Hey, you're talking about the ether. Except you're trying to make it out of moving particles that average to an immovable background, instead of just an immovable background.
You are aware that was basically the theory 100 years ago, and there were some serious problems with it, right? Newtonic physics does, indeed work 99.9999% of the time...but it only takes one counter-example to disprove a theory. And there are a good half a dozen of them, including some pretty specific proofs there is no 'background' to the universe, there is no absolute frame of reference.
If you want a theory on those ground, you're going to need to address the fact that light travels at 300,000 kps no matter how fast you move.
The neat thing is, if we every find something that goes faster than light, we don't need to use it to travel faster than light...because it has 'negative mass', it will hold wormholes open for us, and we can just use those to travel.;)
Earth's still there. Photons don't have infinite mass at light speed, and hence have no rest mass.;)
Basically, photons have 'pretend mass'. They have finite 'mass' when going at the speed of light, and no mass when stopped. (Of course, you can't stop them.) As opposed to normal matter, which has infinite mass when going at the speed of light, and finite mass when stopped.
To understand photon mass, you have to use pretend math: A photon's mass is so small it doesn't exist until you multiple it by infinity, at which point you get a finite number.;)
The GPL is a 'license', which isn't technically exactly the same thing as a contract, although how it differs exactly I don't know. You can enter licenses implicitly through your actions, that's one diff. Basically, with a license, you're forbidden from doing X until you get it, and then you have to follow the rules to keep the license.
The best example might be a driver's license...I didn't sign any contract to get that. It's 'binding' only in the sense I don't have the right to drive otherwise, so I must follows the rules that go with said license. (Which I don't think there are any...the rules are about driving, not about licenses. They apply to people without licenses, also.)
But, anyway, proving damages isn't the important thing...the judge will make them stop selling the product without giving out the code, and quite possibly required them to give out the code to what they already sold.
But I think it's jumping the gun to conclude there are no damages...did the netfilter people ever indicate they'd be unwilling to license their code commercially? If not, then there's automatically the loss of profit from these people, who failed to purchase another license from them.
I think it would be a good idea for everyone who writes GPL or LGPL code to indicate they'd be willing to license their code commercially for, oh, 50% of the sale price. So they can walk into court claiming that lack of 50% as damages, right off. (Note 'willing' isn't the same thing as actually doing it...just a note saying that's their starting offer would do it. If someone actually came to them they could certainly decline.)
If you pick three points on the surface of the sphere, and draw straight lines between them, you have in fact drawn a triangle. (On a curved surface, just like on a flat one, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.)
This triangle, however, does not add up to 180 degrees, because you drew it in non-Euclidean space. It's still a triangle.
And, BTW, your 'three points in the same plane' is a bit silly, any three points are in the same plane. That's actually how a plane is defined.
The universe isn't expanding, everything in it is just getting smaller.;)
No, seriously, I don't understand why you'd be fine with the universe having nothing outside it if it was static, but get confused because the inside is getting bigger.
The size of the inside of the universe logically has absolutely no bearing on the 'outside' anyway, because, duh, we have X number of dimensions and it'd have something else, assuming it existed at all. It wouldn't even have time to let the universe get bigger in!
It's equiliant to living inside a computer and asserting that the fact the hard drive just got more space proves there is an outside which just got smaller. Well, yeah, if you completely ignore the fact that 'hard drive space' is nothing like physical space.
That's what RMS says, but it's quite possible he's wrong...derivative work is a tricky thing to pin down under copyright law. He doesn't get to magically call something derivative work and restrict it...if, legally, it's not, then he can't possibly place restrictions on distributing it via the GPL.
Not that's I'm saying he's wrong, but that we simply don't know what the courts will say.
It's wrong to say it 'has no legal weight' because it's never been in court. Almost every single contract in existence has never been in court, but that doesn't mean they have no legal weight.
What you mean to say is 'its legal weight has not been proven'. And even that's a stupid thing to say.
I want to find whoever started this 'The GPL might not hold up in court' and shoot them in the head. It's compeltely idiotic...of course the GPL in general will stand up in court. There are a few border cases, like if using linked libraries makes something count as a 'derivative work', but that's a copyright issue, not a GPL issue. The FSF have stated how they read the law, but the GPL doesn't magically vanish if they're wrong.
