The Future End of Classic Computing

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Tue Apr 2 09:32:43 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Hudson [mailto:rhudson_at_cnonline.net]

> Is there a simple boilerplate message I can send to my
> congress critters (not that it will do any good with
> Ms Fienstein or Boxer) to lodge my protest.

Of course, if you're going to mail your congress-things, you
may as well send copies to them as well.

> I am against piracy, I think Napster has brought all this
> down upon us because of the few who refuse to see it for
> what it was, theft.

You can't blame napster for the stupidity of politicians in
the US. You can only blame the politicians, their parents,
or the idiots who elected (or appointed!) them.

That said, also, in defense of napster, as far as I am
concerned, they were providing a service, and the fact
that people chose to use it for what amounts to theft
under law does not make napster guilty of theft. That's
simply a case of the recording industry (for the most part)
attempting to find somebody big enough to make them a lot
of cash on the incident. After all, it wouldn't do them
any good to prosecute their customers, who were, in fact,
the actual "guilty" parties.

Perhaps everyone would get along better if they spent the
money they pay to buy stupid laws on customer relations.

Enough on that subject, though, since it doesn't relate
directly.

> Oh, I suppose since I can re-compile Linux any time I want
> and can change the code however I like Linux will **never**
> get the stamp of government approval...

... and what will happen to "embedded" type systems? I
certainly hope that I never end up having to include crap like
this in a project that contains only 64k of ram.

Honestly, I'm sure if it comes to that, I can find another
place to live.

Chris


Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
Received on Tue Apr 02 2002 - 09:32:43 BST