Slashback: Stallman, Again, Wanderungen 126
Which way to America, please? After word of Microsoft Honcho Jim Allchin's (somewhat bizarre) words on Free software (later "clarified" by MS), we linked to a (preliminary) response to Allchin from RMS. Now RMS has himself issued a final version of his statement, here for your edification, passed on by Dan Gillmore, technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.
Very eloquent.Thanks, Dan.
And if you're not yet out of sparklers, pie, bunting or RAM, matthew writes: "Bradley M. Kuhn, the new Vice President of the Free Software Foundation, has an essay published here. It's a more personal answer to Microsoft's attack against the GPL."
Start flossing that stein and pressing those Lederhosen! Jetzt! Alex writes: "I'm proud to announce that we finally got it managed. The date is fixed. The Linuxbierwanderung 2001 (1) will take place from 25th of August to the 1st of September in Bouillon (2), Belgium. As the hall we get the upper floor of the Archeoscope (3), a museum direct in town. It's warm, dry, nice, with enough electricity and has up to some 20 ISDN-lines. To get things easier for you we added a lot of phonenumbers and addresses of camping sites and hotels on the webpage. See (4) to look for your favorite place. So, now it's time to register ! To register yourself, your family, your pets, your computers and your lectures see (5). Thank you for your attention, Cheers, Alex.
(1) The Linuxbierwanderung 2001
(2) Bouillon on the Net
(3) The Archeoscope
(4) Hotel Overview
(5) Join the Linuxbierwanderung and register !"
I wish this didn't sound suspiciously close to LinuxWorld (San Francisco) 2001, because a lot of people would probably like to go to both. Lucky Europeans;) How about one of these in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee? I'll bring the fireworks, you bring the moonshine ...
I would have stopped at Pizza-Nizza afterward ... Google bought Deja. RallyDriver sends a report from the coolest six-letter city on I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio (gulp -- covered my bases?).
"On Thursday at the Omni hotel here in Austin [?] , we had the now familiar wake: the auction. While the public was overbidding on everything from furniture to laptops, dual P3 VA FullOn servers were going for as low as $275 a piece.
The show, however, goes on. Rumors of unemployment levels in Austin are greatly exaggerated, and it seems like most of the Deja people are already moving on to new opportunities. If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.
Most of the server equipment (they still had the previous generation of equipment and the one before that) was picked up by junk dealers and resellers according to its vintage, but ironically a number of the rackmount boxes will be going right back where they came from -- Exodus Austin, where Deja was hosting, is also our co-lo provider."
Heh (Score:1)
They're not worth half that.
Re:Stallman on zdnet (Score:1)
Ugh.
Not many people make Bill Gates look attractive. RMS is blessed.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
Wrong answer (Score:1)
--cp
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
What I was trying to say is that a concentration of hate crimes in an area is an awfully good reason not to live there, especially if you fall into one of the catagories for which people are victimized.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
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Re:Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman (Score:2)
That was one of the concerns which lead to the creation of the Open Content License back in 1998:
http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml [opencontent.org]
It's commonly used for books which are released both in print and on a free basis on-line, eg., Linux Administration Made Easy [linuxdoc.org], and all the content at Linux.Com [linux.com].
umm (Score:1)
The only feasible way is to charge service fees for customized work. The "product" as we know it goes away. This unfortunately puts a tremendous economic burden on those that fund innovation, or those that are early adopters -- since laggards by definition won't have to pay much for the work (since it's available free, as opposed to "not at all, it hasn't been written yet").
So if salaries go down, that means those who program are those who do it for the hobby, for the community, for "scratching the personal itch" -- leading to a supply-driven market. Last I checked, markets were supposed to be demand-driven, not supply-driven. And that means that people's needs aren't being met. All for the sake of "freedom".
People *will* give up freedom to have their needs met.
not exactly (Score:1)
The federal reserve's policies have always had their roots in moneterist theories, which in turn have their roots in demand-side macroeconomics.
uuh, no (Score:1)
copyright is called "practicality" -- you know, the thing that keeps idealism in check?
