From the link at the top of the slashdot article (which might have changed), it says: "At the heart of Monday's fireball, however, was a solitary object -- perhaps a small asteroid or a piece of a comet"... "If this was a rocky asteroid, then it probably measured between 1 and 2 meters across and weighed 30 or so metric tons"
This is unsurprising, since a car-sized metor would have basically blown up a good size chunk of whatever county it landed in... if you read the original story it was saying baseball sized or thereabouts
Where did it say the object was baseball sized?
The original story said it was 1-2 meters across. Also, the article said thae object could have been 30 tons! By comparison my car weighs about 2,500 lbs, or about 1.2 tons. So this object could have weighed about 15 cars! That would be a pretty heavy/large baseball... certainly not regulation.
While the APIs may be LGPL'd, in the
case where you have developed an application
which requires MySQL for operation, then you
must either license your application under the
GPL or apply for a commerical license see the policy page which spell this out.
Perhaps a Settlement instead of the Courts?
on
MySQL & Nusphere
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps these two could just settle this:
MySQL AB grants to NuSphere a fully
paid-up, non-exclusive royalty free
license to link Gemini against MySQL
without requiring Gemini to be licensed
under the GPL (per clause 10 of the GPL).
NuSphere agrees to transfer "mysql.org"
domain to MySQL AB and not to use MySQL
name in any way with the exception of the
phrase: "Gemini, an approved extension
module for MySQL(tm)".
All claims regarding breach of contract
or other claims are set aside, on both
sides of the isle. And MySQL AB keeps
the $312,501 sum paid to date.
NuSphere agrees to pay an additional sum
to be mually agreed upon (another $312,501)
to be used for salary of those engineers
working on the improvement of MySQL.
In this way, the issue is set aside so as to
not widen the rifts between the companies and
to keep the MySQL community together. Further, NuSphere has an opportunity to "re-affirm" its
committment to the MySQL community and MySQL AB
retains most of its rights.
There is also a big legal difference. If I build
an application with MySQL and I want to distribute my application, I have to either (a) license MySQL from MySQL AB or I must release my application under the GPL. With PostgreSQL you don't have these restrictions.
Or you could do business with PostgreSQL.Org,
which does not require any sort of commercial
license when linking your application
with the database and then distributing the
composite. This is the best option
of all -- zero legal entanglements.
This really isn't all that bad by itself,
the real problem is that copyright terms
are far too long. So perhaps this is the
compromise, fee per use, but for a limited
time like the constitution promises. I'm sorry, but 90 some odd years is not limited -- if a book released now will not become public domain in my life time (or possibly even my children's life time) then it is not limited. Heck, books that were written when my grandparents (who are all dead now) were children are not even in the public domain due to the Sonny Bono Act!
Can somebody explain how there can exist proprietary non-open source extensions to a GPL'd product.
If I own the copyright to some software, I can dual-license it under another license, and with this other license can be proprietary. Although it isn't strictly necessary, Clause 10 in the GPL explicitly makes this clear saying that the copyright author may grant exceptions.
For example, the Cygwin distribution (which is GPL) grants an exception for linking with OSI approved licensed software (GPL compatible or otherwise like the old Python license) without requiring it to be GPL. Further, if you want to build a proprietary product with it you must contact RedHat and ask for an exception so that your work can be distributed without source code access and the other freedoms that the GPL grants.
Linus has said many times that building proprietary software on top of (but not modifying) Linux is OK and doesn't require that your product be licensed under the GPL. This is essentially invoking clause 10 in a very broad manner.
Unless the MySQL people have explicitly said that proprietary extensions are "OK" (hence granting an license) then one cannot develop MySQL extensions without either licensing the extension under the GPL or getting an exception. I'm not a MySQL person, has MySQL AB publicly promised that extensions can be proprietary? Or has MySQL granted an exception for Gemini? If so, then all is ok. Otherwise, the binary for Gemini is being distributed and if it only works with MySQL then you should be able to (under the GPL) write in to get the source code...
However, if Gemini is "stand-alone" and does not require MySQL to be useful, then it need not be GPLd. But in this case one can't MySQL and Gemini and then further re-distribute. Kinda complicated. But remember, GPL is all about distribution rights. I'm not a lawyer here, so please don't take my word for the facts; I've just had to research this for my own edification.
But that all being said, this entire item is mostly about trademark. Quite clearly NuSphere is being a bad player.
From this link it says... NuSphere MySQL Advantage includes an unauthorized modified version of MySQL which includes support for GEMINI tables. As long as GEMINI is not released under open source, as required by the GPL license of the MySQL server, we at MySQL AB can't recommend anyone to use this distribution. Also, NuSphere uses our trademark in the product name and elsewhere without our permission.
