In the current version (and v1) of GPL there is a or future versions clause that allows a new GPL version to be applied to previous versions (at the software vendor/developer's discretion). This means that once GPLv3 is released, any piece of software under the previous versions can be retroactively upgraded to v3. If MS wanted to sue someone, they would have to do it now and have the courts rule before version 3 is released, otherwise the case can be ruled moot. This is also why they are doing all the saber rattling while they still have a chance that someone will listen.
The GPL isn't just a copyright license. It is also a patent license, of sorts (the FSF doesn't believe that software is patentable, any more than a mathematical algorithm is). The new version of GPL says that any patent protections applied to one copy of the software applies to that piece of software no matter who is using it, which breaks the loophole Novell and MS used to make their deal.
As I understand it, you, the software developer, has to upgrade your software to use the future versions, its not automatic. As such, many software distributors will still be using GPL v2 for a while after v3 becomes official. However, it is very likely that many developers will release their software under version 3 and the protections and restrictions in version 3 will apply to the distributors and conveyors of that software. All the FSF has to do is release GCC under GPLv3 and I am sure SuSE will include the upgraded version (its that or be stuck permanently with the current version of GCC or have to personally maintain a fork of it, no matter what bugs show up). By licensing your software under GPL, or BSD, or whatever, you don't lose the right to say what happens to the main branch, but you do give other people the right to use it as they see fit.
depending on the DMCA and how it gets applied, or more appropriately how the lawyers attempt to apply it. IANAL, but it could be argued that the JS protections built into the site to keep this information obfuscated falls under DCMA protections against hacking around protections.
As an aside, I am against the DCMA and think lawsuits like this are complete BS. Unfortunately, I am not in charge and so I have to deal with the laws as is until an appropriate opportunity to really affect change presents itself (those who would yell "Vote!" at me (either with my pocket book or in an election) simplify the issue and don't realize that it goes deeper than that.)
Which is why internet law needs to be moved to a more global organization. As it stands now, when you break an American law online, do American laws apply because the law is being broken in America, or not because the person breaking it is out of America? AFAIK, all of Blogger's hosting happens inside the US, which, depending on interpretation, could mean that this blogger committed a crime in the US, and just happens to be currently outside of the country (like if I robbed a bank and ran to Mexico).
Like the person above you quoted, Microsoft wouldn't exactly be a "distributor", they would be a "conveyor" by giving access and patent litigation protection to a distribution of a GPLv3 piece of software. Thus every other copy of that software would then be protected from patent litigation, no matter who is using it. Thus the paper itself doesn't have to be under GPLv3 to make MS subject to the license. Mind you this would still have to be upheld in court, if Microsoft thought it could fight it. IANAL, but from everything I've read MS is either going to have to cancel this Novell deal completely, and revoke those coupons (don't know if that is possible in the Novell deal or not), or bend over and say thank you, either now or 3+ years of litigation from now.
From having read Moglen's blog and a number of other interviews/articles of/about him, GPL3 is in its final draft and will be released in June (IIRC). It closes the loophole Novell used, and not only does what is described in this article, but also, could make Microsoft a Linux distributor, subject to GPL, et. al.
As far as the MS/Novell deal, Novell paid a small sum (relatively speaking), Microsoft paid a much larger sum, in part for these coupons which they are reselling. I forget the numbers but they should be easy to google.
I do have to agree that doing something is often better than doing nothing, but how many attacks on the President or any Australian official have been attempted by remote control bombs like this? I know that this may be how some IEDs in Iraq are triggered, but most home-made bombs these terrorists are using are manually controlled (suicide bombers are the most common example) or are done with low band radio waves that wouldn't be blocked by this unless all electronics will be blocked. This doesn't remove the low hanging fruit, at best it will remove the mid-hanging fruit leaving the rest as it was. When there are better, less disruptive ways to secure something, do that. This would be, in IT terms, like finding a way to block 0-day attacks, but leaving the system unpatched against script-kiddie worms.
then they know what to fix, they can work around it and voilà, no more legal trouble, and Microsoft doesn't get a penny.
Not so, Red Hat would still owe Microsoft damages for having infringed on the patent and made money off of it. Yes, the community would eventually be able to work around it, but even just a couple valid patent claims could cripple many open source vendors. However, the same is true of Microsoft. It is widely believed, and the way MS is acting right now I would tend to agree, that MS software infringes on a number of other patents, and probably some GPL licensed software. If MS tries to swing its 235 pound hammer in court, it will be hit by even more smaller hammers. Thus the FUD and cold war tactics.
