I think when people talk about "quantum leaps", they are forgetting two things: (1) quantum leaps are usually tiny, and (2) it is unpredictable when they happen. Is that the metaphor Intel wants?
Stallman's point is that "Linux" is largely GNU software running on a non-GNU kernel. I doubt the US will be running largely GNU software on a non-GNU kernel by 2020, so Stallman will probably not make any effort to have the name changed.
I have yet to see any substantial contribution by Gordon Bell to this field. I think the reason he is receiving all this press is because he's a famous name that's backed by Microsoft. Bell is a database expert, but the tough problems in this area aren't database problems.
If someone should get credit for pioneering work in this area, it's Steve Mann.
Yeah, no kidding... I mean, there definitely aren't any successful BSD variants available and widely deployed. And there certainly aren't any other successful non-GPL projects out there.
What's your point? Microsoft Windows is highly successful, too. That doesn't make it a successful open source project. The Darwin kernel may incorporate lots of BSD code and it may be open source, but being widely used and being open source are not sufficient for something to be a successful open source project: successful open source projects are successful at being developed by open source developers. Darwin is largely being hacked by Apple and then dumped on the world.
Yup, the GPL is definitely *the* only way to go if you want to make a successful open source project... assuming, that is, you're a single-minded zealot (or troll?).
I'm saying that the BSD kernels are less successful as open source projects as Linux. If you disagree with such an obvious observation, then you are the zealot or troll.
Linux came in right at that time to steal what could have been BSD's thunder.
BSD was technically superior long after the lawsuit had been resolved and when Linux was still in its early growth stages. BSD could have easily become the dominant open source operating system.
And Solaris is a straw man. SunsOS 4.x and older was BSD based. [...] As for SunOS 5.x, which is more commonly refered to Solaris, is Sys V Rel 3 based.
I fail to see your point. How does Sun changing directions mid-stream turn them into a BSD contributor? And, in any case, being SVR4-"based" doesn't mean they stopped using BSD code.
"Sun didn't make many meaningful contributions to BSD" And what NFS, NIS, etc are nothing?
How exactly do you think Sun "contributed" NFS to BSD? The FreeBSD NFS files, for example, do not have any Sun copyrights. And FreeBSD NIS only seems to have some Sun header files, needed for compatibility. There may or may not be some SunRPC and XDR code in FreeBSD. But NFS, NIS, RPC, and XDR are such shitty standards that any contribution of them was more self-serving than helpful.
Games are entertainment. I really can't see how you can complain about getting, say, 60 hours of entertainment for the price of 40 hours.
Perhaps the packages could make the point a little clearer: "This game should provide you with at least 40 hours of entertainment."
Of course, if the game takes you 60 hours to complete because it's badly designed, then you can legitimately complain about the game. But the problem there isn't the 60 hours, it's the design.
We've had this form of communication for years: it's called "number stations". And that's what you need: an encryption system that the two communicating parties know and understand, together with a public channel that you can broadcast to without being traced.
Relying on any kind of proprietary service for secure communications is achieving the exact opposite: you have no way of knowing whether these people play by the rules.
Linus doesn't have a choice in the matter: since the kernel is under GPLv2 without an "or later" clause, he can't change it. The Linux kernel is stuck with GPLv2. For him to argue one way or the other is pointless and sounds like post-hoc rationalizing.
Personally, I think the GPLv2 will sooner or later kill the Linux kernel. Some highly successful embedded Linux systems like the WRT54G only became hackable because the manufacturers made a mistake. Evidently, embedded users of Linux just don't get the benefits of openness, and they'll get better and better at circumventing the GPLv2; the GPLv2 will turn more and more into a kind of encumbered BSD license, and you can see how well BSD did with that.
Of course, I'm not too concerned. I think we really need a successor to the Linux kernel anyway, yet the industry is happy to keep running a 30 year old kernel design. If being increasingly the target of GPL circumvention is what it takes to motivate people to move to a new kernel, that's fine with me, too.
However, the relative lack of success of BSD despite its greater maturity during the early years suggests that making it easy to lock up open systems on proprietary hardware is not a winning strategy. Take, for example, Solaris: it was derived from BSD, but it languished inside Sun for a couple of decades and Sun didn't make many meaningful contributions to BSD. The experience with other commercial users of BSD was similar.
