Mitchell Kapor Leaves Groove Over TIA 231
Deao writes "Mitchell Kapor, one of the founders of the EFF, has quit Groove. Supposedly he has left to pursue open source software interests, but insiders say he is unhappy with Groove's products forming a crucial part of the Total Information Awareness project. Read all about it at the NYTimes (Free Registration required)."
Reg Free Link (Score:5, Informative)
Click here [nytimes.com].
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:2)
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:2)
Re:Reg Free Link (Score:2)
hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod parent up! (Score:4, Insightful)
While I respect Kapor's stand, I'd encourage him to stay engaged and voice his opinions.
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:2)
I dunno, sometimes the best way to incite change is to show your own disagreement. And sometimes the best way to do that is to distance yourself. By leaving the company he is telling everyone just how much he is against it, which is perhaps more powerful then staying on the board and trying to limit the damage.
Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
I hadn't actually thought of it this way, but it's a good point. If in the future I find myself coding something dubious for a government or corporation, what is the correct ethical choice?
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'm kidding.
Not the same (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
If in the future I find myself coding something dubious for a government or corporation, what is the correct ethical choice?
If you're relying on someone else to answer that for you, then you've made the wrong choice already. Just follow whatever course of action is most ethical for you; because, at the end of the day, it's not your naysayers you'll see when you look in the mirror.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
You clearly frame the real-world question.
Nevertheless, the human mind is capable of rationalizing anything <insert historical example here>.
What sort of feedback loop monitors the conscience?
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Clearly the most ethical course is to refuse to do something if it is unethical. This won't keep someone from less scruples from doing it, but it keeps your hands clean. Anything more than that can get you in real trouble.
An alternative course is to plan several widely varied courses of action forwards, assuming that you did different things. Then figure out which one terminates in the most desireable future, and act on that one. Where you end up will depend on what you consider, and how accurate your projections are.
Saying "I was only doing my job" is a clear wrong answer. But there are a lot of other ways forwards from that. Depending on who was asking you to do what, you might try leaving the country, but figure out your costs and benefits first. And check on the immigration requirements. (Your choices will be more limited than you expect -- there are no more frontiers.)
A better choice is to avoid getting into that situation in the first place. One benefit of being a college radical is that it can eliminate that temptation... from the most obvious sources.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
If you've got an open position for a linux developer in the NY metro area, please contact me.
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Insightful)
Like it or not, you will at some time or another support Microsoft in this industry. They're just too big and too pervasive to ignore and still put food on the table. (By your logic, SAMBA and WINE should not exist for Linux, since they support products from an un-ethical company, but I digress.)
Realistically, Microsoft isn't going away any time soon - if ever. It takes quite a while to fritter away $40 Billion, and that's just the war chest. IMHO, we can either continue to tilt at windmills or we can be more constructive and try to modify the beasts behaviour. If Microsoft were to stop being so arrogant and paranoid at the same time, they would likely be a pretty cool company (Aside: Look at what's happened to the stuffiest corp of all time - Big Blue). Then, these moral dillemas won't de-rail us from getting our jobs done.
BTW, I'm not saying you should tone down or compromise your ethics in any way - I'm saying that you should try to find more constructive ways [go-mono.com] to uphold them than possibly hanging your future out dry. We need advocates, not martyrs.
God bless, and best of luck to you - I hope you make a wise decision.
Soko
Re:Ethics (Score:2, Informative)
In my present job we use 100% Linux and OpenBSD, we write our systems in Perl, we are formally GPLing and releasing our work, we're gently pushing for our peer agencies across the state to join us, and they're starting to realize that not only have the best solution available, but that our methods give everyone the biggest payback for the least expenditure.
Also, I *do* believe that Samba and WINE shouldn't exist, in much the same way that the GPL shouldn't have to exist. In an ideal world, we all work together and horrible hacks like WINE aren't needed. More viscerally, I feel that people who take the easy way out and fall back to WINE and friends for everything are being spineless, opportunistic cowards with no real ethics at all. "But gaming!" is no excuse; either start coding or go get a console. "But Word files!" is no excuse; tell people to send you plaintext/RDF/HTML/CSV/any other standard, interoperable format. The network effect of Office won't go away until people stop reflexively duck-and-covering before it.
