photonic x86 CPU design

[Bernd Paysan]

Argue trespass, not theft.

Well, trespassing seems to be a cultural thing. In the states, you see
"trespassers will be shot" sign-posts. In Germany, it often sais
"Privatgrund - Betreten auf eigene Gefahr" ("private property - trespassing
at one's own risk"). Trespassing in Germany is only an offence if the area
is properly fenced (the result is that almost all privately owned land
excluding farmland is fenced here ;-).

An access point without any key is obviously not fenced. Discussion over -
if you want to protect your property against trespassing, fence it. Protect
your access point. If you leave it open, you invite other people.

 

[Evgenij Barsukov]

You are reasoning from the implied premise that individuals should have
no rights except those that benefit society. I'm curious if you really
believe this.

Well, strictly speaking I would define it somewhat more general.
"Society" is bound by its time and generary recognized "benefit" inside
this society might later be found harmful. For example at the begining
of the 19th century heroin was considered a very beneficial psichiatric
drug prescribed by the shrinks. So rather than saying "beneficial to
society" I would say "beneficial to humanity" or even more general
"beneficial to Life".
In later definition, I agree, individuals should not have any rights
that are not beneficial to humanity.

For example, suppose there is someone who definitely did not commit a
murder, the real murder is dead. But the community believes he did, is
living in fear, and would benefit tremendously from his execution. Does he
have the right not to be executed? Even if that execution inarguably
benefits society?

This problem is resoved by my more wide definition. While there is a
short term benefit for "that particular" society which is twisted
and fundamentaly wrong in wanting to execute somebody in the first
place, executing an innocent person is in the _long term_ harmful
because in the long term truth about executing an innocent will come out
and harm society much more than in helped before (apart from harming
that individual which is part of humanity as well so beneniting him
is a part of the equation to start with). So in my definition
"beneficial to humanity" his execution would not be harmful, and rights
preventing such event need to be maintained.

Regards,
Evgenij

 

[Neil Maxwell]

Property rights should apply to consumables. To something that disapears
if being used, and therefore society benefits from its _concervation_.
However, knowledge is non-consumable. Society benefits from its _usage_,
whereas non-users are lazy bastards who do harm to society. So _use of
knowledge_ has to be encouraged, and non-use punished.

So if I sit on my sofa day after day and watch The Simpsons,
practicing non-use of knowledge, I should be punished?

I'm glad I live where I do...

 

[Andy Glew]

Property rights should apply to consumables. To something that

disapears if being used, and therefore society benefits from its
_conservation_.
However, knowledge is non-consumable. Society benefits from its
_usage_, whereas non-users are lazy bastards who do harm to
society. So _use of knowledge_ has to be encouraged, and non-use
punished.

Property rights also need to apply to produceables - to things that
require effort to produce. Even if, once produced, they are not
consumed; even if usage costs nothing thereafter, the initial
production costs.

Otherwise there is no incentive to produce - to make the investments
necessary to produce. (Or at least reduced incentive.)

Intellectual property takes effort to produce.

Property rights in consumables are perpetual - are at least until
consumed.

Property rights in non-consumable produceables, such as intellectual
property, are not perpetual. They fall off over time. Eventually,
society gets the benefit of free use, but not immediately. It is a
balance of incentive to produce against the benefit of free use.

---

Overall, property rights apply to scarce resources, whether
produceable or consumable.

Consider the electromagnetic spectrum. It is neither produceable or
consumable - it doesn't disappear after being used. But only so much
can be used at any point in time.

Continuing my line of reasoning: perpetual property rights for
consumables, time declining property rights for non-consumable
producables - then should non-produceable non-consumable resources
have, what? leases?

(I have always thought it crazy that the government auctioned off new
frequency bands. Why not lease them off?)

 

[David Schwartz]

David Schwartz wrote:

Well, strictly speaking I would define it somewhat more general. "Society"
is bound by its time and generary recognized "benefit" inside
this society might later be found harmful. For example at the begining
of the 19th century heroin was considered a very beneficial psichiatric
drug prescribed by the shrinks. So rather than saying "beneficial to
society" I would say "beneficial to humanity" or even more general
"beneficial to Life".
In later definition, I agree, individuals should not have any rights that
are not beneficial to humanity.

Okay, so you reach your conclusion from premises that are fundamentally
different from those of myself and, I submit, most rational people.

