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Broadcast 2000 Removed From Public Access
VRteach writes: "I see that the developers of the fine multimedia software, Broadcast 2000, have removed their main product from public access. Their web site cites a worry of potential liability." The site says that "the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing." It also says they plan to keep issuing "minor works" for now, and as liability issues are resolved to again release major programs.
Where is the liability in writing free software that just happens to do what the ultra expensive video equipment and services does?
Competition and underdogs come from tyrannical control of a market. What are the cost breaks across this market, and where do the huge expenses add up from?
- billn
So basically, are they saying that they are not releasing their free software anymore, due to the fact that it appears to do similar things as Adobe Premiere? For that reason, they are afraid they will be sued out of existence by...say...Adobe (who might just hope that a nice large settlement could help their stock price in this market)?
Or am I totally reading this wrong? If that's the case it really sucks....unless they copied some of Adobe's functions. If it's just a "similar look and feel and does the same type of stuff" issue, didn't we settle that 10 years ago with Apple Vs. Microsoft?
Either they're trying to drum up some hype on their product or it's Yet Another Case of Landsharks^WLawyers screwing with technological advancement.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Does anyone have, or know of a mirror to d/l this?
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
What's the betting this is somehow DMCA related...
Could they be more cryptic? Get your Mandrake SRPM while you can, I guess.
chased into extinction by the DMCA & RIAA.... With all this crap going on, it makes me want to get a feed for Internet2 and basically punt/start all over again.
But how long will it be before the profit-mongers chase down Internet2??
I'm not against a company making a buck, but these are VERY RICH COMPANIES that ARE NOT HURTING FOR PROFITS, but the greedy bastards think they see additional profits (which to a large extent do NOT EXIST) by chasing companies like this down...
stupid greed, is all this boils down to..
I think he was just upset because the program works great with itself, but it almost totally incompatible with everything else on the planet.
The program was a neat concept, but I was unable to get it working once over the past few years of playing with it. I have 100% compatible hardware for capture.
Liability, why does avery lee still distribute one of the most popular video edditing programs under GLP still then? http://www.virtualdub.org/
I don't understand, and I'm personally very skeptical of this excuse to stop development and pull the program.
how is is that Microsoft's shrinkwrap waivers of ANY liability hold water compared to equally strong-worded waivers for open source software? why isn't Microsoft getting dragged into this compensation frenzy when their products, arguably, lose/damage more data than any other single entity (outside of the government).
Can someone dumb this down a little for me please.
They musta been paid to shut down.
**********
If it says "Troll" on this post,
I successfully annoyed a nerd herd!
People don't plagiarize, editors do. What a load. I wonder if there was a specific "market force" that wrote B2K a letter...
This is one of the least understandable stories I have seen on here. I guess it is up to us to speculate what the hell that article means. There is definitely something we aren't being told here. To say they are remvoving the software because it is an expensive industry to be in (for their customers) does not make a lot of sense.
As near as I can tell it boils down to this: They fear being sued by a customer that lost a lot of money because of their software. Sounds like a smoke screen to me.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Am I mistaken, or wasn't Broadcast 2000 GPL'ed? If so, why all the hubabaloo? So he doesn't want to do development anymore, I don't blame him. But anyone who is interested can always pick up where he left off.
"the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing."
This means: "We have fewer lawers than Avid, Adobe, and Macromedia. In the current business climate, the company with the largest number of lawers wins, no matter what the law says. We are closing the project because we would like to have enough money to eat net week."
gov't of the corp., by the corp., and for the corp.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
We need to let people know that the GPL is designed to be a service to the people. And because it is a service, people cannot jack others because of damages. That's inhumane.
If we let people go about suing the GPL style license, then open source software is in danger.
I dunno, maybe proprietory software licensors see the as a positive thing towards their cause. Maybe Microsoft would use this as a reason why open source it bad.
If these things are going to happen, they need to stop right away.
Generally, the warranty provisions with which a software maker must be concerned are these three:
Generally, the 2 implied warranties can be disclaimed by reciting the magic disclaimer words. (NOTE: I AM a lawyer and this is NOT legal advice to ANYONE - thus I am not reprinting the magic words here so no one can rely on any supposed "advice" they may claim I am giving.)
What I suspect is happening here (and this is close to pure conjecture) is that the company is spooked by recent lawsuits (i.e. - Napster, DeCSS, Felton, et al.) and decided that it would take the safe route rather than be accused of providing a tool to infringe copyrights in authored works.
Of course this is my opinion alone and is based on current events in the legal world combined with the statements on the Broadcast 2000 website. I may be completely wrong about this. Only the people at Broadcast 2000 can say for sure.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
This has happened to me several times since Slashcode was upgraded. I usually come back later to find that I'm logged in again...
