LOTS of people on slashdot have argued that all software should be GPL'ed and that is indeed the ideology of a lot of the Free Software movement. I normally read Slashdot with a filter of 4, and I see that point of view every time anything close to the issue comes up!
References, please. I've been reading/. for 3.5 years and have seen almost no evidence of this. Maybe their posts just don't get modded to 3, which is where I read. The arguments I have seen that are similar to this, usually say that the world would be better if all software was GPL, but they rarely, if ever, insist that all existing or future software should be forcibly made GPL.
Your quote actually establishes my point precisely. You are quoting US Code, which indeed is frequently modified by Congress (in fact, that is what we mean by passing a law!). Thus such software could very easily be released GPL (or proprietary or anything else) if Congress were pressured to do so.
Once again, I am familiar with how Congress passes laws. I know what the U.S. Code is and how Congress goes about modifying it. Yes, you're right, Congress could pass a law changing 17 USC 106, but it seems rather unlikely.
And as far as Congress amending the constitution, again, THEY CANNOT DO SO. They can propose an amendment (your quote again). Beyond that, it is another process (thank goodness!).
I addressed this directly in the grandparent; it was a poor choice of words, nothing more. Why do you keep harping on it?
Yes, now that we are getting into a tiny little piece of the idea space under discussion, you are right that some people think that the government should divulge all source that they commission. Those people are *seriously* misguided.(Do they really think that all NSA classified code is coded by government employees? How about the guidance code for the Patriot PAC-3 missile. Most highly secret code used by the government is produced by contractors - a couple of whom I worked for in the distant past - and obviously that code shouldn't be released to the public domain! Security through obscurity in fact is very important in these sorts of cases. If you don't know the exact algorithms used in weapons system, it is much harder to spoof or jam them, for example.
No, obviously the circumstances will dictate who should be allowed access to the code. Nobody sane claims that all contracted software should be available to the public; but to claim that this is a tiny area of discussion is ludicrous. Unclassified software use by government agencies absolutely dwarfs the amount used by classified agencies. Think about every payroll system, social services management software, database management software, etc. the government uses. Now multiply it by 50, for all the state goverments. And then multiply by another 100, for all the county and city governments. Those don't need to be classified. Even still, I was pointing out a range of possibilities for how the source could be available; I never said that any one of them should be used in particular, or in every instance.
Don't be dense. Do you REALLY think I want military secrets declassified for any random Joe to read? Of course not! Only a tiny number of select, authorized government agents would ever have access to military software source produced by a contract corporation (e.g. Lockheed). But someone in the government has to have access to it -- otherwise, how are they to know that it actually does what it says?
So we have moved into an even tinier piece... contracted code (not written by government employees) who are not writing classified stuff. Do you really think that all the posts on Slashdot about this issue relate only to that?
Did I ever claim they do? No. The issue came up, and we're discussing it, except that you think it's unimportant, and I'm forcefully and repeatedly whacking you with a clue-by-four.
Even in that area, I will only argue that the source should be public domain, not GPL. In other words, most of the arguments of mine that you took such offense too do not relate to the subset of the tiny subset of discussion space in this thread!
I took offense to your entire original post. Anyway, you're the one who spends the bulk of your posts claiming that this isn't an important issue, and ignoring most of my other points. Naturally, I respond to what you argue with. What should I do, argue about the things we agree on?
The $1000 price tag makes me think a bit more before I challenge for a domain name that is "rightfully" mine.
Essentially, it reserves the "having fun with the system" for only the rich. I'm not claiming I have a better solution, but it serves no one to ignore this fact. The price tag prevents some abuse, but not all of it.
I'm curious; has anyone tried removing all the "non-coding DNA" from a bacterial DNA sequence, and then seeing whether the bacteria function normally? Or do we think it's noncoding because we never see it get used?
Not true. Congress does not have the power to amend the Constitution.
I was condensing the following, although I suppose I should have chosen a better word than "pass":
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall
propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for
proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths
thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
U.S. Constitution, Article V
Nonetheless, I'm fully aware of how Constitutional amendments get proposed and passed.
Actually, I don't know how you speak for all of Slashdot or FSF about the difference between government produced and government commissioned software. Some proof would be interesting.
