I am amazed by the complete lack of insight of some entrepreneurs.
A for-profit enterprise can earn money in either or both of these two ways: 1) using inefficiencies of the free market to make money (which couldn't make in a truly free market) and 2) providing useful products and services and keeping clients, customers, and suppliers happy, while maintaining peaceful coexistence with competitors.
Most companies today go by way 1 as described above... where by inefficiencies I mean such things like lack of communication (especially between consumers, eg a shop in road A may sell shoes for 150 euros while a shop in road B may sell them for only 100 euros, then in a free market only the second shop would get customers but in reality today shops like the first shop in my example can still get customers because not everyone knows about the second shop), psychological irrational factors (higher price === better product!), evil government regulation (copyright and patents being a good example of the creation of government-backed monopolies), the lack of an enforced code of ethics in the marketplace, etc).
Successful companies must also find a way of doing business which is difficult to imitate by competitors. In Veropedia's case, their business model can be imitated very easily.
If Veropedia is the pet project of some Wikipedia/Wikimedia admins to help them raise some more money either for Wikipedia or for themselves without much work that's ok. But if they believe they can use it to become rich then that would be difficult.
I have thought of non-imitable ethical ways of running for-profit enterprises using Wikipedia's content (and if you are interesting I'm open to business partners). Practically speaking, the magic ingredient of a successful business today is in its community rather than its content. A business can be successful just by persuading a group of interesting people to join together in a physical or virtual place, then relying on them as seeds of gravity for attracting other interesting people within the group. That's how all successful Internet projects have won their place in our bookmarks, folks: Slashdot, eBay, GNU (the userland), Linux (the kernel), Second Life, Wikipedia itself.
Even if you collect the most interesting content of the world on a website, it will fail if you don't create a passionate community around it. It's the people that count, not pieces of text or images.
Even in adult entertainment, where the content is of extreme importance, the sites that have been more successful are those that created communities.
The most primitive and least effective way of approximating a community around your product is to get famous, for example by announcing your product to the media. As people who watch the same media learn about your product, they start to discuss it, and a crude form of a community is born around your product. This can help create some profits early on, but it is not sustainable as it is not a real community.
The way to create a passionate community is to engage and trust your customers, users, and suppliers. You must allow them to participate within the very heart of your own business.
If I understood Veropedia's business model correctly, it is that it will select some good articles from Wikipedia and serve them from its own server. I don't see any community building going on. Ok, I visited Veropedia's webpage so I am now one of their users... How can I participate? How can I engage with the articles? Can I meet other interesting people through their site? Can I discuss? Can I get entertainment? Can I get a sense of being useful to society? Can I project my creativity energy through their site? Can I fulfil myself and self-realise by using their site? I only see a notice in their FAQ that Veropedia was created by trusted Wikipedia editors and that if one wants to join them can send them an email and explain their contributions to free knowledge. I don't see this as a serious well-thought att
it has a rather strong perception in the public and political view.
I have to say that I don't know the internal political landscape in Italy or the Italians's perception of politics. If Italians are aware of their constitution that's a good thing (in other countries people don't know what their constitution says). I have visited Italy but I didn't stay long enough to learn much about it (I loved it though so I will surely visit it again at first opportunity!).
3 Italian stories on slashdot frontpage at short intervals... Who bets that Italian Internet will slow down to sub-28.8 speeds as Italy feels the slashdot effect?
It would be fun (maybe not for the sysadmins though) to have organised country TLDs slashdottings, eg agree for one day to surf only pages ending in a particular country's TLD.
It would then become more apparent that the modern Internet does not share the intended reliability and high-availability of arpanet. There are too many SPOFs in modern Internet.
