Corinth is and has been a town in Greece for more than 2,500 years. People who live there are known as Corinthians An ancient rival to Athens, it manufactured many classic vases. Its rivalry with Athens directly precipitated the P eloponessian Wars. Subsequently, in 146 B.C., Rome completely destroyed Corinth. Nevertheless the city rebounded in time for St. Paul to write to Christians living there. It is completely ridiculous that - if priority over such a widely used name is granted to anybody - that it should be given to some Brazilian soccer team and not to the city of Corinth itself.
The reason so much legislation and so many court decisions seem to tilt toward various large corporations is that they have enjoyed a "high tech halo effect," in which they have received credit for the "New Economy." This halo effect exists even though, like most Slashdoters, I disagree that they deserve this credit
Therefore, they have been able to go to court or to lobby Congress, stating that promoting their interests therefore benefits the economy. Congressmen are able to proclaim these companies' virtues on news shows while talking heads have been able toconceala their techno-ignorance by praising them.
It simply will become harder and harder for various lawyers, courts, pundits, etc., credibly to claim the current "prosperity" results from these companies, hence their intellectual propeerty and other interests need to be bolstered.
In the long run, therefore, these intellectual property and other assaults on free speech should weaken.
A number of posts have stated that RAD tools such as Delphi and Visual Basic are "for the masses" and that their users are not true programmers, while others bemoan Delphi because it is not open source.
While it is true that many Delphi and especially VB users are not hard core programmers, this hardly means they therefore are "the masses." They often tend to be accountants, engineers, or other professionals who have some interest in developing computer-based solutions but whose actual focus lies elsewhere.
Needless to say, unless computer applications meet these professionals' needs, then most computer applications are a waste of time. Their direct involvement and contribution matters greatly. Much of Microsoft's success results from its ability to harness their energies through VB and VBA. That this is not the fanciest programming is really secondary. This approach solves solves these professionals' problems one heck of a lot better than input from some geek who may write tight code but wouldn't know a debit from a debenture in a million years.
I would prefer to see an open source RAD Tool. Either Viaual Perl or Visual Python sounds quite feasible. I can think of nothing that would hold such a project back except perhaps an elitist distain for "the masses," many of whom actually know as much or more than any programmer - but in a different field.
One of the great problems that we have had in recent years is capital dependence. Developing countries - or for that matter developing communiteis in the United States - have had to bargain themselves down in order to "attract business"
Reportedly, for example, state legislators in Maryland and Virginia are being sold on UCITA because they belief their adopting it will attract Silicon Valley-type businesses to their states. More typically, states and localities simply give tax breaks and other preferences.
Particularly in the so-called Third World, this capital dependency is accute. The recent Asian financial crisis resulted when capital stampeded out of their countries. We often read about how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is applying doses of "financial medicine" to various countries in order to "restore investor confidence" in them. We rarely read about how investors are disciplined in order to "restore labor confidence" or anything like that.
In other words, we all dance to capital's tune.
Software and information technology are central to capital development because re-engineering plays a vital role in the modern economy. Information technology makes all these restructuings and downsizings that we read about feasible. For example, Ivar Jacobson's _The Object Advantage: Business Process Reengineering with Object Technology_ explores this on the micro scale.
So software - or business software at least - functions as encapsulated capital. Open source software therefore functions as the free transfer of capital.
This free transfer, in turn, reduces the need of either developing communities or developing countries to bargain themselves down in order to obtian capital. They can generate their own, thank you very much.
Most of the comments here assume that you want to be a computer programmer or otherwise intensely or directly be involved in developing new computer applications.
Perhaps, however, you have other interests, such as being a CPA or an engineer or even a lawyer and merely want to be a power user in order to accomplish that objective.
In those cases, something like a MCSE would be a useful credential to hang out on your shingle or put on your letterhead.
There is a tremendous need for highly skilled professionals who have computer skills and I have been told that future trends suggest such individuals would have an inportant contribution to make in software development.
For example, I might be able to claim a copyright on the foregoing sentence, but you could still write: "Unlike the idea, copyright law protects only the expression."
Clean room applies to trade secrets, which are something different from copyright. You have to keep a trade secret secret. Sun can hardly claim a trade secret in something that it has published.
If you want intellectual property over an idea you have published, you need a patent.