This problem is resoved by my more wide definition. While there is a short
term benefit for "that particular" society which is twisted
and fundamentaly wrong in wanting to execute somebody in the first place,
executing an innocent person is in the _long term_ harmful because in the
long term truth about executing an innocent will come out and harm society
much more than in helped before (apart from harming
that individual which is part of humanity as well so beneniting him
is a part of the equation to start with). So in my definition "beneficial
to humanity" his execution would not be harmful, and rights preventing such
event need to be maintained.

Suppose hypothetically there were one specific case where it could be
demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that executing this one innocent person
would benefit society as a whole. Surely that's not impossible, is it? If
"individuals should not have any rights that are not beneficial to humanity"
and there is one specific case where killing a deliberately innocent person
is beneficial to humanity, then surely that person should be killed.

I personally find your principle disgusting and repugnant. Individuals
have rights because they are moral agents, not because there are other
people around them.

DS

 

[Evgenij Barsukov]

So if I sit on my sofa day after day and watch The Simpsons,
practicing non-use of knowledge, I should be punished?

I'm glad I live where I do...

Actually this is example to the countrary. Watching the Simpsons
means _using_ the knowledge which his creators have imbeded into
it. Non-using would mean to sit on your sofa and watch only the
advertizements, while skeeping the knowledge content they sponsor,
e.g. Simpsons.

Regards,
Evgenij

 

[Evgenij Barsukov]

Property rights also need to apply to produceables - to things that
require effort to produce. Even if, once produced, they are not
consumed; even if usage costs nothing thereafter, the initial
production costs.

Otherwise there is no incentive to produce - to make the investments
necessary to produce. (Or at least reduced incentive.)

This is correct. That is why some alternatvie way of creating incentive
without discouraging use should be introduced. So far it exists in 3 forms:
- sponsoring through advertizement, everyone pays for sponsored content
by increased price of the product, which factors in advertizement costs

- subscription services, voluntary payment for sponsorent content
regardless of actual usage

- state sponsored content creation (science), everyone pays through
taxes, use of resulting content is free (however, last mail - the
distribution of knowledge which is free by itself through scientific
journals is still canibalized by publishers)

Future forms of knowledge creating incentives that do not discourage
usage will build up on the 3 above, while some new forms will arize.
However, lawmakers should encourage this development by increasingly
removing intellectual property protections (shortening the copy-right
protection period, shortening patent protection periods, ruling
negatively on attemts to extend protection to gray areas etc).
Intellectual property concept exists because it is imposed by law.
This lay used to be useful in its time, and still somewhat useful now.
Howevr, laws can and need to change to adapt to changing society. That
is why we have lawmakers which get big pay.

Intellectual property takes effort to produce.

Property rights in consumables are perpetual - are at least until
consumed.

Property rights in non-consumable produceables, such as intellectual
property, are not perpetual. They fall off over time. Eventually,
society gets the benefit of free use, but not immediately. It is a
balance of incentive to produce against the benefit of free use.

This is correct. However, as new methods of creating incentives for
knowledge creation _without discouraging knowledge useage_ arize,
lawmakers have to continiously adjust this balances and reduce the
protection to further encourage alternative incentive methods which
are more beneficial for humanity.

Regards,
Evgenij

 

[David Schwartz]

Intellectual property concept exists because it is imposed by law.

If it were not imposed by law, a very similar system would spring up
almost immediately enforced by contract. Such a system would likely be more
onerous and less balanced than the current system that arose out of careful
balancing of competing interests.

DS

 

[Scott A Crosby]

Property rights in non-consumable produceables, such as intellectual
property, are not perpetual. They fall off over time. Eventually,
society gets the benefit of free use, but not immediately. It is a
balance of incentive to produce against the benefit of free use.

Thats the way they were supposed to be, before we had the Copyright
Term Extension Act in 1998 extending copyright another 20 years. And
before that the 1976 law that extended copyright for 19 years for
institutional works, and for authorial works, -6--40 years.

And that was before we had DRM that attempts to lock stuff up forever
--- ignoring any possible end to property rights.

I don't see much 'free use' appearing lately, or at all within the
last 40 years. (Ignoring special cases like foreign works,
non-extended works predating 1976, etc.)

Other than that, I did like---and agree with your post. But that
balance has been changed *AND* technology has potentially turned
anyone into a publisher so copyright law directly affects far more
people.

