The airwaves are great for broadcasting. Sure cable might be better in the cities, but they become very expensive as soon as there is a distance involved (and this was in canada, right) The problems with radio distribution start when you have multiple sources and multiple clients. (like cell phones) For one-way single source, wide distribution material, radio rules.
You have an intresting point, though. The distinction btw public domain and public distribution might do the trick:
Public domain: Use it however you want as long as you name the source. Public distribution: Distribute the unaltered material freely (and may the source be with it)
But if I had any moderation point you would have an insightful point.
I can GPL all I want in my spare time, but at work I'm in the hands of my management. Those guys think money first, ethics later. (at least they think etics) SO... How do we get management types to realize that open source is good for more than hobby?
the TV signals are in the air all around us, how the fuck can they not be public domain?
Well somehow I think that you should be able to create information for a profit, just as you can build a car for profit. If a car is unlocked in the street, that doesn't make it public domain, does it? Neither is an uncoded (or too-weak coded) radio signal "public domain".
If I steal a car or copy copyrighted material, you (or rather the insurance company) could argue that the owner ought to have locked the car/encrypt the data, but that doesn't make my action any more legal.
This is not a "company vs the web" issue it is "company A vs company B" where company B is freeriding.
C'mon. Sure information wants to be free, but few of us wants *all* our information s to be free. (unless you are Jenni)
AH THAT TERRIBLY BLOATED STANDARD KNOWN AS MAIL STOP ALL MIXED CASE EVERYWHERE STOP NOT TO MENTION LINEFEEDS STOP WHY DONT YOU LEARN MORSE CODE STOP CONVEYS INFORMATION JUST FINE STOP NO SECURITY HOLES THERE STOP
Got the idea? Seriously, you have to decide: Do you want email for text *or* for information? (see, I use ** too) Formatting can carry information too, you know. Sure, many lusers format their messages just to make them look cool, but you'll never convince me that (for expample) an monospace font formatted table is better than an html-ized one.
And if I for some reason send you an html mail that you can't read, it just might be *your* loss.
Does anyone have statistics over hits/platform? Since one must suspect that a number of apache sites are rather small that would be a more accurate measurement. (Not that I dont think Apache is ahead there too)
The best part of the article is all the attempts to find an "This is not a first amendment issue"-angle
I hereby invite/.-ers to form the official top ten list of "Lame excuses to shut down a site I don't like" Some entries from this case:
There were links to pornographic sites on there
Because Exley (...) must be regulated as a political campaign committee, (..) if he's going to act like a political committee, he should have to reveal his funding
use of photos lifted from the copyrighted official Bush campaign site.
The offered (read: didn't explicitly say no when we asked) to take down/rename teir site, so they are just in it for the buck.
Sorry, I was not in the best of modes when I wrote that. What got to me was the implication that "Real web people use perl and lynx"
When I design a page I think about the people who *wants* to wiev it. If I know that those people appriciates a feature, and that they can use it, then OK. If I dont know anything about them, then I'm much more conservative. Peace, OK?
'Bout frames again: I've seen good framed designs and bad no-frames designs. If you are a good developer you can use both methods. If you are bad, then simple rules like "always avoid frames" wont help.
There were stories about a year ago about how the Bible had this hidden "code". Apparently the Bible contained information about the assasination of several state leaders.
So God writes a document full of encoded criminal plans, without handing over the keys. Now, that makes God a criminal right?
C'mon! In the real world there are only two browsers and unfortunately the one from The Evil Empire is the better one. I could probably write a very good text-only interface, just in case someone is using his own home built toy browser, but seriously, anybody using any browser except the two big ones: a) knows enough about the web to download another browser if he/she wants to b) is willingly using a more "primitive" product.
Now I go to great lengths not to cause trouble for people who have slow connections, poor knowledge about the net or for any other reason is cannot upgrade, but if you actively decide not to be able to view a w3c-compliant page, then I'm not the least sorry for you.
So you're a "web developer" guy... Learn Perl and PHP at least before you call yourself one.
Im a web developer too. I can use perl, but I dont. It is too hard to maintain. Most of the time I actually use asp on the Evil Empire platform. My clients have the money to pay MS so why should I make it harder for myself. Of course I would prefer linux/apache for personal use and No Way would I use MS for a really critical high load site, but again no holy war, please!
