Open Source, Closed Talk 173
Internet users who "post" articles using USENET or mailing lists are inherently granting third parties the right to repackage and retransmit their words into various formats. For example, Deja and Remarq take the legal position that they have the right to rate, sort, emphasize and discard USENET posted content, and retransmit what they consider "best", without obtaining any license or permission from the authors of the content. Seems perfectly reasonable, even to their legal departments and investors!
So long as Linux related discussions take place in such open forums, third parties have wide latitude to do the same, potentially adding a lot of value -- identifying highly relevent and instructive postings, questions asked and answered, tips for new users, a record of new ideas and suggestions and more. Enter a site like VA Sourceforge. True, they are providing all sorts of value added services. An open source project conducted there has certain advantages. The general discussion forums there too, may be useful. However, in each case, the participants are asked (in the legal "terms and conditions") to grant the Web site permission to use the forum content, but no permission is requested or accepted on behalf of third parties.
The bottom of every page says "Forum comments are owned by the poster. The rest is copyright VA Linux Systems." Remember that the GPL may apply to code, but it's irrelevent to talk. If I see an insightful discussion taking place on the Web site, or in the site's archives months after the fact, I can't take it, package it, sort or filter it, and retransmit this in another form or medium. Not unless I go back and obtain permission and a license from *each and every participant* in the discussions in question. So, in an important sense, VA is taking ownership of the content; no one else will be able practically to get the rights to reproduce, recycle and extend the content. Open source, but "closed talk".
Is there a solution? Yes. A quick and direct solution would be for a site like VA Sourceforge to permit users to obtain any and all contributed content an automated mailing list facility. Just asking users who are posting content for the right to retransmit, if done properly, could move us back to the status quo ante. However, I suspect they won't, because they want the site traffic. There is potentially a lesson here for Slashdot as well. I suspect that I can't take what's posted at Slashdot and retransmit what I might consider "best" like I could, for example, with the Linux kernel mailing list, can I? This whole trend toward Web site forums and facilities is leaving significant, valuable intellectual property rights in the hands of companies valued in the billions of U.S. dollars, and rendering it uneconomical for others of us to get the rights ourselves. Potentially, this is denying the Linux community valuable future resources.
To provide copies of useful information I'd seen at these sites, I'd practically have to construct an elaborate Auctionwatch or Bidders Edge system, and point people to links at VA Sourceforge or Slashdot. (And then what, will the sites respond with lawsuits like eBay?) Until these sites establish new policies of collecting intellectual property rights for the whole community, instead of just for themselves, some of the most exciting and important content in this "new era" for Linux is no longer open to all -- certainly not the way we all mean when we say "open". "
Or you could use news2html (Score:1)
Keep UseNet with a catchy name (Score:1)
The Copyright is Identical (Score:2)
I think the gripe originates from the fact that when a post is made on a web site rather than via USENET, the post remains located on a single server which has an owner and the right to drop the post if they want to. In USENET, once the article makes it to your NNTP server, you can choose to archive it and process it for as long as you want. (e.g, Deja.com) Holding the post and displaying it in the context under which it was posted does not violate the authors copyright since it was he who put it there to begin with. This is why Deja.com isn't in trouble. (Their choice to filter out posts is no different than an individual setting up a killfile.)
If anything, I would argue that the web gives us the opportunity to change the rules on what can be done with a post. It gives the web site owner the chance to tell the poster who owns what and for what purpose BEFORE the post is made (unlike USENET).
How this could be relevent... (Score:3)
Some Anonymous Coward writes a moving, compelling manifesto against the MPAA-- concise, easy to comprehend, with easy steps one might take to fight them.
If only the general public would read this post from Anonymous Coward-- why, they'd undestand the issue, their hearts would melt, and public sentiment rally against the dictatorial Valenti and his ilk.
Now, let's say everyone wants to repost this moving article on their web site. Can they do it, legally? Do they have to ask the original poster for permission to print it in its entirety?
And if the author was an Anonymous Coward, how could they ever get permission? What then? Maybe the open content (http://www.opencontent.org [opencontent.org]) license could be applied to all postings or something (?)
New economy meets old school (Score:3)
and I am watching with some worry.
In USENET, ppl contribute, their help
, ideas, flames etc, without any sort of
monetary reward for doing so.
The news server you use does not generate
revenue per article read or anything like
that for the company or individual who ran it
either.
Slashdot however generates moey for the ppl
running it, or their company whatever, by
every page impression/view that happens.
Every time someone reads a discussion,
the hits go up, and in this new wacky economy
you read the ad, you might generate some
revenue.
If Slashdot, starts mirroring the discussions
on NNTP, its my true hope that they will
NOT add stupid ads etc to the disussions but
sticking true to the old school USENET style,
and ONLY replicating content.
However, how will Slashdots admins, or their
parent company feel about loosing perhaps
30% (over estimate I am sure) of the page
impressions if the discussion are bidirectionally
replicated to NNTP. That means less ads seen
less revenue.
Slashdot a while back started publishing their
headers via XML, for some reason they update
it very rarly compared to their frontpage.
This is natural since they want ppl, they want
you, to look at their front page, and earn them
money.
They dont really want to give you the content
without having to go through it.
I will be pleasantly suprised if Slashdot sets
up a bidirectional real time replication to
NNTP without any banners though I doubt it
will happen.
First grits! (Score:4)
Thanks you.
Bi-directional? I hope not... (Score:2)
The signal-to-NataliePorter ratio is bad enough already - adding the volume of USENET spam would be a bad move...
Re:Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:1)
Or will you just killfile the ACs?
