Tuesday, January 31, 2006

samizdat


Since we no longer have a Fourth Estate in this country, I propose:

Hacker Slang
samizdat

[Russian, literally “self publishing”] The process of disseminating documentation via underground channels. Originally referred to underground duplication and distribution of banned books in the Soviet Union; now refers by obvious extension to any less-than-official promulgation of textual material, esp. rare, obsolete, or never-formally-published computer documentation. Samizdat is obviously much easier when one has access to high-bandwidth networks and high-quality laser printers. Note that samizdat is properly used only with respect to documents which contain needed information (see also hacker ethic) but which are for some reason otherwise unavailable, but not in the context of documents which are available through normal channels, for which unauthorized duplication would be unethical copyright violation. See Lions Book for a historical example.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boycott CITGO!

puddle said...

LOL! In your dreams.

Anonymous said...

Do you know, anon, that most, if not all CITGO stations are also 711's? Do you also know that 711 is a corporation based in Texas?

Further, are you saying that we should boycott American Corporations?

Gosh, golly gee, are you a Communist?

lol

Anonymous said...

Actually, CITGO's oil comes from Venezuela.

BOYCOTT CITGO.