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Slashback: Juveniles, Sand, Trickery, MoBos 90

Posted by timothy from the invading-your-working-week dept.
Your calendar works fine. This episode of Slashback hits midweek instead of Saturday because we'd like to keep our facts straight and your mind alert. So (read more) below for assorted updates on everything from GRAND LARCENY to THE DONUT CRISIS. Actually, those are still secret, but the things we can tell you are below.

Tell me again why my motherboard needs it own OS? Goatbert writes: "Penguin Hardware has posted an interview with John Tsai, head of ABIT's Gentus department. He goes into ABIT's future open source plans and what they plan to do about accusations of GPL violations."

Lifestyles of the young and precocious. PerlDiver writes: "The 'Programming for Kids' thread reminded me of this, and I thought it was worth a story of its own. Former Xerox PARC researcher Ken Kahn has created an amazing tool for teaching kids how to program. Even very young children (old enough to know their letters and numbers) can be started on object-oriented programming with ToonTalk, an animated programming kit that introduces such advanced concepts as recursion, object methods, and functions in a fully visual, direct-manipulation, non-notation-based way. Kids learn by playing with an on-screen toolbox, robots (methods), birds (message passing channels), and bombs (memory deallocation :-). I saw Ken give a ToonTalk demo a few years ago and I was blown away by it. It looks great... sort of PeeWee's Playhouse meets Lego."

Mirror, mirror on the wall -- damn, where was I? Warrior writes "GameSpy was able to get some in-depth information on the closing of Looking Glass Studios by talking to LGS game designer Tim Stellmach. He gave us some good explanations of what happened and who owns what."

Oh, as long as you say it, I guess it's OK! Remember the trouble between CyberPatrol and Network Associates' 'ultra-secure' Gauntlet firewall? The ever-prolific Anonymous Coward wrote us with an interesting bit to sprinkle in that wound: "Peacefire tricked several "parental control" software vendors into revealing their double standards through an amusing gambit: they took anti-gay quotes from several large, well-funded organizations (e.g. Focus on the Family) and put them on "bait" pages on various free Web hosting systems. Then they submitted those pages to the censorware companies as objectionable hate speech which ought to be filtered, and the companies obligingly added them to the blacklists. Next, they submitted the home pages from which they got the quotes. But apparently it's not hate speech if it's on the home page of a political organization with a large legal department ..."

The wheels of government creak ever slowly. teddyfu writes "I found this link regarding the EU's decision to oepn up crypto exports. It seems that decision has only been *postponed*; hopefully the decision will still be made, just at a later date."

Who dares provide House Atriedes with ADSL? Craig E. Engler writes "The first trailer for the SciFi Channel's upcoming miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune has been posted online. ... The site also has the latest news about the miniseries (which has wrapped principal photography and is now in post-production) as well as photos, notes from the director's assistant, and more."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: placeholder; jamie, plug away. More

Slashback: placeholder; jamie, plug away.

Comments Filter:
  • Sigh, replaced by a 3-year-old =(. On the other hand, ToonTalk makes great CTF maps!

    --
  • Ya know...my slashdot time (kinda like "Internet time" but only based on posts, polls, slashbacks, and geeks in space epsiodes...was all messed up due to that. stop that!
  • Is really damn cool. Wish they had had that when I was a wee one.

    My question is, if:

    Beta testing of ToonTalk began in January 1995 at the Encinal School in Menlo Park, California

    why isn't this software in general circulation yet. We studied logo when I was in elementary school, if we would have had this stuff, there'd be more programmers out there today.

    tcd004

    Here's my Microsoft Parody [lostbrain.com], where's yours?

  • Tim,

    caLANder, IIRC, was a shared scheduling program in the 80's. So, maybe we should be checking our calendars instead...

    8-)

    -Twid

  • When I was a kid, all we had was LOGO and BASIC... I learned some of my worst habits in Apple BASIC.

    Could be worse though; my father started working on computers in the late 60's, so he can get away with the "When I was your age, we coded in 1's and 0's and sometimes didn't even have 1's..." Punch tape; ick.

  • Did anyone who watched the Dune trailer get the shivers when they saw Paul's character with the spice-blue eyes? Nothing like Y2K effect technology to make Arrakis real in every detail. I can't wait for this to be finished. They sure couldn't do a worse job of book adaptation than the old movie.

    --

    --
  • IANAL, however if they release code that was under the GPL, under a different violation, they should be taken to court about it and told to release the code. I understand that only the code creator can take the case to court and sue Abit, but perhaps we could set up a fund to finance actions against companies that violate the GPL, either wilfully or not.

    Even after being told they have a violation, they refuse to release the code (Abit and nVidia) and then proceed to praise the open source movement for it's work, well get do what you preach companies, you are quite happy to use open source code, however when it comes to releasing a few thousand lines of code back to the community, then you should do.

    Give something back to the community, open YOUR code

  • I wonder what would happen if you simply submitted some random sites from free web hosting services such as Tripod [tripod.com]? I have a feeling that *anything* from Tripod and others might be automatically added without being even looked at in the theory that as the free hosting is uncontrolled anything might be on it, and also it isn't worth our time to bother to check anyway.

  • The CyberPatrol and Network Associates' troll was one of the best laid out trolls to hit the net in years. It took everyone in for days. Some are still fuming that YHBT HAND. I believe there are still a few lawsuits pending. Maybe Peacefire aught to hire streetlawyer [slashdot.org] as counsel.

  • Wow... I just realized it's been 16 years since the release of David Lynch's movie, Dune.