People say they wish they didn't have to put up with Microsoft. Well, that's only going to happen if you're willing to shut up and then put up, and work to make it happen.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Not working with Microsoft has not been the death of my career. Hackers of the world, you have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
In my opinion this is about the most ass-backwards thing a person can do, mainly because -by your own admission - you work with Microsoft products, not on Microsoft products. I personally know two people who have quit Microsoft because they felt they were working for a company whose value system was diametrically opposed to theirs. I respect that, even though I don't necessarily agree with it.
You, on the other hand, come across as more pathetic and grandstanding than anything else.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting aside to the free software movement, no? Think about it, if you license something under GPL, you can't say who can or can't use it, just what baggage they have to handle in order to resell or distribute it (provide source if they modify it and resell it). Free means free, so that means terrorists, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, no matter which side of any particular war you choose, if you develop free software one implication is that people that you don't like can pick it up and use it to do things you don't like.
That means that the government can use it also. To watch you. And that they've got the source to make sure there aren't any backdoors.
A little bit of new perspective. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, just an unexplored thing.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Why not come up with a variation of the GPL, the GPLL (Gnu Public License for Liberty) that has a direct stipulation in it that it can't be used by various agencies of world governments.
I mean, hell, if Microsoft can include a EULA that has such ridiculous measures as their right to log into your machine and examine applications and data, certainly saying that TIPS, or the CIA/FBI/Homeland Security can't use the program would quite legal.
In fact, it might be a way to help get EULA's struck down in court: perhaps the US government would fight over the right to use anything GPLL'd and consequently invalidate all stupid EULA's in the process.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
not so much, I think. It's either free software, or it's not free software. Middle grounds are very slippery.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
However you could not incorporate any GPL code into it because the GPL does not allow it's code to be restricted by such rules.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Most of all, I hope that my work makes life more pleasant for terrorists. Perhaps it will serve in some small way to make up for the government activity which supposedly represents me, and serve to distinguish the behavior of US citizens from that of the US government.
War is a lot of wasted effort (since there's effort on both sides intended to counteract the other side's effort). Providing general tools to everyone simply reduces the duplicated and wasted effort.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
This doesn't mean that I think they won't break it, but the GPL is a bit difficult to break unless you are a software distributor. So I doubt that they will. Why should they? MS and Adobe may have reasons to want to break the GPL agreement, but I doubt that the three letter agencies do. In order to do that they'd need to be distributing code outside their agencies. And that's a rare event.
There is no ethical dilemma (Score:2)
I think that's silly. What other products, other than operating system software, does the TIA use? Are the makers of all those other products also committing an ethical breach?
I believe that contributing to free/open source software is ethically good. Making the world a better place is a good thing. Generosity is a good thing. If your main concern in distributing free software that you write is: how can I manipulate the licence terms to hurt those people that I don't like, then your ethical system is in serious need of debugging.
There is a good pragmatic reason why the Free Software and Open Source rules forbid us to put restrictions into our licences forbidding our enemies from using our software. If we did that, then a software distribution containing software from thousands of different authors (like Red Hat) would have a combined enemies list that would probably prohibit just about everybody from using the software. But beyond that, I also think such restrictions are unethical.
Doug Moen.
Re:There is no ethical dilemma (Score:2)
Ethics are the responsibility of the indivdual contributor (Ethics are always an individual responsibility), and the GPL gives you the capability to make very powerful unrevokable decisions that should be carefully considered beforehand.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
If it is dubious, the choice is obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
The more damning problem is situations where the feature creep slowly brings on new capabilities. Until one day you look at the big picture and wonder what you had done.
Re:If it is dubious, the choice is obvious (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
The software itself isn't unethical, but you find the fruit of your labor being used in ways you didn't expect.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Re:Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
[I'm assuming you're talking about RSA, as you're mentioning products of primes.]
The universe, however, feels no need to bow to human ingenuity. By what reasoning do you conclude that a non-quantum polynomial-time factoring approach exists?
Non-polynomial of *any* speed doesn't help you, if the person making the key was smart enough to add a few extra bits. Exponential problems are nasty that way.
A more intelligent approach is to say that a polynomimal- or near-polynomial time factoring algorithm *might* exist, and try to assess the chance of it a) existing and b) being discovered given an assumed amount of effort for a time window of interest. Remember, the NSA's been working on it for quite some time, with no apparent results yet.