Shawn Asmussen
Shawn Asmussen
I am reading this as:I don't wanna (maintain/give away free) this project anymore. I'm going to make up some incoherent excuse, throw in some rambling about the recent Intellectual Property Law Abuses so it looks like i'm actually saying something, and then pull my project off the internet. I won't have to (work on the project/make the project free and open) anymore, and it will look like it isn't my fault.Can anyone tell me why that reading is wrong? Really?
I've never heard of this project before.. the main page mentions something about "several organizations win[ning] lawsuits against GPL/warranty free software writers" (umm.. i've heard nothing about this. and if i am correct, under the GPL, if you don't agree to the NO-WARRANTY clause, then you don't have the legal right to be posessing or using the software. correct? so where's the problem? could someone who warezed norton utilities 4.0 sue norton because their disk defragmenter screwed up and wiped their drive blank?) Does this mean that Broadcast 2000 was, prior to its being pulled, GPLed?
If it was GPLed, then great! The heroinewarrior.com people will be missed, but they aren't *needed*; they can't retract what they've given away. Does anyone have a copy of the source, and can we get a SourceForge project set up please?
so what, will pepsico and coca-cola sue natural springs because the free water interferes with their ability to push a product?
And where's the other players in all this? Between the Video Toaster and Personal Animation Recorder this kind of stuff was done ten years ago on Amiga. Not to mention (as already was) the Mac-based Avid. another poster mentioned the similarity between B2K and an Adobe product: why would they be afraid of Adobe? If anything, Adobe is a relative newcomer to the field, not an innovator.
There's got to be better reasons.
So now we have developers afraid to release products because of litigation and liability? Either this is a major cop out, or we're witnessing the first death knells of our free market. I have a hard time believing things are really that bad, and I'm a bloody cynic at heart.
Now, if this type of thing becomes more commonplace, you can really kiss that whole "land of the free" thing goodbye and replace it with "land of those who can afford lawyers". That's what keeps me awake at night, folks.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
In other news, the letters A, E, I, O, and U have all been removed from the alphabet due to issues surrounding their membership as a vowel, which is recognized as being literarily different from consonants. Thus, after this line we are no longer permitted to use vowels and we will replace all vowels with "*" since it apparently belongs to the public domain.
MP** AND R*** G* F*CK Y**S*LF!!
Sp*c**l n*t*: Th* l*tt*r "Y" *s n*t * v*w*l *n th*s c*s*. F*ck!
from the sourceforge site: So with the sourceforget ftp server "cash burned" that left the sourceforget download server, which of course has a few bugs the least of which is a broken system clock the most of which is a tendancy to randomly discard files. The backups on the download server will be uncompilable for the most part and source code only. We are being hit up for compensation on a number of damages that our software caused so it's probably better that the downloads don't compile.
It's similar to someone refusing to post any more legal opinions on Slashdot because they don't think IANAL will protect them if someone actually takes their legal advice, and loses money/realizes damages because of it.
This is bad news, if it's an accurate assesment because one of the key benefits of the GPL is a release from liability. If you just put something in the public domain then someone can still sue you if using it damages them, but if they use it under the terms of the GPL there's no explicit or implied warranty. So, let's just hope these guys are wrong!
This is a issue that effects all software, whether Free or not. If lawyers are able to get around the software licensing's restrictions of liability and software that is produced by someone does not perform as expected, and perhaps causes damages either by not performing as expected or by harming hardware, then the programmer could be held liable for damages that, in at lesat some cases, could go into the millions of dollars.
Just imagine what would happen if a class action was taken by IIS users against MS for the CodeRed exploit. We might laugh for a while and figure they had it coming to them, but then there are other issues... like the remote exploit in fetchmail, wsftpd, and others. They too could be faced with users who have experienced real costs associated with bugs in their code. If producers are to be held liable for these exploits despite the limits of liability worlding in their licenses it will have a devestating effect on the production of code and will seriously hamper the release early, release often mantra of Free software.
In the case of Broadcast 2000 they may be over reacting or they may just be among the first to react to the potential liability. Time will tell.
It's beyond me how essentially what is the exercise of free speech can incur a liability of warranty, especially with explicit notices disclaiming all liability for any and all damage and/or loss incurred through the use of the software.
Of course, getting in trouble with commercial organizations because you are encroaching on their "intellectual property rights" seems to be a near daily event these days, but warranty liabilities?
Will scientists be sued next for disclosing scientific principles, algorithms and processes for breach of warranty if some experiment backfires? I must conclude that the precident of suing people for releasing their source code into the public domain could have a chilling effect on the open source community, perhaps starting with HeroineWarrior.com.
Closing down B2000 represents a significant blow to the Linux-based Video Editing segment. As I recall, commercial organizations were bundling B2000 in a turnkey video editing hardware solution. I guess they'll be looking for alternatives, none of which are as mature or advanced as B2000.
IANAL, but IMHO free (speech) software should be handled rather like free advice. Take it for what it's worth.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Open Source / GPL software:
1) can cause damage.
2) gets pulled when big companies bark.
3) licenses are a joke (not enforceable).
Fuck.
I hope they change their mind.
Hmmm code fork?
