I think it comes down to "trust", and so far I
haven't had a reason not to trust the CPR.
Considering that the Danish CPR is operated by a
foreign company (according to some, usually
untrustworthy sources, actually a NSA subsidiary)
there are limits to my trust in the CPR. But as
long as you are aware of which data are stored
in the register and what it is possible (not
necessarily legal) to do with it, you should be
able to live with it.
And I don't know if I really trust the Faroese
counterpart to CPR more, even though it is
operated by a company, which is partially owned
by the government.
I suspect that the "GNAT Modified GPL" (GMGPL)
solves
your problem, since it specifically allows
non-dynamic linking of libraries without
infecting a program using the GMGPL'ed
library.
TopText do not have RIGHTS to my material,
whatever it is. This is a far cry from 'users
downloading files and editing in advertising
links with a text editor on their own
initiative'. It's a third-party hijacking of
content. It is indefensible.
I am not sure this is a correct interpretation
of what happens. Technically it is the TopText
costumers who are "rendering" your web pages.
They
are just using a wierd browser, which happens
to add clickable yellow spots here and there
on the page. Legally I doubt anything is wrong
with this. Considering how the browser apparently
is sneaked onto the system
together with something else, I find it wrong
morally.
Does this modified MSIE still just
identify itself as MSIE or does it
admit that it is not
really just MSIE? If it identifies itself as
a TopText-modified-MSIE, then it is simply a
matter of redirecting visitors using this
browser to a warning page. If it doesn't, web
site owners have to decide if they prefer ads
on their site (most likely pointing to the
competitor) or if the dare to ask their visitors
to stop using MSIE because some editions of it
do not live up to the editorial line of the
site.
Jacob
PS: A long term option could be to insist that
browsers somehow include a list of
installed plug-ins in HTTP requests.
As I - and apparently also many other people -
see it, the biggest problem with paying for
content (besides stinginess) is
how to do it.
A second point is that people like to see the
goods before they buy them. This is generally
solved with various kinds of "preview" editions
of the content.
And finally there is the problem that people may
be able to get equivalent content for free
elsewhere.
LEGO Users Group
Network (Lugnet) seems to have solved these
three problems. Lugnet is basically just a NNTP
server focused on LEGO, but the added HTTP and
SMTP interfaces makes it more flexible to use.
At the same time you have to follow the rules of
the site to maintain your posting privileges,
which supports a higher content quality than on
the "competing" Usenet group, rec.toys.lego.
Finally you only have to pay if you want to
become a "member" of Lugnet with access to
various additional features, such as a database
for keeping track of your LEGO collection. And
you decide for yourself how much you want to
pay for your lifetime membership (with a minimum
of 10 USD). This means that the micro payment
problem is avoided completely by having people
paying up front. The stingy users can of course
still use the basic services without paying, but
as long as the users as a whole find Lugnet more
valuable than the cost of running it, this model
can continue.
The article totally missed the point. Any parent
irresponsible enough to allow a kid to surf the
net either accompanied by an adult, or solo is
simply an unfit parent.
I disagree - strongly!
First of all, I think the amount of material on
the net which one could argue is unsuitable for
is over estimated. I will not claim that the
data on network traffic is wrong, but after
having used the net actively for eight years, I
don't think I have ever downloaded such material
unintentionally (although I think quite a bit of
it may have arrived in my mail box).
Second, the net can be an exellent tool for
gathering information for your work (or studies
or hobby) and at some point kids have to learn
to use this tool (along with libraries,
newspapers and other information sources).
So no, I find parents who don't teach their kids
how to collect and evaluate information, whether
through the net or through more traditional
means, irresponsible (and probably unfit to be
parents).
For more inspiration on this topic, it might be worthwhile to read the paper "Mapping the virtual geography of the World-Wide Web" which discusses how to create a 2.5D map of a collection of web pages based on their separations.
If the article is correct, and there are eight
countries against the suggested changes in the
European Patent Convention, then it is enough
to prevent the change from coming through,
since at least fourteen of the twenty members
have to vote in favour of the change to pass it.
I have experience with two different approaches for creating and maintaining multilingual web sites:
All-in-one:
We use this approach for the SSLUG web site, and except for the lack of time, I see it as a success.
