I doubt Net Neutrality is about "fast lanes". Isn't that called... you know, bandwidth? When I pay my Internet carrier per Mbps for a dedicated pipe, how is that not paying for a "fast(er) lane"?
Net Neutrality is a technically a routing policy that individual nodes in the network can comply with. My home router is most certainly not neutral, for instance, and that's a good thing, I like how I have traffic prioritized on my network.
Of course, that definition doesn't really make sense in this context. Perhaps you refer to enforcing a law that brings legal action against router operators that don't implement the routing policy. But that doesn't really make any sense either; the FCC never had any policy on the books to begin with. You can't end something by continuing to not have a law three decades after the fact.
(Fwiw, I'm totally down for not enacting more laws. The FCC is not your friend, and I doubt they'd be an effective packet police.)
Corporations have been around long before the 19th century and as legal entities managed and owned by us individuals, they most certainly do enjoy the same rights to own property and conduct trade, and are held accountable to not violate the law.
That last part is kind of important. Corporations are considered persons because they're expected to follow the law, too!
Really, what do you think corporations are made of, woodland critters and robots?
"Information wants to be free" is an obvious anthropomorphization; of course it can't literally "want" to be free, what's being referred to is the negative consequences that happen when we try to restrict resharing of information: you could almost imagine the information as a person being unhappy and protesting, whenever is censored.
A computer program is a literary work; not a song, audiovisual work, or similar. You don't "perform" a computer program, and executing it does not create a copy. If the concept as applied to literary works wasn't clear enough, the statute explicitly singles out computer programs as not infringing during the process of executing them.
There are, as is pointed out in the link you provided, terms and conditions attached to the use of the software; which do not make it any less free. in fact they keep it free.
They are terms for redistribution as required to legally make a copy under copyright law. It is not an EULA or other form of contract that must be agreed to prior to receiving a copy.
The GPL does this effectively: "You must include the source code (and other conditions) or you can't distribute a copy at all." This is the only restriction it can legally make, however. It can't restrict how you use the software in private when you don't make copies (including how you or others access it over the network).
Again, the AGPL is a license that you must accept to use the software. You focus on the output which is not the issue; the issue is how you may use the software under the license and your obligation as a result of using the software.
Please name the legal requirement that I accept the AGPL in order to use the software. In the US, there is:
* Copyright law * Patent law
Patents aren't the issue here, and copyright law is not being invoked by merely making the software available on the network (and in fact, this use is explicitly defined as non-infringing).
which in this case requires making source available; just as the venue has to pay a fee when someone plays a copyrighted song.
This is incorrect. Songs are described differently than literary works in the copyright statute, software programs being literary works.
A performance of a song, as I listed, requires a license (and copyright law specifically singles out songs). However, the output of a software program is not copyrightable, and therefore no license is necessary.
Copyright law makes no distinction between using over the network and on your local monitor, and such usage is explicitly defined in US statute as non-infringing. How would you like it, or the FSF for that matter, if copyright law could be used to dictate that you sitting at your computer could be a copyright infringer by merely opening up the wrong application sitting at your desk? I suspect not very much.
If I own the copyright I can license the works under the condition if you modify it and run it on network you need to make the source available, which the AGPL does
Once I have a copy, you can't control what I do with that copy until I want to make another copy. This is defined by copyright law, and includes (among other things):
* Performing a stage play or audiovisual work * A public performance of a song * Remixing or arranging a song (a compulsory license can be acquired if the song is commercially released) * Sending a copy of a novel, software program, or other literary work to another person
What's not on this list: Merely using a software program over the network, as no copy is being made. I don't need to accept the AGPL to legally download an AGPL'd program, put it on my server, and let the general public use it.
No, it's called individual rights when you think that everyone should have equal rights regardless of sex, race, physical traits, or anything besides the mere fact you're human.
It's called feminism when you believe women should have the same rights as men, and not necessarily the other way around - an obsolete position at best, an appalling contradiction at worst.
When I buy a dedicated pipe at a data center, and they bill per Mbps, what do you think is happening? They're limiting the connection speed (i.e. dropping packets above a certain rate, which is how the Internet signals congestion).
Again, Net Neutrality is a routing rule. Your router is either neutral or it isn't (and when it isn't, maybe in various degrees). It has nothing to do with the law per se. If I build my own router in my intranet that routes to i.e. give priority to my computer, then all other nodes, my router is no longer neutral; but that does not mean that it is "fraudulent" (I own the thing! It's obviously impossible to defraud myself).
Now when I sign up with my ISP, I expect that, absent other agreements, they won't care about where my packets are address to or from, just if I'm exceeding their bandwidth limit I agreed to - the only terms they mention that would result in packet loss.
If they end up dropping packets on some other mean, I'd call that fraud. But fraud is not for the FCC to enforce, and it has little to do with one ideology vs. another.