That may be part of the business logic. But there is also the fact that, if forced, China will just block all the western search engines completely and set up their own China only portal. I'm almost surprised that they haven't already, but I guess that is only being held back because of hopes for better trade agreements with the US. If Google, Yahoo, and the rest stopped censoring, China itself would do it, and do it more forcefully and poorly. While I don't buy into the "Do no evil" mantra Google tries to feed us, they have successfully fought to protect some user privacy in China. It just can't do everything because then China won't let it do anything.
IIRC, the theory of dark matter came from calculations that showed that the universe should have more mass than can be accounted for by visible matter. Showing that there is gravitational lensing supports that previously only mathematically proven theory.
The news isn't that gravitational lensing was observed, but the shape of the area of dark matter. FTFA:
The ring is the first detection of dark matter with a unique structure different from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas in the cluster.
Um, Scientology, by US law, is a "real" church. Not only that, but any law that says you can't protest something conflicts with your first amendment rights. The fact that this guy ran away to plead asylum rather than face the courts and fight for his Constitutional rights makes him worse than just a fugitive (IMO). Running away as he did just gave the courts valid reasons to imprison him as well as the trumped up bs that Scientology is trying to push on him. It also weakens any appeal or counter suit that he might try to file against Scientology.
Right or not about the pervasive power of Scientology, he only makes himself sound like a tin foil hatter.
I'm sorry, I fail to see any FUD in this article. Sun isn't talking about buying out the license from the developers or anything similar. All the article seems to say is that open source developers deserve to be recognized for their software. The way Sun wants to recognize them is by compensating them for the software. You are still completely free to say no to them, they will still use your software as they see fit and the license (GPL, BSD, etc.) allows, just as if you had taken the money.
Actually, it has been well documented, in numerous Supreme Court rulings, that for there to be free speech, there must be the ability to speak privately without fear of being recorded. It is a mixture of the First and Fourth Amendments that allows things like wiretapping only after court review.
I don't know about that. I would expect Verizon to have a commercial stake in giving the government whatever information it wants. I know for sure on the state level Verizon gets numerous contracts (e.g. Florida), I would expect it has a commercial stake in government contracts as well...
Not necessarily. Its not legal to distribute a book in a different language, so it could be argued that implementing the same code in a different programming language would be infringing on the original copyright. Thats what makes this such a gray area. IANAL, but I would say that implementing the exact same algorithm would be closer to copyright infringement, but implementing a new algorithm based on the original would not (thus why so much non-fiction can be about the same events and even cite each other as sources).
This may just be perfect world thinking on my part though...
While I think I agree with your general principal, I have to very strongly disagree with the zero bugs is a fixed target statement. While the target never changes, it does move with every change to the software. Each bug fix can, and in many cases does, create more new ones or reopens old ones. Every new feature added can create conflicts, bugs, and other wonkiness.
Besides, what you should really be doing is checking your own site statistics that the ads are linking to, to determine how many people the ad is drawing.
Which is subject to the same issue and is better how? If this article is accurate, and I am inclined to believe it is, this information really does throw off marketing data, not just from hosted ads, but also from internal campaigns, any A-B testing a site might be doing, etc.
BTW, I am one of those FF users that believes no cookie should be around longer than my browser is on also (although I am not so militant as to block all cookies unless I let them in).
No, what the GP was trying to point out is that the Democrats are just as unwilling to really change anything (specifically the Pres) as the Republicans are.
Good point, but the IRC channels aren't the only way people are able to get help, more and more websites have how-tos; more message boards are being created for those who can't find the IRC channels; blogs, mailing lists, etc. are all growing. All of these things are helping the FOSS community.
1-3 its called a corporate firewall (or proxy or gateway). Those are designed to monitor internet traffic and filter some out. If a company made a whole new program based just on what they can reverse engineer to fight one program, I personally would sit back and laugh at the fools. Their punishment is to deal with the code monstrosity that they birthed.
As far as 4 goes, if Comcast took what is a legal piece of software and used it in the way you describe to get an unfair advantage for a given market, that is anti-trust, and they would have to pay some heavy fines and stop what they are doing. (at least as long as the net is kept neutral)
DoS, no matter the reason, is illegal for completely unrelated reasons. That doesn't stop the 'vigilantes' (if you will) from using it to fight spammers or in your example, but if you are caught you should face the consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
In the current version (and v1) of GPL there is a or future versions clause that allows a new GPL version to be applied to previous versions (at the software vendor/developer's discretion). This means that once GPLv3 is released, any piece of software under the previous versions can be retroactively upgraded to v3. If MS wanted to sue someone, they would have to do it now and have the courts rule before version 3 is released, otherwise the case can be ruled moot. This is also why they are doing all the saber rattling while they still have a chance that someone will listen.
