Anyone who has followed groklaw for lo these many years knows otherwise
I've followed groklaw. Including following their reporting on cases where I was involved, so had direct knowledge of what was actually going on. What I've concluded is the groklaw is a wonderful illustration of why, to become a lawyer, you have to get a 4 year degree, plus 3 years of law school, plus pass a difficult exam, and to become a paralegal, you need a few night classes at community college.
Groklaw is often pretty good at doing the legwork to dig up obscure documents. But as far as legal analysis goes, groklaw has failed to impress me (at least, in the articles there--I've seen some anonymous posters in the comments who appear to be practicing lawyers who know what they are talking about).
It's good that making songs available was found to be copyright infringement. Otherwise, free software would be in big trouble. The GPL depends heavily on the fact that putting something up on a server for the public to download counts as distribution and requires copyright permission. That is what gives GPL the power to force source to be made available with binaries that are distributed via the web or public FTP servers.
Warning! There may be spoilers ahead, so I'll put in a little padding.
slashdot's lameness filter sucks
slashdot's lameness filter sucks
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slashdot's lameness filter sucks
slashdot's lameness filter sucks
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The time travel story left me very confused. I have not been able to figure out what makes a given Fry a duplicate or the original. In fact, I don't see how there is anything that could be called a duplicate under that time travel system. Does it have something to do with it being "paradox-free time travel"?
So, for example, when Hermes sent Bender back to kill past Hermes and bring his body back to the present, that is the kind of thing that would "normally" cause a paradox. Is the resolution of the paradox that it is a duplicate Hermes that Bender kills? In general, if you do something in the past that would create a paradox, is a duplicate created to prevent the paradox?
If you're not spending, you're not shopping. You're just walking around looking at things
But no one said people don't spend on black friday. They just spend, in total, less that day than they do on the day before Christmas.
Based on what people have said here, and what that snopes article you cited says, and what I've observed in stores, it seems there are more people shopping on black friday--but they don't feel as much pressure to buy. They are out looking for a couple good bargains. On the day before Christmas, there are less shoppers, and so the stores aren't as busy, but the ones there have now hit the deadline, and have to finish ALL their shopping for the season that day, so will be spending more.
Copying a code snippet from a book or posting, that does not have any further restrictions on it, almost certainly falls under fair use
Unlikely. There are several factors that go into fair use analysis, and they mostly go against fair use in this situation. I think you are only considering one of the factors (the amount of the work copied).
Frankly, I'm glad you don't work for us. The fact that you would consider "rewriting" code that works well just because it was written by someone external to your company doesn't speak well for your sense of business priorities or usage of time
And I'm glad you don't work for us. The fact that you would open your employer up to significant legal risk rather than rewrite 200 lines of code doesn't speak well for your sense of business priorities.
The code in question is under copyright. They have not secured permission from the copyright holder to use it. How could you even consider continuing to use such code in a business setting?????
Maybe Nigeria can become known as a country of greedy patent trolls instead of just a country of internet scammers
That term doesn't make sense. In any other field besides patents, the so-called trolls would be called "dealers" or "brokers". I'm curious--do you call your real estate agent a "land troll"? Do you think commercial Linux companies are "free software trolls"?
I have no familiarity whatsoever with Israeli politics, but I know enough about human nature to believe that there must be something to the "slander" given that the targets are working so hard to suppress it
Wait a second. So if I were to accuse you of, say, being a child molester, and publish those accusations where your neighbors and co-workers would see them, and you were to try hard to get me to stop, the proper conclusion is that there must be something to the accusation because you aren't ignoring it???
You might want to think this through a little more...
I'll take real books please. No batteries required
It looks like the display might be an e-Ink display, in which case batteries aren't really a problem, as e-Ink displays only consume power when actually changing the page. When they are just sitting there on a page, they don't need power. You should get thousands of pages before needing to change or charge batteries, regardless of how fast or slow you read.
You don't need root to use a machine to send spam, or to otherwise participate in a botnet. You also don't need to be root to steal sensitive information, since that is most likely to be in the user's files, not the system's files.
And if, for some reason, you do want to do something that requires root, well, local privilege escalation exploits come up fairly often.
Google's VM is not a Java VM. That is, it does not execute Java bytecodes and does not follow the JVM specs. Rather, Google has basically a recompiler that can read a Java class file and generate code for Google's VM.
One of the first things your lawyers tell you when you are involved in litigation is to shut up about it. Why is Sun blogging about a case they are actively involved in?
Yeah it also states that the buyer has the right to distribute that source under the same license. IE if you release RHEL under GPL then anyone else can release the code used in RHEL under GPL. Hence they have to
That's been worked around before, by blacklisting. Basically, you sell the binary and source to your customers. Any customer who passes on the source or binaries, you blacklist. You refuse to sell them any newer versions, and refuse to sell them support. Customers quickly learn that they should not give out your code, even though it would not be a GPL violation for them to do so.
This works best when the code is for something that doesn't have much outside developer interest, so that as a practical matter, the company selling it is really the only good place to get it, unless you want to fork the thing.
There are plenty of patent suits in Lufkin. And the reason they keep coming to courts in the Eastern District of Texas is that you Texans seem to be a largely law-abiding group of people, so the Federal courts in the Eastern District aren't busy with criminal cases. If you file in, say, New York, you get a judge who mostly deals with serious criminal cases, and sees his role as being one of keeping society safe from criminals, and is downright annoyed that you are wasting his time in a mere monetary dispute between companies when he could be defending society in a proper criminal case.
In some districtis, such as those in Florida, where there are a ton of drug related criminal cases to deal with, you can't even get a civil case, like a patent case, on the calendar.
I don't think the results in Texas are significantly better for patent plaintiffs than they are in other courts. It's just that in Texas the case can procede faster, which is generally good for both plaintiffs and defendants.