The language choice is based on (in order of priority): Direct choice, Accept-Languages, and client domain.
The actual implementation is done with SSI and plenty of conditional blocks. This makes the raw files look rather messy, but it is definitely beneficial to have the different language versions just next to each other.
One file per language:
I have used this approach for my own web site, but I wouldn't call it a great success. It is difficult to keep track of translations when they are stored in different files and the result will typically be pages that are severely out of sync. The main benefit of using one file per language is that you can leave the language choice to the Content Negotiation/MultiViews feature in Apache.
My advice for people starting on a multilingual web site is:
Edit the pages as multilingual files.
Publish the pages with one language per file.
The multilingual files should be as close to plain HTML as possible, so something like
... <p> <en>Hello world <fr>Salut le monde <da>Hej verden </p>
where you simply allow a sequence of language coded tags followed by a text in that language would probably be a good solution.
Cette loi va à l'encontre de la legislation européenne, et de celle de tous les pays démocratiques.
This law goes against European law, and [the law] of all democratic countries.
Ce vote n'est pas definitif, une troisième et dernière lecture doit avoir lieu. Mais il va s'agir d'arrondir les angles entre le texte du sénat et de l'assemblée donc on peut craindre encore pire.
This vote is not final, a third and final reading will have to happen. But it will be to cut corners between the senate text and the National Assembly text, so we can fear even worse.
So, for the laymen, this has not happenned yet, and if it does, it will be challenged in the European court
I doubt very much that the proposal is against the European Human Rights (US doesn't even live up to our level, so please stop yelling so much) or the rules of the European Community.
I would definitely prefer that the subject was clarified through a slight change to the laws about the responsibilities of publishers and journalists, rather than a new law, but I find that people are exaggerating this a bit.
I really find it sad that so many people seem to think that the rules we have in "the real world" shouldn't apply on the Internet. - Generally we have those rules because they are sensible, or maybe even necessary to maintain our society.
So either A) the page owner puts up identification, so it's no longer anonymous, or B) the hosting service takes on all responsibility, thus rendering it directly liable for anything that gets posted.
Yes, just like in the rest of the publishing business.
Illegal
content is still illegal. And was illegal before this. Sensible AUPs would disallow illegal content.
I don't know what "AUPs" are, but somebody has to take responsibility for whatever illegal content that might be published. If the author of the content can't be identified, then it is obviously the owner of the server who will be considered the responsible editor.
It really shouldn't be necessary to pass a law to clarify that, and I find that six months of prison for insisting on the anonymity of your sources is unreasonable. On the other hand, the editor must take responsibility for whatever he is publishing.
In my limited experience Really small PNGs 5k or less are not as small when i do a simple direct "save as" conversion from GIF, i have not had the time to learn if or what i am doing wrong.
I have experienced this problem with some program (can't remember which) too, but I have never experienced that with gif2png or pnmtopng.
So I don't know what you are doing wrong, but switching to gif2png or pnmtopng is probably a pretty good fix - and gif2png can handle a whole directory at a time.
Back to the topic of GIF burning:
Most people have probably made their GIF files with a licensed program (or have had them made in a non-software-patent country), so there are probably not many people, if any, this whole LZW licensing story will touch.
We should, despite this, fight software patenting in general (those of us who believe it is wrong). But I can't see there is any point in wacking Unisys all the time. It looks more like witch-hunting than sensible action. What about MIT, Microsoft, IBM, and all the other companies who also hold software patents?
I have decided to keep my old GIF files around together with the PNG versions of the images. Using content negotiation and the MultiViews setting in Apache, I leave the actual choice of PNG or GIF to my visitors.
Jacob (who lives in a software patent free country:)
A major downside to the rapid growth and economic role of the internet is that it causes all of our governments to want to impose rules, taxes, and such on all websites.
Why shouldn't the same rules apply on the Internet as everywhere else?
I think that most of what is going on on the Internet already is covered by various laws. The only problem that actually remains is which country rules where. I think the current system where the physical location of a server is impractical, because most people are unable to find out which country the server they are visiting is located in.
