyrights and patents is to promote the progress of science and useful arts by offering inventors and authors an incentive to create and thus, in a way, making them rich. By giving them a temporary monopoly on the use and distribution of their creations, it not only potentially provides the resources for future creations, but entices them to create more with the prospect of further rewards.
The sense of temporary, and the idea that this "right" is granted by society as an incentive, and not heaven-borne by birth-right, is what has gotten lost. And arguing, like you seem to do, that inventing, creating, and authoring should be solely an act of humanity and altruism for the betterment of mankind, does our cause a disservice. It pits "us" against "them" in the unfair and unwarranted light of "idealistic zealots" fighting against the remuneration of artists, authors and inventors.
-dZ.
-- War is peace. Equity is slavery. Credit is strength. For Your Convenience.
-- The Ministry of Truth
I hope you're not one of those who count HTML and CSS as "languages"...
I coded -- and still code -- in more languages than that even before my company decided to label me as a "Web Developer" for working on web-enabled applications. That "age of simple web pages" that you speak of was the time when Webmasters were just that, and nobody thought of considering them "developers". I still do not consider making web pages "software development" as such, but more like User Interface implementation. Multi-tierred, full-featured, web applications are another matter.
-dZ.
--
"There can be only Juan!"
- Juan McCloud from the Clann McCloud, El Highlandero.
Slashdot Mirror
>> Read-only memory is only an unfortunate circumstance; DRM and Treacherous Computing is malicious!
But that is my point! Its one thing to not be able to execute a modified version because of technical, economical, or physical limitations, and it is anothing thing to actively prevent this from occuring and wrap all sorts of legal sanctions around it. _That_ is the difference between writing on write-once/read-only memory and DRM, and the loophole that the GPLv3 is trying to cover.
This *intent* to limit the rights of users of your derivative work runs contrary to the spirit of the GPL.
-dZ.
>> Well, what if someone makes a piece of hardware that runs on GPLed software, and has that software burnt into write-once memory? Admittedly, most people prefer to be able to reflash their firmware, but what if for reasons of budget, simplicity, et cetera, they decided not to? That would potentially include a lot of low-end devices.
Good point, but I suppose that the difference would be that you *can* change the code and execute it -- albeit with difficulty (say, by changing the chip) -- and you are not legally restricted, which is the problem with DRM: its not that it is hard or difficult or virtually impossible to run modified code, is that if you circumvent the DRM they'll throw the DMCA book on you.
-dZ.
>> If you want to fight DRM's, fight the people who are creating them, fight the people who distribute them,
and fight the people who are implementing it on their devices.
>> don't fight the people who are trying to make your software more effective.
No, good heavens, of course not. Only those who are locking it up with DRM on their devices, because I will argue that limiting the rights of its users does not make my software more effective.
-dZ.
>> That's it. The GPL grants you the further rights to take that modified code and change it any way you like. But it does not grant you the right to install that modified software back on that same machine.
It might not grant you that right expressly, we have discovered, but this was always the intention of the GPL: to allow you access to execute your modified version.
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)
So in essence, some hardware manufacturers have discovered a loophole. And so the GPL is been modified to compensate for this.
This means that if TiVo, Cisco, Sony, Apple, or any hardware manufacturer wants to lock their boxes up with DRM that prevents anybody from modifying their code, fine, they are within their rights -- as long as they write their own software, from scratch, or license or buy it from a third party who accepts such terms. They will not be able to use GPLv3'd software for this.
>> The answer is purely economic -- don't buy a trusted platform based machine. Don't buy an OS that supports trusted platforms (Vista.) Don't allow friends, families or your business to buy trusted platform machines. If you're in a position to purchase hardware, get "no hardware enforcement of digital signatures" written as a requirement into your RFQs.
But why is the onus on the user or developer -- possibly even the guy who originally licensed the software? Consider reversing the roles in your statement: The answer, to hardware manufacturers, is purely economic -- write your own code, or if you must use software licensed under the GPLv3 (because you are lazy, because it is easier, because it is better, because it offers faster time to market, etc.), do not impose DRM on the users of your product.
This sounds pretty radical, but it is just as radical as saying that you can only use GPLv2'd software in your commercial applications if you distribute your software under the GPL license. The user/distributor of the GPL'd software has a right to do virtually *anything* he wants with it -- except limiting the rights of those who use his derivative work. This, according to the GPLv3, includes hardware manufacturers.