This is legal blackmail; Apple has little basis on which to claim trademark rights for terms containing "pod". Even if Apple were to have had a trademark on the term at some point, it has clearly become generic by now.
Apple's motto is evidently "we are evil, but our products are so sexy that you can't resist buying them anyway".
The way that browsers work is based on the assumption that the website won't willing screw itself.
Yes, and that's a bad assumption.
By not validation user input and just dumping that junk out as markup, the website is making a big mistake.
Indeed. But the web browser is making an even bigger mistake by not validating input from the web site and screwing the user. Why is it doing that? Because that's what the web standards say it should do.
A standard is bad if (1) real developers have a propensity of making mistakes when using that standard and (2) it forces implementors of the standard to create systems that are vulnerable. JavaScript does both, which means that it's broken in not one but two ways.
Before web designers blame themselves for this, the existence of XSS is really a fundamental design flaw in the way JavaScript and browsers work. It should have been obvious as soon as JavaScript came out that these kinds of attacks would become a major issue over time, but the "ooh shiny" attitude of the computer industry meant that people adopted JavaScript without knowing what the implications were. In fact, the other big security hole and productivity drain of the industry, C/C++, got adopted in a similar way.
Writing any substantial piece of software in C, C++, or JavaScript without creating safety or security issues is extremely expensive and beyond the ability or resources of most developers. For C and C++, there are alternatives you can choose today. For JavaScript, you just have to minimize its use or simply not worry about it and let the client fix it with tools like NoScript.
For every imaginable future, there is some science fiction that has explored it, often long before academics and "futurists" got into the act. I guess what the article means it that it is like popular science fiction.
I think the only two remarkable points about this study are the biased and imprecise language ("some luddites/refusenicks will commit terror acts"), and the very high rate at which the respondents had an answer about absolutely everything.
Predictions and policy decisions require careful, reasoned arguments, and a detailed analysis of costs, benefits, risks, and probabilities, none of which are present in those responses or questions.
Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think.
User feedback is among the most valuable and hard to get pieces of information for a commercial company. Why the hell would you give this to Microsoft for free and then pay for the end product?
If you want to go through the trouble of giving useful feedback on UI matters, give it to the Gnome project: they'll collect your feedback and use it to improve the next version of Gnome, which you can then use for free.
and in a civil case you need to prove it in a BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES, meaning over 50% likelihood (which I'm sure we can all agree the RIAA is doing here.
First of all, it's called "preponderance of evidence", not "balance of probabilities". Furthermore, it is logically and legally incorrect to weigh each individual piece of evidence under that standard; "preponderance of evidence" only applies to the case as a whole. Individual pieces of evidence can very much be thrown out (and often are) even if they support the conclusion 100%.
but to try and imply that the RIAA is using its influence to fudge the legal process and get away with things they shouldn't be is simply unfair
It's not unfair at all--it's exactly what they are doing. They had the opportunity to collect and present strong evidence but they chose not to. Either they are being sloppy, or they are trying to set a precedent that file names and screen shots are sufficient. Neither of those is acceptable behavior, and the evidence should get thrown out. Whether we believe these pieces of evidence to support the conclusion with more or less than 50% probability is irrelevant.
Statistically speaking, it's likely that a sizable percentage of these students download copyrighted material from the Internet. Do you think any of them are concerned about IP rights then?
Downloading copyrighted material from the Internet is not, per se, copyright infringement. In fact, most copyrighted materials on the Internet are intended for download and can be legally downloaded.
Furthermore, your implied assertion that it's OK to violate someone's copyright just because they violated someone else's doesn't hold.
Finally, arguments like your "statistically speaking" argument is not tenable. Even if 80% of students did commit criminal copyright infringement, that gives you no right to lump the remaining 20% together with them and collectively accuse them all.
Well, this is a civil case, so as it happens no one is trying to prove anyone guilty of any crime. I guess they dodged a bullet there.
Are you simply too stupid to figure out what the GP was saying, or are you deliberately trying to confuse the issue by focussing on this irrelevant technicality?
