Rants & Raves
Coffee Talk There are two aspects of "Java Saga" (Wired 3.12, page 166) that really frost me: one is people taking credit for things that they don't deserve credit for; the other is the number of people you left out.
I was the last person to join the Green project and, in many ways, the most peripheral member because I didn't write code, build hardware, or design interfaces. I wrote things down. But I think I have a more objective viewpoint than almost anyone else involved.
At a company as big and as rife with political jockeying as Sun, one has to expect execs to race as fast as they can to get to the head of the pack and then claim that they knew which way it was heading all along. For example, the "Spring 1994" blurb (page 169) states that Eric Schmidt and Bill Joy told what had been FirstPerson to redirect its efforts toward the Internet. This is such an Orwellian rewriting of history that it is beyond all reason.
Just a short time earlier Joy was exclaiming that Oak was dead because the language implementers wouldn't redesign it to take on C++. And Schmidt…. Oh, boy. Schmidt, the Internet visionary, is one of the people who wanted to charge groups at Sun US$50 per person to use Mosaic because it was such a pointless waste of time and had nothing to do with Sun's business.
What really irritated me about the article is the people it left out. I'm well aware that it is not Wired's job to chronicle every detail of the Java saga, but to not mention all the people who started it in motion is a travesty. It would have been nice if you had mentioned the seven core members of the Green team. How you could have missed Jonathan Payne, Craig Forrest, and Chris Warth is a mystery.
Chris Warth hacked and hacked to make SunOS 4.x a suitable operating system to run Oak on. Craig Forrest designed many (all?) of the ASICs that were in the *7 prototype. In fact, as Ed Frank went on more and more business trips with Mike Sheridan, Forrest took on more and more of the responsibility of hardware design and implementation. Jonathan Payne arrived during the last six months of the initial 18-month push to write the infrastructure for the new user interface and the bulk of the applications shown in the *7 demo. And there were others.
A final point. The success of Java/HotJava had nothing to do with the leadership of any Sun executive. The core of the Java development team had been involved in the Sun massacre of NeWS and, down to the last person, said they'd quit unless Sun made Java freely available. Thus it was blackmail, not foresight, that led to the alpha1 version of Java/ HotJava being thrown over the Sun firewall. The rest is, as they say, history. History that some are trying to rewrite with unwitting assistance from Wired.
Bob Weisblatt robert.weisblatt@eng.sun.com
alt.endless.scientology.war I enjoyed your article "alt.scientology.war" (Wired 3.12, page 172) very much. As a subscriber to Wired, I was delighted that the controversy was covered so tastefully and professionally.
I am the ex-Scientologist who filed a declaration in Church of Scientology International v. Steven Fishman and Uwe W. Gertz, US District Court, Central District of California, Case 91-6426-HLH.
I purchased the Advanced Technology, or upper-level materials, from a Scientologist in 1987, for around US$4,000. The materials, which were posted on the Internet all over the world, were never stolen as the church suggested.
I am currently trying to overturn the tax-exempt status issued to the church on October 1, 1993, by the Internal Revenue Service under Section 501(c)(3), on the grounds that the church has committed criminal acts. This is one crusade I have been spearheading on alt.religion.scientology.
I am also desperately trying to find an attorney for my malicious-prosecution case against the church, currently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The church, in contrast, has a $20 million budget for its war chest, to silence its enemies.
The alt.religion .scientology newsgroup serves to educate, but it is also a vital support system for victims of Scientology and their families. Those of us who have been through the worst of times in the cult and its aftermath would give up our lives to protect and defend it.
Steven Fishman wayoffline@aol.com
I must comment on "alt.scientology.war." Wired has deliberately propagated a flame war instead of reporting on the issues, has deliberately denigrated my religion, and has encouraged illegal and unethical use of the Internet to broadcast copyrighted materials. Excuse me for holding to traditional concepts of morality, but Wired has gone way past free speech into something called slander and libel.
I thought better of you; I was mistaken.
Moritz Farbstein Saint Louis
I have very much enjoyed reading Wired over the past year and found it most informative. However, the article on alt.religion.scientology was bizarre in portraying the copyright pirates as victims.