The bottom line is that nobody has a God-given right to use software that is not their own -- not developers, not hardware manufacturers, not users. And those who use licensed software, must abide by the license's stipulations, or not use such software at all. This goes the same for open source licenses like the GPL, as for potentially more restrictive ones like, say, Microsoft's.
-dZ.
Perhaps they needed a quick pic, and instead of making their own, someone just searched Google Images for one in the public domain. Lots of people do this, it does not mean they approve or support the source, it just means they are too lazy to check.
-dZ.
After reading the article and, of course, ignoring the complex math behind the entire thesis, I have to say that it seems so obvious.
>> "That might explain the emergence of superstitious behaviour, with an accidental correlation or two being misinterpreted by the brain as causal. A frequentist way of doing things would reduce the risk of that happening. But by the time the frequentist had enough data to draw a conclusion, he might already be dead."
The human mind has to perform an unthinkable (pun fully tended!) amount of computations in order to assess and understand his environment. This is our primary survival mechanism and, well, what makes us human. So it would make sense that our brain is designed to correlate cause and effect from past experiences, and ultimately predict the most likely outcome, based on very little and limited information. After all, it would be great if we could sit down and think everything over until we fully comprehend its implications, and to take our time to gather and analyze all available information, but that is a luxury that no organism can take in the natural world.
Of course, this still does not explain how humans think, nor does it prove that the human mind is in fact a Bayesian engine, but it offers the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that accurate predictions can be made based on very little information, and gathering extensive amounts of data first might not always be the best approach.
It also says something about our ability for induction and intuition. That first "gut-feeling" we get about something -- that usually tends to be right -- is nothing magical or ethereal, but perhaps the most probable outcome of a very rapid and complex statistical computation of significant pieces of currently available data, and as it now seems, mathematically provable or reproducible, and therefore should not be ignored.
-dZ.
That is precisely the premise of The Truth Machine: That it eventually became the de facto method to prove veracity; people would wear the device like a wristwatch all the time; and the way we interact in society was forever changed: lawyers and jury were no longer needed in trials; common and mundane interactions between people, such as talking to your wife or neighbor, became flat and lifeless, as everyone made sure to say what others were expecting them to say, and avoid conflict and confrontations. Society was then "safe", yet so sterile as to be worhtless to some.
-dZ.
I agree, the article is just a bitch-list of pure nitpicking.
- It mentions that the Shuttle didn't "technically" explode, but that it broke apart, really fast, and the fuel ignited into a fireball. I'd call that an explosion.
- It complains about NASA commemorating the Challenger's "73 seconds of flight", claiming that it took almost 3 more minutes for it to hit the ground after breaking up. I guess he subscribes to the Toy Story definition of flight: Falling With Style.
- It dismisses the assertion that millions of people saw the tragedy unfold as false, claiming instead that most cable networks cut-away during launch, and then quickly returned with taped relays. He seems to forget that a lot of hoopla was made about the first civilian/teacher to go on the shuttle, and that there was a lot of attention put on the launch -- even if most networks did not follow it for more than a few seconds after blast-off. Millions of people were still attentive to the Challenger's goings-on even if they couldn't see it live on TV as it exploded -- and when it did, almost immediately after, those taped relays kicked in, so millions of people saw the tragedy unfold, albeit after a few seconds delay.
Puhleez... Nothing to see here, move along.
-dZ.
I think he meant "Opposite Sex".
So many people imagine artificial semantic differences between certain synonyms without considering reading a dictionary for their correct usage, it really irks me.
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: sex
Pronunciation: 'seks
Function: noun
1 : either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as male or female
2 : the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of living things that are involved in reproduction by two interacting parents and that distinguish males and females
3 a : sexually motivated phenomena or behavior b : SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
Hint: What you carelessly call "Sex", is properly called "Sexual Intercourse", or coitus, which is the act that puts into effect the properties and mechanisms of sex of two individual organisms duly empowered.
The xPod.
And if their introduction to the console market is any indication, it'll be the size of a bible on paper-back, as heavy as an 32" woofer driver magnet, and occasionally burst into flames.
It'll be "portable" in the academic sense (i.e. it'll have a strap).
-dZ.
>> the price of Pixar was $7.4 billion with a b dollar.
So, is this it? Did he finally win and gets to flip BillG now? Or does he still have a few more billions to go?
