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GNU GPL law and "lagom" copyright
Johannes writes "Newsforge column on "lagom" copyright. I think we need to discuss these issues more. Maybe a GNU GPL law isn't so bad after all. As Pawlo states: "Would not a modern democratic society benefit from a plurality of irreconcilable and incompatible doctrines? We need the GNU GPL, but we also need proprietary software, Open Source software, BSD licenses, the Apache license and so forth. That would make the case for GNU GPL legislation void. However, as Lawrence Lessig taught us in his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, the code may in itself work against plurality.""
Oh, my God... look at this guy's journal. And you thought TURD REPORT is stupid, this guy is cataloging his pr0n on Slashdot! Apparently he has 4.5 GB already!
All I want to know is... does he use Gnutella?
You think proprietary software should be outlawed, and the government should force us all to use only open source software? Right?
Hello,
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source". Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
Ali (R, 157 min.)
12:50pm | 4:20pm | 7:40pm
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (PG, 153 min.)
12:40pm | 4:20pm | 7:40pm
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (PG-13, 178 min.)
12:30pm | 1:00pm | 1:40pm | 3:00pm | 4:10pm | 5:00pm | 5:20pm | 7:20pm | 8:00pm | 9:00pm | 9:20pm
Monsters, Inc. (G, 90 min.)
12:00pm | 2:20pm | 4:40pm | 7:10pm | 9:30pm
Ocean's 11 (PG-13, 114 min.)
12:50pm | 1:50pm | 4:00pm | 7:10pm | 7:30pm | 10:10pm
Vanilla Sky (R, 136 min.)
12:50pm | 3:50pm | 7:00pm | 10:00pm
A Beautiful Mind (PG-13, 135 min.)
12:20pm | 3:10pm | 6:50pm | 10:00pm
The Royal Tenenbaums (R, 108 min.)
12:00pm | 2:30pm | 5:00pm | 7:30pm | 10:00pm
Not Another Teen Movie (R, 82 min.)
4:30pm | 9:50pm
Joe Somebody (PG, 98 min.)
12:20pm | 2:40pm | 5:00pm | 7:20pm | 9:40pm
Kate & Leopold (PG-13, 118 min.)
1:00pm | 4:10pm | 7:00pm | 10:10pm
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (G, 84 min.)
12:00pm | 12:30pm | 2:10pm | 2:30pm | 4:10pm | 4:30pm | 6:40pm | 9:10pm
How High (R, 94 min.)
12:30pm | 2:50pm | 5:30pm | 7:50pm | 10:10pm
The Majestic (PG, 150 min.)
7:20pm
Gosford Park (R, 137 min.)
12:20pm | 4:00pm | 7:00pm | 10:00pm
Orange County (PG-13, 81 min.)
12:10pm | 1:00pm | 2:20pm | 3:10pm | 4:40pm | 5:20pm | 7:10pm | 7:50pm | 9:30pm | 10:20pm
Behind Enemy Lines (PG-13, 105 min.)
12:10pm | 2:40pm | 5:10pm | 7:40pm | 10:20pm
Impostor (PG-13, 96 min.)
12:10pm | 2:40pm | 5:10pm | 7:30pm | 10:20pm
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Lord of the Things: One Thing to Rule Them All!
Moderators smoking cheap $3 crack again?
Well in the pure patent prior art case, you just pay a lawyer to patent it, corrupt your friendly patent office to accept it, then threaten the author who obviously won't fight since it will cost him/her a lot of money and time (and may be jail time). This is currently at work, and it works quite well for the big conglomerates against the people (anything comes to mind?).
Second case, you change one comma somewhere and you patent your change, since you spent money paying someone to change the comma, you're innovating right? So you can patent, otherwise who would invent anything for the poor of us? If the thing is a protocol, you pay an ad campaign, get people to use your modified and patented protocol (or protected by whatever law bought by the big conglomerates, I assume I don't need to mention lawS I'm talking about here) then when the original author tries to update the original code base to interoperate with the bastardized version, you sue him/her crying that you want government to protect your right to make a buck, woooo the big evil pirates, GPL kills innovation, FSF people are bad = communist = terrorists = anti american etc... (need I point to any recent news?).
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Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>