Tech News and Rambling from a Surly Little Bastard…
I imagine many people have been confused with the differences between all the myriad open source licenses available. I did a quick Google, and found a very nice basic table listing some of the more popular licenses you might encounter and their key points.
Check out the comparison here, thanks to the KDE project.
The Open Source Initiative also includes a large index of licenses here, albeit comparison is left up to you.
I just stumbled upon this story today, about How To Fly Without ID. Since I’m more-or-less anti-government intrusion (yes, Google tracking my life is still fine) into my life, it caught my interest.
Now, since the only time I ever fly is on the way to or from a great vacation, I’m usually not in a hurry to miss all my connecting flights over refusing (however legally) to provide my driver’s license. Still, in the event that I ever get to travel for business again, it would be an interesting test (particularly if I wasn’t in a hurry to make it to my destination).
Anyone else out there flown recently and decided to decline to provide identification? I’d be particularly interested to hear opinions on the matter from other people who have gone through it…
I just got a trackback on my post from yesterday about the ACLU and Tennessee seperation of church and state issue: Incoherent Babble (indeed).
Since “Damion’s Journal” apparently won’t let me comment without registering, and I can’t find where to register, here’s my rebuttal:
Now, to be fair, I wasn’t bashing the ACLU or Tennessee for this situation. I honestly didn’t even read all of the story to see why they had this on display (ie: was it actually purchased to be part of the display, was it some decorator that happened to include it because they liked it, or was it simply someone placing it on their own desk?). I was just getting in on the general ACLU bashing because I know how annoying they can be.
Personally, I agree that the seperation of state and religion should be severely maintained (since I’m a non-Christian living in the Bible belt of the south, surrounded by religion-obsessed Southern Baptists). I’m just tired of the ACLU rocking the boat about insignificant stuff. Where were they with Bush’s Intelligent Design BS? What about the Dover, PA schoolboard’s Intelligent Design desision (which was just ruled unconstitutional this week)?
Let’s stop worrying about a stupid candle in a statehouse and find something that really matters to complain about, shall we?
Alright, for this story, I just can’t beat the hilarious headlines that were awarded by loyal Fark submitters:
Schwarzenegger to Austrian death-penalty critics: Suck it
Mayor of Schwarzenegger’s home town: “Suck it? OK”
Now that we’re done with that, let’s see if I can sum this up for all of you who don’t feel like reading those rather lengthy articles.
Basically, Arnold Schwarzenegger (you know, that actor dude turned political dude?) was apparently criticized by the anti-death-penalty residents of his home town in Austria (a city called Graz) after refusing to grant clemency to Stanley “Tookie” Williams, who was put to death by the State of California for 4 counts of murder on December 13th.
In response, he demanded that the town stop using his name to promote itself, and rename a soccer stadium which had been dedicated to Schwarzenegger in 1997:
“The reason for this action is apparently a decision I reached as governor of California,” Schwarzenegger said. “I rejected the clemency of a rightfully convicted four-time murderer after thorough review, and as a result, he was executed according to the laws of this state.”
Not only that, but he’s also decided to return a “ring of honor” that was given to him by the city officials in 1999:
Since “the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me,” he said. “It is already in the mail.”
Well, of course this couldn’t go un-answered:
Siegfried Nagl, mayor of the southern city of Graz, said he dashed off a letter to Schwarzenegger pleading with him not to return a ring of honor bestowed on him by officials in his birthplace in 1999 and reassuring him that most residents still admire him.
Now, regardless of this name-use and ring stuff, I think you have to respect the man. He’s standing up for what’s right. Whether you believe in the death penalty or think it’s barbaric (such as most Europeans), Arnold did his job as he was elected to:
“The reason for this action is apparently a decision I reached as governor of California,” Schwarzenegger said. “I rejected the clemency of a rightfully convicted four-time murderer after thorough review, and as a result, he was executed according to the laws of this state.”
“The death penalty is law here, and I have to uphold the law of the land and the will of the people,” Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying, adding that he still considered himself “Austrian with all my heart.”
