Internet Regulation and Censorship - Interesting Open Letter to MPAA

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The whole "I service your routers, so I know what's good for the internet and the world" bit does not impress. At heart, he wants to be allowed to do what he wants, no matter what anyone else wants. Big whoop.

[jgaiser]

ESR is a well know *advocate* of free/open software.

Not everybody in the free software movement thinks he's the best spokesman for the movement.

I find myself agreeing with much of what he says, but I also find myself a little embarrassed to think folks think he has more influence than he really has. One man, One opinion. Taken with a grain of salt.

[Jyster]

It all starts with one man/woman taking a stand for the betterment of society.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Not everybody in the free software movement thinks he's the best spokesman for the movement.

This is my first encounter with him and I have to agree. They'd do well to find a different spokesman.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

This is my first encounter with him and I have to agree. They'd do well to find a different spokesman.

I disagree. Overall I think the letter is good. Whilst your interpretation is open, it is not the only one. Judging by this thread, at least one other person has interpreted it similarly to you, and others have not. I suppose his success as a spokesman in this instance depends on whether or not significant numbers of people have been offended as you have, and the extent to which the letter could have been written effectively whilst avoiding him "blowing his own trumpet", so to speak.

In any event, it seems that virtually all posters here agree to some extent with the sentiments expressed.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by darryl

I disagree. Overall I think the letter is good. Whilst your interpretation is open, it is not the only one. Judging by this thread, at least one other person has interpreted it similarly to you, and others have not. I suppose his success as a spokesman in this instance depends on whether or not significant numbers of people have been offended as you have, and the extent to which the letter could have been written effectively whilst avoiding him "blowing his own trumpet", so to speak.

In any event, it seems that virtually all posters here agree to some extent with the sentiments expressed.

He doesn't offend me. I'm just prone to ignore people who carry on that way; whether I agree with them or not.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

Telling someone they are too young to view something is far different from telling an adult they cannot view something at all.

They tell the young people that they can't view something because it's bad for them and SOPA was supposed to make sites unavailable because they are bad for everyone. The government is trying to protect kids from violence that they can't handle, and everyone from sources of illegal content.

Originally Posted by mrscoach

How is what I said wrong? What do you think the author of the letter sees as a tool? I cannot place the pronoun back to anything but 'the letter'. Did you mean he sees the internet as a tool? Well, yes, that would probably be a fair assessment. He doesn't want his 'tool' stifled in any way. Or be told how to use his 'tool'. (No intent to sound suggestive, that was just a bonus)

I'm going to take this as a joke because you can't possibly be serious. Starting the sentence with "I think that the internet is", and quoting a part of the letter that talks about the internet should have made it clear that in "the author of the letter sees it as a tool" <it> was referring to the internet.

[mrscoach]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

They tell the young people that they can't view something because it's bad for them and SOPA was supposed to make sites unavailable because they are bad for everyone. The government is trying to protect kids from violence that they can't handle, and everyone from sources of illegal content.


I'm going to take this as a joke because you can't possibly be serious. Starting the sentence with "I think that the internet is", and quoting a part of the letter that talks about the internet should have made it clear that in "the author of the letter sees it as a tool" <it> was referring to the internet.

I was just pointing out that your sentence was poorly structured. A pronoun refers back to the noun that most closely precedes it. In your sentence the noun letter was closer to 'it' than was the noun internet. I believe I pointed out that you might have meant he saw the internet as a tool, but maybe I didn't. So, yes, I was serious in not being completely positive what you meant.

I see a big difference in rules for kids and rules for adults. I don't want young children driving cars, buying beer or cigarettes, or watching porn. I don't want some adults doing some of the above things, but those are their stupid choices (it isn't all adults or all choices, I won't say which choices) Those are just a few examples. If I am reading you correctly you are equating any rules for kids to be bad. Yes, parents should be the main authority, but not all parents accept responsibility and let their kids do as they please. Heck, we have parents of some of our high schoolers (or younger) having their kids do the drug buying for them (or selling).

Is there a way to restrict underage access to certain content that doesn't block adults? Yes. Could it be better? I'm sure yes.

I think some restriction of knowledge isn't necessarily a bad thing, I am with others that don't want it so easy to find bomb plans or maybe chemical weapon plans. I do not know how accessible these things are because I do not want that knowledge. But overall saying 'this is what you can know' and 'this is what you can read/watch' is censorship.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

A pronoun refers back to the noun that most closely precedes it.

I never heard of this rule containing "most closely". But let's look at a posts of yours in this light.