What? That makes no sense. The difference between government-produced software and software produced under goverment contract is obvious; it has nothing to do with what/. or the FSF think, or you, or me for that matter.
Software produced under contract to the government is software that is written by people who are not federal goverment employees, but are rather (for example) Microsoft or IBM employees. Such software is subject to normal copyright law, at least as the laws currently stand. It's possible that the contract could specify that the software in question be released as GPL or public domain, but there's no laws requiring that that be the case.
/. and the FSF's position on the latter issue have no bearing on the actual material difference between the issues. Now it seems possible that this isn't what you meant, in which case you phrased the above-quoted very poorly.
But what is the theoretical difference of whether the software came from a government employee, or someone or some organization that produced it on behalf of the government? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that the government can negotiate a reduced cost in return for changes in the intellectual property value of the software (I once worked on a program where exactly that happened).
Already explained above.
So do you disapprove of the government saving taxpayer money if it results in less free software? If so, why?
It would be nice if it were that simple of an issue, weren't it? A convenient balance scale with free software on one side, and money on the other. But, unfortunately, it isn't that easy.
When it comes to commissioned software (software written by a third party, under contract to the government), there are three main factors to take into account when deciding whether some particular software is a good choice for the government to use:
Monetary costs (including up-front cost, ongoing maintenance and support costs, etc.);
The license the software is provided under (public domain, BSD, GPL, proprietary, etc.);
The quality of the software (i.e. how good it is at doing what it's supposed to do).
#1 and #3 are obvious; if it costs a trillion dollars, it's probably not worth buying (even if it's of unparalleled quality). If it sucks, it's probably not worth buying (even if it's dirt-cheap). But the license is important, as well. If the source code is not provided to the government, then how is the government (and those it serves -- i.e., the people) supposed to know that it's properly doing what it's supposed to be doing? Thus, some people argue that such software should at the very least have its source available for inspection, either by government employees who would not be allowed to divulge the contents of the source they read, or by members of the public, or whatever. I'm not going into that issue; I'm just bringing it up because it's the only real issue that's even similar to the one you keep claiming you're arguing about.
So please stop attacking me for arguing against a wider issue.
What you're arguing against isn't an issue. Nobody's demanding that all software be GPL, or that you should be forced to give your software away for free. (Nobody modded 3+, anyway.) So why do you keep demanding that you have a right to your software, when nobody's saying that you don't?
The analogy I'm fond of is that there's no fundamental difference between me taping every episode of The Wonder Years, and me borrowing a taped Wonder Years episode from someone else, and then making my own copy. Either way, the same data ends up in my possession; it makes no sense for one to be illegal while the other isn't. (Nonsensical laws should be ignored.) Extend the analogy to digital P2P networks, and there you go.
Just because something's illegal doesn't mean it should be illegal. A lot of things are illegal for good reason, but sharing taped TV episodes isn't one of them.
My argument, and Microsoft's, is against those who would *force* the government into using GPL for all of its software. And don't kid yourself, if Congress wanted to, it could indeed make government software into GPL instead of public domain - you won't find anything in the US Constitution that prevents that, and the US isn't the only country in the world. My secondary discussion is an attempt to educate the Free Software utopians in the futility of their ultimate goals.
And Congress could even pass a Constitutional amendment which would allow the government to retain copyright on works it produces. I think that's pretty unlikely, though; almost nobody has a desire for that. But nobody on/. is suggesting that the government's works should be copyrighted; the discussion is about works the government commissions from private organizations (like corporations or universities). You keep confusing those two issues, which are totally separate. Nobody, not even the "Free Software utopians" like the FSF, want the government's work to be anything but public domain. Some people (I can't speak for the FSF, as I don't know their official position) do, however, want the requirement put into law that any software written for the government by a private corporation, be GPL (or at least, open source, or somewhere else along the continuum between just-barely-free and public domain).
If you read my postings more carefully (and I suggest you take a look at my more detailed my recent blog posting [tinyvital.com]), you would see that this is not the simple issue you assert I am arguing.
You made it sound pretty simple in your grandparent post, so I responded to what you said there. Should I have responded to something you wrote elsewhere, that I didn't know about?
