ArneBab 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (17) comment rss

  • On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs

    ArneBab ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 02:51am

    Re:

    I recently listened to an Illumos developer (former Open Solaris) talk about Oracle. It wasn’t pretty…

  • On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs

    ArneBab ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 02:48am

    Re: Re: Re: The python example would have been less pertinent

    To add:

    In Python the package (+module) is formed by the filesystem hierarchy and the name of the file, so you don’t have to spell it explicitly in the defining file. Essentially there’s less duplication of information.

    Java:
    Filename: java/lang/Math.java
    Content: package java.lang
    ... class Math…
    ... _ int max…
    access via java.lang.Math.max()


    Python:
    Filename: math.py
    Content: def max…
    access via math.max()

  • On the post: How Java's Inherent Verboseness May Mess Up Fair Use For APIs

    ArneBab ( profile ), 19 May, 2016 @ 02:42am

    Re: Re: Re: The python example would have been less pertinent

    In Python functions are public by default, except if you prefix the name with an underscore.

    Same flexibility, different philosophy.

  • On the post: US Department Of Agriculture TAFTA/TTIP Study: Small Gains For US, Losses For EU

    ArneBab ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2016 @ 03:06am

    Re: Democracy

    Except if labelling of GMO food will be made illegal, because it’s a trade barrier…

  • On the post: Patents On Presentation Of Information Excluded In EU, But Germany Has Just Granted A Patent On A Graphical User Interface

    ArneBab ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2016 @ 05:06am

    Re: Re:

    if search engines don't want to pay, then they can simply stop showing the snippets!

    Except if then the newspapers could start an antitrust case to force the search engines to treat all newspapers the same, even those who want money to be treated the same as others who don’t want money.

  • On the post: Patents On Presentation Of Information Excluded In EU, But Germany Has Just Granted A Patent On A Graphical User Interface

    ArneBab ( profile ), 12 Jan, 2016 @ 05:16am

    Interlaced video reinvented…

    TV sets had the problem that they couldn’t show a sufficient framerate, so they showed frame 1,3,5 in one set of lines and frame 2,4,6 in the other set of lines.

    Doesn’t that count as prior art?

    Also it’s been shown before that displaying information side-by-side allows humans to take it in more easily: http://news.mit.edu/2011/miller-memory-0623

    (I already talked about the lessons learned from that for code — and for roleplaying games — way back in 2012: http://draketo.de/light/english/free-software/write-programs-you-can-hack-while-you-feel-dumb#comment-1141 )

    So this is pretty obvious.

  • On the post: Protocols Instead Of Platforms: Rethinking Reddit, Twitter, Moderation And Free Speech

    ArneBab ( profile ), 17 Jul, 2015 @ 03:18pm

    Sounds a lot like the community-curated discussions in Freenet

    The one thing which really strikes me as incredible is that the decentralized spam protection in Freenet works very well at keeping discussions friendly: If you disrupt communication, you quickly disappear for all those people who trust others who think that you are disruptive. But everyone can make you visible again for him- or herself and it’s always transparent why someone isn’t visible.

    It even works with the real anonymity Freenet provides.

    For a guide how to test it, see https://d6.gnutella2.info/freenet//USK@t5zaONbYd5DvGNNSokVnDCdrIEytn9U5SSD~pYF0RTE,guWyS9aCMcywU5PFBrKsMiXs7LzwKfQlGSRi17fpffc,AQACAAE/fsng/58/wot_en.html

  • On the post: The Latest In The 'Collect It All' Collection: An Entire Nation's DNA

    ArneBab ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2015 @ 02:16am

    Re: Re:

    And we can go further back:

    “It is a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” — William Stanley Jevons, 1865 in the book The Coal Question (Jevons Paradox), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox source: http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Jevons/jvnCQ7.html (page 11, VIII.3)

    So Moore’s law is countered by Jevons Paradox, which celebrates its 150th birthday this year.