The danger is that someone might find a loophole that basically lets them close-source work that sane people can see should be GPLed, basically turning the GPL into the LGPL for all intents and purposes. There is absolutely no danger that any court would ever find GPL=public domain. The legal system simply does not make decisions like that that are clearly not the intent of the license.
It's not Microsoft's 'network', whatever the hell that means, it's Microsoft servers, at the moment. BTW, there is no such chat program as 'MSN'. MSN is an ISP with additional services, accessed via MSN Explorer.
Their chat system, however, is completely seperate from this. The software they provide for this is called 'Windows Messager' or something inane. Also, they provide software to cell phone companies.
However, there's nothing stopping people from setting up their own servers. Or their own clients. Communications don't even pass over any Microsoft owned system when two people talk to each other, and it quite possibly uses no MS software.
Just copy it to the clipboard, paste it into a text editor, clear the clipboard, save it, and claim you 'took notes', which is perfectly legal.
These entire concept is idiotic. It's stupid enough to say that you can't record a telephone conversation as audio, you have to transcribe it in real time to keep a record of it...but they're now saying you can't record a chat as text, but you can 'transcribe' it as..um..text. And, of course, thanks to scrollback, you don't even have to do it in real time!
What if I just retype the converstation in another window? What if I cut and paste a line at a time?
The whole concept is stupid. It's bad enough to have two party consent for telephone calls, but it makes no sense for chat, where a recorded converstation looks exactly like a 'Took very good notes' converstation.
Um...do you have any idea what you're talking about?
A hell of a lot of stuff is illegal without someone else's consent. The underlying immoral action is doing the thing to them or their stuff without their consent.
However, two party consent laws are stupid. It's perfectly legal to sit there and write out what someone's saying to you over the phone, but illegal to have a recorder store? That's just dumb.
And what god decided that Windows Messager was the 'correct' client for the MSN protocol?
And this entire concept is stupid...it implies if you purchase a telephone with automatic recording, you're free from any restrictions.
What the 'default' is is completely impossible to know on any communication system that allows third parties to connect devices or software to the system.
Remember, folks, if it has no vowels, you get to use random ones. Pronounce it randomly Neg, Nug, Nog, Nig, and Nag. If that gets boring, move on to long vowel sounds, like Noog and Neag.
The other option is the always fun glottal stop. N'g.
I'm sorry, and I'm sure Ng has a vowel sound, but I don't see why I have to put up with such a crappy transliteration of the sound into English. Syllables have vowel sounds, period, and English has no assumed vowel sounds, this isn't Hebrew or Japanese or a language where consonants have magic invisible vowels.
People with the last name 'Ng' need to find out who first translated it that way and beat the crap out of them, then start spelling it with a vowel somewhere.
The only 'word' I know of in scabble without a vowel sound is 'nth', and that's not properly a word at all, just like '3rd' isn't a word. The word for the expression is some hypothetical 'inth', just like 'third' is the word.
You realize, of course, that all software RMS writes is written in platform-independant and CPU-independant languages, right?
I.e., while it certainly mostly runs on non-free platforms, he has not locked himself into them by any reasonable interpetation of that.
Not to mention, I have no idea what you mean by 'non-free'. It's prefectly legal to design your own version of most processors out there, witness AMD, and the specifications are open.
RMS isn't complaining about free software running on non-free machines, he's complaining about free software that only runs on non-free machines, and cannot run on anything else.
Interestingly enough, there is non-free hardware planned, namely, the stuff that impliments DRM, and RMS is fairly close to punching the designers out in the street, ideology-wise.
We actually needing more people saying 'screw them' when commerical software companies start whining.
Look, we don't care, adn in fact have never cared, what benefits you. We care what benefits us.
Now, I completely understand that Sun doesn't see it this way, but, you know what? Screw them. We'll use something besides Java taht is free. Maybe it will be Perl, maybe Tcl, maybe C, who knows?
Or, hey, if you want us to use Java, the GPL is sitting right over there.
The first would be fairly noticable. (Hey, why are all those cars rolling do the street end over end?)
And the second would have serious problems starting fires inside houses. And I think you're underestimating the size of the laser required, especially in a town without any power!
Tough. Cancel them anyway. They obviously don't want it there.
Granted, if they then ask you where their stuff is, say 'We've got it right here, do you have an email address you wish it to be sent to, as the last address we sent it to reported it as spam?'.
The spam problem is bad enough without having to tip-toe around users so stupid they report email they've paid for as spam.
