Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: IceWeasel, Online Gambling, GPU Folding, Evolution
The facts about Debian Iceweasel. john-da-luthrun writes, "Debian Firefox/XULrunner maintainer Mike Hommey reports on the Firefox/Iceweasel wrangle, correcting various assertions that have been made in the assorted trollfests/flamewars currently raging over the proposed Firefox rename. Hommey confirms that Firefox in Etch will be renamed 'Iceweasel,' but this will only be a renamed version of the vanilla Firefox, not the GNU Iceweasel fork — though the Debian and GNU Iceweasel teams may work together in future."
A closer look at Folding@home's GPU client. TheRaindog writes, "Slashdot recently covered some impressive client statistics for Stanford's Folding@home project, but they don't tell the whole story. The Tech Report has taken a closer look at the GPU client, running it on a Radeon X1900 XTX against the CPU client on a dual-core Opteron. The results are enlightening, especially considering how Stanford has chosen to award points GPU client work units. Power consumption is more interesting, with the GPU client apparently far more power-efficient than folding with a CPU."
David Brin need not lament — KidBasic. sproketboy writes, "I was thinking about the recent slashdot story David Brin Laments Absence of Programming For Kids, and after looking around I found KidBasic. KidBasic is quite good and teaches all the basics of programming. My 4 year old nephew and I have been able to get a few simple games programmed with it."
Online gambling ban may violate international law. An anonymous reader writes, "As Slashdot noted earlier, Congress has passed an effective ban on online gambling in the U.S. This may not be the end of the story, however. The law may be struck down by the World Trade Organization on the grounds that it violates the United States' international obligation not to discriminate in favor of domestic casinos. If the WTO strikes down this U.S. gambling ban, it would not be the first time. In November of 2004, the WTO struck down a U.S. anti-gambling law as illegally discriminating against the nation of Antigua."
Human species may do whatnow?. jamie writes, "'I might have believed this nonsense could come from some late 19th century eugenicist, but now? Is there any evidence...?' That's biologist PZ Myers's comment on the BBC story that claims the human species may split in two. It was posted on Slashdot as humor, but Myers's comments are a much-needed sober appraisal of this kind of pseudoscientific claim."
Another RIAA lawsuit dropped. skelator2821 writes, "Another RIAA lawsuit has been dropped against a defendant who had been accused of illegally sharing songs online, according to Ars Technica. Looks like the Mob tactics are not paying off for our good friends at the RIAA anymore."
I hope they make it run on other GPUs. Maybe, this will pressure gfx card manufacturers to make some sort of cross-compatible powerful scripting language to run any other embarrassingly parallel calculations... it would certainly be benificial
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Penny Smith's supposed solution to the Millenium problem (Navier Stokes) turned out to be wrong.
Since when does US care about international law?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
> The law may be struck down by the World Trade Organization...
The WTO does not have the power to strike down any US law.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Unauthorized copying is not theft, nor is it even always illegal.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The rules of evolution (from Darwin) are such that all species eventually split into seperate species. It's arrogant to suppose that humans are immune! Hopefully, we can stick together as one species long enough to populate distant solar systems, and thus let geographic boundaries be the cause of our branches.
No, I will not work for your startup
Debian is being stupid if they use the Iceweasel name knowing the it will be confused with a current, ongoing project.
And you wonder why Mozilla doesn't want them abusing their trademark...
the link to the david brin article be BROKEN. I can't find the link that was intended.
I chose to use a Commodore 64 for educating my own son:
s s/archives/42
http://akaimbatman.intelligentblogger.com/wordpre
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
s/Thy/Thou/
Did you even read the explanation on Mike's blog?
Oh, wait... Slashdot.
The WTO is not "international law", it's just of club of countries that get together to set rules for trading amongst each other. WTO sanctions are hardly law or international.
In any event, anybody who thinks the concept of international law exists must believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth fairy.
I don't know how successful using LogoWriter was, or how many people used it, but it was used in my elementary school. Here's a link as to what it was, but apparently it's so obscure that there isn't even a wiki page that I could find for it.
For the billionth time, this is more than the logo. Debian had an understanding that let them call the version in their repository "Firefox" if they used a different logo. The mozilla.com people say that isn't good enough anymore. To use the codebase and call it Firefox Debian must:
1. Submit all patches to mozilla.com for approval. This includes security patches.
2. Debian's policy is to stick with a version of a given package for a release and backport security and stability fixes only. Mozilla.com would rather have everyone running the latest version at all times.
Basically, the codebase ceases to be Open Source if any product compiled from it is to be called Firefox. Very few other projects engage in this sort of control freakery and branding. If all Open Source projects behaved as Mozilla does, we'd have a real problem on our hands.
To pin ALL blame for this on Debian shows no understanding of what the issues are.
When are we going to see the tag cloud that stories are tagged with? Is it possible to make sure that some words are not used when tagging stories? I would bet that the current tag cloud has the words yes, no, fud, notfud, notnotfud as the largest taxonomies. Whilst I'm sure some /.'ers couldn't care about those words being the dominant words they really don't add any substance to a tagged story. How about tagging stories with useful concept-oriented tags and blocking non-substance words like 'no' or 'yes'? Those words should be elaborated on in the comments not as a tag.
As much as I'd appreciate giving the WTO such a power in this particular case, I'm afraid the ability to strike down laws of sovereign nations is far too extreme to allow this organization.
Fortunately, it seems the WTO doesn't actually have this power. They can declare a law in violation of the WTO. They can convince the member nations to implement sanctions against countries which remain in violation. But they don't seem to have the power to "strike down" any laws.
Which part of the "nor give away something, that is not yours" was so difficult to grasp?
Where/when it is not, RIAA loses...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Here are some of my bits. Actually, they're Slashdot's, but I'll let you have them. Sue me.
Developers: We can use your help.
Moses will sue you for using words that are not yours.
Which part of the "nor give away something, that is not yours" was so difficult to grasp?
Gee, I don't see anything going away. That song my friend just copied is still right here.
