Hell, yes. That's why I'm going to university (the Canadian equivalent of American Colleges). I already know how to code fairly proficiently. I'm going to university because I want to learn all the background math and the processes that can help one program better/faster. In fact, the university I'm going to actually has very few classes on programming languages, and more on computer architecture, logic, etc.
I'm not going to learn how to program, I'm going to learn other things that'll help me program BETTER.
And, if you visit that site, you'll also conveniently get a list of all the licenses that the FSF defines to be free and how they relate to the concept of copyleft. There's even a little bit in there that wasn't removed last time I checked about how to resolve problems with the old QPL. I seriously recommend that anyone considering debating software licensing issues go read this. It may not be accurate, but it does definte the FSF's position on things quite clearly.
Well, yes, RMS is splitting hairs. However, in the matters of contract and copyright laws, I believe that a hair can be the difference between legal and not legal. The entire point of a license like the GPL or BSD license is to provide an unambiguous set of rules for distribution. If another license violates these rules, its not compatible. This case is really small, but it could in theory open up problems.
Better to split hairs and be legally sound than to have both declared illigitmate in court, right? (Extreme example, I know. Apologies, but its the only one I could think of)
Please note that IANAL, so if someone can provide more details on how contract/copyright law applies here, I'd be very grateful.
Yeah, but in this case, AOL probably realized they'd forgotten to grab something, and wanted it no matter what. They'd probably have grabbed it the instant that period expired.
Nah, they can come up with something better than that. They've got Time-Warner's lawyers and PR department at their beck and call now, remember? It would probably turn into AOL steadfastly protecting capitalism and IP from the evil communist hackers who think information should be free to anyone who can break into a computer system to obtain it.:-P
Of course, if we (meaning anyone who isn't AOL) are lucky, this COULD turn into a major enough PR disaster to get the US government to stop turning a blind eye to AOL's activities... But I don't think that's likely. The blinding glitter of gold and all that...
Well, yes, what do you expect? Its in their best interests to be able to do whatever they want with domain names, because then they can easily alter any aspects of the current scheme that don't result in them making money. Depending on how democratic they wind up being, and how the US government decides to get involved, ICANN might be able to change things, but I don't think its likely.
Yeah, and didn't the RIAA try and get a couple of used CD stores shut down a while back? Or tried to do something nasty to them, I don't remember what... It was before I started reading online news stuff and, as one can guess, it didn't show up in much offline media...
My view on the presidential elections: Both are going to cause large amounts of trouble for everyone. Best solution: convince the FBI that the president is after it. Watch the system self-destruct.
Well, yes, both sides are reasonable in this. Unfortunately, the write-up CmdrTaco chose was a bit... offensive-sounding? And thus we have all these posts mindlessly flaming RMS/KDE/GNOME/Taco's grandmother getting modded up. All involved in the actual issue seem to have handled this very well, and I think even RMS' "go GNOME" quote is appropriate.
I'm just glad these licensing issues have been resolved.
Oh, I do think the occasional debate over a license's application or advantages/disadvantages is a good thing. Although it would be nice if people would actually read the GNU writings on licenses instead of assuming that RMS thinks that anything that's not the GPL is evil.
Its no longer profitable. We're all criminals, because then the MPAA & friends can make money off us citiz^h^h^h^h^h consumers faster and easier than ever before. And you now have to be glad about it, because they're letting you see their valuable IP that they've spent sooooo much sweat and blood on....
No! That's just what they WANT you to think! Its really all a conspiracy. See, if you use their IDE, they can then implant subliminal messages in your code to take over the minds of those who run your program.......
In fact, how do I know they didn't do that to this web browser? They're everywhere
Actually, from what I've seen, Debian and Slackware still have very little of this "slickness." Yes, they both have packaging, but all that does is make software management easier. You can still compile from source if you want to. And I don't think either has many, if any, graphical config tools, unless you count the ones that configure GNOME/KDE.
I don't want to flame, but too often people talk about all the "Microsoft" stuff creeping into Linux, then when I ask them to elaborate, they're really talking about stuff creeping into RedHat.