(I'm in Linux as we speak. I wish the authors all the best, but wish they can find a away to stand their ground.)
-Tom
What does this software do? All their website says is that they're no longer letting people download it. What did this software do that could potentially be illegal/cause liability?
They mentioned warranties, which would appear to mean that the software might damage hardware, or they were worried about being sued over bugs or something... but I can't imagine that could be an issue. It's almost impossible to damage hardware on PCs programicaly, and almost all software has bugs.
Was it something else? Did the software allow broadcasting (possibly copyrighted content) over the net? That's what the name would imply, but from the screenshots and other comments it sounded like a premiere type Non-linear video editor. How could they get sued over that?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
..It show really well what this click through licenses are worth. The difference being: if you violate some say Microsoft's one - they will sue and jail you (if it was some copyright protection related one - and soon anything else..) But if THEY violate YOURS: they will sue YOU again, since this license ain't worth crap in court. So no matter what you do - those who lined establishment and law firms with money (that YOU paid them, for products, to start with) - you are fucked, screwed and ain't worth shit. Sad.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Netscape couldnt compete when someone else was offering a similar product for free, so they sued. Horray for Satan^H^H^H^H^HLawyers.
wariac
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
We need to fight this battle, here and now, and hopefully, this copyright issue thing is just a pendulum, and it will slowly start to swing the other way. My opinion is that it has to. The media companies have pushed copyright about as far as it can go. I think the way the current legal climate is now, the VCR and the photocopier would never have been produced at all.
What we need is to quit passing laws that protect a business model. There is no inherent right to profit.
-------------------------------------------------
You really are a dumb fuck aren't you :)
;)" is the name of the codec, including
"DivX
the *wink*. It has nothing at all to do with the
Circuit City pay-per-view DVD format, except to
maybe poke fun at it, and it's demise
See, this is what irks me about AC's. You had a crystal clear point to make here, leaning slightly in the off topic but relevant direction, and you shot yourself in the foot by leading off with pointless vulgarity. Next time, have a little pride in what you have to say, and sign your name to it. Minus the vulgarity that detracts from the overall effect of using your voice, this could have been a much more useful comment.
- billn
I contend that Broadcast 2000 barely even works and is CERTAINLY not ready for a production environment. Just because you all love the romantic idea that free software is better...let's not forget that in business, there must be somebody accountable when it turns out to be a liability. Studios know this and can always demand a refund when stuff breaks.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Broadcast 2000 is a Great package. Well executed. It does what it says and says what it does. Good as a profesional comercial video editor.
I don't we are being told the truth. I think there may be regrets that this is Open Sourse, trying to make code go away so someone can start over with a simular comercial product. Just a guess. I am probably wrong.
This doesn't make any sense. BC2k was released under GPL and with clear statements that no warranty was expressed or implied. So either way, the cat's out of the bag because anyone can set up a mirror for the last release. I have two guesses as to what really happened:
1.) The developers were legally threatened by some evil corporation as in "you haven't done anything wrong, but we're going to sue you anyways because we think we'll win regardless." If that's the case, find the best lawyer you can, raise a massive public fuss, disclose all communications with the party, refuse to compromise in any way, and wait for GREAT JUSTICE. Then countersue for massive damages after you win. IANAL, so don't take my advice.
2.) The developers realized their open source business model sucked and are using this whole warranty crap as an excuse to stop releasing new versions of their program under GPL, while they whip up BC 3000 as a proprietary project. Unfortunately, I think this case is more likely, given that other poorly managed 'open source' companies are playing the same game. If so, I'd have to say thanks, but no thanks. If you wanted to make money, you should have built that into the business model. I'm familiar with the pro-video market and trust me--there's a huge demand for production and equipment / technical services. Software IS a service. Remember that.
Either way, someone ought to take the GPL'ed source from BC2K and either develop it into a new/better program or incorporate it into another existing NLE package.
Are you accessing 'www.slashdot.org' instead of 'slashdot.org'? I think that all cookies are stored in 'slashdot.org' not 'www.slashdot.org'.
Try actually clicking on the Login button as opposed to hitting the return or enter keys. Somtimes the wrong form is in focus.
And it will cost them money whether they win or lose.
Anyone can sue anyone else for anything at any time. All that's needed is a lawyer who will take the case on contingency. Then it doesn't matter whether the suit has any merit at all, because the defendant will still be out the cost of a lawyer just to get the suit thrown out, and the plaintiff has zero risk in many cases. (Fortunately, some states have frivolous lawsuit laws that provide some protection from totally bogus suits)
I think I'll sue them now. I've always wanted to make an expensive video production, and they've taken away my ability to do that - along with all of the money I would have made from the project.
Of course IANAL but IAMANAL
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
They are still distributing Cinelerra (see their sourceforge page, linked from their main site), and it seems to be very much along the same lines as Broadcast. If they were so worried, why keep distributing Cinelerra?
d =9 4322&forum_id=42723
Here:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_i
they mention makine Cinelerra a commercial program, but the message itself looks like it was either a joke or written by someone high at the time. Cinelerra is GPLed, by the way.