A _wiser_ approach, given the apparent security of the encryption itself, is to look at other vulnerabilities of the system you're trying to protect.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
In this case, however, the NSA is so far ahead of the rest of the world in signals intelligence that it's not really fair to call it a race. If we dismantled the NSA today, it would still be years before the rest of the world could catch up to our capabilites.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
You don't know how much the NSA really knows. Facial recognition would have been thought too difficult until twin Isreali teens came up with a way to do it better than anyone else to date. Did the NSA have that capability long ago? Maybe, but that doesn't stop others from innovating.
Re:Ethics (Score:2)
Besides, there are always races, as another poster pointed out, and there's always ways the government makes people feel that it is their "patriotic duty" to help out. You think the guys who wrote Echelon or Carnivore have any trouble sleeping at night? I doubt it.
Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:4, Interesting)
Rights do not "no longer exist". You may have them or not have them, but they don't vanish because they are ideas. They are central to the human experience, and it's only thru collective will (or the end of a gun) do we decide who gets to exercise them and who does not.
It's like that song that says "and I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me". Those men didn't give me my rights - a higher power did. The founders of the USA realized this -- that these rights are inalienable.
Only thru systematic, Orwellian control of language and thought can rights "no longer exist".
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet they denied them to women, blacks, non-land owners, etc. If the founders really believed all men were created equal, why did only certain men get rights?
And don't forget, some of the first bills passed by Congress were the Alien and Sedition acts. The Alien act allowed the government to lock up non-citizen males age 14 and up who belonged to any country we were at war with. Didn't matter if they were innocent of any wrong doing. Congress threw the right to a fair trial right out the window. Luckily the British (you know, the people we were upset with) still had Magna Carta to protect their rights.
And the Sedition act would punish you if you "write, print, utter or publish. . . writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States," which means that Rush Limbaugh could have been arrested for Sedition during the Clinton administration if the act were still enforced.
Because of its weakness at the time, the Supreme Court didn't even rule them as unconstitutional (I don't know if they were ever approached about it; I couldn't find that.) The acts were eventually allowed to expire about 10 years later.
So please, don't venerate the founders of the USA. They were human. In other words, they were hypocrites. They talked about the inalienable rights of men, but kept slaves. The south wanted slaves counted as men for population reasons, so they could have more representatives, but they didn't want them to have rights. They engaged in acts of terrorism (Boston Tea Party) and used biological weapons against indigenous peoples (small pox blankets). And even today this country engages in taxation without representation: the citizens of the District of Columbia pay federal taxes but have no elected Federal representatives. And their population is greater than Wyoming's. Imagine if Congress decided to tell Wyoming citizens that they would continue to pay federal taxes but would lose their Senators and Representatives!
Sorry, don't mean to be a troll or flame bait, but the veneration of the "Founding Fathers" really gets to me after awhile.
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:2)
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:2)
You say they left out blacks. I say the very same document was used to free blacks.
No, they had to make a specific amendment to the constitution to do that. By that time, it was not the document produced 90 years earlier
You say they kept slaves. I say the country they founded ended slavery all over the world.
Huh? We were one of the last developed countries to free our slaves. For example, Britain outlawed slavery about 30 years before we did. The only reasons they supported the south during the Civil War was 1) as payback to the government for having had the revolution and 2) to keep cheap cotton coming into the English factories. The same way we make nice with the Saudi government, even though Parade Magazine(not a leftist newspaper supplement by any means) listed them as the number 2 worst dicatatorial government in the world while Saddam came in around 5 or 6.
Not to mention the traffic in slavery that still goes on in Africa and Asia.
I say they understood it applied to all because they excluded no one by name or by omission.
If that were the case, then we wouldn't have needed a 13th amendment, freeing the slaves or a 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. In other words, they omitted freedom for blacks and women.
You see the glass half empty. I see it half full. To each his/her/it own.
I like to see the world for what it is. Not what I'd like it to be.
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:2)
In the real world, rights are guarantees. That's all. The Bill of Rights says that Congress is prohibited from making a law abridging the freedom of speech. That's a guarantee to the people of the United States that their federal government won't interfere with their liberty when it comes to expressing themselves. It's not a recognition of a divine right; it's merely a guarantee.
