Ever occur to you that the reason you don't typically see those things in those places is because the government has forbidden it, and not because there's some inherent reason not to have them there? You *really* think a gathering of music industry professionals doesn't normally have profanity?
I don't think I want my children "numbed" by shows that use profanity as it there were no tomorrow, so we don't let them watch shows like The Sopranos, rather than complain to HBO about it.
Maybe I just got neurochemically lucky, but my parents let me watch all manner of violent, profane TV and movies as a kid. They also explained to me -- explicitly -- that profanity was fine to use in certain situations, but if you use it too much, it loses its power and meaning.
As a result, I don't swear much, but I do swear when I get angry or upset, or when there really is no better way to describe it. No other phrase in the English language has the same power and connotations as "Holy shit!"
and none of them really scale well enough to support something like cnn.com.
I'm not sure if this is quite true. Neopets, the company I work for, has all our servers running PHP/Oracle/Linux. We do about 230 million page views a day, and every page is PHP with at least a couple of SQL queries. PHP seems to scale pretty well, unless you meant something else.
PHP, like most languages, is Turing-complete; what exactly is there that it can't do, or that it can't be modified to do (since the source is available)?
How many of Holywood's best directors and actors over the past fifteen years have been from China
A tiny handful.
or been influenced by the Chinese?
Probably quite a lot, but then the best filmmakers allow themselves to be influenced by other great filmmakers, no matter where they come from. I don't think that whatever point you're trying to make holds any water.
"I had a [sinclair, 128k mac, apple, amiga] with a [subtract one unit from previous post]k hard drive, even after I doubled it in size with [crappy software] I wish I still had it, I'd set it up to run a [web server, distributed computing ap] but for now I guess I will have to be satisfied with running it in emulation mode with my [DR-DOS, OS2, BeOS, DOS 3.1] box!
Hah! Back in my day, we didn't have automatic old-fogey-"back-in-my-day" quote generators! We had to write them by hand. Still do, apparently.
Yes, but you can pull up a lot more stupid laws for California.
Keep in mind, we also have a lot more people than any other state -- about 34 million, 13 million more than the second most populous state (Texas at about 21 million). I wonder what the ratio of stupid laws to citizens is on a state-by-state basis. (Of course, I challenge you to find a definition of "stupid law" that satisfies any substantial number of people.)
That's okay. We don't like you either, but we outnumber you 34 million to one. Come visit sometime! Our governor can crush your skull with his bare hands*.
According to this article, the most recent death toll is 2,749. Closer to 3,000 than 2,000. Just a nitpick, of course; your original point is still valid.
Viruses would fail to be as easily effective. You can find a hole in an email client and bork the email client, but that's as far as you'll get.
Another factor with this is that virtually everyone who uses Windows uses the same email client, meaning they're all going to be vulnerable to the same problems. The population of those using Linux are going to be using a much more diverse array of clients, which helps prevent the same bug from affecting everybody.
It occurs to me that the open source "community" (insofar as it has a collective consciousness) should want there to be at least two or three usable applications for any given task. We don't WANT there to be one email client that's everyone uses, for exactly the reasons described above -- plus, choice is always good for the end-user.
the article suggests that law enforcers could not get out there, which is simply ludicrous
No it isn't. This was the 1910s and 1920s. Much of the West was still sparsely developed, and sending out a phalanx of federal marshals to enforce copyright and patent law was not the government's highest priority, nor as trivially easy as it is today -- there was no cheap commercial air travel nor cheap transcontinental communication.
If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy.
I don't especially like the fact that the word "piracy" is used to refer to copyright or patent infringement, but that's a common usage of the word (and I wouldn't mind if we got back to only using it to refer to robbery at sea). It is not "using the creative property of others without their permission," nor should it be. It would be accurate to say that piracy is "using the creative property of others in certain ways, without getting their permission, which is required by law." Using material from the public domain is not piracy, but under Lessig's new definition of the word, it would be -- and it most definitely should not be.
Lessig makes some valid points about how the early days of various content industries were based on patent piracy, but he keeps using his new definition of "piracy" to refer to things that were not illegal:
Under today's law, every time a radio station plays your song, you get some money. But Madonna gets nothing, save the indirect effect on the sale of her CDs. The public performance of her recording is not a "protected" right. The radio station thus gets to pirate the value of Madonna's work without paying her a dime.