From their docs (manual.ps in the Cinerella distro):
"In mid 2000 designs for a Broadcast 2000 replacement were drafted. The Broadcast name was officially retired from the series and the software would now be called Cinelerra."
It's because you're using the old home page. The upgraded Slash 2.2 can be found at:
http://slashdot.org/index.asp
Kill, Tux, kill!
When the makers of Visicalc worried about getting sued for the same sort of reason, they simply sold the product "as-is." It was the first piece of software sold as-is. Why isn't "as-is" good enough anymore?
If someone wants to maintain a fork of this, I'll be happy to upload the latest stable version that I'm aware of and have posession of (2000c, dated from May of this year).
I am not a programmer so I cannot contribute code to this effort, other than the initial upload of source. Set up the project and I'll be happy to upload it.
chris@yonderway.com
If I write a virus and release it under the GPL I would not be protected from being sued by people who suffered damages because of the virus.
Nope. Not that. It's about lots of little green pieces of paper with Ben Franklin's face on them. It's money that's not going into their wallet. Call me cynical, but I expect to see this software for sale for a lot of $$$.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
I know. I know. SGI systems kick serious butt for high-end applications (I've personally run demos of an Octane2 running 2 streams of HD in real time w/ effects). But an over-muscled X86 Linux box could get performance in the same zip code for an order of magnitude less cash. Lower hardware price tag = higher margins for software developers = happy software developers.
[flamebait]
Who wants a Premiere knock-off, anyway? Wouldn't you rather see Discreet, Jaleo, or Softimage/Avid move to Linux?
[/flamebait]
I believe you don't have to accept the GPL license in order to use GPLed software. I assume that in such a case there would be no warranties of any kind except those required by law. Which, I believe, is one reason everyone was so pissed off about UCITA. IIRC, it would require all software to have a warranty, and it didn't make any exception for free software.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So, nobody has realized that what happened is that either Adobe, either Avid, could have paid some money to this guys if they closed the web page?
This was in the Heroine Virtual forum on Sourceforge and is dated 4 days ago. It certainly isn't "the reason" but it's amusing to see that it was a consideration that recently (when a fresh copy of source to Cinelerra, the successor to Broadcast, was uploaded to Sourceforge)
Hey, is that from Dr. Bronner's soap?
{lmfidsj}
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Isn't that the same thing that happened to Axagon Composer?? it was written by a couple of students but was seriously capable of going up against Adobe After Effects. They then decided to stop giving it away free, and start selling.. basically they were sellouts. Is B2K a sellout too? its GPL'ed though... so the source is still good, so who cares if they've stopped developing - just carry on developing a new fork.
If on the other hand, they've been warned to stop Mafia style. The people doing the warning are basically saying "we don't mind you producing software that competes with ours or is even better, as long as you flog it for a sh*t load of cash so we can flog ours for a sh*t load of cash too. But, if you have the f*cking nerve to write great software and actually dare to give it away free, your gonna put us out of business 'cos we're flogging it for squid, and your not and we're crap etc.. etc.. so either charge money for your software like a Ferengi (spelling?) or drop it, else big dave here's gonna do you in. CAPISH?!!
If the above is the case, then there is something pretty wrong. That, the DMCA, and the SSSCA proves with out a doubt that all the politicians in your government are actually the owners/major-shareholders of all your biggest corporations. So, as big dave would say: your all well and truly ****ed.
-tfga
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It's a smart way for them to get away from their current licensing model (GPL), and after a while sell their asset to a company that made them an offer. Like Sony, who instead of fighting on copyright grounds with the Connectix folks, decided to buy Virtual GameStation technology and kill it down the road, Adobe or Macromedia, or someone with $$$ interest among selling their products to the broadcast industry, has offered a pile of cash to this people to get their stuff. Being currently GPLed, the code needs first to migrate to something else then good bye.
We are talking big bucks here. A shame that lots of folks have contributed for FREE to this technology. But that's the way it goes nowadays.
No integrity, just plain greed.
We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free
software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization. Several
involved the RIAA vs mp3/p2p software writers. Several involved the MPAA vs media
player authors. You might say that warranty exemption has become quite
meaningless in today's economy.
The first and third sentences appear to deal with liability to someone who used the software and lost time/money/product because of it. But the soecnd sentence sounds much more like copyright/DMCA issues, with RIAA vs. p2p sounding suspiciously like the Naptster suit. What is the deal here anyhow? If it's IP issues, warranty exemption is the wrong way to go. If it's warranty issues, what in the world do MPAA/RIAA/p2p issues have to do with it? When something makes this little sense, there's something fishy going on. These folks aren't saying everything they know.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
There's only one author of Broadcast 2000, going by the name 'Heroine Virtual'. He now works for Pioneer, and I'm wondering if he was told to stop work on the project and is finding some way to do so without making it obvious? Or if Pioneer is going to use the project somehow. This would worry me, because a lot of people, including myself (co-author of libdv) have code that is distributed in the b2k tarball. Since it's all [L]GPL'd, there's significant potential for Pioneer to make a mess.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
Universal Translator says
"Blah blah we're planning on going commercial and don't want the free competition blah blah blah."
