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Slashdot visited in 2003 the precedential Veeck case (went to the Supreme Court) mentioned several times in this discussion see http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/08/204225 I support a "full daylight" policy for public access to laws and regulations with which compliance is mandatory. Indeed there are such transparency obligations on central and local governments within the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm "2.11 Members shall ensure that all technical regulations which have been adopted are published promptly or otherwise made available in such a manner as to enable interested parties in other Members to become acquainted with them." See also Legislative and Regulatory Underpinnings of US Government use of Standards in Technical Regulations and Procurements and the development by Government of voluntary standards http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/Legislativeunderpinning.html So for "technical regulations" with which compliance is mandatory, central and local governments could meet this expectation by posting them to the web. Central and local governments could also charge reasonable fees for paper copies of such "technical regulations" when requested. However the issue becomes complicated when "technical regulations" embody text of standards from private sector standards developers. There is a precedent case http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm In the Supreme Court of the United States Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc, Petitioner Peter Veeck, D/B/A Regional Web No. 02-355. I have copied below relevant text: "This case concerns model codes written and copyrighted by a private organization. The codes apply to the construction, alteration, use, occupancy, and maintenance of buildings and the electrical, plumbing, mechanical and gas systems in them and provided criminal misdemeanor penalties for failure to comply. The private organization offers the codes to government entities for enactment into law. Two municipalities enacted ordinances that adopted the model codes by reference. The question presented is: Whether copyright law gives the private organization the right to restrict individuals from making copies of the material incorporated by reference in the municipal codes of the two municipalities." The Supreme court in making its decision not to hear the case essentially accepted the US solicitor General's advice about a June 10, 2002 decision of the court of appeals from the Fifth Circuit "Supreme Court need not reconsider a June 10, 2002 decision of United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002)). The Fifth Circuit had concluded that SBCCI retains the copyright in its standard, but that "[w]hen those codes are enacted into law ... they become to that extent 'the law' of the governmental entities and may be reproduced or distributed as 'the law' of those jurisdictions." The Fifth Circuit further observed that laws are not subject to federal copyright law, and "public ownership of the law means that 'the law' is in the 'public domain' for whatever use the citizens choose to make of it." Many private sector standards developing organizations SDOs depend on the sale of standards to support their infrastructure. The implication for such SDOs was identified by the Dissenting opinion to the Fifth court decision by WIENER, Circuit Judge, joined by KING, Chief Judge, and HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, STEWART, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges, dissenting: "Technical codes and standards have become necessary, pervasive, and indispensable ingredients of Twenty-First Century life in this country; regrettably, today's majority opinion has a real potential of d

Slashdot visited in 2003 the precedential Veeck case (went to the Supreme Court) mentioned several times in this discussion see http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/08/204225 I support a "full daylight" policy for public access to laws and regulations with which compliance is mandatory. Indeed there are such transparency obligations on central and local governments within the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm "2.11 Members shall ensure that all technical regulations which have been adopted are published promptly or otherwise made available in such a manner as to enable interested parties in other Members to become acquainted with them." See also Legislative and Regulatory Underpinnings of US Government use of Standards in Technical Regulations and Procurements and the development by Government of voluntary standards http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/Legislativeunderpinning.html So for "technical regulations" with which compliance is mandatory, central and local governments could meet this expectation by posting them to the web. Central and local governments could also charge reasonable fees for paper copies of such "technical regulations" when requested. However the issue becomes complicated when "technical regulations" embody text of standards from private sector standards developers. There is a precedent case http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm In the Supreme Court of the United States Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc, Petitioner Peter Veeck, D/B/A Regional Web No. 02-355. I have copied below relevant text: "This case concerns model codes written and copyrighted by a private organization. The codes apply to the construction, alteration, use, occupancy, and maintenance of buildings and the electrical, plumbing, mechanical and gas systems in them and provided criminal misdemeanor penalties for failure to comply. The private organization offers the codes to government entities for enactment into law. Two municipalities enacted ordinances that adopted the model codes by reference. The question presented is: Whether copyright law gives the private organization the right to restrict individuals from making copies of the material incorporated by reference in the municipal codes of the two municipalities." The Supreme court in making its decision not to hear the case essentially accepted the US solicitor General's advice about a June 10, 2002 decision of the court of appeals from the Fifth Circuit "Supreme Court need not reconsider a June 10, 2002 decision of United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002)). The Fifth Circuit had concluded that SBCCI retains the copyright in its standard, but that "[w]hen those codes are enacted into law ... they become to that extent 'the law' of the governmental entities and may be reproduced or distributed as 'the law' of those jurisdictions." The Fifth Circuit further observed that laws are not subject to federal copyright law, and "public ownership of the law means that 'the law' is in the 'public domain' for whatever use the citizens choose to make of it." Many private sector standards developing organizations SDOs depend on the sale of standards to support their infrastructure. The implication for such SDOs was identified by the Dissenting opinion to the Fifth court decision by WIENER, Circuit Judge, joined by KING, Chief Judge, and HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, STEWART, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges, dissenting: "Technical codes and standards have become necessary, pervasive, and indispensable ingredients of Twenty-First Century life in this country; regrettably, today's majority opinion has a real potential of d