By now only idiots and fools with axes to grind try to apply the 'rules' of physical things to non-rivalrous and non-excludable things.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
O RLY? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can regulate wheat and marijuana production that does not cross state lines because they compete with products that do cross state lines. Wickard v. Filburn ; Gonzales v. Raich .
If I buy something and want to share it with others out of the kindness of my heart, that's my affair.
Just because it *may* reduce the studio's income (which is debateable, since sharing is also free promotion), this does not automatically make it wrong for people to share what they have bought.
It may be illegal, but that's just a distortion created by the law. It's not *wrong* to share. Mankind has been sharing since the dawn of time, and bloodsucking studios and lawyers and politicians aren't going to change that.
But they don't seem to have the power to "strike down" any laws.
:-)
The only power that anyone ever really has is military power. The only way that the US government can enforce any law on its citizens is to threaten them with force. The only way to actually "strike down" any American law would be to use force against the US government. Or at least threaten to use force.
Because the WTO has no military force, the only thing they can do is put sanctions against the US. It is the same thing that the UN is planning on doing to North Korea. It could still work if they can work up the guts, and I hope they do.
Im an American, but these gambling laws are rediculous. If it takes crippling our own economy to show our rulers that they are out of line then its a small price to pay. If I lose my job I could always become a professional gambler
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
All species diverge into separate species if some sort of reproductive barrier springs up to prevent two groups of such a species from interbreeding. Examples include the founder effect and natural disasters. Unless you think that the "Proto-Eloi" and "Proto-Morlocks" really will have no interbreeding whatsoever for thousands of years, the two groups won't diverge. In the case of humanity, I would actually argue that we're becoming less diverse. With more people moving from continent to continent in the past five hundred years than at any time in history (except maybe the Bering Strait), there's more inter-racial breeding and humanity is moving towards a center, rather than diverging into different sub-species.
Note: I'm casting no judgment on inter-racial couples; if you really wanted to look at things from a biological standpoint, arguments from hybrid vigor would favor such pairings.
This is the single dumbest argument i've ever seen to justify being a common thief.
to add to my at least half a dozen rants on this subject...this is down in TF Blog A "I'm not saying the Debian one was perfect, it also had its own problems, but that was a whole lot less than the blatant crap that was the official one, obviously written for Windows without any thoughts for unix, and especially linux distributions." YEP! What I have been saying
I am so glad Debian is forking and I hope it is a REAL fork, a browser FOR LINUX, and did ya see that other little gem, the same with seamonkey, which will be called ICEAPE!
I'm in......
oh look i can use google. michael cavender you suck dick. do some real shit besides googling my nick and pulling my birthdate from your forum.
el_jewapo el_jewapo el_jewapo el_jewapo el_jewapo
The fact that for the *other* person it's "there" now is the stealing part.
why run from Vincenzo?
Do you even use Debian? When was the last time you contributed? What business should it be of yours that a group of volunteers choose to work together under a shared set of values? None of it, that's what.
If you don't want to allow distributions to make changes to software they redistribute to enhance system integration, user experience, and conform to distribution policies, perhaps you should instead spend your time petitioning the Mozilla project to consider going closed source.
And what is your problem with the DFSGs? They were influential in shaping what the very term Open Source means today.
IANAL but if I read my Constitution correctly, if there is a conflict between membership in the WTO and a newer US law, no court outside the US can invalidate the newer US law, not in the same way a US court can declare a law unconstitutional.
What such a court can do is pressure the US to repeal or at least not enforce the law, through sanctions or other means. Until Congress repeals the law, the law is on the books and enforceable.
If the US doesn't like the sanctions, they can withdraw from the WTO treaty.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Actually it shoule be Thou shalt not steal
They can only respond to complaints about unfair trading practices, ie they cannot go out & 'declare a law in violation' unless someone comes to them first.
Since that person came to them, the WTO doesn't have to convince anyone. The complaint wouldn't be made if the complainer wasn't seeking relief.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
But then, for the part of the population that is sane and rational, the real world intrudes. We realize that resources are limited, we have to live with others, even if they are different, we have to work for our toys, and, in a world where guys will resort to soft fruit, any person who is not extremely objectionable is fair game, at least long enough to procreate. Combine this with the fact that so many of these characteristics can be had by artificial means, and the artifice may not be detected until the bun is in the oven, and evolution seems to be quite out of play.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Did anyone notice the link provided for the RIAA case simply discussed the Elektra v. Wilke case, which has already been posted here to /. and is actually the topic of the story "RIAA Drops Case in Chicago," under the related stories? ...or am I the only one here who RTFAs?
(no link, you can click over on your own)
Let's say I have a paper origami crane. My friend has a piece of paper and proceeds to make a paper origami crane with his piece of paper. The end result looks exactly like mine. Did my friend just steal something? If not, then why is it considered "stealing" when magnetic bits are manipulated to the same state on hard drives?
That's cool and all, but how about a universal binary folding@home client?
Or at the very least, an intel compatible one. Running F@H under rosetta is barely worth it.
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
Did anyone else read that as "David Brin's Lamenet" and wonder what kind of lame-ass peer to peer network this was?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If the WTO strikes down the anti-gambling law, it will become more powerful than they can possibly imagine.
"My 4 year old nephew and I have been able to get a few simple games programmed with it."
I can't be the only one who laughed his ass out reading this.
I find it hard to believe that this is a problem. Red Hat has been using the same policy for quite some time: ...in clear violation of the Mozilla Foundation's policy. The Fedora Project Board might not have a problem with that, but Debian likes to avoid breaking rules where possible.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I appreciate your analogy, but I don't agree. One reason, as dopey as it sounds, is that your paper crane is not copyrighted, that music is.
Or I can go a different route and argue that you're not stealing something tangible such as a pattern of bits that is a song, but you are stealing a potential customer from the artist to whom they'd be able to sell their song. Let's go to the extreme.
If we decided to pass a law that it is not a crime to copy songs if you haven't bought them, and I can copy music without any worry of violating the law, I can't in good conscience convince myself that selling music would be profitable. Even with scarcity of artists following this crash, you can't really argue that the good old law of supply-demand will keep the music going in this case.