You can still make shure that people can cache the parsed Pages
Yes the problems begin when I don't want them to cache anything. Both IE and netscape are buggy there.
My opiniom about frames? If you dont know how to use them: don't If they make your page better: Use them, but make sure that you use them right.
Re:Is this for real or just another publicity stun
on
FBI Shuts Down Website
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· Score: 1
Sorry, missed (or misinterpreted) that sentence. Though "no comment" often means "I never heard of this and I have no time to reply to every supposed case of malpractice. I have real work to do goodbye"
If this was a hoax, I think the FBI probably would have denied the truth of it
But why would they bother? I've seen the movie. I found it crappy and a complete waste of time and bandwidth. If the story hadn't reached/. I would never have heard of it. The FBI webpage seems to talk about cultist, not your everyday scare-people-and-make-a-buck types. And looking for nervgas-in-the-subway-cults is (IMHO) a valid cause.
This is exactly why this "open source community" cannot be trusted.
Open your system to linux, mozilla or free-whatever and you will immediatly open your system to virus makers, illegal mp3, and perhaps even command-line interfaces (shudder)
The proper way to deal ewith these threats is to use a single, well-known, reliable provider (such as Microsoft (TM)) That way every poster will be logged, and any ill intent will be catched by the new MS Echelon 2000 (TM) system
Now if we just substitute the peer moderation system for the much more reliable marketing/lawyer-moderation the quality of/. will improve hugely.
You all know that our freedom to innovate (TM) always has depended on the use of proprietary closed code. Preferably in the hands of a big benevolent company.
There is a *very* legal use of mp3 SE's As well as giving the would-be "music pirate" the chance to find free music, they are an ecellent tool in the hands of the record companies. Could you think of an easyer way to get a list of all sites who are hosting copyrighted material than to use lycos et al?
Point being: The ethical creator should worry more about *who* is using the program (or gun or whatever) than what it might be used for in the "wrong" hands.
If someone wants me to believe that the FBI actually spent any effort to keep this crap offline, they sure will need to work hard. How about some facts? Do we have *any* source of information about this thing except for "Mike Z"s own words?
Is this for real or just another publicity stunt?
on
FBI Shuts Down Website
·
· Score: 1
Somehow I always get suspicious when I read an article about some poor artist who has been treated badly by "them" (insert any three letter authority). Especially when there is *no* attempt to get a comment from "them" and nobody has heard about the artist before the article. If you read the article (you did that before posting a reply on/. right?) You will find that the only source of informations seems to be "Mike Z" himself. Now this might be a true story. In that case we simply have a case of overambitious officers and a cowardly ISP. If Mike Z had just got himself another ISP and maybe sued for damages, then his site would be up and running. But then again, who would know about him then?
Although proofs and such can be very comforting to know about, engineers (and some scientists) routinely used "unproven results" before the mathematical machinery is totally developed...
There once was a fellow on/. Whose system was stable and crasched not 'til he made a reboot and logged in as root now his system is known as a crash-bot
Now I also happen to be Swedish. I *don't* consider the US the big threat in general. I *do* consider US Lawyers a big threat. I *do* consider US lobby groups a big threat. Not a threat to me or my country but to Internet and free speech
But somehow I think I have a couple of US supporters there...
From my American perspective, China is the biggest threat to peace and stability. This is true in both electronic, conventional, and nuclear warfare.
Yes actually a lot is about perspective. Guess who is the biggest threat from a chinese perspective? Lets face it. The US is today's number one and thus everybody else's target. Guess why "we" are attacking Microsopht and defending sun?
Now, that article smelled heavily of bogus, but thats beside the point. The point is that an open society is always vulnerable to abuse by malicious individuals. If you don't want an open society, your best bet is probably to demonstrate that fact. If you dont like free speech point at the pr0n-sites. If you dont like open source point at the warez. If you dont like open societies point at the "terrorist threat"
And to those who speculate about the outcome of a war between USA and China... Get real! China could never conquer US and US could never conquer China. Period. Of course, both could inflict substantial damage on each other and their allies/neighbours. But nobody can take and hold such a large country across the whole world. Heck, You couldn't even hold Vietnam any more than Soviet could hold Afghanistan (or eastern europe)
Actually, many of us just assume that monopoly=bad, competition=good. But why?
OK, so all my money spent on software go to one company, big deal! Money spent are money spent regardless of who has them mow. Everyone is using Office 2K, so what! Maybe my collegues can read my letters on the first try now. Netscape is losing the browser war, oh my! Their product sux anyway...
