Well I am sorry to disagree, while I guess there is value to Freenet's effort, I think this is no more than a elaborate caching strategy.
You would get the same effect of "locally available popular information" with a nework of web caches like squid for example.
To quote some of the interview:
Q: Can you just explain a bit technically how that works? How the system is architected?
A: You could look at it like an ant colony where instead of food you have pieces of information, and instead of ants you have requests, which travel around this network. Freenet, when you request a piece of information on Freenet, you ask your local Freenet node for that information. If it has the information itself, it will obviously return it to you. If not, it will forward that request on to another node that is more likely to have that information - and nodes in the network actually learn with time how to better route information through the network - so they additionally move information closer to where the demand for that information is, so that when you request a piece of information, immediately after you requested it a copy of that information will reside on your computer and the computers close to you for a short amount of time. If you or other people close to you then request that information, they will receive that information immediately. So this is really the way that it dynamically moves information closer to demand.
Well that strikes me as a good definition of a cache. Cool except that if you read on, the caching strategy does not really make provision for dynamic content...
Also for the idea of freenet replacing DNS... It's not april 1st yet ! Where did that come from ? Seriously, he is on crack there.
I think that at this time they have troubles creating large LEP screens. From what I have heard and seen, they can achieve cell-phone size screens properly, but not much more.
Remember this is one of the first public announcement of this technology. This is already cool. A lot of people are working on this and by the time we hit the 3rd or 4th generation, we should have reasonably sized screens.
Sooo..if Connectix can reverse engineer Sony software and hardware, what's the difference between that and reverse engineering CSS? Or is this strictly a DCMA thing and Sony didn't sue under that law?
<rant> How about, in one case US companies interest is hurt by the reverse engineering, in the other case US companies benefit from the reverse engineering ? </rant>
You can divide and classify ideas and expressions differntly. But in doing so you fall into a paradox. You cannot have one without the other. This is inherent in what you yourself express. You have an idea that Katz is wrong, and you seek to express that idea. The expression of the idea is tied directly to the idea itself.
Yes, copyright laws specifically protect the expression and not the idea. If you find a novel way to express the fact that Jon Katz is wrong (such as this post), then you are not infriging on Jerf's intellectual property.
With the 'Net we find more and different methods of expressing old ideas. Like going to a town square and listing to a performance of a play or musician. That was free then, and all you had to do was get there. Now we just download the performance we want to hear and enjoy it at home. The fact that several hundered years seperates the two is where the problem comes in.
This argument is fundamentaly wrong. It was free then because the authors/performers chose to make it available for free. If a songwriter decides to put his songs in MP3 on a website and not charge for them. Then yes you have access to them for free. If I rip a CD and put the songs in MP3 on my web site without the permission of the copyright owner, what I am doing is illegal.
What you are confusing is the expression and the distribution. The expression is protected, the distribution is what the owner of the expression choses to be OK. Just because you went to listen to some music for free in a square does not necessarily give you the right to record it a replay it to other people at will. Why do you think tape recorders are usually not allowed in concert halls ?
This piece is fairly long. Also please note that I am not a defender of the big corporations in their fight against the common netizen. I just wanted to clarify a few points that I find misleading in John Katz article.
Theft is easy to understand, and easy to deal with, when stolen goods can be quantified, and the thief caught and prosecuted. But such concepts pre-date the Internet era. If you loan a CD to a friend who burns himself a copy, have you stolen from the music industry? What if your friend would never have purchased that particular CD anyhow?
To answer the first question, no you did not steal from the music industry, but you friend who burnt the CD did. To answer the second question, it does not matter if he would have bought it or not. If he did not want it, then why did he burn it in the first place ?
I think that this example is not well chosen. You may argue that the price of the good exceeds the value that your friend pouts on it, but this is not enough to make the burning of the CD acceptable. This is similar to using a shareware without paying the license.
The kids who download free music from a young age as a matter of course have little awareness that they are appropriating someone else's property. Most wouldn't dream of shoplifting in a store: they consider it stealing and they might face arrest, humiliation and punishment as a consequence. But acquiring movies, music, games or other intellectual property online is so simple, so ubiquitous, that it's become almost instinctive.
But does it make it moral ? Just because it is easy and ubiquitous to, say kill my neighbour, should I be doing it ? It comes down to education and to wheither or not you follow some sort of moral/legal code.
If the music is available for free (download) in the same way as a shareware is available for free (download). Then you have the right to obtain it, but you also have the duty to retribute the author/owner as he demands.
Just because you did not do it for all your life does not make it acceptable that you or others do it.
Copyright laws usually protect the expression of an idea. A software is the expression of an idea. Music is the expression of an idea. That specific expression (regardless of the medium) belongs to somebody.
Certainly, notions of exposure and punishment no longer apply.
WHY ???
Just because it is easy to copy does not make it right!!!
Unenforceable laws like traditional copyright restrictions don't promote morality or lawfulness; they undermine them. What kids learn isn't that it's wrong to steal, but that these kinds of laws are antiquated and toothless. Younger Net users have been able to acquire free music and other culture for so long they understandably view it as a right, not a sudden opportunity to steal. People tend to react most intensely to the loss of rights they already have.
