If we think of dead people as ceasing to exist in death, then they must
become non-existent. Some people think that, philosophically, only people
and things who exist can properly be the subjects of present-tense verbs (or
at least that sentences which make them the subjects of present-tense
verbs will be false). This leads to strange problems.
There are already lots of thorny problems in the philosophy of language
surrounding using a noun phrase like "the present king of France" (most
famously, in a sentence like "the present king of France is bald"). But
it almost seems that it gets thornier if you use a noun phrase which
refers to someone who used to exist and who no longer exists. (Another
twist: is there a grammatical distinction between people who once
existed and then stopped existing, and people who, like the present
king of France, have never existed at all?)
For that matter, if it's not legitimate to say "he is tall", or "he is
friendly", of someone who's dead, why is it legitimate to say "he is
dead"?
On June 2 I presented a proof of a toy
theorem which inverts Fermat's Last Theorem. Matthew Loran sent me a
criticism of the proof, which I misunderstood, and then
Andrew Cairns sent me a
counterexample along with a similar criticism.
The proof is wrong. The problem is that I went from
ny-z(na-y - nb-y - nc-y - ... - nx-y - 1) = 1
to conclude that
na-y - nb-y - nc-y - ... - nx-y = 1
where I should have concluded that
na-y - nb-y - nc-y - ... - nx-y - 1 = 1
which is very different.
Andrew Cairns points out that some of the powers might be
distinct and others might not. For example, we might have
128 = 64 + 32 + 32 (or, 729 = 243 + 243 + 81 + 81 + 81).
What I think survives the error in my proof is the
conclusion that a power of n (for n>2) cannot be
decomposed into m distinct powers of n (or into m
identical powers of n) if m does not equal n.
I had a party to celebrate the expiration of the U.S. patent on
Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression. Several people brought
very nice party GIFs.
Unfortunately, software patents
in Europe are at risk of appearing in the near future. If
you live in Europe, please see if you can do anything about this.
Burn All GIFs also urges
people to continue to refrain from using GIF in their web sites
because LZW patents in other countries are in force.
I bought a copy of the game
U.S.
Patent Number 1 for everyone to play at the party, but we didn't get the
chance. I hope to try out the game pretty soon.
Martin found and briefly quoted
an LWN
piece on the implications of Caldera/SCO's claims about
software development.
The piece makes a good point, which I'll discuss in a moment.
What I find most remarkable about the Caldera/SCO statements is that
they seem to revolve around an intuitive idea of "ownership" of
technology. In the free software world, most informed people have
been led to place great emphasis on the fine distinctions between
copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and contract (and other
areas of law). For example, copyright, patent, and trademark are
"rights against the world"; trade secret and contract are not.
Copyright and patent are temporary; trademarks must be renewed;
trade secrets and contracts are potentially temporary but
may be destroyed in certain ways. Independent re-creation is a
defense to copyright infringement (and, in a slightly different sense,
to trade secret misappropriation), but not to patent or trademark
infringement.
This focus on these distinctions is significant in two ways. First,
it promotes a better understanding of the actual state of the law.
Second, and in my opinion possibly more importantly, it leads to a
certain kind of scorn toward claims of "ownership" in technology.
If we learn distinctions among bodies of law relating to proprietary
control of technology, we cultivate an intuitive skepticism toward
"ownership" claims. When someone makes such a claim, we first demand
to know which body of law the claim is rooted in; then we
point out the particular limitations which are inherent to that
particular body of law. And in the absence of a specific legal claim,
we recognize that the default is a lack of proprietary control over
technology. That is, there is no "ownership" of technology except
whatever "ownership" might be for an
uncertain time granted by some statute, and then that "ownership"
is constrained to the particular enumerated rights provided for in
the statute. And outside of that, the "owner" has nothing.
Caldera/SCO's intuition appears to be the opposite -- it appears to be
that technology can be owned in a very broad sense, including, for
example, some kind of proprietary right in designs and APIs (outside
of patent), and some kind of derivative-work right outside of copyright
and potentially outside of trade secrecy. I say this not because of
something they've said in court, but simply because of things they've
said to the press.
One way to counter that intuition is to ask whether the ownership is a
matter of copyrights, patents, trademarks, or trade secrets.
In an interestingly disguised piece of Christian evangelism called
The Best Things in Life by Peter Kreeft (it doesn't
quite advance Christian theology, just undermine some of its traditional
cultural rivals), a closely parallel strategy is used by the
character of Socrates.
Socrates: What kind of love did you make?
Felicia: Do you want details? Why, that's none of your business,
you dirty old man!
Socrates: I mean, was it agapê or philia or
storgê or eros?
Here the point isn't just to get Felicia to answer the question, but to
try to undermine her impression that she understands what love is.
Since she doesn't even know the distinction between these four kinds of
love, she may start to doubt her former confidence and to think that the
question is more complicated than she had realized. (Of course, that's
precisely what does happen to her.)
The Free Software Foundation
advocates drawing these distinctions, but first and foremost as a way
of promoting clear thinking. But elsewhere, people have attacked the
term "intellectual property" as a harmful propaganda term. Among other
things, it tries to induce us to see these legal interests as a sort of
moral entitlement rather than as a government subsidy, like farm subsidies, to promote certain
kinds of behavior. There's been a lot of discussion of this tendency,
but too little discussion of just how the fine distinctions
undermine it.