You must be referring to Veeck vs. SBCCI, wherein a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision held that "the law" is in the public domain, including such portions of a model code as are incorporated by reference. (The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari.) Note that the model codes still retain their copyright as model codes, but once incorporated into "the law" (even by reference), the incorporated portions are in the public domain as "the law" of that jurisdiction. (I am not a lawyer, but I did read the full text of the decision.)

It's significant to note that this was an en banc review of the case, and the earlier 3-judge panel had come to the opposite conclusion, upholding the copyright. Be thankful that the full appeals court reached the correct public policy conclusion!

Note that the important point was that the model codes had been adopted as law, not the fact that SBCCI had encouraged such adoption. The latter fact was what kept it from being a "takings" case. As I read the decision, the incorporated model codes would have still become public domain as "the law", even if incorporated by reference without permission, but SBCCI presumably would have had grounds to sue the government for damages in a "takings" case, for the impact on the value of their copyright...

It's also important to note that this case does not place standards referenced by "the law" into the public domain. It specifically distinguishes such cases from this one, where a model code was written for the express purpose of being enacted into law.

Sounds like the IETF wisely wants to avoid a repeat of the Rambus debacle.

I spent HOURS googling about Veeck a couple weeks ago, and somehow picked bad keywords every time. All of the search results referred to the original case, the three-judge appeal, and/or the certiorari, but never the full court ruling. Damn page rot.

I'm not an electrician, but I've done a lot of my own electrical work, and I've put in a good bit of study to make sure I'm doing it right.

The problem you describe sounds like a major one, and you'll need to hire an electrician. It's what I would do, and I feel comfortable wiring anything in my house this side of the main breaker. Fact is, you may need to replace the whole panel, and that requires coordination with the utility company to pull your meter, and you'll probably need a new service entrance. That's just not a handyman job.

That said, the "old wiring" may not be as bad as it looks. Get a professional opinion, of course. There are a few kinds of old wire with paper/cloth insulation. The oldest Romex has a shellacked paper or cloth outer wrapper and rubber insulation on the wires. The rubber becomes brittle with age, and should probably be replaced to avoid shorts and arcs. Later Romex still had the shellacked paper, or asphalted paper, but the wires have modern thermoplastic insulation. The outer wrapping of the cable can get brittle and very messy, but the insulation holds up okay. As long as Romex of that era isn't totally disintegrating, it's not an issue to panic over, as the thermoplastic insulation is durable.

If you see any aluminum wires in your breaker panel other than the service entrance or a heavy-gauge subfeed, have your electrician rewire the house ASAP. Aluminum wire for branch circuits is a house fire waiting to happen, even with "aluminum rated" outlets.

If you're going to do any major electrical work, go down to Town Hall and talk with the building inspector. They're usually quite friendly and helpful. Their job is to help you do things right and follow the codes. The codes are there to keep you from making mistakes others have already made, and to keep you from doing something foolish and unsafe. If you're polite and friendly, your inspector will probably be glad to sit with you for a while and give you pointers on how to do the job right.

Of course, it helps if you already know how to do it right. The National Electrical Code can be hard to track down; a lot of libraries don't seem to carry it, and those that do classify it as a reference work, so you can't borrow it. Luckily, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, building codes which are enacted into law lose any copyright protection, so you can go ahead and photocopy away.

You may also find other helpful books. I'm particularly fond of Wiring Simplified, a book that covers most common household wiring tasks and includes Code references.

When sparks start shooting out of things, though... that's time to call the pros.

Their "about us" page seems to say they are an "consultancy" (is that a word) for international standards. Ironic, eh? Do like I did and email them to make fun of them.

I'm using the latest milestone of Firebird, and the entire article rendered about an inch wide, with several inches of whitespace on the sides. Anyone else get it this way?

http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm

Is this true? Consider this article from Fortune about Rambus, in which they were dinged for not disclosing a patent to a standards committee.

The article mentions that Sun and Dell got in trouble for similar things, and had to license the patents royalty-free. Dell had a patent on VL-BUS technology, and Sun had one on DRAMs for SparcStations that Kingston complained about. The Dell story (from 1996) is summarized here and this is from the FTC, while the Sun case (from this year) is mentioned here and here.

- adam