However, I do agree that there needs to be a balance of fair use such as being able to play music at a block party or make as many copies as I want on different mediums so that I can play my favorite music on my ipod, in my car, etc.
why run from Vincenzo?
I think that is a bad analysis. It is true that in the end the only true way to enforce "striking down" a law may be military force. However, the Supreme Court can strike down a federal or state law because of constitutional reasons and it doesn't have an enforcement arm. Its rulings are almost always listened to (some exceptions though) because of the constitutional system and respect in the U.S. The WTO cannot strike down a law for the simple reason that it does not have such authority (as the Supreme Court does in certain cases). Its authority is that given to it by the agreements entered into by countries (GATT and all those Rounds that came after). It has the authority to rule that a law is in violation of the WTO requirements. The losing country will come into compliance, agree to compensate the winner, or if not, the winner will be permitted to retaliate. Hence, by saying it is in violation of international law, one means that it is contrary to an agreement entered by the United States. The agreement sets up consequences for its violation. The law isn't void as against international law though. I would analogize it to saying that the U.S. is simply in breach of its contract (possibly not the best analogy). Also, I believe that WTO panel decision was appealled to the Appellate Body setup by the DSU within the WTO. That decision held that the U.S. essentially could ban online gambling b/c of an exception that allows them to do such things for "public health and moral" (I think that is the quote). However, that defense was rejected b/c the law wasn't applied non-discriminatorily, since it allowed online placing of bets for horse racing. Subsequently, the U.S. changed the law and it is being challeneged once again.
Not really. Trademark enforcement is separate issue than whether something is open-sourced. See, many open-sourced products have trademarks that they don't want other people using. You think the Debian people would like it if someone else put out something called "Debian Linux" that was not made from the real/authorized Debian packages or codebase? Really, think about it. If I started distributing my own version of "Debian Linux", which was really a rebranded copy of Redhat with spyware installed, don't you think the Debian people would want me to stop using that name?
But if it's open-sourced, no matter what trademark issues there are, you can always take the code and rebrand it. You rebrand it with your own trademarks, which you can then protect or not. But keep in mind that if you don't protect your trademarks, you lose rights to them.
What about LOGO?2 1-Kevin_McCarthy-The_Six_Year_Old_Hacker.mp4
http://media.defcon.org/dc-13/video/2005_Defcon_V
If they are developing on an older version it sounds like they have already forked and a dummy spit over a logo has just brought it to a head. Emacs forked over a trivial reason as well - although it took many months to find a new developer to actually do anything with the RMS fork when the existing developer starting including support for stuff like X windows which didn't benefit hurd in any way. Has RMS joined the debian board recently? What changes have their been recently which would make them more into a no compromise position? Remember here that firefox is not a Debian project and I think the mozilla conditions listed above are fine - although it would be nice to be allowed to backport patches I can see why they don't want it done. The above bold type "com" bit above by the previous poster I see as the sort of childish attitude we saw with the emacs split - the impurity of people getting paid to write software that is available to all under the GPL!
Excellent! I always wanted to be a script kiddy! ... I mean now I will be teh 1337 H4x0r!!!
If not, then why is it considered "stealing" when magnetic bits are manipulated to the same state on hard drives?
Because "unlawful copyright infringement in the Nth degree" is hard for a layman to say?
It's illegal. You can go to jail for it, and will almost certainly be forced to pay actual damages. You might as well complain about why a priest calls aggrivated manslaughter "murder."
The problem we have here is an issue of semantics. Here's the crux of the problem: my origami crane is implicitly copyrighted. Thus my friend would be guilty of copyright infringement. If my friend took away my origami crane, that would be stealing because I no longer have the physical object. However, since he just made his own origami crane to look like mine, he's only infringing on my copyright of the crane. I still have my origami crane in my possession.
The issue here is that the RIAA/MPAA would like to have you believe that copyright infringement and stealing are the same thing when they are not. What they're trying to do is pound into the public that copyright infringement is stealing because, quite frankly, which term sounds worse? Stealing or copyright infringement?
If you're going to extrapolate, you can't just stop at an arbitrary point.
Ok, so the abolition of copyright has lead to destruction of the music industry. Only the very few art-for-art's sake type musicians still release music.
Is there still a demand for music? Yes? Then there is the potential for a market. Obviously the market won't operate on the basis of selling a single song many times cheaply due to copyright. What would the artist do? Demand money up-front. Instead of working "on-spec", the artist works on commission. Either a rich guy commissions a song/album, or a coalition of moderately wealthy people (fans) pool their money to commission an album. End result: artist gets paid, music gets made.
Such a scheme wouldn't work know - why would any consumer go to that length of trouble when they can go to the CD store and just buy an album for $25? But if the current distribution method died, the commission-based system would become attractive as the only way to get new music. That sort of shift would also have a noticable effect on the end product. In the current model, artists must write to please studios, so they can get in to the global distribution and publicity network the studios offer. In the commission-based model, artists must write to please their fans, or they're not going to get another commission after the first. It would probably also put commercial radio out of business.
As long as there is significant demand for music - and there has been throughout all recorded history - then music will be made. What changes is how, why and how much.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
What's wrong with Frost Ferret?!
If someone can copyright musical compositions or words on paper, I suspect I could copyright my particular folding crane, or at least a book illustrating the methodology.
Luke, help me take this mask off
The Folding@Home GPU really hurts my computer's performance - it doesn't play well in terms of idle / background threading, and about a week into it, my computer got to the point where I needed to reboot it to restore functionality. Not sure if it driver leaks, bad implmenation, or what, but not the greatest experience I've ever had.
I agree we have the problem of semantics, to me copyright infringement is a form of stealing. Whether it sounds worse that "copyright infringement" or not is irrelevant.
I disagree that your crane is implicitly copyrighted since I don't think it would be considered an "original work of authorship".
why run from Vincenzo?
The original dispute was whether violating copyright was stealing. The extreme scenario was not meant to be a dishonest mechanism to say that you couldn't take it further such as commissioned works as you describe. As an aside, a future where the only music is that commissioned by movie moguls and television producers seems terrible.
why run from Vincenzo?
kingkade: "Or I can go a different route and argue that you're not stealing something tangible such as a pattern of bits that is a song, but you are stealing a potential customer from the artist to whom they'd be able to sell their song."
