Not strangely at all, countries like Iran and China use the exact same rationale to do what they do. Maybe in this case the good outweighed the bad, but that exact reasoning can be used to suppress all sorts of information. Sometimes, the public should know things which may put people's lives in danger, for better or worse. Sometimes, those who would be in danger are the exact people who want to suppress the information. It is a very thin if you start to believe that any life is worth censorship.
I don't think this case is the beginning of any of a slippery slope, especially since all involved were private groups. Maybe it is a bit questionable that Jimbo was involved, but he's been involved in a lot worse which no one ever talks about. What unnerves me is people who think like you, making these sort of statements without seeing how they have already been abused. If there is a slippery slope, you're sliding down it.
Also, anarchy is NOT a slippery slope. Everything in history points to the idea that from anarchy arises order. The existence of government today points to that fact, unless you're religious. That is why it is far better to err on the side of anarchy than to err on the side of fascism.
On my old website, I had for a while password fields with no bullets. I had assumed, that given the low-importance nature of the site and all, no one would really care, and it did make it easier.
A few weeks after opening, I had found out that a few people had not created accounts, because they had the strange idea that not having bullets somehow made the site less secure. That somehow, *I* would be able to see their password, more than if there were bullets.
Needless to say, I changed over my password fields to bulleted, because I didn't want to lose any possible members to such a stupid problem. I still think that plain text is better, but it has become mandatory security theater. Much like an SSL cert makes even the most questionable site legitimate, lacking bulleted passwords makes people think you're being sneaky somehow. It is sad, but it's reality.
What's this... The area with the most polluted air in the US has some slightly tough regulations, making it hard to build more coal power plants? The devil you say! Clearly, they should just bend over, and start sucking up whatever amount of soot the multinational corporations feel like putting out...
...and no power is an acceptable alternative? They could have built any number of other forms of plants - including nuclear. But...
OMG NUCLEAR! You want to build a BOMB in my state! How dare you. Not in my county, we'll fight this to the supreme court!
California is not sustainable, because they look only to the short term, and have short memories.
Exactly. People who use the GPL and then use the term "stole" to refer to violations of it are to me far more vile than even the RIAA claiming copyright infringement is "stealing". Doing so makes us all look bad; how can us sane open-source developers argue against the misapplication of that word when a strange fringe of us really are the hypocrites that we are usually called?
If you want to ever make these dishonest claims, do the people who actually understand open source a favor: don't use the GPL. Or the BSD and creative commons, for that matter; I'm sure advocates of those are just as unhappy to see you ruining their image as we are.
"As for being a troll...just because I have a different view than most of the techno-hippies on/. does not make me a troll...."
Perhaps not, but your fuming and rhetorical method of delivery certainly does. That and if we're thieves and techno-hippies, you can be a troll; labels are easy to throw around.
You are seriously complaining about someone cheapening your 'training' to play a video game?
My advice, go spend the time you would 'train' to play games on learning something actually useful. Then you won't need to worry about someone devaluing your accomplishments, because they will be real.
Funny - if I pirated the RIAA's catalog, I think I would be taken to a US Court, not in front of the twelve apostles.
While it may be claimed that the government only codifies "inherent" rights, I see little inherent in copyright, voting, and all manner of other things the government... doesn't grant.
Copyright is obvious, but voting not so much. Not too long ago at all, women and blacks had no "inherent" right to vote. Recently, what is inherent seems to have changed. Or is it more likely that it was simply a change to which rights are granted?
Like it or not, the government has authority to tell you where to shove it. Any thoughts otherwise are ether wishful thinking, or an abuse of semantics to support your own preconceived opinions. The only time any right is "inherent" is when the government faces revolt if it is not granted. That is how it always has been, and always will be.
Really, does Microsoft completely miss the point of search engines? I mean, I know they missed the point of operating systems and web browsers, but this is ridiculous. You spend millions on advertising, and then blow a good portion of your target market (Indians searching for sex and geeks who will object to this blatant censorship) right off the bat.
Actually, some people give karma-affecting mods to funny posts, as "funny" doesn't give any bonus. Therefore, rating funny posts "insightful" counteracts any trolls or flamebaits that poster may have gotten (or will get).
Exactly. Copyright has managed to take art and culture and turn it into business and property, which was never what it was intended to do (at least, on paper). Copyright was never intended to "help" starving artists - it is not the place of the government, or anyone else, to place upon society at large a limitation for the sole benefit of a small subset of people.