Just a theory mind you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Essentially video editors are your typical clueless user that know a lot about what they do (movie making) and not a lot about technology. The idea that these people operate under is "time is money and it better work dammit because I just paid a lot of money for this tool!" They want to "get someone on the phone now!" when a tool doesn't work. I'm generalizing this user to make a point--a user that expects this kind of handholding doesn't fit well with the do-it-yourself-fix-it-yourself way of Linux.
Applications like Final Cut (Apple) and AfterEffects (Adobe) work so well that you'd have a tough time arguing that free is better (based on the time is money theory) with those tools than something free or open.
There are many, many resources for these tools--trouble shooting, advice, even users groups are active it places like LA and SF. I applaud the effort that the developers of Broadcast 2000 made and I support their decision to exit the market.
From the page describing one of their utilities, called FIREHOSE (it stripes network data accross different NICs as a means of increasing bandwidth):
The FIREHOSE package contains a simple library allowing any application wishing to stream data across striped networks to do so with just a few function calls. Also included is a file transfer utility and a pipe utility. Pipe gigabytes of uncompressed video, CD-R images, scientific data, tar archives, and porn all with the greatest of ease.
You can get the source from, uh, them. http://heroinewarrior.com/bcast-2000c-src.tar.gz
Anyone else seeing this with regards to the DMCA, SSSCA, &c? Suppose someone uses this in some way to pirate or edit an existing commercial film. The MPAA decides that the tool was used to circumvent something or another, and sue. And, of course, there's the SSSCA--I'm not familiar, but I don't think this currently utilizes "copy-protection" measures.
BTW, anyone else find the SSSCA's definition of "interactive digital device" a little broad? As in, every piece of software and every digital electronics device ever created, down to your pocket calculator? Seems like an FTP client transferring an MP3 without checking the copyright flag would be in big trouble.
-mpr-
It's not smart to generalize like this. You statements are not 100% correct.
Dreamworks is a TOTALLY open source shop. They don't have "anyone to call" when something goes wrong.
They don't care.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
I am fairly confused as to what is going on here..
This company that provides 'broadcast 2000' is worried that some other big company will use or purchase said software, and when a bug arrises that makes the purchasing company lose money, they dont want to be sued.
Why cant the company that provides the broadcast 2000 say that they dont have a warranty on the program, and if you use it, its used as is, any any costs that arrise from something bad that happens from using the software will have to be paid by the user of the software, not the software maker?
Its a fairly common thing to see in liscense agreements, or warranties or whatever.. Did they get sued recently or what?
...a Beowulf cluster of these things?
Wow...
I don't know how we will create works to compete with mpaa, without free tools, do you?
What is their relationship with Linux Media Labs and Linux Media Arts? Linux Media Labs offers for $599.00 Broadcast for LINUX, "a fully supported LINUX video edit[or]", which looks exactly like Broadcast 2000 to me.
Now, this could very well just be a case of a company taking GPLed software and selling support for it. It's somewhat surprising that they don't mention Heroine Virtual at all, but they're not required to do so. (Last week, a story here about Linux office suites linked to a company that was clearly just selling KOffice... they hadn't even bothered to change the names of the applications in the screenshots!) Cygnus had a profitable and very reputable business doing similar, before being consumed by RedHat.
What's the relationship between these companies?
This indeed smells of GPL developers trying to withdraw their GPL'ed product in order to make a living by selling a commercial product.
IMHO, has anybody tried to bring a lawsuit against GPL software for anticompetitive dumping?.
US Steel did bring stiff sanctions against foreign steel imports - the end result was that the foreign steel companies were forced to charge Fair Market value.
This could mean that ALL GPL'ed Software *has* to have some kind of price tag - you can give away your software but you *Have* to charge fair market value so that commercial software companies don't get blown out - all other things being equal.
Hmmm....time to sue Redhat for only charging $35.00 when ofcourse all the software included can be priced at $1000.00 (assuming we calculate $10 per RPM)
If you were to have a look at one of a company like steinbergs boards, you would see people with trashed projects, non working software, glitches, clicks buggy backups etc, but they never sue. So, if people paying £1000 for a product accept this, why would people not accept this with a free product? Also, would any company looking to spend serious money on a video production start up with just a single piece of untested software? If a company has developed to the stage where their projects could ruin them with a single error, why would they not use an industry standard package?
"We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization."