The founding fathers put the need for copyright in the constitution for this very reason... one needs to give up freedoms for periods of time in order to promote the progress of the arts and sciences.
Re:Check out this quote. (Score:1)
To be blunt, I had a choice between the Free XPDF and the proprietary Acrobat Reader. I chose Acrobat Reader. I'm restricting my own rights by choosing it? I think not.
God, I'm thinking of jumping ship now...how's FreeBSD doing these days?
Re:If only I could filter out RMS like Katz! (Score:1)
It's been that way since Day 1, sorry. Thou shalt not speaketh vilely of our great patron saint, St. IGNUcius.
Feh, I think we could do without him, myself. Thanks for starting the GNU project, but sometimes, Mr. Stallman, you get in the way.
Stallman backs down on Kerberos claim... (Score:1)
In this final release he backs down from this position. He removed the lie from the response, but instead he turned the paragraph into simple innuendo without any substantiation.
Well, at least we know one thing. Even though Stallman is to arrogant to come out and apologize for lying, at least he's willing to admit when he's wrong.
Down with RMS (Score:1)
But the problem is that it only works in theory, it ignores all other facets of the society we currently live in.
Stallman has written that he doesn't think programmers should be paid salaries. He's written that he finds it disgusting that people would even suggest working for money.
He has claimed that he has purposefully not pursued marriage because he realizes if he did he'd have to set his priorities differently. Meaning, he'd have to pursue that evil money in order to care for the family.
I don't know why you would say this is ad hominem, it's all true and is found as revelations in all of his various writings.
But the thing is, his dream is theoretical and it is clearly evident that he does not take into regard evidence within the real world to support his theory.
I think the views RMS expresses are damaging to the industry. He's the polar opposite of what is wrong with the industry today. That is the problem, he suggests replacing one bad thing with another bad thing.
The good is somewhere in the middle, a balance of copyright and consumer interests.
If you disagree, then fine. But please don't sit there and whine about how misunderstood poor RMS is.
Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman (Score:2)
:-)
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:2)
I'm a liberal... What I want to know is, why are you so afraid to acknowledge that Richard Stallman's ideas are based a lot upon the Communist writings of Karl Marx.
Love. Money and Race. (Score:2)
or irational persons.
People kill for money so take extra recautions when you cary money around. Or better yet don't cary much money with you. And when you do make it aparent that you don't.
People kill for personal vengence. Be honest in your dealings to avoid creating a motive.
People kill because they dislike your race, religeon, nationality or sexual orientation. For this kind of crime there realy are only 2 options. Don't live near such people or cary a large loaded firearm at all times.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
This particular legislation circomvents the judges discretion.
More importantly it was only created because that discretion was so frequently abused.
Comrade Paperclip (Score:1)
I had this mental image of the MS Office Paperclip, suddenly appearing to preach Free Software.
__
Hate crime is thoughtcrime.... (Score:1)
This is a dangerous and foolish step. Law must be based on what was actually done, not why it was done. The motivations of other people is something that can never be determined accurately. It can be guessed at over coffee, but has no place in a legal system.
There is a bill in Oregon to to have 'eco crimes' categorized as hate crimes. This would make the penalties most severe for exercising one's Constitutional right of assembly, as trespassing for the purpose of protesting damage to the environment will become a 'hate crime'.
That's only the start -- this isn't just a slippery slope, it's close to a frictionless surface.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
"Hate crime" as a category is ridiculous, and should have no special legal standing.
Re:Hate crime is thoughtcrime.... (Score:1)
Broadly speaking, you can't have effective law *at all* without considering "why" something was done. At the most basic level, you have to know whether a trigger was pulled accidentally, or on purpose. That's a "why" that is only answered by trying to get into the mind of the accused.
At a higher level, we distinguish degrees of crime (1st degree, 2nd degree, etc.), also based on "why".
As an "Orwellian prediction", this is pretty lame, considering how many centuries its been with us.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
Interesting point. In the case of hate crimes, the point seems to be that the "intent" is to kill members of a sub-population generically, or to harrass or intimidate them into leaving.