Copyright existed to encourage works to be created, and created more freely. It was supposed to replace the patron model, where usually an artist would work for a wealthy person of some form. To those without patrons, they could still commission for medium-wealth people, or (in some cases), make a living performing the art.
Now, copyright has done the opposite of replace the patron model. It has rooted it firmly in place, with the force of the state backing it. Large corporations, or groups of them, now control media via copyright. The RIAA, MPAA, etc; if you are not beholden to them, good luck!
Of course, you could say that it is not that those groups have any special power. "Go out and write a song, then!" Many say. The problem is, art does not come from thin air. No work is created in a vacuum. For centuries, any work of art would build upon the last. Popular culture could be used freely. Not so any more. Popular culture is now owned - the ability to make art is thus owned.
And then, to make it worse, the majority of media channels (save the internet - for now) are owned by the same groups that own the copyrights! Therefore, even if you did manage to somehow summon from nowhere something totally unique; if you somehow managed to gain the capital to market it to their levels, you'd STILL be second rate, because guess where your work will never be seen?
This is only getting worse in recent years, even with the existence of a largely free internet. What will happen when the big players finally have control over the last free mass medium? We'll see soon, if this ruling is any indication.
What is the root of all this? The media players' propaganda as to the meaning of copyright - "artists deserve to make a profit." If this were truly the reason for their support of copyright, you think maybe they'd try to do something about the thousands of actually starving artists, under their fingers?
Even if you ignore their seeming contradiction, it should be obvious to most people that law should serve the greater good. Copyright is not serving the greater good, it is not even serving the people whom it is thought it should help.
Of course, everyone thinks that somehow, the ability to control your creations is a god-given right. Death to those whom do what has been, for thousands of years, totally acceptable. Death to those who do what is totally natural: communicate.
The end of the story is, copyright needs abolished. Now. It is not doing what it said on the package - "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Until it is abolished, we - consumers and artists - won't be free. We'll just be beholden to cooperate interests, who tow the line "think of the artist," while they think only of their nicely plump profit margins.
He doesn't because it's not what he's worried about. I'm a Linux fanboy and agree with what he says - Apple is a far bigger danger than Microsoft ever was, because unlike Microsoft, they want control over everything on their platform. The fact people don't see Apple as a danger (and sadly, see them as god-like in some cases) is even more dangerous.
Just point out how much more secure Firefox is than IE, or OpenBSD is than Windows, or any other hundreds of examples. The proof isn't hard to see, especially when it's Microsoft trying to argue.
Copyright (and patents) was created so that artists and inventors could work for themselves, rather than a rich patron, which had been the case for centuries before. It had the goal of encouraging the creation of new works and allowing for more artistic freedom than existed.
It failed.
I'll grant that it may have worked for a time, but big corporations eventually came in and perverted it into a state-enforced version of the old patron system.
Copyright was never about trying to make labor compensated, and for good reason; it's an asinine idea. Why should someone make money simply for doing what they want? If what they do is worth money, someone out there will pay for it. It is not the state's place to try to protect *ANY* person's business. That's the basic principal of the free market, which the US and many of the other copyright-loving countries supposedly believe in.
Even if you refuse to accept that copyright was not intended for that purpose, it's obvious it does a piss-poor job of compensating effort. The few people who happen to have been taken under the wing of their corporate patrons are richer than the vast majority of humans, and most everyone else trying to produce some kind of artistic work is as much a 'starving artist' as ever, and by most measures worse off.
By now, just shortly into copyrighting works if you look at the big picture, we're already running out of totally original ideas. Some say such a thing doesn't even exist, but it's debatable so I won't assert that. It is, however, a fact that it is almost impossible to create any kind of work in the modern world without running the risk of violating someone's copyright, patent or trademark. The effect? The bar of entry is raised to only those who can afford it... the ultra-rich, and the media conglomerates.
The simple fact of the matter is, copyright just ensures that the old patron system not only live on, but is more entrenched legally AND socially than ever before. It has failed it's purpose, it has failed us, and we as the people who it was supposed to serve now need to take back what is ours.
Or maybe the overestimated them and never attached the technology to leave their planet before it got destroyed by overpopulation/meteor/star-death. Your argument is the worst kind of trying to argue causation from correlation: because something not even related to [subject] ISN'T true, [subject] must be true.
It's much more likely that FTL isn't possible (in which case there could be life in half the galaxy and we'd probably never know), or life is just really, really rare. Or maybe dimensional travel is easier than FTL. Aliens blowing themselves up with a LHC clone isn't even on the list of possibilities IMO.