Oh,.. wait, hold the flamebait points. I'm OK now. Maybe it was those paperclips who turned up for one millisecond per second that made me write that...
Here is the real problem with a software monopoly: A company whants to make money. That is OK. It's called capitalism. If the company has a small market share it can make more money by extending that share. That is OK too. It's called competition, and as a customer I'll probably benefit, cause the suppliers will be fighting each other for my money. Another way to make money is to create a better product hoping for your customers to upgrade. Again OK. Thats Innovation. Here comes the catch: Suppose the company has a monopoly. The still want to make money. They cant grow anymore in terms of market share. Whats left? Upgrades. But these new versions are no longer made to outperform a competitor. They are made primarily to keep the market going.
This is exactly what is happening on the desktops right now. Win 95 + Office 95/(97) was a killer combination. Before MS really had to fight against (for example) Mac. Since then MS has only released bugfixes and "features" Has anybody paid for an upgrade to win 98? If the file format had'nt changed (blast them) Would anyone have paid for an upgrade from office 95->97? (sorry forgot the cute paperclip)
imagine: you work for megacorp A. You have a bright idea that you know will improve megacorp A's product. The law lets YOU patent your idea and then lease it to whomever you please. YOU get some nice royalties from being creative and the public gets your idea put into the public view. Megacorp A gets to do what megacorps are supposed to do - efficiently bring massive resources to bear on meeting societies needs. In this case by leasing your patent to help them produce a product more effiently.
Nice for the inventor, but imagine this: You manage non-megacompany Z. You dont push your employees very hard, since you want them to have time to be creative. Sure, both you and them would make bigger bucks if you could bill every hour to a client for cash, but you figure that creativity is better in the long run than short term cash flow. One day someone gets a brilliant idea. Yippee, You think. It really pays off to be humane. One day a cold shover awaits you: The guy with the brilliant idea has gotten a patent and now megacorporation X is buying him over. You lern your lesson: Always think in short term profit. not a very nice one though...
Is it not time to really do something about the whole patent/trademark issue? I lost count long ago over all "This should never have been patented"-stories. Every time there are the usual replies about how evil the system is and the "what if i patent _this_"-posts.
C'mon You are supposed to be more creative than this! Can we think of a system that:
Protects the guy who really spent years of research coming up with something novel. He/she really should have the chance to make something of it before he is overrun by the Big Evil Company.
Stops the same guy from blocking the whole market for decades if the invention succeeds.
Lets me protect the name of any product I might sell.
Doesnt sent lawyers on me when I happen to use a name similar to something the Big Evil Company has TM:ed
Doesnt require me to scan every business area in every country for names that might sound similar to mine
Somehow deals with the situation where two local businesses suddenly meets over the net.
Actually is more suited for inventors than lawyers
It is obvious that the system is not working right as it is. Please be bright!
A html file, in a browser or in a mail client, with or without javascripts, activeX, Applets, shockwawe, whatever should *never* repeat *NEVER* be allowed to do anything with your client. No browser or email client should ever be able to do anything but display information without your *active* contribution.
I like html formatted mail, they are nice and they make it easier for me to format stuff. Sure I can use ascii formatting, I ususlly *use* ascii formatting but even so a little html tag can guarantee (almost) that, for example, the recipient reads my ascii formatted table in a fixed width font.
Slashdot Mirror
You have an intresting point, though. The distinction btw public domain and public distribution might do the trick:
Public domain: Use it however you want as long as you name the source.
Public distribution: Distribute the unaltered material freely (and may the source be with it)
I can GPL all I want in my spare time, but at work I'm in the hands of my management. Those guys think money first, ethics later. (at least they think etics) SO... How do we get management types to realize that open source is good for more than hobby?
Seldom have I seen a .sig more appropriate to the comment...
Well somehow I think that you should be able to create information for a profit, just as you can build a car for profit. If a car is unlocked in the street, that doesn't make it public domain, does it? Neither is an uncoded (or too-weak coded) radio signal "public domain".
If I steal a car or copy copyrighted material, you (or rather the insurance company) could argue that the owner ought to have locked the car/encrypt the data, but that doesn't make my action any more legal.
This is not a "company vs the web" issue it is "company A vs company B" where company B is freeriding.