It could happen if people provided a financial and political incentive for abolishing all censorship laws worldwide. If a huge number of citizens worldwide agreed not to buy anything from nations that have censorship laws (eg the communist China PRC), voted for pro-freespeech politicians, and asked international organisations such as the EU and UN to formally recognise any censorship as equal to slavery, then it could happen. The important thing would be to make it happen with democratic consensus and via our current democratic institutions. For this reason, the people themselves should find a way to make the governments themselves feel more at ease with the idea of allowing greater freedoms to their subjects (which would be easier if people were more mature in their way of thinking and their actions, but it is a fact that most people today are unable to constructively use their freedom - whether this is a valid argument against giving them freedom, I am not sure but I tend to say freedom is non-negotiable). For example, in China PRC's case, people could push peacefully for the eradication of communism and censorship, while allowing the current leaders to have a position in a new democratic government. It is important to realise that governments and groups of leaders act as collective living beings that look after their own survival and self-preservation, and are keen to use violence if their own survival is at stake. So, for harmonious reforms to be made, people must massively and decisively ask for *gentle* progressive step-by-step social and legal changes over time, while at the same time not forgetting their greater goals and principles. Yes, it's difficult.
Practically, I don't see it happening any time soon, and I see discussions about such issues as mostly theoretical, for the reason that the people in general are stupid and incapable of putting their neurons in good use. Furthermore, many people see advantages in maintaining censorship laws, as long as they don't affect them directly. I didn't say it's easy... It is a fact that only a smart diplomat with a mind as clear as a philosopher's and as rational as a scientist's could handle such negotiations, but in reality the negotiations happen between two groups (governments and peoples) that are both irrational and have no idea what they really want, and so tend to act based on emotion and bureaucratic rules, often without any insight into the greater situation, even at the individual level.
So, realistically speaking, it can't happen because not enough people understand and agree to the concept of free speech. Theoretically, if a huge number of people agreed to it then it would be a matter of time until the total eradication of censorship.
But in the past some people could say the same about the slavery system, and at some point it was replaced by a more relaxed, improved, and more just system (albeit imperfect and not that much different in its basic properties, and the system unfortunately did not come together with changes in social subconscious psychological conceptualisations), at least here in the West. It took thousands of years but it happened (whether it will last I don't know... societal advances are not permanent and human societies can easily fall into less advanced levels if freedoms and rights are not used daily and if people don't understand the issues).
If you ask for my gut-feeling non-scientific personal time estimate, I think humanity will need some more 1000-1500 years before it abolishes censorship universally. The reason I think it will take so long is because I believe we are falling into another dark age (which I define as emergence of collective-massive irrationality, authoritarianism, war, etc, and yes this includes censorship), and I am not sure how long it will last but I would assume that with the technological tools available now future authoritarian rulers or organisations (eg a future church) could easily control large populations for at least a millennium (which is why people who unde
I use Magellan GPS receivers and I have found them pretty accurate in speed measurement, both in-car and while walking. There were, however, some times where it could not contact a satellite and continued showing the last measurements, but this has happened only in 1-2 occasions.
In my opinion many of the people who focus on the paranormal are themselves dissatisfied with the natural world around them. It would surely be nice if we lived in a world where our loved ones could continue living after their physical death, but just because it would be nice doesn't make it real. People think how nice it would be to talk with aliens or communicate with dead loved ones, and they construct an imaginary world full of UFOs and ghosts. People also think how nice it would be to ask a supernatural master for help when they need it, and construct an imaginary world where a god, goddess, spirit, or other entity will answer their prayers, magic acts, or meditations. They dislike the material world around them, so they create their own in their heads. The problem is that many times they try to convince the rational people to share their beliefs, often by threat of violence.
Constitution can change as well, and even if it is violated no one will notice or bother.
It won't be proposed in this form due to the huge debate it has raised.
I bet that the government will pass the law in another form: As a data protection law which will say that everyone who keeps a file with personal information will have to register with the government (or an authority - which is the same thing in my opinion).
Then if you create a blog and accept comments, and your blog software asks for the email address of the people posting the comments, your blog's database may be seen as incorporating personal information and therefore failing to register your blog with the government will result in you being imprisoned for 2 or 3 years and paying a huge fine.
In the end the only way to conduct online business or having a blog will be to store no information about your clients or visitors at all, which I don't think is a bad thing (although it does create practical problems, and many sites wouldn't function at all), but in case one of your clients or site visitors posts something illegal online through your user-generated content Web 2.0 site and you failed to delete it immediately (let's say you were in vacations or had to work overtime in a day job) you will have to explain to the government why you failed to implement their other law about keeping information that can help the police catch online criminals.