The RIAA demands compensation that amounts to more than what many criminal cases result in, and they may well ruin people's lives with that. The least we can ask of them is that they produce decent evidence.
which do you think it probably would be, even if that probability was only a 51% likelihood?
"Preponderance of evidence" doesn't necessarily mean that; the legal system can well demand stricter proof, even in civil cases.
Basically, the difference is between "we searched Kazaa/eDonkey/whatever and this user was offering Metallica's album for download" and "we searched Kazaa/eDonkey/whatever and actually downloaded Metallica's album from this user". The RIAA aren't making evidence up here, it's simply the question of if search results are proof enough.
Yes, and it isn't enough. Why not? Because if the RIAA can establish a principle that merely offering a file name that in some way resembles a song is sufficient proof of copyright infringment, the Internet as we know it is in trouble.
In order to demonstrate copyright infringement, the RIAA should have to show, for each instance, that the content is actually something they represent the copyright holder for. It's easy to do and there is no reason for them not to do it. That's a principle from which we should never deviate.
Anyway, guys, quit the RIAA bashing. Complain they're doing sloppy investigating and it's not really an acceptable standard
The RIAA is ruining people's lives by enforcing laws that are contrary to public opinion and sentiment. Even if they did everything by the book, there is certainly ample justification for criticism. But what they're doing is even worse: they are actually trying to do what they're doing with shaky evidence, and they are doing it for clients of questionable ethics and with dubious contributions to society. If that would not be reason for harsh criticism ("bashing"), I don't know what would be.
I get tired of defending a position that I don't support fully, but not everything is black and white as you seems to think. Why should Google make money from news that they didn't collect?
Because the Belgian newspapers gave them permission to: their robots.txt file did not tell Google to stay out. And it's not surprising that such permission should be granted: other newspapers realize the value of the free advertising and traffic they get through Google.
No, what this is really about is that established media, like the Belgian newspaper, want to make it harder for non-established media, like bloggers and other information sources, to compete with them. How? By replacing the cheap and simple mechanisms for declaring digital rights that everybody can use (robots.txt) with far more costly ones that only big companies can afford (contracts).
But the fact that Google copies, changes, reassembles, etc. copyrighted information without anyone's consent should be challenged.
If they did, then it should be challenged, but that's not what they're doing.
may potentially lead to Google winning the case and setting a precedent whereby all information publicly available on the internet would be entered into the public domain or at least break ground for fair use.
If you want to put content on the Internet and not have it be indexed, archived, and/or republished, you have two simple options: use a robots.txt file or require a loging.
What is really going on is that companies like the Belgian newspapers want to destroy the public domain and fair use: if companies like Google can't assume that content that is freely available on the Internet is actually either public domain or available under fair use, then public domain and fair use are dead.
In different words, companies like the Belgian newspaper are trying to kill the public domain and fair use through FUD. And the Belgian court has handed them a victory. It's disgusting.
First, Google is doing this with the web site's owner's consent: it's an Internet standard that you give or deny consent with a robots.txt file. If the Belgian web sites don't exclude Google with their robots.txt file, obviously the web site owner has given consent.
Second, for the Belgian court to force Google to publish this on their home page serves no purpose other than to humiliate Google.
I have been pretty critical of Google's attitudes towards copyright; for example, I think it's wrong that Google publishes USENET news articles from a time prior to the X-NO-ARCHIVE header. But what the Belgian court has done is an outrage: this says a lot about the competency of the Belgian court and little about Google.
You're absolutely right: it's Apple, not Microsoft, that should be blamed for this kind of dumbed-down feel-good bullshit, since Apple started it. It clearly gets companies noticed and makes people want to buy the machines. Too bad that it has never been shown to actually make users more productive.
WalMart is threatening to hurt a competitor by reducing the amount of business they do in specific ways. This is pretty much a clear admission of monopolistic practices, because only in a monopoly situation does this sort of behavior lead to a better financial outcome.
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I think when people talk about "quantum leaps", they are forgetting two things: (1) quantum leaps are usually tiny, and (2) it is unpredictable when they happen. Is that the metaphor Intel wants?