    I'm wondering what the six-hour miniseries (with commercials) will add to the story that the 190 minute directors cut left out. With any luck, they'll expand the role of Lady Jessica and Gurney Halleck

    William Hurt as Duke Leto... I'll try to keep an open mind. I thought Jurgen Prochnow was perfect in the movie.

    Moods are for cattle and loveplay, not for fighting!

  • Purposely violating the GPL (Score:5)

    by sillysally ( 193936 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2000 @01:20PM (#1035209)
    why does every GPL violator get a "second chance" to rewrite the software so they don't infringe and don't have to release?

    GPL authors: if your code gets released in binary form only, you (and only you) have the right to demand that the source code be released. Everyone else can ask, but if it is not released that means the license to copy is revoked. But only the copyright owner can enforce the copyright.

    If we wish to encourage the opening of source, why aren't these violations used as the wedge to say, "open, or be sued!"? It seems to me that GPLed software is being used as a fast-time-to-market convenience. It would do a lot to raise awareness of the GPL if it were enforced. These companies would never (or would they?) think of stealing other copyrighted software. Why should they think they can steal GPLed? Let me say it again: if you start with someone elses source code, you know you need a license. IMHO, these violations are not accidental, and should not be treated that way.

    ----

  • Looks like it was worth publicising Abit's breach, and pressuring them to do something about it...

    Pax,

    White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++

  • When I was a kid, all we had was LOGO and BASIC...

    All you young wippersnappers don't know what the meaning of "tough" life is. Punch tape was still alive and well in the seventies. It truly sucked. Aside from card sorting, and the inevitable missing card, it was generally faster to work out problems using pen and paper.

    It was so cool when magnetic media came out, not to mention breaking that 2K memory barrier.;-)

  • Blocking Software has a market (Score:4)

    by Fly ( 18255 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2000 @01:58PM (#1035212) Homepage
    The makers of web filtering software are addressing a particular market. We may not agree with them; though there is a double standard, one must realize that many people will accept it, and those are likely the same people who want to buy the software. I respect the rights of parents to control what sort of information their children may access. I would guess that many (not all or even most) parents have no problem with the information presented by Focus On The Family even though it condemns homosexuality. As long as the software meets the needs of the parents, it will sell.

    On the other hand, if the software is being used by public entities, then there is a need to provide fair-handedness along with responsibility to the people paying for the public entity.

    What would be interesting is to see software the provides filters for various religious affiliations. That would be quite a circus.
  • touche.

    Actually, since I carefully compose each edition of Slashback using those special letter-shaped pasta, what I meant to say was "check your *colander*"!

    Heh. Fixing it now, thanks for the tip.

    Tim
  • Of course, the ABIT guy goes and says that he thinks that giving your code away is great... then he goes and wont release the stuff that he's written. I mean, what is he doing!? Idiot. I wont buy anything from them, just because they've got bad polititians working for them. Im a fan of QDI myself :)

  • Something just occurred to me. If a company uses part of GPL code in their product, what is to stop them from obfuscating all the non-GPL code, and releasing that? That way they are technically allowing downloads of "GPL code", while still keeping it closed source. This is, of course, assuming that a majority or important minority of the code is original.


    --

  • One perfectly good reason is that we don't have wads of cash in our pockets to sue every Big Company who snafs up a little on the meaning and spirit of GPL. Another, we'd rather have a company fix their mistake and take a public 'we screwed up' spanking than duking it out in court.

    Finally, because we're the good guys. Just because most everyone else on earth would bend you over in court for a nickel doesn't mean you have to hand out the shaft as well.
  • Reading over the Peacefire page, I notice something odd about the correspondence they've got posted. They show the complete chain of email used to get their "bait" sites blocked, but nothing about their follow-up requests to block the sources of the bait quotes.

    That strikes me as odd. Anybody know the reason? I'm inclined to think that after a company took the bait, they got email from the main Peacefire account saying "Ha ha! Fooled you! Gonna block Dr. Laura now?" IMHO, it'd have been better to send in the request to block the powerful sites from the same fake Hotmail accounts.

    OTOH, this is still a very satisfying bit of news. Yay, Peacefire.
  • You win!

    The fabulous invisible slashdot T-shirt is on its way to reward you for spotting the intentional error! :) I hope xl fits OK, but the cloth costs something unbelievable.

    I bet Shakespeare would have spelled it the same way I did, some days.

    My bad, now fixed.

    timothy (Isn't it about time we kicked these amateur clowns out of office and installed some professional clowns instead?!")

  • They actually have finally put the source out there - it's at http://www.gentus.com/downloads/source

    Before, they said that they had released the source, then pointed to the kernel-source RPM.

    sigh

    ---
  • Um, none of these quotes violate the definitions of hate speech, at least according to Peacefire: http://www.peacefire.org/BaitAndSwitch/definitions .html , which is usually defined as "promoting or inciting degredation, prejudice, or discrimination" These sites are most certainly pro-family, or anti-gay, however you look at it, but they don't promote discrimination. One wonders why the censorware companies blocked them -- perhaps because sites such as geocities and tripod probably have so much "objectionable" material, that they don't even bother to look at them?

    Ryan

  • Based on the obvious double standard shown in the Peacefire bait and switch [peacefire.org] experiment - how can someone determine if their own websites have been blocked by these products, without using the products?

    I know PopeAlien.com [popealien.com] has been placed on a List of potentially offensive webcomics [keenspot.com] based on the domain name.. (funny 'cause it's so innoffensive) How can I tell if filters are blocking any of my sites? -especially with 'closed list' filters like Mattels?