That sounds reasonable to me. I think the moderation has helped to cut down on the amount of garbage most people see, but I feel the best kind of moderation is the kind I can control myself.
--
Making iDirt 1.82 a safer place, one bug at a time.
Very Funny- (Score:1)
On another note, I am glad the moderators moderated this up. Maybe they do have a clue.
Ontopic- I dislike this idea that you retain rights to your comments after you post to a open forum. As long as someone doesn't modify your content, it should be free to rebroadcast, IMHO. Maybe I am missing the point here.
Again- check out slashgrits. very funny.
ed
Re:Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:1)
---
The idea of getting
---
I think auntfloyd raises several worthwhile issues following my enthusiasm for an NNTP mirror to slashdot discussions. I also think they all have reasonable answers. Let me just suggest my own preferred answers to each (if it happens, the great Taco can ultimately make the decisions he thinks are best).
| How will moderation work through a newsreader?
| Or will you just killfile the ACs?
I would suggest leaving the From: field as indicating 'Anonymous Coward' where it was. Most newsreaders should be able to filter on the From: field... and if someone wishes, she can killfile that From: value.
| And Slashdot is ad-supported. How would that
| work in an environment like Usenet?
Well... text ads in sigs are one thing. But like another poster said, the ads aren't exactly a *feature* from the POV of discussants. Personally though, I'm not suggesting the NNTP mirror to completely replace
Btw. I think the arrangement of broad categories should be in terms of the same broad categories stories fall into. So there might be newsgroups like: slashdot.rights-online, slashdot.BSD (and so on). That way I could subscribe to only those groups that most interested me, but not bother with the others.
| And what about user accounts? And wouldn't
| using Usenet open it up to a lot more spam than | we've ever seen before?
I would think there would certainly have to be some automated moderation criteria for accepted posts via the NNTP gateway. Another poster suggested a PGP signature, but I think that would be overly cumbersome. Better might be a special header field (X-user-account: ?), which might not be unbreakable, but would certainly eliminate the more-or-less random and blanket spam. Or maybe even more forgiving of less versatile newsreaders would be to require a special form of the Subject: field ( Re:Please, please...). This special form could be stripped out before it made it to an actual post, but it would similarly eliminate blanket spammers).
| I could see using a single, centerally-
| controlled NNTP server (or set of servers)
| which would me modified to disallow posting to
| the discussions, so that you could read
| Slashdot via a newsreader, but not post.
That's a possibility, but I don't think it's necessary. I *do* think that the aim should be a specific hierarchy on a limited set of machines, rather than an RFC for a whole new hierarchy. But lots of companies and organizations host their own private hierarchy... and that pretty well has the same advantages of general Usenet groups.
But as indicated above, I think posting could be automatically moderated by the types of means above. The moderation of a post provided via NNTP would still have to occur via the regular web page (or possibly via an email-robot, using Message-ID's and appropriate moderation codes). But a suitable X-user-account: should be able to post just like that same person could via the web-board (with the same karma, etc.).
Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:5)
I first started reading
Anyway, one of the main hesitations I had in spending much time on
This was discussed recently in the "death of Usenet" thread, and I guess a lot of correct points were made there. But I really think the *open* and distributed format of NNTP is the very best thing the internet has created. It is open in a lot of ways, too. The discussion is inherently public (if not unambiguously "public-domain") in a way even
A distant second here would be a majordomo or listserv type mirror of
X-No-Archive (Score:1)
I am a frequent poster in some mail list. Years ago, the moderator decided that it would be great to resend everything to an equivalent newsgroup.
When I read this, I have already sent some messages. They were on Usenet by then. I started to receive spam on that account and it's still going. The list is available to consult on Egroups and Reference, so redistribution is not the issue, unless it's done improperly and you can't trust everybody.
If Slashdot-like sites plan to redistribute content, they should allow to choose wheter you want your personal contribution redistributed.
--
How do you know? (Score:1)
You can only know about what is published
Lots of dictatorships have allowed controlled criticism, and even encouraged it (Campaign of the 1000 flowers, by Mao). This gives people the illusion of freedom, and helps locate the dissidents.
Not that I am saying that [CENSORED] would do it, but they could.
--
You didn't read the license. (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:How does this work? (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Re:You didn't read the license. (Score:3)
Bruce
Re:See technocrae.net (Score:4)
To do this I used a rather unusual publication policy, as far as I know I've invented it:
By submitting this article you grant Technocrat.net a separate and independent copyright to your posting, and you keep your own copyright. That means that you can do anything you wish with your posting, and so can we.
That allows us to apply a license to the postings after the fact.
However, this doesn't address the complaint, which is that Usenet sites seem to have a more liberal copyright policy that allows them to be filtered and presented differently by various web sites, and weblogs like Slashdot and Technocrat do not. I'm not sure that stands, legally. The Usenet doesn't demand a particular copyright and the default if you don't copyright your posting would be All Rights Reserved.
Thanks
Bruce
We need MORE and SMALLER UseNets (Score:1)
I've thought about this problem a bit myself. One of the things we're working on for the Citadel [citadel.org] BBS package is NNTP support directly in the server. Combine this with the text and web front ends that are already in place, and connectivity is universal.
Now I'm not saying that everyone should use Citadel, but putting support for popular message exchange protocols in all such products should be the norm. It allows for non-UseNet NNTP networks to emerge.
Yes, I said non-UseNet. While UseNet has a lot to offer (for example, lots of opportunities to make money fast and virtually unlimited pay-per-view pornography), there exist people who have a different idea of how a large distributed messaging network should be run. For example, there used to be a lot of people who preferred FidoNet over UseNet. And those of us on the Citadel network still enjoy the online company that's far more 'folksy' than UseNet.