Scott

 

[Larry Elmore]

In later definition, I agree, individuals should not have any rights
that are not beneficial to humanity.

But what is "humanity" but a collection of individuals? Who decides
what is best for "humanity", and how is their opinion enforced? What
happens when one group think all of humanity must be or behave one way
and other groups think differently? What you're describing is what in
the real world can only end up as a society in which the vast majority
of people are enslaved to whatever clique can seize the reins of power.
Maybe you'd *like* to be a worker ant, but don't be surprised if most
people resist enslavement, even if you sincerely (though delusionally)
claim it's "for their own good".

--Larry

 

[Larry Elmore]

If it were not imposed by law, a very similar system would spring up
almost immediately enforced by contract. Such a system would likely be more
onerous and less balanced than the current system that arose out of careful
balancing of competing interests.

But how are contracts enforced? By law and by law enforcement, unless
each contracting party hires their own private enforcers. When private
enforcers disagree, it's hard to see how disputes would be settled
except by who's got the most and/or the most ruthless enforcers, rather
like organized crime family disputes.

--Larry

 

[David Schwartz]

David Schwartz wrote:

But how are contracts enforced? By law and by law enforcement, unless
each contracting party hires their own private enforcers. When private
enforcers disagree, it's hard to see how disputes would be settled
except by who's got the most and/or the most ruthless enforcers, rather
like organized crime family disputes.

My point is that if you eliminated intellectual property law, you'd just
get the same type of thing but likely worse out of contract law. You'd have
to rewrite contract law to prohibit it from being used to create anything
like intellectual property, which would result in bizarre, unreasonable, and
arcane provisions.

If I couldn't copyright my book, I'd simply enter into a contract with
my publisher who would similarly enter into contracts with booksellers
requiring them to enter into contracts with purchasers. As this would become
ungainly, private registration companies would likely set up to track what
books were owned by what people. To buy a book, you might have to show a
card issued by such a company showing that you had agreed to its
restrictions on what you could do with books you bought. Books would likely
have emblems on them showing which contract terms were acceptable to the
author/publisher and you'd have to demonstrate compliance with one of them
to buy a book.

While this would protect the rights of authors, it would be cumbersome
and would not balance author's rights with the interests of the public the
way current law does. The proof of this is that EULAs and shrink-wrap
agreements are now cropping up to *add* rights that publishers and authors
can't get under contract.

DS

 

[David Schwartz]

While this would protect the rights of authors, it would be cumbersome
and would not balance author's rights with the interests of the public the
way current law does. The proof of this is that EULAs and shrink-wrap
agreements are now cropping up to *add* rights that publishers and authors
can't get under contract.

That should read, at the end "can't get under copyright law".

DS

 

[Del Cecchi]

But what is "humanity" but a collection of individuals? Who decides
what is best for "humanity", and how is their opinion enforced? What
happens when one group think all of humanity must be or behave one way
and other groups think differently? What you're describing is what in
the real world can only end up as a society in which the vast majority
of people are enslaved to whatever clique can seize the reins of power.
Maybe you'd *like* to be a worker ant, but don't be surprised if most
people resist enslavement, even if you sincerely (though delusionally)
claim it's "for their own good".

--Larry

Stalin, for he embodies the state. Or he did. And we know how much fun
that was.

 

[George Macdonald]

Ho-hum another one who sets follow-up only to his favorite NG - sorry again
but I'll repost to all NGs.

Well, trespassing seems to be a cultural thing. In the states, you see
"trespassers will be shot" sign-posts. In Germany, it often sais
"Privatgrund - Betreten auf eigene Gefahr" ("private property - trespassing
at one's own risk"). Trespassing in Germany is only an offence if the area
is properly fenced (the result is that almost all privately owned land
excluding farmland is fenced here ;-).

I dunno what "states" you're talking about but where did you see this "....
will be shot"?... in a cowboy movie?Ô_ô It varies by state but here in NJ
and in some others the propery just has to be "posted" as not for common
access and usually specifically "no dumping", "owner not reponsible for
injury" or, about this time of year as "no hunting".

An access point without any key is obviously not fenced. Discussion over -
if you want to protect your property against trespassing, fence it. Protect
your access point. If you leave it open, you invite other people.

Fortunately German law is not universal. As for the current case in hand,
where current law does not cover it, new law is currently being created.
Hmm, seems like we have a bunch of war-walkers/drivers here.

 

[Bernd Paysan]

Fortunately German law is not universal.