    -
  • get off your high horse.. kids don't care if they can get the source code, or if they can run it on an Alpha workstation.. sure it might be nice if it would at least run under linux, even in binary form. There is NOTHING wrong with a program like this being propiatary and closed source.
  • If someone violates the GPL, it does *NOT* mean that they *MUST* release their code. There are other remedies, including NOT RELEASING THE CODE ANYMORE.

  • Kids are not that stupid (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Hey Junior, you want to use a real computer? Well, no, it doesn't run any of your games. No, none of your graphics programs work on it. Er, uh, yeah, the browser looks a lot worse. I don't know why the fonts are so small. But, hey, it's a grown-up computer!

    "No thanks, Dad."

  • If a company uses part of GPL code in their product, what is to stop them from obfuscating all the non-GPL code, and releasing that? That way they are technically allowing downloads of "GPL code", while still keeping it closed source.

    But that isn't closed source: it is shrouded source, which is more useful. Obfuscation typically involves removing whitespace and renaming variables. However, the architecture of the code is preserved. If I had a choice between reverse-engineering machine code vs. shrouded-source code, shrouded would be the hand down winner. (And you could legally reverse enginer it -- the GPL guarantees that by the "You may not impose any further restrictions..." clause.)

    But this is beside the point. Companies shouldn't think of it as choosing between machine vs shrounded sources. They should think of it as customers choosing between documented, extendable systems vs undocumented, dead-end systems.

  • >Did anyone who watched the Dune trailer get the
    >shivers when they saw Paul's character with the
    >spice-blue eyes?

    More like the shudders.

    As much as it pains me, I gotta agree with an AC here. If you do a frame-by-frame on the .mov, you can see Paul's glowing eyes ILLUMINATING HIS FOREHEAD!!! Tell me where in the book it said that the Eyes of Ibad acted like that?!?!?

    More probs:

    Nowhere in the trailer is anyone wearing anything resembling a stillsuit! And I don't mean the bodybuilder rubber jobbies from lynch's flick. NOTHING that these guys wear looks sturdy and body fitting enough to be a stillsuit, not even the outfits where they weat the masks.

    Speaking of face masks... HELLO!!! Stillsuits use nose tubes (called filt-plugs I think)! That wasn't a lynchism, that's from the book!

    The Baron Harkonen does NOT look so fat that he would require a suspensor belt to stay up. Also not a lynchism, he needed suspensors in the book. Tho, IIRC, he couldn't acutally fly in the book, just bounce around real good when he had to (getting away from the tooth).

    Also, that orange hair color is NOT natural by any means. You need Manic Panic dye to get your hair to look like that. The Harkonens were supposed to be NATURAL redheads.

    I don't recall Duke Leto being a blonde in the book. We're talking feudal families with inherited charistics here! In all the books, Harkonens tended to be redheads, Atradies had black hair, and Corrino had the blonde genes. Kinda like the Hapsburgs of Spain were known for big noses and pronounced chins.

    The Reverend Mother (where did they get "Bene Gesserit Mother" for a title, or why didn't they use her name (Helen Gaius Moheium (bad spelling on my part, I know))) looks most undignified. Like a cheap carnival foutune teller. The Bene Gesserit Order was RICH. And this was a very advanced HIGH TECH (except for computers) soceity! A reverend mother would not be dressed in gaudy rags like that!

    Can you say "water dicipline"? Can you say "lack of any evidence therof"?

    Looks like this one is gonna be just as bad as that david lynch monstrosity. And as bad as lynch mangled the plot (wierding modules? heart plugs? rain on Arrakis at the end of the FIRST book??? Give me a page number. I dare you), at least he captured the ATMOSPHERE fairly good. You could actually beleive that lynch's movie took place on a water starved planet like Arrakis. And you could beleive that the nobility were nobles, and the Imperial Court was rich and decadent.

    Who knows if this mini-series will get the plot right or not. It's obvious that they've failed on several points however, and have totally failed to capture the atmposphere.

    Wouldn't that be the irony? If we got one Dune movie with the atmosphere but no plot, and another with the plot but no atmosphere?

    john

  • if you truly believe there is nothing wrong with closed source propriatory software, what the hell are you doing on an open source advocacy site?

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is

  • I probably wasn't clear. I don't mean code that could still be compiled, I mean code that literally has been obfuscated with "X" characters or something. Another way to say it is, why not just release the GPL parts but excise the original parts?

    As far as I know, the GPL doesn't (and can't) require all the source code in the company to be released just because some GPL code sneaks in.


    --

  • that is same argument that is used for teaching BASIC. it doesnt work. if you teach a child bad habits (i cant think of many habbits worse than a microsoft addiction) those habits will probably stay with him for life, or at least require a university course in computer science to shake off.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is
  • ah the original post never asked for it to be open sourced. he just wanted to know why the program isn't being used by schools.

  • If it doesn't compile, then it isn't source code. That's kinda the definition of source code. The whole point of the GPL is so the user can recompile the program. If they leave out anything (other than standard compilers, header files, and so forth), then they're violating the GPL.

    WRT the second point, of course the GPL doesn't affect all the company's sources. Just the sources for binaries derived from GPLed code.

  • i wish to make the world a better place, and therefore i believe all software should be free.

    Have you ever contributed any useful piece of software to the world, or do you just want software to be free so you can leach off of those who do contribute? Do you really think the world would be a better place if no one was paid to develop software, art, science, literature, or music?

    It sounds to me like what you really mean is, "the world would be a better place FOR ME if all software were free."