C'mon. Sure information wants to be free, but few of us wants *all* our information s to be free. (unless you are Jenni)
Got the idea?
Seriously, you have to decide: Do you want email for text *or* for information? (see, I use ** too)
Formatting can carry information too, you know. Sure, many lusers format their messages just to make them look cool, but you'll never convince me that (for expample) an monospace font formatted table is better than an html-ized one.
And if I for some reason send you an html mail that you can't read, it just might be *your* loss.
Does anyone have statistics over hits/platform?
Since one must suspect that a number of apache sites are rather small that would be a more accurate measurement.
(Not that I dont think Apache is ahead there too)
I hereby invite /.-ers to form the official top ten list of "Lame excuses to shut down a site I don't like"
Some entries from this case:
When I design a page I think about the people who *wants* to wiev it. If I know that those people appriciates a feature, and that they can use it, then OK. If I dont know anything about them, then I'm much more conservative.
Peace, OK?
'Bout frames again:
I've seen good framed designs and bad no-frames designs. If you are a good developer you can use both methods. If you are bad, then simple rules like "always avoid frames" wont help.
So God writes a document full of encoded criminal plans, without handing over the keys.
Now, that makes God a criminal right?
Thank you. ;-)
You should be moderated as insightful
C'mon! In the real world there are only two browsers and unfortunately the one from The Evil Empire is the better one.
I could probably write a very good text-only interface, just in case someone is using his own home built toy browser, but seriously, anybody using any browser except the two big ones:
a) knows enough about the web to download another browser if he/she wants to
b) is willingly using a more "primitive" product.
Now I go to great lengths not to cause trouble for people who have slow connections, poor knowledge about the net or for any other reason is cannot upgrade, but if you actively decide not to be able to view a w3c-compliant page, then I'm not the least sorry for you.
So you're a "web developer" guy ... Learn Perl and PHP at least before you call yourself one.
Im a web developer too. I can use perl, but I dont. It is too hard to maintain. Most of the time I actually use asp on the Evil Empire platform. My clients have the money to pay MS so why should I make it harder for myself. Of course I would prefer linux/apache for personal use and No Way would I use MS for a really critical high load site, but again no holy war, please!
You can still make shure that people can cache the parsed Pages
Yes the problems begin when I don't want them to cache anything. Both IE and netscape are buggy there.
My opiniom about frames?
If you dont know how to use them: don't
If they make your page better: Use them, but make sure that you use them right.
If this was a hoax, I think the FBI probably would have denied the truth of it
But why would they bother? I've seen the movie. I found it crappy and a complete waste of time and bandwidth. If the story hadn't reached /. I would never have heard of it. The FBI webpage seems to talk about cultist, not your everyday scare-people-and-make-a-buck types.
And looking for nervgas-in-the-subway-cults is (IMHO) a valid cause.
Open your system to linux, mozilla or free-whatever and you will immediatly open your system to virus makers, illegal mp3, and perhaps even command-line interfaces (shudder)
The proper way to deal ewith these threats is to use a single, well-known, reliable provider (such as Microsoft (TM))
That way every poster will be logged, and any ill intent will be catched by the new MS Echelon 2000 (TM) system
Now if we just substitute the peer moderation system for the much more reliable marketing/lawyer-moderation the quality of /. will improve hugely.
You all know that our freedom to innovate (TM) always has depended on the use of proprietary closed code. Preferably in the hands of a big benevolent company.
As well as giving the would-be "music pirate" the chance to find free music, they are an ecellent tool in the hands of the record companies.
Could you think of an easyer way to get a list of all sites who are hosting copyrighted material than to use lycos et al?
Point being: The ethical creator should worry more about *who* is using the program (or gun or whatever) than what it might be used for in the "wrong" hands.
If someone wants me to believe that the FBI actually spent any effort to keep this crap offline, they sure will need to work hard.
How about some facts?
Do we have *any* source of information about this thing except for "Mike Z"s own words?
Somehow I always get suspicious when I read an article about some poor artist who has been treated badly by "them" (insert any three letter authority). Especially when there is *no* attempt to get a comment from "them" and nobody has heard about the artist before the article. /. right?) You will find that the only source of informations seems to be "Mike Z" himself.
If you read the article (you did that before posting a reply on
Now this might be a true story. In that case we simply have a case of overambitious officers and a cowardly ISP.
