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FBI wants the ability to tap phone calls placed over broadband connections

Rather ironic words, coming from a band that was responsible for booting napster users for filesharing....

sure it is:
Enron Opens Bandwidth Commodity Trading Service
Enron rings opening bell for bandwidth exchange
Making bandwidth a commodity: Reality or just a good idea?

seriously though, the fact that everyone's favourite company started trading it as a commodity doesn't mean it isn't so... :)

" Distributing a product is not the same as contributing to a product," Stowell said Friday. In other words, the mere act of distributing GPL-covered code isn't sufficient; the copyright holder also has to deliberately release the code as open-source, he said. "The copyright holder has to knowingly contribute this code."

"This license applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License." However, Section 6 states, "Each time you redistribute the program (or any work based on the program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the program."

The killer application for desktops is e-mail, and it requires Internet connectivity.

We are talking "mainstream market", not the market for geeks and nerds. The mainstream market is mainly consumers who like the canned, confined, look-and-feel of an AOL client. It does not allow the typical geek to do much, if any, hacking. However, the AOL client is great for the clueless consumer who wants to check e-mail, get today's weather report, find a nice restaurant, etc. You know. Things for people who actually have a life.

Let us not forget the iLoo, Microsoft's crappiest idea yet.

Bruce, As I am sure you are well aware that the United States government has chosen Microsoft as the platform of choice for our Homeland Security. First, do you think this was choice will bad consequences ranging from financial to top secret data being stolen? Second, do you feel that open source software would have been a more responsible choice by our government?

We've seen Australia and Germany use some counter-legal action against SCO's FUD. Why is it not happening in the US? Surely there must be some laws in the US preventing people from claiming ownership of something without having proved it (yet)? They are damaging an industry with no evidence of their claims (yet), there must be some legal recourse for that industry to recover damages or at least shut them up?

PS: I posted this question earlier but it didn't seem to make it, so am posting it again.

We've seen Australia and Germany use some counter-legal action against SCO's FUD. Why is it not happening in the US? Surely there must be some laws in the US preventing people from claiming ownership of something without having proved it (yet)? They are damaging an industry with no evidence of their claims (yet), there must be some legal recourse for that industry to recover damages or at least shut them up?

IE1 is basically Microsoft using Spyglass's code, but without paying the royalties. Microsoft eventually just payed them a "one-time licensing fee", which is a cover for "either take this or we'll kill you in court". Stories available:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-258791.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-264079.html?legacy=c net

IE1 is basically Microsoft using Spyglass's code, but without paying the royalties. Microsoft eventually just payed them a "one-time licensing fee", which is a cover for "either take this or we'll kill you in court". Stories available:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-258791.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-264079.html?legacy=c net

Yeah... imagine the arrogance of someone who would try to blatently copy something and think nobody'd notice?

Does that mean I get sued for the derivative work I put in this reply?

Unless the Anon. Coward is Michael Kanellos of C|Net who originally wrote the parent article, I find it somewhat amusing that a post dealing with copyright infringment is infringing on a copyright... ;)

the shafting of SpyGlass Systems

Spyglass Soars on new Microsoft Deal

Blue Mountain Greeting Cards

Deposition

The standard e-mail message notifying a recipient of the availability of a greeting card from Microsoft's own "insider.MSN.com/greetings" website is sorted by the Outlook Express beta release to the Junk Mail folder. In order to confirm this, on December 9, 1998, five greetings cards from plaintiff's web site and five from the insider.MSN.com/greetings site were sent to me. I received the e-mail notification for these ten cards with the junk mail feature of the Outlook Express beta release turned on, but otherwise set to its default settings. All ten e-mail notification messages were sorted by the Outlook Express beta release to the Junk Mail folder. A copy of the Junk Mail folder showing the receipt of these ten messages is attached as Exhibit C.

(So, in other words, Blue Mountain had a frivolous suit and went to court instead of trying to fix the problem. Microsoft originally approached them to work together to provide a workaround. Blue Mountain Arts dismissed it out of hand.)

You may want a world with no or different IP laws but pretending you live in that world now is naive. If OSS software contains illegal code then it is monumental irresponsibility for a company to use that software.

Except Microsoft, that is, who recently announced idemnity from such lawsuits for their customers.

"Microsoft: The Only Legal Choice (TM)"

Surely they would never do a thing like that!

Surely they would never do a thing like that!

