How is public censorship more acceptable then government censorship?
One (public "censorship") is an exercising of rights, whereas the other (censorship) is a denial of rights. It's more acceptable in the same way that freedom is more acceptable than slavery.
The argument is to transfer control from a private organization to a political organization. The last thing the internet needs is politics. Miraculously, despite being started in the US, the internet has mostly been free from this sort of political nonsense. In fact, the only nonsense about revoking domain names was instigated by WIPO, which is a UN body.
This is not a matter of making the internet more democratic. This is a matter of taking a technical issue which needs to stay technical, and making it political. There is nothing to be gained, and everything to lose. I don't trust the U.S., even as an American, but the fact is that the status quo works. Even crap like the CDA never aimed to control the internet, just to regulate Americans' access to it. On the other hand, there are plenty of countries which would like to see parts of the internet censored globally.
Only the US government doesn't even directly run it. And despite all the of civil rights abuses perpetrated by the current administration, Bush is not a tyrant. The UN, however, represents nations run by tyrants as much as it does those run by democratically-elected governments. Consider that despite the sway of religious conservatives in the US, and attempts to regulate what Americans may do on the internet, there have not been any serious attempts to regulate the internet itself.
I think ICANN has done wonderfully on keeping out politics, as it should, with one exception: revoking domain names. But this is actually an argument against UN control, as ICANN has only started doing this at the behest of WIPO.
Nullification is a de facto power, not a de jure power, at least to the best of my knowledge. I know for a fact that it is not in the Constitution as many claim. In most cases juries are specifically instructed to decide very narrowly whether the law has been broken in a specific instance considering only certain evidence. But jurors can still rule however they want. Besides, jurors can always lie and claim they felt the evidence wasn't compelling instead of admitting that they disagree with the law. I've never heard, however, of a judge throwing out a innocent verdict because of nullification--hopefully it would raise quite a stir. If a jury decides to convict a person because of something besides the charges brought against the defendant, I sure hope the judge would throw it out.
Nullification is also a two-sided sword; Ben Franklin was acquitted, but so were many people who murdered blacks when the jury decided that murdering black people shouldn't be a crime.
Juries are supposed to enforce the law, not create it. What this law creates is a situation where it is impossible to know in advance whether or not your actions are a crime. The whole point of having "a government of laws and not of men" is that the latter is a staple of tyranny.
Canadian Anglophones are not so ethnically different from a lot of people in the U.S., but we don't call Canada a province of the U.S. At least, most of us don't.
Apple has gotten away with throwing around the word "Unix" a lot more egregiously (and with less justification than FreeBSD). If the Open Group sues anyone, it will probably be Apple.
Private citizens and corporations cannot commit entrapment, only the government can. And it is not legal; if you can prove the government committed entrapment, you are not guilty, even if you committed a crime.
So why didn't BSD get as popular as it is today without the GPL?
Because whether a project uses the BSD or GPL license is less important than whether the source code actually belongs to AT&T? And if it's not a sharing community, why would a huge commercial, proprietary company like Apple release all of their changes to BSD when they don't have to release any at all?
I agree that both licenses have their uses, but saying "no one will contribute back to BSD projects" is pretty much on the same level as saying "the GPL is viral."
Ironically, the Chinese are less offended by the title "Republic of China" than Taiwan, if only because the former is the status quo. The PRC will actually attack Taiwan if they ever stop claiming to control all of mainland China, which is pretty ridiculous.
Can Taiwan officially call itself Taiwan without death raining down upon its citizens? Do they have official diplomatic relations with many nations? At least Western Sahara openly and boldly proclaims its independence, but all they get is a dotted line between them and Morocco.
I'd like nothing better than to see an internationally-recognized, free Taiwan, but that isn't happening any time soon. Sovereignty issues are incredibly complex. In the meantime, however, Google might be able to get away with calling them by their official name, the Republic of China. It seems a strange state of affairs when a country is going to go to war with you the second you stop claiming sovereignty over their territory.
In the 50's it was comic books. In the 20's it was jazz. I'm sure people were just as stupid back then, but it seems they didn't put up with as much because neither are illegal today.