Does anyone know what they are talking about? They mention some RIAA stuff and mp3 people, but I can't think of a case where people doing ordinary end user stuff went and sued. The RIAA is trying to keep their death grip on their industry, and ditto MPAA. Broadcast 2000 wasn't using DeCSS, to the best of my knowledge, and anyone who uses free software knows (or had better figure out) that they have no right to sue the writers! That's like bringing me your computer, me saying very clearly I'll be happy to try and fix it at no cost but I can't guarantee anything, and then you suing me because I couldn't make it work and you lost too much time while I was trying! At this rate no one will be willing to help anyone do anything ever for fear of being sued! Free software is a gift to the world. If you want to use something where you have the right to sue someone, you'd better find a commercial company and pay them some money. Insurance companies don't give out free insurance - you pay them to assume the risk that you are going to get large sums of money from them in the future. These people seem to be treating free software like free insurance. I doubt the law will accept that. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if the technical people desert this country and move somewhere where people don't try and use generosity as a way to blame people and force them to pay for their generosity with cash. Talk about screwed up...
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Their references to other companies being sued by the MPAA/RIAA/Other Monopolies indicates they are worried about being sued by somebody that feels their software is somehow being used as a circumvention device. i.e. You might use it to fix video that had deliberately been broken by, say for example, a DVD player that detected you were piping its output to a VCR or other device.
Basically, they're saying they don't have the money to fight big corporations who to all apparent purposes are ready to resort to any and all legal witch hunts to keep media content production expensive and in their control.
In corporate law, the one with the money wins. We are fast approaching a era where innovation becomes is cripled into stagnation because of all the intellectual property claims the 'idea brokers' will have against every new idea. Since our progression as a species is predicated on the formulation of newer/better ideas based on previous ones, it stands to reason that we will progress faster the more those previous ideas are freely available. When the use of previous ideas , even the most mundane ones, begins to require huge expendures in legal fees and licensing, innovation cannot but ramp down to a slower pace as the freedom to innovate becomes solely the realm of entities with deep pockets... it is a question whether it might bring about total stagnation.
It is also a viscious circle. As innovation becomes more and more expensive, companies will argue their right to hold onto their discoveries for longer and longer. This will further increase the cost of any future discoveries to the point where perhaps one day newer discoveries in some areas will become impossible because of the expense incurred in licensing the previous ones.
The founders thought of tomorrow... apparently few people in congress do now. I would argue that the right of a society to progress and evolve belongs in the Charter of Rights/Constitution of every country in the world as an expression that knowledge is a thing that can never be possessed, only used. Such a statement does not discriminate against worthy research receiving privileges with respect to exploiting an idea for a period of time.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Lutris the host/maker of the ex-OpenSource J2EE server "Enhydra Enterprise" has pulled the project citing inability to opensource license the server.
http://www.enhydra.org
I have neither a Linux box nor have I used this software, but I do have a thought. Does this software know how to software encode/decode non-publically specified video formats, or have drivers to talk to cards that know how to decode such formats? There could be circumvention and/or IP issues as a result that they are trying to avoid.
...just follow the link and read what they actually said, not just the juicy readers digest. It is quite clear after doing so.
Get yourself a Mac with iMovie.
``Would she still like me if I was one of the guys who follow the camels around to pick up after them, or a lawyer, or something?'' - King Xerxes (a zucchini) from the VeggieTales version of Esther
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
, from what I'd guess, about people buying some really expensive video gear and then hinging it on their software.
And, although there are no guarantees, and it's OSS, etc........ they are worried that someone will sue their ass off for bugs, or for the software not performing.
Sounds like a load of crap.
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=11 0712
= 10 6015
= 10 6013
and
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id
and
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id
Plus the source code is still available from the FTP site. (Go look up the sourceforge project that this is hosted on, and the files are still up.)
The author seems to be a "little bit strange". (I would call this last sentence an "understatement.")
moderators - it's not funny - it's real and serious :-(
For at least a century, these same businesses or their forebears have been funding (one way or another) the development of increasingly business-centric wars. American businesses essentially funded the Bolshevik revolution, and without the prolonged and earnest intervention of some Wall Street big names like Farben, Ford and General Electric, Adolph Hitler's Third Reich wouldn't have got as far as the taxiway.
If world wars are a routine achievement, what hope do you think mere copyright has in comparison?
With a century of momentum and billions of dollars behind them, how are you or I going to stop them?
Our `inalienable rights' may as well be alien rights in the face of such blatant and powerful violations of them.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The backups on the download server will be uncompilable for the most part and source code only. We are being hit up for compensation on a number of damages that our software caused so it's probably better that the downloads don't compile.
In short it apears that the sourceforge code is still available, but that there are ongoing legal concerns. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the US legal system might offer their help, bcast2000 apears to be the most mature video editing suite available on Linux under the GPL right now, and it would be a shame to lose it.
They're the ones that OWN most, if not all the rights to Broadcast 2000. They can do whatever in the hell they want with the code- the GPL only dictates what you do if it's NOT your code and you distribute it or portions thereof.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I met the the developer, Adam Williams. Met him at NAB last year. He's had a lot of problems developing Broadcast and this article sort of describes it:
2 45 .html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/19
I met the writer too. A real mean bastard who got me into a lot of trouble.
