Some of us have grown up and got past the code of "not telling tales". There has to be a balance between having public participation in law enforcement and having a gestapo/securitate/stasi/fbi having a substantial percentage of the population as informers.
If you object to caling the cops then do you think there should be zero cooperation with the police? Why be a witness to a shooting after the perp has been caught if you refuse to 'phone in the crime in the first place. Why bother with a police force or have laws?
Arsehole. There is no way I could condone child pornography - leading to the emotional and physical scarring and possibly murder or suicide of innocent children. Most places have company policies over what is permitted on their hardware to cover the other stuff with which you try and confuse the issue.
And what next, after you tell on the guy with kiddie porn? Bob has too many MP3s, Larry didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom, and Alice took an extra ten minutes on her lunch break.
As I said, anyone who equates child abuse to bad personal hygeine is an arsehole.
I'm wondering what will happen when a batch goes out with defective packaging so that they arrive at the retailer already expired. Good luck returning defective goods, it sounds like a nightmare for customer and retailer. Maybe they will cost little enough that lawsuits won't be an issue? Oh, maybe not, perhaps a class action suit for 10 Million USD for emotional distress? this could be fun.
At (for example) GBP60 for a new movie on VHS (as Rainman was on it's release), the tape has to be rented 120 times at GBP2 just to break even on the purchase price - that's every night for 3 months - to say nothing of the store overhead.
Err, 60/2 = 30 rentals to recoup purchase cost, ignoring fixed overheads etc.
Finally, expect this "disposable format" to only be used for A-list titles in the first 3 months or so of their release, and subsequently revert to standard "long life" format.
Expect this to replace normal DVDs if the studios can get away with it. They see the public as the cash cow that keeps on giving.
In fact, it's a shame that this didn't/couldn't happen a long time ago, as Blockbuster would never have got a foothold in the market.
I rent DVDs from my local library at ukp2.50 per week. Not as large a choice but far more convenient for me.
I understand the original reason for copyright. My point is that if there is no possibility of making money creating content then fewer people will create content. Many valuable works of art, literature and film would never have been produced without a profit motive.
More still were created without thought to copyright - Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Bach etc were paid to produce works of art, copyright wasn't an issue, but there was profit. Some of the most valuable paintings didn't get the painter any money - I'm thinking particularly of van Gogh here. Shakespeare made money without copyright. Copyright seems to be the present apotheosis of the profit motive, maybe it shouldn't be.
As I've stated before I recognize that there are many problems with modern US copyright, but abolishing copyright or making unauthorized copies is not the answer.
But reform of copyright law rather than abolition may make for a more equitable relationship between creator and public. The situation with music is that copyright law benefits primarily publishers and not artists, the creator is not being suitably recompensed and the public is not benefiting either. Bad laws foster disrespect for the law, and there is a distinction between legal and ethical. Laws allowed slavery (not just in the US, and people all of ethnic origins have been enslaved), women did not have the vote, there are many bad laws - how many residents of states which outlaw oral sex respect that law? Convicts were transported to Virgina and Australia for petty theft... Civil disobedience is a respected form of protest - now a few geeks copying dvds isn't necessarily civil disobedience a la Gandhi, but if most of the population of the US accepts this behaviour- then that law must fall.
The copyright laws should be adjusted back to the previous state - the life of the creator plus a few years, and the principle of First Sale should be enshrined in law. If EULAs are unlawful for books, then are they lawful for software? Both are published works protected by copyright, First Sale should apply here too. Software should not have any less protection than other copyright works (which have too much anyway), but it should definitely have no more.
Well, it could certainly be argued, but would it be upheld?
That's what the courts are for:-D
Sorry to nitpick, but you can't steal a patent, as it is in the public domain. You can only infringe on it.
My point was that if SCO have a patent and if SCO created an implementation of such patent and then gave permission via the GPL to use, create and distribute that implementation and also create, use and distribute derivative works, they may have a hard time succesfully proving infringement. I.E. They gave a royalty-free license to create a work based upon an implementation of a patent they own - or at least that's what this looks like.