Now here's the important point that I hope will get this post moderated up. As recently as five or ten years ago, it would have been foolish to connect your NNTP to anything other than UseNet, because many people only had UUCP connections, or some other low-grade means of connectivity to the outside world. But here and now, everyone's got TCP/IP to the open Internet. What this means is that multiple, smaller, NNTP networks is a real possibility. They can be operated by groups who have varying ideas of how it should be run, varying target audiences, etc. Since everyone has TCP/IP now, you simply point your newsreader at the network(s) you are interested in.
Yes, I really do think that 'one big UseNet' is an obsolete idea, and that's why it's deteriorated so much.
Re:How about something like... (Score:2)
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
If all you're seeing is what you desciribe then I'd suggest trying some of the more social groups - fan groups tend to that, for example. There's a lot of rubbish and quite a bit of hostility in places, but then there's an awful lot of different kinds of people out there and you can probably find groups for all of them on Usenet.
As far as HTML goes, the main reason it's frowned upon is that it generally adds only minimal value to a posting and presents a great many opportunities to make a posting difficult or impossible to read. Pretty much all the useful things can be represented in plain text anyway. The fact that it's also incompatible with most of the existing clients is just the nail in the coffin.
Re:See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:1)
Your news provider can also make a difference - even a small effort to clean spam from the feed can make a big difference - although the main thing is usually the presence of a set of active regulars.
Re:See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:1)
If you're thinking of moderated groups, then you're right although for that very reason I'm not always sure I approve of moderated groups. For client-side moderation (ie, killfiles & so on), Gnus' adaptive scoring solves most of the problems for me and there's always NoCeM and GroupLens if you want global moderation (I don't really).
Re:Hey, hold on there. (Score:1)
And you do proofread?
rof, lol
even email is copyrighted. (Score:2)
The copyright can be given up, or changed to the copyleft, but only at the discretion of the originial publisher.
In the strictest sense, this also applies to USENET. It has never been legal to use another person's writing without crediting/reimbursing them.
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
If none of these techniques works, then you can feel quite justified in posting "My foobar is broken, and why isn't your FAQ in any of the regular places?"
Finding out about the person who made a post on Usenet is the same as it is in slashdot. If someone chooses to give away nothing about themselves, you'll learn nothing. If someone decides they want people to know more about them, they'll put their website in their
Usenet isn't moving to the web. There's nothing inherently better about the web as a medium for discussion. If there's one thing slashdot has demonstrated, it's that it has exactly the same life-cycle as any Newsgroup that starts off cool, and then finds popularity, trolls, dick-size wars, and People Who Just Don't Get It.
The only difference is that VA Linux can't buy a newsgroup. Conspiracy theorists would see a significance in this, and the fact we've had two "Death of Usenet" articles on
Charles Miller
--
Re:But what about moderation? (Score:3)
Scoring killfiles are a God-send. Once you've read a newsfroup for a few months, you can tell who is most likely to produce content, and score them up, and score down those more likely to produce noise. Don't have enough time to read the entire group today? Doesn't matter, the cream should have floated to the top of your newsreader. Just read down the list as far as you want, then bin the rest.
The other "plus" of this method is that you know when you load the group and there's nothing with a positive score, it's time to move on and find somewhere else to amuse you.
The most similar to
The difference is that you can verify the source of a nocem using PGP, and you can choose which moderators you trust.
This would dispose of most of the complaints about
This is also something that couldn't be implemented on a web-based forum. Dealing with such fine-grained moderation preferences would bring the site to its knees. The beauty of Usenet is that aside from the spam-filtering, the rest of the work is done by the client, so you can set up your own moderation to your own preferences.
Usenet isn't dead. It's not even dying. Web based forums are incredibly clumsy in comparison, and only good for short-lived discussions.
Look at slashdot for an example. Unless you get in the first hour or two after a topic is posted, the chances of having your post read, or responded to is minimal. The chance of carrying on a discussion that lasts more than a few hours is almost non-existant - everyone will have moved on to the next topic.
On Usenet, on the other hand, discussions can go on for days, weeks, months, years, or occasionally forever. Those who are interested in the thread will continue to read it, those who aren't will just score it down or killfile it, and move on to something new.
I'd like to see how a slashdot/NNTP gateway would deal with this obvious change in mentality would be interesting. Expiring posts after 24 hours would be the obvious, if brutal solution.
Charles Miller
--
Slashdot news-server network? (Score:1)
If Slashdot ever does get its own news servers, then how about the ability to add non-Slashdot-related newsgroups?
Non-Usenet newsgroups such as slashdot.tv.simpsons, slashdot.comp.linux.games, slashdot.sci.astro etc could be very popular if they are virtually spam-free and only accessible to people who know about them.
Kind of like a Usenet 2...
Ford Prefect
Actually, it's similar across forums... (Score:3)
In both USENET and the various discussion Web sites, the comment poster owns the copyright, so, technically, you should have to get permission to redistribute in either case.
Due to the nature of USENET, it can reasonably be assumed that the poster allows redistribution freely. However, there definately is untested waters for services that "package" USENET postings and then resell them, since they are using the original copyrighted material in methods that could be argued are different from the implied "license to distribute". Now, no one has challenged this in court, and hopefully, no one will, since it seems to be a good arrangement for both sides, and it would hurt everyone involved. Everything I just said about USENET seems to apply to mailing lists, too.
The major problem with Web sites is the lack of easy-to-access archives of material, not the legality of redistribution. Yes, technically, you should ask for permission to redistribute, but that's the same as under USENET. It's a matter of perceptions. The problem sited here is that 3rd-parties can't get at the archives in an efficient method to do repackaging. This is a problem, and one I'm not sure is easy to solve.