Adam is a nice guy who needs all the support he can get.
Somebody posted a link to an older version (2000B). I've got 2000C, the latest version, just uploaded to my GeoCities account that I haven't used in years :)
/.d or something), email me at necrotech at geocities period com and I can arrange to transfer it to you.
Go nuts! Both the source and RPM version are there (you might need to go easy, though... GeoCities has some crappy transfer limits)
If anybody wants to get a copy directly from me (if GeoCities get
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Somebody mod this up for being insightful.
:} ) or the cryptographers that figured out Enigma, or the ever famous E=mc^2.
Think about it, please.
Where would we be w/o people like Isaac Newton figuring out physics, calculus (ok, besides dumber and a little more sane
In a fscked up sort of way these geniuses "circumvented" if not totally sodded off "conventional wisdom", proved their point and said "here you go" for the betterment (or worsening...is that a word?) of mankind.
Compare that to today...all the *real* innovators that give their wares away are either sued into oblivion, bought up/sold out to corps or put in jail for DMCA/SSSCA violations.
The way these laws are coming down reminds me of boot camp: training and conditioned responses. Free thinkers (most ppl with high IQ's, IMO) don't respond well or play along...while the "majority" become gung-ho or play the game better and become lifers.
Selling Socity Slavery Corporate America "style" =SSSCA.
Digital Millenium Crowbar Assault = DMCA
Moose
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
The reason that the developers dropped this project may have been given by a developer from Heroine Virtual at the sourceforge forum link. The problem looks to be one of financing the project:
With this in mind you should realize what is involved in ensuring the software you use doesn't have to be paid for. The only reason you can use any software at all is because the developers are able to pay for it through day jobs which today don't exist. The GPL requires software to be paid for by the developer before it can be released to the public.
#2 Writing large applications is an undesirable hobby for anyone not interested or able to make a career out of software.
What a dilemma. Great goddamned software, and no way to even provide a micropayment for it??? All someone would have to do is threaten to sue these guys to break their bank. I guess I'm being offtopic but I can see why they took their toys and went home.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
That's a damn shame. I've used this software to capture and edit a few short films for school and general entertainment. I know I'll be holding on to my copy of the source; I still have some unfinished projects for bcast!
F0 07 C7 C8
If a Company was liable if their software fails to perform properly, then I think there about 350 million computer users who have a valid lawsuit against microsoft. I've lost count of the number of times Ive had hours of worked go down the drain due to a random bluescreen. (Of course I switched to linux 2 years ago and havn't had any problems since).
Come to think of it, the company where I work produces tv commercials and promos, and I can tell you from personal experience that Adobe Premier isnt exactly a masterpeice. It crashes a lot, randomly corrupts project files, and has so many memory leaks it makes Office look nice, but you dont see Adobe worrying about getting sued.
Liarwall n, a device used to protect your corporate ass from hostile 'packets' such as lawsuits
* In order for this program to successfully compile, you must modify the
* line below to have a value of 1. MODIFYING THE SOURCE CODE OF THIS PROGRAM
* VOIDS ANY WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
*/
#define USER_AGREES_TO_WAIVE_WARRANTY_RIGHTS 0
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Well, software innovation may be taking a hit, but don't forget, it's a small price to pay for the wonderful innovation we see in the recording industries today... :)
...Oh wait a second...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I don't see the problem. There have been very few successful warranty claims against software companies that disclamed warranties, and they generally were in situations involving gross misrepresentation. If they're worried about warranty claims, they should sell an extended warranty, or get one of the remaining Linux companies to do so.
Looking at the release doesn't click. What would the RIAA or MPAA have to do with Warrenty? I think Patent infringement and reverse engineering a product when it's shrink wrap lic. forbids it is far more likely.
Something smells. You have a developer who work for Pioneer on the project. Wierd statements that aren't logical. My guess is that someone shot a warning shot across the bow, and that someone seems to have learned something from the RIAA not to put it in writting.
It doesn't help that the screenshot for xmovie is obviously a pirated movie
I haven't used it lately but when XCDRoast used to be a Tk frontend to gcombust it displayed this really ridiculous disclaimer when executed. I'm paraphrasing but it went something like this:
I understand that this software will probably erase my hard drive, kill my pets, make California sink into the Pacific Ocean and the Earth to crash into the sun.
I think a good approach to any bonehead that would sue a Free/Open project is take the ridiculous disclaimer to the ridiculous extreme:
I understand I got this for free and have no expectation that it is fit for any purpose whatsover.
I understand that terrible things are likely to happen if persist in running this software such as permanent damage to system components and loss of data.
I understand that this sequence of prompts is going to look GREAT in court should I be obtuse enough to sue anybody anyway.
I understand that there is no way in hell that I accidentally agreed to this.
If I sue in spite of all of this, then I agree that contents of this dialog are admission that I'm bringing a frivolous lawsuit.