I lost track already... Is anybody else -- apart from Steve Jobs, that is -- keeping score?
-dZ.
>> Think about it, if you were going to write a virus to screw with the world, would you spend time finding a way to infect 5% of the world's computers or the other 95%?
:)
Think about this, if you were going to write a virus to screw up with the world, would you spend time finding a way to infect the same computers that *every* script kiddie and their dog has been -- and is still trying to -- infect, and get lost in the crowd; or would you rather spend the effort writing one of the *very* few Mac OSX/*NIX viruses, and become a legend?
You know, I think "The guy who brought Mac OSX to its knees, and wiped the smug smile off its users' faces" sounds pretty appealing
I wonder why it hasn't happened... Oh yeah, marketshare. Right.
-dZ.
Perhaps its those little pellets that they eat? Or maybe the bloodworms, they like bloodworms. Or perhaps its because they do not have the same requirements as other exotic fish, such as goldfish or clown-fish; they can live in low oxigenated water, and eat pretty much anything a fish could eat. It also helps not having other fish around for it to fight with (they usually fight to the death!).
I know I have a Beta (his name is Fishy, by the way), and it has lasted so far almost a whole year! (We got it for Christmas last year).
-dZ.
>> Hell, just go back to Space Police, Blacktron, Castle, and Forest legos.
:)
As I remember them, when as a kid back in the 70s, they were Legoland Space, Legoland Town, and later on, Legoland Castle.
I do not need to say that Legoland Space was the coolest one (well, I'll say it anyway!!) But once in a while an aunt or grandma would buy the wrong type by "mistake" (grammy, didn't you read the Santa letter?? *Space* Legos!!!) and I'd be stuck with a fire-engine or gas-station set. No worries, because I discovered that putting angled pieces, antennae, colored studs, and those "computer console" blocks on anything would make it "spacey"
And add a spare helmet* and/or oxigen tank to a fireman or policeman figure, and you have some really cool looking space cowboys!!
-dZ.
* (Of course, every one knows that to get a spare helmet all you need to do is to take it from a regular astronaut figure, and replace his head with a colored cilinder -- plus you get an instant Robot as a bonus!)
>> Grammar Ninja
I heard that there was this Grammar Ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude misspelled a word the Grammar Ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a Grammar Ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid used a comma wrong.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-dZ.
>> I suppose you think Bill Gates invented the personal computer industry and Linus Torvalds stole all the code in Linux from SCO as well.
No, silly. IBM invented the Personal Computer industry and Torvalds stole from MINIX.
-dZ.
But you are again referring to information as a physical property. The reason all you say applies to physical things is because some *thing* cannot exist in two places at the same time, and therefore, by necessity, there can be only one owner and user for it at any given time. And this ownership is dictated by possession. Ideas are not things. Information is not a thing. They are perceived by your senses and influence others in unpredictable and unquantifiable ways.
>> The public, or society, cannot grant rights to an author, for any reason, because, in this instance, society has no rights to grant. How can society grant rights to a creation unless it holds those rights in the first place?
Because the moment an author lets loose an idea, or an experience, for others to perceive, it no longer belongs to him. This is human nature, and it is unreasonable to expect otherwise: you cannot make me forget something I experieced, nor can you prevent it from influencing my existence in any way. Art, by its very nature, is a collective endeavor. If it weren't, there wouldn't be a need for rights or protections, since every author would only create for himself, and the rest of the world would not get any access to it at all. The same way that, say, a tradesman has little to fear from thieves -- and no need for laws against robbery -- if no man knows of the existence of his products. But this is not the case, is it?
Art is an individual *expression* meant to share an experience with, or to stir a reaction in others. And since this common experience has value to us as individuals, and as a collective society, we hold it in high regard, and recognize the need to offer an incentive for future creation.
Ideas are yours, while in your own head. In contrast, *things* are owned as long as they are possessed -- which gives birth to other social contracts such as Property Rights. The fact that a piece of land is "yours", is not due to the fact that God gave it to you, or that you discovered it first. It is due to the social contract respected by others, for various reasons, who won't take it from you so that others won't take theirs. And when they violate the social contract, you have suffered a *real* loss: you no longer possess that which you had. Contrast this with an information, an idea, or an experience; that which when "stolen" (i.e. copied, re-distributed, etc.) does not deprive you *at all* of of its original. The former can cause real physical harm, the latter the dissuasion of future artists, authors, and inventors to create. Both have value to society, and should be protected, but in different ways, and for different reasons.