Actually, I think that during the 2600 trial, they brought Jon Johnson (sp?) in to testify as to the legitimate uses of DeCSS and the reason's he'd originally written it. I think they brought in a bunch of others associated with it in similar ways. The judge brushed off the claims as insubstantial and unimportant (effectively accusing all the witness of perjury, but he didn't go quite that far) and proceeded to rule against 2600 because they were a bunch of "hackers."
Hopefully, one of the higher courts will be more impartial. I agree with you that the legitimate use is what's going to win. Heck, "we" might even get a judge that didn't (however indirectly) work for the plaintiffs!
Oh, and the MPAA doesn't care. They recently filed suit against the writer of an open-source Linux DVD player. If that's not a legitimate use, what is?
Well, yes, that would be the intelligent thing to do. Unfortunately, most distros don't. I've found that Debian is reasonably good about what it enables and disables by default, but I still have to do some work...
Actually, the DMCA isn't legal. It doesn't deal at all with free speach, but it does effectively go beyond the powers of congress with regards to copyright as laid down by the constitution and several related laws. It completely eliminates fair use (effectively), denys people access to their property (I think that's another constitutional violation), and (IIRC) effectively makes copyright terms unlimited.
No, no. Instead of claiming a dollar value for damage, could you claim an equivalent dollar value of voting shares? If you could, and we could win a bunch of these lawsuits.... Just imagine...
MPAA Legal Type: Yes, hello?
Voice on Phone: Hi. I'm your new CEO.
MPAA Legal Type: Oh, glad to meet you. I was just about to submit a report on our latest bid to dominate the world through abuse of copyright laws.
Voice on Phone: Yeah, about that... You're fired. So's the rest of your team. Can you swing by the tech office on your way out and tell them to start installing Unix? I can't stand the theme Jack Valenti has on this Windows box... Oh, and get marketing to change our logo to something involving a penguin or daemon or something...
Yes, that is one of the things they're doing. They're also trying to avoid having to give their information to the patent office (and, through them, the public) to gain legal protection. CSS decryption was, IIRC, a trade secret. That means that no-one knows about it, but if you find out about it through legal means, there's nothing they can do to touch you. Now they claim that legal means are illegal under both the EULA and the DMCA (a device that effectively cracks encryption).
Slightly off-topic: is it me, or is the wording of the "device that effectively breaks access controls on a protected work" section very ominous? It seems to me that "they" could use that to ban almost anything that they didn't like. "See, your honor, if used in this way, this particular class of gadget can be used as part of a device to circumvent our protection! Therefor, its illegal!"
This isn't intended to flame, but in my understanding, that has been MS business plan all along. Sell the customer something, then get them to upgrade to do things the original product should have been able to do just fine? I seem to recall seeing several quotes from various MS types to this effect....
Excellent post. The willingness to put up with anything for the sake of more toys (things like DVDs, faster 3D cards, etc) is one of the things that lands us laws like the DMCA and UCITA. The companies behind them can point at the consumers gobbling up the high-tech goods and say "they vote. They don't mind." When it came time for me to buy a new 3D card, I went with a Matrox card. It isn't as fast, but its still a good value, and Matrox has never been involved in anything like this, to the best of my knowledge. Giving your money to a company that engages in unethical practices is another way of saying you don't care.
Of course, we'll probably both get moderated down for posting opinions that don't critique the "Slashdot crowd."
This is all completely aside from the fact that practically everything in the DMCA was previously illegal or very strongly discouraged. In view of this, I'd like to propose an addenum to Kaa's law:
All corporations are, by default, sufficiently large groups of people.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, yes. That's why I'm going to university (the Canadian equivalent of American Colleges). I already know how to code fairly proficiently. I'm going to university because I want to learn all the background math and the processes that can help one program better/faster. In fact, the university I'm going to actually has very few classes on programming languages, and more on computer architecture, logic, etc.
I'm not going to learn how to program, I'm going to learn other things that'll help me program BETTER.