As far as "The GPL scares me because it threatens what I do for a living" - thanks for trolling by putting BS words into my mouth (NOT!)!
I was pointing out one of the themes of your post, which is why I said "comes off as" rather than "you said". Can't you tell the difference between that and actually claiming you said something you didn't?
I was simply pointing out (as you in fact do also) that the GPL, if used universally, simply won't work, and that forcing someone to give away their software is wrong.
No shit, Sherlock. But who was claiming that everything should be GPL, or that any private person should be forced to give away their software?
Oh, and I'm really not worried about this, because I expect that there will be proprietary software far into the future, as nobody has yet put forth any credible alternative scenario (short of global catastrophe or true AI). I'm not afraid - you just don't read carefully.
I too believe that there will be proprietary software far into the future; I should have said "ifwill disappear, which I don't. (I think it should disappear, but that's another story.)
And I do read carefully; I just understand your motivations better than you do, it seems.
If I have any fear for my profession, it is that cheap foreign labor will take my job - but as long as that happens through fair competition, there is nothing inherently wrong with that in spite of whatever impact it might have on me. And, of course, it isn't germain to this issue.
Then it's a good thing you brought it up.:)
Microsoft attacks GPL on several fronts. The main issue of interest has to do with attacks which actually affect laws - and this is where Microsoft is *defending* our freedoms, for their own private gain, of course. Is that such a hard concept.
I understand the situation better than you do, since you can't separate the two issues of:
Works produced by government employees are automatically in the public domain;
Works produced under government contract by private corporations should either:
Be entirely public domain
Be licensed under the GPL
Have the source available for public perusal, but only the corporation can sell/distribute the software
Have the source available for review by certain government employees only
Be entirely proprietary (the way it is now)
This has nothing to do with Microsoft trying to defend our freedoms; it has to do with MS not wanting to share its source under terms which might not be to its ultimate benefit. Nobody (except a small, insane minority) is trying to force you to give away your software; so why do you keep acting like they are?
I don't know. But saying we shouldn't bother thinking about it until we have some hard evidence isn't helpful, either. The desire to learn about the unknown is a strong social force; and if scientists can encourage funding into ET research by proposing ideas about what may or may not be out there, good for them. Diversity in scientific endeavor -- including research in areas that may not seem fruitful at first -- is a good thing. Just becuase you can't think of a good reason to do ET research, doesn't mean there aren't any good reasons.
The U.S. Government can't hold copyrights on works it creates, so that issue is moot. If government employees themselves write some software as part of their work, the software will, by law, be public domain. Everyone agrees with this.
But if the government contracts to have software written by a third-party entity (e.g. corporation, university), then that party can still have a copyright on the software, even if only the government is using it. The issue is, should such software be public domain, GPL, proprietary, etc.?
Now, aside from that, your rant about how the GPL is bad for business is COMPLETELY MISSING THE DAMN POINT. The GPL is not suited for most business plans, because it prevents you from using the historical software business model (write it, keep code secret, sell multiple copies of the software). But there's absolutely no reason why the GPL and proprietary software can't coexist -- in fact, they do, rather nicely. People who demand that all software be free are idiots -- I (and you) have the right to write proprietary software if we feel like it. But people who insist that the GPL will change how the software industry works, and that this is a bad thing, are also idiots. The GPL flourishes because it helps support an alternative "software industry," one not driven by profit and consumer demand. De facto, there is a societal demand for this.
Your entire rant comes off as, "The GPL scares me because it threatens what I do for a living!" Too fucking bad. History is littered with professions that were obsoleted by new technology and new social structures. Should we have limited computer development, to protect the jobs of telephone operators? Should we have limited automotive development, to protect the horse-and-buggy industry? Should we limit the Internet, to protect the music industry? (Hint: no, no, and hell fucking no). Nobody sane is claiming that they have a right to your code -- but you're an idiot if you think that the GPL can't coexist with closed-source models.
The original post was saying that Microsoft attacks the GPL (and free software in general) because it's a threat to MS's business. It wasn't saying that all software should be GPL -- it was predicting that, eventually, most software will be GPL (or at least, some form of open source/free software). Don't get your panties in a bunch, you'll be able to stay proprietary for years to come -- but we better not hear you bitching when there's no more jobs for you.