So perhaps the question is, should intent to drive a group away through killing, assault, bombing, etc., be a crime.
If you were plotting a military takeover of the government, for example, and you killed someone, you would be tried not only for the murder, but for treason (or whatever it was John Brown was hanged for).
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
It is entirely appropriate that a murder directed toward a group be handled much differently than a murder directed toward an individual. A person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to his neighbors. A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead. He is also capable of much greater carnage -- no one who is pissed at their neighbor is going to blow up a hundred people because of it. But people driven to hate crimes can, and do target hundreds of people.
Nice sig. (Score:1)
Re:his deal is that "IP rights" is too broad a ter (Score:1)
~luge
*I have no idea if RMS would agree here.
Re:his deal is that "IP rights" is too broad a ter (Score:3)
~luge
*Note: this isn't to knock BSD folks. If you want to allow others to use your code without encumbrance, that's your bag- you have that choice. In an IP free world, there would be no choice- everything would be BSD-style, whether the coder liked it or not.
Spell check this! (Score:1)
I just know this is going to make a big difference in your life.
(Ducking the empty beer bottles thrown my way.)
BTW, the comment area seems to force an unwanted blank into the middle of the Wander~1 words.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
Thus the crime is perpetrated upon more then the individual lying broken / bloodied / dead but rather upon the catagory / class / community of persons who were targetted; and the penalties reflect this.
While ignorent folks try and claim it's some sort of "special protection" to be a member of a community listed under many hate-crime ordinances it's entirely irrelavant unless the crime was committed upon the basis of the victems being a *whatever*.
Before going spouting off it's oftentimes enlighening to do a bit of research first and discover the reasoning behind a set of laws rather then spouting off an ignorant opinion.
As to this being a strike against Austin - it is. A former employer attempted to move me there upon which I had to explain was not an option: I was not going to move to a place where my legal protections were lessened.
Re:umm (Score:2)
Uhhh no. Weaklings, losers, and morons will give up freedom to have their needs met. Which is, of course, most everyone.
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
A hate crime is distinct because it is also an act of communication to others in the target group (and I - as well as the courts - believe that a non-white person who attacks a white person on the basis of their race is committing a hate crime) - in addition to the direct attack on the individual as a target, the act threatens other individuals in the target group. If I am gay, and three people in my community have been attacked for being gay, then I am being directly menaced (essentially, assaulted - it can be seen as an act of assault on all people in the target group), while if I am attacked for having cut someone off in the freeway, there isn't really an implicit message being sent to people who cut other people off on a freeway. That is the nature of the hate crime.
Collateral victims. (Score:2)
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:1)
bye
schani
Re:Down with RMS (Score:1)
Could you please tell us where EXACTLY he wrote that? I happen to have read a lot of his writings but such claims I have never come across.
bye
schani
Re:What a bullshit (Score:1)
You may also learn about the proper use of the words "fornicate", "bovine" and "dung".
Erwin
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
I agree. When you've done that, come back and we'll talk again.
And it's "rather than" not "rather then".
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
How does my taking the position that all murderers should be taken out of society permanently, regardless of whether they murdered because they hated their victim or because they hated a broader class of people, equate into protecting the murderer's rights?
Are you even reading these things before you reply to them?
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
So what? The very fact that we're compiling this kind of statistic is further evidence that these wrong-headed laws divide us.
Giving a murderer a lesser sentence because the color of his skin is the same as his victim's isn't equal rights.
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
No, a person who kills his neighbor over a common fence is a menace to anyone with whom he interacts, because they might cut in line in front of him or double park. Such a person has demonstrated that he cannot live by the rules of a civilized society, and that he will not resolve minor disputes by taking them to small claims court, but instead by killing someone.
Such a person should not be in society, and it is reckless and irresponsible to allow him to continue interacting with others. Whether that means life in prison without paroll or the death penalty is a seperate topic, for which I have an opinion that isn't really relevant to what's being discussed at present.