If patent infringement is upheld, would that not imply that patents superseed
(sic) copyright?
Again that's for the courts, but if it is found that SCO have licensed their patents then that won't necessarily come up.
Say I patent a widget, and someone takes a photo of that widget, would that mean that they have infringed the patent? Does that sound any more absurd than this lawsuit?
No:-) All I see is smoke and mirrors - it appears to be a last gasp from a dying company, but that's hardly an original observation.
I thought Caldera (as was) were on the way out when/since they tried per-seat licensing for Linux... Then Red Hat brought in their new price structure. Hmm Finds Queen CD, Bom, Bom,Bom, Hey, Another One Bites The Dust...?
Go SuSE,Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, Yellow Dog, Knoppix, xBSD etc. etc.
I know the GPL *says* that. However, I also know that a court has never tested it and upheld it. And it is a pretty unique license, you know? So I don't know what a judge would do, faced with it. And I'd rather not find out.
I think that is why it hasn't been tested, no-one wants to go to court on it because it is an unknown. It reminds me of the old dictum about lawyers not asking questions to which they don't know the answers. I suspect that in most cases while lawyers won't necessarily know the result of a trial in advance, though they may have a good idea, they all know the steps. A GPL test case may appear uncomfortably like improvising.
Also, is there a penalty portion of the GPL? I know that you're not allowed to use GPL code unless you release your stuff, but what if you do? Logically, it seems like their patents should then be free, but could someone decide that they'd rather take a breach-of-contract judgement than succumb to forced release? I'm speculating big time (as if that weren't clear), but still. I'm wondering if SCO would have another way out that would let them maintain patent status despite publishing.
It's not breach of contract but copyright infringement, which is one aspect of what makes the GPL so ingenious. So the penalty portion of the GPL would be any applicable copyright law. I'm not sure but I think penalties may be on a per-infringement basis, e.g. 5 dollars per copy sold . Maybe.
Here's what it boils down to - does the open source community really want this case to end up being a test of the GPL? Because I don't think that would be a slam-dunk, not like people seem to think.
Only an idiot expects a slam-dunk in a court-you can hope, but judge and jury are notoriously unpredictable. The open source (and/or free software) community doesn't really have a say, it's down to IBMs lawyers. The OSI/EFF/FSF could file an amicus brief, but personally I suspect that the uncertainty has been to the advantage of GPL advocates so far, but this may need to change.
All of this assuming that SCO has anything remotely resembling evidence. Or even patents, their claims to which I've since read look bogus.
This is more or less where the thread started:-) When I read all the references, including those to ESRs position paper I came to the conclusion that SCO were desperately trying to find something credible. The crack about the plain vanilla law 101 response from IBM amused me, I wonder if IBMs law team are looking forward to having some fun with this one. As someone else posted, they have to publish details to get a patent so it can't hurt to say what it is. It's really hard to see what could be gained from secrecy here for SCO. The only thing I can think of is trade secret, and that cat is well and truly out of the bag anyway.
Re:Two funny (sad) arithmetic stories
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Making Change
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I used to have one when I was 12 ish. Not as accurate as a linear but it fit in a pocket. Slide rules also developed a feel for number - when doing square roots, there's two to choose from. I don't mean positive/negative or imaginary I mean you have to know if you're reading of root 90 or root 900, for example. You have to enough work in your head to make sure you get the right answer - I use calculators now (but my slide rules are in my desk) but it is very easy to miskey and get the wrong answer. I used to be bad at mental arithmetic, but I practised until I got OK, - people do give you odd looks when you give exact change for things, as though it was hard to add up a few numbers in your head.