    Someday, you probably will make something valuable and useful. And some other jerk like you will steal it. You'll think it's unjust, but you still won't see the irony.
  • So you were brought up using Linux as a kid?
  • of course not. i was converted by the computer science department of my university. i *wish* i had been brought up using it as a kid.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is
  • Heh - my dad's old Royal manual typewriter didn't even have a 1! You had to use lower-case 'l'!

    When I typed on it, I'd get about 2.5 words before I jammed the keys - he could do 50 wpm. I understand the reason behind the QWERTY keyboard.

  • Have you ever contributed any useful piece of software to the world, or do you just want software to be free so you can leach off of those who do contribute?

    I have contributed according to my ability. Since my ability is not great, neither are my contributions, but both will increase in time.

    Do you really think the world would be a better place if no one was paid to develop software, art, science, literature, or music?

    Yes. I cannot think of a single breakthrough in science, art or literature that was motivated by financial gain.

    It sounds to me like what you really mean is, "the world would be a better place FOR ME if all software were free."

    Indeed it would be a better place for me. And what is good for me is also good for you and everyone else. If your personal good is not the same as the global good, it probably means what you consider to be good is, in fact, bad.

    Someday, you probably will make something valuable and useful. And some other jerk like you will steal it. You'll think it's unjust, but you still won't see the irony.

    Yes, I probably will make something useful. But it will be a piece of code, an idea, and therefore quite impossible for anyone to 'steal' from me. If a million people all copied it, i would still have it, and therefore i would have lost nothing. That is the difference between 'intelectual property' and real property. It is one of the most important differences in the world today, yet it is one that most people still fail to grasp.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is


  • Is it just me or are the eyes wrong? I may be wrong but wasn't the spice melange addiction supposed to turn the eyes entirely blue? Whites as well as iris? One thing's certain in my mind - they didn't glow like that!

    Also check out http://www.scifi.com/dune/gallery/dd3.jpg [scifi.com] for a pic captioned "Costume designer Theodor Pistek supervises Alec Newman (Paul) trying on his Stillsuit."

    Short(ish) list of things I noticed:
    • Did this bloke read Dune? I'm fairly sure that stillsuits were described as being slick. That is anything but slick.
    • There is no sign of anything that can tighten across the chest.
    • Those boots are not desert boots that can be "fitted slip-fashion at the ankles".
    • The thing is too loosely fitting. I don't remember exactly but it seems to me that something that collects and filters expended moisture should be like a second skin. It shouldn't be so loose, especially at the wrists and collar where moisture could escape.
    • Shouldn't stillsuits have some kind of integrated hood? I seem to remember Liet-Kynes or Paul adjusting a strap across the forehead "tightly, so as to prevent chafing". http://www.scifi.com/dune/gallery/d46.jpg [scifi.com] shows a pic of Stilgar but WTF is that thing on his head? It's not what Herbert describes. IIRC he describes stillsuits as having a flap that can be fastened across the mouth, and nose-plugs. Chani is described as having a callous alongside(?) her nose from the tube from the nose-plugs. Nothing is mentioned about that thing on his head that covers his mouth and nose. His clothing is wrong too. Wasn't fremen desert garb described as flowing robes?
    There are probably other things wrong but I can't be bothered looking.

    It's a shame they've finished shooting or some things could've been corrected if they were willing. Oh well, hopefully I'll like it better than the movie when/if it is shown in Australia.

    Of course, what I'd really like to see is a one-to-one adaptation. There'd have to be some adaptation/alteration as far as purely internal dialogue is concerned but I can live with that. Production would probably be difficult. Can you imagine filming the entire book using current methods? Maybe it could be digitally rendered once the tech reaches the point where it's indistinguishable from meat actors.
    I even know a great pulicity stunt: Instead of rendering it all on one server farm do something like distributed.net [distributed.net] or SETI@home [berkeley.edu] and enlist the world in rendering part or all of the movie. Upstream bandwidth definitely, and processor power would have to be better than today's average but maybe do just a few frames as a work unit and it might be workable.
    Copyright could be handled by encrypting input and output but it could be a nice incentive to have a random frame saved to the users hdd with a watermark. The programmers/animators could provide designators as to what frames could be saved so that scenes could be kept secret if needed/wanted.

    I think I'll stop here. My apologies for waffling on but I've been awake for almost 40 hours and my mind is starting to wander and to produce weird thoughts.

    I'm done! Thank the gods for that preview button.
    The text entry area is too damn small though. I think it'd be better if it was 5 or 6 lines taller and maybe 50% wider. It could be made a user option: Big post entry box or small?
    ---
    "When I was a kid computers were giant walk-in wardrobes served by a priesthood with punch cards."
  • I'm not incredibly familiar with the ins-and-outs of the GPL - I've read it, but IANAL. Let me posit a hypothesis and check the reactives:

    What if I take a Linux kernel, and somebody else's COTS product, and perform my own black-magic-and-voodoo manipulations to make them do something neat - what code do I have to release? Just the Linux kernel base? My own mods built on top of it? For the purposes of the posit, let's assume there's no way I'm going to get to the somebody else's source code... what is my exact obligation to release?

    (waits for his ignorance to get stamped out...)

  • Non-free software is not intrinsically bad, and you have no evidence to back up that statement.

    Start at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html and then work your way through all the other essays on the web written on this topic and then tell me there is no evidence.

    he world would also be a better place if all food and housing was free. But given that we (or at least most of us) live in the real world, everything is not always appropriate to be free software.

    It appears you do not even grasp the difference between free beer and free speech. Of course you cannot compare software to food or houses. Try comparing it to music, art and literature.

