IP filter rules fall into two general categories: default allow or default deny. Perhaps we're headed towards the day when the only thing that makes sense is to apply the same default deny rules to urls. I'm seriously thinking about it. Maybe then ORBS won't seem so draconian.
Since we're talking about SPAM, I will plug once again for a spam tax. Allow spam. For a per-copy fee. Then make sending unsolicited bulk/unpaid-for/ email a crime. People should not be forced to use paper to advertise. But they should not take advantage of bulk email.
Does this verdict shed new light on Microsoft's hostility towards various open source licensing arrangements? Although this is breaking news to us, I'm sure the lawyers and corporate officers at Microsoft caught wind of this long ago. They might not have known how the court would rule, but they've certainly been clued into what was being considered.
So if the/remedy/ is going to be reconsidered, then consider this: how would MS feel about being compelled to comply with OPEN STANDARDS? E.G. - perhaps force them to disclose protocols, binary document formats, etc.? I've always thought this would be a much more effective remedy than splitting them up. Force them to publish the specs for MS Word docs. Force them to tell Jeremy Allison everything they program into SMB. Etc.
Maybe/that/ is why Microsoft has recently been so hostile to certain types of licensing arrangements. They are/scared to death/ of any license that doesn't allow them to take things proprietary. Because that is now a possible remedy that could be used against them.
Maybe today isn't as bad as I first thought when I saw the headlines.
I appreciate the point being made. I judge from the comments being made that there Slashdot isn't heavily populated by connoisseurs of fine collectibles. We must beware the velvet elvis. Why do things "look cheap"? Because we learn, through experience, that they are, in fact, cheap.
I would make the following distinction: Ansel Adams was an artist. A third generation copy of one of his photographs, on poster paper, taped to a dorm room wall, is not art.
If you think your Nastassja Kinski and the Snake poster is art, take the following litmus test: bring your precious poster to an art gallery, and ask them to exhibit it. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
I think what we're left with, in the case of digital creation, is a rather paradoxical situation. There can still be great *artists*. Rally great. But not great *art*. Just pop art. Which is fine as far as it goes. Just don't brag about your fine collection.
I couldn't agree more. Real estate transactions, especially home purchases, are a personal affair. Putting the sterile medium of the Internet in the middle of it does nothing to facilitate the process, except perhaps to help winnow the initial choices. And that's only if you're willing to go after homes that have been on the market for a couple of weeks. Believe me, in this market, good homes rarely sit on the market for two weeks. A good realtor might even find you a house/before it ever hits the market/. They know people. People considering selling a house call them. That's how their homes get on the MLS in the first place. Even for an experienced homebuyer, the experience can be harrowing. If you've never tread these waters before -/use a realtor/. When you find out the furnace emits deadly levels of CO, what do you do? Do you know how to read a purchase and sale agreement? When you start to panic, where do you turn to get grounded? Is the sale price reasonable? Etc.
Know the difference between a buyers agent, a seller's agent, and a dual dislosed agent. Regulations about these things may vary according to region.
Technically, you're correct when you say that "Swastika!=nazi". But people being the emotional beings that they are, purely logical arguments don't always suffice. The human collective concience is not like your hard drive. You can't simply erase the horrible memory of nazi atrocities like so much data. The swastika will represent the horrors of the nazi regime for many years to come. Symbols matter.
Bet you don't see Microsoft putting any penguins on their packaging any time soon.
Why is what they are doing now 'legit'? I hate the way those brain-washed tools of corporate america, big media, spin language in the interest of their masters. Legit my ass. Those plunderers of intellectual 'property' (more corporate-speak) are the real crooks.
You're missing the point. There's no reason to be using addresses that are impossible to remember. But that doesn't correspond to the need for a centralized naming service. That's all.
Another idea I've heard mentioned is to stop using DNS altogether. We've been able to handle phone numbers o.k., why not IP addresses? Sure, there are a lot more to remember. You could still associate them with names if you like. But there's no reason such a naming convention/must/ be centrally administered.
Why does Scott McNealy care about this issue? What does he have to gain by taking/promoting this position? I don't understand his motivation. Anyone have any ideas?