If I'm still obtuse enough to sue then I agree that I'm too stupid to waste a court's time and am a vexatious litigant.
Any version of this software lacking the click through disclaimers is not the responsibility of this Project. For that matter neither is this one.
There should be no option to disable the disclaimers. That's the price of getting to edit video or otherwise operate a computer for free.
What happens if their HD dies?
Will they sue ibm?
What happens if their LA power drops? will they sue EDison?
What happens if the guy crashes his car? will he sue Firestone?
What happens if he gets cancer? sue Philip Morris?
These guys are plain stupid.
I realize part of the isssue here is the concern over attacks against GPL'd studio/production software. But this issue does als make me wonder about recording softwares, such as Cakewalk's Sonar, Motu's Performer and OpCodes CuBase ?
Or what does this say to Real Network, who gives the Basic version of their Real Producer product away for free ?
Either way, I find this decision disturbing and somewhat depresssing as Linux was just getting around to providing some serious multi-media production capability, at a cost that agrees with most home studio/users.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
source code
RPM/Binary
ARE they merchants? They don't sell the software
Could someone send me the latest sources?
I think if the software were distributed only as source and under GPL, maybe even using CVS, then the courts would have a very hard time characterizing Heroine as a vendor, and finding an implicit warranty.
And if a Debian packager put the stuff together, again, there wouldn't be any imputable "warranty".
As for liability in tort: it would be impossible to establish tort in a GPL project where there were many contributors working for free, and where everyone, including the "user" is allowed to modify the code. Where everyone is allowed to read, write and use the code, there are no "merchants" and "users" and hence no assumption of warranty.
I mean, could Alan Cox sue Linus for screwing something up? Or could you sue a newbie for submitting a shitty patch? Who told you the patch was good?
And it's not just Adobe. Newtek, In-Sync, Avid, Fast, Play, ULead, DPS...the list goes on and on.
I've been working with DTV for ten years and the one single conclusion I've come up with is that every single one of these companies must troll the bottom of the barrel for their programming `talent.'
Another interesting digital video editor program is Kino (http://www.schirmacher.de/arne/kino/). It uses vi commands for editing the movie, so it is very easy to use (but it has menu commands too).
The latest version (CVS only, not available as tarball yet) has a much improved user interface. However Kino is still in its early phase, it has no titling, effects etc. yet and it can process only video grabbed from digital video (DV) camcorders.
Arne
I've been using this software for the last few months to edit my home movies and I must say it is excellent and better than Media Studio ¥which is a commercial progam for Windows© However I don't believe a word of this liablitly nonsense I often go to the website and I find the developers are always putting strange cryptic messeges on their site and and in the discussion foruns, a good example of this is what they say about the
vapourware "Cinelerra"© I guess this is just a publicity stunt and in the very near future you will see some commericial video editing software released by the developers to replace Broadcast 2000©
Even though I had left off downloading it for a while I luckily found it again.
Seems to me that if you sign a disclaimer saying you wouldn't dream of suing them for bugs it should be okay no?
Coming from someone who'se seen production with a custom mac premiere/raid system I can tell you crashes and such are not unknown in the commercial world.. anyway.
Should be a nifty tool and a mother lode of knowledge for anyone who wants to learn about video programming!
First, it's Axogon.
Second, it was never GPL'd, it was a private program.
Third, the decision to go pay-only was not a huge surprise. You already had a license fee if you wanted to register the 1.0 version, and this was not secret. Axogon actually resembled Blender's C-Key distribution back in the day.
Fourth, the decision came a LONG TIME before the paranoia over the DMCA started. MainConcept(who make precisely ZERO big-name products) made an offer, and if I was a college student not knowing where to go next, I'd sure as hell take it.
Fifth, you can still use the damn thing. 0.93.1 is available from scads of shareware sites, and is still rock-solid and a great on-the-cheap compositor/non-linear editor(as I've used it for all of my projects).
--
The software is still available both as source and binary RPM (legally, it's GPL!) from various mirrors. Get it while it lasts (and use it at your own risk)!
This was not a troll---
If licensing means nothing, then all of this means nothing. If it is the RIAA or the MPAA, then they need to be boycotted across the board. You cannot tell me that geeks and nerds and tech dweebs cannot make a "ripple" if we fought with our wallets!!
If governments allow themselves to be sold, to allow legislation to be used instead of technology (oh hell, we are already there) then we might as well reboot the country.
He's pissed about the Episode I edit out there and pushing to have all cheapo/free editing software squashed!
You're consipiracy of the day. enjoy.
Lawyers are tearing this country apart. When you can't help anyone or have any interaction without exposing yourself to a lawsuit, what's going to happen? We need big changes, very soon. This particular problem could be solved with a law stating that anything you don't pay for has no warranty (UCICA be damned), but a better solution would be to kill all the lawyers. I suspect that they wouldn't go along with that, so does anyone have anything that would be both helpful and practical?
Say we could decide on what changes are needed. How many slashdotters would be willing and able to spend some time in Washington?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."