Stallman's point is that "Linux" is largely GNU software running on a non-GNU kernel. I doubt the US will be running largely GNU software on a non-GNU kernel by 2020, so Stallman will probably not make any effort to have the name changed.
I have yet to see any substantial contribution by Gordon Bell to this field. I think the reason he is receiving all this press is because he's a famous name that's backed by Microsoft. Bell is a database expert, but the tough problems in this area aren't database problems.
If someone should get credit for pioneering work in this area, it's Steve Mann.
No, it's a step away from 3D displays: this is 3D display technology modified for a wider angle.
Furthermore, this approach to 3D is not holographic; it doesn't give you correct motion parallax.
Yeah, no kidding... I mean, there definitely aren't any successful BSD variants available and widely deployed. And there certainly aren't any other successful non-GPL projects out there.
What's your point? Microsoft Windows is highly successful, too. That doesn't make it a successful open source project. The Darwin kernel may incorporate lots of BSD code and it may be open source, but being widely used and being open source are not sufficient for something to be a successful open source project: successful open source projects are successful at being developed by open source developers. Darwin is largely being hacked by Apple and then dumped on the world.
Yup, the GPL is definitely *the* only way to go if you want to make a successful open source project... assuming, that is, you're a single-minded zealot (or troll?).
I'm saying that the BSD kernels are less successful as open source projects as Linux. If you disagree with such an obvious observation, then you are the zealot or troll.
Linux came in right at that time to steal what could have been BSD's thunder.
BSD was technically superior long after the lawsuit had been resolved and when Linux was still in its early growth stages. BSD could have easily become the dominant open source operating system.
And Solaris is a straw man. SunsOS 4.x and older was BSD based. [...] As for SunOS 5.x, which is more commonly refered to Solaris, is Sys V Rel 3 based.
I fail to see your point. How does Sun changing directions mid-stream turn them into a BSD contributor? And, in any case, being SVR4-"based" doesn't mean they stopped using BSD code.
"Sun didn't make many meaningful contributions to BSD" And what NFS, NIS, etc are nothing?
How exactly do you think Sun "contributed" NFS to BSD? The FreeBSD NFS files, for example, do not have any Sun copyrights. And FreeBSD NIS only seems to have some Sun header files, needed for compatibility. There may or may not be some SunRPC and XDR code in FreeBSD. But NFS, NIS, RPC, and XDR are such shitty standards that any contribution of them was more self-serving than helpful.
Games are entertainment. I really can't see how you can complain about getting, say, 60 hours of entertainment for the price of 40 hours.
Perhaps the packages could make the point a little clearer: "This game should provide you with at least 40 hours of entertainment."
Of course, if the game takes you 60 hours to complete because it's badly designed, then you can legitimately complain about the game. But the problem there isn't the 60 hours, it's the design.
We've had this form of communication for years: it's called "number stations". And that's what you need: an encryption system that the two communicating parties know and understand, together with a public channel that you can broadcast to without being traced.
Relying on any kind of proprietary service for secure communications is achieving the exact opposite: you have no way of knowing whether these people play by the rules.
Linus doesn't have a choice in the matter: since the kernel is under GPLv2 without an "or later" clause, he can't change it. The Linux kernel is stuck with GPLv2. For him to argue one way or the other is pointless and sounds like post-hoc rationalizing.
Personally, I think the GPLv2 will sooner or later kill the Linux kernel. Some highly successful embedded Linux systems like the WRT54G only became hackable because the manufacturers made a mistake. Evidently, embedded users of Linux just don't get the benefits of openness, and they'll get better and better at circumventing the GPLv2; the GPLv2 will turn more and more into a kind of encumbered BSD license, and you can see how well BSD did with that.
Of course, I'm not too concerned. I think we really need a successor to the Linux kernel anyway, yet the industry is happy to keep running a 30 year old kernel design. If being increasingly the target of GPL circumvention is what it takes to motivate people to move to a new kernel, that's fine with me, too.
... and we won't know until we try.
However, the relative lack of success of BSD despite its greater maturity during the early years suggests that making it easy to lock up open systems on proprietary hardware is not a winning strategy. Take, for example, Solaris: it was derived from BSD, but it languished inside Sun for a couple of decades and Sun didn't make many meaningful contributions to BSD. The experience with other commercial users of BSD was similar.