To relieve point-oh anxiety, I wish developers would simply release small, then add features later. Instead, we have these gargantuan product definitions that take years on end to reach the point where anyone with work to do would consider taking a peek. And we know what happens then - all the moldering bugs come out. So it's really point oh-one or oh-two we/really/ want.
Can you do real-time editing of the digital video clips you downloaded from your digital video camera? Do you even have enough storage for that kind of content? Didn't think so.
The need for speed does not ramp up continuously. I'll agree with that. But certain classes of applications require quantum leaps of processing power. We've gone from blinking LED's to text to still images (with hints of motion thrown in for effect). But today's computers cannot reasonably be expected to handle high-bandwidth streaming multimedia except in fits and starts. They will though, and this will require more horsepower. Much more than even this processor improvement provides.
So don't say "No one with a modern computer will ever need to upgrade". Amend that to "You might consider waiting until you'll really be able to notice the difference." Because depending on what you're doing, you really may notice the difference.
There's a unspoken rule of meetings: when you go to a meeting, bring the same number of people, at the same level of leadership, as the group sitting across from you.
So now we have the Fundie fellow, who I'm sure no one ever heard of until recently, being shoved into the limelight to make a bunch of obnoxious statements so that his superiors can enjoy the show without getting egg on their face. And every figurehead in the free software community responds! Why bother? The guy is obviously a stool pigeon. Let the chattering masses chew him up. But please - Richard, Eric, Bruce, et al. - don't stoop. You only led credibility to this loser by participating in this (tired old) discussion.
The posts I'm reading seem to be divided into two camps: those who thing it's a good thing, and those who think it's a bad thing.
Put the ethics of the situation aside for a moment. The fact is, creating this type of exploit is possible. No amount of preaching will make this type of exploit go away. Like nuclear power, the cat's out of the bag.
So shouldn't the discussion be more along the lines of "what do we do now?", rather than "I like, I don't like."? If you/really/ wanted this problem to go away, you'd advocate outlawing networked computing. How likely is that?
With that in mind, I have to come down on the side of favoring this particular worm. If we're going to have an evolutionary arms race, I'd like the good guys to win, after all. Ethics matter, but it's too late to go back.
"If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs."
-RMS "The GNU Manifesto"
I'm not going to defend this statement. I agree, it's rather extreme. But I used to ride the Boston subway, and often saw signs to the effect of "here's a number to call if you'd like to turn in any of your coworkers, friends, or family for being software pirates." This is extreme in the other direction, and unfortunately much more prevelant and accepted.
You're right. They can do what they want. And so can I - which is to not do business with them. Why are you saying that Caldera should be free to do what they want, but then ask that we should look for what we "find acceptable as a community". That would be imposing a solution, rather than letting the free market decide.
We're all of us - idealists, pragmatists, GPL fanatics, BSD loonies - trying to answer a question that only the future will decide. Preferably we will all be allowed to make our individual choices. Personally, my bet is that GPL licensed software will win out. I tend to rant against other licenses on forums like slashdot, but I would certainly never presume to take away anyone's freedom to choose another license. What/really/ scares me is when greedy billionares start making noises about how our/democratically elected/ government should provide them greater protection against the GPL. We may not all agree on the relative merits of GPL vs. BSD style licensing, but at least we have the freedom to choose. Don't take that for granted.
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
I've seen this quote modified somewhat to poke fun at computer science, to the effect of "scientists rise higher by standing on each other's shoulders, but computer scientists stand on each other's feet".;~)
Oh, I agree with you completely. Oracle currently has no incentive whatsoever to change their licensing strategy. (I just think it's dumb when people say things like "open source can never catch up to X". Come on - "open source" merely refers to a licensing strategy. E.G. - "open source will never catch up to JFS, d00dz". Oh, but then JFS gets open sourced. Doh.)
But a service play could work for someone else, a Great Bridge, for example. While I think it's true that Oracle is a more mature, more familiar, and more trusted environment; they also have a soft white underbelly. Even if open source solutions don't match all of Oracle's achievments (yet), they are more than adequate for many tasks.
Remember DOS? 80% of what people want for 20% of the cost. That was a winning strategy then, and I don't think things have changed much. But Microsoft had their sights aimed higher. And where was Microsoft aiming? The glass house: UNIX. And what happened? Linux. It's free.