Complexity for the Sake of Complexity
on
CNN Installs Linux
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· Score: 2
It is not merely a question of whether Linux is easy or Linux is difficult in some ablsolute sense.
As Einstein said: "Things should be made as simple as possible - but not more so."
Bill Gates does very well selling Excel, and I would love to see my mother work that.
The point is: to what extent are we burdening the user with Mickey Mouse issues that advance no real purpose. These are good, if you want to establish and maintain some sort of monopoly of Linux expertise and exclude outsiders. But then, you are no different from Gates, you just want to establish a different sort of monopoly.
Take regular expressions, for example. By their nature, they are complex. Nobody's mother can do them. But do you need a different set of rules for each program that uses them? What purpose does that serve - other than to make life difficult and to create a subsidy for those who have mastered the arcane details?
And why does every command have to be some arcane soundbite? What is wrong with plain English?
It's stuff like this that needs to be gotten rid of.
If you want to use graphics with PHP, there is a current issue (not just with PHP) involving its use of a graphics library called GD.
Until quite recently, GD manipulated GIFs, but reportedly because UNISYS is asserting patent rights over GIF technology, the very latest GD packages no longer support GIFs. Rather, they support PNGs, which are free from these patent claims.
The current (3.0.12) PHP3 version uses old functions which pertain to GIFs, not PNGs. I have been told that a new version of PHP3 (3.0.13) shall be released which shall include PNG functions.
This would not be a problem (technically - not legally speaking) if you use an old GD version which still supports GIFs.
There is apt to be quite a lot of confusion on this point for a while.
Criminal law demands a "chain of custody" of the evidence. How do we know that the proffered evidence is the real thing?
Unless we can know all of the links in the chain of custody - along with the right to cross examine the validity of these asserted links - then we effectively are denied the right to confront the witnesses used against us.
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
"''The primary object of the constitutional provision in question was to prevent depositions of ex parte affidavits . . . being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross- examination of the witness in which the accused has an opportunity not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief''"
This essay goes on to state that while the Confrontation Clause is not identical with the hearsay rule, it generally leads to exclusion of evidence when the defendant has no opportunity to challenge its soundness though cross-examination.
Clearly concealed decryption techniques cannot be cross-examined.
Another Sixth Amendment right is the right to compel witnesses to appear in one's defense. This might very well include those who decrypted the message, in the event their testimony might turn out to be favorable.
"''The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance, if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant's version of the facts as well as the prosecution's to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution's witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law,''"
The consequence of violating the confrontation clause would be exclusion of testimony. The consequence of denying compulsory process would be a reversal or a new trial.
Under the Bill of Rights, one has the right to confront the witnesses against one.
Under more general laws against the admissibility of hearsay, one generally has the right to cross-examine statements of fact made against one.
For law enforcement to decline to state how it decrypted the file (or whatever) is to deprive one of the ability effectively to confront a witness used against one and is to constrict one's ability to cross-examine.
Interestingly, another major security expert, Bruce Schneier, in his Sept. 15 CRYPTOGRAM , praises Linux for its relative security over Solaris. (Schneier declines even to compare Linux to Windows.)
Schneier attributes Linux's enhanced security to its being open source.
So to say that Linux is insecure gives rise to the question, "Insecure as compared to what?".
Of the three BSD's, OpenBSD is the most secure. It is also Canadian, free from US export restrictions.
Since, as Schneier suggests, open source enhances security and since OpenBSD is the most secure, we might conclude that in some broad sense the term "open source" extends to freedom from export controls as well as freedom from various intellectual property restraints.
Visio makes a large set of products that allow one to solve problems by viewing them visually.
There is increasing interest in information visualization, the presentation of large sets of data in visual format. Edward R. Tufte of Yale University has written extensively about this.
Microsoft itself has been moving in this area: e.g. Mappoint2000.
Microsoft's acquistion of Visio helps position itself to be able to exploit developments in information visualization.
It will be interesting to see what response the Linux / open source community develops to effect information visualization.
Slashdot Mirror
Corinth is and has been a town in Greece for more than 2,500 years. People who live there are known as Corinthians
An ancient rival to Athens, it manufactured many classic vases. Its rivalry with Athens directly precipitated the P eloponessian Wars. Subsequently, in 146 B.C., Rome completely destroyed Corinth.
Nevertheless the city rebounded in time for St. Paul to write to Christians living there.