The reason I say your position isn't useful is this: of the people who subscribe to your theory, every one has a different idea of what rights his creator has endowed him with. Some people think they have a right to refuse to pay income taxes; hardly anybody agrees with them. "But this right is inalienable," they say. Nobody listens. So the position that rights-- whatever you think your rights might be-- are divine in nature and origin just won't get you very far.
Please forgive my picking nits, but I really don't like it when people express this idea incorrectly.
Re:Can you blame him for having a conscience? (Score:2)
"Rights" is a piece of information. It was created out of environmental noise during the 1400-1700's. But information can not only be created, it can be destroyed.
For rights to manifest, they need a social context that supports them. If they don't manifest, then no one sees them. If no one sees them, then the idea of what they are becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. Until it fades into the environmental noise.
Do you have free speech? The only proof is free speech. A "right" to free speech? What proof can exist?
Possibly "rights" could be defined in some objectively measurable way that comes near to matching our intuitive knowledge of them. But if so, I haven't seen the definition. So I suspect them of being the form of information called belief.
The world needs more good examples (Score:4, Insightful)
Anybody remember the line that was used on production lines/ development for the atom bomb? "Our job is to build them, not to decide where they fall."
Take heart, folks. Add this one to the tiny corner of the bulletin board labelled "The world is not all bad." People really do sometimes help total strangers, people really do sometimes care about what their work is being used for, and frankly, i'm ALL IN FAVOUR of a guy who can turn around and quit based on what he thinks is an appropriate use of his work. (of course, i might not feel that way if he felt that what he was building SHOULD be spyware and they hadn't been headed there)I'm more willing to respect a belief the less it looks like it's going to mess with other people's- relatively innocent people's- lives. Granted, we can't all pay the rent if we walk off the job for moral reasons, so choose your battles carefully, and we don't all have a widespread fanbase to keep the world aware of what we've just done. (So when you choose them, do it as publicly as possible.) But sometimes, it's worth it, and i'll lead the cheer. Thanks!!!! Good example of what's not all wrong with the world.
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:3, Insightful)
If they are, all you hackers out there better put down your keyboards, because this is a wakeup call. Practically everything written out there in software-land could be used for nefarious purposes -- whether open source, closed source, or you name it. Remember the Marine training program using Doom?
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
According to Dictionary.com [dictionary.com] the definition for nefarious [reference.com] reads:
Wicked in the extreme; abominable; iniquitous; atrociously villainous; execrable; detestably vile.
Can someone explain to me why the Marine's using Doom for training could even be closed to being called "nefarious"? Why are so many of the examples on Slashdot when describing the "evil" ways technology can be used usually include only the U.S. government or the U.S. military? What about terrorists? What about evil dictators? What about cults?
Since when is training the armed forces considered a "nefarious" use of software?
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
I was simply using it to demonstrate the fact that software can be used for purposes far afield from the purpose a developer envisoned when it was written. Certainly, being shocked when that happens is rather naive.
Does Kapor think that the DoD has no need for desktop collaboration? If not, does it matter what organization? Is the Army a "good" user and the NSA a "bad" user? What about if the actual user is an Army person, who is doing some duties for the NSA (this is frequently the case)? It gets grey pretty fast.
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
That is true, especially around here it seems. I didn't mean to imply you weren't making a good point, I just was questioning why the same ol' tired examples are used around here.
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
Sorry, I don't really take pure pacifism seriously. I will try to keep up though.
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
If you're a pacifist, would you really have designed and published Doom?
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
Re:The world needs more good examples (Score:2)
Seriously, Doom doesn't attempt to be a realistic simulation. It's entertainment.
Well, no. specifically... (Score:2, Insightful)
The point here is not the measure of the potential threat, it's the matter of taking action as a matter of principle. It's a valid statement that the two are not morally 'equivalent'- but it IS true (at least in my view) that the two actions are morally parallel in that they do both make a public statement against an actively directed specific use by the government of a specific technology.
When the TIA creeps are sharing your desktop, then you at least have one person who will have said, hey, i worked on this, and this was NOT what we had in mind.
You're right. Practically anything written out there in softwareland could be used to erode rights, could be used to persecute individuals- the question isn't can a hammer be used to break heads? but more importantly, When the company you design hammers for starts selling them to the guys using them to break heads, are you still going to be there designing hammers for them?