So, putting "believe" into their statement would somehow make it politically correct, and they should do that, because you said so?
Sorry, no. They stated their opinion. Here is a newsflash for you: nothing is absolute. Should everyone prefix their opinions, assumptions and even what they think is a fact, with a disclaimer that it's just their opinion, and not to worry, but there is no free software god that is going to send all Microsoft devs to hell?
Lets see;
"I believe evolution is the best explanation."
"I believe you need 3 AAA batteries."
"I believe my hair is on fire."
I am sorry to have to point this out to you, but it's the FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION. I think that anyone capable of understanding the English language would be able to recognize that it is their opinion, politically-correct belief disclaimer or not.
TOME is a very good game as well, if you can handle totally keyboard interfaces. It is similar to nethack, but has more of the things you'd expect from a typical modern RPG. It has a (very dated) graphics mode or text. Only problem is probably the difficulty, you'll die a lot first starting out. Enable the cheat death option until you get the hang of it; it'll make the game much more fun.
That you may say what he approves of, when and where he approves of them, or get locked up with the other people who 'incite hatred'. You know, probably like those scientists who didn't accept creationism, gays (can't have hatred without the hated!) and other such groups that need to just learn to shut up, because the OP doesn't want to hear what they think.
Far from pushing forward, it's more like forcing unfinished software on people. The main reason I decided to use Gentoo on this computer over Kubuntu/Fedora is exactly that- I'd like to have more of a choice as to what I install, and nether of those gave me much.
The right option would be to allow to user to choose what KDE they wanted on install, and they may very well do that; but if Linus couldn't figure it out/put up with it, then something is obviously wrong. How would the average user upgrade to KDE3 from 4?
4.2 may be making improvements, but it's still far from the level of customization and usability that made KDE what it was. I will be sticking with 3.5 until it returns to that, if it ever does; fluxbox is looking better and better.
I will also echo a prior poster's sentiment that it is sad that open source has taken to the same 'release it before it's ready so you can appear a step ahead' tactic that Microsoft has been using for years. It didn't do Microsoft any favors, and it's going to substantially slow open source adaptation if it becomes prominent.
Slashdot Mirror
Not strangely at all, countries like Iran and China use the exact same rationale to do what they do. Maybe in this case the good outweighed the bad, but that exact reasoning can be used to suppress all sorts of information. Sometimes, the public should know things which may put people's lives in danger, for better or worse. Sometimes, those who would be in danger are the exact people who want to suppress the information. It is a very thin if you start to believe that any life is worth censorship.
I don't think this case is the beginning of any of a slippery slope, especially since all involved were private groups. Maybe it is a bit questionable that Jimbo was involved, but he's been involved in a lot worse which no one ever talks about. What unnerves me is people who think like you, making these sort of statements without seeing how they have already been abused. If there is a slippery slope, you're sliding down it.
Also, anarchy is NOT a slippery slope. Everything in history points to the idea that from anarchy arises order. The existence of government today points to that fact, unless you're religious. That is why it is far better to err on the side of anarchy than to err on the side of fascism.
On my old website, I had for a while password fields with no bullets. I had assumed, that given the low-importance nature of the site and all, no one would really care, and it did make it easier.
A few weeks after opening, I had found out that a few people had not created accounts, because they had the strange idea that not having bullets somehow made the site less secure. That somehow, *I* would be able to see their password, more than if there were bullets.
Needless to say, I changed over my password fields to bulleted, because I didn't want to lose any possible members to such a stupid problem. I still think that plain text is better, but it has become mandatory security theater. Much like an SSL cert makes even the most questionable site legitimate, lacking bulleted passwords makes people think you're being sneaky somehow. It is sad, but it's reality.
OMG NUCLEAR! You want to build a BOMB in my state! How dare you. Not in my county, we'll fight this to the supreme court!
California is not sustainable, because they look only to the short term, and have short memories.
Have you tried reading your own post? Specifically:
I'd argue that's exactly the point here.
Exactly. People who use the GPL and then use the term "stole" to refer to violations of it are to me far more vile than even the RIAA claiming copyright infringement is "stealing". Doing so makes us all look bad; how can us sane open-source developers argue against the misapplication of that word when a strange fringe of us really are the hypocrites that we are usually called?
If you want to ever make these dishonest claims, do the people who actually understand open source a favor: don't use the GPL. Or the BSD and creative commons, for that matter; I'm sure advocates of those are just as unhappy to see you ruining their image as we are.
"As for being a troll...just because I have a different view than most of the techno-hippies on /. does not make me a troll...."