Can you find me another politician that would stand up for his actions like that? One that would logically and rationally justify his position in a reasonable manner as backed by the law of the province over which he presides? You sure as hell won’t find one in Washington, DC…
Jason Calacanis has let AOL go to his Head
I was catching up on some older RSS entries and read Greg Reinacker’s entry about ads briefly appearing in Newsgator Online. Following his link, I found Jason Calacanis’ rant about stealing Weblogs, Inc. content by placing ads next to full-text feeds.
Can someone please tell me when it became illegal to place advertisements in a product or service that you’ve spent time and money creating? Yes, I agree you have a right to your content, Jason, but I think you’ve let the muscle of a big company like AOL go to your head here. Even if Newsgator continued to place advertisements in their online RSS reader, how does that in any way violate your copyright when a user just happens to load up a feed from a Weblogs, Inc. blog?
Let’s look at this from another side, shall we?
Jason is contending that if advertisements are displayed on the same page as the full content of one of his company’s blog posts, that the owner of that site is attempting to unlawfully profit from the hard work and dedication of his authors.
Well Jason, what if I wrote a desktop RSS reader and released a free ad-supported version to the internet public? Are you trying to say that because a user loaded up your feed in a software product I created, that I’m somehow illegally profiting from the redistribution of your content? That’s like claiming that it’s illegal for a newspaper to sell advertising space next to a Reuters or AP story, isn’t it?
What happened to the free exchange of information that is the goal of your glorious blogging empire, Jason? When did it become illegal for a company to place advertisements in a tool they are providing for free to the internet populace, simply because an end user decided to load up the content of one of your blogs’ full-text feeds in their tool?
How can you possibly report news from other sites, while placing advertisements next to the stories citing this news, and manage to sleep at night?
Now to be clear, I fully respect Jason’s desire to protect his content. I know that plagiarism on the internet is a growing problem, but how does this even remotely fall into the same category? Weblogs, Inc. is providing a service (through their production of content and referral of news) for free, while supported by advertisements. Why is it suddenly unjust for Newsgator, Yahoo!, Google, or anyone else providing another service (through their aggregation of news they claim no copyright of) to also support it for free with advertisements?
They’re not trying to pass your content off as their own, Jason, they’re just trying to make it easier for you to reach a larger audience. Quit being a self-righteous jerk, will ya? And honestly, lay off the big-company bullying. It doesn’t suit you, or the blogosphere. Isn’t that why we all got into this “blogging” thing anyway, to break the big-company hold on information?
I think it’s time that somebody took a step back from their AOL throne and took a look at what he’s become… I know I sure don’t like it, and I don’t think the person who founded Weblogs, Inc. would either…
UPDATE: I read a piece of Jason’s entry that I missed earlier… You know, the part where he says he doesn’t care if your RSS reader is making money or not, you can’t put advertisements next to his content. That just twists the knife a little more. You’ve put in the same effort he has into creating something new. Yours is an RSS reader to benefit users (for free). His is a series of blogs generating content to benefit users (for free). Somehow he’s allowed to extort money for his effort, but no one else is?
Think about this: What if I were to place any type of advertisement in a web browser I developed? Would Jason have AOL sue me to keep me from displaying any of his webpages in my new browser, because I was trying to make money off of his content?
I’m sorry, Jason. I love some of your blogs, but your content isn’t THAT extraordinary. Yes, you’ve got some good content, and you’re one of the largest players in a variety of blog niches, but that’s the beauty of the blogosphere, isn’t it? I’m no longer reliant upon a single company for my news fix. When one tries something like this, I can just *click* and turn it off…
What if, suddenly, all the free RSS aggregators on the web went near bankruptcy and needed to place advertisements in their tools to keep afloat? Would you go around suing every single one of them, making RSS pointless again by forcing users to directly visit your webpage to get news?
And this startup you propose to fund that kicks back money to the authors of every RSS feed a user subscribes to in their reader… How do you propose to track down the authors of all these billions of RSS feeds and send them their checks? Blogging anonymously is a popular thing for a variety of reasons, you know… Planning to pocket any money that’s not claimed within 60 days?
Sorry, but you’ve totally and absolutely ruined any last shred of respect I had for you… I’d like to think it’s AOL life that’s caused stuff like this to happen, Jason, but I’m beginning to wonder if this is the true Jason Calacanis that’s been lurking beneath the surface all along: the two-faced money-grubbing hypocrite Jason.
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