-RickHunter
And, if you visit that site, you'll also conveniently get a list of all the licenses that the FSF defines to be free and how they relate to the concept of copyleft. There's even a little bit in there that wasn't removed last time I checked about how to resolve problems with the old QPL. I seriously recommend that anyone considering debating software licensing issues go read this. It may not be accurate, but it does definte the FSF's position on things quite clearly.
-RickHunter
Well, yes, RMS is splitting hairs. However, in the matters of contract and copyright laws, I believe that a hair can be the difference between legal and not legal. The entire point of a license like the GPL or BSD license is to provide an unambiguous set of rules for distribution. If another license violates these rules, its not compatible. This case is really small, but it could in theory open up problems.
Better to split hairs and be legally sound than to have both declared illigitmate in court, right? (Extreme example, I know. Apologies, but its the only one I could think of)
Please note that IANAL, so if someone can provide more details on how contract/copyright law applies here, I'd be very grateful.
-RickHunter
Yeah, but in this case, AOL probably realized they'd forgotten to grab something, and wanted it no matter what. They'd probably have grabbed it the instant that period expired.
-RickHunter
Nah, they can come up with something better than that. They've got Time-Warner's lawyers and PR department at their beck and call now, remember? It would probably turn into AOL steadfastly protecting capitalism and IP from the evil communist hackers who think information should be free to anyone who can break into a computer system to obtain it. :-P
Of course, if we (meaning anyone who isn't AOL) are lucky, this COULD turn into a major enough PR disaster to get the US government to stop turning a blind eye to AOL's activities... But I don't think that's likely. The blinding glitter of gold and all that...
-RickHunter
Well, yes, what do you expect? Its in their best interests to be able to do whatever they want with domain names, because then they can easily alter any aspects of the current scheme that don't result in them making money. Depending on how democratic they wind up being, and how the US government decides to get involved, ICANN might be able to change things, but I don't think its likely.
-RickHunter
This whole situation is just wrong, and MP3.com is getting the shit end of the stick.
Well, yeah, what do you expect? Either the recording industry was mad that MP3.com thought of it first, or their lawyers smelled money and jumped.
-RickHunter
Yeah, and didn't the RIAA try and get a couple of used CD stores shut down a while back? Or tried to do something nasty to them, I don't remember what... It was before I started reading online news stuff and, as one can guess, it didn't show up in much offline media...
-RickHunter
I've heard a lot of artists saying that MP3.com has a decent contract, at least compared to the ones used by the record companies. Is this true?
Oh, and what's EMusic's like?
-RickHunter
No, there have been historical precidents for this. However, in more recent times, I think that things have changed substantially.
-RickHunter
My view on the presidential elections: Both are going to cause large amounts of trouble for everyone. Best solution: convince the FBI that the president is after it. Watch the system self-destruct.
-RickHunter
Well, yes, both sides are reasonable in this. Unfortunately, the write-up CmdrTaco chose was a bit... offensive-sounding? And thus we have all these posts mindlessly flaming RMS/KDE/GNOME/Taco's grandmother getting modded up. All involved in the actual issue seem to have handled this very well, and I think even RMS' "go GNOME" quote is appropriate.
I'm just glad these licensing issues have been resolved.
Oh, I do think the occasional debate over a license's application or advantages/disadvantages is a good thing. Although it would be nice if people would actually read the GNU writings on licenses instead of assuming that RMS thinks that anything that's not the GPL is evil.
-RickHunter
Its no longer profitable. We're all criminals, because then the MPAA & friends can make money off us citiz^h^h^h^h^h consumers faster and easier than ever before. And you now have to be glad about it, because they're letting you see their valuable IP that they've spent sooooo much sweat and blood on....
Ok, I'm done now. Any more questions?
-RickHunter
Plus, please! ^_^
-RickHunter
No! That's just what they WANT you to think! Its really all a conspiracy. See, if you use their IDE, they can then implant subliminal messages in your code to take over the minds of those who run your program.......
In fact, how do I know they didn't do that to this web browser? They're everywhere
-RickHunter
Actually, from what I've seen, Debian and Slackware still have very little of this "slickness." Yes, they both have packaging, but all that does is make software management easier. You can still compile from source if you want to. And I don't think either has many, if any, graphical config tools, unless you count the ones that configure GNOME/KDE.