News.com has a slightly more detailed report: Web marketing sells like teen spirit
The executive summary from Yahoo is available (1MB PDF): Born To Be Wired Executive Summary, accessible from Born To Be Wired

You are an idiot. First of all, they don't need to identify the supposedly "infringing" user before they file a claim. That is what a John Doe lawsuit is for. This is why Verizon was fighting the RIAA, they wanted the RIAA to file a John Doe lawsuit.

Secondly, the RIAA had evidence??? WTF kind of crack are you smoking? They've been spamming the internet with bot created DMCA complaints. That is not evidence, that is fraud.

While it is true that Pixar is replacing their Sun/Solaris rendering farm with Intel/Linux, the comment makes it seem that Pixar has ripped out all of their Sun boxes which isn't quite true. In the article the author mentions that the back-end systems (databases, filesystems) are still run in UNIX.

In another note, Pixar replaced their SGI IRIX workstations with IBM workstations running Linux last year. It does appear that IBM is merely supplying hardware and software as they would normally do to any company willing to buy.

Does this mean we're ever going to see Windows XP Service pack 2? Seriously, is it my memory playing tricks on me, or did or did not Microsoft promise (hah!) to release service packs every six months? SP1 was released Sept 9, 2002. Sp1A was released Feb 3, 2003, with the only acknowledged change being that they ripped out Java.

Oct 25, 2001 - Windows XP ships
Sept 9, 2002 - SP1 ships (10.5 months, or 4.5 months late)
Sept ?, 2003 - SP2 ships (12 months, or 6 months late) Check out Mr. Allchin's comments.

And, according to this link there are almost 300 issues addressed in this long-overdue patch.

What exactly are they going to charge for? Fixes, or enhancements? Apple charges for their regular updates - OSX 10.1, OSX 10.2, OSX 10.3, but they are also ENHANCING the product significantly with every release. Is this something MS intends to do, because I certainly don't mind paying for updates to the software as long as it actually ENHANCES things. I'll be pretty ticked off if I have to pay for FIXES.

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Endless summer of DSL discounts July 7, 2003

FCC loosens broadband rules February 20, 2003

SBC unfair on high-speed Net, ISPs charge July 26, 2001

ISPs fight for more than DSL scraps June 26, 2001

ISPs allege Bell abuse in high-speed services October 27, 1999

Seems like ISP's have been fighting SBC's anti-competitive practices for years. IMHO, the biggest mistake the FCC made was in allowing the Bells to compete as ISP's. They should be barred from being ISP's so that the motivation for them to compete with their own customers (independent ISPs) is removed.

blue

Sounds like a good market for Larry Ellison's old network computer, one that's completely hardwired to boot into a browser, nothing else, no chance to load stealthware of any sort, no cookies, etc.

One could sell a lot of these after incidents like this become more common place.

Ughh... My bad, that article (Buy.com's music store: For your IEs only) was about buymusic.com, not movielink.com... My bad.

My interpretation's not the same as the questioner-- it's not that the perjury is in affirming that the recording is illegal, the perjury is in claiming that they are "authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner" when they're not. Because they're not. Open and shut.

If you really think that the RIAA is totally free & clear in this, then why did they issue a formal apology, give the poor Prof. an Usher T-shirt and CD, and claim that it was an error by a temp worker? So if they are in the wrong on this, why wouldn't Penn State (the copyright holder) want to go after the RIAA? Well, it might have something to do with:

"Penn State President Graham Spanier, who testified before Congress in February about online piracy, is the co-chairman of a working group that includes the entertainment industry." Story from News.com Seems kind of obvious (if a bit smelly) to me...

In an unprecedented campaign urging people not to copy movies, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is launching a series of TV ads and movie trailers as well as a Web site warning of the dangers of violating copyright laws.

MPAA also has a new site respectcopyrights.org

One example?

What about the whole friggin' Wall Street companies?

RedHat + Oracle are running many critical parts of Merryl-Lynch, First Boston-Credit Swisse...

Also, the German Parliament runs with Linux servers.

And Banco do Brasil as well.

And many, may others, including the US Army and the Hong Kong's HSBC

What else do you need?

Peace

Ah, but Microsoft's recent license changes says that they will indemnify their customers against such lawsuits. If you are a big company and afraid of such things, a clause like that is very reassuring.

would we allow them to take over 50% of all jobs?

No, we would never let someone else take our jobs.

would we allow them to take over 50% of all jobs?

No, we would never let someone else take our jobs.