Or ANOTHER way of looking at it might be: by sharing a piece of music with a friend, a person might just cause that artist to GAIN a new customer that might never have heard of them otherwise. So sharing just as likely to create a potential customer. The only way you MIGHT be able to "steal" a customer would be to sell them your own music, but even then the word "steal" is a mighty big stretch.
I have to ask, because I see comments like this everywhere...
what the fuck does that mean? Is that a scripting language? Where can I go to get a secret 1950's decoder ring so I can understand that?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
In other words, the WTO has real teeth in terms of overruling actions of the U.S. Congress.
About the only thing that the WTO can't do is to override the U.S. Constitution, which in theory trumps even treaties (and a prime factor to consider with copyright treaties, for example). The problem here is that the current members of the U.S. Supreme Court seem very reluctant to even override treaties based on this provision, nor does Congress really fight back hard if they are told "No" by international groups like the WTO.
So there are really two approaches that can be done in this situation:
In short, this is a big deal in the current American legal system. Hopefully this is going to be something that will be publicized so much that Americans will finally realize how much of their soverignty has been given up to silly groups of "international law experts", answerable to nobody other than themselves. There certainly is no check or balance to allow a group like the U.S. Congress to impeach these WTO judges if they abuse their position, nor any direct citizen involvement in deciding who gets to make these decisions.
You're right, that is another way of looking at it. The point is the copyright holder is the only one with the right to make such a decision to share their work, not you and your friend.
why run from Vincenzo?
This is true, and no offense, but frankly I'm impressed that you are aware of this. It's a welcome relief from the overwhelmingly ignorant "globalization this" and "free trade that" rants that I often read on Slashdot. What you might not know, however, is that allowing the nation who petitioned the Dispute Settlement Body to choose the way in which they are to be compensated has had an unexpected political side-effect, at least in the U.S. It turns out that one of the best ways of putting pressure on lawmakers and even the President of the United States is to impose tariffs on goods that are made in certain politically volatile states.
For instance, let's say it's 3 years ago and you're, I dunno...Germany. You just won your DSB case because you successfully demonstrated that you were harmed because of let's say, an economic initiative by George Bush that involved giving domestic steel producers in the northeast an unfair subsidy. As Germany, you turn around and impose a heavy tariff against all oranges coming from the United States, knowing full well many of those oranges come from Florida. Then, the pressure is ramped up on Bush, because he must then explain to Florida orange growers (who have a powerful lobby, by the way) why it is that they're having trouble selling their oranges in certain European markets.
That's the theory, anyway.
'Which part of the "nor give away something, that is not yours" was so difficult to grasp?'
I'm guessing the problem was either with "away" (how is it away if you've still got it?), "something" (data isn't much of a thing), or "yours" (you paid for it, right?).
Actually never -- if they did, they would be neglectful of their responsibilities as leaders to do the best thing for their country. However, sometimes it's best to forgo a short-term gain in favor of long term stability. In other words, by submitting to international law (or a body like the WTO), you preserve a system which you believe benefits you in the long run.
Being law abiding, whether on the individual or national level, is not self-sacrificial behavior. There are good and rational reasons for doing so. It only looks disadvantageous when you're using a very short or narrow perspective. I would argue that the main problem with U.S. foreign policy is that it sacrifices long-term goals for short-term advantages or gains. We probably have more to gain from a strong World Trade Organization than anyone; if we make it irrelevant, we hurt ourselves in the long run.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Oh look, another sanctimonious AC who thinks he knows something. Hey asshole, there is such a thing as international law--it's called "treaties." It's where two countries get together and formally agree to something? Since you're so fucking dumb, I should mention that they're also called accords, agreements, protocols, conventions and so on--it's all the same fucking thing.
If you think the U.S. is empowered to just sign onto treaties that are in conformity with the Constitution and then ignore them, then you should re-read Article VI, Section 2 (assuming of course that your dumb bitch ass has ever read it ever anyway). Do you know what "law of the land" means? It means it's the fucking law of the land, and yes, it does fucking exist.
If the parent came up with a novel way of folding the paper to produce a crane, it would most definitely be copyritable, or at least the explanations to fold the paper would be.
I'd argue that a similar situation now exists with abortion and other reproductive and personal rights. Lots of things that many people take for granted rest on a series of court decisions -- Roe v. Wade chief among them -- which are rather delicate logical and jurisprudential constructs. Had Roe not been decided the way it was, political will might have developed in the 1970s to codify an actual right to privacy, rather than relying on the flawed concept of a "pneumbra." Unfortunately, the latter path was taken, and now a whole host of rights ride on a this concept. As soon as people began to take those rights for granted, the opportunity of actually having enough momentum to get an actual codified right disappeared. Today, if a handful of legal scholars can be convinced of the wrongness of Roe and the pneumbra concept, then not only abortion but the whole "right" to privacy could disappear.
Swallowing bad jurisprudence simply because it produces social good in the short term is almost always a bad idea, and it leads to less stability in the long run. It forces you to either run the risk of losing the social gains in order to overturn bad law (as in Roe), or in keeping the bad precedent and subsequent bad judgements in order to keep the social good (as with your example of Raich and civil rights).
"Rights" won on questionable legal arguments can hardly said to be 'won' at all -- they're the social-freedom versions of stock-market bubbles. Pleasant, ephemeral, but apt to cause chaos one way or another whether they burst or remain. Slow growth based on actual legislative action is far better in the long run, painful as it may be in the present. Sometimes extreme pain is what's required to motivate both the people and the Legislative branch into action.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That's Mozilla® Firefox® buddy.
As an aside, a future where the only music is that commissioned by movie moguls and television producers seems terrible.
Yeah, it does, but a future where the majority of music is commissioned by pools of fans seems less so, to me at least. After all, most of the music produced now is essentially being commissioned by the music industry - if you dont do it like they want it, you don't get signed. Of course, there are indies now, and there will probably be indies then. They are the "art-for-arts-sake" artists, and they'll always be there.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Yea, and I hear the Columbian Cocain Cartels are going to sue because the U.S won't import their Cocain either, favoring our domestic growers.