The GPL is pretty clear, NuSphere can't be distributing GEMINI unless it does so under the GPL or unless they get an exception from MySQL AB (clause 10). Since MySQL AB is unlikely to give them an exception... hello GPL'd GEMINI! Where do I write in for my copy of the source code?
This is in addition to the trademark issue, which I personally think is rude on behalf of NuSphere. Now, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with forking MySQL... but one shouldn't fork and try to take the trademark with it. Perhaps NuSphere should give their product a new name (GeminiSQL) and say "derived from MySQL", no problem here and further, they should get off the mysql.org domain name...
From the intro: NuSphere has extended MySQL with the very cool, but not open source Gemini table type.
How can this extension not be not licensed under GPL? To extend MySQL some sort of linking would have to be done, and this would make their extension fall under the GPL unless they have received an exception from MySQL AB.
MSNBC did a very good job with this one. It
is pretty darn accurate. They could have
included a time-line history of how the
copyright term has been extended from
twenty some odd year maximum (24?) to the
current period of 95 years!
However, I have one bone to pick. Where
was this article when the Sonny-Bono act
(the one that extended the copyright term
retroactively) and the DMCA were being
debated in congress? Now... that might
have made a difference.
Very cool. Judge Jackson's staff didn't even respond to a hand written remedy which I proposed a while back. Perhaps the new Judge will seriously consider the alternatives.
Clark
And in their IP notice at the bottom: "...and Toast are trademarks of Roxio, Inc...." (emphasis mine).
Toast isn't very generic when applied to the domain, software -- and software completely unrelated to a preparation technique for bread.
Look at Java. It is a strong trademark as well.
However "CDDB", aka "Compac Disk Data Base" is
rather generic and isn't a very strong trademark.
It looks like the PTO is actually giving us an opportunity to act rather than just making disapproval noises!
Do we have a open source project registry
the USPTO can use when doing scans for
prior art for software and business patents?
Such a registry should list (a) the goals of the project, (b) relevant dates, (c) related technologies, (d) techniques used, and (e) business processes which the software automates.
If the registry contained an extensive
cross-references to other projects, and yes, other patents (by number) it would be even more valueable to the PTO.
In short, if we want to do our part to stop stupid patents... we should be helping the PTO along... no? Otherwise we should just keep quiet and deal with the results.
I don't have children; but when I was around 12
a parent took me into a porn shop and showed
me around. It was an "educational field trip".
We discussed sex, love, marriage, respect, gender differences, children, sexually transmitted desieses, condoms, toys, and even fingered through a few of the mags on the shelves. I could ask any questions I wanted
-- indeed it was very easy to talk about the subject with just about every "no no" right there
in plain view! I must say, after that I wasn't about o fall for any of the stupid games my friends were playing. Overall, since my parent had introduced it _on their terms_ they were not caught off guard, were very prepared and had the ability to "frame" the entire experience. This is important. I would do a field trip like this *before* your child hits puberty -- sex is a very natural and powerful activity and deserves respect; not talking about it breads fear and ignorance
Author: WHAT HAPPEN? Webmaster: SOMEONE SET US UP THE SMARTTAG Webmaster: WE GET LINKS. Author:WHAT? Webmaster: MAIN EXPLORER TURN ON. Gates: HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN !! Gates: ALL YOUR CONTENT ARE BELONG TO US. Gates: YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO ASSIMILATION. Author: WHAT YOU SAY! Gates: YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME. Gates: HA HA HA HA....
Morgo is correct. Unicode is only capable of representing a sub-set of ISO 10646-1:2000. This is detailed in the UTF-32 definition among other places which says:
UTF-32 is restricted in values to the range 0x000000 to 0x10FFFF, which precisely matches the range of characters defined in the Unicode Standard (and other standards such as XML), and those representable by UTF-8 and UTF-16.
Nice summary. Although UTF-32 only implements a subset of UCS-4 due to compatibility issues. You can find more information on unicode at unicode.org, in particular their faq is very helpful, especially the sub-faq on UTF-16 and the BOM.
UTF-16 is used by some that needs to extend their UCS-2 applications to UTF-16. Whoa! UCS-2 is the character set. You can encode UCS-2 using either UTF-16 or UTF-8. Once again, Unicode is an *encoding* and UCS is the *character set*. Big difference and you seem to be reversing them.
And UCS-2 is not the only way to encode Unicode. You mean Unicode is not the only way to encode UCS-2. UCS-2 is a character set, unicode is an encoding of this character set.
On Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, April 17, 1988 there was an interview with Richard Stallman (RMS) and Eric Raymond (ESR). You might find the contrast between Linus and RMS interesting.