Remember, folks, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re:Well, no. specifically... (Score:2)
However, if you place your cutpoint too far to one side, you are going to have an awfully hard time getting up in the morning. Someone further down in the posting thread asked a good question: What if TIA decides to start using his whizzy new open-source PIM? Does he pack up and leave that too? You can say "I worked on this, and this is NOT what I had in mind" without washing your hands of the whole thing every time it doesn't go the way you envisioned.
And, a lot of people out there work on things where the DON'T (or might not) know all the plausable uses of their product. I work for a Large East-Coast Telephone Company (tm). It would not surprise me if we provided phone lines to TIA employees. Should I quit?
do you think.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:do you think.... (Score:5, Informative)
Kapor wasn't always considered one of the good guys, either. Many in the software industry considered him to be somewhat obnoxious and it was widely grokked that at least some of Lotus' downfall in office suites can be attributed to Kapor's bad decisions. In retrospect, I'd say Microsoft just ate their lunch by being the first to market with a Windows-based office suite, personally.
But yeah, Kapor made his fortune by cocreating the PCs first killer app.
Re:do you think.... (Score:2)
The deal breaker we found, however, was that it is only for windows. The SDK is even based in COM. Talk about forward thinking!
*blinks* Does anybody else see it? (Score:4, Funny)
Is it just me? Or is the irony here almost toxic?
Re:*blinks* Does anybody else see it? (Score:2)
So then... (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud the gesture, as it's a very strong response to what many see as a massive invasion of the rights of Americans, but why not be more public? If you're going to stand up for something - even putting your financial future on the line for it (giving up employment in a poor economy), why not stand up and say, "hey, I quit because my employer wanted me to help our government invade and catalog every moment of your life." I wish more people involved in developing the technology had such courage, and I think if someone stood up as a leader, we'd see a much larger defection. I'm sure there are many people working on the systems like CAPPS and the TIA who have thought that maybe their job just isn't worth the damage they're doing to the American ideal, but who stay because change is difficult and they're uncertain about leaving.
A leader who stands up and says, "come, follow me, it's the right thing to do" may end up gathering more people following in his footsteps than anyone would have expected. What better statement is it to see a room full of people walk out, refusing to help work on something they don't believe in?
Well, sure, there are those guys who set themselves on fire to protest something - but that may be a little extreme.
Watch his blog (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So then... (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a large difference between standing up and refusing to do something immoral and being willing to sacrifice your life to make sure people know it's going on. While the latter would be laudable I can understand why people aren't jumping to do it, esp. as you wouldn't be getting much help from the government at your trial...
Re:So then... (Score:2)
You're assuming he'd get a trial -- Ashcroft would probably call him an enemy combatant and leave him to rot in Guantanamo.
Re:So then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Has the thought occurred to you that perhaps his government had made it illegal to discuss any aspects of TIA, and that even saying something vague like "I'm quiting because I don't like TIA" could land him in jail...or worse?
TIA is all about identifying and neutralizing threats to the U.S. government. No one seems to remember that the distinctive trait of U.S-style government is the guarantee that whatever administration is in power can be tossed out on it's ear every four years.
How can a challenger hope to win an office when the incumbent can legally root his campaign comittee, expose any (real or imagined) missteps, (while silencing for reasons of national security any of his own), etc?
The threat from TIA is not that it won't work, or that it will be abused, or be too costly to maintain, or invade the privacy of innocent people. The threat is that it will work exactly as designed, neutralizing any individual or party which could threaten the party currently in power.
Re:So then... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a joke, right? I mean, if a well-known person says "I don't like x" and is then jailed, you really think the American people will stand for that? Secondly, he doesn't have to go into details about how different aspects of the TIA are designed, he only needs to point out that he thinks compiling as much information as possible about every moment of every American's life violates the most fundamental principles of a free and open society.
"How can a challenger hope to win an office"
Because the presidency is limited to 10 years (practically speaking, two terms)?
"The threat from TIA is not that it won't work, or that it will be abused, or be too costly to maintain, or invade the privacy of innocent people. The threat is that it will work exactly as designed, neutralizing any individual or party which could threaten the party currently in power."
The threat of the TIA comes from many directions. The threat is that it will work so well that terrorists will be driven underground to the point that law enforcement finds all traditional methods ridiculously ineffective. The threat of the TIA is that individuals in the law enforcement community will abuse it to extremes, much like other law enforcement databases already have, or that the government will use the system to identify those who have broken no laws, but are engaged in something undesirable. The threat from the TIA is that it will go far beyond invading privacy - that it will strip every American of his and her God-given dignity by turning their entire life, their entire existence, into data cataloged and searched through in a massive database. The biggest threat is that a human being will be reduced to data entries. At that point, there is no morality - and oppression, murder, genocide become little more troublesome than deleting a file.
