Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 11:57:14 +0300 From: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: ports/www/ijb - Imported sources Message-ID: <19980504115714.07998@techunix.technion.ac.il> In-Reply-To: <19980504032939.07389@follo.net>; from Eivind Eklund on Mon, May 04, 1998 at 03:29:39AM %2B0200 References: <19980503230438.48318@follo.net> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980503205621.20104E-100000@sasami.jurai.net> <19980504032939.07389@follo.net> <354d2457.225839725@mail.cetlink.net> <19980504042649.61453@follo.net>
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You, Eivind Eklund, were spotted writing this on Mon, May 04, 1998 at 03:29:39AM +0200: > [taken to -chat] > > On Sun, May 03, 1998 at 08:59:31PM -0400, Matthew N. Dodd wrote: > > On Sun, 3 May 1998, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > > Should't this be under ATT (for "Automated Theft Tool")? ;-) > > > > > > Refusing to download ads from the WWW is very bad practice. Those ads are > > > paying for the service you're using. I'm not even certain we should have > > > the above program as a port - I don't think we'd have a 'automated > > > crack-on-download' tool, for instance, and this is actually fairly similar. > > > > I strongly disagree. > > Arguments! Come up with arguments! Oh, that's easy. The argument is the nature of the medium. The Web is a medium which works according to HTTP protocol. That protocol is built around a principle of 'you go and get a file if you want it'. _Nowhere_ in the protocol is a notion that you must go and fetch .jpg file if it's in a tag in a HTML file (lynx doesn't, is it HTML-compliant? Thank you). Although the protocol _could_ have been built to unquestionably transmit image files in the same data stream used for the main HTML file, it wasn't, and for a good reason - it would be ugly design and inconvinient for the consumer. This choice has set the nature of the medium. Your argument that somehow, when entering a Web site I "impicitly" agree to view its images is silly and wrong. There is no agreement, neither explicit nor implicit (if there was, turning off loading images in Netscape would be wrong and immoral, do you think it is?). What I do is use my software to pull an HTML file off a site using HTTP protocol. The fact that for some time, my software wasn't sophisticated enough to let me choose which additional files to pull off the same site doesn't mean it's morally wrong for it to be sophisticated. Your argument about those silly "licenses" on sites is also wrong. They're invalid and unenforcable. First of all, a "page" is not an abstraction which exists on protocol level. A "page" is something out together by my software from separate entitites I pull from a site, so there's no reverse-engineering in my putting it together from a subset of the whole set of possible entitites (again, browsing with images turned off is an important special case). Here's an analogy for you. Suppose I invented magical ink that erases profane words from paper automatically and leaves other intact. I buy a book published by your friend content-maker and apply this ink before reading. Now, a friend of yours has a "license" on the book's cover which tells me I must not change book's content before "displaying" (i.e. reading) it. Am I breaking the law? Your friend will get laughed at in court. The reason he'll get laughed at in court is that the _medium_ of books doesn't allow silly "licenses" that enforce me to read in the book what he wants me to. He cannot force me to read all chapters or none, or not to read 3rd chapter if I'm under 18 (if I bought the book legally). Or to read all the profane words. The reason, however, that this can't be a real story is that there isn't, and unlikely to be any time soon, such an ink. The medium of books doesn't allow it. _That_ is the sole reason I will see those profane words (assuming for an instant I don't want to), and not because it's morally or legally wrong to automatically erase them for my own reading. Well, the medium of Web _does_ allow it, whether your friends want it or not. And using this ability of the medium is neither piracy nor morally wrong, just as it wouldn't be morally wrong to automatically erase profane words (or adevrtisements, or any other material I DO NOT WANT TO SEE) in a book. If it were easily possible, those who insert profane words (or advertisements, etc.) should have been looking for another medium. Which brings me to the next point. Your friends the content-makers say I'm ripping them off. They say I want a free ride on their content. Bullshit, if you excuse my language. THEY want a free ride - on the medium. They're using a medium (Web, HTTP) which explicitly lets its user to pull or not to pull different images/other files separately, and they want to brainwash ME, a user of the medium, to give up this freedom of mine and get their ads no matter what. Their attempts to produce content are appreciated; their attemtps to force down my throat what I don't want (and don't have to, by the nature of the medium) to see are not. Should they desire that I get their ads no matter what, they should look INTO a DIFFERENT MEDIUM which allows that. Was that clear enough? For example, they can use ActiveX controls which display ads on my Windows desktop, and make their site unbrowsable without ActiveX. Or they can use .PDF file with graphics built-in the file and ask me to download them. What? Do I hear a response to this already? They probably don't want to! (ah, that was a wild guess). They want to enjoy universal portability and availability of the Web medium, and don't want to use more restricted mediums of ActiveX-enabled browsers or PDF files. Well, then THEY want a free ride: to use a medium because it's so universal and portable and yet ignore its nature and try to force me (morally or in whatever different way) to get all their images, ads or no ads, from their site. Your arguments about ijb being a 'cracker' tools or about its user being 'pirates' are just way too silly to address, esp. in the light of what I wrote above. They would be offensive if they weren't so laughable. Sincerely, Anatoly. -- Anatoly Vorobey, mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/ "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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