Re:The Math is just WRONG. Here's why
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lots of places lack sales tax or eat it.
the internet, washington state (no tax on food), vending machines,
I believe that is incorrect if it is patent infringment. The copyrights have no effect on patent claims. If SCO claims patent infringement, and it is upheld, then it makes no difference that they distributed a product that infringes patents, because the patents belong to them.
I know what you mean, but from the GPL:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: <snip>
which I would have thought could be argued to grant a license to use such patent - after all if you explicitly say to someone "here you are, you can change this and make your own stuff" it's hard to succesfully accuse them of stealing it.
I'm glad that you need more data, perhaps you can then tell us exactly what code SCO claims is infringing trade secrets and intellectual property? Interviews with SCO officials hardly count as evidence - they can claim what they like, it is what they can prove in a court that matters.
shoud have been:
I'm glad that you
don't need more data, perhaps you can then tell us exactly what code SCO claims is infringing trade secrets and intellectual property?
There's nothing to leak - anyone can look it up in the patent office archives.
If SCO thinks it's patents have been violated, then there's no need to hide a patent to protect it (like there is with a trade secret), so why don't they point to the infringing sections of code and give us the patent numbers that have been violated?
Good point I overlooked that.
Also, if IBM feel SCO are trying to undermine them by trying to use patents on other developers IBM may go nuke in response. NO-ONE in their right mind is going to take on IBM in a patent war.
Yes, it is. They have patents, which they plan to enforce, namely with regard to multi-processor stuff.
And you know this how? I have re-read the references in the story several times and didn't find mention of patents. Maybe I missed it. Having read the SCO complaint where they don't claim patent infringement, maybe I didn't.
If you have a source that suggests copyright (NOT TRADEMARKS) can be revoked by lack of due diligence, I'd definitely like to see it
I didn't mention copyright did I? Checks posts No, didn't think so.shrugs As an aside SCO don't have the UNIX trademark to lose. I don't think they ever did.
Any due diligence issues might play out in a penalty phase, but in terms of guilt and innocence, it's irrelevant.
Guilt and innocence are pretty irrelevant in a civil suit. IBM will not be found either guilty or innocent. The jury (if the judge accepts IBMs demand) will either find for plaintiff or defendant.
There have been a jillion articles on this thing, including with SCO officials, so it's not a matter of more data. They claim that both patents and copyrights have been violated.
I'm glad that you need more data, perhaps you can then tell us exactly what code SCO claims is infringing trade secrets and intellectual property? Interviews with SCO officials hardly count as evidence - they can claim what they like, it is what they can prove in a court that matters.
Patents supposedly got leaked through IBM's AIX collaboration with SCO. Copyrights supposedly did because they claim that a lot of pre-IBM linux developers were privy to unix code that they were NDA'd from using elsewhere.
Hmm supposedly sounds like hard facts too, that will play well in court. It is instructive to read the OSI position paper on this. Note I am not claiming this all to be true, but ESR et al provide plenty of references which are avaible for checking, which is more than I have seen from SCO so far.
That's where it currently stands. Much of this was in the articles attached to this discussion, which you might have considered reading first.
Thank you for the benefit of your kind courtesy. I shall in future certainly consider reading the articles attached to the story (yet again) before I humbly venture an opinion that might not agree with your illustrious self. I may even take the trouble to try and understand the issues as well instead of just reading and pontificating about them.
As far as I can make out this isn't a patent issue. I'm not sure what it is, if it isn't a kite, but it seems nearest to being a trade secret issue, in which case I would expect due dilligence to be applicable. It might be time to stop speculating until there are more data? On the other hand this is/.:-)
Re:SCO has Dirty Hands. Will not be able to collec
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Well, that just reinforces the arguement that will be made that companies should stay away from any Open Source projects.
Well, that just reinforces the arguement that will be made that companies should stay away from things if they don't know what they're doing.
Re:SCO's letter contains copyright violations
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SCO also do not appear in this letter to acknowledge Linux as a trademark of Linus Torvalds...
Re:SCO has Dirty Hands. Will not be able to collec
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say "see, I told you so! GPL caused SCO to lose their IP!!!!".