    Of course, I have evidence to back up my statement. There are no free regular end-user applications that are superior to their closed source equivalents. Zero, Zilch, Nada.

    So what exactly is this email client I am using right now (pine)? Or the SSH client that I have running? Some sort of optical illusion on my monitor perhaps? I have tried closed source clients for both, but never found any as good. There are many other examples, but those happen to be two that I can see at this moment in front of me, which demonstrates that you dont know what you are talking about. Perhaps you are only familiar with Microsoft Windows, on which there are very few open souce programs.

    On the other hand, server apps are the one place that OSS has shown some potential, so it clearly is not a complete failure.

    Any fool can see that OSS is actually a complete sucess server-side, so again you are distorting reality.

    But something tells me that it's going to take a few years for the blind idealism to fall from your eyes. Good luck to you.

    If you wish me good luck, then wish that I always remain an idealist. The world may not be everything that it should be, but if we give up and stop dreaming, as you have, how can we ever hope to mould the world to fit those dreams?

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is

  • The boot disks for Potato, the frozen (and soon to be next stable release) version of Debian include four different kernel configurations [debian.org], including one with Andre Hendrik's IDE patch [linux-ide.org], which includes the Highpoint HPT366 controller that Abit's motherboard uses (and many others) as well a ton of other IDE controllers.
  • And this is the only one of my points that you can refute?

    I accept that those artists were paid, but I do not believe that they were motivated by profit. They were paid because people wanted to reward them. If no-one had wanted to reward them, they would have still produced art.

    I like being naive. If everyone was naive they would be much happier.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is

  • If a company uses part of GPL code in their product, what is to stop them from obfuscating all the non-GPL code, and releasing that?

    Why, the first sentence of the second paragraph of section 3 of the GPL [gnu.org], of course:

    The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
    Clearly if you're saving the unobfuscated version of the code for yourself, it's not the preferred form of the work for modifying.
  • No, I didn't know that. I just went to mysql.com and the source code is available. One of the versions is listed as a 'GPL version', the others arent. Can you confirm exactly what license the source is distributed under? (I cant be bothered to download it.)

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is
  • OSS advocacy site? I thought this was an open speach advocacy site.

    As to your utopian OSS world; How about the OSS coder who
    decides he wants to tinker with BeOS? He ports an device driver
    for a NIC, puts it on his site, with all source and sources included
    - all wrapped up in a pretty GPL. GNU forces him to remove
    the driver because "a device driver requires the OS to function."
    He would have to publish the source of the BeOS (which he does
    not own) to be legal.

    It Happened.
  • Start at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html and then work your way through all the other essays on the web written on this topic and then tell me there is no evidence.

    Philosophy is a lot like religious faith--when it comes right down to it, you can't actually prove much of anything. There are no universally accepted axioms in philosophy, which you would need in order to prove anything.

    Which is not to say that you can't prove a philosophy wrong, you just can't prove it right...the most you can do in that direction is prove it valid. I.e. the initial assumptions do not contradict each other, and argument follows logically from them.

    It is unlikely that the free software movement and proprietary software vendors will ever agree on a philosophical level. They are operating from different initial assumptions, and their arguments are both technically valid. That's where the Open Source (pragmatist rather than idealist--although they aren't mutually exclusive) approach comes in, and why the Open Source movement has been more successful than the FSF.

    Fortunately, the goals of the Open Source movement overlap with those of the the Free Software advocates, so their extent.

    degee
    ---
    Zardoz has spoken!
  • Why not just demand that they open up their source? The mistake is made, so why not crowbar their asses?

    Well, I like to think that the GPL has a live and let live attitude to things. A lot of people are going to disagree with me on that. The reason tha the provision is placed there is not so we can crowbar the source code out of an author who made a simple mistake, but to prevent GPL'd source from being included in those programs. I usually tend to agree with the FSF that software probably shouldn't be owned, but until things are changed, I'd rather convince people that it's better to free their source than to take it from them forcibly by using a GPL provision. Note that I'm saying this assuming that they did it on purpose. The GPL violations we've seen thus far I really think were mistakes. Not to say that they couldn't have been WAY more careful, but I don't think they did it with malicious intent.

    Also, suing costs a holy shitload of money, even if you win there's a large initial capital outlay unless you know a lawyer who will do it pro bono. (If you do, then share that name, please)

    But for me, it comes down to this: I'd rather that my software simply not be incorporated. As a GPL source author, I don't really want to pry the source away from an author that made a mistake, I just want them to know what the rules are and make sure that they play by them. Suing should always be the last option IMHO since for the most part humans can be reasonable and come to an agreement if they try. It shouldn't be ruled out, it's just that I don't think it should be the first thing we jump to.

  • Of course those pages would be blocked... the experiment was very biased and flawed. When you put together such quotes, taken out of context from the articles (or even the website) they were in, and string them up in such a manner, it really does push the emotional buttons. Hence an easy block.

    Take another set of quotes, from the same articles, and you could probably come up with something totally different on a totally different topic.

    I mean, politicians do this all the time, they slam each other by quoting each other out of context.

    A better experiment would have been to take an entire antigay article (or website), put it on GeoCities, and see if that will get blocked.

  • Re:Dune (Score:2)

    by Pope ( 17780 )
    erm, the only "Director's Cut" of DUNE was the theatrical release.
    Lynch has disavowed the TV extended version to the point that it says "an Alan Smithee film" in reference to the Director's Guild pseudonym that is used when a film is abused by the studio w/o the director's consent.