The GPL isn't just a copyright license. It is also a patent license, of sorts (the FSF doesn't believe that software is patentable, any more than a mathematical algorithm is). The new version of GPL says that any patent protections applied to one copy of the software applies to that piece of software no matter who is using it, which breaks the loophole Novell and MS used to make their deal.
As I understand it, you, the software developer, has to upgrade your software to use the future versions, its not automatic. As such, many software distributors will still be using GPL v2 for a while after v3 becomes official. However, it is very likely that many developers will release their software under version 3 and the protections and restrictions in version 3 will apply to the distributors and conveyors of that software. All the FSF has to do is release GCC under GPLv3 and I am sure SuSE will include the upgraded version (its that or be stuck permanently with the current version of GCC or have to personally maintain a fork of it, no matter what bugs show up). By licensing your software under GPL, or BSD, or whatever, you don't lose the right to say what happens to the main branch, but you do give other people the right to use it as they see fit.
depending on the DMCA and how it gets applied, or more appropriately how the lawyers attempt to apply it. IANAL, but it could be argued that the JS protections built into the site to keep this information obfuscated falls under DCMA protections against hacking around protections.
As an aside, I am against the DCMA and think lawsuits like this are complete BS. Unfortunately, I am not in charge and so I have to deal with the laws as is until an appropriate opportunity to really affect change presents itself (those who would yell "Vote!" at me (either with my pocket book or in an election) simplify the issue and don't realize that it goes deeper than that.)
Which is why internet law needs to be moved to a more global organization. As it stands now, when you break an American law online, do American laws apply because the law is being broken in America, or not because the person breaking it is out of America? AFAIK, all of Blogger's hosting happens inside the US, which, depending on interpretation, could mean that this blogger committed a crime in the US, and just happens to be currently outside of the country (like if I robbed a bank and ran to Mexico).
Like the person above you quoted, Microsoft wouldn't exactly be a "distributor", they would be a "conveyor" by giving access and patent litigation protection to a distribution of a GPLv3 piece of software. Thus every other copy of that software would then be protected from patent litigation, no matter who is using it. Thus the paper itself doesn't have to be under GPLv3 to make MS subject to the license. Mind you this would still have to be upheld in court, if Microsoft thought it could fight it. IANAL, but from everything I've read MS is either going to have to cancel this Novell deal completely, and revoke those coupons (don't know if that is possible in the Novell deal or not), or bend over and say thank you, either now or 3+ years of litigation from now.
From having read Moglen's blog and a number of other interviews/articles of/about him, GPL3 is in its final draft and will be released in June (IIRC). It closes the loophole Novell used, and not only does what is described in this article, but also, could make Microsoft a Linux distributor, subject to GPL, et. al.
As far as the MS/Novell deal, Novell paid a small sum (relatively speaking), Microsoft paid a much larger sum, in part for these coupons which they are reselling. I forget the numbers but they should be easy to google.
I do have to agree that doing something is often better than doing nothing, but how many attacks on the President or any Australian official have been attempted by remote control bombs like this? I know that this may be how some IEDs in Iraq are triggered, but most home-made bombs these terrorists are using are manually controlled (suicide bombers are the most common example) or are done with low band radio waves that wouldn't be blocked by this unless all electronics will be blocked. This doesn't remove the low hanging fruit, at best it will remove the mid-hanging fruit leaving the rest as it was. When there are better, less disruptive ways to secure something, do that. This would be, in IT terms, like finding a way to block 0-day attacks, but leaving the system unpatched against script-kiddie worms.
I think the AACS has more to worry about than happy fun balls: link.
(thanks to the Ronald from http://sla.ckers.org/)
Not so, Red Hat would still owe Microsoft damages for having infringed on the patent and made money off of it. Yes, the community would eventually be able to work around it, but even just a couple valid patent claims could cripple many open source vendors. However, the same is true of Microsoft. It is widely believed, and the way MS is acting right now I would tend to agree, that MS software infringes on a number of other patents, and probably some GPL licensed software. If MS tries to swing its 235 pound hammer in court, it will be hit by even more smaller hammers. Thus the FUD and cold war tactics.