This is legal blackmail; Apple has little basis on which to claim trademark rights for terms containing "pod". Even if Apple were to have had a trademark on the term at some point, it has clearly become generic by now.
Apple's motto is evidently "we are evil, but our products are so sexy that you can't resist buying them anyway".
The way that browsers work is based on the assumption that the website won't willing screw itself.
Yes, and that's a bad assumption.
By not validation user input and just dumping that junk out as markup, the website is making a big mistake.
Indeed. But the web browser is making an even bigger mistake by not validating input from the web site and screwing the user. Why is it doing that? Because that's what the web standards say it should do.
A standard is bad if (1) real developers have a propensity of making mistakes when using that standard and (2) it forces implementors of the standard to create systems that are vulnerable. JavaScript does both, which means that it's broken in not one but two ways.
Before web designers blame themselves for this, the existence of XSS is really a fundamental design flaw in the way JavaScript and browsers work. It should have been obvious as soon as JavaScript came out that these kinds of attacks would become a major issue over time, but the "ooh shiny" attitude of the computer industry meant that people adopted JavaScript without knowing what the implications were. In fact, the other big security hole and productivity drain of the industry, C/C++, got adopted in a similar way.
Writing any substantial piece of software in C, C++, or JavaScript without creating safety or security issues is extremely expensive and beyond the ability or resources of most developers. For C and C++, there are alternatives you can choose today. For JavaScript, you just have to minimize its use or simply not worry about it and let the client fix it with tools like NoScript.
For every imaginable future, there is some science fiction that has explored it, often long before academics and "futurists" got into the act. I guess what the article means it that it is like popular science fiction.
I think the only two remarkable points about this study are the biased and imprecise language ("some luddites/refusenicks will commit terror acts"), and the very high rate at which the respondents had an answer about absolutely everything.
Predictions and policy decisions require careful, reasoned arguments, and a detailed analysis of costs, benefits, risks, and probabilities, none of which are present in those responses or questions.
Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think.
User feedback is among the most valuable and hard to get pieces of information for a commercial company. Why the hell would you give this to Microsoft for free and then pay for the end product?
If you want to go through the trouble of giving useful feedback on UI matters, give it to the Gnome project: they'll collect your feedback and use it to improve the next version of Gnome, which you can then use for free.
and in a civil case you need to prove it in a BALANCE OF PROBABILITIES, meaning over 50% likelihood (which I'm sure we can all agree the RIAA is doing here.
First of all, it's called "preponderance of evidence", not "balance of probabilities". Furthermore, it is logically and legally incorrect to weigh each individual piece of evidence under that standard; "preponderance of evidence" only applies to the case as a whole. Individual pieces of evidence can very much be thrown out (and often are) even if they support the conclusion 100%.
but to try and imply that the RIAA is using its influence to fudge the legal process and get away with things they shouldn't be is simply unfair
It's not unfair at all--it's exactly what they are doing. They had the opportunity to collect and present strong evidence but they chose not to. Either they are being sloppy, or they are trying to set a precedent that file names and screen shots are sufficient. Neither of those is acceptable behavior, and the evidence should get thrown out. Whether we believe these pieces of evidence to support the conclusion with more or less than 50% probability is irrelevant.
Statistically speaking, it's likely that a sizable percentage of these students download copyrighted material from the Internet. Do you think any of them are concerned about IP rights then?
Downloading copyrighted material from the Internet is not, per se, copyright infringement. In fact, most copyrighted materials on the Internet are intended for download and can be legally downloaded.
Furthermore, your implied assertion that it's OK to violate someone's copyright just because they violated someone else's doesn't hold.
Finally, arguments like your "statistically speaking" argument is not tenable. Even if 80% of students did commit criminal copyright infringement, that gives you no right to lump the remaining 20% together with them and collectively accuse them all.
Well, this is a civil case, so as it happens no one is trying to prove anyone guilty of any crime. I guess they dodged a bullet there.
Are you simply too stupid to figure out what the GP was saying, or are you deliberately trying to confuse the issue by focussing on this irrelevant technicality?