You're acting like there's only one group of scientists out there, and they are constantly changing their minds. Did it ever occur to you that there might actually be more than one group of scientists, and they might have differing thoughts about the habitability of extrasolar planets? Astonishing, I know, but there's not just one uniform block of "scientists" who all believe the same thing. Those five different views you just listed are all from completely different people.
Ya know, that one sentence was all you had to say. That said: I responded to ask you to expand upon (ie. provide sources for) the claim that the USPS and telecoms are legally capable of accessing data entrusted to their care.
Well, you did it in a pretty hostile way, so I assumed you were sarcastically attacking my statements, rather than clearly stating that you were unsure. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Realistically has that attitude ever solved a problem? Treat the symptom, not the illiness.
No shit, Sherlock. I don't think that having to write separate code for separate browsers is a good idea, either -- but I do think that if you write your code according to the standard, and only check it with an HTML validator, you're asking for trouble. It would be nice if we could all be idealistic 100% of the time, but when 95% of your website's users use a browser that doesn't conform to standards, you have two choices: 1) Only reach 5% of the audience, or 2) Reach 100% of the audience, at the cost of encouraging standards noncompliance. It would be nice if we could all be moral and pick #1, but unless you own the company, you're going to end up with #2 -- the one that your non-technical boss demands. I write all my code to spec, but if something doesn't work in IE, I don't have much of a choice.
Realistically have the individuals who've adopted such an attitude ever had to clean up the resulting mess? Realistically will they ever have to face the music?
Nope, managers don't have to deal with it. That's what us programmers are for. If they had to deal with it, they might not ask for it, eh?
Realistically what effect does all the above have on humanity getting the most out of its technological progress? Or having progress for that matter?
This is the same as the first question, just phrased differently, to try and seem more profound. See above.
Okay, let's take this from the top. My original post in this thread was responding to Badge 17's rather silly post asking whether the Portland-police-garbage situation meant that unencrypted email was now considered public information. That analogy was fundamentally flawed to begin with, and my entire post was focused on explaining that fact -- I explained that since the email was always existing only on private property (first servers, then lines, then more servers), it was not publicly accessible (at least, not legally; anything can be "publicly accessible" with enough firepower). I gave an analogy to the USPS, saying that since it would require illegal acts for any random Joe Public to access a letter you sent via the USPS, the letter would not be considered publicly accessible.
You then responded with a rather ambiguous post. When you said, "I don't buy it," I assumed you meant that you don't believe that the telecoms and the USPS actually have unfettered access to the data, and that if they do have such access, they shouldn't. The problem is that I don't know whether you actually know what the telecoms and the USPS can do. You seem to be saying that you don't think they have that power, but you're not sure. The fact that you're not sure is why I responded. The last line, I'll admit, was uncalled for, but I was getting frustrated at seeing meaningless, reactionary posts like yours that shed no light on the situation, doing nothing more than taking a righteous, but unexplained stance. I'm sorry for that, but the two paragraphs I spent explaining were there because you appeared not to understand.
Your post didn't make any claims about anything, so I don't see how I could have been "agreeing" with what you said. You didn't make any statements that I could agree with. You were asking questions, and I was answering.
Then you describe sweeping restrictions which directly contradict your former statement (and roughly describe my understanding of the relevant law):
What I said was slightly ambiguous. I was including all internet backbone and service providers when I referred to "telecoms," and in that group, not all of them are common carriers. Which is why it's entirely possible that some corporations could snoop your data (since they're not common carriers -- e.g., your ISP can snoop your data all day long), and some couldn't (since they are common carriers, e.g. the Baby Bells). It didn't "directly contradict" anything, though.
The USPS paragraph was me just elaborating on the situation to see if you were right. When I got to the end, I realized that everything I'd said is blindingly obvious, so I guess my final line was another way of saying, "Why the hell did you respond to my post? You didn't say anything useful."
The telecom company, yes. If you send data or correspondence to any private corporation, of course they can look at it -- even if the corporation's sole function is to route the data elsewhere. Most of them probably have policies that only (for example) the network admins can look at data, and only for purposes of solving network problems or improving throughput. If the telecom is a common carrier, though, then I do believe it is illegal for them to snoop on the contents of data -- and, tangentially to that, they also cannot be held responsible for the contents of data that pass through.