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • Some are still fuming that YHBT HAND.

    Huh? I'm confused... how was this a troll, and what's WHBT HAND?

    ---
  • I have to agree with you - the trailer doesn't give me a good feeling. It just looks cheesy.

    BTW, I'm glad to see somebody point out that Dune the movie does have at least one good point - the atmosphere. It's hardly worth getting into all the various plot problems (too many to count, although you pretty much covered the important ones!). I enjoy the movie for the look and feel; I read the book for the story (and an even better aSKphere created by Herbert in my mind).

    -------

  • Lynch has disavowed the TV extended version to the point that it says "an Alan Smithee film" in reference to the Director's Guild pseudonym that is used when a film is abused by the studio w/o the director's consent.

    That's interesting. Harlan Ellison [harlanellison.com] uses the pseudonym "Cordwainer Bird" [enteract.com] for the same purpose.

  • That error sucks. He needs a new Web hosting company. I was about to buy the software for my little brother, but he's exceeded his "transfer limit".
    Boy That SUCKS!!!!!
  • One perfectly good reason is that we don't have wads of cash in our pockets

    certainly, that's a good reason. but, in every case I've seen, the cave-in takes place on day one, and comes with statements that say it was never considered. I think the GPL would have a lot more teeth if it were enforced. Get creative. Lawyers will work on contingency: these companies should be willing to pay a settlement if their precious source is worth so much to them. They have, after all, broken the law. Also, they have competitors: how much of a lawsuit would one MB mfr pay to spank another, and see their source. So, doesn't seem like that good a reason.

    Another, we'd rather have a company fix their mistake and take a public 'we screwed up' spanking than duking it out in court.

    who is "we"? If "we" believe that open source is a good thing, then we believe it's a good thing even if some of the participants get dragged kicking and screaming into the quicksand that they stepped into. Your reasoning seems to imply that you think that open source is something to be avoided.

    Finally, because we're the good guys. Just because most everyone else on earth would bend you over in court for a nickel doesn't mean you have to hand out the shaft as well.

    Again, open source is not the shaft. It's a good thing. And, the GPL should be and would be meaningful. You release a binary, you release the source. We all benefit, including you, as you will discover when you release the source which you have to release because of the choices you have made.

    Perhaps the GPL should add a UCITA click-wrap to the license: you use this source, and you agree to abide by the terms. We'll see how much "the industry" likes UCITA when it applies to the technology they steal ;)

    ----

  • If you release a modified Linux binary, you must also make avalable all the source nessisary for someone else to make an identical Linux binary.

  • WTF are you sighing about? Is that your sig? read the article: they did not release all of the source that is based on GPLed code.

    IMHO, the nerd "sigh" is a giant flag that says, "I've got a stick up my ass"

    ----

  • accidental, like I accidentally downloaded a bunch of Metallica and Dr. Dre 'cuz I thought they were my backup copies of disks I never bought?

    Anyway, you're confused: they aren't using the license, that's the problem. They're distributing the code without a license.

    ----

  • You can't force someone else to release their code. You can only force them to stop distributing yours. So if they stop, that's the end of it, unless you can prove damages. How do you prove damages on a program you charge nothing for?
  • The source to versions of MySQL newer than 3.20.32a (the GPL version) is available under the MySQL FREE PUBLIC LICENSE [mysql.com].

    From a 15 minute reading of the license, it looks like it's similar to the GPL, excepting that it's a bit more restrictive about providing source code (must come with every copy; pointing isn't good enough, though if they're in the same archive (say, an ftp site) but different files/packages, that's fine), and there can be no charge for the program alone (it may be charged for in a collection, as with the GPL). Oh, and this license only applies when not on a Microsoft O/S (no joke, read the license); that has a seperate shareware license.

    So yes, MySQL is open. Sort of.
    ---

  • mmmm... since you are being picky, you need to clean up your language: not releasing the source code means you are not covered by the GPL license. So, you are violating a copyright and the remedies for copyright violations go beyond simply stopping.

    ----
  • Who is we?

    GPL'ed authors for the most part, screaming /. posters make up the rest of we.

    it's a good thing even if some of the participants get dragged kicking and screaming into the quicksand

    In short, no. GPL/GNU is an idelogy more than a license. That statement is what made the spread of Socialism such a fearful thing; That the vehement Socialist would kill his brethren in order to enforce the ideal.

    Your reasoning seems to imply that you think that open source is something to be avoided.

    Not at all! I dislike the US court system, where money and the sheen of false respectability can get you through the judicial finish line first with a Ford Pinto entrant.

    Again, open source is not the shaft.

    You are correct. Hauling someone's ass into court and hiding behind a lawyer when a 'Hey you! Knock it off' in person would have sufficed is the shaft.
  • There are other remedies, including NOT RELEASING THE CODE ANYMORE.
    Of course, if the copyright holder is okay with this then this is an option. However, if you release the binary in violation of the GPL, you have infringed on the author's copyright and they have the right to get compensation and redress in court. Discontinuing the release of the code could be seen as a good faith effort to correct an unintential mistake. But it doesn't really correct past illegal actions.

    If you've released a binary to anyone that includes GPL code, but have not released the complete source (under the GPL) to the same person, you've violated the license and the law (if the GPL stands up in a court...). You can't take the binary back to correct it. You can't make a new binary without the GPLed code to correct it.

    But of course, IANAL.
    --

  • WTF are you talking about? Stick up my ass?

    My point was that before, they seemed to think that the "source code" referred to in the GPL consisted only of the kernel source. To anyone who asked, they pointed to kernel-source-2.2.14.src.rpm. The sigh referred to the fact that they thought they were covered by this. Obviously confused.