Originally Posted by mrscoach

Neutral corners.
I think we all agree that the letter states that 'the internet' is its users and WE do not want corporations/governments telling us what we can and cannot view.

I may not have seen the letter as being full of self importance, but that doesn't mean that Diap didn't. Is either of us wrong? No, it is a matter of perspective. One feels the elephant's trunk, the other it's ear, it's still the same elephant.

Here we have us being most closely preceded by corporations/governments, it by Diap (althow I guess that you shouldn't count proper nouns in this case, so that means that it refers to self importance), the next it by trunk, and the next it by ear.

Somehow I don't think that this is what you meant, but hey, it's the rule that you go by. Just to clarify, I will continue to use pronouns referring back to the preceding noun that makes actual sense.

Originally Posted by mrscoach

If I am reading you correctly you are equating any rules for kids to be bad.

No, I'm not, just as I'm also not equating rules for adults to be bad. My point was that the government makes rules for people, and when you say "that 'the internet' is its users" you are accepting that the government can make rules for the internet.

[mrscoach]

Sil, sweetie, reread the statement, ALOUD, that I had the problem with. Better yet, read it to someone else. It was very unclear. Am I saying I am always correct? No, of course not.

Also, pronouns should only be in a sentence after a noun. Obviously I do not always adhere to this rule, and there are exceptions, such as if the verb 'is' is used (one thing is another, interchangeable in the sentence). That said, I'm out. I don't know why I even tried. You want to argue with someone. I refuse to participate any more.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

ESR is a well know *advocate* of free/open software.

Not everybody in the free software movement thinks he's the best spokesman for the movement.

But his influence have been very big. The open source movement started or took off with him and his writing. He also have contributed a lot of code that are used in a lot of places.

I did not react badly on the text. Unfortunately I react badly to ESR just because he is a libertarian of the more irritating kind and I remember a panel at a Worldcon were the libertarian side (and his contributions) was totally bad.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by tompe

I did not react badly on the text. Unfortunately I react badly to ESR just because he is a libertarian of the more irritating kind and I remember a panel at a Worldcon were the libertarian side (and his contributions) was totally bad.

What was the panel and his side about?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

What was the panel and his side about?

I think it was this one at ConJose:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...gust_2002.html

Panel, "Socialists in Kilts: Revolutionary Scottish SF, Stross, Banks and MacLeod" (this is going to be funny!). Iain Banks, a regular UK bestseller, writes space operas set in a post-scarcity, money-free Utopian society. Hugo-finalist Ken MacLeod, an ex-Trotskyite turned Libertarian, has written novels in which both communists and capitalists built their own semi-Utopian societies. In Charles Stross' Hugo-nominated "Lobsters," the Open-Source cultural politics collides head-on with Extropian exuberance to produce the first cyberpunk works that actually look like they were written in the 21st century. Calling all of them "Socialists" may be simplistic, but each has sketched out their own version of a post-Capitalist future.This panel examines their work in the context of the UK SF revival of the 1980s and 90s, what was so revolutionary about it, the changing politics and economics of Scotland, and which (if any) of their economic extrapolations might come to pass. With no Pat Cadigan (she can't make it), China Mieville, Lawrence Person, and Eric "libertarian? me?" Raymond.

[Sil_liS]

Thanks, I didn't realize that Open-Source can be considered politics.

[stonetools]

I was told to read the article referenced in the OP, so I did. What's interesting is not the points the self-proclaimed "spokesperson" made , but his philosophy. Apparently he is speaking for some folks called the "technologists". The "technologists" believe that you should be able to do anything you want on your computing devices and on the Internet. Anything that interferes with that freedom (anti-piracy legislation, DRM, proprietary formats) are all to be reviled and resisted.
The problem with this romantic vision is that its outdated . It may have made sense during the formative years of the Internet. However in the last 15 years, the internet has become part of the public square-the place where the public comes to meet, to politic, and above all do business. Its is therefore inevitable that the Internet will be brought under the rule of law-the public will demand it and government will respond to public pressure . Everything the writer objects to are attempts by business and/or the government to bring the rule of law to the Internet. Unfortunately for the author, such attempts will continue , because the Internet is just too important to be left to the technologists.
A historical analogy is the Atlantic. Once the Atlantic was an open sea, in which every captain of a ship did what was right in his eyes, and piracy flourished. Once the Atlantic sea routes became central to international commerce, the world's navies hunted down the pirates and established the rule of law across the Atlantic. I expect the same will happen as the Internet becomes more and more important to world commerce.