Also, there are no laws saying that theaters can't let kids see rated-R movies at will. This isn't about protecting the children, just like most "OMG FOR THE LOVE OF ALMIGHTY GOD WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!11111oneoneone" campaigns.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know this man, but he speaks the truth: no /.er fights or fucks too much.
In addition to giving you lung cancer, of course.
Running two concurrent windowing systems, regardless of the properties of either system, is hardly elegant.
One (public "censorship") is an exercising of rights, whereas the other (censorship) is a denial of rights. It's more acceptable in the same way that freedom is more acceptable than slavery.
This is not a matter of making the internet more democratic. This is a matter of taking a technical issue which needs to stay technical, and making it political. There is nothing to be gained, and everything to lose. I don't trust the U.S., even as an American, but the fact is that the status quo works. Even crap like the CDA never aimed to control the internet, just to regulate Americans' access to it. On the other hand, there are plenty of countries which would like to see parts of the internet censored globally.
Only the US government doesn't even directly run it. And despite all the of civil rights abuses perpetrated by the current administration, Bush is not a tyrant. The UN, however, represents nations run by tyrants as much as it does those run by democratically-elected governments. Consider that despite the sway of religious conservatives in the US, and attempts to regulate what Americans may do on the internet, there have not been any serious attempts to regulate the internet itself.
I think ICANN has done wonderfully on keeping out politics, as it should, with one exception: revoking domain names. But this is actually an argument against UN control, as ICANN has only started doing this at the behest of WIPO.
Perhaps they wish to specify a vector, lest they should develop backwards. Unfortunately, even for a play on words this is nonetheless a possibility.
Nullification is also a two-sided sword; Ben Franklin was acquitted, but so were many people who murdered blacks when the jury decided that murdering black people shouldn't be a crime.
It's not illegal to sell R-rated movies to children, and it never has been.
Juries are supposed to enforce the law, not create it. What this law creates is a situation where it is impossible to know in advance whether or not your actions are a crime. The whole point of having "a government of laws and not of men" is that the latter is a staple of tyranny.
In Korea, only old people lament the continued use the played-out /. memes.
Canadian Anglophones are not so ethnically different from a lot of people in the U.S., but we don't call Canada a province of the U.S. At least, most of us don't.
Apple has gotten away with throwing around the word "Unix" a lot more egregiously (and with less justification than FreeBSD). If the Open Group sues anyone, it will probably be Apple.
Even for a C programmer, the sort of person who would abuse a language this way probably believes in Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.
And in the 21st century, people believe that people in the 15th century thought the world was flat :)
True, but they could probably get one if they DRM'ed the ripped files. I wonder if an iPod will have enough horsepower to decode H.264, though.
What does As Seen On TV think about this? :)
Private citizens and corporations cannot commit entrapment, only the government can. And it is not legal; if you can prove the government committed entrapment, you are not guilty, even if you committed a crime.
Because whether a project uses the BSD or GPL license is less important than whether the source code actually belongs to AT&T? And if it's not a sharing community, why would a huge commercial, proprietary company like Apple release all of their changes to BSD when they don't have to release any at all?
I agree that both licenses have their uses, but saying "no one will contribute back to BSD projects" is pretty much on the same level as saying "the GPL is viral."
The Republic of China.
Ironically, the Chinese are less offended by the title "Republic of China" than Taiwan, if only because the former is the status quo. The PRC will actually attack Taiwan if they ever stop claiming to control all of mainland China, which is pretty ridiculous.
I'd like nothing better than to see an internationally-recognized, free Taiwan, but that isn't happening any time soon. Sovereignty issues are incredibly complex. In the meantime, however, Google might be able to get away with calling them by their official name, the Republic of China. It seems a strange state of affairs when a country is going to go to war with you the second you stop claiming sovereignty over their territory.
Seriously, is there any reason to use it instead of Firefox or Mozilla?
Also, there are no laws saying that theaters can't let kids see rated-R movies at will. This isn't about protecting the children, just like most "OMG FOR THE LOVE OF ALMIGHTY GOD WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!11111oneoneone " campaigns.