Vultus as in the web services company that SCO purchased yesterday.

In the article, MS says it hardly matters to them financially. We all know it's just playing further on customer fears (maybe). But I can't believe /. won't post the much more significant news story on CNet: Cracking Windows passwords in seconds. The weakness published in a research paper proving cracking Windows is far far easier than Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X is far more interesting to /. readers than this legal stuff.

Most of my reasons are outlined in this article. http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5052388.html?part=dh t&tag=ntop Buy.com should be ashamed!

So does this mean that the MPAA are gonna start sending out subpoenas too?

Also, if you want the MPAA's message stright from the source, it's at http://www.respectcopyrights.org.

Also, if you want the MPAA's message stright from the source, it's at http://www.respectcopyrights.org.

Here's an interesting and timely announcement from Microsoft:

Microsoft to pick up clients' legal tabs

Microsoft will now fully indemnify customers from any liability stemming from IP lawsuits involving Microsoft products.

Just in case there was any doubt as to who was pulling the strings in this whole SCO debacle ...

I think almost everyone is buying the diversion and ignoring the real threat.

If SCO loses the lawsuit because of the so-called "viral" aspect of GPL, then Linux could suffer substantially as a result of SCO's loss.

Microsoft could say something like "see, we told you that crap was viral, you'll all lose your company's intellectual property rights if you use 'free software' with your proprietary work!"

Want to know how much "value" decision-makers perceive when they think about intellectual property and proprietary software? Look at the market cap of MSFT because the decision-makers do and many have owned shares since the early 1990's if they had a clue and wished their own companies were doing so well.

And by the time SCO loses, 'free software' would be associated strictly with GPL instead of any of dozens of other OSI-approved licenses such as BSD License and MIT License that are more friendly toward intellectual property ownership.

More and more news stories will talk about 'free software' ONLY in the context of GPL and basically cause every decision-maker to think they're one and the same. This is the subtle FUD (4th & 9th paragraphs) going on right now and most Linux advocates don't even realize it.

Face it, companies and governments like free stuff as much as we do but requiring them to give up their proprietary work makes it easy for SCO & Microsoft to argue against in the context of money and national security.

The fact that many companies won't make a dime on the affected proprietary software or that the govt's affected proprietary software is mostly useless crap doesn't matter--perception is what matters.

Why do you think SCO wanted 1,000+ companies to EXAMINE the GPL? Because they knew most didn't bother yet and their lawyers would freak out if they saw the intellectual property issues with GPL. So if SCO loses based on GPL, they end up winning what they originally set out to accomplish: making companies avoid the use of GPL software and by fud association all 'free software' too. How many clueless companies will replace Apache web server because they incorrectly believe it is covered by GPL? 8,000?

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer and all my messages are not to be taken as statements of fact but are solely my own opinion.

I think almost everyone is buying the diversion and ignoring the real threat.

If SCO loses the lawsuit because of the so-called "viral" aspect of GPL, then Linux could suffer substantially as a result of SCO's loss.

Microsoft could say something like "see, we told you that crap was viral, you'll all lose your company's intellectual property rights if you use 'free software' with your proprietary work!"

Want to know how much "value" decision-makers perceive when they think about intellectual property and proprietary software? Look at the market cap of MSFT because the decision-makers do and many have owned shares since the early 1990's if they had a clue and wished their own companies were doing so well.

And by the time SCO loses, 'free software' would be associated strictly with GPL instead of any of dozens of other OSI-approved licenses such as BSD License and MIT License that are more friendly toward intellectual property ownership.

More and more news stories will talk about 'free software' ONLY in the context of GPL and basically cause every decision-maker to think they're one and the same. This is the subtle FUD (4th & 9th paragraphs) going on right now and most Linux advocates don't even realize it.

Face it, companies and governments like free stuff as much as we do but requiring them to give up their proprietary work makes it easy for SCO & Microsoft to argue against in the context of money and national security.

The fact that many companies won't make a dime on the affected proprietary software or that the govt's affected proprietary software is mostly useless crap doesn't matter--perception is what matters.

Why do you think SCO wanted 1,000+ companies to EXAMINE the GPL? Because they knew most didn't bother yet and their lawyers would freak out if they saw the intellectual property issues with GPL. So if SCO loses based on GPL, they end up winning what they originally set out to accomplish: making companies avoid the use of GPL software and by fud association all 'free software' too. How many clueless companies will replace Apache web server because they incorrectly believe it is covered by GPL? 8,000?