What they're doing is perfectly legal. Maybe it should be, maybe it shouldn't, but it's not piracy! What is Lessig trying to do here? Then there's this:
As the history of film, music, radio, and cable TV suggest, even if some piracy is plainly wrong, not all piracy is. Or at least, not in the sense that the term is increasingly being used today. Many kinds of piracy are useful and productive, either to create new content or foster new ways of doing business. Neither our tradition, nor any tradition, has ever banned all piracy.
Isn't it more reasonable to avoid using the word "piracy" for things that aren't "plainly wrong"? Should we really be using the word "piracy" to refer to things that are "useful and productive"? I think I understand the point Lessig was trying to get across, except it's not a point that anyone would really argue: "Certain actions that do not constitute copyright or patent infringement are productive!" No shit?
What will the majority of people be writing software on? For? Supporting? Learning? Innovating? Writing hardware drivers for first? Et cetera.
And if I, and a small community of developers worldwide, still continue to use and develop for Linux... have we lost? How small does the community need to be before we lose?
and know first hand what they are capable of...
Even if MS did manage to produce a magical super-OS that outclassed Linux in every technical respect, it would still be closed source, and a lot of people have trouble trusting Microsoft. When you install a Windows update or patch, how do you know it's any good? You have to take Microsoft's word for it. Essentially, MS can only win over those of us who don't trust closed-source development methodologies by switching to open development. And if they were to do that, and create an OS that was superior to Linux in every way INCLUDING being open and free-as-in-speech... how exactly did we Linux types "lose"? We'd have a superb, open-source OS to use, which is exactly why we use Linux! How does that qualify as Microsoft "winning"?
Like a thousand monkeys pecking at keyboards, given enough time MS will produce a server and desktop OS that will be better in all respects than Linux, Unix, or any other 'nix. On SlashDot that's heresy, but it is true, IMHO.
Better in *all* respects? Would it be open source, so that I knew I could trust the software (rather than having to take MS's word for it)? Would I be able to modify in any way I chose? Would I be able to redistribute a modified version of this magical OS, or of components I modified?
If Microsoft really did release an OS that met all those criteria (not to mention being more featureful, stable, and secure than Linux), then pro-Linux folks get what they want anyway! (Now, if MS released an OS that beat Linux on features, price, performance, stability, and security, but was still closed-source, there'd still be plenty of room for Linux -- namely, with those of us who don't trust Microsoft to do what's in our best interests, and don't really want to be locked-in to a single vendor.)
This means commercial viability, to quote you, don't be dense.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that nobody on the Linux "side" (insofar as that means anything) has a valid reason for Linux to "win". What I really meant is that "win" and "lose" are meaningless terms in this context. What exactly has to happen for Microsoft or Linux to "win"? And if Linux "wins", who exactly wins what? What is the exact state of the world in that case? Does a guy who uses Linux on half his servers, and Windows on the rest, "win" or "lose"?
Not to mention the fairly unrealistic threat you're painting Microsoft to be. Fearmongering propaganda like that is not going to help you; it's just going to make you sound ignorant to those of us who know better, and paranoid to those who don't.
I'll grant that, in general, anyone will gain enrichment from inquiry into things. However, you seem to be denying that there can be a downside to that very same inquiry -- your belief appears to be that the mere inquiry itself is enough to justify doing so. Is this correct? Or would it be more correct to say that two experiences which have the same inquiry value (if such a thing can be quantified (it can't)) are equally desirable, even if one is pleasant and the other is painful? By your argument, getting hit by a bus is a good experience, because your life will be enriched by it. (Nevermind that your life will also be ended by it. Experiences that kill you cannot reasonably be said to "enrich your life.")
You seem to discount the idea that someone can experience a little bit of something and then use that as a valid basis for deciding whether to experience more of it. Apparently, the only way to validly decide whether something is worth the experience is to become thoroughly familiar with it.
Perhaps because I think that your lack of interest in experiences that challenge your status quo are inevitably likely to result in an intellectually and emotionally impoverished life?
Please quote exactly what it was I said -- EXACTLY -- that makes you think I have no interest in experiences that challenge the status quo. And I do mean an exact quotation, not just a general reference to something that kind of sounds like something I said.
I just hope you're still a young man, and will inevitably come to recognize how limiting this erroneous sort of thinking actually is. Because if you're over 25, then you really *do* have a problem.
I'd go on about my varied experiences, but bragging is uncivilized. So is the arrogance of assuming that you know anything about what I've experimented with in my life, and patronizing me like this.
Dear God, we're going to lose because people seriously think that M$ hasn't learned anything about WHY Linux is gaining marketshare. Not to sound like Bill Biehn, but they're a friggin' terminator and they'll "never stop."