One way that I think they tend to disparage the interests of the "owner" is
by letting the air out, so to speak, of a puffed-up rhetorical version of
exactly what the owner's interest was supposed to have been. In other
words, clarifying the distinctions exposes an illusion:
The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he
gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto
jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in
a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next
moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in
just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald
head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they
were. The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man
and cried out, "Who are you?"
"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," said the little man, in a trembling
voice. "But don't strike me -- please don't -- and I'll do anything you
want me to."
Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay.
"I thought Oz was a great Head," said Dorothy.
"And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady," said the Scarecrow.
"And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast," said the Tin Woodman.
"And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire," exclaimed the Lion.
"No, you are all wrong," said the little man meekly. "I have been
making believe."
"Making believe!" cried Dorothy. "Are you not a Great Wizard?"
"Hush, my dear," he said. "Don't speak so loud, or you will be
overheard -- and I should be ruined. I'm supposed to be a Great Wizard."
"And aren't you?" she asked.
"Not a bit of it, my dear; I'm just a common man."
"You're more than that," said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone;
"you're a humbug."
"Exactly so!" declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as
if it pleased him. "I am a humbug."
(L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
(The movie version is interestingly different from this.)
As to what LWN actually had to say about free software, I urge you to
read Martin's excerpt, or subscribe to LWN and read the article. The
main point is that Caldera/SCO's litigation against IBM doesn't show that
free software licensing is risky so much as it shows that proprietary
software licensing is risky. The defendant in the litigation is not a
free software licensee, but a proprietary software licensee, accusing
of breaching a proprietary software license by making unauthorized
derivative works. The conclusion is that making derivative works of
proprietary works may be much riskier than making derivative works of
free works. The LWN editorial makes this point much more forcefully.
A more general and conventional point would be to remind people that the GNU
GPL is much less restrictive than any proprietary license, because it tries
to grant rights not granted by copyright, whereas most proprietary licenses
purport to abrogate by contract rights already granted by copyright. And
most proprietary licenses completely forbid making derivative works,
whereas the GNU GPL simply imposes restrictions on making
derivative works. But I think LWN's point is much more interesting.
As Martin quotes it:
We all owe SCO a debt of gratitude
for showing us how unsafe proprietary software can be. That company is using proprietary
licensing to press a truly staggering set of claims over the work of others and power to disrupt
organizations worldwide. [...]
SCO, it would seem, owns everything. Compared to that claim, the allegedly "viral" nature of the
GPL (if you distribute something derived from a GPL-licensed product, the derived product must
also be licensed under the GPL) seems weak indeed. SCO is laying claim to decades of work done
by dozens of proprietary Unix vendors, and that's just the starting point.
Riana and I took a round trip on the Sausalito ferry on Saturday, and I
got a bit sunburned. The view out on the water is wonderful, and we
passed close by Alcatraz and got to see the buildings there and try to
imagine what it would be like to spend many years stuck on a single
island.
After the ferry trip, we met up with Nick and all set off to explore
the new BART extension, which officially opens today but which was
carrying throngs of curious passengers out to the new stations for
free Saturday.
First, we rode to SFO, got off at the new SFO station, and took the
AirTrain shuttle all around the airport. (The AirTrain runs on a
track, but has rubber tires. I'm not sure whether I've seen
anything quite like it.) We were suitably impressed by the
grandeur of the station and by the sight of all the ramps dipping
under and over one another -- a huge knot of some complexity
and a great engineering accomplishment even without the transit
modes which actually run on the ramps. The AirTrain gives
great views because it's built up on top of the airport -- it
practically runs on the roof, and you have to take stairs or
elevators down to the terminals.
We then rode over to Millbrae and saw the CalTrain connection
(although CalTrain wasn't running, because it's a weekend!).
We eventually took BART back to the San Bruno and South
San Francisco stations.
Nick took pictures in every station, on the AirTrain, and in
several of the tunnels. I hope his pictures come out well.
Overall, the BART to SFO extension is just beautiful. Nick
admired the modern tunnels and the craftsmanship and
engineering which go into building something like this, and
he regaled us with anecdotes about transit and rail history.
BART to SFO from where I live takes only 24 minutes and costs
around $5, a much better deal than any other way of getting
there, and much, much faster than the AirBART to Oakland. I
fear for the Oakland Airport now -- I used to use it all the
time because of AirBART, but now I guess its only advantage
to me is the discount carriers like Southwest and JetBlue.
That is still an advantage, but BART to SFO is just so great.
If you live in the Bay Area, you should try out BART to SFO
as soon as you get the chance. I'm sure you'll be amazed,
as we were.
I have a bunch of first-day memorabilia which I'm mainly
planning to send off to Kate, who couldn't make the first
day on account of being off in New Jersey.
The new BART map is inspiring, because it shows a Bay
Area positively blanketed in transit (except for little
things like the whole of Marin, the western half of
San Francisco, and so on). The BART district also follows
a clever strategy: in addition to the actual lines, they
always have their maps show dashed lines for routes
they're still considering. It will say something about
the environmental review, or the study, or the funding,
and so remind people that future BART extensions are
very real possibilities -- and set them to thinking
about what it would be like. The current BART map
now depicts the still-hypothetical BART to San Jose
extension.
I'd love to see BART to San Jose, although I wish they
could complete the loop down the Peninsula. That would
make being a computer geek in the Bay Area and not
knowing how to drive even more convenient.