Oh yes, this interview doesn't start till 1/2 way through the audio file, it starts about 27:30...
She did a very good job this time as well.
Linus came off like a very thoughtful,
grounded person. His discussion of the
GPL was a bit muttled, in particular I
thought he wasn't clear enough as to what
the exact terms of the GPL are... namely
that the source code must be made freely
available. I also found it interesting
that Linus (once again) failed to mention
RMS, no suprise here. Linus's characterization
of the primary difference between Windows
and Linux was very good... he clearly
made the point that it is all about freedom
of choice and that those using Microsoft's
software don't have this choice. Further,
his discussion about IBM was very clear.
Nice interview.
As an interviewer it is often helpful to
put forth popular assertions so that the
interviewee can correct them. This is
a technique, and I'm sure it was planned.
Slashdot Mirror
From the link at the top of the slashdot article (which might have changed), it says: "At the heart of Monday's fireball, however, was a solitary object -- perhaps a small asteroid or a piece of a comet" ... "If this was a rocky asteroid, then it probably measured between 1 and 2 meters across and weighed 30 or so metric tons"
Get a cell phone
Yes, but what about the air in the office you are transmitting through!
This is unsurprising, since a car-sized metor would have basically blown up a good size chunk of whatever county it landed in ... if you read the original story it was saying baseball sized or thereabouts
Where did it say the object was baseball sized?
The original story said it was 1-2 meters across. Also, the article said thae object could have been 30 tons! By comparison my car weighs about 2,500 lbs, or about 1.2 tons. So this object could have weighed about 15 cars! That would be a pretty heavy/large baseball... certainly not regulation.
While the APIs may be LGPL'd, in the case where you have developed an application which requires MySQL for operation, then you must either license your application under the GPL or apply for a commerical license see the policy page which spell this out.
In this way, the issue is set aside so as to not widen the rifts between the companies and to keep the MySQL community together. Further, NuSphere has an opportunity to "re-affirm" its committment to the MySQL community and MySQL AB retains most of its rights.
There is also a big legal difference. If I build an application with MySQL and I want to distribute my application, I have to either (a) license MySQL from MySQL AB or I must release my application under the GPL. With PostgreSQL you don't have these restrictions.
Or you could do business with PostgreSQL.Org, which does not require any sort of commercial license when linking your application with the database and then distributing the composite. This is the best option of all -- zero legal entanglements.
This really isn't all that bad by itself, the real problem is that copyright terms are far too long. So perhaps this is the compromise, fee per use, but for a limited time like the constitution promises. I'm sorry, but 90 some odd years is not limited -- if a book released now will not become public domain in my life time (or possibly even my children's life time) then it is not limited. Heck, books that were written when my grandparents (who are all dead now) were children are not even in the public domain due to the Sonny Bono Act!
If I own the copyright to some software, I can dual-license it under another license, and with this other license can be proprietary. Although it isn't strictly necessary, Clause 10 in the GPL explicitly makes this clear saying that the copyright author may grant exceptions.
For example, the Cygwin distribution (which is GPL) grants an exception for linking with OSI approved licensed software (GPL compatible or otherwise like the old Python license) without requiring it to be GPL. Further, if you want to build a proprietary product with it you must contact RedHat and ask for an exception so that your work can be distributed without source code access and the other freedoms that the GPL grants.
Linus has said many times that building proprietary software on top of (but not modifying) Linux is OK and doesn't require that your product be licensed under the GPL. This is essentially invoking clause 10 in a very broad manner.
Unless the MySQL people have explicitly said that proprietary extensions are "OK" (hence granting an license) then one cannot develop MySQL extensions without either licensing the extension under the GPL or getting an exception. I'm not a MySQL person, has MySQL AB publicly promised that extensions can be proprietary? Or has MySQL granted an exception for Gemini? If so, then all is ok. Otherwise, the binary for Gemini is being distributed and if it only works with MySQL then you should be able to (under the GPL) write in to get the source code...
However, if Gemini is "stand-alone" and does not require MySQL to be useful, then it need not be GPLd. But in this case one can't MySQL and Gemini and then further re-distribute. Kinda complicated. But remember, GPL is all about distribution rights. I'm not a lawyer here, so please don't take my word for the facts; I've just had to research this for my own edification.
But that all being said, this entire item is mostly about trademark. Quite clearly NuSphere is being a bad player.
The GPL is pretty clear, NuSphere can't be distributing GEMINI unless it does so under the GPL or unless they get an exception from MySQL AB (clause 10). Since MySQL AB is unlikely to give them an exception ... hello GPL'd GEMINI! Where do I write in for my copy of the source code?