    And if YOU read the article, and the previous one, you'd see that at first they provided NO code to ANYTHING, and now they are finally providing source to everything but one package. Which is still a problem of course, but at least they're showing just a little bit of good faith...

    ---
  • you are ignoring a point I tried to make, or at least being fuzzy with your language.

    Making a mistake by accidently incorporating GPLed code? I don't buy it. Everybody knows that source is copyrighted and you would by default need to inquire as to by what license do you come by having that source.

    Making a mistake of knowingly violating the license? OK, you don't need to slit your wrists, but you should make restitution. It's the socially responsible thing to do.

    And why do you keep talking about prying and crowbarring source away? Open source is a good thing: you're doing people a favor if you convince them to open their source. Closed source is dying, but open provides life everlasting. With all those eyes, your bugs become shallow. There are many itches out there: you can't scratch them all. You (the copier) know the benefit of open source... that's why you chose it! time to feel the power by releasing it that way too.

    ----

  • diagnosis: attention deficit disorder, leading to profound anti-social tendencies.

    take a deep breath and focus on some reasonably topical point you wish to make. GPL is a license allowing one to distribute copyrighted works. It is not an economics ideology, nor is it a judicial system, nor is it totalitarianism. I know, I know... you feel oppressed.

    ----

  • the only "Director's Cut" of DUNE was the theatrical release.

    My bad then... I assumed that what the SCI-FI Channel called the director's cut was just that.

    Can you fill me in on the details?

    thanx

  • You can do more than than force them to stop.

    How do you prove damages on a program you charge nothing for?

    You do raise an interesting issue, but it does not necessarily go the way you are assuming. The non-source-releaser is not covered by the GPL. Since you, as the copyright holder, own and have the right to sell your work, you are at least entitled to any proceeds from someone else selling it, plus punitive damages. If you can show that they were selling it cheaper than you could have, it's worth even more. Might be good to let 'em go for awhile, your rights don't evaporate :)

    ----

  • The shrink used to refer to it as a deep-seated God complex coupled with weakly disassociative mania, until I killed him.

    He missed the obvious sociomanipulative streak, and didn't deserve to live.. ;)

    Seriously though. GPL is an ideology manifested in license. In simplest form, that information, source code, knowledge, cheese, etc, is best when shared. Stallman just happened to be a code monkey when the mental light went on, so this is how it manifested itself.
  • don't be so sensitive. it is MHO, that's irrefutable. I hate the "oh, it's such a burden for me to set everyone else straight" sighs, especially when they come from someone who is wrong.

    yes, your clarification is correct, but your orginal post was wrong. A more appropriate clarification would be, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't say that right", rather than accusing me of not reading the article when I clearly had.

    ----

  • I like your sense of humor :)

    yes, there is an element of truth to the history you are recounting, but still, the GPL is just a license.

    Just like Marx was wrong about most of what he said, but still, religion is the opiate of the masses.

    ----

  • Ok - I converted it.
    You can grab MPEG versions from http://house.ofdoom.com/~hungerf3/video/dune/ [ofdoom.com]
    --
  • I noticed in the original discussion, no one really seemed to even question IF kids should be programming. Shouldn't kids be spending their time outside, running around, playing and discovering the real world? I know one thing I've learned from my experiences with the internet and computers is that they are no substitute for hands on learning and real live interaction with other people. Just my 2e-2 cents.
  • Look at peacefire.org though. The filtering software doesn't work i.e. blocks sites that kids possibly should be looking at.

    Plus their whole veil of secrecy about which sites they actually do block seems incredibly dodgy to me.
  • what the hell are you doing on an open source advocacy site?

    This gets tedious. We're not. We're on a site that offers 'news for nerds. stuff that matters', whose constituency includes a large number of open source advocates, many of whose discussions concern open source and free software issues, and which uses open source software. Just because all elephants are gray, it doesn't mean anything gray is an elephant.

    TomV

  • Try http://www.acronymfinder.com/ [acronymfinder.com]

    You won't find "YHBT HAND", but look up "YHBT" and all will be revealed...

  • *SPEW* ;-)

    Thanks A Lot. I've got coffee all over my keyboard, again.

    The true humor is in the truth of it.
    --

  • Wow, are you gonna get slammed!

    'Round these here parts, thems fightin' words.

    Don't you know, there is no future in the Big Blue Room. Your life must consist of nothing but:

    • Downloading Metallica on Napster
    • Whingeing about RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft
    • Worshipping Linus Torvalds
    • Downloading Pr0n and warez
    • Drooling over the latest gadgets
    • Drooling over Natalie Portman's grits
    • Whingeing about almost everything else

    There is nothing in that list about getting fresh air and exercise, or honing inter-personal relationships, face to face, or developing a skill which doesn't require keyboarding or a small screwdriver and a static strap.
    --

  • "My question is, if:

    'Beta testing of ToonTalk began in January 1995 at the Encinal School in Menlo Park, California'

    why isn't this software in general circulation yet. We studied logo when I was in elementary school, if we would have had this stuff, there'd be more programmers out there today."

    You were in elementary school in 1995???

    carlos

  • ...that the science fiction authors and the costume designers have a deal. The authors won't try to design movie costumes, and the designers won't try to write science fiction.

    Or something.

    --
  • On most of the softwares' web sites, you have some sort of "test" section where you can enter an URL and check if it's blocked or not. For example...