A person who kills a jew because he's a jew is a menace to millions of people, and his intent to kill doesn't go away when the first victim is dead.
Nonsense. Most bigots who kill don't kill even a dozen people, much less millions. As for being a bigger threat, do you honestly think your hypothetical unstable neighbor is going to encounter less rude people than your bigot is going to encounter Jews?
The bigot is going to self-select himself AWAY from potential victims. He's probably less of a threat than the unstable fool, who is going to be interacting with other people every day.
Both the bigot and the unstable neighbor have one thing in common; they have demonstrated that they cannot live by the rules of society, and that they present a threat to the lives and well-being of others as a result of this deficiency. Both should be removed from society permanently.
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Re:Bull and here's why (Score:2)
And you're missing a CRUCIAL point:
If we punish a murderer inspired by skin tone more serverely than we punish one inspired by money, BY DEFINITION, we aren't giving the one inspired by money the "ultimate" penalty. In order for one to be more, the other has to be less, and that "wiggle room" means sociopaths let loose to prey upon society.
It comforts me not at all that I am more likely to be killed for my wallet than for my color. I'd rather both crimes carried the same penalty; life without possibility of parole, spent in a little bitty room with adequate food and sunlight, but nothing else.
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:3)
And am I less so, because of hate crime laws?
Read what I wrote again; I'm not saying hate crimes don't exist, I'm saying hate crime LAWS accomplish nothing other than dividing us further.
Nowhere have I said that hate crimes should not be punished. Quite the opposite; simply that the punishment for ANY violent crime should be very severe, and extremely violent crime (murder, attempted murder, assault with intent to kill) should be punished permanently.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
I am far more likely to be killed for my wallet or automobile than for the amount of melanin in my epidermis, and this would be true even if I were a black female living in Austin.
The fact that I am a straight white male (lower-upper class, atheist, but you were close enough) doesn't make it any less tragic if I'm killed. My wife and child wouldn't love me any more if I were a minority.
Hell, the fact that I'm not called a minority is further proof of the arbitrary and illogical nature of these divisions. I'm Irish, my "people" are still being oppressed.
Except that that's bullshit; I'm an American, and so is the American who was born in India in the next cubicle, and the American born in China in the one after him, and the American of African descent walking by, and the American of Greek descent in the next room who happens to be gay.
It's just as wrong to kill one of us as the next one, for any premeditated reason.
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:5)
I fail to see how you're any more dead if the man who kills you hates all people of your skin tone, not just you.
I further fail to see why such crimes should have greater penalties than "ordinary" crimes. If murder demands a certain penalty, it should demand that penalty regardless of the race, color, creed, or religion of either victim or assailant.
Hate crime laws merely divide us further, by perpetuating the wrong-headed notion that there is a non-trivial difference between us that is based on our non-immediate ancestry.
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Re:Down with RMS (Score:2)
I don't know why you would say this is ad hominem
Richard Stallman is a...
If you would like to avoid the ad hominem accusation, start your sentence with something other than "The man whose arguments I'm attacking is...". Whatever comes after this will be an ad hominem attack. Try this instead:
Re:What you need to know about RMS (Score:2)
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Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:4)
I have no opinion on "intellectual property rights," because the term is too broad to have a sensible opinion about. It is a catch-all, covering copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other disparate areas of law; areas so different, in the laws and in their effects, that any statement about all of them at once is surely simplistic. To think intelligently about copyrights, patents or trademarks, you must think about them separately. The first step is declining to lump them together as "intellectual property".
I'm not sure if I understand why one would choose to misrepresent RMS so badly. In any case this particular passage seems quite clear and I see no evidence of his "speaking with a forked tongue". Perhaps RMS doesn't speak well for all of us, but we should at least give him the respect of quoting him accurately and then discussing the pros and cons of his views.
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:1)
It's called a "troll". You've haven't posted for a while, have you?
Re:What a bullshit (Score:2)
Just don't use it. And don't whine about it.