Why do people paint the divide between proprietary software and free software as a great chasm? For example, why do people suggest that an enterprise level product like Oracle and free software licenses are mutually inconsistent?
Look, I'm sure it would involve a bunch of paperwork for a bunch of lawyers, but the distance between where Oracle is now, and Oracle as a free software product is really not that great. It's simple: the owner of the proprietary license changes it to a free license. That's it. Done. Now you have an enterprise level database with a free software license. Impossible? Nonsense.
The real question is whether or not such a move would be economically viable in the long run. Especially in the case of enterprise level databases, I think it would be. This is not the kind of software you merely install on a bunch of PC's and sprinkle around the organization. The database engine itself is only the beginning. For maximum impact, it needs to be installed on specialized hardware by trained technicians. Database applications need to be developed and/or customized to fit end user requirements. Data integrity must be ensured, and it's long term viability must be maintained beyond particular product lifecycles. This is not easy work. The people who can do it are not cheap to come by.
Can such services support multi-billion multi-national corporations? That I'm not sure about. But you don't need/billions/ to be economically viable and competitive.
"I don't know (or particularly care) if gods, jesuses, devils, spooks, bunnies, or fairies are behind them, but I am at least honest enough to admit they can't be ruled out. Why isn't the rest of Slashdot like this?"
Let me try again.
Because we/aren't/ honest enough. You're the only one who's that honest.
"I don't know (or particularly care) if gods, jesuses, devils, spooks, bunnies, or fairies are behind them, but I am at least honest enough to admit they can't be ruled out. Why isn't the rest of Slashdot like this?"
Because we didn't go to school in Kansas.
Re:So where does the information come from?
on
A Map to Nowhere?
·
· Score: 2
My theory is that the Kansas board of education cracked Slashdot's slashcode.
Slashdot Mirror
IP filter rules fall into two general categories: default allow or default deny. Perhaps we're headed towards the day when the only thing that makes sense is to apply the same default deny rules to urls. I'm seriously thinking about it. Maybe then ORBS won't seem so draconian.
/unpaid-for/ email a crime. People should not be forced to use paper to advertise. But they should not take advantage of bulk email.
Since we're talking about SPAM, I will plug once again for a spam tax. Allow spam. For a per-copy fee. Then make sending unsolicited bulk
Does this verdict shed new light on Microsoft's hostility towards various open source licensing arrangements? Although this is breaking news to us, I'm sure the lawyers and corporate officers at Microsoft caught wind of this long ago. They might not have known how the court would rule, but they've certainly been clued into what was being considered.
/remedy/ is going to be reconsidered, then consider this: how would MS feel about being compelled to comply with OPEN STANDARDS? E.G. - perhaps force them to disclose protocols, binary document formats, etc.? I've always thought this would be a much more effective remedy than splitting them up. Force them to publish the specs for MS Word docs. Force them to tell Jeremy Allison everything they program into SMB. Etc.
/that/ is why Microsoft has recently been so hostile to certain types of licensing arrangements. They are /scared to death/ of any license that doesn't allow them to take things proprietary. Because that is now a possible remedy that could be used against them.
So if the
Maybe
Maybe today isn't as bad as I first thought when I saw the headlines.
I appreciate the point being made. I judge from the comments being made that there Slashdot isn't heavily populated by connoisseurs of fine collectibles. We must beware the velvet elvis. Why do things "look cheap"? Because we learn, through experience, that they are, in fact, cheap.
I would make the following distinction: Ansel Adams was an artist. A third generation copy of one of his photographs, on poster paper, taped to a dorm room wall, is not art.
If you think your Nastassja Kinski and the Snake poster is art, take the following litmus test: bring your precious poster to an art gallery, and ask them to exhibit it. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
I think what we're left with, in the case of digital creation, is a rather paradoxical situation. There can still be great *artists*. Rally great. But not great *art*. Just pop art. Which is fine as far as it goes. Just don't brag about your fine collection.