It was Michael Biehn. And they'll never stop, boo hoo! What happens if MS regains 90% of the server market? Nothing. Linux still exists, everyone who still wants to use it can do so. How do we "lose" exactly? What do we "lose"?
Do you really think that the 22000+ software engineers at Microsoft are INCAPABLE of learning to write secure code?
I never said they aren't capable of it -- merely that I don't think they will. More accurately, it's not that they'll be unable to learn how to do it, but that the Microsoft corporate environment will prevent them from doing so. Microsoft, being a public corporation, has profit as its primary goal. Stability and security are important only insofar as they serve that goal. If writing insecure software will get them more money, then they'll do that. You're also incorrectly assuming that writing perfectly secure, stable software would be in Microsoft's best interests. If they did, why would anyone ever need to upgrade again?
Do you really think that only Linux developers can learn to write secure code?
Don't be dense; of course (almost) any person can learn to write secure code. But I do think that, historically, Linux developers have written more secure code than Microsoft, and unless someone gives me some reason or evidence that this is going to change in the future, I see no reason to change that opinion.
People like you are going to cost us this war.
Really? We're in a war? News to me. I was under the impression that open source software like Linux was there to serve the people who use it, not to serve as validation for your hatred of Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft too, probably more than is healthy; they have a history of extremely unpleasant business practices, they are a convicted monopolist, and their products are not, on the whole, particularly impressive. But how exactly is this a war? Linux does not compete with Windows the same way that similar products from two *companies* compete with each other. The market dominance of one does not mean the extermination of the other -- such is the nature of open source.
but what if you have more money to swim in than Scrooge McDuck ever imagined?
All their excess money isn't helping them beat Linux as it is. What exactly would they use this money for that would allow them to "win?" If they're not hiring more programmers, then, uh...
Assuming what you say is true, then we do at least have to commend Microsoft for *trying* to improve stability and security in their software. On the other hand, they still aren't providing the source code, so how am I supposed to be sure that it really is secure, since I can't examine it myself or find a trusted third party to do it? I'll stick with open source, thanks.
For example, and this is horrifying, imagine that M$ purchases SCO's 'rights' (whatever the hell those actually are) and produces a Unix clone and puts 20 THOUSAND engineers on it. Imagine they do it right. Everything written to be secure, everything modularized, the ultimate desktop, et cetera.
This is a REAL possibility.
No, it isn't. The fact that they've done so piss-poor with their Windows line of software puts the lie to this. If they can't make an OS as stable/secure as Linux *already* is, what makes you think they could somehow magically pull it off? Throwing more engineers at it won't make it better or get it done any faster.
They will come out with guns blazing and the only way to beat them is to do it with their own game, the throwing of literally billions of dollars and tens of thousands of HIGHLY organized engineers at a problem.
If this were true, Linux would not exist and be a better server OS than Windows. After all, Linux in its current form was not developed by throwing billions of dollars and tens of thousands of engineers at it, while Microsoft spent the 1990s doing exactly that. So why would Linux suddenly need this in order to match Windows, when it never has before?
I sure wish SUN and Oracle would just suddenly go ALL LINUX. That'd scare the piss out of old Bill;).
Yeah! And wouldn't it be cool if, at the end of Matrix Revolutions, a hundred Jedi had appeared out of nowhere to fight all the Agent Smiths?!? Grow up.</crotchety>
(Actually, that would have been cool. Doesn't change the hopeless fanboyism represented by Assmasher's last statement.)
By taking the time and effort to acquaint yourself with these things, you may well come to appreciate them and by doing so, your life *will* be enriched.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but your chain of logic appears to be:
1. If you take the time and effort to acquaint yourself with something like great music, art, wine, whatever, then you might come to appreciate them.
2. Regardless of whether you come to appreciate them, your life will be enriched by them.
I disagree. It's entirely plausible that I could spend time and energy and money learning all about something, and come out the worse for wear. I've tasted numerous wines in my life, always at the behest of someone drinking it ("Try this, it's good") and with *one* exception, have found them all to taste utterly vile. (The one exception was an extremely syrupy plum wine, and even then it was merely tolerable, as opposed to vile.)
I could spend that time and energy doing something else which, if you'll pardon the economic lingo, is more likely to give me a higher rate of return on the investment. Maybe being able to identify the various subtle flavors in wine would be enriching in itself, but whatever pleasure that knowledge might give me would be massively outweighed by the extreme unpleasantness of having to taste all that wine.
What is it about this concept that you find so difficult to grasp?