Nobody cares if you don't. You're *never* going to make a contribution anyways, so we won't feel deprived when you refuse the participate.
Go and code another closed-source VB app. Yay you.
What's with the title? It's like "All you bullshit belong to us!" or something.
Re:Stallman on zdnet (Score:3)
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:4)
Here, it's pretty clear that he doesn't want to make the article too long, so he discusses only copyright. That's the form of IP that the GPL most clearly attacks.
The sentence you quoted is part of his explanation of why he isn't discussing the other forms of IP in that article.
Doesn't sound much like a troll to me.
LWE(sf) and linuxbierwanderung already conflict (Score:2)
Don't forget about Burning Man [burningman.com], which is August 27 - September 3. A large chunk of techie types trek there every year as well, especially from the Bay Area. I bet it'll draw alot of people who otherwise might have gone to lwe of the linuxbierwanderung.....
Stallman on zdnet (Score:3)
Thank God for RMS (Score:5)
He does not hate corporations.
He does not want to steal your property.
It infuriates me when people lash out against Stallman because they think he goes too far or they think he misrepresents them.
If you think he is too stubbornly stuck on Freedom then you're entitled to your opinion but it is stupid to attack him for his opinion. He has made a great contribution to our society. What good comes of attempting to discredit him and his work? To do so reveals your own malignance. I challenge you to go make your own contribution.
If you think Stallman misrepresents you then don't attack him. Instead, make your own opinion heard. He is defending his code and his rights. He is defending the rights of all of us who believe in the freedom of speech. He is defending all those who subscribe to the philosophy of the GPL. If you don't like Free Software then go promote your own Open Source software or your proprietary software. Don't stoop to Ad Hominem arguements to promote your ideas. Again, it only exposes your own lack of character.
"...when people have to tell you you're being oppressed, something is most definitely amiss. "
Maybe you don't feel oppressed using proprietary software. I think most people who don't write code don't feel too opressed. But most people also intuitively know they should be able to copy and distribute software freely. That's why most people will make an "illegal" copy of MS Word or Windows for their friends. They don't have to hate Microsoft, but they know that a proprietary software copyright holder should not have the right to tell you what you can (and can't) do with your copy.
Stallman is a generous, honest and brilliant man. Instead of attacking him, I challenge you to emuate him.
-R
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Tired of ICANN despotism?
Go OpenNIC! [unrated.net]
Re:Down with RMS (Score:2)
Where? I just double-checked on his website, and what I find agreed with what I thought he thought, which is: There's nothing wrong with programmers being paid, as long as they're being paid to write free software.
And before I hear sniggering that that's a ridiculous idea, it's not at all. People at small companies such as Ximian and Redhat, as well as large companies like Sun and IBM are being paid to write free software all the time. (Sun has being writing free software at least as far back as the origin of Tcl, a long time ago).
Jules
Re:his deal is that "IP rights" is too broad a ter (Score:3)
The GPL uses the force of copyright simply to counteract (in his view) the evils of copyright. He'd be far happier if there simply was none.
He isn't against all IP, thought. He's got no objection to IP (indeed, copyright) on 'artistic works'. It's the unusual status of software as a tool which can be copied at near-zero cost, and modified and enhanced so easily which makes it possible and very powerful to share, benefitting everyone.
Jules
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:4)
The differences are:
1) Music is beautiful, while software is useful.
2) Music is typically a finished work of art, while software can almost always be improved.
There are overlaps, and certainly there's no reason not to distribute music under a free license of one kind or another, but the arguments that music should be free are, IMO, much weaker than the arguments that software should be free.
The typical free software situation is something like this: I write a program because it's useful to me, or a group of people I know (e.g. a client). However, it's also useful to lots of other people, so I allow anyone to use it. (This is a piece of altruism on my part, so far). However, other people will have slightly different requirements and/or cleverer ideas. They can make the changes which suit them, and release them back to the community. This constant feedback approach benefits everyone.
There is a very strong parallel to the way academic research is carried out: academics publish papers with their ideas, others read those papers, come up with enhancements or corrections and publish those, rinse and repeat!