Copyright violation is not theft. Nor is it stealing. This does not mean it is not a crime, or morally wrong, or anything similar (though it doesn't mean that it is, either).
Copyright violation is actually closer to trespassing than theft. If I trespass, I do not necessarily inflict any harm on the property owner, anymore than I inflict harm on a musician by copying a song I didn't intend to buy.
The current copyright laws in the US are not geared to encourage creativity, or to engender economic growth. They are intended to protect the rights of the large copyright holders - and don't think for a second that these people represent the artists.
Calling copyright violation theft is a deliberate tactic of the various copyright holders which is intended to push emotional buttons. Don't go along with it.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Go to a well off suburb shopping mall, then a working class shopping mall. Compare the beauty/sexiness of the women. Case closed. And why oh why is skin tight clothing more popular with people who should not wear skin tight clothing!?
I've disabled Backslash from my prefs (there's enough dupes as it is) and now this Slashback thing turns up.
How do I turn it off, please?
Why slashbacks instead of never alllowing the stories expire(and making them editable).
Civil rights legislation is justified by Amendment XIV, which provides for equal protection under the law. It gives Congress the authority to enforce civil rights laws, trumping states' rights.
Civil rights laws aren't based on the interstate commerce clause. All sorts of discrimination were legal before Amendment XIV was passed.
I'm not really against the WTO as such, or rather I don't really have an informed opinion.
But I'm not so sure about the "fortunately" part of your post. Like with a lot of freedoms and righs the US takes for granted, such as freedom of speech, having it written in law is but one thing.
You can have all the freedom of speech you want, if half the nation impose self censorship due to various moral, ethical or religious reasons, you don't really have anything resembling free speech.
The WTO might not have the right to strike down US law, but in reality, isn't this precisely what their power is?
Few nations can survive the trade tariffs for very long if they're hefty enough and hitting the right market. So if the WTO really wants, can't it stop pretty much any behavior its members find abhorrent enough?
It's not really related I guess, but it just scares me how we so blindly stare at our rights written on paper, and nearly never watch as those papers become more and more meaningless out there in the real world, where we self regulate or otherwise undermine the intent of the freedoms in question.
IIRC, it's actually the Vi or Emacs command structure to replace one string with the other. on a new line you'd type the s and the / then what it to be replaced, then another / and then what to replace it with with a closing /. This is also shorthand in IRC and forums (fora!) for correcting a typo in a previous statement.
[joe] hey kids, did you see the typo on Spashdot?[joe] s/Spashdot/Slashdot/
[frank] was that an accident or do you just have a keenly developed sense of irnoy?
[joe] s/irnoy/irony/ and no, Alanis, I wasn't being ironic.
But back to the main point, the US Supreme Court in Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) bitchslapped government prosecutors who attempted to equate copyright infringment with theft.
It it a "problem of semantics" if I say "to me tresspassing is a form of rape"?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's called a "Regular Expression", and is implemented in many text editors and programming languages.
Selling music is profitable, with or without copyright laws. Music isn't just "single copies that you can play when you want it". Music could be that you go to a concert and listen, play by yourself, go and dance or whatever. It could be an live experince.
The "single copy"-music is just a tiny bit of the music system.
Yes it would.
Regular expressions are your friend:5 .8/lib/Pod/perlretut.html
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/docs/ActivePerl/
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
I'm just going to go ahead and share my views on things. I could have chosen any of a number of places to post it, but this spot just seemed convenient.
I view it like this - stealing is when you have something, and I take it, causing you to have it no longer. You've got a car, I take it, you can't use the car anymore - I stole it.
I don't believe in copyright infringement when it comes to software or music. I know that's a big no-no to some of you, but I see it like this: I'm working at McDonalds. I make [now that minimum wage in MI was raised] $6.95 an hour (before that, I only made $5.78!). My money can only go so far. [btw - I happen to be a socialist anarchist, so my views don't correspond well with the majority of capitalists, but I think I've a right to my views nonetheless - and legal or not in practice, I have a right to share them, just to get my point across. ] Anyway, if I were REALLY limited to spending just what I make, I wouldn't have much. In essence, I'd be delegated to the social status of many in third-world nations. My take on the issue is that, since I wouldn't be buying these things otherwise - when you make less than $800 a month, and have certain bills that must be paid (rent, food, college loans...), it just MAKES SENSE to violate copyright laws in order to achieve a standard of living comparable to those that make more than twice what you do. (And before you all start berating me about why I don't just get a better job - I'm in MI, which is the highest state in the US for unemployment, the fact I even have a job is amazing. And the only reason I'm not currently furthuring my education is because I can't afford it [a vicious cycle]).
The point I'm trying to make is - why, just because I happen to be in the unfortunate position of working at a crappy job (and yet a necessary job - how many people would be absolutely pissed if they weren't able to get fast food anymore? McDonalds et. al. may suck, but it doesn't stop several tens of thousands [or more] from going there every day). Yes, I'm a socialist, an anarchist, and to a lesser extent a communist - but even at that, I don't believe that everyone should be treated equally. Everyone shouldn't feel the need to drive around in Mercedes, and have plasma TVs - physical items are one thing, I don't feel a right to own physical copies of the CDs I've downloaded. But what's the harm in me having MP3 copies of music that I would never have bought in the first place, just because I couldn't afford it. How many people do you know that would have actually bought a copy of Adobe Photoshop, at its $400+ price-tag?
It's one thing if you can actually afford the things you're pirating, at that point it is tantamount to theft, but if you never would have bought it in the first place (or would have only under better financial circumstances on your part), I don't see any harm for someone to enjoy something they would have purchased - if only they were able to. I know I personally would be more than happy to buy some of the CDs that I have downloaded, and will as soon as my financial situation is a little better - but until then, I'm just happy to enjoy them via the only method I can.
<3 Douglas Adams <3
*sigh*
For the millionth time, it's still the same people!