I don't think anyone said anonymous users or even known users should have access to Administator.
I was just taking issue with the concept of removing the account. By all means, IT are the only people who should have access to it, but it still needs to exist.
Otherwise you will run into incredible stupid things like having to reimage a drive because your network card failed. Which despite whatever you may claim, is not an effective way to run a business, especially a business with important enough data that it needs encryption. (Which is what this thread was about.) It may be an efficent way to run IT, but it sure as hell isn't helping the business any to wander around randomly reimaging the drives.
I mean, the most efficent way to run IT is to just not give anyone a computer, then you don't have to spend any of that precious precious budget of yours. But that's an incredibly stupid thing for a business to do, no matter how good it makes IT look.
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You are aware that was basically the theory 100 years ago, and there were some serious problems with it, right? Newtonic physics does, indeed work 99.9999% of the time...but it only takes one counter-example to disprove a theory. And there are a good half a dozen of them, including some pretty specific proofs there is no 'background' to the universe, there is no absolute frame of reference.
If you want a theory on those ground, you're going to need to address the fact that light travels at 300,000 kps no matter how fast you move.
The neat thing is, if we every find something that goes faster than light, we don't need to use it to travel faster than light...because it has 'negative mass', it will hold wormholes open for us, and we can just use those to travel. ;)
*aims a flashlight at the ground, turns it on*
Earth's still there. Photons don't have infinite mass at light speed, and hence have no rest mass. ;)
Basically, photons have 'pretend mass'. They have finite 'mass' when going at the speed of light, and no mass when stopped. (Of course, you can't stop them.) As opposed to normal matter, which has infinite mass when going at the speed of light, and finite mass when stopped.
To understand photon mass, you have to use pretend math: A photon's mass is so small it doesn't exist until you multiple it by infinity, at which point you get a finite number. ;)
The best example might be a driver's license...I didn't sign any contract to get that. It's 'binding' only in the sense I don't have the right to drive otherwise, so I must follows the rules that go with said license. (Which I don't think there are any...the rules are about driving, not about licenses. They apply to people without licenses, also.)
But, anyway, proving damages isn't the important thing...the judge will make them stop selling the product without giving out the code, and quite possibly required them to give out the code to what they already sold.
But I think it's jumping the gun to conclude there are no damages...did the netfilter people ever indicate they'd be unwilling to license their code commercially? If not, then there's automatically the loss of profit from these people, who failed to purchase another license from them.
I think it would be a good idea for everyone who writes GPL or LGPL code to indicate they'd be willing to license their code commercially for, oh, 50% of the sale price. So they can walk into court claiming that lack of 50% as damages, right off. (Note 'willing' isn't the same thing as actually doing it...just a note saying that's their starting offer would do it. If someone actually came to them they could certainly decline.)
If you pick three points on the surface of the sphere, and draw straight lines between them, you have in fact drawn a triangle. (On a curved surface, just like on a flat one, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.)
This triangle, however, does not add up to 180 degrees, because you drew it in non-Euclidean space. It's still a triangle.
And, BTW, your 'three points in the same plane' is a bit silly, any three points are in the same plane. That's actually how a plane is defined.
No, seriously, I don't understand why you'd be fine with the universe having nothing outside it if it was static, but get confused because the inside is getting bigger.
The size of the inside of the universe logically has absolutely no bearing on the 'outside' anyway, because, duh, we have X number of dimensions and it'd have something else, assuming it existed at all. It wouldn't even have time to let the universe get bigger in!
It's equiliant to living inside a computer and asserting that the fact the hard drive just got more space proves there is an outside which just got smaller. Well, yeah, if you completely ignore the fact that 'hard drive space' is nothing like physical space.
Until you realize that the whole thing is non-local and your brains explode.
That at least answers all the silly people who ask what's outside it. Klein bottles don't have 'inside' and 'outside'!
Sound waves are displacement of matter, not just air.
Not that's I'm saying he's wrong, but that we simply don't know what the courts will say.
What you mean to say is 'its legal weight has not been proven'. And even that's a stupid thing to say.
I want to find whoever started this 'The GPL might not hold up in court' and shoot them in the head. It's compeltely idiotic...of course the GPL in general will stand up in court. There are a few border cases, like if using linked libraries makes something count as a 'derivative work', but that's a copyright issue, not a GPL issue. The FSF have stated how they read the law, but the GPL doesn't magically vanish if they're wrong.