I don't think this argument transfers very well to music (or books, or other primarly artistic media).
However, it does occur in those media at a higher level, certainly. Artists (of all types) are influenced by each other, and use each other's ideas. This is out of the realm of copyright, and no one would consider complaining about it!
Another similar example is the computer games industry. Each new RTS which comes out will have implemented, in its own way, some of the latest and greatest features of its competitors. Back in the good old days when there was more than one commonly used commercial word processor
In other words, free software is the extension of the natural and (normally) uncontested concept of the sharing of ideas in a community, to actual sharing of physical source code. The reason this extension is feasible is partly down to the almost-zero cost of copying software (compared to the very real cost of building a new car, say), and partly the immense adaptability and reusability of computer software.
Jules
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:1)
I hate it when people start saying "that's just your opinion"
Come on folks, say it together:
Opinions are like assholes. Everyone else's stinks but your own.
Bouillon on MapBlast (Score:2)
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:1)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
Is it different if I steal a newspaper in peacetime than if I steal troop deployment plans during war? (treason)
Is it different if I kill four or five people out of personal hatred than if I kill four or five people in a politically motivated bombing? (terror)
I think you put your finger on the relevant issue, but in the wrong context. We always treat crimes which strike at our ability to coexist as a society. Hate crimes are designed to do things like this: make gays go into the closet; blacks go back to subservience; immigrants to return overseas.
In other words,the reason that hate crimes are worse than personally motivated crimes or garden variety depravity is that they are meant to unhinge society by striking at entire groups of victims.
Re:Nice sig. (Score:1)
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:2)
Whoever wrote the code dictates how the code may be used.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
"...Vidar strode forth and set one foot - that on which he wears the shoe - on the lower jaw of the wolf. With one hand he seized the upper jaw, and tore the two apart, killing the monster."
Snorri Sturluson
Prose Edda
Re:OT: Confused. (Score:1)
Re:Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman (Score:1)
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:2)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
Not quite. The law rightfully takes something else into consideration...
motive
A woman kills her husband after years of abuse, (but the case was not self-defense) and a woman kills a total stranger because he is gay. Should they be punished the same way?
I don't think so. We're not machines, every case is different. The law should provide guidelines to judging a case, but in the end motive has to be considered.
Re:Stallman on zdnet (Score:2)
No, they reproduced his usual copyright statement and license at the bottom of his article. They copyright at the bottom of the whole page covers the whole shebang, including all zdnet's other page elements, but doesn't prevent anyone from lifting out just Stallman's article under the terms he provides.
Re:umm (Score:1)
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:1)
Dunno if this is true or not, but from day one I have thought this will end up to be the new business model for online music.
Grateful Dead.... bootleg tape trading... widespread, deep popularity... shows selling out in 30 minutes
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Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
So people who have been victimized, but not for reasons of race, sex, national origin, or sexual orientation, aren't particularly excited about laws saying that people victimized for those reasons are more worthy of protection than they are, and that the victimizers should be punished more severely than those who victimized them. What do you find odd about that?
Re:But its just not all that... (Score:1)
Re:umm (Score:1)
Re:If only I could filter out RMS like Katz! (Score:1)
You are prolly just reading academic stoichisms in the translation. RMS speaks like he has a stick up his ass...
Re:Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman (Score:1)
It is in the spirit of GPL, but keeping speech integrity.
scary horsemen (Score:1)
Whenever somebody mentions God and Freedom (it's got a lower case f in my dictionary) in the same breath I can never remember which flavour of fundamentalism they belong to. I get this weird image of large numbers of horsemen bearing down on me with swords drawn and flying large flags, crying 'Death to the Unbelievers'...
Re:What you need to know about RMS (Score:1)
Re:Down with RMS (Score:1)
Good point, except, I use the gnu development enviroment all the time and I regard them as the finest set of programming tools available on this planet. Doesn't seem that impractical or theoretical to me.