The Church of Scientology has long been a champion of privacy rights for individuals and has done a great deal for individual freedom. In legal circles, the church is well known for its landmark Freedom of Information Act suits against the federal government.
The church is treading where few have dared to go, and the result will be legal precedents that shape the way the Net is used. This is not a question of whether Scientology is good or bad. It is a question of whether the right to "free speech" nullifies intellectual-property rights. Think about it. What would you do if every month people scanned Wired into a computer and posted it on the Net through anonymous remailers? Would you call that "free speech" and defend their "rights" all the way to bankruptcy court?
As a software publisher, I applaud the church's actions against pirates and intellectual-property thieves.
Craig Jensen Glendale, California
Wendy Grossman's article on Scientology and the Internet contains an indiscriminate sinkful of innuendo and rumor but is highly selective about its facts. Far from being an "investigative piece," it is marked by a lack of investigation and an unquestioning reliance on sources that match Grossman's own bias.
Perhaps it's not surprising that the founder and former editor of the UK magazine The Skeptic – a publication with a pronounced anti-religious agenda – is incapable of understanding why a religion would seek to protect its scriptures on the Internet.
The Church of Scientology has brought three suits in the United States against individuals – all of them expelled ex-Scientologists – for illegally posting its copyrighted works and trade secrets on the Internet. In addition, some of these postings contained excerpts from unpublished, confidential scriptures that are only revealed to Scientologists after they have completed certain steps of religious study and counseling. Although only a tiny fraction of the church's scriptures are unpublished and confidential, it has been traditional among many religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism, to reserve certain scriptures only for advanced adherents.
Grossman is evidently unaware that Scientologists have a First Amendment right to practice their religion in the way they choose, and that trade-secret law is a secular vehicle for protecting that right in relation to the church's confidential scriptures. The trade-secret status of these materials has been upheld in federal courts. In one ongoing case, Judge John Kane of the federal court in Colorado recognized the constitutional principles at issue when he refused to allow defendant Larry Wollersheim to retain copies of these particular scriptures on his computer.
Grossman also fails to mention that:
All three courts in the church's copyright cases have prohibited further wholesale postings or publication of the church's protected works pending the final outcome of the cases.
Judge Ronald M. Whyte has specifically imposed a preliminary injunction against apostate Dennis Erlich, forbidding him from illegally posting the church's copyrighted works. The judge rejected Erlich's argument that his postings were made in the context of fair use and noted that his First Amendment rights were not violated by the injunction.
Contrary to Grossman's assertions, copies of the church's unpublished scriptures are not available from a courthouse in Los Angeles but have been sealed by the judge in that case.
While repeating Tom Klemesrud's allegations about a woman he met in a bar, Grossman omits that the Church of Scientology obtained a police report of a 911 call that the woman made when Klemesrud threatened her with a gun. The report documents the long trail of lies that Klemesrud has told about this incident.
While these copyright suits continue, the Church of Scientology will get on with its real mission: helping people around the world by assisting them to apply Scientology to bring about improvement in their lives and to achieve total freedom as spiritual beings. And we will continue to take whatever actions are needed to protect our scriptures, while also working with interested bodies to implement broad use of voluntary guidelines for the ethical use of the Internet.
Leisa Goodman Media Relations Director Church of Scientology
I am sorry the Church of Scientology was disappointed in my account of events.
The arguments over the future of copyright on the Net are extremely complex and ultimately will be settled by legislatures and the courts. Lawyers I consulted while researching the article were dubious whether trade-secret law, designed for commercial organizations, applied to religious scriptures.
Accounts of the Klemesrud incident are so confusing that I tried to keep discussion of it to the minimum necessary to explain the Finnish raids.
The Fishman documents were unsealed at the time they were posted on the Net.
I fully support the right of church members and those of any religion to practice their religion. The Skeptic, which is largely unavailable outside the UK, is, as its masthead proclaims, "dedicated to scientific examination of claims of the paranormal." Its focus is entirely on claims that can be tested scientifically; it has no interest in matters of faith.
Wendy Grossman
Uniformly Wired I applaud Dennis Hermanson's suggestion for a public education FreeNet (Rants and Raves, Wired 3.12, page 38). Here in the UK, British Telecom and partners are linking a handful of schools using a range of online services, and providing them with multimedia PCs and a local area network. The Labour Party has proposed a postelection deal with British Telecom to give every school a link, free of charge.