The RIAA demands compensation that amounts to more than what many criminal cases result in, and they may well ruin people's lives with that. The least we can ask of them is that they produce decent evidence.
which do you think it probably would be, even if that probability was only a 51% likelihood?
"Preponderance of evidence" doesn't necessarily mean that; the legal system can well demand stricter proof, even in civil cases.
Basically, the difference is between "we searched Kazaa/eDonkey/whatever and this user was offering Metallica's album for download" and "we searched Kazaa/eDonkey/whatever and actually downloaded Metallica's album from this user". The RIAA aren't making evidence up here, it's simply the question of if search results are proof enough.
Yes, and it isn't enough. Why not? Because if the RIAA can establish a principle that merely offering a file name that in some way resembles a song is sufficient proof of copyright infringment, the Internet as we know it is in trouble.
In order to demonstrate copyright infringement, the RIAA should have to show, for each instance, that the content is actually something they represent the copyright holder for. It's easy to do and there is no reason for them not to do it. That's a principle from which we should never deviate.
Anyway, guys, quit the RIAA bashing. Complain they're doing sloppy investigating and it's not really an acceptable standard
The RIAA is ruining people's lives by enforcing laws that are contrary to public opinion and sentiment. Even if they did everything by the book, there is certainly ample justification for criticism. But what they're doing is even worse: they are actually trying to do what they're doing with shaky evidence, and they are doing it for clients of questionable ethics and with dubious contributions to society. If that would not be reason for harsh criticism ("bashing"), I don't know what would be.
I get tired of defending a position that I don't support fully, but not everything is black and white as you seems to think. Why should Google make money from news that they didn't collect?
Because the Belgian newspapers gave them permission to: their robots.txt file did not tell Google to stay out. And it's not surprising that such permission should be granted: other newspapers realize the value of the free advertising and traffic they get through Google.
No, what this is really about is that established media, like the Belgian newspaper, want to make it harder for non-established media, like bloggers and other information sources, to compete with them. How? By replacing the cheap and simple mechanisms for declaring digital rights that everybody can use (robots.txt) with far more costly ones that only big companies can afford (contracts).
It is also opt-out, because you are assumed to give consent unless you take an action.
They have taken plenty of action: they put up a web server and put up the stuff on the Internet.
The judge ruled correctly based on Belgian law.
Then Belgian law is broken.
Belgium has a very stringent opt-in law, the kind that privacy advocates in the US dream about.
This has nothing to do with privacy.
But the fact that Google copies, changes, reassembles, etc. copyrighted information without anyone's consent should be challenged.
If they did, then it should be challenged, but that's not what they're doing.
may potentially lead to Google winning the case and setting a precedent whereby all information publicly available on the internet would be entered into the public domain or at least break ground for fair use.
If you want to put content on the Internet and not have it be indexed, archived, and/or republished, you have two simple options: use a robots.txt file or require a loging.
What is really going on is that companies like the Belgian newspapers want to destroy the public domain and fair use: if companies like Google can't assume that content that is freely available on the Internet is actually either public domain or available under fair use, then public domain and fair use are dead.
In different words, companies like the Belgian newspaper are trying to kill the public domain and fair use through FUD. And the Belgian court has handed them a victory. It's disgusting.
First, Google is doing this with the web site's owner's consent: it's an Internet standard that you give or deny consent with a robots.txt file. If the Belgian web sites don't exclude Google with their robots.txt file, obviously the web site owner has given consent.
Second, for the Belgian court to force Google to publish this on their home page serves no purpose other than to humiliate Google.
I have been pretty critical of Google's attitudes towards copyright; for example, I think it's wrong that Google publishes USENET news articles from a time prior to the X-NO-ARCHIVE header. But what the Belgian court has done is an outrage: this says a lot about the competency of the Belgian court and little about Google.
You're absolutely right: it's Apple, not Microsoft, that should be blamed for this kind of dumbed-down feel-good bullshit, since Apple started it. It clearly gets companies noticed and makes people want to buy the machines. Too bad that it has never been shown to actually make users more productive.
WalMart is threatening to hurt a competitor by reducing the amount of business they do in specific ways. This is pretty much a clear admission of monopolistic practices, because only in a monopoly situation does this sort of behavior lead to a better financial outcome.