USPS? I don't know. They probably have the legal and corporate right to open mail that they suspect to contain things that are illegal to send by mail -- explosives, certain chemicals, weapons, etc. Should they? Yes, although I do believe the wake of 9/11 has caused things to go a bit overboard. Should the USPS be allowed to open mail that they don't suspect of being dangerous? No, of course not -- they can route it without reading it, and they have no need to read it. There are laws against that, since the USPS is a privately chartered corporation that has been granted a monopoly on mail service by the government; there's lots and lots of laws specifying what the USPS and its employees can and cannot do.
Try to learn a little about the actual functioning of the world before going off and getting all indignant, okay?
Untrue. If I'm on the network with the sender of an email, that email, in all of its unencrypted glory, actually swings by my network card on its way into the ether. If I take a peek while it's there, shouldn't that be legal under the same logic that makes dumpster diving legal?
You might very well have legal access to the packets, depending on the situation. If you're on a corporate intranet with the person, it's almost certainly not illegal for you to access the data -- i.e., there are no laws against it -- but it may be against company policy, and if it is, they can fire you for snooping on the network. (I don't think that's necessarily a good or bad policy; it obviously depends on a number of circumstances.) Nonetheless, you are not the general public, and the general public does not have legal access to the data. You have legal access to the data, because of your position as an employee within the company. The public cannot normally access the network in a legal manner, so thus neither can the police (unless, of course, they get a warrant). Thus, quite obviously, the situation is not parallel.
Since just about any network is going to be privately restricted (i.e. if you access it, you either have permission, or you've committed trespass (breaking into the network facility) or destruction of property (splicing into cables that run through public land)), the analogy pretty much dies a horrible, screaming death.
But if your code validates, and doesn't appear correctly in somebody's browser, it is the *browers* fault, NOT yours.
And your boss is going to care... why, exactly? If you write perfect code that doesn't display properly in any version of IE, do you think they're going to accept the excuse that "It's IE's fault, it's buggy?" No, they're going to tell you to fix it so that it looks right in IE. I agree with you -- it is the browser's fault that it doesn't render things properly, but the people in charge don't care about that. They just want it to look right for their customers. Be realistic.
That's not good enough. Even a browser which is supposedly standards-compliant can have bugs which cause wierd display glitches, even if your code is letter-perfect. Mozilla 1.0 (I think, might have been 1.1) had a strange bug where certain combinations of COLSPAN and WIDTH settings would cause the final cell in each row to be wider than it should -- even if the W3C HTML validator said the code was perfect, and the code worked perfectly in every other browser (including pre-1.0 versions of Mozilla) I tested, including three versions of IE, old Netscape 4.7, and so on.
The bug was eventually fixed, but simply writing and testing it once wouldn't have worked.
It's so much easier to simply validate against the W3C standards instead of checking to see if your pages work in every browser.
Yeah, it's so much easier, but you're ignoring reality. Browsers have bugs, and if you don't test it in the browsers that are *actually* in common use, you're asking for trouble. Even if it works in an early version of IE, Microsoft (and even the Mozilla project) have broken things in later versions which worked in earlier versions.
Re:Coincidence...?
on
E ~ mc^2
·
· Score: 4, Funny
186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW.
Jenna Bush's garbage is more likely to give away info that she gets stoned. The news stories on that would probably distract the president away from important duties even more than her kidnapping would.
At least if she got kidnapped, Dubya wouldn't have to worry about her doing any other stupid things:)
That aside, if the USSS wants to keep Jenna safe and Dubya unworried, they should burn all her trash instead of making it available to the public, just like the rest of us should if we care enough about who sees what in our trash.
For instance, is unencrypted email now public information?
Since the email travels entirely through privately owned computers and wires during its entire existence, then the only way for a member of the public to access it would be to:
Break in to a location with a computer that has a permanent or transient copy of the email (your house, ISP server farm, router farm, etc.); or
Splice into a telecom company's trunk lines to intercept the message.
Either action is illegal, so the public isn't considered to have unfettered access to the email.