So, they will have one law saying that you can't not collect some personal information (that you can't delete your server logs or conduct business without knowing the name or address of your client), and another law saying that if you possess any information about any person then you have to register with the government, and as an "added bonus" you will also have to explain to the government exactly how your network/server security infrastructure works (eg how strong encryption you use, so that they can be better prepared to break it), where the server is physically located (so that they can capture it more easily), and you will also need a special permit to have your server out of the country as the data protection law will specify that one has to ask for permission before storing personal data outside the country.
And the funny thing is that the people will support these laws thinking that they protect their personal data. People will support it thinking that it is necessary for protection against criminals etc. But people don't know that freedom is needed for a society to flourish, and you can't have science, philosophy, commerce, and art in a non-free world. Laws have great collateral damage, and even if they help catching a few criminals, they may also be used for political purposes.
The fact that Internet still exists is thanks to its use by big commercial businesses. Had the Internet remained a network for amateurs and hackers (in the ESR's definition, eg a great programmer and a person who loves computers - the criminals who break your server are called crackers, not hackers, no matter what TV says) it would have been banned long ago (this, or the government would have required every modem to incorporate a government's spying chip). But because commercial businesses found Internet useful and it got economic value, it was allowed to flourish without much control. However, I don't think this will be allowed for too long. For example, with the TCPA (Treacherous Computing, also known as Trusted Computing) initiative, we could see cryptography chips in our hardware controlling what software we can run on our PCs (hint hint: GNU/Linux distros will be excluded as "hacking tools" because they contain nmap and similar utils), and laws requiring every Internet-connected PC to have such a chip embedded (without you knowing the encryption/sign keys).
While Western democratic governments may not be so control freaks, other governments (eg China PRC's communists, or Myanmar's milit
Government asking ISPs to block access to certain sites (any sites) should be made illegal worldwide. ISPs lose money and undergo additional expenses incurred by government censors: They cannot provide true unlimited access to the Internet and have to spend time and money in blocking sites. Government censors interfere with their business and if they make the life of ISP entrepreneurs very difficult then we will stop seeing more small new ISPs being founded because of the costs and risks involved and Internet access will become the monopoly of one or two "government-backed" ISPs. Government censorship actively discourages young entrepreneurs to startup ISP businesses and contributed to the unemployment problem. The business model of an ISP is to offer access to the Internet, and the ISP is neither responsible for what you do with it, nor it should tell you what is good or bad. It's like roads: How would you feel if trying to take a road with your car resulted in a police officer stoping you and informing you that you have been blacklisted off road access because you are a Jew or Arab, or because your car is painted black and the government doesn't like this colour? Blocking sites may create problems to people who do academic research as well, destroying our chance to discover and analyse new social phenomena.
Ideally we should run apps on dedicated boxes. Virtualisation is good for saving money and for some "virtual" security against script kiddies, newbie crackers, or your own users (or yourself). VMs can't defend you against real crackers, and in fact they will make you less secure. Do it for the money or for protecting against script-kiddies and users, but not for real security. Always use multiple boxes for various apps if you can do so.
US schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support
I'll rewrite that: 'US schools are turning out capable science and engineering grads that the job market underutilises'.
Knowledge is power, and if with 3 engineers we can build a bridge then with 30 engineers we could build an Orion or Daedalus spaceship and with 300 engineers we could build a Dyson sphere.
Universities output computer scientists who, if they have no entrepreneurial spirit or aren't already rich, will find themselves locked in a job market that hires people who think whether P=NP for crafting javascript in flash-polluted webpages. Same for physicists, chemists, and other scientists.
(of course, for the sake of balance, it has to be said that universities nowadays many times allow people with less brain than a wooden table to graduate with PhDs, and that young people today in general have little difference with their dark age counterparts and in no way they can be compared with their baby-boomer parents. We really live in a very miserable age, but it is a fact that some graduates do understand science and still find themselves locked into stupid jobs)
From a business perspective it makes no sense to hire people who are knowledgeable in 3 domains and make them work in only 1 of them, unless you are disillusioned by the lies of Taylorism and specialisation.