Alternatively it could be argued, possibly by shareholders in a due diligence case, that SCO lost any IP by not exercising proper care over what they were selling. You could view this as only peripherally about the terms of the GPL and more about SCO being careless - if they'd used the BSD, Artistic, or Moz licenses the effect on any proprietary IP would be the same.
It's no problem for me, I was discussing a possible solution for new converts who want to just use a computer and have no desire to learn any more than they have to. Even right-clicking to eject may be too complex for some users, sorry - not 'may be', it 'is' too much for some users. Yes I have done my share of user support of the 'Your programme doesn't work I haven't got my printout' variety. It's suprising how many coding bugs are fixed by switching on a printer, filling it with paper or (in the old days) checking the protocol converter is working.
There's also the difference between an admin and a helpdesk person to take into account. I can believe an admin will cost more than a helpdesk tech, and he probably won't stay long if he's working helpdesk so there would be a higher cost. Costs might come down with a better strategy of course.
Also worth mentioning is that when you start dragging a CD in Mac OS X the Trash changes to an "Eject" icon. This whole 'Eject by dragging to the Trash' complaint is no longer valid since OS X.
Of course it is blindingly obvious before you start to drag that the Trash will change to Eject.... </sarcasm>
Having said that it would be nice if pressing the cdrom eject button on a Linux box could be made to (configurable by user) A: Do Nothing B: Unmount & Eject C: Pop up a confirmation box to Unmount & Eject or not I would set the default to C, but then that should be configurable by the admin as part of the new user skeleton.
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I agree wholeheartedly.
There has to be a balance between having public participation in law enforcement and having a gestapo/securitate/stasi/fbi having a substantial percentage of the population as informers.
If you object to caling the cops then do you think there should be zero cooperation with the police? Why be a witness to a shooting after the perp has been caught if you refuse to 'phone in the crime in the first place. Why bother with a police force or have laws?
The images were, as far as I can make out, on a computer used by the professor. Police also found images on computers at his home.
Amoral jerk.
There is no way I could condone child pornography - leading to the emotional and physical scarring and possibly murder or suicide of innocent children.
Most places have company policies over what is permitted on their hardware to cover the other stuff with which you try and confuse the issue. As I said, anyone who equates child abuse to bad personal hygeine is an arsehole.
At best.
NOT
FOR
CHILD
PORNOGRAPHY
Seriously, if you want to do CLI scripting on windows install cygwin.
I'm wondering what will happen when a batch goes out with defective packaging so that they arrive at the retailer already expired.
Good luck returning defective goods, it sounds like a nightmare for customer and retailer.
Maybe they will cost little enough that lawsuits won't be an issue? Oh, maybe not, perhaps a class action suit for 10 Million USD for emotional distress? this could be fun.
Bad laws foster disrespect for the law, and there is a distinction between legal and ethical. Laws allowed slavery (not just in the US, and people all of ethnic origins have been enslaved), women did not have the vote, there are many bad laws - how many residents of states which outlaw oral sex respect that law? Convicts were transported to Virgina and Australia for petty theft...
Civil disobedience is a respected form of protest - now a few geeks copying dvds isn't necessarily civil disobedience a la Gandhi, but if most of the population of the US accepts this behaviour- then that law must fall. The copyright laws should be adjusted back to the previous state - the life of the creator plus a few years, and the principle of First Sale should be enshrined in law.
If EULAs are unlawful for books, then are they lawful for software? Both are published works protected by copyright, First Sale should apply here too. Software should not have any less protection than other copyright works (which have too much anyway), but it should definitely have no more.
All I see is smoke and mirrors - it appears to be a last gasp from a dying company, but that's hardly an original observation.
I thought Caldera (as was) were on the way out when/since they tried per-seat licensing for Linux... Then Red Hat brought in their new price structure. Hmm
Finds Queen CD, Bom, Bom,Bom, Hey, Another One Bites The Dust...?