The key here is that you are not loosing a right you have. You are being told that you don't have, and never had, that right. The problem again is mostly in educating people to understand that because there is no physical manifestation of the good (it's only a file on my hard-drive after all), does not mean that it has no value.
Empowerment is one of the words most over used to describe the effect of the Net, but it's also one of the most apt. Giving people the ability to access vast music archives, to make films, to download games and acquire other kinds of entertainment is a landmark of the Information Age.
True. I think what defines the Information Age is more that now the creators/owners of copyrighted material now have the option to not use tradditional physical media to distribute their work. As a consequence, they don't need the big corporations as much as they used to in order to reach a broad audience. This is what defines the Information Age. Not the fact that there is no ownership over creation anymore.
Corporatists are the biggest modern menace to free speech and individualism, more powerful and predatory than most governments.
I think that this is the key. Big corporations are not happy because the Net may (will ?) undermine their established power. They try to put all their weight in a battle to prevent people from doing without them. This is what we collectively have to fight against, not the fact that the expression of an idea belongs to its author. Note that I refer to the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, which does not belong to anybody.
What we have to understand is that a song or a piece of software IS the expression of an idea, and as such IS OWNED by somebody who is commonly known as the author. This ownership is transferable, which is how the big corporations got in a position where they own most of the production that exists. They got their simply because one needed them to be able to distribute his/her work. The Information Age enables us to get rid of the middle-men, and the corporations are the middle-men. The Information Age does not anihilate the notion of intellectual property/copyright.
Well there are quite a few people who were not happy with NetSol anyway, so I guess that it was a really good thing that the domain name registration system opened up recently.
For those who did not catch on yet, go to http://www.opensrs.org/ for the best alternative to Network Solution.
Now if anybody needed incentive to not use NetSol anymore, I guess there is no need to wait!
At least now we know that the only source of reliable information is Slashdot... They don't use live video broadcast, so they definitely can't alter the content...
Or maybe it is segfault... At least they present a TRUE made up story, not something based on reality which as we now know can be decieving...
I would like to comment on the following point by jflynn:
We can and should ignore Microsoft on the day the following can be asserted with truth: 1) Hardware vendors are just as likely to create drivers for Linux as Microsoft. 2) System vendors can't be pressured successfully by Microsoft to avoid using competing products like Linux or Netscape. 3) Microsoft no longer dominates standards thru controlling the OS platform used by nearly everyone.
I believe that most of these can or will be asserted truth real soon now:
1) buy any ethernet card and you will have the linux/sco/anyunix driver on a floppy with it.
2) Dell is shipping PC's with Linux and so are doing more and more vendors
3) This is maybe the most pertinent point: if you are talking about standards like TCP/IP or HTTP, microsoft does not control them (bye bye NetBIOS, etc.). If you are talking about using Word and Excell (which is some form of protocol: it controls the data format), this is still dominated by MS, but is it really the issue ?
I think that the most interesting point made by Tim O'Reilly is that the battle is not at the OS level as much as the open source community seems to believe.
Just for an example, look at the reaction created by MS last piece (about Linux Myths) in the Linux-NT war... They wanted the reaction from the community and got it... They would have missed their goal if nobody commented on it. However hordes of "hackers" (with the existing "bad" connotation of that term) yelling and screaming is much more efficient at prooving that "open source" at large and linux in particular is not serious enough for serious businesses... I think they achieved their goals with that document.
To go back to Tim O'Reilly's piece, his message is clear: focus on what will be the battle field of tomorrow (i.e. invent it) rather than try to fight yesterday's war (which is the best OS ? we already know...). What will be the battle field I don't know. He is suggesting the information/web at large. Maybe, maybe not. But it's probably not the OS.
Slashdot Mirror
The day that this feature is available in vi, I will quit software design for good...
This not all caps, these are all numbers... 2001-03-23 04:07:33
You would get the same effect of "locally available popular information" with a nework of web caches like squid for example.
To quote some of the interview:
Well that strikes me as a good definition of a cache. Cool except that if you read on, the caching strategy does not really make provision for dynamic content...
Also for the idea of freenet replacing DNS... It's not april 1st yet ! Where did that come from ? Seriously, he is on crack there.
Patrick.
Now that the bid has reach 10,000,000 $, what do you think he is going to do ? Open a venture cap firm ?
That would be cool... I can just imagine somebody saying "I've been funded by the ex-owner of F*ckedcompany.com... This proves that my idea is good !"
9 more days to go with the bid...
I guess this is because the US is really not as much the nation of freedom as it is the nation of CORPORATE freedom and power.
Come on what do you think is great with liberalism ? Individual freedom ? pffff....
I think that at this time they have troubles creating large LEP screens. From what I have heard and seen, they can achieve cell-phone size screens properly, but not much more.
Remember this is one of the first public announcement of this technology. This is already cool. A lot of people are working on this and by the time we hit the 3rd or 4th generation, we should have reasonably sized screens.