I really do think that in your hypothetical scenario many people would take the evidence less seriously if presented by someone without shoes
Then the scientist would be correct in keeping their silence and letting all lamers die in a giant meteor impact. Stupid civilisations have no right to exist in this universe.
Last time I met RMS in Athens when he came to speak at a university here, I think he came with shoes but if I remember correctly he removed them during the scheduled break. I was I think near him, and I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing with his shoes, and neither it did attract my interest (to me removing one's shoes is perfectly natural, and I actually also do it sometimes), but I think he applied some gel or some form of medicine on them, and he did look a bit jet-lagged (which is natural after a transatlantic flight). Perhaps he had to walk a lot in the chaotic roads of Athens in order to come to the venue and with the excessive Greek summer heat his feet got hurt (this also happens to me). If I remember correctly, he later put on his shoes again. In general, if you watch his blog, you will see that he always travels somewhere to speak about free software or related matters. Too much travel = too much walking = hurt feet. Maybe when he got to Yale he had walked really a lot and shoes became too uncomfortable so he may have had to remove them. This is perfectly natural. He literally gets hurt and exhausted to teach people about freedom (an extremely important matter) and people look whether he wears shoes or not (which is a totally unimportant matter). I wonder what people are going to do if a meteor is going to strike us dead with an 1-year warning period and a scientist presents to the world a method to save our planet. Will people choose to listen to him, or will they spend their time looking at his clothing and discussing about his shoes? I have heard what some people say about Einstein's hair. How ridiculous people are!
Technology breeds governments and control as well: The more technology there is, the more control governments seek to have over their subjects.
Technology also breeds more effective community action: The more technology there is, the more easily people can form communities and co-operate more effectively.
So, technology is an afterburner: It speeds up all existing social processes, including law enforcement, community cooperation, crime... anything.
Therefore saying that 'technology helps X' is devoid of meaning. The correct thing is to say 'technology assists in everything, including X'.
incredible arrogance and lack of respect for the venue
If RMS was wearing a suit and a tie then he would project strong and clear arrogance and lack of respect for the venue. Why? Because in that case he would be considering the people in the venue as customers that should be subverted with marketing messages and sales techniques.
RMS has clearly stated that he doesn't think of activism as being marketing and sales, as stated in his homepage: 'we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics, when honest, is something much more important than mere business'.
I see nothing unreasonable in wearing a t-shirt and being barefoot.
RMS is right in wearing or not wearing whatever he wants. His message is the same one whether he wears a suit or is barefoot.
If you sincerely think that eccentricity is bad for free software publicity, then you should try to become an activist yourself and project whatever image you want. If you think free software advocates should wear a suit, then wear one yourself and go speaking at people about freedom.
RMS is a teacher: He is trying to teach you that you must value your freedom. RMS is not a superstar or celebrity. There is no reason why he should care about clothing. He just came and visited you in simple practical clothing to help you understand some issues about freedom. If people think it's better to look at his clothing instead of listening to what he has to say, then I am afraid society is still in the dark ages.
I personally see no reason why he should wear a suit, a tie, or shoes. T-Shirt and no shoes look perfectly reasonable to me.
When I get on a bus or train there are tens of people yelling at mobile phones, and many others loudly discussing while moving their hands all the time, and I haven't got mad - I'm still sane, and I don't expect an airplane to change that.
I am not a lawyer and I may not understand some concepts, but my personal opinion is that their claims regarding viewing HTML code to be a form of copyright misuse because a person using TELNET as a Web client would be unable to see their site without viewing their HTML code. Therefore, my opinion is that their attempts to restrict viewing their HTML code via their understanding of the copyright law places an unreasonable demand on Web users who for whatever reasons have or prefer to use TELNET. They can specify that their site is best viewed with an X browser, but using the law to make it illegal to use TELNET as a Web viewer is too much for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Out of curiosity, and excuse me for the personal question, what made you go back in the end? Why your boycott didn't carry on forever?
I am amazed by the complete lack of insight of some entrepreneurs.