I couldn't agree more. Real estate transactions, especially home purchases, are a personal affair. Putting the sterile medium of the Internet in the middle of it does nothing to facilitate the process, except perhaps to help winnow the initial choices. And that's only if you're willing to go after homes that have been on the market for a couple of weeks. Believe me, in this market, good homes rarely sit on the market for two weeks. A good realtor might even find you a house /before it ever hits the market/. They know people. People considering selling a house call them. That's how their homes get on the MLS in the first place. Even for an experienced homebuyer, the experience can be harrowing. If you've never tread these waters before - /use a realtor/. When you find out the furnace emits deadly levels of CO, what do you do? Do you know how to read a purchase and sale agreement? When you start to panic, where do you turn to get grounded? Is the sale price reasonable? Etc.
Know the difference between a buyers agent, a seller's agent, and a dual dislosed agent. Regulations about these things may vary according to region.
Technically, you're correct when you say that "Swastika!=nazi". But people being the emotional beings that they are, purely logical arguments don't always suffice. The human collective concience is not like your hard drive. You can't simply erase the horrible memory of nazi atrocities like so much data. The swastika will represent the horrors of the nazi regime for many years to come. Symbols matter.
Bet you don't see Microsoft putting any penguins on their packaging any time soon.
Why is what they are doing now 'legit'? I hate the way those brain-washed tools of corporate america, big media, spin language in the interest of their masters. Legit my ass. Those plunderers of intellectual 'property' (more corporate-speak) are the real crooks.
You're missing the point. There's no reason to be using addresses that are impossible to remember. But that doesn't correspond to the need for a centralized naming service. That's all.
Another idea I've heard mentioned is to stop using DNS altogether. We've been able to handle phone numbers o.k., why not IP addresses? Sure, there are a lot more to remember. You could still associate them with names if you like. But there's no reason such a naming convention /must/ be centrally administered.
Why does Scott McNealy care about this issue? What does he have to gain by taking/promoting this position? I don't understand his motivation. Anyone have any ideas?
To relieve point-oh anxiety, I wish developers would simply release small, then add features later. Instead, we have these gargantuan product definitions that take years on end to reach the point where anyone with work to do would consider taking a peek. And we know what happens then - all the moldering bugs come out. So it's really point oh-one or oh-two we /really/ want.
That's a pretty bold assertion, Mr. Insightful. Got anything to back that up?
Can you do real-time editing of the digital video clips you downloaded from your digital video camera? Do you even have enough storage for that kind of content? Didn't think so.
The need for speed does not ramp up continuously. I'll agree with that. But certain classes of applications require quantum leaps of processing power. We've gone from blinking LED's to text to still images (with hints of motion thrown in for effect). But today's computers cannot reasonably be expected to handle high-bandwidth streaming multimedia except in fits and starts. They will though, and this will require more horsepower. Much more than even this processor improvement provides.
So don't say "No one with a modern computer will ever need to upgrade". Amend that to "You might consider waiting until you'll really be able to notice the difference." Because depending on what you're doing, you really may notice the difference.
There's a unspoken rule of meetings: when you go to a meeting, bring the same number of people, at the same level of leadership, as the group sitting across from you.
So now we have the Fundie fellow, who I'm sure no one ever heard of until recently, being shoved into the limelight to make a bunch of obnoxious statements so that his superiors can enjoy the show without getting egg on their face. And every figurehead in the free software community responds! Why bother? The guy is obviously a stool pigeon. Let the chattering masses chew him up. But please - Richard, Eric, Bruce, et al. - don't stoop. You only led credibility to this loser by participating in this (tired old) discussion.
The posts I'm reading seem to be divided into two camps: those who thing it's a good thing, and those who think it's a bad thing.
/really/ wanted this problem to go away, you'd advocate outlawing networked computing. How likely is that?
Put the ethics of the situation aside for a moment. The fact is, creating this type of exploit is possible. No amount of preaching will make this type of exploit go away. Like nuclear power, the cat's out of the bag.
So shouldn't the discussion be more along the lines of "what do we do now?", rather than "I like, I don't like."? If you
With that in mind, I have to come down on the side of favoring this particular worm. If we're going to have an evolutionary arms race, I'd like the good guys to win, after all. Ethics matter, but it's too late to go back.
Which part of "I'm not going to defend this statement. I agree, it's rather extreme." don't you understand?