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer and all my messages are not to be taken as statements of fact but are solely my own opinion.

Could it be that people who have a vested interest in the adoption of ipv6 are more likely to try and alarm us about the impending IP crisis?

Follow the money is what I did...which led me to this article.

MS will Pay your legal fees if you are sued for using their software. My, what interesting timing.

... see NYT and c|net

Corel is being buried alive, and at breakneck speed, by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and a former MS executive who, incidentally, also worked for the McKinsey consultancy firm which validated the post-MS investment strategic U-turn. Under the deal all Corel products would be privatized for a measly $30M. Corel shareholders - who've also pushed for Linux support long and hard - hope to canvass enough NO VOTES to scrap the deal but the raiders are tilting the rules in their favour.

It all went horribly wrong after the Linux powerhouse merger agreement between Corel and Inprise/Borland was derailed three years ago. We understand that Borland (in which MS had a shareholding stake) had valid reasons for pulling out under the agreed terms, but the combination would still have made perfect sense. Corel founder and CEO Mike Cowpland was soon ousted and CTO Derek Burney was named interim CEO. Conveniently soon afterwards Burney's half-acquintance, Microserf Tom Button, gave him a call and invited Burney for a visit at the MS campus and before we knew it, he had signed a $135M investment deal with MS, accompanied by an incredibly one-sided Alliance deal in which Corel had all the commitments and Microsoft basically none. In his debt of gratitude, Burney even promised not to sue MS over any anti-competitive tactics that MS "may" have used in their MS-Office offensives. Next Burney drew up a new strategy based on those commitments - again incidentally killing all Linux efforts and reducing emphasis on anything competing with Microsoft - and submitted his ideas for "validation" by McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm with strong culture of alumni networking.

Naturally, McKinsey also happens to have a long-standing and very intimate business relationship with Microsoft as consultants to their strategic planning. It should therefore be noted that Robert Uhlaner, the McKinsey executive partner who had been working as a consultant to Microsoft and who had "led the West Coast Corporate Finance & Strategy practice, supporting the firm's technology clients on strategy, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), alliances, and premerger planning", was given a top executive position at Microsoft in February 2003, in which his aim is to "increase strategic alignment between the Microsoft's finance and business groups". That pretty well sums up what happened to Corel between the Microsoft investment and disinvestment, in just 2½ years! Questions arise as to what involvement Mr. Uhlaner had, officially or unofficially, with the Microsoft-supportive strategic advice given to Corel in late 2000 and early 2001, or with Vector's friendly and private purchasing of the Corel shares Microsoft held, which happened almost immediately after his arrival to Microsoft.

From 2001 onwards Corel milked the increasingly-abandoned WordPerfect Office for revenue while toiling away on its dotNET descendant. Staff was getting laid off as a three-year turnaround plan was revealed to be centered on a dotNET-based enterprise system for massaging corporate data and delivering it in realtime to any type of devices through extensive use of XML and SVG graphics. Corel even bought SoftQuad and Micrografx t

Perhaps it has something to do with the FCC wanting to pass full control of broadband to the baby Bells? If you don't see the big deal here, then don't complain about it in a few years when the baby Bells have broadband users at their mercy.

Note to any companies thinking of caving on this. According to Cnet, the license being offered is "run-time, binary use".

If you then duplicate this kernel in any way (yes, Virginia, downloading and installing from network or CD for internal use as well) without distributing or making available the contested SCO source under the terms of a GPL license, then regardless of whether you distribute the rest of the source you are breaking the terms of the GPL and violating the copy rights of every other rights owner that has contributed to the linux kernel, and you should expect to hear from them presently, possibly as a class action.

Furthermore, you are also declaring (implicitely) that you believe that IBM distributed without a license, that they violated both SCO's rights and (as a consequence) that they violated the rights of every other contributor as well. If you cave in to SCO, be prepared for IBM's lawyers to come around asking if you'd like to form part of a test case to see how implicit you can be while still libelling someone to their material loss.

I'd suggest that your best bet is to sit tight. You can always pay up if and when IBM lose the copyright case (which they probably won't), by which time the actual contested code will have been made public and rapidly replaced in kernel 2.6 anyway. So you can choose to upgrade for nothing, or you can pay to retain old code while sending a message that IBM are thieves and that you are prepared to cave in to any penny ante playa that sends you an invoice. Your choice.

The article is just another imaginary pro-MS Gartner report. Move along folks...