A for-profit enterprise can earn money in either or both of these two ways: 1) using inefficiencies of the free market to make money (which couldn't make in a truly free market) and 2) providing useful products and services and keeping clients, customers, and suppliers happy, while maintaining peaceful coexistence with competitors.
Most companies today go by way 1 as described above... where by inefficiencies I mean such things like lack of communication (especially between consumers, eg a shop in road A may sell shoes for 150 euros while a shop in road B may sell them for only 100 euros, then in a free market only the second shop would get customers but in reality today shops like the first shop in my example can still get customers because not everyone knows about the second shop), psychological irrational factors (higher price === better product!), evil government regulation (copyright and patents being a good example of the creation of government-backed monopolies), the lack of an enforced code of ethics in the marketplace, etc).
Successful companies must also find a way of doing business which is difficult to imitate by competitors. In Veropedia's case, their business model can be imitated very easily.
If Veropedia is the pet project of some Wikipedia/Wikimedia admins to help them raise some more money either for Wikipedia or for themselves without much work that's ok. But if they believe they can use it to become rich then that would be difficult.
I have thought of non-imitable ethical ways of running for-profit enterprises using Wikipedia's content (and if you are interesting I'm open to business partners). Practically speaking, the magic ingredient of a successful business today is in its community rather than its content. A business can be successful just by persuading a group of interesting people to join together in a physical or virtual place, then relying on them as seeds of gravity for attracting other interesting people within the group. That's how all successful Internet projects have won their place in our bookmarks, folks: Slashdot, eBay, GNU (the userland), Linux (the kernel), Second Life, Wikipedia itself.
Even if you collect the most interesting content of the world on a website, it will fail if you don't create a passionate community around it. It's the people that count, not pieces of text or images.
Even in adult entertainment, where the content is of extreme importance, the sites that have been more successful are those that created communities.
The most primitive and least effective way of approximating a community around your product is to get famous, for example by announcing your product to the media. As people who watch the same media learn about your product, they start to discuss it, and a crude form of a community is born around your product. This can help create some profits early on, but it is not sustainable as it is not a real community.
The way to create a passionate community is to engage and trust your customers, users, and suppliers. You must allow them to participate within the very heart of your own business.
If I understood Veropedia's business model correctly, it is that it will select some good articles from Wikipedia and serve them from its own server. I don't see any community building going on. Ok, I visited Veropedia's webpage so I am now one of their users... How can I participate? How can I engage with the articles? Can I meet other interesting people through their site? Can I discuss? Can I get entertainment? Can I get a sense of being useful to society? Can I project my creativity energy through their site? Can I fulfil myself and self-realise by using their site? I only see a notice in their FAQ that Veropedia was created by trusted Wikipedia editors and that if one wants to join them can send them an email and explain their contributions to free knowledge. I don't see this as a serious well-thought att
I see a (difficult to find within their menus) link to the history page on Wikipedia.
I have to say that I don't know the internal political landscape in Italy or the Italians's perception of politics. If Italians are aware of their constitution that's a good thing (in other countries people don't know what their constitution says). I have visited Italy but I didn't stay long enough to learn much about it (I loved it though so I will surely visit it again at first opportunity!).
3 Italian stories on slashdot frontpage at short intervals... Who bets that Italian Internet will slow down to sub-28.8 speeds as Italy feels the slashdot effect?
It would be fun (maybe not for the sysadmins though) to have organised country TLDs slashdottings, eg agree for one day to surf only pages ending in a particular country's TLD.
It would then become more apparent that the modern Internet does not share the intended reliability and high-availability of arpanet. There are too many SPOFs in modern Internet.