I am not saying that authorship has no meaning and that authors and creators should not have any rights over their works. On the contrary, I am all for copyrights and patents, in order to promote the advancement of the state of the arts and sciences. But I acknowledge that this is a man-made right, granted by a social contract, which is increasingly being distorted and corrupted.
-dZ.
>> All information is unfree at the moment of creation. Whatever degree of right and ownership the rest of us may later obtain is solely determined by the information's creator.
NO. You are dead wrong. Creating something and wanting to distribute it for others to use while at the same time retaining full control of it is an artifact of our modern distortion of copyrights. That is to say, it has never existed before, and applying it to information has no analogy in human history, whether civilized or not. It is tantamount to "having your cake and eating it too". The moment you are inspired with an idea -- as you say, at the moment of creation -- it is yours and yours alone. But the moment you say it, explain it, speak it, broadcast it, hang it on a public wall, or in any way communicate it to others, it is part of the human consciousness and you cannot reasonably expect to control in any way how it will affect or influence others by the mere act of perceiving it through their senses. Society -- i.e. the common public, and by proxy, government -- grants authors certain rights in order to reward them and promote further creation, which is in its own interest. It is important to recognize this distinction. If your creation is to have any meaning to the rest of the world, by its external usage or application, that is, if you want to gain something from it other than from your own personal use of it, then you must necessarily relinquish it, at least to some extent.
Information -- ideas! -- are not physical things, which is why nobody ever before expected to reasonably compare them to property. But being so ethereal, a social contract is established in which authors and creators gain a temporary monopoly on their works, as reward for advancing the state of the arts and technology, and as an enticement for further creation. Thus the public surrenders its nature-borne right and urge to adopt, apply, and be influenced by all it perceives from its surroundings as the price to enhance and advance its existence.
-dZ.
You can infer by context that the original poster was talking about Programming Languages, and thus my response. HyperText Markup Language is not a programming language, but an SGML-based language designed to describe hyper-text documents. My comment was a response to the common perception, particularly by the lay-person, that making a web page using HTML and CSS qualifies as "programming", and that when you add something like JavaScript to it, the creation now involves 3 "[programming] languages".
-dZ.
>> The purpose of copyrights and patents is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. It's purpose is not to make inventors rich.
Although I agree with the article that our "Intellectual Property" system is broken, and that we must do something about it, I think your argument is flawed and one of the reasons why it is hard for us to fight the Real Problem. You see, the purpose of copyrights and patents is to promote the progress of science and useful arts by offering inventors and authors an incentive to create and thus, in a way, making them rich. By giving them a temporary monopoly on the use and distribution of their creations, it not only potentially provides the resources for future creations, but entices them to create more with the prospect of further rewards.
The sense of temporary, and the idea that this "right" is granted by society as an incentive, and not heaven-borne by birth-right, is what has gotten lost. And arguing, like you seem to do, that inventing, creating, and authoring should be solely an act of humanity and altruism for the betterment of mankind, does our cause a disservice. It pits "us" against "them" in the unfair and unwarranted light of "idealistic zealots" fighting against the remuneration of artists, authors and inventors.
-dZ.
--
War is peace. Equity is slavery. Credit is strength. For Your Convenience.
-- The Ministry of Truth
>> The guy has balls and he'll make a stand against what he believes in no matter how it looks.
You gotta have lots of balls to make a stand against what you believe in. Having no brain helps too.
-dZ.
They stop sexual activity, that's for sure! How many geeks wearing tin-foil hats actually get laid?
-dZ.
You forgot the marshmellows:
4. Top with marshmellows.
How are you ever going to make it work without the marshmellows?
-dZ.
I hope you're not one of those who count HTML and CSS as "languages"...
I coded -- and still code -- in more languages than that even before my company decided to label me as a "Web Developer" for working on web-enabled applications. That "age of simple web pages" that you speak of was the time when Webmasters were just that, and nobody thought of considering them "developers". I still do not consider making web pages "software development" as such, but more like User Interface implementation. Multi-tierred, full-featured, web applications are another matter.
-dZ.
--
"There can be only Juan!"
- Juan McCloud from the Clann McCloud, El Highlandero.
Short answer: NO!
Long answer: FSCK NO!
-dZ.
--
"There can be only Juan!"
- Juan McCloud of the Clann McCloud, El Highlandero.