I really wasn't trying to get into Marxism, but as an armchair university professor, I would guess that a computer network is necessarily built of capital (i.e. nodes of routers and computers), and the alternative to prevent suppression of the working class would be collective ownership of the routers; with some arbitrary "equitable" and/or "fair" routing scheme, which I guess would look like Net Neutrality (and it is, so far as I can tell, a good routing principle).
Aside, Adam Smith also casually used Labor Theory of Value (lacking a better alternative to explain the relationship of costs to prices), the settlement on Marginal Theory of Value didn't come about until Carl Menger.
There's examples of rent-seeking and legal barriers to entry too numerous to list, but municipal networks would be an example of the latter. If I wanted to install a high-capacity line to houses, I'd have to compete with the taxpayer-funded installed lines - an artificial increase in costs (cost being the value of the next-best alternative).
I'm not sure what you're getting at; I think you mean to qualify "considering only Wikipedia/Facebook traffic, each being used equally, each should account for about 50% of packet drops", but that's not necessarily correct either, Facebook has much more streaming media than Wikipedia and would likely show considerably more packet loss.
I'm also not sure we want to go all-out on the "treat all data equally" idea militantly; what does that mean? If I pay for a dedicated pipe at a data center, I'm paying per Mbps, i.e. the rate above which they'll start dropping packets. What if I also want to pay for low latency because my company does low-latency telecommunications (i.e. please don't ever drop my packets, so long as I don't send too many of them), and I don't want to lay down the capital necessary to dig my own fiber darknet? Obviously this is okay, but your literal rule suggests otherwise.
Forged RST packets, captive portals, and injecting into webpages are wrong, they are fraud (i.e. slap them with a class-action lawsuit), but it's not a violation of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality involves routing rules, period. (Use the respective terms: Forged packets and captive portals.)
The FCC might be proposing regulations around Net Neutrality; but the point of the article doesn't concern that, it's that FCC shouldn't be the packet police.
Slashdot Mirror
That makes even less sense... How's that a problem unique to Internet providers, never mind routing rules on routers?
I doubt Net Neutrality is about "fast lanes". Isn't that called... you know, bandwidth? When I pay my Internet carrier per Mbps for a dedicated pipe, how is that not paying for a "fast(er) lane"?
Net Neutrality is a technically a routing policy that individual nodes in the network can comply with. My home router is most certainly not neutral, for instance, and that's a good thing, I like how I have traffic prioritized on my network.
Of course, that definition doesn't really make sense in this context. Perhaps you refer to enforcing a law that brings legal action against router operators that don't implement the routing policy. But that doesn't really make any sense either; the FCC never had any policy on the books to begin with. You can't end something by continuing to not have a law three decades after the fact.
(Fwiw, I'm totally down for not enacting more laws. The FCC is not your friend, and I doubt they'd be an effective packet police.)
Corporations have been around long before the 19th century and as legal entities managed and owned by us individuals, they most certainly do enjoy the same rights to own property and conduct trade, and are held accountable to not violate the law.
That last part is kind of important. Corporations are considered persons because they're expected to follow the law, too!
Really, what do you think corporations are made of, woodland critters and robots?
"Information wants to be free" is an obvious anthropomorphization; of course it can't literally "want" to be free, what's being referred to is the negative consequences that happen when we try to restrict resharing of information: you could almost imagine the information as a person being unhappy and protesting, whenever is censored.
A computer program is a literary work; not a song, audiovisual work, or similar. You don't "perform" a computer program, and executing it does not create a copy. If the concept as applied to literary works wasn't clear enough, the statute explicitly singles out computer programs as not infringing during the process of executing them.
There are, as is pointed out in the link you provided, terms and conditions attached to the use of the software; which do not make it any less free. in fact they keep it free.
They are terms for redistribution as required to legally make a copy under copyright law. It is not an EULA or other form of contract that must be agreed to prior to receiving a copy.
The GPL does this effectively: "You must include the source code (and other conditions) or you can't distribute a copy at all." This is the only restriction it can legally make, however. It can't restrict how you use the software in private when you don't make copies (including how you or others access it over the network).
Contract law
But the source is free to the public, there's no terms and conditions I have to agree to. Indeed, it would no longer be Free Software, or at least it wouldn't be Open Source Software according to the Open Source Definition.
Again, the AGPL is a license that you must accept to use the software. You focus on the output which is not the issue; the issue is how you may use the software under the license and your obligation as a result of using the software.
Please name the legal requirement that I accept the AGPL in order to use the software. In the US, there is:
* Copyright law
* Patent law
Patents aren't the issue here, and copyright law is not being invoked by merely making the software available on the network (and in fact, this use is explicitly defined as non-infringing).
which in this case requires making source available; just as the venue has to pay a fee when someone plays a copyrighted song.
This is incorrect. Songs are described differently than literary works in the copyright statute, software programs being literary works.
A performance of a song, as I listed, requires a license (and copyright law specifically singles out songs). However, the output of a software program is not copyrightable, and therefore no license is necessary.