Go SuSE,Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, Yellow Dog, Knoppix, xBSD etc. etc.
When I read all the references, including those to ESRs position paper I came to the conclusion that SCO were desperately trying to find something credible. The crack about the plain vanilla law 101 response from IBM amused me, I wonder if IBMs law team are looking forward to having some fun with this one.
As someone else posted, they have to publish details to get a patent so it can't hurt to say what it is. It's really hard to see what could be gained from secrecy here for SCO. The only thing I can think of is trade secret, and that cat is well and truly out of the bag anyway.
I used to have one when I was 12 ish. Not as accurate as a linear but it fit in a pocket. Slide rules also developed a feel for number - when doing square roots, there's two to choose from. I don't mean positive/negative or imaginary I mean you have to know if you're reading of root 90 or root 900, for example. You have to enough work in your head to make sure you get the right answer - I use calculators now (but my slide rules are in my desk) but it is very easy to miskey and get the wrong answer. I used to be bad at mental arithmetic, but I practised until I got OK, - people do give you odd looks when you give exact change for things, as though it was hard to add up a few numbers in your head.
Also, if IBM feel SCO are trying to undermine them by trying to use patents on other developers IBM may go nuke in response.
NO-ONE in their right mind is going to take on IBM in a patent war.
Having read the SCO complaint where they don't claim patent infringement, maybe I didn't. I didn't mention copyright did I? Checks posts No, didn't think so.shrugs
As an aside SCO don't have the UNIX trademark to lose. I don't think they ever did.Guilt and innocence are pretty irrelevant in a civil suit. IBM will not be found either guilty or innocent. The jury (if the judge accepts IBMs demand) will either find for plaintiff or defendant. I'm glad that you need more data, perhaps you can then tell us exactly what code SCO claims is infringing trade secrets and intellectual property? Interviews with SCO officials hardly count as evidence - they can claim what they like, it is what they can prove in a court that matters. Hmm supposedly sounds like hard facts too, that will play well in court.
It is instructive to read the OSI position paper on this. Note I am not claiming this all to be true, but ESR et al provide plenty of references which are avaible for checking, which is more than I have seen from SCO so far. Thank you for the benefit of your kind courtesy. I shall in future certainly consider reading the articles attached to the story (yet again) before I humbly venture an opinion that might not agree with your illustrious self. I may even take the trouble to try and understand the issues as well instead of just reading and pontificating about them.
As far as I can make out this isn't a patent issue. /. :-)
I'm not sure what it is, if it isn't a kite, but it seems nearest to being a trade secret issue, in which case I would expect due dilligence to be applicable. It might be time to stop speculating until there are more data? On the other hand this is
SCO also do not appear in this letter to acknowledge Linux as a trademark of Linus Torvalds...
You could view this as only peripherally about the terms of the GPL and more about SCO being careless - if they'd used the BSD, Artistic, or Moz licenses the effect on any proprietary IP would be the same.
It's no problem for me, I was discussing a possible solution for new converts who want to just use a computer and have no desire to learn any more than they have to. Even right-clicking to eject may be too complex for some users, sorry - not 'may be', it 'is' too much for some users.
Yes I have done my share of user support of the 'Your programme doesn't work I haven't got my printout' variety. It's suprising how many coding bugs are fixed by switching on a printer, filling it with paper or (in the old days) checking the protocol converter is working.
There's also the difference between an admin and a helpdesk person to take into account. I can believe an admin will cost more than a helpdesk tech, and he probably won't stay long if he's working helpdesk so there would be a higher cost.
Costs might come down with a better strategy of course.
Having said that it would be nice if pressing the cdrom eject button on a Linux box could be made to (configurable by user)
A: Do Nothing
B: Unmount & Eject
C: Pop up a confirmation box to Unmount & Eject or not
I would set the default to C, but then that should be configurable by the admin as part of the new user skeleton.