It is completely ridiculous that - if priority over such a widely used name is granted to anybody - that it should be given to some Brazilian soccer team and not to the city of Corinth itself.
The reason so much legislation and so many court decisions seem to tilt toward various large corporations is that they have enjoyed a "high tech halo effect," in which they have received credit for the "New Economy." This halo effect exists even though, like most Slashdoters, I disagree that they deserve this credit
Therefore, they have been able to go to court or to lobby Congress, stating that promoting their interests therefore benefits the economy. Congressmen are able to proclaim these companies' virtues on news shows while talking heads have been able toconceala their techno-ignorance by praising them.
Therefore, the recent drop of tech stocks in the NSADAQ, (see, e.g., this article which cites a change in psychology concerning tech stocks, portend much.
It simply will become harder and harder for various lawyers, courts, pundits, etc., credibly to claim the current "prosperity" results from these companies, hence their intellectual propeerty and other interests need to be bolstered.
In the long run, therefore, these intellectual property and other assaults on free speech should weaken.
A number of posts have stated that RAD tools such as Delphi and Visual Basic are "for the masses" and that their users are not true programmers, while others bemoan Delphi because it is not open source.
While it is true that many Delphi and especially VB users are not hard core programmers, this hardly means they therefore are "the masses." They often tend to be accountants, engineers, or other professionals who have some interest in developing computer-based solutions but whose actual focus lies elsewhere.
Needless to say, unless computer applications meet these professionals' needs, then most computer applications are a waste of time. Their direct involvement and contribution matters greatly. Much of Microsoft's success results from its ability to harness their energies through VB and VBA. That this is not the fanciest programming is really secondary. This approach solves solves these professionals' problems one heck of a lot better than input from some geek who may write tight code but wouldn't know a debit from a debenture in a million years.
I would prefer to see an open source RAD Tool. Either Viaual Perl or Visual Python sounds quite feasible. I can think of nothing that would hold such a project back except perhaps an elitist distain for "the masses," many of whom actually know as much or more than any programmer - but in a different field.
One of the great problems that we have had in recent years is capital dependence. Developing countries - or for that matter developing communiteis in the United States - have had to bargain themselves down in order to "attract business"
Reportedly, for example, state legislators in Maryland and Virginia are being sold on UCITA because they belief their adopting it will attract Silicon Valley-type businesses to their states. More typically, states and localities simply give tax breaks and other preferences.
Particularly in the so-called Third World, this capital dependency is accute. The recent Asian financial crisis resulted when capital stampeded out of their countries. We often read about how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is applying doses of "financial medicine" to various countries in order to "restore investor confidence" in them. We rarely read about how investors are disciplined in order to "restore labor confidence" or anything like that.
In other words, we all dance to capital's tune.
Software and information technology are central to capital development because re-engineering plays a vital role in the modern economy. Information technology makes all these restructuings and downsizings that we read about feasible. For example, Ivar Jacobson's _The Object Advantage: Business Process Reengineering with Object Technology_ explores this on the micro scale.
So software - or business software at least - functions as encapsulated capital. Open source software therefore functions as the free transfer of capital.
This free transfer, in turn, reduces the need of either developing communities or developing countries to bargain themselves down in order to obtian capital. They can generate their own, thank you very much.
Microsoft has invested heavily in developing accessible software .
There are some Linux projects, such as BLINUX and the command line interface is an advantage in this context.
However, Microsoft has been much more active in this field.
Most of the comments here assume that you want to be a computer programmer or otherwise intensely or directly be involved in developing new computer applications.
Perhaps, however, you have other interests, such as being a CPA or an engineer or even a lawyer and merely want to be a power user in order to accomplish that objective.
In those cases, something like a MCSE would be a useful credential to hang out on your shingle or put on your letterhead.
There is a tremendous need for highly skilled professionals who have computer skills and I have been told that future trends suggest such individuals would have an inportant contribution to make in software development.
Copyright protects the expression, not the idea.
For example, I might be able to claim a copyright on the foregoing sentence, but you could still write: "Unlike the idea, copyright law protects only the expression."
Clean room applies to trade secrets, which are something different from copyright. You have to keep a trade secret secret. Sun can hardly claim a trade secret in something that it has published.
If you want intellectual property over an idea you have published, you need a patent.
It is not merely a question of whether Linux is easy or Linux is difficult in some ablsolute sense.
As Einstein said: "Things should be made as simple as possible - but not more so."