One possibility I think it could be worthwhile to consider is "we accept that all disputes with visitors located in are subject to the laws of " certificates that webmasters could put on their servers (if they want to do business with people in ).
IMHO the internet is a place where people should be truly free. as in: no copyright, trademark suits, no patened technology, etc.
Just like the American wild west? Anybody can cheat anybody? Shut down their web site? Run of with other peoples money?
good point, it isn't clear what exactly the role of randomness is in the kind of optimization problem at hand... but I would suspect that what they really want to do is experiment with the characteristics of GA's rather than try to build better bridges.
Having worked in an optimisation methods research group, I tend to agree.
I think I see your point here, though. What is there about the "bridge building problem" that can allow for a direct measurement of a GA's strengths (relative to other kinds of search algorithms)?
I haven't read any articles from the group, but my guess is that viewing the sequence of bricks added as a "gene string" might make LEGO constructions an obvious task for genetic algorithm optimisation.
Can anyone tell me what information the elements of the strings contain besides the type of LEGO brick? They have to encode where the brick is placed relative to the previous addtion, otherwise almost any mixing of two strings will result is an unusable design.
This seems to be an appropriate time for a plug for LDraw - a free (beer, not code) program for drawing LEGO models.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that the Danish CPR is operated by a foreign company (according to some, usually untrustworthy sources, actually a NSA subsidiary) there are limits to my trust in the CPR. But as long as you are aware of which data are stored in the register and what it is possible (not necessarily legal) to do with it, you should be able to live with it.
And I don't know if I really trust the Faroese counterpart to CPR more, even though it is operated by a company, which is partially owned by the government.
I suspect that the "GNAT Modified GPL" (GMGPL) solves your problem, since it specifically allows non-dynamic linking of libraries without infecting a program using the GMGPL'ed library.
Jacob
I am not sure this is a correct interpretation of what happens. Technically it is the TopText costumers who are "rendering" your web pages. They are just using a wierd browser, which happens to add clickable yellow spots here and there on the page. Legally I doubt anything is wrong with this. Considering how the browser apparently is sneaked onto the system together with something else, I find it wrong morally.
Does this modified MSIE still just identify itself as MSIE or does it admit that it is not really just MSIE? If it identifies itself as a TopText-modified-MSIE, then it is simply a matter of redirecting visitors using this browser to a warning page. If it doesn't, web site owners have to decide if they prefer ads on their site (most likely pointing to the competitor) or if the dare to ask their visitors to stop using MSIE because some editions of it do not live up to the editorial line of the site.
Jacob
PS: A long term option could be to insist that browsers somehow include a list of installed plug-ins in HTTP requests.
LEGO Users Group Network (Lugnet) seems to have solved these three problems. Lugnet is basically just a NNTP server focused on LEGO, but the added HTTP and SMTP interfaces makes it more flexible to use. At the same time you have to follow the rules of the site to maintain your posting privileges, which supports a higher content quality than on the "competing" Usenet group, rec.toys.lego.
Finally you only have to pay if you want to become a "member" of Lugnet with access to various additional features, such as a database for keeping track of your LEGO collection. And you decide for yourself how much you want to pay for your lifetime membership (with a minimum of 10 USD). This means that the micro payment problem is avoided completely by having people paying up front. The stingy users can of course still use the basic services without paying, but as long as the users as a whole find Lugnet more valuable than the cost of running it, this model can continue.
Jacob
I disagree - strongly!
First of all, I think the amount of material on the net which one could argue is unsuitable for is over estimated. I will not claim that the data on network traffic is wrong, but after having used the net actively for eight years, I don't think I have ever downloaded such material unintentionally (although I think quite a bit of it may have arrived in my mail box).
Second, the net can be an exellent tool for gathering information for your work (or studies or hobby) and at some point kids have to learn to use this tool (along with libraries, newspapers and other information sources).
So no, I find parents who don't teach their kids how to collect and evaluate information, whether through the net or through more traditional means, irresponsible (and probably unfit to be parents).
Jacob
This sounds like a really good idea.
For more inspiration on this topic, it might be worthwhile to read the paper "Mapping the virtual geography of the World-Wide Web" which discusses how to create a 2.5D map of a collection of web pages based on their separations.