Perhaps not, but your fuming and rhetorical method of delivery certainly does. That and if we're thieves and techno-hippies, you can be a troll; labels are easy to throw around.
You are seriously complaining about someone cheapening your 'training' to play a video game?
My advice, go spend the time you would 'train' to play games on learning something actually useful. Then you won't need to worry about someone devaluing your accomplishments, because they will be real.
The middle ages called, they want their alchemy back.
Funny - if I pirated the RIAA's catalog, I think I would be taken to a US Court, not in front of the twelve apostles.
While it may be claimed that the government only codifies "inherent" rights, I see little inherent in copyright, voting, and all manner of other things the government... doesn't grant.
Copyright is obvious, but voting not so much. Not too long ago at all, women and blacks had no "inherent" right to vote. Recently, what is inherent seems to have changed. Or is it more likely that it was simply a change to which rights are granted?
Like it or not, the government has authority to tell you where to shove it. Any thoughts otherwise are ether wishful thinking, or an abuse of semantics to support your own preconceived opinions. The only time any right is "inherent" is when the government faces revolt if it is not granted. That is how it always has been, and always will be.
...dead on arrival.
Really, does Microsoft completely miss the point of search engines? I mean, I know they missed the point of operating systems and web browsers, but this is ridiculous. You spend millions on advertising, and then blow a good portion of your target market (Indians searching for sex and geeks who will object to this blatant censorship) right off the bat.
I will never cease to be amazed by this company.
Porn porn porn porn. Lovely porn! Wonderful porn!
Actually, some people give karma-affecting mods to funny posts, as "funny" doesn't give any bonus. Therefore, rating funny posts "insightful" counteracts any trolls or flamebaits that poster may have gotten (or will get).
Exactly. Copyright has managed to take art and culture and turn it into business and property, which was never what it was intended to do (at least, on paper). Copyright was never intended to "help" starving artists - it is not the place of the government, or anyone else, to place upon society at large a limitation for the sole benefit of a small subset of people.
Copyright existed to encourage works to be created, and created more freely. It was supposed to replace the patron model, where usually an artist would work for a wealthy person of some form. To those without patrons, they could still commission for medium-wealth people, or (in some cases), make a living performing the art.
Now, copyright has done the opposite of replace the patron model. It has rooted it firmly in place, with the force of the state backing it. Large corporations, or groups of them, now control media via copyright. The RIAA, MPAA, etc; if you are not beholden to them, good luck!
Of course, you could say that it is not that those groups have any special power. "Go out and write a song, then!" Many say. The problem is, art does not come from thin air. No work is created in a vacuum. For centuries, any work of art would build upon the last. Popular culture could be used freely. Not so any more. Popular culture is now owned - the ability to make art is thus owned.
And then, to make it worse, the majority of media channels (save the internet - for now) are owned by the same groups that own the copyrights! Therefore, even if you did manage to somehow summon from nowhere something totally unique; if you somehow managed to gain the capital to market it to their levels, you'd STILL be second rate, because guess where your work will never be seen?
This is only getting worse in recent years, even with the existence of a largely free internet. What will happen when the big players finally have control over the last free mass medium? We'll see soon, if this ruling is any indication.
What is the root of all this? The media players' propaganda as to the meaning of copyright - "artists deserve to make a profit." If this were truly the reason for their support of copyright, you think maybe they'd try to do something about the thousands of actually starving artists, under their fingers?
Even if you ignore their seeming contradiction, it should be obvious to most people that law should serve the greater good. Copyright is not serving the greater good, it is not even serving the people whom it is thought it should help.
Of course, everyone thinks that somehow, the ability to control your creations is a god-given right. Death to those whom do what has been, for thousands of years, totally acceptable. Death to those who do what is totally natural: communicate.
The end of the story is, copyright needs abolished. Now. It is not doing what it said on the package - "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Until it is abolished, we - consumers and artists - won't be free. We'll just be beholden to cooperate interests, who tow the line "think of the artist," while they think only of their nicely plump profit margins.
Quick, I think they launched another one!
Oh wait, that was just the sound of a joke flying past.
I wasn't aware that playing video games attracted Candlejack. I think we need to get someone to lo
I program in C++ and PHP, you insensitive clod!
He doesn't because it's not what he's worried about. I'm a Linux fanboy and agree with what he says - Apple is a far bigger danger than Microsoft ever was, because unlike Microsoft, they want control over everything on their platform. The fact people don't see Apple as a danger (and sadly, see them as god-like in some cases) is even more dangerous.