I don't want to flame, but too often people talk about all the "Microsoft" stuff creeping into Linux, then when I ask them to elaborate, they're really talking about stuff creeping into RedHat.
-RickHunter
Actually, I think that during the 2600 trial, they brought Jon Johnson (sp?) in to testify as to the legitimate uses of DeCSS and the reason's he'd originally written it. I think they brought in a bunch of others associated with it in similar ways. The judge brushed off the claims as insubstantial and unimportant (effectively accusing all the witness of perjury, but he didn't go quite that far) and proceeded to rule against 2600 because they were a bunch of "hackers."
Hopefully, one of the higher courts will be more impartial. I agree with you that the legitimate use is what's going to win. Heck, "we" might even get a judge that didn't (however indirectly) work for the plaintiffs!
Oh, and the MPAA doesn't care. They recently filed suit against the writer of an open-source Linux DVD player. If that's not a legitimate use, what is?
-RickHunter
Well, yes, that would be the intelligent thing to do. Unfortunately, most distros don't. I've found that Debian is reasonably good about what it enables and disables by default, but I still have to do some work...
-RickHunter
Actually, the DMCA isn't legal. It doesn't deal at all with free speach, but it does effectively go beyond the powers of congress with regards to copyright as laid down by the constitution and several related laws. It completely eliminates fair use (effectively), denys people access to their property (I think that's another constitutional violation), and (IIRC) effectively makes copyright terms unlimited.
-RickHunter
No, no. Instead of claiming a dollar value for damage, could you claim an equivalent dollar value of voting shares? If you could, and we could win a bunch of these lawsuits.... Just imagine...
MPAA Legal Type: Yes, hello?
Voice on Phone: Hi. I'm your new CEO.
MPAA Legal Type: Oh, glad to meet you. I was just about to submit a report on our latest bid to dominate the world through abuse of copyright laws.
Voice on Phone: Yeah, about that... You're fired. So's the rest of your team. Can you swing by the tech office on your way out and tell them to start installing Unix? I can't stand the theme Jack Valenti has on this Windows box... Oh, and get marketing to change our logo to something involving a penguin or daemon or something...
-RickHunter
Excellent post! Someone, moderate this guy up!
Yes, that is one of the things they're doing. They're also trying to avoid having to give their information to the patent office (and, through them, the public) to gain legal protection. CSS decryption was, IIRC, a trade secret. That means that no-one knows about it, but if you find out about it through legal means, there's nothing they can do to touch you. Now they claim that legal means are illegal under both the EULA and the DMCA (a device that effectively cracks encryption).
Slightly off-topic: is it me, or is the wording of the "device that effectively breaks access controls on a protected work" section very ominous? It seems to me that "they" could use that to ban almost anything that they didn't like. "See, your honor, if used in this way, this particular class of gadget can be used as part of a device to circumvent our protection! Therefor, its illegal!"
-RickHunter
Movie industry, in this case. And I think that, between them, they own pretty much every major news agency in the country, don't they?
-RickHunter
This isn't intended to flame, but in my understanding, that has been MS business plan all along. Sell the customer something, then get them to upgrade to do things the original product should have been able to do just fine? I seem to recall seeing several quotes from various MS types to this effect....
-RickHunter
Excellent post. The willingness to put up with anything for the sake of more toys (things like DVDs, faster 3D cards, etc) is one of the things that lands us laws like the DMCA and UCITA. The companies behind them can point at the consumers gobbling up the high-tech goods and say "they vote. They don't mind." When it came time for me to buy a new 3D card, I went with a Matrox card. It isn't as fast, but its still a good value, and Matrox has never been involved in anything like this, to the best of my knowledge. Giving your money to a company that engages in unethical practices is another way of saying you don't care.
Of course, we'll probably both get moderated down for posting opinions that don't critique the "Slashdot crowd."
-RickHunter
This is all completely aside from the fact that practically everything in the DMCA was previously illegal or very strongly discouraged. In view of this, I'd like to propose an addenum to Kaa's law:
All corporations are, by default, sufficiently large groups of people.
-RickHunter