The danger is that someone might find a loophole that basically lets them close-source work that sane people can see should be GPLed, basically turning the GPL into the LGPL for all intents and purposes. There is absolutely no danger that any court would ever find GPL=public domain. The legal system simply does not make decisions like that that are clearly not the intent of the license.
Their chat system, however, is completely seperate from this. The software they provide for this is called 'Windows Messager' or something inane. Also, they provide software to cell phone companies.
However, there's nothing stopping people from setting up their own servers. Or their own clients. Communications don't even pass over any Microsoft owned system when two people talk to each other, and it quite possibly uses no MS software.
Nono, 'nth' is actually a legal 'word' in scrabble, which I personally think is inane, but it's actually in the scrabble dictionary.
These entire concept is idiotic. It's stupid enough to say that you can't record a telephone conversation as audio, you have to transcribe it in real time to keep a record of it...but they're now saying you can't record a chat as text, but you can 'transcribe' it as..um..text. And, of course, thanks to scrollback, you don't even have to do it in real time!
The whole concept is stupid. It's bad enough to have two party consent for telephone calls, but it makes no sense for chat, where a recorded converstation looks exactly like a 'Took very good notes' converstation.
A hell of a lot of stuff is illegal without someone else's consent. The underlying immoral action is doing the thing to them or their stuff without their consent.
However, two party consent laws are stupid. It's perfectly legal to sit there and write out what someone's saying to you over the phone, but illegal to have a recorder store? That's just dumb.
And this entire concept is stupid...it implies if you purchase a telephone with automatic recording, you're free from any restrictions.
What the 'default' is is completely impossible to know on any communication system that allows third parties to connect devices or software to the system.
The other option is the always fun glottal stop. N'g.
I'm sorry, and I'm sure Ng has a vowel sound, but I don't see why I have to put up with such a crappy transliteration of the sound into English. Syllables have vowel sounds, period, and English has no assumed vowel sounds, this isn't Hebrew or Japanese or a language where consonants have magic invisible vowels.
People with the last name 'Ng' need to find out who first translated it that way and beat the crap out of them, then start spelling it with a vowel somewhere.
The only 'word' I know of in scabble without a vowel sound is 'nth', and that's not properly a word at all, just like '3rd' isn't a word. The word for the expression is some hypothetical 'inth', just like 'third' is the word.
I.e., while it certainly mostly runs on non-free platforms, he has not locked himself into them by any reasonable interpetation of that.
Not to mention, I have no idea what you mean by 'non-free'. It's prefectly legal to design your own version of most processors out there, witness AMD, and the specifications are open.
RMS isn't complaining about free software running on non-free machines, he's complaining about free software that only runs on non-free machines, and cannot run on anything else.
Interestingly enough, there is non-free hardware planned, namely, the stuff that impliments DRM, and RMS is fairly close to punching the designers out in the street, ideology-wise.
Look, we don't care, adn in fact have never cared, what benefits you. We care what benefits us.
Now, I completely understand that Sun doesn't see it this way, but, you know what? Screw them. We'll use something besides Java taht is free. Maybe it will be Perl, maybe Tcl, maybe C, who knows?
Or, hey, if you want us to use Java, the GPL is sitting right over there.
And the second would have serious problems starting fires inside houses. And I think you're underestimating the size of the laser required, especially in a town without any power!
What do you mean, 'most retail stores'?
I didn't say cancel their accounts, I said stop sending them email.
Granted, if they then ask you where their stuff is, say 'We've got it right here, do you have an email address you wish it to be sent to, as the last address we sent it to reported it as spam?'.
The spam problem is bad enough without having to tip-toe around users so stupid they report email they've paid for as spam.
I was just taking issue with the concept of removing the account. By all means, IT are the only people who should have access to it, but it still needs to exist.
Otherwise you will run into incredible stupid things like having to reimage a drive because your network card failed. Which despite whatever you may claim, is not an effective way to run a business, especially a business with important enough data that it needs encryption. (Which is what this thread was about.) It may be an efficent way to run IT, but it sure as hell isn't helping the business any to wander around randomly reimaging the drives.
I mean, the most efficent way to run IT is to just not give anyone a computer, then you don't have to spend any of that precious precious budget of yours. But that's an incredibly stupid thing for a business to do, no matter how good it makes IT look.