But if Neil Gershenfeld and Nicholas Negroponte are on target in "Wearable Computing" (Wired 3.12, page 256), kids will be able to wear their connection to class in their school uniforms.
Robert Bolick Harrow-on-the-Hill, England
Publish and Perish So, Al Gore's National Information Infrastructure "would make it a crime to distribute devices that circumvent copyright protection" ("Power to the Publishers," Wired 3.12, page 43).
Interesting, especially as I'm currently employed by Kinko's. Does this mean that Xerox, Canon, and any other maker of copying equipment would be forced by the government to close its doors? After all, copiers can quite definitely be used to circumvent copyright protection. All you have to do is slap something on the glass and hit Start. Every Kinko's is a veritable cornucopia of possible copyright violations. While corporate policy (and US law) forbids us to copy any copyrighted materials, we have banks of self-service machines that any Joe Schmoe can use without supervision. In addition, more and more branches are adding self-service scanners to their computer stations, and with the quality of today's color printers … bingo! Another outlawed device.
I don't think current copyright laws are quite perfect for the digital age, but I don't think the NII's proposal is such great shakes either.
Woody Hanscom woody@alaska.net
Breathtaking Biology Got your codes flashing inside my eyelids ("Mr. Meme," Wired 3.12, page 44). Won't let me sleep…. Now if I can only figure out some scripty way to project them onto the walls of my house.
Jim Clarage clarage@rice.eduz
Over the Edge "Edgier Cities" (Wired 3.12, page 158) does not inform readers of the unavoidable financial calamity preceding the creation of the low-rent artists district so lovingly described. Even the reference to the Resolution Trust Corporation, a government agency that went out of existence on December 31, 1995, gives no hint of the severity of the economic dislocation. In such a meltdown – when people are being laid off, home values are plummeting, and the local property tax base is being decimated – will the population have such a warm, fuzzy feeling for squatting artists?
The article's dystopian vision offers one uncomfortable truth: information technology severs the link between place and activity. Edge city property values are dependent on office and retail tenants. The integration of computer hardware, software, and telecommunications – infotech – reduces the value of office buildings by encouraging organizations of all sizes to significantly reduce employment, space demand, and rent by implementing telecommuting, office hoteling, and virtual officing. Infotech also cuts the bond between landlords and merchants. Retailers generating increasing sales online will have an incentive to reduce store size, pay less for prime locations, and force concessions from landlords through bankruptcy. The underlying forces of the information age challenge the commercial viability of edge cities.
If your readers wish to explore infotech's impact on commercial property values, they may refer to "Commercial Real Estate: Road Kill on the Info Highway?" at http://www.microtimes.com/realestate.html.
Mark Borsuk mborsuk@ix.netcom.com
Hokey Hippie Rituals In "Internet Indian Wars" (Wired 3.12, page 108), Glen Martin abruptly dismisses Native American protests over Don Rapp's hokey hippie rituals. Claiming that all information is inherently mediocre, equal, and nonsacred, Martin sarcastically asks, "How do you upload holiness?"
What?! Information has become the ultimate nonequal, value-priced commodity in the open market. Not all information is equal. It is not only important that we begin to judge and value information as good, sacred, or shitty, it is necessary for the capitalist scheme to work.
In this new age, it is also ethically necessary for society to be wary of the misinformation spread, intentionally or otherwise, by pretenders and would-bes like Don Rapp.
Albert H. Lee ahlee@phoenix.princeton.edu
Why shouldn't a non-Indian teach the ways of the Indians? This is the same illogical view that says a Swedish national could not teach about black American culture. Or that a white person cannot teach about anything black or a male cannot teach about anything female.
You don't have to be born into a culture to know things about that culture; you just have to do a little research. But because Don Rapp was not born an American Indian, he couldn't possibly know anything about them, according to his opponents in the article.
If America Online censors Rapp because what he says offends people like Tracy Miller, then other groups must be censored as well. The bottom line is this: It's a free country. Next time something you see offends you, avert your eyes, or better yet, start something to counteract what you saw. Instead of ousting Rapp, Miller should have started her own forum to discuss the truth about American Indians.