Re:his deal is that "IP rights" is too broad a ter (Score:1)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
No one is arguing that it is the physical attributes of the assailant or victim that spell out the penalty of a crime. If John hates Jim because Jim's having sex with John's wife, then it doesn't matter what race John or Jim is, the intention is pretty clear. The set of people that John is likely to harm in the future is confined to those who have wronged him in some way.
But what if John killed Jim because he didn't like his race? Then the set of people that John is likely to harm in the future is very large. In this case, John is much more dangerous. So it is appropriate to punish him for his racist beliefs.
But I would agree with you to a certain degree. I don't think that making a special legal status for "hate crimes" is appropriate. Such considerations should be specific to the case at hand. For example, if John kills Jim just because he feels like killing someone, anyone, then he is more dangerous than either the racist or the jealous husband.
Hate crime legislation is too specific. Special crimes for hate crimes should be subsumed under current sentencing guidelines, and judges should have enough leeway to give appropriate punishments to all types of murderers. But do not forget that any type of murder is hate-based, and it is the hate responsible for the murder that is being punished.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
I also happen to know a number of law enforcement officers in the area and none of them have a "texas-ranger" attitude towards crime. Please give them some credit. They have a dangerous job and get paid crap.
Of course people should do some research on any neighborhood they might move into, but that applies anywhere in the world. I did mine and don't know of a crime of any type happening in my neighborhood since I moved here five years ago.
I'm not sure what you have against Austin, but tone down the rhetoric a little. I know there are some bad points to austin, just like every other city.
Hate crimes (Score:1)
Not quite. The law rightfully takes something else into consideration... motive
Agreed. While the argument that you are not any more dead is true, this is not just about paying for the damage you do (although that is important as well). Prison time also takes into account your threat to society.
Even with the above considered, it is also important to note that many people claim that hate crimes are different because they affect an entire population. The logic behind that reasoning is that when a person kills another just because he/she is a certain race/ethnicity/religon/whatever, then all people of that type are affected. It affects the lives of people that weren't even involved in the crime because they have to live in fear. It's strange how the act of one person can affect so many in this way, but for things like this, that can be the case.
I'm not saying that I totally agree with the argument above or that it's valid reasoning for determination of punishment, but that's the way some people feel.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
If you work in high tech, Austin is a small town of 1 million people.
If you don't work in high tech, Austin is a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million.
Re:What a bullshit (Score:1)
Or better yet, when people have to tell you you're being oppressed, something is most definitely amiss.
Hey you, yeah you typing in MS word. Did you know you were oppresed?
No. Really?
Yes, really.
What about the illegal aliens we keep chained to looms in the basement?
The looms run Linux. They're fine.
You mean GNU/Linux?
Yes, of course. Pardon me.
Re:ATTENTION! (Score:1)
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:1)
Your post is FUDdy. I'd mod you down.
Re:RMS and PR? A natural fit. (Score:1)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
Watch out that you don't confuse motive and intent. Legally, they are two entirely different things. It is rare that motive is considered when prosecuting someone, but very common that intent is considered. In the murder example you gave, the person's intent is considered... I.e., they had no intent at all, it was a fit of rage. Therefore, the punishment will likely be less severe (3rd degree murder, perhaps).
For clarification, the definiton of motive is "The inducement, cause or reason why a thing is done". Intent is "The determination or resolve to do a certain thing, or the state of mind with which something is done".
Essentially, for the most part, the law doesn't care why you did something. For example, let's say a man embezzles money from a big corporation. He gets busted. On the stand, the defense attorney asks the man, "why did you do it?". The man explains that his wife needed an operation, and his insurance wouldn't cover enough of the costs, so he needed to do it. Is the man going to get a lesser sentence?
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:1)
I find it hard to read the comments where any story regarding RMS is concerned. I would be the last person to proclaim that "Slashdot sucks!" but there are definitely some topics that are guaranteed to produce little else but torrents of incoherent abuse.