How long did it take to have 15' LCD screens ?
Patrick.
<rant>
How about, in one case US companies interest is hurt by the reverse engineering, in the other case US companies benefit from the reverse engineering ?
</rant>
Noticed the great comment from Sun's CEO Scott McNealy:
"You already have zero privacy -- get over it"
Way to go!
Thank god, the Internet is going to be cleaned... I hope all these flame go away too...
What you are confusing is the expression and the distribution. The expression is protected, the distribution is what the owner of the expression choses to be OK. Just because you went to listen to some music for free in a square does not necessarily give you the right to record it a replay it to other people at will. Why do you think tape recorders are usually not allowed in concert halls ?
Patrick
To answer the second question, it does not matter if he would have bought it or not. If he did not want it, then why did he burn it in the first place ?
I think that this example is not well chosen. You may argue that the price of the good exceeds the value that your friend pouts on it, but this is not enough to make the burning of the CD acceptable. This is similar to using a shareware without paying the license.
But does it make it moral ? Just because it is easy and ubiquitous to, say kill my neighbour, should I be doing it ? It comes down to education and to wheither or not you follow some sort of moral/legal code.If the music is available for free (download) in the same way as a shareware is available for free (download). Then you have the right to obtain it, but you also have the duty to retribute the author/owner as he demands.
Just because you did not do it for all your life does not make it acceptable that you or others do it.
Copyright laws usually protect the expression of an idea. A software is the expression of an idea. Music is the expression of an idea. That specific expression (regardless of the medium) belongs to somebody.
WHY ???Just because it is easy to copy does not make it right!!!
The key here is that you are not loosing a right you have. You are being told that you don't have, and never had, that right. The problem again is mostly in educating people to understand that because there is no physical manifestation of the good (it's only a file on my hard-drive after all), does not mean that it has no value. True. I think what defines the Information Age is more that now the creators/owners of copyrighted material now have the option to not use tradditional physical media to distribute their work. As a consequence, they don't need the big corporations as much as they used to in order to reach a broad audience. This is what defines the Information Age. Not the fact that there is no ownership over creation anymore. I think that this is the key. Big corporations are not happy because the Net may (will ?) undermine their established power. They try to put all their weight in a battle to prevent people from doing without them. This is what we collectively have to fight against, not the fact that the expression of an idea belongs to its author. Note that I refer to the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, which does not belong to anybody.What we have to understand is that a song or a piece of software IS the expression of an idea, and as such IS OWNED by somebody who is commonly known as the author. This ownership is transferable, which is how the big corporations got in a position where they own most of the production that exists. They got their simply because one needed them to be able to distribute his/her work. The Information Age enables us to get rid of the middle-men, and the corporations are the middle-men. The Information Age does not anihilate the notion of intellectual property/copyright.
Just my 2 cents!
Patrick.
Well there are quite a few people who were not happy with NetSol anyway, so I guess that it was a really good thing that the domain name registration system opened up recently.
For those who did not catch on yet, go to http://www.opensrs.org/ for the best alternative to Network Solution.
Now if anybody needed incentive to not use NetSol anymore, I guess there is no need to wait!
At least now we know that the only source of reliable information is Slashdot... They don't use live video broadcast, so they definitely can't alter the content...
;-)
Or maybe it is segfault... At least they present a TRUE made up story, not something based on reality which as we now know can be decieving...
Patrick
I would like to comment on the following point by jflynn:
We can and should ignore Microsoft on the day the following can be asserted with truth:
1) Hardware vendors are just as likely to create drivers for Linux as Microsoft.
2) System vendors can't be pressured successfully by Microsoft to avoid using competing products like Linux or Netscape.
3) Microsoft no longer dominates standards thru controlling the OS platform used by nearly everyone.
I believe that most of these can or will be asserted truth real soon now:
1) buy any ethernet card and you will have the linux/sco/anyunix driver on a floppy with it.
2) Dell is shipping PC's with Linux and so are doing more and more vendors
3) This is maybe the most pertinent point: if you are talking about standards like TCP/IP or HTTP, microsoft does not control them (bye bye NetBIOS, etc.). If you are talking about using Word and Excell (which is some form of protocol: it controls the data format), this is still dominated by MS, but is it really the issue ?
I think that the most interesting point made by Tim O'Reilly is that the battle is not at the OS level as much as the open source community seems to believe.
Just for an example, look at the reaction created by MS last piece (about Linux Myths) in the Linux-NT war... They wanted the reaction from the community and got it... They would have missed their goal if nobody commented on it. However hordes of "hackers" (with the existing "bad" connotation of that term) yelling and screaming is much more efficient at prooving that "open source" at large and linux in particular is not serious enough for serious businesses... I think they achieved their goals with that document.
To go back to Tim O'Reilly's piece, his message is clear: focus on what will be the battle field of tomorrow (i.e. invent it) rather than try to fight yesterday's war (which is the best OS ? we already know...).
What will be the battle field I don't know. He is suggesting the information/web at large. Maybe, maybe not. But it's probably not the OS.
Patrick.