It could happen if people provided a financial and political incentive for abolishing all censorship laws worldwide. If a huge number of citizens worldwide agreed not to buy anything from nations that have censorship laws (eg the communist China PRC), voted for pro-freespeech politicians, and asked international organisations such as the EU and UN to formally recognise any censorship as equal to slavery, then it could happen. The important thing would be to make it happen with democratic consensus and via our current democratic institutions. For this reason, the people themselves should find a way to make the governments themselves feel more at ease with the idea of allowing greater freedoms to their subjects (which would be easier if people were more mature in their way of thinking and their actions, but it is a fact that most people today are unable to constructively use their freedom - whether this is a valid argument against giving them freedom, I am not sure but I tend to say freedom is non-negotiable). For example, in China PRC's case, people could push peacefully for the eradication of communism and censorship, while allowing the current leaders to have a position in a new democratic government. It is important to realise that governments and groups of leaders act as collective living beings that look after their own survival and self-preservation, and are keen to use violence if their own survival is at stake. So, for harmonious reforms to be made, people must massively and decisively ask for *gentle* progressive step-by-step social and legal changes over time, while at the same time not forgetting their greater goals and principles. Yes, it's difficult.
Practically, I don't see it happening any time soon, and I see discussions about such issues as mostly theoretical, for the reason that the people in general are stupid and incapable of putting their neurons in good use. Furthermore, many people see advantages in maintaining censorship laws, as long as they don't affect them directly. I didn't say it's easy... It is a fact that only a smart diplomat with a mind as clear as a philosopher's and as rational as a scientist's could handle such negotiations, but in reality the negotiations happen between two groups (governments and peoples) that are both irrational and have no idea what they really want, and so tend to act based on emotion and bureaucratic rules, often without any insight into the greater situation, even at the individual level.
So, realistically speaking, it can't happen because not enough people understand and agree to the concept of free speech. Theoretically, if a huge number of people agreed to it then it would be a matter of time until the total eradication of censorship.
But in the past some people could say the same about the slavery system, and at some point it was replaced by a more relaxed, improved, and more just system (albeit imperfect and not that much different in its basic properties, and the system unfortunately did not come together with changes in social subconscious psychological conceptualisations), at least here in the West. It took thousands of years but it happened (whether it will last I don't know... societal advances are not permanent and human societies can easily fall into less advanced levels if freedoms and rights are not used daily and if people don't understand the issues).
If you ask for my gut-feeling non-scientific personal time estimate, I think humanity will need some more 1000-1500 years before it abolishes censorship universally. The reason I think it will take so long is because I believe we are falling into another dark age (which I define as emergence of collective-massive irrationality, authoritarianism, war, etc, and yes this includes censorship), and I am not sure how long it will last but I would assume that with the technological tools available now future authoritarian rulers or organisations (eg a future church) could easily control large populations for at least a millennium (which is why people who unde
I use Magellan GPS receivers and I have found them pretty accurate in speed measurement, both in-car and while walking. There were, however, some times where it could not contact a satellite and continued showing the last measurements, but this has happened only in 1-2 occasions.
In my opinion many of the people who focus on the paranormal are themselves dissatisfied with the natural world around them. It would surely be nice if we lived in a world where our loved ones could continue living after their physical death, but just because it would be nice doesn't make it real. People think how nice it would be to talk with aliens or communicate with dead loved ones, and they construct an imaginary world full of UFOs and ghosts. People also think how nice it would be to ask a supernatural master for help when they need it, and construct an imaginary world where a god, goddess, spirit, or other entity will answer their prayers, magic acts, or meditations. They dislike the material world around them, so they create their own in their heads. The problem is that many times they try to convince the rational people to share their beliefs, often by threat of violence.
Can the copyright misuse law be applied on this case? I am not a lawyer but I'd like to know
It is uncostitutional
Constitution can change as well, and even if it is violated no one will notice or bother.
It won't be proposed in this form due to the huge debate it has raised.
I bet that the government will pass the law in another form: As a data protection law which will say that everyone who keeps a file with personal information will have to register with the government (or an authority - which is the same thing in my opinion).
Then if you create a blog and accept comments, and your blog software asks for the email address of the people posting the comments, your blog's database may be seen as incorporating personal information and therefore failing to register your blog with the government will result in you being imprisoned for 2 or 3 years and paying a huge fine.
In the end the only way to conduct online business or having a blog will be to store no information about your clients or visitors at all, which I don't think is a bad thing (although it does create practical problems, and many sites wouldn't function at all), but in case one of your clients or site visitors posts something illegal online through your user-generated content Web 2.0 site and you failed to delete it immediately (let's say you were in vacations or had to work overtime in a day job) you will have to explain to the government why you failed to implement their other law about keeping information that can help the police catch online criminals.