-RMS "The GNU Manifesto"
I'm not going to defend this statement. I agree, it's rather extreme. But I used to ride the Boston subway, and often saw signs to the effect of "here's a number to call if you'd like to turn in any of your coworkers, friends, or family for being software pirates." This is extreme in the other direction, and unfortunately much more prevelant and accepted.
The GPL does not obligate you to release code if you merge it with GPL code. You are only obligated to distribute code when you distribute binaries.
You're right. They can do what they want. And so can I - which is to not do business with them. Why are you saying that Caldera should be free to do what they want, but then ask that we should look for what we "find acceptable as a community". That would be imposing a solution, rather than letting the free market decide.
/really/ scares me is when greedy billionares start making noises about how our /democratically elected/ government should provide them greater protection against the GPL. We may not all agree on the relative merits of GPL vs. BSD style licensing, but at least we have the freedom to choose. Don't take that for granted.
We're all of us - idealists, pragmatists, GPL fanatics, BSD loonies - trying to answer a question that only the future will decide. Preferably we will all be allowed to make our individual choices. Personally, my bet is that GPL licensed software will win out. I tend to rant against other licenses on forums like slashdot, but I would certainly never presume to take away anyone's freedom to choose another license. What
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
I've seen this quote modified somewhat to poke fun at computer science, to the effect of "scientists rise higher by standing on each other's shoulders, but computer scientists stand on each other's feet". ;~)
Oh, I agree with you completely. Oracle currently has no incentive whatsoever to change their licensing strategy. (I just think it's dumb when people say things like "open source can never catch up to X". Come on - "open source" merely refers to a licensing strategy. E.G. - "open source will never catch up to JFS, d00dz". Oh, but then JFS gets open sourced. Doh.)
But a service play could work for someone else, a Great Bridge, for example. While I think it's true that Oracle is a more mature, more familiar, and more trusted environment; they also have a soft white underbelly. Even if open source solutions don't match all of Oracle's achievments (yet), they are more than adequate for many tasks.
Remember DOS? 80% of what people want for 20% of the cost. That was a winning strategy then, and I don't think things have changed much. But Microsoft had their sights aimed higher. And where was Microsoft aiming? The glass house: UNIX. And what happened? Linux. It's free.
Fun stuff to watch, that's for sure.
Why do people paint the divide between proprietary software and free software as a great chasm? For example, why do people suggest that an enterprise level product like Oracle and free software licenses are mutually inconsistent?
/billions/ to be economically viable and competitive.
Look, I'm sure it would involve a bunch of paperwork for a bunch of lawyers, but the distance between where Oracle is now, and Oracle as a free software product is really not that great. It's simple: the owner of the proprietary license changes it to a free license. That's it. Done. Now you have an enterprise level database with a free software license. Impossible? Nonsense.
The real question is whether or not such a move would be economically viable in the long run. Especially in the case of enterprise level databases, I think it would be. This is not the kind of software you merely install on a bunch of PC's and sprinkle around the organization. The database engine itself is only the beginning. For maximum impact, it needs to be installed on specialized hardware by trained technicians. Database applications need to be developed and/or customized to fit end user requirements. Data integrity must be ensured, and it's long term viability must be maintained beyond particular product lifecycles. This is not easy work. The people who can do it are not cheap to come by.
Can such services support multi-billion multi-national corporations? That I'm not sure about. But you don't need
Will it happen? Who knows. Could it? No doubt.
I wonder, though, if there wasn't the slightest suspicion of such a possibility until after the funding for the mapping research was cashed out.
/am/ a cynic. Yuck...)
(Eeesh, I
"I don't know (or particularly care) if gods, jesuses, devils, spooks, bunnies, or fairies are behind them, but I am at least honest enough to admit they can't be ruled out. Why isn't the rest of Slashdot like this?"
/aren't/ honest enough. You're the only one who's that honest.
Let me try again.
Because we
"I don't know (or particularly care) if gods, jesuses, devils, spooks, bunnies, or fairies are behind them, but I am at least honest enough to admit they can't be ruled out. Why isn't the rest of Slashdot like this?"
Because we didn't go to school in Kansas.
My theory is that the Kansas board of education cracked Slashdot's slashcode.
;)
That would explain a lot of things.