However, it's also a problem with mailing-lists: if the list maintainer doesn't make a digest or archive available, it's not easy to get back articles. Sure, you can subscribe and get everything from that moment on, but you don't get "back issues".
I don't really know what the answer is, but at least it doesn't seem to be a legal problem.
:-)
-Erik
Seems fair - check my new .sig (Score:2)
But what about moderation? (Score:1)
What do you propose to do when slashdot joins the thousand of other usenet topics that are slammed with junk?
Idea: Make the newsgroups read-only. I'm no NNTP expert, but could it be possible to have stuff originating from the web posted to the newsgroup, but disallow posts originating on usenet? But then, how could on-the-fly moderation be reflected?
Maybe just have a slashdot archive on usenet. Let people come here if they want to post something.
Dunno..
W
-------------------
Re:But what about moderation? (Score:1)
When not moderating, I read at a threshhold of 0, ordered w/highest scores first, and I have to say, considering the number of participants here, I don't get much crap until the very end, and there I'm less meticulous anyway.
In other words, the shit does sink to the bottom fairly quickly.
TMO anyway,
W
-------------------
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:1)
Why do otherwise reasonable people let their lawyers put stupidity like that in? It just makes them look bad. What are they going to do, sue me because I told Epinions I like my VCR, and I also told Slashdot readers? Sure.
Re:How about something like... (Score:1)
I agree with your statement about such a thing allow others to put words into someone else's mouth, but if you find such a thing so distasteful, why do you do that very thing to Roblimo (the real one)?
Criticism of VA still around (Score:1)
Newsgroups: Only good for warez and porn? (Score:2)
It seems as soon as any discussion moves beyond "a few friends and I" it always degenerates into a form that requires moderation... thus the rise in easy-to-moderate web bulletin board type systems and moderated mailing lists.
The most difficult part of the new moderated discussion world is to find moderators who don't abuse their powers.
Sourceforge -> NNTP ... already in place (Score:2)
I'm surprised to see no one has commented on this already. I'm sure there are many SF project admins on /., aren't there?
"Internet users who "post" articles using USENET or mailing lists are inherently granting third parties the right to repackage and retransmit their words into various formats. [snip] So long as Linux related discussions take place in such open forums, third parties have wide latitude to do the same, [snip] Enter a site like VA Sourceforge. True, they are providing all sorts of value added services. An open source project conducted there has certain advantages. [snip]"
From the admin area "help" for one of my lists there... ("formatting" courtesy of lynx-ssl)
If pre and /pre tags were supported on /., that would have come out okay. Hint, Rob.
The point here is, the NNTP gatewaying mechanism is already in place,) as well as the archiving of past messages in with a public or private method,) if the project admin chooses to take advantage of it. And the gatewaying can be configured to go in either direction or both, if desired.
Newsgroup, Mailinglists, Web-based forums.... (Score:2)
Yes, it's nice that VA sponsors that soundforge work, but when it comes down to it, VA does like to keep a good deal of control over the work of it's sponsored projects, because when it comes down to legal liability, they don't want to be stuck in a corner, as do any other company that sponsors these projects.
What do I see as a solution? Not the abandonment of web forums, because they tend to be much more effective when implemented correctly (admittedly, most of them suck right now
(Slashdot does not condone the use of it's users saying the word "bullshit")
Re:Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:2)
For the ads, I could see a Deja/Sexzilla-style "advert-.sig" being added to the end of each comment. I have to note, though, that any web site that depends on banner ads for its revenue is fooling itself; I use Junkbuster and only RARELY view Slashdot ad banners--and I expect a lot of Slashdotters do the same. My computer's screen is my property, and I want as few banner ads taking up space in that property as possible--not to mention the extra time it takes them to crawl down my 33.6 modem line.
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
Every how-to type bulletin board has the exact same problem. Newcomers invariably fail to read/search past postings or FAQs, even when there are clearly defined links that say "READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST".
The web is just more idiot-friendly than usenet.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:1)
One of my favorite Terms and Conditions is the postings policy at www.epinions.com: ... "you automatically grant to epinions.com (or warrant that the Content owner has granted to Epinions.com), a nonexclusive [emphasis added], royalty-free license to use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, create derivative works of, distribute, transfer, or sell any such Content, for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, a commercial purpose, without any compensation to you; and (ii) you agree that you will not publish, submit, or display such Content to or on any other web-site or on-line service (except your own personal web-site) without Epinions.com's prior written consent. [emphasis added, but unnecessary!]
Re:Solution is simple - public license on "submit" (Score:1)
Impeccable sense.
Still, I would ask the question, do you utilize mailing lists? Do you put a license statement below that authorizes just a single redistribution, or limits redistribution to a fixed number of hours or days? If not, you are subject to a possible legal interpretation that redistribution and perhaps archiving is anticipated in the ordinary course, and hence authorized.
Do you would ask that several hundred thousand users give up their rights to their comments, just to participate?
No. What seems to be happening here is that users are retaining rights to single items of content which have little value standing alone, but arguably significant value as a part of a collection of items --- postings by other users in threaded forums. (VA Linux paid a billion US dollars for Andover.net, which counts Slashdot among its assets).
The status quo of majordomo mailing lists and (moreso in the past) USENET has been the whole basis for the open source movement.