So, they will have one law saying that you can't not collect some personal information (that you can't delete your server logs or conduct business without knowing the name or address of your client), and another law saying that if you possess any information about any person then you have to register with the government, and as an "added bonus" you will also have to explain to the government exactly how your network/server security infrastructure works (eg how strong encryption you use, so that they can be better prepared to break it), where the server is physically located (so that they can capture it more easily), and you will also need a special permit to have your server out of the country as the data protection law will specify that one has to ask for permission before storing personal data outside the country.
And the funny thing is that the people will support these laws thinking that they protect their personal data. People will support it thinking that it is necessary for protection against criminals etc. But people don't know that freedom is needed for a society to flourish, and you can't have science, philosophy, commerce, and art in a non-free world. Laws have great collateral damage, and even if they help catching a few criminals, they may also be used for political purposes.
The fact that Internet still exists is thanks to its use by big commercial businesses. Had the Internet remained a network for amateurs and hackers (in the ESR's definition, eg a great programmer and a person who loves computers - the criminals who break your server are called crackers, not hackers, no matter what TV says) it would have been banned long ago (this, or the government would have required every modem to incorporate a government's spying chip). But because commercial businesses found Internet useful and it got economic value, it was allowed to flourish without much control. However, I don't think this will be allowed for too long. For example, with the TCPA (Treacherous Computing, also known as Trusted Computing) initiative, we could see cryptography chips in our hardware controlling what software we can run on our PCs (hint hint: GNU/Linux distros will be excluded as "hacking tools" because they contain nmap and similar utils), and laws requiring every Internet-connected PC to have such a chip embedded (without you knowing the encryption/sign keys).
While Western democratic governments may not be so control freaks, other governments (eg China PRC's communists, or Myanmar's milit
Government asking ISPs to block access to certain sites (any sites) should be made illegal worldwide. ISPs lose money and undergo additional expenses incurred by government censors: They cannot provide true unlimited access to the Internet and have to spend time and money in blocking sites. Government censors interfere with their business and if they make the life of ISP entrepreneurs very difficult then we will stop seeing more small new ISPs being founded because of the costs and risks involved and Internet access will become the monopoly of one or two "government-backed" ISPs. Government censorship actively discourages young entrepreneurs to startup ISP businesses and contributed to the unemployment problem. The business model of an ISP is to offer access to the Internet, and the ISP is neither responsible for what you do with it, nor it should tell you what is good or bad. It's like roads: How would you feel if trying to take a road with your car resulted in a police officer stoping you and informing you that you have been blacklisted off road access because you are a Jew or Arab, or because your car is painted black and the government doesn't like this colour? Blocking sites may create problems to people who do academic research as well, destroying our chance to discover and analyse new social phenomena.
He has the right to speak in any way he wants. He is a great hacker and he has earned this privilege.
Ideally we should run apps on dedicated boxes. Virtualisation is good for saving money and for some "virtual" security against script kiddies, newbie crackers, or your own users (or yourself). VMs can't defend you against real crackers, and in fact they will make you less secure. Do it for the money or for protecting against script-kiddies and users, but not for real security. Always use multiple boxes for various apps if you can do so.
I'll rewrite that: 'US schools are turning out capable science and engineering grads that the job market underutilises'.
Knowledge is power, and if with 3 engineers we can build a bridge then with 30 engineers we could build an Orion or Daedalus spaceship and with 300 engineers we could build a Dyson sphere.
Universities output computer scientists who, if they have no entrepreneurial spirit or aren't already rich, will find themselves locked in a job market that hires people who think whether P=NP for crafting javascript in flash-polluted webpages. Same for physicists, chemists, and other scientists.