If Mike Z had just got himself another ISP and maybe sued for damages, then his site would be up and running. But then again, who would know about him then?
Can anyone say "Pentium" :-)
There once was a fellow on /.
Whose system was stable and crasched not
'til he made a reboot
and logged in as root
now his system is known as a crash-bot
I *do* consider US Lawyers a big threat. I *do* consider US lobby groups a big threat. Not a threat to me or my country but to Internet and free speech
But somehow I think I have a couple of US supporters there...
Yes actually a lot is about perspective. Guess who is the biggest threat from a chinese perspective?
Lets face it. The US is today's number one and thus everybody else's target. Guess why "we" are attacking Microsopht and defending sun?
Now, that article smelled heavily of bogus, but thats beside the point.
The point is that an open society is always vulnerable to abuse by malicious individuals. If you don't want an open society, your best bet is probably to demonstrate that fact. If you dont like free speech point at the pr0n-sites. If you dont like open source point at the warez. If you dont like open societies point at the "terrorist threat"
And to those who speculate about the outcome of a war between USA and China... Get real! China could never conquer US and US could never conquer China. Period. Of course, both could inflict substantial damage on each other and their allies/neighbours. But nobody can take and hold such a large country across the whole world. Heck, You couldn't even hold Vietnam any more than Soviet could hold Afghanistan (or eastern europe)
OK, so all my money spent on software go to one company, big deal! Money spent are money spent regardless of who has them mow. Everyone is using Office 2K, so what! Maybe my collegues can read my letters on the first try now. Netscape is losing the browser war, oh my! Their product sux anyway...
Oh,.. wait, hold the flamebait points. I'm OK now. Maybe it was those paperclips who turned up for one millisecond per second that made me write that...
Here is the real problem with a software monopoly:
A company whants to make money. That is OK. It's called capitalism. If the company has a small market share it can make more money by extending that share. That is OK too. It's called competition, and as a customer I'll probably benefit, cause the suppliers will be fighting each other for my money. Another way to make money is to create a better product hoping for your customers to upgrade. Again OK. Thats Innovation.
Here comes the catch: Suppose the company has a monopoly. The still want to make money. They cant grow anymore in terms of market share. Whats left? Upgrades. But these new versions are no longer made to outperform a competitor. They are made primarily to keep the market going.
This is exactly what is happening on the desktops right now. Win 95 + Office 95/(97) was a killer combination. Before MS really had to fight against (for example) Mac. Since then MS has only released bugfixes and "features" Has anybody paid for an upgrade to win 98? If the file format had'nt changed (blast them) Would anyone have paid for an upgrade from office 95->97? (sorry forgot the cute paperclip)
The laws of war has always had a PS:
None of the above really matters - if you win.
You may decide to take the chance and use "illegal" weapons. The laws just make the stakes higher.
Nice for the inventor, but imagine this:
You manage non-megacompany Z. You dont push your employees very hard, since you want them to have time to be creative. Sure, both you and them would make bigger bucks if you could bill every hour to a client for cash, but you figure that creativity is better in the long run than short term cash flow. One day someone gets a brilliant idea. Yippee, You think. It really pays off to be humane. One day a cold shover awaits you: The guy with the brilliant idea has gotten a patent and now megacorporation X is buying him over.
You lern your lesson: Always think in short term profit. not a very nice one though...
I lost count long ago over all "This should never have been patented"-stories. Every time there are the usual replies about how evil the system is and the "what if i patent _this_"-posts.
C'mon You are supposed to be more creative than this! Can we think of a system that:
- Protects the guy who really spent years of research coming up with something novel. He/she really should have the chance to make something of it before he is overrun by the Big Evil Company.
- Stops the same guy from blocking the whole market for decades if the invention succeeds.
- Lets me protect the name of any product I might sell.
- Doesnt sent lawyers on me when I happen to use a name similar to something the Big Evil Company has TM:ed
- Doesnt require me to scan every business area in every country for names that might sound similar to mine
- Somehow deals with the situation where two local businesses suddenly meets over the net.
- Actually is more suited for inventors than lawyers
It is obvious that the system is not working right as it is. Please be bright!I like html formatted mail, they are nice and they make it easier for me to format stuff. Sure I can use ascii formatting, I ususlly *use* ascii formatting but even so a little html tag can guarantee (almost) that, for example, the recipient reads my ascii formatted table in a fixed width font.