The emergence of significant commercial players in the Linux field is a relatively new phenomenon. Its impact is not yet know. You could easily argue that the new order will destabilize many of the relationships, operating procedures and interactions that have been critical to the track record of development and online "volunteer" user support. I don't mean to launch into a discussion of game theory here, but there are reasons to doubt whether fueling the Linux fire with cash necessarily will advance development of the OS. (I'm working on a paper on this subject).
At the very least, the movement to "closed talk" is going to concentrate significant information assets in the hands of the commercial companies, where they have never been before in open source. If the commercial companies didn't think this was likely, they just wouldn't be in the online forum segments of the Linux market. As another user put eloquently here, the movement to web hosted forums, with the typical "nonexclusive" license, actually guarantees the the Web site (aka Sourceforge or Slashdot) will be the only ones who can economically sort, filter, rate, and selectively present the content. No 3rd party will be able to collect up comparable rights, practically.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:1)
Re:Solution is simple - public license on "submit" (Score:5)
I am proposing that Slashdot and VA Sourceforge immediately make available their web hosted forums via a majordomo style mailing list, with every participant at the web site giving up as many legal rights as any participant in any mailing list. Permit users access to the full ascii content of whatever is posted to forums via e-mail, without ever having to visit the site (except maybe to sign up).
Different 3rd party "mailing list archiving" sites, which use html interfaces (ugh), already take the position they have the inherent right to be one more manner of the redistribution contemplated by the mailing list method of moving content around.
One can squabble about whether this would hold up in court, but let's move back to status quo ante: put web hosted forums on the same playing field as majordomo mailing lists.
This is a much more direct solution than writing a new GPL something or other licence, although maybe that would be useful in the longer term.
Re:Slashdot-terminal's evil slashdot conspiracy! (Score:2)
FWIW, the fine print says that the posts are owned by the original posters, which means that they (Andover.net) are divesting themselves of all copyrights to the posts.
Oh yeah...IANAL.
Re:How about something like... (Score:2)
The "fine print" in the green bar above the comments states that "The following comments are owned by whoever posted them."
This means that Andover.net is divesting itself of all copyright to the comments. Since the original posters own the comments, copyright release would have to come from the original posters.
Now, I believe that I have read somewhere that it was either USENET or bulletin board postings were ruled by the courts to be "reasonably assumed that redistribution is granted" due to the nature of such. I would assume that this would also apply to Slashdot postings, but there is really precedent for it, since Web postings aren't actually redistributed by several different sources the way USENET postings are.
Of course, it makes matters worse if I do something like this:
Now can you redistribute this post or not? This is left as an exercise to the reader.
Differenct 'license'? (Score:2)
BTW, is it me or is
Wait a sec... (Score:1)
Having a disclaimer that says, "Comments are owned by the poster," is a little different than a website claiming control over all the content on the public forums at the site. Having posters release the copyright to their posts into the public domain would make it easier to compile lots of posts about a given topic and redistribute the collection. That's about the only benefit I can think of. And really, if someone is going to take the time to compile something like that they should have enough energy to rewrite and paraphrase the whole thing and just cite the sources. That is legal no matter who owns the copyright to the comments.
-Nathan Whitehead
Re:But what about moderation? (Score:1)
I think an NNTP interface to slashdot would mean that slashdot ran its own NNTP servers, separate from the rest of Usenet. Registered users could log in with their slashdot username and password to validate their posts (NNTP allows this, ISTR), otherwise you'd be an AC. The posts could then be duplicated on the website. To read, you'd need to connect to the slashdot news server, rather than your own. (That said, it might be a nice idea to pass a read only version to Usenet: make it moderated to ensure it doesn't get spammed, make the moderation address an auto-response bot telling you that you need to go to a particular NNTP server or the site to post).
Moderation would still only be possible via the website. You could put moderation scores in X-headers, as someone else has already suggested. Changed moderation levels should be instantly reflected in the articles served by the slashdot NNTP server. This requires the ability to change the articles in place though, which means that any mirror to Usenet would not track these changes (I'm not really keen on using supercedes for this): one reason for reading on the Slashdot servers.
Since it'd be slashdot's own group (possibly their own heirarchy) rather than part of usenet, the format for postings could be HTML if this was desired: no one on Usenet can get picky about this if the rules for the group/heirachy allow it.
NNTP Gateway (Score:2)
That should be technocrat.net, of course! (Score:2)
Duh!
See technocrate.net (Score:3)
Bruce Perens' site, techoncrat.net has packaged all last's years content & comments and made them available (somewhere - I couln't find a URL)
Bruce, if you are reading - what's the licence, and do you require permission of the comment posters to make their comments available for redistribution?
Re:Actually, it's similar across forums... (Score:1)
Alternatively, I'll bet one could make money by setting up a web site that collected and searched all known web forums and a provided a Deja like front end. Obviously you would get sued eventually but lets face it, these issues ARE going to be tested in court sooner or later anyway. Hopefully anyone who tries this will incorporate before getting started to provide some liability protection.
Re:Wait a sec... (Score:1)
Compiling lists of posts on a given topic can mostly be automated but so far as I know paraphrasing is something computers arn't too good at yet. I submit Bablefish as exibit A! Also, how long would it take a human to go through an entire day of
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
Suffice it to say that some of us consider that a good thing. How many people here on
In the case of a
Re:Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:1)
If it were a moderated news group then all postings could be sent to slashdot and then passed on to the news group. When you sign up with
Re:The Copyright is Identical (Score:1)
If I post to a weblog like Slashdot via a server in the US from a client in the UK, what copyright law applies?
If my post goes via another country on the way, what law applies?
If I post to a UK USENET server that then redistributes my post across the world, what law applies?
In other words, discussions of the US copyright law are only the start of the whole issue...