This is in addition to the trademark issue, which I personally think is rude on behalf of NuSphere. Now, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with forking MySQL... but one shouldn't fork and try to take the trademark with it. Perhaps NuSphere should give their product a new name (GeminiSQL) and say "derived from MySQL", no problem here and further, they should get off the mysql.org domain name...
How can this extension not be not licensed under GPL? To extend MySQL some sort of linking would have to be done, and this would make their extension fall under the GPL unless they have received an exception from MySQL AB.
However, I have one bone to pick. Where was this article when the Sonny-Bono act (the one that extended the copyright term retroactively) and the DMCA were being debated in congress? Now... that might have made a difference.
c/written/delivered/
Clark Evans
http://distributedcopyright.org
Very cool. Judge Jackson's staff didn't even respond to a hand written remedy which I proposed a while back. Perhaps the new Judge will seriously consider the alternatives. Clark
Toast isn't very generic when applied to the domain, software -- and software completely unrelated to a preparation technique for bread. Look at Java. It is a strong trademark as well. However "CDDB", aka "Compac Disk Data Base" is rather generic and isn't a very strong trademark.
Do we have a open source project registry the USPTO can use when doing scans for prior art for software and business patents? Such a registry should list (a) the goals of the project, (b) relevant dates, (c) related technologies, (d) techniques used, and (e) business processes which the software automates. If the registry contained an extensive cross-references to other projects, and yes, other patents (by number) it would be even more valueable to the PTO.
In short, if we want to do our part to stop stupid patents... we should be helping the PTO along... no? Otherwise we should just keep quiet and deal with the results.
I don't have children; but when I was around 12 a parent took me into a porn shop and showed me around. It was an "educational field trip". We discussed sex, love, marriage, respect, gender differences, children, sexually transmitted desieses, condoms, toys, and even fingered through a few of the mags on the shelves. I could ask any questions I wanted -- indeed it was very easy to talk about the subject with just about every "no no" right there in plain view! I must say, after that I wasn't about o fall for any of the stupid games my friends were playing. Overall, since my parent had introduced it _on their terms_ they were not caught off guard, were very prepared and had the ability to "frame" the entire experience. This is important. I would do a field trip like this *before* your child hits puberty -- sex is a very natural and powerful activity and deserves respect; not talking about it breads fear and ignorance
Author: WHAT HAPPEN? ....
Webmaster: SOMEONE SET US UP THE SMARTTAG
Webmaster: WE GET LINKS.
Author:WHAT?
Webmaster: MAIN EXPLORER TURN ON.
Gates: HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN !!
Gates: ALL YOUR CONTENT ARE BELONG TO US.
Gates: YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO ASSIMILATION.
Author: WHAT YOU SAY!
Gates: YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME.
Gates: HA HA HA HA
Morgo is correct. Unicode is only capable of representing a sub-set of ISO 10646-1:2000. This is detailed in the UTF-32 definition among other places which says: UTF-32 is restricted in values to the range 0x000000 to 0x10FFFF, which precisely matches the range of characters defined in the Unicode Standard (and other standards such as XML), and those representable by UTF-8 and UTF-16.
Nice summary. Although UTF-32 only implements a subset of UCS-4 due to compatibility issues. You can find more information on unicode at unicode.org, in particular their faq is very helpful, especially the sub-faq on UTF-16 and the BOM.
UTF-16 is used by some that needs to extend their UCS-2 applications to UTF-16. Whoa! UCS-2 is the character set. You can encode UCS-2 using either UTF-16 or UTF-8. Once again, Unicode is an *encoding* and UCS is the *character set*. Big difference and you seem to be reversing them.
And UCS-2 is not the only way to encode Unicode. You mean Unicode is not the only way to encode UCS-2. UCS-2 is a character set, unicode is an encoding of this character set.
On Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, April 17, 1988 there was an interview with Richard Stallman (RMS) and Eric Raymond (ESR). You might find the contrast between Linus and RMS interesting.
Oh yes, this interview doesn't start till 1/2 way through the audio file, it starts about 27:30...
She did a very good job this time as well. Linus came off like a very thoughtful, grounded person. His discussion of the GPL was a bit muttled, in particular I thought he wasn't clear enough as to what the exact terms of the GPL are... namely that the source code must be made freely available. I also found it interesting that Linus (once again) failed to mention RMS, no suprise here. Linus's characterization of the primary difference between Windows and Linux was very good... he clearly made the point that it is all about freedom of choice and that those using Microsoft's software don't have this choice. Further, his discussion about IBM was very clear. Nice interview.
As an interviewer it is often helpful to put forth popular assertions so that the interviewee can correct them. This is a technique, and I'm sure it was planned.