Either way, I suggest that she get off her soapbox and realize that freedom of speech doesn't end when another culture's identity is threatened.
Tristan Cartony cartony@ix.netcom.com
Before Blade Runner How could anyone review Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human ("Blade Runner Run-On," Wired 3.12, page 187), the book sequel to the movie Blade Runner, without mentioning the excellent book that the movie was based on – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by the late, great Philip K. Dick? This novel was far more subtle, philosophical, and complex than the movie, which boiled away most of the philosophical subtlety and threw in more guns and chases. The true irritation is the continued lack of attention to one of the greatest American authors of all time.
Michael DeBellis debellis@ix.netcom.com
Off the Marc Marc Andreessen is wrong to claim that Netscape "supports all standards" (Wired 3.12, page 164). Its 2.03 beta version does not support HTML3's conventions for mathematical notation (http://www.w3.org /pub/WWW/MarkUp/html3/maths.html). To the academic community that created the World Wide Web, this is one of the most important HTML innovations. It is supported by the World Wide Web Consortium's browser, Arena (http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Arena/tour/math1.html).
Dan Fain fain@gg.caltech.edu
Gildering the Lily George Gilder has been hawking tendentious half-truths for years now, and it's about time people took him on, as did David Kline and Daniel Burstein in "Is Government Obsolete?" (Wired 4.01, page 86).
In the early 1980s, I was invited to a forum to discuss a chapter of Gilder's then-unpublished book, Wealth and Poverty. I found the chapter, which claimed entrepreneurs are motivated by love and generosity rather than profits, to be absurd and I skipped the forum. But that claptrap found a wide audience, and Gilder is still selling the same defective merchandise, now tarted up with the latest fin de siècle technological baubles. He's a slapstick visionary with a comforting message for the comfortable.
Anyone can do it: Take a fatuous misreading of Adam Smith (or better yet, don't even read the book – let Professor Newt explain it to you). Next, do a few gee-whiz interviews in Silicon Valley. Bang the two together, and you have a product they'll love in the corporate boardrooms and on the floor of Congress. Of course, in the long run it'll turn out to be more tendentious bullshit, but you know what John Maynard Keynes said – "In the long run, we're all dead."
The fact that Gilder – and Gingrich – are taken seriously by supposedly intelligent people is the saddest commentary I can imagine on the quality of the current national debate.
Edward Meadows mead@ix.netcom.com
The Hive Buzz Steve G. Steinberg's article "Hive Computing" (Wired 3.11, page 80) hit the nail on the head. Almost. Most businesses that run computationally expensive software do not have extra terminals with spare computing cycles.
Take the case of a 3-D graphics house – most stations will already be tied up running the rendering software, and the benefit of stealing cycles from the secretary's word-pro station would be negligible.
Where the hive computing concept will take off is in public wide area networks. Imagine being part of a network where you could buy and sell computing cycles. It would be worth it for me to leave my computer on overnight if I knew that I could, for example, render ray-traced images at supercomputer speeds.
Michael Saarna mrnmrs@io.org
Undo
Virgin Atlantic's chromium-plated saltshaker and pepper pot (Fetish, Wired 4.01, page 62) were designed by Fitch plc, not by Rodney Fitch and Co.
We mistakenly "censored" the political "sensors" at PeaceNet ("The Resistance Network," Wired 4.01, page 108).
In "Real Curves" (Wired 3.12, page 50), we neglected to print the URL for Loren Eskenazi's homepage – http:// ccnet.com/~nikita/eskenazi.html.
The fabulous four editors who went to Elmira, California ("The Race for More Bandwidth," Wired 4.01, page 140), were actually sent by LineRunner, Time Warner's online cable project.
Pagan Kennedy's zines can be found online at http://www.birdhouse.org/users /shacker/.
You can surf Suck ("A Fish, a Barrel, and a Smoking Gun," Wired 4.01, page 41) at http:// www.suck.com/.
Send your Rants & Raves to: E-mail: rants@Wired.com
Snail mail: Wired, PO Box 191826
San Francisco, CA 94109-9866