Re:See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:1)
Re:See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:1)
See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:3)
I've recently become interested in distributed computing, and looked on USENET for a dist comp group. I did find ONE, with about a dozen messages in it. About three of those messages were valid. The other 80% was divided equally betwixt spam and porn.
Sites like Slashdot, while not providing the same forum as USENET, (i.e. I cannot just post on
Also, with the
And let's not forget the ability of the
I've never seen a better public forum than
WWW == internet (Score:1)
any idea's on how to correct this?
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
Re:Differenct 'license'? (Score:2)
I don't really think that would work out. I wouldn't really want people using my words without giving me credit, and I don't imagine too many other people would either. Perhaps a BSD like licence instead, just requiring credit to the orignal author when redistributing would be in order, though.
I don't do sigs.
Re:Slashdot Not Open Source? (Score:1)
It's basically an NNTP to HTTP gateway. We are just beginning testing.
Dave
Re:Slashdot-terminal's evil slashdot conspiracy! (Score:1)
If there's no more than a minimum amount (say, a sentence at most) in common between the two, that can't be copyright violation. Copyright can only be applied to writings, and not to the information/opinions contained within those writings.
Are we going too far? (Score:2)
Is anyone here making a living by posting comments to slashdot, and need their livelyhood protected?
Do we need to introduce a "not for profit" clause allowing redistribution? (so as to protect sites like slashdot from being plundered for their comments?)
hmmm.
Re:Gnus and nnslashdot (Score:1)
The way I decide whether to read a story is the little text blurb (this is why I find the slashdot nightly mail of headlines to be vaguely useless). Is there some facility that lets me read these before going into a group?
I love gnus. Lars rocks! it's just that reading slashdot with a web browser is a no-brainer, and I'm not sure how well it maps to gnus.
convince me. (if you wish)
thanks,
Michael
(Doh! I almost just pushed C-c C-c to post this
Technical issue (Score:2)
I think it is just a matter of integrating communications mediums. I think XML has a great potential for facilitating this.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
Re:Keep UseNet with a catchy name (Score:1)
Besides, all news users believe that "The World Wide Web" *IS* the internet, right?
Distributed information, centralized searching (Score:1)
The great thing about Usenet, in my opinion, is that it is distributed, and thus free.
With all the talk about Usenet dying, it seems that maybe what is needed is just a better front-end. You can post to Usenet from Deja, for example, and don't really need to know that its usenets. Imagine hundreds of sites that exist as frontends to usenet, but each provides a specialize service.
Re:Keep UseNet with a catchy name (Score:1)
Re:How about something like... (Score:1)
> with accounts) and, voila! Problem solved.
Dumb question:
How can an AC enforce the GPL-equivilent? "I posted that, I swear to the mother mary!"
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
If you're suggesting this is a Slashdot-to-NNTP problem, then they can just convert stuff to plain text. If it bugs you that you can't, that's different. Deal with it.
As for the FAQ stuff, it's not hard to search the web for a newsgroup FAQ. A lot of newbies won't know what FAQs really are, of course, but that's not usenet's problem, and really not it's responsibility. The FAQs are a service to the regulars more than the users, and dumb questions (in help groups) usually get answered (it's the weird ones that aren't in the FAQs nobody can answer
Forums based on Slash or UBB feel more like communities. If you're interested in the person who made such-and-such a comment, there's an easy way to find out who/what they are -- you just click the link to their user information, and if they want to share anything, they've put it into their forum profile directly or by a link.
Reading that Sylvia likes fireplaces, long walks on the beach, and cute puppies doesn't make you part of the Playboy Magazine community. Talking to Sylvia and all her (ahem) friends comes closer to qualifying, in my book.
Usenet feels a lot more like a bunch of people talking to each other than anything like Slashdot. A small town vs., say, Los Angeles..
Usenet is moving to the Web because the interface, content, and interactivity can be done better there.
Usenet is moving to the Web because people know how to use the web (not to mention that it exists).
hell yeah... (Score:1)
i guess if this comes to fruision, i'll have to write a news-reader that's actually worth a shit.
Re:Solution is simple - public license on "submit" (Score:1)
The whole point of posting to a forum is to release your memes on the collective consciousness.
sounds unsanitary.
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Re:How about something like... (Score:1)
Re:Actually, it's similar across forums... (Score:2)
It'd be nice to have some Napster-like distribution and retrieval system of USENET/forum postings for those of us constantly connected and willing to give up a few gigabytes of hard disk space for the 'net's sake.
--LP
Re:Gap: Everyone in Anal Lubricant. (Score:1)
I am not saying that meta-moderation saves lives or anything like that but I for one really enjoy reading insightful comments from people that generally know alot more than me on many subjects.
For the past 4 or 5 times I have do it at least one of them has been something like this
Ho hum........
I suppose me writing in isn't going to do anything
just that I am getting sick and tired of these fucking idiots. If you guy's want to go and jerk off somewhere there is plenty of other places......
Why Recycle? Create your own /. (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of a user checking a box next to his/her comment, which would make it available to the public. It would then be useful to allow developers the option to download all "public comments" in one click. Either a CSV file or XML would allow easy integration into whatever database system is being used.
However, I just hope that future web projects will focus more on the creation of their own, new content, rather than re-hashing and re-filtering material from another site. Just as we don't need a links page pointing to another links page, we don't really need comments from comments.
There's plenty of code out there to easily build your own Slashdot. So hopefully developers will think "new content" first, and "import content" second.