A proper analogy would be to ask, if you send a letter through the USPS, is it accessible to the public? Even if it's unencrypted (hence making it analogous to a postcard), the answer is no. Only the intended recipient and employees of the USPS are able to access the letter legally. Any random individual who wanted to access that letter would have to:
Break in to a location where the letter is physically stored (your house, the recipient's house, or a USPS office); or
Intercept the letter en route (on a mail truck or plane, or in a mail carrier's possession after pickup or delivery).
But why am I telling you all this? This was all obvious, wasn't it?
Not to flame, but you're all idiots.:) The purpose of language is to communicate effectively; whichever method is easier to understand (using apostrophes to pluralize acronyms/abbreviations, or not, e.g. CDs vs. CD's) should be the one that's used. As language is entirely arbitrary (but, for the sake of simplicity, often systematic), there is no absolute right or wrong -- but if everyone expects "CDs" and you type "CD's", that may make things harder to read, so you should probably use "CDs". And vice-versa, of course.
Come on, guys. Anyone with enough education to argue about the finer points of disparate style manuals should understand this concept.
It's an interesting fact that music pirates don't really respect copyright, but they do respect registered trademarks. After all, what pirate would disrespect something marked with an ARRRR symbol?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be dense. Do you REALLY think I want military secrets declassified for any random Joe to read? Of course not! Only a tiny number of select, authorized government agents would ever have access to military software source produced by a contract corporation (e.g. Lockheed). But someone in the government has to have access to it -- otherwise, how are they to know that it actually does what it says?
Did I ever claim they do? No. The issue came up, and we're discussing it, except that you think it's unimportant, and I'm forcefully and repeatedly whacking you with a clue-by-four. I took offense to your entire original post. Anyway, you're the one who spends the bulk of your posts claiming that this isn't an important issue, and ignoring most of my other points. Naturally, I respond to what you argue with. What should I do, argue about the things we agree on?I'm curious; has anyone tried removing all the "non-coding DNA" from a bacterial DNA sequence, and then seeing whether the bacteria function normally? Or do we think it's noncoding because we never see it get used?
Software produced by the government means software that is written by actual employees of the federal government, during work hours, as part of their job. Such software cannot be copyrighted; it is public domain.
Software produced under contract to the government is software that is written by people who are not federal goverment employees, but are rather (for example) Microsoft or IBM employees. Such software is subject to normal copyright law, at least as the laws currently stand. It's possible that the contract could specify that the software in question be released as GPL or public domain, but there's no laws requiring that that be the case.
/. and the FSF's position on the latter issue have no bearing on the actual material difference between the issues. Now it seems possible that this isn't what you meant, in which case you phrased the above-quoted very poorly.
Already explained above. It would be nice if it were that simple of an issue, weren't it? A convenient balance scale with free software on one side, and money on the other. But, unfortunately, it isn't that easy.When it comes to commissioned software (software written by a third party, under contract to the government), there are three main factors to take into account when deciding whether some particular software is a good choice for the government to use:
- Monetary costs (including up-front cost, ongoing maintenance and support costs, etc.);
- The license the software is provided under (public domain, BSD, GPL, proprietary, etc.);
- The quality of the software (i.e. how good it is at doing what it's supposed to do).
#1 and #3 are obvious; if it costs a trillion dollars, it's probably not worth buying (even if it's of unparalleled quality). If it sucks, it's probably not worth buying (even if it's dirt-cheap). But the license is important, as well. If the source code is not provided to the government, then how is the government (and those it serves -- i.e., the people) supposed to know that it's properly doing what it's supposed to be doing? Thus, some people argue that such software should at the very least have its source available for inspection, either by government employees who would not be allowed to divulge the contents of the source they read, or by members of the public, or whatever. I'm not going into that issue; I'm just bringing it up because it's the only real issue that's even similar to the one you keep claiming you're arguing about. What you're arguing against isn't an issue. Nobody's demanding that all software be GPL, or that you should be forced to give your software away for free. (Nobody modded 3+, anyway.) So why do you keep demanding that you have a right to your software, when nobody's saying that you don't?The analogy I'm fond of is that there's no fundamental difference between me taping every episode of The Wonder Years, and me borrowing a taped Wonder Years episode from someone else, and then making my own copy. Either way, the same data ends up in my possession; it makes no sense for one to be illegal while the other isn't. (Nonsensical laws should be ignored.) Extend the analogy to digital P2P networks, and there you go.