That may be part of the business logic. But there is also the fact that, if forced, China will just block all the western search engines completely and set up their own China only portal. I'm almost surprised that they haven't already, but I guess that is only being held back because of hopes for better trade agreements with the US. If Google, Yahoo, and the rest stopped censoring, China itself would do it, and do it more forcefully and poorly. While I don't buy into the "Do no evil" mantra Google tries to feed us, they have successfully fought to protect some user privacy in China. It just can't do everything because then China won't let it do anything.
IIRC, the theory of dark matter came from calculations that showed that the universe should have more mass than can be accounted for by visible matter. Showing that there is gravitational lensing supports that previously only mathematically proven theory.
The news isn't that gravitational lensing was observed, but the shape of the area of dark matter. FTFA:
Um, Scientology, by US law, is a "real" church. Not only that, but any law that says you can't protest something conflicts with your first amendment rights. The fact that this guy ran away to plead asylum rather than face the courts and fight for his Constitutional rights makes him worse than just a fugitive (IMO). Running away as he did just gave the courts valid reasons to imprison him as well as the trumped up bs that Scientology is trying to push on him. It also weakens any appeal or counter suit that he might try to file against Scientology.
Right or not about the pervasive power of Scientology, he only makes himself sound like a tin foil hatter.
Fortunately, its going right to TV, so all you have to do is set your Tivo/MythTV box to record something else.
I'm sorry, I fail to see any FUD in this article. Sun isn't talking about buying out the license from the developers or anything similar. All the article seems to say is that open source developers deserve to be recognized for their software. The way Sun wants to recognize them is by compensating them for the software. You are still completely free to say no to them, they will still use your software as they see fit and the license (GPL, BSD, etc.) allows, just as if you had taken the money.
Actually, it has been well documented, in numerous Supreme Court rulings, that for there to be free speech, there must be the ability to speak privately without fear of being recorded. It is a mixture of the First and Fourth Amendments that allows things like wiretapping only after court review.
I don't know about that. I would expect Verizon to have a commercial stake in giving the government whatever information it wants. I know for sure on the state level Verizon gets numerous contracts (e.g. Florida), I would expect it has a commercial stake in government contracts as well...
Don't worry; it doesn't help anyone using Windows either.
As a Sudoku puzzle.
Not necessarily. Its not legal to distribute a book in a different language, so it could be argued that implementing the same code in a different programming language would be infringing on the original copyright. Thats what makes this such a gray area. IANAL, but I would say that implementing the exact same algorithm would be closer to copyright infringement, but implementing a new algorithm based on the original would not (thus why so much non-fiction can be about the same events and even cite each other as sources).
This may just be perfect world thinking on my part though...
While I think I agree with your general principal, I have to very strongly disagree with the zero bugs is a fixed target statement. While the target never changes, it does move with every change to the software. Each bug fix can, and in many cases does, create more new ones or reopens old ones. Every new feature added can create conflicts, bugs, and other wonkiness.
Which is subject to the same issue and is better how? If this article is accurate, and I am inclined to believe it is, this information really does throw off marketing data, not just from hosted ads, but also from internal campaigns, any A-B testing a site might be doing, etc.
BTW, I am one of those FF users that believes no cookie should be around longer than my browser is on also (although I am not so militant as to block all cookies unless I let them in).
No, what the GP was trying to point out is that the Democrats are just as unwilling to really change anything (specifically the Pres) as the Republicans are.
Good point, but the IRC channels aren't the only way people are able to get help, more and more websites have how-tos; more message boards are being created for those who can't find the IRC channels; blogs, mailing lists, etc. are all growing. All of these things are helping the FOSS community.
1-3 its called a corporate firewall (or proxy or gateway). Those are designed to monitor internet traffic and filter some out. If a company made a whole new program based just on what they can reverse engineer to fight one program, I personally would sit back and laugh at the fools. Their punishment is to deal with the code monstrosity that they birthed.
As far as 4 goes, if Comcast took what is a legal piece of software and used it in the way you describe to get an unfair advantage for a given market, that is anti-trust, and they would have to pay some heavy fines and stop what they are doing. (at least as long as the net is kept neutral)
DoS, no matter the reason, is illegal for completely unrelated reasons. That doesn't stop the 'vigilantes' (if you will) from using it to fight spammers or in your example, but if you are caught you should face the consequences.