Re:Please, please, please give us NNTP (Score:1)
Some things should be quite easy to add in. Like the ability to auto-respond to a non-anonymous poster who has that feature turned on. One thing I don't understand about most online web forums is why they are so limited. It would not be that difficult to write one that had a message content pane at the bottom and on top a message list showable in different ways like subject tree, dated list, from list and so on. Yet none of the online forums to the best of my knowledge have done even this much. Without such elementary capabilities there really should be a tie-in to email-NNTP in order to be able to filter, review, search and manage the information.
I am not totally convinced that NNTP is "the way". I think it is time for something new to be born. But I am bit fuzzy on what that is.
A particularly nasty advertising gimmick (Score:2)
This comment is licensed under the OpenContent License (OPL) Version 1.0, July 14, 1998. [opencontent.org] The relevant paragraphs concerning modification are as follows:
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the OpenContent or any portion of it, thus forming works based on the Content, and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified content to carry prominent notices stating that you changed it, the exact nature and content of the changes, and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the OC or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License, unless otherwise permitted under applicable Fair Use law.
Re:Isn't that the porn guy? (Score:2)
I can't either confirm or deny that. Until about a year ago, my Usenet feed was somewhat filtered. All I know is that he was a regular poster to a number of newsgroups, and that he made the suggestion that I posted a link to.
Some related ideas (Score:4)
This article may be copied and distributed under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) Version 1.0, July 14, 1998. [opencontent.org]
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
Every new Usenet user should be directed to read, or at least be aware of, the Informational Post in news.lists.misc. This should direct you to how to find a FAQ for most groups.
If this doesn't help, once you are aware of the existence of FAQs, only the greenest Internet Newbie wouldn't think to try a handy Web Search engine to look for "alt.foo.foobar +FAQ".
If this doesn't locate the FAQ, then there probably isn't one and the Newbie should ask the question anyway.
Now, there still exists the problem of ISPs/Universities/(Other Organization that gives Usenet access) that don't direct Newbies to the most basic information.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:How about something like... (Score:2)
Here we go again. This guy isn't Roblimo.
He's RobLimo_ User #146994
The Roblimo we know and love is user # 357
Keep this in mind when you respond to him...
Here's my [redrival.com] copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?
Re:Solution is simple - public license on "submit" (Score:2)
So you would ask that several hundred thousand users give up their rights to their comments, just to participate?
I, for one, would not participate if I did not have that choice avaliable to me. I would also resent it if ever Rob did such a thing.
"This is a much more direct solution than writing a new GPL something or other licence"
We probably wouldn't need to write a new GPL something. In my original comment, I suggested something HTTP specific (called it the SlashComment Public License). It would appear that the open content license [opencontent.org] could be easily modified to serve this purpose.
"put web hosted forums on the same playing field as majordomo mailing lists."
I would argue that there's enough of a difference between the two to call for a different license/redistribution structure. The biggest difference, IMHO, is that web forums allow you to be totally anonymous. With a maling list, you aren't totally guaranteed anonymity by virtue of having to have an email address to participate. If I wanted to badly enough, I could probably trace your email address back to you. With Slashdot, I have no such ablility.
Therefore, I would propose a slightly different structure. Just as you have the ability to pop in and post to
Am I making sense here?
Here's my [redrival.com] copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?
How about something like... (Score:5)
Combine that with an option below the Comment window (like Slashdot's) to `Include comment in SCPL (SlashComment Public License)'. That way, the poster still owns the comment *and* gives permission for others to use it in a manner consistant with the SCPL.
This would also allow people to opt in and out, legally, and at will. Make the option avaliable to all (AC and those with accounts) and, voila! Problem solved.
This would also make things easier for posters. Remember the _Jane's_ happening? There were people who were quoted and not given credit (at first. IIRC, all of those problems got sorted out). With something like the SCPL, the license writers could include a clause that made it mandatory to give due credit.
The best part about this is that it's a vouluntary system. Since it's a contract that you knowingly enter into, there's no problems with comments beig `stolen', taken out of context, or abused.
Comments?
Here's my [redrival.com] copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?
Re:Move onto Usenet! (Score:1)
But now by searchig the "clickable" areas I see
that there is no way to register to a THREAD as mail reader nor as news reader either.
Interesting how deep the unix/linux FREAKS have sunck
I'm waiting for the side wich gives full access to all ways of interaction.
AND not to be of topic: the right always belong to the creator!
Most authors reusing usenet post ASK the posters about permission!
It's just a matter of politeness, I will never use
anyones creations without explicit permission in public (I can't remember to have done so in privacy).
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Gnus and nnslashdot (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot-terminal's evil slashdot conspiracy! (Score:1)
Slashdot-terminal's evil slashdot conspiracy! (Score:2)
1. Get a number of floppy disks. Usually even with maxium stories displayed on the main page and even with things like perhaps Linux goes commercial and abandons the GPL I can get all of slashdot's extended stories on 5 or so floppies at max.
2. Save the context via a decent browser (Netscape and IE both have their faults for overall indention and including of ^M characters and other bad things and lynx dosn't allow for the typical indention of comments via nested mode)
IE 5 is actually good for the aboive because it automatically includes the title of the page for easy index. Spill over and the next page problem is solved with a simple appending of a numberal that is the same as the page in question (ie Slashdot News Linux goes commercil and abandon's the GPL1.txt "2.txt "3.txt
3. Filter this through a program similar to col with cat blah1.txt | col -b >newfile-without-control-characters.txt
4. Read the comments.
Now this dosn't allow for the use of responding to various comments and such but if I want an archive of all of the ranting and raving on slashdot it is a very nice thing.
Now how di I solve the problem of citations and such? Simple if you paraphrase something it usually works well enough.