German civil law is modelled after the Code Napoleon. Apart from those legal
systems that were more or less democratic before (the anglo-saxonian ones,
which were mainly influenced by the older Roman law), the Code Napoleon
influenced most of the rest in Europe that became democratic later. The
*principles* for the Code Napoleon are rather universal, and differ
somewhat from the Roman and anglo-saxonian law.

But you are right, that unlike US law, German law is not stated to be
universal ;-).

As for the current case in hand,
where current law does not cover it, new law is currently being created.

Good laws cover new cases as well, since they describe sane universal
principles. Unfortunately, even in Germany, good laws are rather rare ;-).

Hmm, seems like we have a bunch of war-walkers/drivers here.

One project in the free software community is to create a global peer to
peer wireless network. You buy the equipment for the place where you
install it, and you use it everywhere. This includes routing protocols for
hopping around between access points.

The telcos should really be afraid of that. If it catches on, it means their
mobile business is dead. One way to keep their business is to make sure
that such a network can't establish. Jailing war-drivers probably is just
part of that plan.

 

[The little lost angel]

Actually this is example to the countrary. Watching the Simpsons
means _using_ the knowledge which his creators have imbeded into
it. Non-using would mean to sit on your sofa and watch only the
advertizements, while skeeping the knowledge content they sponsor,
e.g. Simpsons.

I don't like the Simpsons and I spent time watching advertisements for
studies in advertising. So the advertisers should now punish me (and
other students) for non-using the knowledge they sponsor e.g.
Simpsons???

 

[Del Cecchi]

Ho-hum another one who sets follow-up only to his favorite NG - sorry again
but I'll repost to all NGs.




I dunno what "states" you're talking about but where did you see this "....
will be shot"?... in a cowboy movie?Ô_ô It varies by state but here in NJ
and in some others the propery just has to be "posted" as not for common
access and usually specifically "no dumping", "owner not reponsible for
injury" or, about this time of year as "no hunting".

snip

I have a picture somewhere that I took of the sign that said
"Trespassers will be shot. Those missed will be prosecuted". It was in
the state of Virginia, in the mountains.

 

[George Macdonald]

German civil law is modelled after the Code Napoleon. Apart from those legal
systems that were more or less democratic before (the anglo-saxonian ones,
which were mainly influenced by the older Roman law), the Code Napoleon
influenced most of the rest in Europe that became democratic later. The
*principles* for the Code Napoleon are rather universal, and differ
somewhat from the Roman and anglo-saxonian law.

But you are right, that unlike US law, German law is not stated to be
universal ;-).


Good laws cover new cases as well, since they describe sane universal
principles. Unfortunately, even in Germany, good laws are rather rare ;-).

Yeah well I think the situation in Germany is not too different from the
rest of the developed world - the framers of laws are usually (low-grade)
lawyers. Self-regard and incompetence is a potent combination.

I'd be interested to know if the jurisdictions where "stealing by finding"
is a felony -- notably UK & Australia (dunno about New England states) --
are applying that law to cover this situation.

One project in the free software community is to create a global peer to
peer wireless network. You buy the equipment for the place where you
install it, and you use it everywhere. This includes routing protocols for
hopping around between access points.

I'm no expert but to me the 2.4GHz ISM band hardly seems appropriate or
sufficient for such an anarchic err, enterprise. Are the people who want
to pay for a piece of hopefully useable bandwidth to be drowned out in the
RF cacophony? There are already enough horror stories, e.g. from what I
hear, if you live within a coupla blocks of a hospital, you can't get a
useable channel... signal strength limits be damned.

You may have noticed that in the U.S. the telephone companies created from
the big break-up have incestuously collapsed back into only two significant
operations -- apparently to loud applause and encouragement from those
charged with regulating the system -- who just happen to own a big piece of
the Internet backbone. They're going to get us one way or the other.

The telcos should really be afraid of that. If it catches on, it means their
mobile business is dead. One way to keep their business is to make sure
that such a network can't establish. Jailing war-drivers probably is just
part of that plan.

There's a difference between a shared, jointly owned arrangement and
squatting on someone else's property.

 

[The little lost angel]

I have a picture somewhere that I took of the sign that said
"Trespassers will be shot. Those missed will be prosecuted". It was in
the state of Virginia, in the mountains.

Could there be a possibility that it was an trepass warning sign
attempting some humour?