Just point out how much more secure Firefox is than IE, or OpenBSD is than Windows, or any other hundreds of examples. The proof isn't hard to see, especially when it's Microsoft trying to argue.
Your sarcasm is inaccurate.
Copyright (and patents) was created so that artists and inventors could work for themselves, rather than a rich patron, which had been the case for centuries before. It had the goal of encouraging the creation of new works and allowing for more artistic freedom than existed.
It failed.
I'll grant that it may have worked for a time, but big corporations eventually came in and perverted it into a state-enforced version of the old patron system.
Copyright was never about trying to make labor compensated, and for good reason; it's an asinine idea. Why should someone make money simply for doing what they want? If what they do is worth money, someone out there will pay for it. It is not the state's place to try to protect *ANY* person's business. That's the basic principal of the free market, which the US and many of the other copyright-loving countries supposedly believe in.
Even if you refuse to accept that copyright was not intended for that purpose, it's obvious it does a piss-poor job of compensating effort. The few people who happen to have been taken under the wing of their corporate patrons are richer than the vast majority of humans, and most everyone else trying to produce some kind of artistic work is as much a 'starving artist' as ever, and by most measures worse off.
By now, just shortly into copyrighting works if you look at the big picture, we're already running out of totally original ideas. Some say such a thing doesn't even exist, but it's debatable so I won't assert that. It is, however, a fact that it is almost impossible to create any kind of work in the modern world without running the risk of violating someone's copyright, patent or trademark. The effect? The bar of entry is raised to only those who can afford it... the ultra-rich, and the media conglomerates.
The simple fact of the matter is, copyright just ensures that the old patron system not only live on, but is more entrenched legally AND socially than ever before. It has failed it's purpose, it has failed us, and we as the people who it was supposed to serve now need to take back what is ours.
Or maybe the overestimated them and never attached the technology to leave their planet before it got destroyed by overpopulation/meteor/star-death. Your argument is the worst kind of trying to argue causation from correlation: because something not even related to [subject] ISN'T true, [subject] must be true.
It's much more likely that FTL isn't possible (in which case there could be life in half the galaxy and we'd probably never know), or life is just really, really rare. Or maybe dimensional travel is easier than FTL. Aliens blowing themselves up with a LHC clone isn't even on the list of possibilities IMO.
So, putting "believe" into their statement would somehow make it politically correct, and they should do that, because you said so?
Sorry, no. They stated their opinion. Here is a newsflash for you: nothing is absolute. Should everyone prefix their opinions, assumptions and even what they think is a fact, with a disclaimer that it's just their opinion, and not to worry, but there is no free software god that is going to send all Microsoft devs to hell?
Lets see;
"I believe evolution is the best explanation."
"I believe you need 3 AAA batteries."
"I believe my hair is on fire."
I am sorry to have to point this out to you, but it's the FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION. I think that anyone capable of understanding the English language would be able to recognize that it is their opinion, politically-correct belief disclaimer or not.
TOME is a very good game as well, if you can handle totally keyboard interfaces. It is similar to nethack, but has more of the things you'd expect from a typical modern RPG. It has a (very dated) graphics mode or text. Only problem is probably the difficulty, you'll die a lot first starting out. Enable the cheat death option until you get the hang of it; it'll make the game much more fun.
That you may say what he approves of, when and where he approves of them, or get locked up with the other people who 'incite hatred'. You know, probably like those scientists who didn't accept creationism, gays (can't have hatred without the hated!) and other such groups that need to just learn to shut up, because the OP doesn't want to hear what they think.
Far from pushing forward, it's more like forcing unfinished software on people. The main reason I decided to use Gentoo on this computer over Kubuntu/Fedora is exactly that- I'd like to have more of a choice as to what I install, and nether of those gave me much.
The right option would be to allow to user to choose what KDE they wanted on install, and they may very well do that; but if Linus couldn't figure it out/put up with it, then something is obviously wrong. How would the average user upgrade to KDE3 from 4?
4.2 may be making improvements, but it's still far from the level of customization and usability that made KDE what it was. I will be sticking with 3.5 until it returns to that, if it ever does; fluxbox is looking better and better.
I will also echo a prior poster's sentiment that it is sad that open source has taken to the same 'release it before it's ready so you can appear a step ahead' tactic that Microsoft has been using for years. It didn't do Microsoft any favors, and it's going to substantially slow open source adaptation if it becomes prominent.
Star Trek is an hour long, you insensitive clod!