Now I actually think that from an access point of view that the use and collection of info using a web browser is actually more fail safe and better than usenet. Usenet is something that is not guaranteed from a services offered perspective from each and every ISP. Some ISPs have a bigger spool some only keep stuff for 24hrs. I know of some ISPs that only provide a simple IP address and you do everything else (even without mail). I most of the time don't use USENET because of it's inherent lack of accessibility and uneven resource distribution. You can flame me all you want but even slashdot partly agrees with me as there was posted a little sotry a couple of days ago about usenet dieing because people don't care. This type of a forum is quite nice.
Now I pose a question to all of you. Suppose I did take information from slashdot and paraphrase each and every comment (no I really don't think that many people care about post the first or dousing heated grits down my trousers or a fossilized version of Natalie Portman would be interesting). Would anyone be able to honestly say that slashdot-terminal or anyone else didn't actually know all that stuff?
It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:3)
USENET has a number of problems, starting with the picky nature of its users. While it can do HTML to present an opinion in rich text, it is frowned upon.
If you have a newbie/basic question for a newsgroup, there's a chicken and egg problem. If you have a basic question for alt.foo.foobar, how do you find the FAQ? You're stuck with the choice of two stupid threads: "Where's the FAQ?", or "My foobar is broken". The former is the best choice of course, but it kind of lessens the usefulness of a FAQ, because someone still has to reply, and hopefully they won't flame you with RTFM's, too. The latter is also likely to get you the link, though it may get you a few extra flames. While I haven't seen it implemented, the web interface can preemptively point someone in the right direction before they start a "junk" thread.
Forums based on Slash or UBB feel more like communities. If you're interested in the person who made such-and-such a comment, there's an easy way to find out who/what they are -- you just click the link to their user information, and if they want to share anything, they've put it into their forum profile directly or by a link.
Usenet is moving to the Web because the interface, content, and interactivity can be done better there.
Re:How about something like... (Score:2)
Re:See the demise of USENET before your eyes. (Score:1)
Re:Keep UseNet with a catchy name (Score:1)
Then it could go public (or at least get some VC; the biz folks love names like that), and could do some marketing.
Re:It's NNTP, stupid... (Score:1)
The big disadvantage, as someone pointed out, is that it's centralized. At least a particular forum is, like slashdot. I don't know how else it could work though, and there are advantages to that even.
This is pointless rant.. among other things (Score:2)
Take for isntance documentaries, like on the Discovery channel. I they just piped out the data recorded raw right into the audience it wouldnt make for a good, or even informative show. If a comapany is going to spend the time to moderate and filter out the crap from public domain speech and put the data they feel important on their media then more power to them. Anyway that is what people have done for years, the media never correctly portrays the full scope of any particular subject, just what people want to hear.
Hell even Slasdot does it. So again I ask what is the point of this article..... none really, its just some guy blowing crap out his mouth trying to sound pretentious and just, when he is probably just out for personal glory....
two avenues for communication on SourceForge (Score:2)
By the way, there has been some discourse at SourceForge on uniformly gatewaying the hosted mailing lists to a newsgroup hierarchy, similar to what Debian does with their mailing lists. No response on this idea yet from SourceForge personnel.
Solution is simple - public license on "submit" (Score:3)
So the answer is simple - a public release and redistribution license accepted by hitting the "submit" button. Part of it could be the user id attached in any redistribution.
On another point - anyone know of a political discussion board using the
Move onto Usenet! (Score:2)
Re:What's IIRC stand for? (Score:2)
Imminent death of the net predicted (Score:4)
But today I've joined the doomsayers. The net won't die, but it's already in decline, finally for real, but for a long time simply compared to the web. You see USENET was growing, but it wasn't growing nearly as the net itself. During the 80s it grew faster. Now all the mindshare belongs to the web, and more and more people think of web boards like
Too bad because frankly they suck in most ways, including
So much better yet it manages to die, while Andover gets valued at 800 million dollars (or whatever) of VA Linux Stock. Why?
Many reasons, but prime among them resistance to change. USENET is the example of open source at its worst. To change and evolve, it needs the cooperation of *everybody*. It's hard to lead, and no matter what you do, there will be more people who will think it's a bad idea. Every new suggestion is met with "Go to the web to do that" or "Go start your own hierarchy."
Well, I did start my own hierarchy once. It's not easy, and it's stupid it should be necessary to do something new.
I helped start the usenet-format IETF working group to help improve the USENET standard. It's been going for over 2 years and gotten nowhere. There are perhaps 2 or 3 new features in it, all because I pushed for them, but frankly nothing. Because of the need for too much agreement there is no change.
USENET people fear the web and the internet as the enemy when they should embrace them. Slashdot works because doing it on USENET would be hard. USENET still lacks real support (other than robo-moderation) for the idea of short-term, moderator-created topics that are within themselves unmoderated, or retro-moderated. That's how almost every online service and BBS has worked for a long time now.
USENET people fear the web because of the things that are wrong with the web -- it's too pretty, to inefficient, requires permanent connectivity -- but in turn they reject all the good it has to offer.
The last new feature in newsreaders was MIME, which is almost 10 years ago, before the web. One new feature in 10 years? 10 Internet Centuries they would now call that.
Even though over 50% of users now read with Netscape or Outlook Express and can do full MIME and HTML, even good uses that don't involve the feared abuses of the web are shouted down if people try them. Even somebody like myself, a reasonably respected old hand and moderator, has trouble suggesting new things. If I can't do it, I don't know who can.
I've about given up on the usenet-format working group as a means to improvement. My battle cry at the end was that we bring USENET into the 90s before they were over. Start-of-Decade-debates notwithstanding, I lost.