Just because something's illegal doesn't mean it should be illegal. A lot of things are illegal for good reason, but sharing taped TV episodes isn't one of them.
And I do read carefully; I just understand your motivations better than you do, it seems.
Then it's a good thing you brought it up.- Works produced by government employees are automatically in the public domain;
- Works produced under government contract by private corporations should either:
- Be entirely public domain
- Be licensed under the GPL
- Have the source available for public perusal, but only the corporation can sell/distribute the software
- Have the source available for review by certain government employees only
- Be entirely proprietary (the way it is now)
This has nothing to do with Microsoft trying to defend our freedoms; it has to do with MS not wanting to share its source under terms which might not be to its ultimate benefit. Nobody (except a small, insane minority) is trying to force you to give away your software; so why do you keep acting like they are?I don't know. But saying we shouldn't bother thinking about it until we have some hard evidence isn't helpful, either. The desire to learn about the unknown is a strong social force; and if scientists can encourage funding into ET research by proposing ideas about what may or may not be out there, good for them. Diversity in scientific endeavor -- including research in areas that may not seem fruitful at first -- is a good thing. Just becuase you can't think of a good reason to do ET research, doesn't mean there aren't any good reasons.
The U.S. Government can't hold copyrights on works it creates, so that issue is moot. If government employees themselves write some software as part of their work, the software will, by law, be public domain. Everyone agrees with this.
But if the government contracts to have software written by a third-party entity (e.g. corporation, university), then that party can still have a copyright on the software, even if only the government is using it. The issue is, should such software be public domain, GPL, proprietary, etc.?
Now, aside from that, your rant about how the GPL is bad for business is COMPLETELY MISSING THE DAMN POINT. The GPL is not suited for most business plans, because it prevents you from using the historical software business model (write it, keep code secret, sell multiple copies of the software). But there's absolutely no reason why the GPL and proprietary software can't coexist -- in fact, they do, rather nicely. People who demand that all software be free are idiots -- I (and you) have the right to write proprietary software if we feel like it. But people who insist that the GPL will change how the software industry works, and that this is a bad thing, are also idiots. The GPL flourishes because it helps support an alternative "software industry," one not driven by profit and consumer demand. De facto, there is a societal demand for this.
Your entire rant comes off as, "The GPL scares me because it threatens what I do for a living!" Too fucking bad. History is littered with professions that were obsoleted by new technology and new social structures. Should we have limited computer development, to protect the jobs of telephone operators? Should we have limited automotive development, to protect the horse-and-buggy industry? Should we limit the Internet, to protect the music industry? (Hint: no, no, and hell fucking no). Nobody sane is claiming that they have a right to your code -- but you're an idiot if you think that the GPL can't coexist with closed-source models.
The original post was saying that Microsoft attacks the GPL (and free software in general) because it's a threat to MS's business. It wasn't saying that all software should be GPL -- it was predicting that, eventually, most software will be GPL (or at least, some form of open source/free software). Don't get your panties in a bunch, you'll be able to stay proprietary for years to come -- but we better not hear you bitching when there's no more jobs for you.
You're acting like there's only one group of scientists out there, and they are constantly changing their minds. Did it ever occur to you that there might actually be more than one group of scientists, and they might have differing thoughts about the habitability of extrasolar planets? Astonishing, I know, but there's not just one uniform block of "scientists" who all believe the same thing. Those five different views you just listed are all from completely different people.
You then responded with a rather ambiguous post. When you said, "I don't buy it," I assumed you meant that you don't believe that the telecoms and the USPS actually have unfettered access to the data, and that if they do have such access, they shouldn't. The problem is that I don't know whether you actually know what the telecoms and the USPS can do. You seem to be saying that you don't think they have that power, but you're not sure. The fact that you're not sure is why I responded. The last line, I'll admit, was uncalled for, but I was getting frustrated at seeing meaningless, reactionary posts like yours that shed no light on the situation, doing nothing more than taking a righteous, but unexplained stance. I'm sorry for that, but the two paragraphs I spent explaining were there because you appeared not to understand.