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Hmm, sounds like VisualBasic ;)
:)
Aaaanyway, what I'd recommend for his kid is IBOL: Icon Based Operation Language. Never heard of it? Try googling for 'ChipWits'
(Yes, this time I'm involved: am re-creating a freeware version of it for - gasp! shudder! - Windoze)
Ciao,
Klaus
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Here's what Jesse Keating, Fedora's Release Engineer, has to say about Firefox and its security updates:
"firefox.org doesn't care about Linux. They produce "updates" that are first Windows precompiled binaries." [...] "They really really suck for trying to work out security updates, especially for Linux where they aren't providing the binaries. They care about what they provide as precompiled clients and nothing else (at least that's how it appears from the outside)."
http://lwn.net/Articles/200885/This is only here because I accidentally modded a post overrated instead of underrated. All gone now.
My spoon is too big.
I did not attempt such equating — you are attacking a strawman. Theft or not, copyright infringment is still wrong, and Mr. Dowling is still guilty of it — even after the "bitchslapping" you attempt to celebrate. From the article on the subject:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You gave him the ability to listen to it, which was yours, and to give it away further — which was not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
But according to yor logic I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't take any physical object from you. I didn't take away your ability to provide services to others. So you have no reason to be upset, right?
The Mozilla rules on using their tradmarks make a lot of sense (and are probably required legally in order to maintain the trademark). Without it, third parties could make thier own version of Firefox loaded with spyware and crap and distribute it under the Firefox name.
Now Mozilla can grant Debian (and Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, etc) a license to use their logos and stuff. But they can't give a license to everyone who wants to make their own distro based off Debian. Now, Debian doesn't allow debian derivatives to use the official debian logo, so they could maybe add to that rule that you couldn't use the Firefox logo either. But either that didn't occur to them or they just didn't want to do it.
--
God is dead-Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead-God
Nietzsche is God-dead
Nietzsche God dead-is
The purpose of a democratically elected government is to represent and advocate for the interests of their constituency. They have no responsibility to anyone outside of that constituency, period.
That said, I think it's fair to say in most cases, that most rational people wouldn't want a government that got them gains at the expense of the rest of humanity. Therefore, an honestly representative government might act in ways that are occasionally not seemingly in the direct best interest of the people they represent.
Again, it's all about the point of view you take. In the short term, it might seem as though it's in the best interest of a country to invade its neighbor, but in the long run (as with Germany) it could also backfire spectacularly. Thus there are good reasons for not acting according to that short-term impulse.
However, if everyone in a certain country really wanted something, and didn't give a damn about the rest of humanity, and elected leaders to pursue this goal, then it would be patently undemocratic for those leaders to put the desires of "humanity" above the desires of their consitutants. If a particular leader felt it morally impossible to continue, due to his own feelings prohbiting him from acting as his voters elected him to do, then he would be correct to resign and step down.
The basis of representative democracy is a somewhat adversarial process. Various elected representatives are tasked with acting as proxies for the people that they represent. Their job is to do whatever the people would do themselves, if they were acting in government directly.
Now, this doesn't prohibit morality in government completely. People elect representatives because, in many cases, of their perceived moral judgement. This might mean that the correct (by which I mean, representative) thing to do, would be to take a course of action that was for the "greater good" rather than the good of the constituency, because that's what the people in the constituency would have done themselves. This is important, because this this is the difference between an actual representative democracy and a theoretical government run by a computer that was just programmed to do the most self-interested thing, all the time.
The job of government is precisely to place the needs of its people above all else; however, the people may then decide to place the needs of the world above themselves, and instruct their leaders to act accordingly. But it is the job of the people, and not a small elite, to make this decision.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And that has what, exactly, to do with shipping a slightly modified version of Firefox?
The appropriate analogy would be if you shipped a version of Debian that had a few of the configuration files renamed but otherwise was identical.
The browser Debian had been calling Firefox used the exact same source as the official Firefox - it just had security patches back-ported to versions Mozilla was no longer supporting, along with a few patches to use Debian's directory layout and to use Debian's existing system libraries versus statically linking copies of them.
Apparently securing older versions of Firefox is enough to require Debian to stop using the name Firefox. Whatever.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Scratch is an excellent programming tool for kids. It's great for kids 7 and older.
It's just a BloJJ
No, its most like if I wanted to ship a version of Debian with my own backports, alterations, and modifications and still call it "Debian".
Yeah, so... it's not exactly the same source as Firefox. Basically, Mozilla said they don't want people to call the program "Firefox" unless they use approved/official builds. Debian wants to be able to use their own patches and backports without Mozilla approval.
Both positions seem completely reasonable to me, and it sounds like the whole thing has reached a reasonable conclusion.
By "cannabis" they mean "hemp products imported from Canada and other countries where C. sativa plants are not presumed to be of high-THC strains".
The "human species split in two" link leads to a 404 on Slashdot. Could it be that Slashdot has Slashdotted itself?
/* No Comment */
Mozilla-Firebird, Firebird, Firefox, icewhatel?
Why not call it RenameBrowser and be done with it?
JFC!
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
As an aside, a future where the only music is that commissioned by movie moguls and television producers seems terrible.
Hello? That is the world you live in today.
The 'recording studios' pay a commission (the advance) to the artists with the additional condition that in the unlikely event that end sales exceed a certain stratospheric amount, that the artist will receive further payments (royalties). Only a handful of the highest earning bands ever sell enough to earn royalties that end up in the bank. Thus, almost everything available to you via the major commercial distribution systems is commissioned by people who don't care an once about the music itself, only its value as a (re)sellable product.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You gave him the ability to listen to it, which was yours, and to give it away further -- which was not
Lol. What part of "nothing going away" was so difficult to grasp? I gave away the abilty for him to give it away? A self-referential definition is no definition at all.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Or were you just America-bashing in hopes of picking up some karma? (Which apparently you did -- nice job, mods.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Mr. Dowling is still guilty of it
Of course. The example would have pointless if he wasn't.
copyright infringment is still wrong
Agreed.