This isn't about threats to power - it goes far beyond that. This goes to the very heart of what makes a human being worthy of the rights guarenteed in the US Constitution. Once you reduce human beings to data, any action deemed desirable is perfectly acceptable, and that is the danger of the TIA.
Re:So then... (Score:2)
In my United States, the president serves four-year terms. Where's your United States located?
Seriously, we are already effectively data cataloged and searched through in massive databases. The TIA is a way for those databases to be coordinated with one another, a "metaindex" correlating everything together for data miners. I think it'll fail because it's a government agency, with an overtly Orwellian name to boot, and people will (rightly) be up in arms over it.
The problem is, such a metaindex will come sooner or later, and it'll come because we've trained ourselves to be only suspicious of the government--complaints about the dangers of corporate power are routinely dismissed as only belonging to the Loony Left, even as we strive to dismantle as many regulations on what corporations have access to in the name of market reform. When the TIA happens, it won't be a secretive intelligence agency--it'll be a new service from Experian or Citibank, slapped with a bright happy new marketing name. The ACLU will be sounding alarms, but, hey, they're always blabbing on about the rights of flag-burners, atheists and maybe even accused terrorists--why should we listen to those damned liberals? (Sarcasm, -1, yeah yeah.)
Re:So then... (Score:2)
Ooo, sarcasm - can I try?
Let's see, my Unites States is in North America. Our President also serves 4-year terms, but we have something called the 22nd amendment here, which states:
" no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."
Now, let's see if we can try some of that addition stuff. Two times four, plus two, equals ten. I know, let's make it a word problem!
Ricky is Vice President of the United States when, after 2 years, 1 day, the President tragically falls ill and dies. Ricky becomes acting President. Ricky is the acting President for 2 years, after which, he is elected President, because Ricky did a very good job! After four years, Ricky is re-elected to the office of President, which is allowed because he didn't serve more than two years as acting President. When Ricky serves out his second term, how many years will Ricky have been President?
Ans: 10 years.
Question2: How many terms can a President serve?
Ans1: Two.
Ans2: Two and one half.
Ans3: "(practically speaking, two terms)"
Oh how fun this sarcasm is! Anyway, I'm at work, so enough screwing around for now.
Re:So then... (Score:2)
To put it simply, he may be legally enjoined from commenting on his reasons for leaving Groove. They may have a contractual clause stipulating that he not air his dirty laundry or his beef with the company. That's a pretty common thing these days -- no "poisoning the well," so to speak.
The obvious way to circumvent this is for "close friends" to reveal his reasons to the media, which is exactly what has happened in the NY Times article.
I'm not saying that this is what happened, but it's a guess based on my past experiences with employment contracts and so forth. Hell, they might even say his NDA covers his reasons for leaving!
Smooth... (Score:5, Interesting)
Should Bill Gates dismantle Microsoft because the Pentagon uses Microsoft products? Should open source coders rework the GPL to say 'you can do anything you want EXCEPT use this for purposes we don't like'?
So, because government is going to use Groove, he needs to quit? How about freeing Groove, so that *everyone* can use it to counter the surveillance of the government? Make sure strong encryption is in there, open it up, and let people build on this 'revolutionary' product. The little I saw of Groove was interesting, but it never seemed 'there'. Maybe I just didn't get it at all, but I like to think I've been able to get my head 'round most new technologies (seeing pros/cons/etc).
Re:Smooth... (Score:3, Funny)
No, that's not the reason...
GPL and License Clauses (Score:2)
Should open source coders rework the GPL to say 'you can do anything you want EXCEPT use this for purposes we don't like'?
It already does: you can't close-source it. There is nothing that stops someone from creating a license that says "This software can not be used for any product that is designed to cause a loss of human life".
The BSD folks don't include certain restrictions. The GPL folks do. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that a group can't create a license that excludes weapons or TIA-type use, and I know I'd like such a license.
Re:Smooth... (Score:2)
IMO this 'TIA uses Groove' story is probably marketing trying to convince people that groove is good enougth go use (including its encryption), and perhaps provide a collaboration environment above and beyond what they have today.