  • On the post: The Latest In The 'Collect It All' Collection: An Entire Nation's DNA

    ArneBab ( profile ), 10 Jul, 2015 @ 01:58am

    Re: Re:

    You sent me on a Quest ☺
    I happily return with the fruits of that quest:

    “The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness.” — Martin Reiser in Oberon Systems 1991¹ (also known as Wirth’s law since February 1995,⁰ started being called Page’s Law in 2009 by Sergey Brin)

    “The speed of software halves every 18 months.” — Gates Law²

    “Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore's law.” — May’s Law (David May)³

    ⁰: Niklaus Wirth (February 1995). "A Plea for Lean Software". Computer 28 (2): pp. 64–68. doi:10.1109/2.348001. Retrieved 2007-01-13. http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/2.348001
    ¹: Reiser, Martin (1991). The Oberon System User Guide and Programmer's Manual. ACM Press. ISBN 0-201-54422-9.
    ²: Gates' law, from the Jargon Lexicon, in the Jargon File (version 4.4.7). http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/Gatess-Law.html
    ³: Eadline, Douglas. "May’s Law and Parallel Software". Linux Magazine. Retrieved 9 May 2011. http://www.linux-mag.com/id/8422/

    All found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth's_law

    So, to make the confusion complete, shall we call your version the Law of Oberon, king of fairies who are well versed in trickery to trap humans in a feast from which they return decades later without having changed (just as slow as before)? ☺ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon

  • On the post: What The Oracle-Google Copyright Fight Has To Do With Klingon… And Lots Of Other Innovations

    ArneBab ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2015 @ 02:19am

    Re: Oracle really didn't think this one through

    The paradox thing about this lawsuit is that it is not about money at all: Java is licensed under a free software license, so Google was always free to use it.

    The license said however, that whoever uses the code has to make all additions compatible with the original license and put the derived work under the same free software license. It said that it is not allowed (for anyone but Oracle) to distribute unfree additions to Java.

    Google however decided to put the android developer tools which use the Java API under a license which allows unfree additions.

    For the free software community this an especially strange situation: If Oracle wins, then Java in Android must be completely free licensed. If Google wins, then the free software community has the right to replace unfree implementations of programming languages with free ones.

    I hope Google wins in the end, because even though it is nice to have a strong copyleft language now, on the long term I consider it as more important to be allowed to replace any unfree tool with free ones without having to rewrite everything which uses the tool.

  • On the post: China's Censorship Hits Internet Users In Other Countries

    ArneBab ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2013 @ 02:45pm

    Re:

    Somehow 3 of your 3 logical steps don’t seem founded in reality for me, but I’m sure your conclusion is right ;)

  • On the post: EU Commission Wants More Copyright Licensing, But Not Creative Commons Or Fair Use

    ArneBab ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2013 @ 01:13pm

    Dark Search…

    If they keep doing that, we’ll end up having to use freenet to access indexed information from search engines…

  • On the post: VLC Multimedia Player Shows Changing Open Source License Is Hard, But Possible

    ArneBab ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2013 @ 02:36am

    Re: GPLv2 Allows License Upgrades

    That?s not true. Different from creativecommons licenses, with GPL, the developer explicitely states which licenses apply - except if he just gives no version (than all versions are ok). The default header says ?version 2 or later? but some projects like Linux decided that they do not trust the FSF, so they use only ?version 2?.

    ? If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.?

  • On the post: Don't Focus On Why People Pirate; Focus On Why They Don't Buy

    ArneBab ( profile ), 12 Sep, 2012 @ 01:37pm

    Control

    Step 6 is Freedom: If people can just share stuff, corporations can no longer decide what is available to us.

    They don’t get it, because it’s not about money: It’s about power. Their power over us.

  • On the post: 'Hack The Real World And Share The Results'

    ArneBab ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2012 @ 08:38am

    Writing to the web

    I loved that speech! And when he finished, I had tears in my eyes?

    But what I thought again and again: We need more people to use Freenet: Decentral free software, can be read anonymously, easy to write to, and not even the need to be online 24/7 to publish your website or blog - but avoiding central control.

    I hope it will be part of the freedombox.

    → http://freenetproject.org

  • On the post: 'Hack The Real World And Share The Results'

    ArneBab ( profile ), 02 Jun, 2012 @ 08:36am

    Writing to the web

    I loved that speech! And when he finished, I had tears in my eyes?

    But what I thought again and again: We need more people to use Freenet: Decentral free software, can be read anonymously, easy to write to, and not even the need to be online 24/7 to publish your website or blog - but avoiding central control.

    I hope it will be part of the freedombox.

    → http://freenetproject.org

  • On the post: Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation

    ArneBab ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2010 @ 08:00am

    Powers that be… money concentration vs democracy

    This shows painfully how the powers are currently distributed.

    90% of the recources, so they have more influence on the media which then influences which people are elected into positions of power, and then these elected pass laws which shift more power towards the