Why do you assume I'm the one having the problem, here?:)
Wow, I didn't know that. Here I thought I was trying to do the best I can by my family and working hard to better myself, but it turns out I've been trampling the Constitution with my power-mad ways. Thanks for the heads-up.
Dude, what is your problem? He didn't say "The Constitution is of little concern to all Americans" or "of little concern to sczimme." He said "many Americans." Get a grip.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever occur to you that the reason you don't typically see those things in those places is because the government has forbidden it, and not because there's some inherent reason not to have them there? You *really* think a gathering of music industry professionals doesn't normally have profanity?
As a result, I don't swear much, but I do swear when I get angry or upset, or when there really is no better way to describe it. No other phrase in the English language has the same power and connotations as "Holy shit!"
(They're actually the "Nielsen" ratings.)
PHP, like most languages, is Turing-complete; what exactly is there that it can't do, or that it can't be modified to do (since the source is available)?
* New California state motto.
According to this article, the most recent death toll is 2,749. Closer to 3,000 than 2,000. Just a nitpick, of course; your original point is still valid.
Although now my brain is trying to figure out what an Australian pirate would sound like.
It occurs to me that the open source "community" (insofar as it has a collective consciousness) should want there to be at least two or three usable applications for any given task. We don't WANT there to be one email client that's everyone uses, for exactly the reasons described above -- plus, choice is always good for the end-user.
Lessig makes some valid points about how the early days of various content industries were based on patent piracy, but he keeps using his new definition of "piracy" to refer to things that were not illegal:
What they're doing is perfectly legal. Maybe it should be, maybe it shouldn't, but it's not piracy! What is Lessig trying to do here? Then there's this: Isn't it more reasonable to avoid using the word "piracy" for things that aren't "plainly wrong"? Should we really be using the word "piracy" to refer to things that are "useful and productive"? I think I understand the point Lessig was trying to get across, except it's not a point that anyone would really argue: "Certain actions that do not constitute copyright or patent infringement are productive!" No shit?If Microsoft really did release an OS that met all those criteria (not to mention being more featureful, stable, and secure than Linux), then pro-Linux folks get what they want anyway! (Now, if MS released an OS that beat Linux on features, price, performance, stability, and security, but was still closed-source, there'd still be plenty of room for Linux -- namely, with those of us who don't trust Microsoft to do what's in our best interests, and don't really want to be locked-in to a single vendor.)
Not to mention the fairly unrealistic threat you're painting Microsoft to be. Fearmongering propaganda like that is not going to help you; it's just going to make you sound ignorant to those of us who know better, and paranoid to those who don't.
You seem to discount the idea that someone can experience a little bit of something and then use that as a valid basis for deciding whether to experience more of it. Apparently, the only way to validly decide whether something is worth the experience is to become thoroughly familiar with it.
Please quote exactly what it was I said -- EXACTLY -- that makes you think I have no interest in experiences that challenge the status quo. And I do mean an exact quotation, not just a general reference to something that kind of sounds like something I said. I'd go on about my varied experiences, but bragging is uncivilized. So is the arrogance of assuming that you know anything about what I've experimented with in my life, and patronizing me like this.Assuming what you say is true, then we do at least have to commend Microsoft for *trying* to improve stability and security in their software. On the other hand, they still aren't providing the source code, so how am I supposed to be sure that it really is secure, since I can't examine it myself or find a trusted third party to do it? I'll stick with open source, thanks.
Yeah! And wouldn't it be cool if, at the end of Matrix Revolutions, a hundred Jedi had appeared out of nowhere to fight all the Agent Smiths?!? Grow up.</crotchety>
(Actually, that would have been cool. Doesn't change the hopeless fanboyism represented by Assmasher's last statement.)
1. If you take the time and effort to acquaint yourself with something like great music, art, wine, whatever, then you might come to appreciate them.
2. Regardless of whether you come to appreciate them, your life will be enriched by them.
I disagree. It's entirely plausible that I could spend time and energy and money learning all about something, and come out the worse for wear. I've tasted numerous wines in my life, always at the behest of someone drinking it ("Try this, it's good") and with *one* exception, have found them all to taste utterly vile. (The one exception was an extremely syrupy plum wine, and even then it was merely tolerable, as opposed to vile.)
I could spend that time and energy doing something else which, if you'll pardon the economic lingo, is more likely to give me a higher rate of return on the investment. Maybe being able to identify the various subtle flavors in wine would be enriching in itself, but whatever pleasure that knowledge might give me would be massively outweighed by the extreme unpleasantness of having to taste all that wine.
Why do you assume I'm the one having the problem, here?