    SurfWatch's "Test a site" page [surfwatch.com]

    CyberPatrol's "CyberNOT Search Engine" [cyberpatrol.com]

    CyberNanny's "Check a site" page [netnanny.com]

    WebSense's "site look up" page [netpart.com]

    SmartFilter's SmartFilterWhere [securecomputing.com] (this one's pretty nasty as it asks you for some personal info (name, phone, etc.) but I'm not sure if it's absolutely required to fill out those fields).

    By the way, I only checked the blocking software mentionned on this peacefire page [peacefire.org] so if there are others, you're on your own. :-) Oh yeah, and I didn't find any test page for N2H2 [n2h2.com]'s Bess [n2h2.com].

    Greg
  • Hmmm. I always thought that Dune was one of the most well thought out scifi books written. I dont think the previous poster is displeased with costuming but with 'technical' details of how stillsuits and stuff are supposed to work. I dont think giving Chani calluses (sp?) would work though. I wouldnt want to see the leading lady with a big warty thing on her face. Other than that I think the technical details should at least be accurate, and not only in spirit.
  • Yes. I cannot think of a single breakthrough in science, art or literature that was motivated by financial gain.

    What you fail to see here is that whether or not your point is correct (which, incidentally, it isn't) it is really irrelevant to this discussion. The point isn't that there will no longer be a financial incentive to create things. The point is that if no one gets paid to create, no one will be able to devote their full time to the creation of non-tangible material. There will no longer be any full time musicians, artists, scientists, writers, or any other profession which makes its money by selling things which have a zero or near zero reproduction cost.

    Yes, I probably will make something useful. But it will be a piece of code, an idea, and therefore quite impossible for anyone to 'steal' from me. If a million people all copied it, i would still have it, and therefore i would have lost nothing.

    What you still fail to grasp is that you will also have gained nothing. That's fine if you're just a hobbyist, cranking out programs on weekends, but if you were considering a career in programming, writing, art, music, or science? Forget it! No one will pay you for something you've created when they can just take it instead.
  • When I was a kid, all we had was LOGO and BASIC... I learned some of my worst habits in Apple BASIC. Could be worse though; my father started working on computers in the late 60's, so he can get away with the "When I was your age, we coded in 1's and 0's and sometimes didn't even have 1's..." Punch tape; ick.

    I'm not that old, but I at college (in the late 80s) I was in my school's last assembly language class to use punch cards.

    I think this was a great benefit. Having to punch out those cards, using one card per instruction, really gave me a deep intuitive understanding of how a computer Reads. One. Instruction. At. A. Time. And. Has. Only. The. Information. You. Have. Already. Given. It.


    "It's that guy!"

  • Before I try to answer this question, as the author of ToonTalk, I'm very pleased with all the interest that these SlashDot discussions have generated in ToonTalk. So much interest that www.toontalk.com [toontalk.com] has become overloaded so I made a mirror at www.animated-programs.com/ToonTalk [animated-programs.com].

    So if ToonTalk started beta testing in 1995 then why isn't it better known? Well first off beta testing revealed that too few kids were comfortable with just exploring ToonTalk unaided. So I generated many narrated demos, puzzle sequences, and added Marty, a speaking guide/coach, to ToonTalk. Also beta testing revealed that while kids really mastered the basic stuff in ToonTalk they found the sprite/game stuff confusing. So that needed to be completely redesigned and rebuilt. (And I'm proud to say that it is working so well now that a big European research project is using it to enable 6 to 8 years to build their own games - see www.ioe.ac.uk/playground [ioe.ac.uk].)

    So ToonTalk was ready in 1998 and I showed it to more than a dozen publishers of kids or educational software. The typical response from the technical people was very positive and from the marketing people I heard comments like "It is too hard to explain", "We're not in the business of educating customers", and "What line or two on the box could make it sell in big numbers". A publisher in Sweden was the first exception, followed by one in the UK, then Portugal, and then Brazil. And a Japanese version is in final testing.

    So ToonTalk was self-published in North America. This means there is no marketing budget and a small PR budget (already spent). So it has been spreading by word of mouth, nice articles like the one in Dr. Dobb's Journal (Feb 99), some things I've written (e.g. March 2000 Communications of the ACM), and forums like this one.

    Best,

    -ken kahn (kenkahn@toontalk.com)
  • Max played the imperial ecologist... What was his name... Liet Kynes?
  • What you're overlooking is that the existing implementations of censorware are all corrupt. They typically censor any sites critical of them. They promote certain political agendas by censoring sites that contain opposing views. They certainly censor anti-censorship sites.

    Parents may innocently think they're protecting their children with a censorware package, but they don't realize how the content is being filtered by these censorware vendors, and how their children are being manipulated. Censorware vendors don't disclose the list of sites they block, claiming it's a "trade secret". Thus, they can block anything they want, and all the customer sees is a "site blocked" page. It's more cost-effective for them to block a thousand innocent sites that their users will never know are innocent, than to let one page about AIDS slip through, and bring the wrath of a parent down upon them. Thus, some popular censorware products have something like a 75% false positive rate.

    This is all well-documented. I think peacefire.org has a lot of links.

  • Exactly. The costuming is probably fine. In any case it's too late to be changed. I just think they should have paid more attention to descriptions in the book. Accuracy should be important and encouraged.
    I allow that there may have been technical considerations when the costumes were designed but I can't think of any.
    As far as Chani goes I wasn't talking about giving her a callous; my point was the fact that she had one is in my mind an indication that the noseplugs & mouth covering were not as depicted in the photos.

    ---
    "When I was a kid computers were giant walk-in wardrobes served by a priesthood with punch cards."

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