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Editorial The Media

Dvorak on Creative Commons 522

pHatidic writes "In a recent article, John Dvorak trashes creative commons as being, 'one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.' His main arguments are that CC unnecessarily complicates copyright law, and that the name sounds dumb."
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Dvorak on Creative Commons

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  • by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:05PM (#13106593)
    From TFA:
    I mean my grandkids will own all my writing exclusively until 75 years after I'm dead,
    Oooooooh...lucky, lucky grandkids. Imagine owning the collected works of the great John Dvorak...that and a quarter will buy you half a candy bar.
  • by pHatidic ( 163975 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:05PM (#13106594)
    My first ever front page article. Time to start drinking! :)
  • by Compholio ( 770966 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:07PM (#13106628)
    It is a Dvorak story. Dvorak himself should have a perminant -10 Troll moderation tattoed to his forehead.

    I second the motion, all those in favor?

    But seriously, let's reword the article a little bit:
    'one of the dumbest men ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.' Our arguments are that Dvorak unnecessarily complicates keyboarding, and that his name sounds dumb."

    Much better in my opinion.
  • Re:Agreed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:12PM (#13106685)
    Dvorak? The composer?

    No no, the keyboard: try to read the article, and it quickly becomes obvious it was written by someone normally writing on a qwerty keyboard, with a dvorak keyboard, while looking away at the cute secretary down the hall...
  • by charlie763 ( 529636 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:14PM (#13106705)
    He says you have to add "Copyright 2005" to something to copyright it.

    I don't see any "Copyright 2005" in his article, so I guess that means I won't get in trouble for posting the article text about five minutes ago.
  • by 77Punker ( 673758 ) <spencr04 @ h i g h p o i n t.edu> on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:16PM (#13106728)
    He's much more than just a bombastic flamer with no grasp of the happenings of the computing world.

    He also has the same last name of that guy that made that keyboard layout!
  • by BigZaphod ( 12942 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:21PM (#13106812) Homepage
    Seriously. Sometimes he sounds smart, but that's just because he says so much crap he's bound to say something intelligent now and then. It's a statistical thing.
  • by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:24PM (#13106860)
    That's not fair blanket statement.

    One Dvorak alleviates the wrists. The other aggravates the brain.
  • by prgrmr ( 568806 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:28PM (#13106916) Journal
    Some writers are paid by the article, or even the column inch. Dvorak, apparently, is paid per the strawman [wikipedia.org].
  • by Momoru ( 837801 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:29PM (#13106926) Homepage Journal
    Other ways to get a front page article on slashdot:

    1) Mention Google....is it rumored that Google may buy a company that searches pictures of toenails online? Front page baby.

    2) Link to any article proposing a bug or flaw with anything Microsoft. Some 15 year old writes a blog saying he thinks the next version of Windows has "a bajillion security holes"? That's not only front page material, you're maybe even looking at duped front page material

    3) Paul Graham wrote an article about his flower garden, and how he's a "hacker" for using fertilizer? You know that baby is front page material.

    I'm sure i'm missing some others here....
  • by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:31PM (#13106962) Homepage Journal
    You can read the original Andersen fairy tale (with pictures) for free here [mythfolklore.net]. made availble with a Creative Commons License. Or you could fork over money and go buy a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales like Dvorak must have.
  • Re:Agreed (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spaceman40 ( 565797 ) <[gro.mca] [ta] [sknilb]> on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:41PM (#13107071) Homepage Journal
    This is neither the composer Dvorak nor the keyboard Dvorak.

    This is the idiot Dvorak.
  • by coolGuyZak ( 844482 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:42PM (#13107091)
    Hey... don't underestimate the power of the Collected Works of John C. Dvorak. That's big money right there.

    Just imagine how many of us nerds will buy a copy just to burn it? And if it's printed on quality paper, it might even be the perfect quality to wipe your ass with!

    And now for something completely different: Why is the underline tag not allowed?

  • by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:43PM (#13107102)
    It's apparently quite successful. Once again, Dvorak trolled. Once again, Slashdot rose to the bait.

    Why mess with success?
  • by rubycodez ( 864176 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:48PM (#13107182)
    'John Dvorak is one of the dumbest writers ever put forth by the tech pub community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the National Enquiror prints real news'
  • by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @04:59PM (#13107314) Homepage
    But as it happens, the Dvorak who writes columns for computer magazines is also the famed classical composer, so at least not too many notable people share the surname. ;)
  • OMG (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @05:09PM (#13107412)
    I mean my grandkids will own all my writing exclusively until 75 years after I'm dead,

    Dvorak has offspring? Run! For the love of god, run!

  • by Unequivocal ( 155957 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @05:11PM (#13107444)
    Looks like I need to add another quote to my long standing list of jack-assery from Dvorak:

    1998 Folks, the Mac platform is through - totally.
    1990 I think Windows 3.0 will get a lot of attention; people will check it out, and before long they'll all drift back to... DOS.
    1986 UNIX is dead, but no one bothered to claim the body.
    1984 The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.
    - John Dvorak
  • by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @05:12PM (#13107451) Homepage
    But I genuinely appreciate the value of boiler-plate licenses. They are an attempt to bring the law down to the layman's level and not continue paying lawyers to further complicate it.

    I don't see what there is to be appreciative about there.
  • The "No problem Bugroff" license. [geocities.com]

    Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation [gnu.org] devised, in addition to some marvelous software, the GNU General Public License (GPL for short). Or the CopyLeft it is sometimes called.

    It is quite a revolutionary document, using the "copyright" tool to to protect your right to use free software.

    Unfortunately using copyright to protect free software is a lot like using a Jackal to guard the hens.

    In fact, various inconveniences relating to this have resulted in modifications such as the LGPL (Library General Public License) and more recently the NPL (Netscape Public License) [mozilla.org]

    I call these matters mere inconveniences, the real damage will occur when the Jackal's, (sorry, I mean lawyers), actually get to test the GPL in court for the first time.

    Thus enter my version.

    Its very simple.

    Entirely consistent.

    Completely unrestrictive.

    Easy to apply.

    The "No problem Bugroff" license is as follows...

    The answer to any and every question relating to the copyright, patents, legal issues of Bugroff licensed software is....

    Sure, No problem. Don't worry, be happy. Now bugger off.

    All portions of this license are important..

    • "Sure, no problem." Gives you complete freedom. I mean it. Utterly complete. A bit of a joke really. You have complete freedom anyway.
    • "Don't worry, be happy." Apart from being good advice and a good song, it also says :- No matter what anyone else says or does, you still have complete freedom.
    • Now bugger off. The only way to get rid of pushy Jackals is to ignore them and not feed them. The GPL is just begging somebody to take it to court. Can't you just see it. Exactly the same thing that happened when some twit (not Linus) registered Linux as his own personal trademark. People got upset, started a fund, and hired, off all ruddy things, a Jackal to try and defend the chicken! Who really benefits from this trademark / patent / copyright thing anyway? The lawyers. Who made it up in the first place? The lawyers.

    OK so the last part of the license sounds a bit harsh, but seriously folks, if you are a :-

    • Lawyer asking these legalese questions... You should go off and learn an honest trade that will actually contribute to life instead of draining it.
    • Programmer asking these legalese questions... You have amazingly powerful tools in your hands and mind, use them to ask and answer the worthwhile questions of life, the universe and everything. Stop mucking about with such legal nonsense and get back to programming.
    • User/reader asking these question... Don't worry. Go off and be happy. Have fun. Enjoy what has been created for you.
  • by Firles ( 901075 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @05:31PM (#13107645) Homepage
    OK, now THAT is a © violation... haha

I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.

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