Jacob
If the article is correct, and there are eight countries against the suggested changes in the European Patent Convention, then it is enough to prevent the change from coming through, since at least fourteen of the twenty members have to vote in favour of the change to pass it.
Jacob
I have experience with two different approaches for creating and maintaining multilingual web sites:
We use this approach for the SSLUG web site, and except for the lack of time, I see it as a success.
The language choice is based on (in order of priority): Direct choice, Accept-Languages, and client domain.
The actual implementation is done with SSI and plenty of conditional blocks. This makes the raw files look rather messy, but it is definitely beneficial to have the different language versions just next to each other.
I have used this approach for my own web site, but I wouldn't call it a great success. It is difficult to keep track of translations when they are stored in different files and the result will typically be pages that are severely out of sync. The main benefit of using one file per language is that you can leave the language choice to the Content Negotiation/MultiViews feature in Apache.
My advice for people starting on a multilingual web site is:
The multilingual files should be as close to plain HTML as possible, so something like
<p>
<en>Hello world
<fr>Salut le monde
<da>Hej verden
</p>
where you simply allow a sequence of language coded tags followed by a text in that language would probably be a good solution.
I doubt very much that the proposal is against the European Human Rights (US doesn't even live up to our level, so please stop yelling so much) or the rules of the European Community.
I would definitely prefer that the subject was clarified through a slight change to the laws about the responsibilities of publishers and journalists, rather than a new law, but I find that people are exaggerating this a bit.
JacobI really find it sad that so many people seem to think that the rules we have in "the real world" shouldn't apply on the Internet. - Generally we have those rules because they are sensible, or maybe even necessary to maintain our society.
Yes, just like in the rest of the publishing business.
I don't know what "AUPs" are, but somebody has to take responsibility for whatever illegal content that might be published. If the author of the content can't be identified, then it is obviously the owner of the server who will be considered the responsible editor.
It really shouldn't be necessary to pass a law to clarify that, and I find that six months of prison for insisting on the anonymity of your sources is unreasonable. On the other hand, the editor must take responsibility for whatever he is publishing.
JacobI have experienced this problem with some program (can't remember which) too, but I have never experienced that with gif2png or pnmtopng.
So I don't know what you are doing wrong, but switching to gif2png or pnmtopng is probably a pretty good fix - and gif2png can handle a whole directory at a time.
Back to the topic of GIF burning:
Most people have probably made their GIF files with a licensed program (or have had them made in a non-software-patent country), so there are probably not many people, if any, this whole LZW licensing story will touch.
We should, despite this, fight software patenting in general (those of us who believe it is wrong). But I can't see there is any point in wacking Unisys all the time. It looks more like witch-hunting than sensible action. What about MIT, Microsoft, IBM, and all the other companies who also hold software patents?
I have decided to keep my old GIF files around together with the PNG versions of the images. Using content negotiation and the MultiViews setting in Apache, I leave the actual choice of PNG or GIF to my visitors.
Jacob (who lives in a software patent free country :)
Why shouldn't the same rules apply on the Internet as everywhere else?
I think that most of what is going on on the Internet already is covered by various laws. The only problem that actually remains is which country rules where. I think the current system where the physical location of a server is impractical, because most people are unable to find out which country the server they are visiting is located in.
One possibility I think it could be worthwhile to consider is "we accept that all disputes with visitors located in are subject to the laws of " certificates that webmasters could put on their servers (if they want to do business with people in ).
Just like the American wild west? Anybody can cheat anybody? Shut down their web site? Run of with other peoples money?
I don't like that idea at all!
Having worked in an optimisation methods research group, I tend to agree.
I haven't read any articles from the group, but my guess is that viewing the sequence of bricks added as a "gene string" might make LEGO constructions an obvious task for genetic algorithm optimisation.
Can anyone tell me what information the elements of the strings contain besides the type of LEGO brick? They have to encode where the brick is placed relative to the previous addtion, otherwise almost any mixing of two strings will result is an unusable design.
This seems to be an appropriate time for a plug for LDraw - a free (beer, not code) program for drawing LEGO models.