I think if groove does take off then the government stays in windows land forever; groove is in bed with COM, and the money MS sends them stops them from trying to be portable (like base it all on XUL)
Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Positively impacting technology we build (Score:4, Interesting)
At the same time, I'm a developer for a company that creates products that use certificates, PKI, encryption, etc. We have also begun recently agreeing to create something with a federal agency. We still incorporate anonymous ways to use the products (to some degree at least), and that's something I will always want to push for.
OT:the TIA (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone remember the evil pyramid and eye logo that the TIA used to have? Well, in my english course we have been studying Margret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian future novel in grand Orwellian style. We recently watched a movie rendition of it, and I noticed one thing that somewhat scared me: the logo used for the oppressive gestapo-like police in the movie was almost the exact same eye and pyramid logo used by the TIA project!
Why doesn't he say it outright? (Score:4, Insightful)
If he's quitting on principle, then he has my admiration. It is a rare person these days, it seems, who considers the potential evil ramifications of their technological creations and feels strongly enough to oppose that evil.
Re:Why doesn't he say it outright? (Score:2)
A CEO of a company is responsible for the money of the company. If a CEO takes an action that negatively affects the stock value or profits of the company, even if it is the morally correct decision (and doesn't break the law in and of itself), he is violating the law and violating the trust of his shareholders.
Can someone explain (Score:3, Insightful)
I gather isn't very applicable towards data mining, so what exactly is the technology that Groove owns that fits so well with DARPA's TIA project?
leaving=giving permission. staying=keeping control (Score:5, Interesting)
If you leave, it gives the others free rein to make it even worse. (Oh good - the voice of conscience is gone. Now we can do ANYthing we want!)
But if you stay, you can be the good shepherd, the veto power, the one that keeps it from all going to hell.
Re:leaving=giving permission. staying=keeping cont (Score:3, Insightful)
I left a dream-job chief securtiy architect's position at a fortune 500 company for similar reasons. Before I was out the door they were offering me the world to stay, but I knew that wouldn't change my true feelings. In the end the only way I could live with my self was to leave.
You have to decide if you want to deal with the devil, because when you get in bed with him sooner or later you will have to get fscked.
Re:leaving=giving permission. staying=keeping cont (Score:2)
Our peers work for TIA (Score:3, Insightful)
Groove backdoor will FEED the TIA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like Zimmerman hinting that newer versions of NAI PGP (post 6.58?) might have issues.
And why he refers to it as a delicate situation.
Just a thought.
Maybe he's leaving after seeing the new MS Office? (Score:2, Insightful)
Office + Sharepoint, will kill the market for Groove before they can get one.
This is NOT a troll either, if you dont agree, do a little research. This Office version might actually be worth upgrading to.
Conscientious Brain Drain (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckily, XEROX and other private companies were around to snatch them up and not let their talents go to waste.
This kind of phenomenon can't be do much good: It doesn't help legitimate national security interests, and scientists and engineers without the means to innovate don't benefit the economy. If young persons decide to avoid engineering or science completely when a perceived immoral government taints those fields, there's even more fallout...
Re:Conscientious Brain Drain (Score:2)
Dude, the reason that young people are leaving science and engineering isn't because evil government security taints it - it's because there aren't any jobs!!! These days, I'd go into a field where there's more security - like acting...
Thanks Google! (Score:2, Informative)
TIA Is Overloaded Too Much (Score:2)
When I read this, I momentarily thought he left because he had a Transient Ischemic Attack.
Can anybody else think of overloads for this acronym? TIA for contributions. :)
groove not central to TIA... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's next... people boycotting boxcutters?
Re:groove not central to TIA... (Score:2)
Don't forget, America is the country where restaurants no longer sell french fries, but freedom fries.
That explains it... (Score:2)
Mitch Kapor's current work... (Score:2)
This was featured earlier on Slashdot: Mitch Kapor's Outlook-Killer [slashdot.org]
Well... (Score:2)
Well, he has a beard [nytimes.com], for what it's worth...
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Given the physical appearance of most of these people, I wouldn't consider a beard to be conclusive proof.
Re:I'm all for following your personal morals, (Score:2, Funny)
This is Slashdot, you ninny. There's no difference here.
Echelon (Score:2)