As the author of this story on K5 [kuro5hin.org] said of his Slashdot experience:
I find all the venomous, mindless, jingoistic, capitalistic raving that accompanies the slightest mention of RMS really disturbing. I can't believe the amount of people who appear to spend the day poised in front of their computer, ready to defend the American way from the insidious attacks of creeping socialism. They never tire of their repetitiveness. They're not bothered by being incessantly off-topic. This is the land of the free, home of the brave, goddammit! There's no place for dissenting opinions here, so we gotta shout them down from a position of secure anonymity!
I can only hope it's the product of a very few unwell individuals who lack the courage to write their names on a toilet wall, and not representative of the attidude of a significant portion of the American public.
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:1)
I've read a fair bit from RMS, and I've yet to find any acknowledgement of a philosophical debt to Marx. If you want to go through Marx's writings to find connections between the philosophies of Marx and RMS, I'm sure you could find plenty, and a cure for insomnia at the same time. But you could play that game with any writer:
So why isn't RMS accused of being a raving Jeffersonian? Perhaps because there are plenty of people propagandised into believing that the limitless extension of property rights represents "the American way", and that the only conceivable criticism of the American way comes from state communism, therefore any criticism of any form of property rights must come from a communist.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:1)
The world *deeply* hates Hitler. The world hates murderers.
The world *desparately* doesn't want another Hitler. We simply just don't want another murderer.
His motive: Kill everyone who he hates (which was just about anyone non-blye-eyed-aryan [including me... I've got brown eyes]). The general motive of a "sane" murderer: Kill for greed. The difference? Killing for greed doesn't involve me or you, unless you are in some way related to the murderer (even if just by unfortunate time and place). Killing for hate means *you* are already on a hit list.
I say we send an extra-special message to anyone who plans to put me in constant fear of my life. I'm not in constant fear of someone murdering for greed, but I know if there was an anti-WASP in town I'd be shittin' bricks (pardon the expression).
Re:What you need to know about RMS (Score:2)
Re:Thank God for RMS (Score:2)
This is not a troll, you nutbar moderators.
And I'll say it again, for the cheap seats -- proprietary software has a place. May the gods of metamoderation smite you all down.
OT: Confused. (Score:2)
But what I'm clueless about this time is about what happened to this article from earlier today:
Anti-Napster: What Will Happen Now? [slashdot.org]
I mean, it was there when I saw it, and it was then when I posted to it on the front page, and now I can't find it any place in the system except by the direct link.
I thought my Meds were kinking in, but there it is.
Ideas? (besides changing the drugs)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:4)
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
However, the fact that a location has a lot of crimes that are attributable to intolerance does say something about the community. Mind you, I've never been to Texas and don't know what Austin is like, but if there are more hate crimes there than other similarly sized cities, than either people there are more likely to see something as a hate crime, or people there are more intolerant...
Re:Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman (Score:2)
Maybe I'm missing something. (Wouldn't be the first time.)
If you release comments under the GPL, then couldn't others modify what you said and republish, as long as they also republish under the GPL?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, get their MCSE.
Re:Austin is no farmyard in the Dell (Score:2)
2. Yes! No more people move to Austin! Austin is full! We don't want you! Go away! If it takes false figures from a slashdot troll about how racist Austin is to scare people away, so be it! Just leave and never come back!
-A former Austinite.
Re:What a bullshit (Score:2)
I'll have to take issue with this obvious display of intellectual deficiency:
- You do know that you don't have to publish your code under the GPL, right? Even RMS acknowledges that it is perfectly within your rights to keep your code proprietary, he just thinks it is the wrong thing to do and he says so, but tell me how does that force you to release under the GPL? After all, it says nowhere that you have to listen to RMS.
- Of course you might want to use a piece of GPL software for yourself, and resent that you would have to put your work under the GPL because of that. I'd think that you would have no problem with that, given that it is the original author's right to decide what happens with his software. You can't have it both ways: either you want author's rights respected, in which case you have to abide by the GPL if you want to use GPLed code, or you don't want intellectual property rights at all
MartStallman's post on ZDNet (Score:2)
Slashbackback (Score:2)
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