Your post didn't make any claims about anything, so I don't see how I could have been "agreeing" with what you said. You didn't make any statements that I could agree with. You were asking questions, and I was answering.
What I said was slightly ambiguous. I was including all internet backbone and service providers when I referred to "telecoms," and in that group, not all of them are common carriers. Which is why it's entirely possible that some corporations could snoop your data (since they're not common carriers -- e.g., your ISP can snoop your data all day long), and some couldn't (since they are common carriers, e.g. the Baby Bells). It didn't "directly contradict" anything, though.The USPS paragraph was me just elaborating on the situation to see if you were right. When I got to the end, I realized that everything I'd said is blindingly obvious, so I guess my final line was another way of saying, "Why the hell did you respond to my post? You didn't say anything useful."
The telecom company, yes. If you send data or correspondence to any private corporation, of course they can look at it -- even if the corporation's sole function is to route the data elsewhere. Most of them probably have policies that only (for example) the network admins can look at data, and only for purposes of solving network problems or improving throughput. If the telecom is a common carrier, though, then I do believe it is illegal for them to snoop on the contents of data -- and, tangentially to that, they also cannot be held responsible for the contents of data that pass through.
USPS? I don't know. They probably have the legal and corporate right to open mail that they suspect to contain things that are illegal to send by mail -- explosives, certain chemicals, weapons, etc. Should they? Yes, although I do believe the wake of 9/11 has caused things to go a bit overboard. Should the USPS be allowed to open mail that they don't suspect of being dangerous? No, of course not -- they can route it without reading it, and they have no need to read it. There are laws against that, since the USPS is a privately chartered corporation that has been granted a monopoly on mail service by the government; there's lots and lots of laws specifying what the USPS and its employees can and cannot do.
Try to learn a little about the actual functioning of the world before going off and getting all indignant, okay?
Since just about any network is going to be privately restricted (i.e. if you access it, you either have permission, or you've committed trespass (breaking into the network facility) or destruction of property (splicing into cables that run through public land)), the analogy pretty much dies a horrible, screaming death.
The bug was eventually fixed, but simply writing and testing it once wouldn't have worked.
Yeah, it's so much easier, but you're ignoring reality. Browsers have bugs, and if you don't test it in the browsers that are *actually* in common use, you're asking for trouble. Even if it works in an early version of IE, Microsoft (and even the Mozilla project) have broken things in later versions which worked in earlier versions.That aside, if the USSS wants to keep Jenna safe and Dubya unworried, they should burn all her trash instead of making it available to the public, just like the rest of us should if we care enough about who sees what in our trash.
- Break in to a location with a computer that has a permanent or transient copy of the email (your house, ISP server farm, router farm, etc.); or
- Splice into a telecom company's trunk lines to intercept the message.
Either action is illegal, so the public isn't considered to have unfettered access to the email.A proper analogy would be to ask, if you send a letter through the USPS, is it accessible to the public? Even if it's unencrypted (hence making it analogous to a postcard), the answer is no. Only the intended recipient and employees of the USPS are able to access the letter legally. Any random individual who wanted to access that letter would have to:
- Break in to a location where the letter is physically stored (your house, the recipient's house, or a USPS office); or
- Intercept the letter en route (on a mail truck or plane, or in a mail carrier's possession after pickup or delivery).
But why am I telling you all this? This was all obvious, wasn't it?Not to flame, but you're all idiots. :) The purpose of language is to communicate effectively; whichever method is easier to understand (using apostrophes to pluralize acronyms/abbreviations, or not, e.g. CDs vs. CD's) should be the one that's used. As language is entirely arbitrary (but, for the sake of simplicity, often systematic), there is no absolute right or wrong -- but if everyone expects "CDs" and you type "CD's", that may make things harder to read, so you should probably use "CDs". And vice-versa, of course.
Come on, guys. Anyone with enough education to argue about the finer points of disparate style manuals should understand this concept.
Your post reminds me of a great quote I saw on /. a while ago: "You listen with your ears, not your ass, so quit being so anal."
It's an interesting fact that music pirates don't really respect copyright, but they do respect registered trademarks. After all, what pirate would disrespect something marked with an ARRRR symbol?