Bill Gates does very well selling Excel, and I would love to see my mother work that.
The point is: to what extent are we burdening the user with Mickey Mouse issues that advance no real purpose. These are good, if you want to establish and maintain some sort of monopoly of Linux expertise and exclude outsiders. But then, you are no different from Gates, you just want to establish a different sort of monopoly.
Take regular expressions, for example. By their nature, they are complex. Nobody's mother can do them. But do you need a different set of rules for each program that uses them? What purpose does that serve - other than to make life difficult and to create a subsidy for those who have mastered the arcane details?
And why does every command have to be some arcane soundbite? What is wrong with plain English?
It's stuff like this that needs to be gotten rid of.
If you want to use graphics with PHP, there is a current issue (not just with PHP) involving its use of a graphics library called GD.
Until quite recently, GD manipulated GIFs, but reportedly because UNISYS is asserting patent rights over GIF technology, the very latest GD packages no longer support GIFs. Rather, they support PNGs, which are free from these patent claims.
The current (3.0.12) PHP3 version uses old functions which pertain to GIFs, not PNGs. I have been told that a new version of PHP3 (3.0.13) shall be released which shall include PNG functions.
This would not be a problem (technically - not legally speaking) if you use an old GD version which still supports GIFs.
There is apt to be quite a lot of confusion on this point for a while.
There are many open source items that either can work on NT or involve linking NT to UNIX systems.
Samba is one; Virtual Network Computing another.
Of course, Apache has been ported to NT,while Perl and Python will work on Windows. There are many other examples.
GNU or some other outfit should develop an open source X Server to run on Windows. This is a major omission.
So the inclusion of Windows does not mean the exclusion of Open Source. There is much that can be done in a Windows environment.
Denial of right of cross examination.
Criminal law demands a "chain of custody" of the evidence. How do we know that the proffered evidence is the real thing?
Unless we can know all of the links in the chain of custody - along with the right to cross examine the validity of these asserted links - then we effectively are denied the right to confront the witnesses used against us.
This would violate the Sixth Amendment.
Read the Sixth Amendment:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
According to Findlaw :
"''The primary object of the constitutional provision in question was to prevent depositions of ex parte affidavits . . . being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross- examination of the witness in which the accused has an opportunity not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief''"
This essay goes on to state that while the Confrontation Clause is not identical with the hearsay rule, it generally leads to exclusion of evidence when the defendant has no opportunity to challenge its soundness though cross-examination.
Clearly concealed decryption techniques cannot be cross-examined.
Another Sixth Amendment right is the right to compel witnesses to appear in one's defense. This might very well include those who decrypted the message, in the event their testimony might turn out to be favorable.
"''The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance, if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant's version of the facts as well as the prosecution's to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution's witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law,''"
Compulsory Process
The consequence of violating the confrontation clause would be exclusion of testimony. The consequence of denying compulsory process would be a reversal or a new trial.
I question the constitutionality of this.
Under the Bill of Rights, one has the right to confront the witnesses against one.
Under more general laws against the admissibility of hearsay, one generally has the right to cross-examine statements of fact made against one.
For law enforcement to decline to state how it decrypted the file (or whatever) is to deprive one of the ability effectively to confront a witness used against one and is to constrict one's ability to cross-examine.
Interestingly, another major security expert, Bruce Schneier, in his Sept. 15 CRYPTOGRAM , praises Linux for its relative security over Solaris. (Schneier declines even to compare Linux to Windows.)
Schneier attributes Linux's enhanced security to its being open source.
So to say that Linux is insecure gives rise to the question, "Insecure as compared to what?".
Of the three BSD's, OpenBSD is the most secure. It is also Canadian, free from US export restrictions.
Since, as Schneier suggests, open source enhances security and since OpenBSD is the most secure, we might conclude that in some broad sense the term "open source" extends to freedom from export controls as well as freedom from various intellectual property restraints.
Visio makes a large set of products that allow one to solve problems by viewing them visually.
There is increasing interest in information visualization, the presentation of large sets of data in visual format. Edward R. Tufte of Yale University has written extensively about this.
Microsoft itself has been moving in this area: e.g. Mappoint2000.
Microsoft's acquistion of Visio helps position itself to be able to exploit developments in information visualization.
It will be interesting to see what response the Linux / open source community develops to effect information visualization.