Copyright law makes no distinction between using over the network and on your local monitor, and such usage is explicitly defined in US statute as non-infringing. How would you like it, or the FSF for that matter, if copyright law could be used to dictate that you sitting at your computer could be a copyright infringer by merely opening up the wrong application sitting at your desk? I suspect not very much.
If I own the copyright I can license the works under the condition if you modify it and run it on network you need to make the source available, which the AGPL does
Once I have a copy, you can't control what I do with that copy until I want to make another copy. This is defined by copyright law, and includes (among other things):
* Performing a stage play or audiovisual work
* A public performance of a song
* Remixing or arranging a song (a compulsory license can be acquired if the song is commercially released)
* Sending a copy of a novel, software program, or other literary work to another person
What's not on this list: Merely using a software program over the network, as no copy is being made. I don't need to accept the AGPL to legally download an AGPL'd program, put it on my server, and let the general public use it.
Except copyright law defines what distribution is, not the license. And the output of a software program is not copyrightable (by itself).
The AGPL may as well offer everyone a pony; if it's not being distributed (as defined by copyright law), the AGPL doesn't apply. Period.
Not all problems, it just causes fewer problems than any alternative.
If you're not distributing the software then the AGPL isn't going to help you.
Licenses only grant permission to distribute software; they're irrelevant if you're not distributing the software to begin with.
1787 wasn't the start of slavery nor could it have been the end.
No, it's called individual rights when you think that everyone should have equal rights regardless of sex, race, physical traits, or anything besides the mere fact you're human.
It's called feminism when you believe women should have the same rights as men, and not necessarily the other way around - an obsolete position at best, an appalling contradiction at worst.
When I buy a dedicated pipe at a data center, and they bill per Mbps, what do you think is happening? They're limiting the connection speed (i.e. dropping packets above a certain rate, which is how the Internet signals congestion).
Why does the list have to be hardcoded? Why not pull the records from DNSSEC... there's a whole specification for this, RFC6698
Again, Net Neutrality is a routing rule. Your router is either neutral or it isn't (and when it isn't, maybe in various degrees). It has nothing to do with the law per se. If I build my own router in my intranet that routes to i.e. give priority to my computer, then all other nodes, my router is no longer neutral; but that does not mean that it is "fraudulent" (I own the thing! It's obviously impossible to defraud myself).
Now when I sign up with my ISP, I expect that, absent other agreements, they won't care about where my packets are address to or from, just if I'm exceeding their bandwidth limit I agreed to - the only terms they mention that would result in packet loss.
If they end up dropping packets on some other mean, I'd call that fraud. But fraud is not for the FCC to enforce, and it has little to do with one ideology vs. another.
I really wasn't trying to get into Marxism, but as an armchair university professor, I would guess that a computer network is necessarily built of capital (i.e. nodes of routers and computers), and the alternative to prevent suppression of the working class would be collective ownership of the routers; with some arbitrary "equitable" and/or "fair" routing scheme, which I guess would look like Net Neutrality (and it is, so far as I can tell, a good routing principle).
Aside, Adam Smith also casually used Labor Theory of Value (lacking a better alternative to explain the relationship of costs to prices), the settlement on Marginal Theory of Value didn't come about until Carl Menger.
There's examples of rent-seeking and legal barriers to entry too numerous to list, but municipal networks would be an example of the latter. If I wanted to install a high-capacity line to houses, I'd have to compete with the taxpayer-funded installed lines - an artificial increase in costs (cost being the value of the next-best alternative).
I'm not sure what you're getting at; I think you mean to qualify "considering only Wikipedia/Facebook traffic, each being used equally, each should account for about 50% of packet drops", but that's not necessarily correct either, Facebook has much more streaming media than Wikipedia and would likely show considerably more packet loss.
I'm also not sure we want to go all-out on the "treat all data equally" idea militantly; what does that mean? If I pay for a dedicated pipe at a data center, I'm paying per Mbps, i.e. the rate above which they'll start dropping packets. What if I also want to pay for low latency because my company does low-latency telecommunications (i.e. please don't ever drop my packets, so long as I don't send too many of them), and I don't want to lay down the capital necessary to dig my own fiber darknet? Obviously this is okay, but your literal rule suggests otherwise.
Forged RST packets, captive portals, and injecting into webpages are wrong, they are fraud (i.e. slap them with a class-action lawsuit), but it's not a violation of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality involves routing rules, period. (Use the respective terms: Forged packets and captive portals.)
The FCC might be proposing regulations around Net Neutrality; but the point of the article doesn't concern that, it's that FCC shouldn't be the packet police.
Net Neutrality is a rule that can apply to any node that routes packets; meaning pretty much all of them.
I appreciate the energy you're putting into Marxism vs. other labels, but that's really not the important point I'm making.
I'm not critiquing Marxism. You're just begging for an argument, aren't you?
That's what I said; I gave the technical definition. Go and look up how TCP negotiates connection speeds: By dropping packets.