[Foundation-l] 09-f9-...

[Todd Allen]

On 5/8/07, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is this number so important in the human knowledge that it HAS TO be
> on wikipedia? I'm afraid no.
>
> Yann, just remind that free means "under a free documentation license
> such as the Free Documentation License written by the Free Software
> Foundation Inc. at http://www.fsf.org " and not "do whatever you
> want".
>
> This means we have to follow the law, whatever the law is, we have not
> to cross the line. Why Wikipedia would allow itself to cross this
> line? There's no reasons, this number is not that important to the
> project so it needs to be written. It's anecdotic.
>
> I'm affraid Wikipedia is not the good place to defend our opinions,
> this key number is not encyclopedix, I don't really see why it should
> either be on Wikipedia or have its own article.
>
> About Wikinews, you can make a full, complete and interressant news
> about this without giving the number.
>
> So imo the questions is "Can we do, if the subject is encyclopedix, an
> article about this kind of number without writing them?" yes. What
> informations does this number brings to the article? None.
>
>
>
> On 09/05/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > So OK, various knowledgeable people said this number is illegal. Adding
> > it to non related articles is not appropriate.
> >
> > Other have made quite strange and disproportionate comparisons. Some
> > talk about credit card fraud. I can't imagine what this serious crime
> > has to do with publish a number which can't be used alone as it is. We
> > don't get free DVDs with this key alone. Some talk about child
> > pornography. Should I remember them that child pornography is injury
> > done to a child. Where is the injury here? If anything, this is more
> > injury to our freedom that anything else.
> >
> > Anthony a écrit :
> > > But that raises a question.  Is it illegal for a Wikimedia dev to add
> > > the number into the spam blacklist, or for Wikimedia to store the
> > > number in the spam blacklist, or for a dev to send an email to another
> > > dev with the number in it, for the purpose of telling them to set up
> > > the spam blacklist?
> > >
> > > How about the block log?  There are users blocked that have the number
> > > in their username.  Is the block log now illegal?
> >
> > These are interesting questions. I think it shows how absurd is the ban
> > on this number.
> >
> > > But I agree that it's silly to say it's OK to distribute the
> > > information simply because it can be expressed as a number.
> >
> > That's exactly what I ask. A number can't patented. A number can't be
> > copyrighted. A number is just a code. To get useful information, you
> > need to know how to decode the information hidden in the number. So it
> > seems to me that a number alone is not usefull information (except as a
> > pure mathematical object) unless you know how to get the information out
> > of it. So where is the limit?
> >
> > Further more, a ban on a plain number is completely absurd as it can
> > always be included in another number, or it can be broken up in a
> > formula. So to ban a number, you have to ban all numbers and all formulas.
> >
> > Is 09-f9-... + 1 illegal?
> > Is x * y * ... + ... + z (= 09-f9-...) illegal?
> >
> > I hope that people start to realise how the discussion stands on the head.
> >
> > I think that we are making dangerous compromise with one of our basic
> > principles: freedom, we are impairing our capability to write a free
> > encyclopedia. I am afraid that if we can't stand up for this useless and
> > obsolete key, we will make more serious compromise with our basic
> > principles when we will face bigger challenges.
> >
> > So we can't write this number in a news or a Wikipedia article about
> > this affair. So do we change our projects because the law prevent us to
> > do so? Ok, the objective of Wikipedia is not to change the law. But
> > where is the limit?
> >
> > Ultimately I would like to know what people think about the limit we
> > have and we give to our freedom.
> >
> > Todd Allen a écrit :
> > > What about publishing the number in an article that has everything to
> > > do with it?
> >
> > Nobody has answered this which seems to me the most interesting question
> > of this thread.
> >
> > Sorry for my broken English.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Yann
> > --
> > http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
> > http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
> > http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
> > http://fr.wikisource.org/ | Bibliothèque libre
> > http://wikilivres.info | Documents libres
> >
> >
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>
>
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I must disagree. The number itself brings -specificity-. We don't say
the speed of light is "really really fast", we provide a numerical
value. We don't say the sun is "very far away from the Earth", we
provide a numerical value. We don't say a mole is "a whole lot of
particles", we say what Avogadro's number actually is. In keeping with
that, we don't say that the HD-DVD flap was over "a hexadecimal
number", -we specify what that number is-.

-- 
Freedom is the right to know that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.