If you had said copyright infringment is rape or copyright infringment is murder, and someone replied saying "no it's not", would you jump to the conclusion that they were somehow saying copyright infringment was ok? Of course not. Or at least I assume not. Infringment is not theft rape or murder, and should not be thought of in terms of theft rape or murder.
Copyright is a good and usefull thing.
Copyright is not the same thing as property rights and it is not supposed to be the same as property rights. Copyright law is not the same as property law and it is not supposed to be the same as property law. You should not assume someone is "anti-copyright" when they object/reject the terms [theft steal property Intellectual_Property].
If someone supports copyright, then why the fuss over that sort of language? Because Copyright industry public relations push those terms on the public to create the impression and assumption that copyright = property and that copyright law = property law and that copyright law should equal property law, when in fact they are different and are supposed to be different for good reason. And more importantly because copyright industry lobbyists push those same terms in all dealings with legislators for the exact same reason... to create the incorrect assumption in their minds that copyright law is already the same as property law, and to create the expectation that the law should be the same as property law... so that when legislators come across the fact that copyright is treated differently than property and that copyright law is different than property law they come to the mistaken conclusion that there is something wrong with the law and that they obviously should "fix" that "problem".
For example DMCA is bad law. It is based on the invalid concepts that copyright is property and that encryption schemes are the owner's lock on his property, and that someone opening that lock is breaking the law and that someone selling a key to open that lock is breaking the law. To the extent we want to go with that property analogy, it is like someone selling me a home which of course includes a lock in the front door. Once I buy the house, I am not commiting a crime if I open that lock. I am not commiting a crime if I PICK that lock. And it is not a crime for someone to sell me a key or a drill to open that lock on my front door. A law prohibiting me from opening the lock on a house I bought is a bad law. A law criminalizing products that help me get into my own house is a bad law.
The copyright conflict is a conflict over the language and the basic public perception and understanding of copyright.
And look at how effective that public relations shaping of the issue has been: I'd be reasonably satisfied with the copyright law we had not ten years ago, defending good old traditional copyright, and you leapt to the conclusion that I think copyright infringment is OK and presumably that I want to abolish all copyright law.
The copyright lobby's agenda is to reshape the public perception of copyright and to push the notion that not passing new law somehow equals eliminating copyright and pushing the notion that anyone who dares object to new law wants to eliminate copyright.
There is almost no one actually arguing to eliminate copyright. Look back through this thread and you'll see that almost every post arguing against the "stealing" language in fact explicitly supports copyright. You (and others in this thread) are clearly arguing from the presumption that you are arguing with copyright opponents, when in fact you are arguing against copyright supporters.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The US is actually a great example of the problem with centralising these types of powers. Even if things are initially set up with good intentions, with the central power having very limited powers, eventually that central power will find a way to get around all those limitations that were put in place.
Of course, in the end, the WTO is a much worse entity to have such powers in the first place, as the representatives aren't even remotely directly elected.
As long as the WTO is protecting free speech, I don't have a problem. I hope you're not implying that online gambling is a free speech issue, or that the WTO exists to protect individual freedoms of any sort. No, the WTO exists to protect big business. This is not just the reality of the situation, it's their stated mission.
So yeah, if the WTO protects free speech, that's fine. But what if they strike down child labor laws, or antitrust legislation, or environmental protection legislation?. Here's someone else's Top Reasons to Oppose the WTO. So my fears about what's possible isn't just hypothetical. Some of it is already happening. Giving the WTO the power to directly strike down laws would make this worse.
Certainly not precisely. For example, say the WTO does declare the online gambling law to be in violation. Does that mean that I can now violate this law with no fear of prosecution? Absolutely not. The US courts, up to and including the US Supreme Court, will still enforce a law despite the fact that it violates a WTO agreement. Only an act of Congress can change this.
No, if the governments of the WTO member-countries really want, they can stop pretty much any behavior. And part of that is that they have to "really want" it. There are a number of places where various countries, including the US, are in violation of WTO agreements, and yet nothing much is happening about it.
I suppose you could say that this is true of any judicial or quasi-judicial entity with no physical troops. Only a few decades ago even the US Supreme Court had a lot of trouble striking down individual state laws. So maybe the ability to strike down laws is a sliding scale, and not a black and white issue. If so, I'd put the US Supreme Court's ability to strike down federal laws at a 9.9 out of 10, their ability to strike down state laws at a 9, and the WTO's ability to strike down US laws at a 3 or a 4.
This is only true if the treaty is "self-enacting". In any case, the US has not bound itself to the WTO via treaty, it has bound itself via "congressional-executive agreement" (see http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/35430. pdf).
To pin ALL blame for this on Debian shows no understanding of what the issues are.
Not really, if one understands the concepts of dilution (in this context) and goodwill.
"Firefox" is a well-known and increasingly liked and respected brand of Web browser. The Mozilla folks just want to make sure it stays that way. If anyone could just take the code, do to/with it whatever they please, AND still call it "Firefox", that name would cease to enjoy the very positive reputation it now has.
There are many cases where a "parent" ogranization suffers a schism and a new "child" organization is born as a result. Look at the various Protestant churches. Various charitiable organizations. The point is that when folks at large begin to associate a name or logo (a brand) with a quality or concept that the creator(s) worked hard to build up over time, the last thing the creators want is for someone to jump in, glom onto the thing and either mutate it until it sucks or take all the credit for it.
I know that if I use a Firefox browser, I will be getting whatever core functionality the Mozilla.com developers intended to deliver plus whatever additions/expansions their API allows (which is a main benefit of Firefox over IE, although Microsloth is playing catch-up there with its latest Buggy Bloatware release, namely IE7, complete with new and improved security flaws).
From what I understand, Mozilla's product is Open Source, but the brand name, "Firefox", is available for use in derivative products with some very reasonable restrictions/caveats. I don't see any problem with that. If you don't like the rules, I doubt you would have much problem claiming a spinoff was "based on Firefox version ". Claiming it is still Firefox without Mozilla's approval just isn't right as they have too much vested in building up that brand name to let just anyone adopt it as their own.
Brand marketing is not just for for-profit organizations. Like it or not, public image matters.