(of course, for the sake of balance, it has to be said that universities nowadays many times allow people with less brain than a wooden table to graduate with PhDs, and that young people today in general have little difference with their dark age counterparts and in no way they can be compared with their baby-boomer parents. We really live in a very miserable age, but it is a fact that some graduates do understand science and still find themselves locked into stupid jobs)
From a business perspective it makes no sense to hire people who are knowledgeable in 3 domains and make them work in only 1 of them, unless you are disillusioned by the lies of Taylorism and specialisation.
Then the scientist would be correct in keeping their silence and letting all lamers die in a giant meteor impact. Stupid civilisations have no right to exist in this universe.
Last time I met RMS in Athens when he came to speak at a university here, I think he came with shoes but if I remember correctly he removed them during the scheduled break. I was I think near him, and I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing with his shoes, and neither it did attract my interest (to me removing one's shoes is perfectly natural, and I actually also do it sometimes), but I think he applied some gel or some form of medicine on them, and he did look a bit jet-lagged (which is natural after a transatlantic flight). Perhaps he had to walk a lot in the chaotic roads of Athens in order to come to the venue and with the excessive Greek summer heat his feet got hurt (this also happens to me). If I remember correctly, he later put on his shoes again. In general, if you watch his blog, you will see that he always travels somewhere to speak about free software or related matters. Too much travel = too much walking = hurt feet. Maybe when he got to Yale he had walked really a lot and shoes became too uncomfortable so he may have had to remove them. This is perfectly natural. He literally gets hurt and exhausted to teach people about freedom (an extremely important matter) and people look whether he wears shoes or not (which is a totally unimportant matter). I wonder what people are going to do if a meteor is going to strike us dead with an 1-year warning period and a scientist presents to the world a method to save our planet. Will people choose to listen to him, or will they spend their time looking at his clothing and discussing about his shoes? I have heard what some people say about Einstein's hair. How ridiculous people are!
Dressing up when the majority of people are dressed down also makes some people uncomfortable.
Technology breeds governments and control as well: The more technology there is, the more control governments seek to have over their subjects.
Technology also breeds more effective community action: The more technology there is, the more easily people can form communities and co-operate more effectively.
So, technology is an afterburner: It speeds up all existing social processes, including law enforcement, community cooperation, crime... anything.
Therefore saying that 'technology helps X' is devoid of meaning. The correct thing is to say 'technology assists in everything, including X'.
If RMS was wearing a suit and a tie then he would project strong and clear arrogance and lack of respect for the venue. Why? Because in that case he would be considering the people in the venue as customers that should be subverted with marketing messages and sales techniques.
RMS has clearly stated that he doesn't think of activism as being marketing and sales, as stated in his homepage: 'we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics, when honest, is something much more important than mere business' .
I see nothing unreasonable in wearing a t-shirt and being barefoot.
RMS is right in wearing or not wearing whatever he wants. His message is the same one whether he wears a suit or is barefoot.
If you sincerely think that eccentricity is bad for free software publicity, then you should try to become an activist yourself and project whatever image you want. If you think free software advocates should wear a suit, then wear one yourself and go speaking at people about freedom.
RMS is a teacher: He is trying to teach you that you must value your freedom. RMS is not a superstar or celebrity. There is no reason why he should care about clothing. He just came and visited you in simple practical clothing to help you understand some issues about freedom. If people think it's better to look at his clothing instead of listening to what he has to say, then I am afraid society is still in the dark ages.
I personally see no reason why he should wear a suit, a tie, or shoes. T-Shirt and no shoes look perfectly reasonable to me.
When I get on a bus or train there are tens of people yelling at mobile phones, and many others loudly discussing while moving their hands all the time, and I haven't got mad - I'm still sane, and I don't expect an airplane to change that.
apt-get install debian
I am not a lawyer and I may not understand some concepts, but my personal opinion is that their claims regarding viewing HTML code to be a form of copyright misuse because a person using TELNET as a Web client would be unable to see their site without viewing their HTML code. Therefore, my opinion is that their attempts to restrict viewing their HTML code via their understanding of the copyright law places an unreasonable demand on Web users who for whatever reasons have or prefer to use TELNET. They can specify that their site is best viewed with an X browser, but using the law to make it illegal to use TELNET as a Web viewer is too much for me.
Do you think Ian Murdock would resign if MS bought Sun?