Mr. Wizard
esotriv.blogspot.com
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
If every FOSS project behaved as Mozilla does then almost EVERY piece of software in most Linux distros would have to be renamed. Just how does this help with public perception and branding? I believe Mozilla's policies have damaged their perception as an Open Source project. Perhaps this enhances their brand as a consumer product but it will be costly in the long term if it induces developers to stay away in droves.
"If every FOSS project behaved as Mozilla does then almost EVERY piece of software in most Linux distros would have to be renamed. Just how does this help with public perception and branding?"
/. fodder. :-)
How would you feel if someone started distributing shitloads of copies of a GUI for *nix systems, based on Gnome, that they called "Gnome" but which was extremely buggy, messed with other critical software on a user's box, phoned home to the people who are behind it and did a core dump of all sorts of information about the user along with anything that looks like it might identify the users of said system? Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention they made sure it could not be easily uninstalled.
Right now, if I get something based on the Linux kernel, I know I can expect the core part of the OS to behave in certain predictable ways. When I decide to use Gnome rather than KDF (for example) I have a good idea of what I will get. What is wrong with that? It works rather well, I'd say.
I've taken a look at the proposed GPLv3 and, at first glance, I don't see where it prohibits anyone who decides ti use such a licensing scheme from keeping control of the brand name of whatever they create and distribute -- it just says that source code must remain open source (free as in free speech). I'm not going to get into a technical legal thread discussion (I still want to be an IP lawyer, but am not one yet).
GPL makes heavy use of terms such as "unmodified program". But, more specifically, the proposed GPLv3 says, "Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software." Since GNU is certainly a major source of great FOSS, I'm using that as a case in point.
Debian wants to modify a program without distinguishing their version from the original. Bad Debian! If they don't like it the way it is and can't live with whatever legal restrictions there are on use of the name "Firefox" to refer to a browser, they should come up with their own name. Hmm, somebody has come up with Iceweasel which is apparently based on the same code that Firefox is. Funny that! Sounds like excellent
When I think of FOSS, I do not assume that all brands of software that have the same roots under an open source license are created equal, nor that I should not be sure to distinguish between them. 0Look at all the flavors (brands) of Linux people can choose from. The only think they have in common is the Linux kernel (thanks, Linus!). At least we know that whoever builds a complete OS around a Linux kernal had enough of a clue to start with a good foundation. Things differ from that point, as most Linux users realize. I want to know whose derivative software I am using.
"All beer is good beer. Some beer is better than others." That describes exactly why brand names matter and why they ought to enjoy protection under the law, expecially when the underlying product can be made and distributed by almost anyone.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
When I think of FOSS, I do not assume that all brands of software that have the same roots under an open source license are created equal, nor that I should not be sure to distinguish between them. 0Look at all the flavors (brands) of Linux people can choose from. The only think they have in common is the Linux kernel (thanks, Linus!). At least we know that whoever builds a complete OS around a Linux kernal had enough of a clue to start with a good foundation. Things differ from that point, as most Linux users realize. I want to know whose derivative software I am using.
But the kernel is a poster child for reasonable branding. Almost every distro makes numberous modifications to the mainline kernel. The behaivor is pretty much encouraged. Red Hat can refer to their product as "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" rather than "Red Hat Enterprise Weaselix". If I download the Linux kernel from kernel.org, then I know that is Linus' tree. Thing is, one is usually better off running distro kernels because (gasp!) they have been modified to better integrate with the rest of the distro. Come to think of it, the kernel devs leave a certain amount of stabilization and productilization to the distros. If I get it from a distro then I know it is a derivative. Lo and behold, the distros list their changes too so that I know in what way it differs. Linux has a good "brand" without Linus insisting that it can only be called "Linux" if all use is subject to his approval and scrutiny.
Your examples about "phoning home" and "impossible to uninstall" paint Debian in the same light as a Windows spyware vendor; this is completely unfair. They are doing nothing of the kind. Debian wants to be able to:
A. Integrate it with the directory and config file structures of the distro.
B. Freeze on a version and do only security updates.
Both are completely reasonable IMHO. You see, when I deploy Debian stable I too "want to know what I'm getting". In this case that means "A software base that won't change for a few years except for minimal bugfixing and security fixing."
You also say that "Debian wants to modify a program without distinguishing their version from the original. Bad Debian!" WRONG! Every Debian package has a "changelog.Debian.gz" file included with the docs. This lays out how and in what way they modified the original. Debian source packages are distributed as an upstream tarball with patch and control files. Nothing like "phoning home" is hidden. Again, this is standard practice with almost every package in almost every Linux distribution. The more reasonable FOSS projects do not throw up petty roadblocks to the kind of integration customizations are standard practice in Linux and xBSD distros. This is what I meant by "serious trouble" if every project behaved as Mozilla does. ALL packages would have to have different names and probably a different name in every distro. Openoffice say in one distro would be FreeOffice in RedHat and maybe Libre Office in Debian and nobody would be able to make head or tail of anything. In reality, everyone would standardize around forks with sane trademark usage policies.
What Mozilla risks is everyone standardizing on Iceweasel. If Iceweasel is easier to contribute to and easier to make standard distro usage of then it WILL happen. If a more actively developed Iceweasel comes to Windows then goodbye Firefox buzz and goodbye Firefox brand: the opposite of what their anal policies are meant to protect.
I don't dispute that Mozilla is within their legal rights to behave as they are behaving. But it is bad behaivor for an Open Source project. They would do better to drop the pretense and take future versions of Firefox closed source. Most Open Source projects simply do not micromanage outside use of their code bases and branding. Only overt attempt to steal credit or make a project look bad provoke the kind of behaivor Mozilla is engaging in from other projects. Mozilla is treating everybody tha
This is a very poor attempt at an analogy.
In your scenario what you've stolen is the money you left town with. It was still in your physical possession, but you had conditionally granted your property right in it to the other party to the contract, and the other party fullfilled the terms. It was the rightful property of the other party, and you took it without permission, depriving him of it.
Something doesn't have to be in the rightful owner's physical possession in order for it to be considered stolen if you take it.
ohh - you really feel strongly about this...
Locksmith