People would no longer know when a Java App was for a platform or worked on any platform
Sure they would. If the box says "Super Space Blaster for OS X", then they should not expect it to work on any platform other than OS X. If the box says "Cross-platform Super Space Blaster! Works on any Java system!", then it works on any platform.
Java has the problem of being slower because of it's just in time compiler but this is why Java is also so nice for developing in because you can rid your mind of platform dependant issues and focus on writing the application.
And sometime people need to write a platform-dependant application. Why should they have to use a separate language for that?
Why can't Java be both a language AND a platform? If you need cross-platform, use the Java langauge AND platform, but if you need to write a Windows-only program, or a Unix-only program, or an OS X-only program, use the Java language but not the Java platform.
Blame Sun for this. With a few small additions, ODF could have supported Office formats as well, but Sun would not allow this. Their policy is that ODF will support what is needed for StarOffice, and nothing more. They control the ODF technical committee, and their patent license allows them to stop the ODF TC if the ODF TC goes in a direction Sun does not like.
They did the same thing with Java. If they had let people implement Java as an ordinary language, with platform-specific features, so that I could have used Java instead of C on Windows or Mac for writing Windows or Mac apps, when I want to take advantage of the specific platform, and still have used Java for portable apps when I didn't need platform-specific stuff, Java would have become one of the main languages for application programming for desktop systems. But Sun decided that it must remain pure, and only be usable for the kind of things they wanted it used for (writing portable code), and so we all had to write our non-portable apps in C, and it was usually easier to just write our portable apps in C, too, and use #ifdefs to deal with different platforms, and Java became insignificant on the desktop.
Part of being "open" means letting people do things that you might not like, such as interoperate with Word, or write Mac programs that use Mac features in Java. Sun needs to realize this, and let us use their interesting technology without telling us HOW we have to use it.
The patent license from Sun for ODF only covers version 1.0, plus any subsequent versions that Sun participates in the development of. That means that if Sun doesn't like the direction ODF goes, they can stop it by stepping back. Sun has stated that ODF is meant to support exactly those features needed by StarOffice, no more. Until Sun makes ODF an actual open standard, that can be evolved outside of Sun's control, so that it can evolve to handle both Office and StarOffice documents, it is simply not an option.
Slashdot Mirror
I've followed groklaw. Including following their reporting on cases where I was involved, so had direct knowledge of what was actually going on. What I've concluded is the groklaw is a wonderful illustration of why, to become a lawyer, you have to get a 4 year degree, plus 3 years of law school, plus pass a difficult exam, and to become a paralegal, you need a few night classes at community college.
Groklaw is often pretty good at doing the legwork to dig up obscure documents. But as far as legal analysis goes, groklaw has failed to impress me (at least, in the articles there--I've seen some anonymous posters in the comments who appear to be practicing lawyers who know what they are talking about).
A 5 digit slashdot ID is not supposed to excuse you from R'ing TFA.
It's good that making songs available was found to be copyright infringement. Otherwise, free software would be in big trouble. The GPL depends heavily on the fact that putting something up on a server for the public to download counts as distribution and requires copyright permission. That is what gives GPL the power to force source to be made available with binaries that are distributed via the web or public FTP servers.
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
- slashdot's lameness filter sucks
The time travel story left me very confused. I have not been able to figure out what makes a given Fry a duplicate or the original. In fact, I don't see how there is anything that could be called a duplicate under that time travel system. Does it have something to do with it being "paradox-free time travel"?So, for example, when Hermes sent Bender back to kill past Hermes and bring his body back to the present, that is the kind of thing that would "normally" cause a paradox. Is the resolution of the paradox that it is a duplicate Hermes that Bender kills? In general, if you do something in the past that would create a paradox, is a duplicate created to prevent the paradox?
But no one said people don't spend on black friday. They just spend, in total, less that day than they do on the day before Christmas.
Based on what people have said here, and what that snopes article you cited says, and what I've observed in stores, it seems there are more people shopping on black friday--but they don't feel as much pressure to buy. They are out looking for a couple good bargains. On the day before Christmas, there are less shoppers, and so the stores aren't as busy, but the ones there have now hit the deadline, and have to finish ALL their shopping for the season that day, so will be spending more.
Unlikely. There are several factors that go into fair use analysis, and they mostly go against fair use in this situation. I think you are only considering one of the factors (the amount of the work copied).
And I'm glad you don't work for us. The fact that you would open your employer up to significant legal risk rather than rewrite 200 lines of code doesn't speak well for your sense of business priorities.
The code in question is under copyright. They have not secured permission from the copyright holder to use it. How could you even consider continuing to use such code in a business setting?????
That term doesn't make sense. In any other field besides patents, the so-called trolls would be called "dealers" or "brokers". I'm curious--do you call your real estate agent a "land troll"? Do you think commercial Linux companies are "free software trolls"?
Wait a second. So if I were to accuse you of, say, being a child molester, and publish those accusations where your neighbors and co-workers would see them, and you were to try hard to get me to stop, the proper conclusion is that there must be something to the accusation because you aren't ignoring it???
You might want to think this through a little more...
The article says the MIT research was inspired by a video of a skilled RC pilot. I wonder if it was this one?.
And if, for some reason, you do want to do something that requires root, well, local privilege escalation exploits come up fairly often.
Since every other garbage collected language, from every other company, would have had the same problem, how does it show that?
Google's VM is not a Java VM. That is, it does not execute Java bytecodes and does not follow the JVM specs. Rather, Google has basically a recompiler that can read a Java class file and generate code for Google's VM.
It was filed on October 5, 1994. December 2, 1997 is the issue date.
Nonsense. It is clear you have not actually read the patent, as you have no clue at all what it covers.
Why do I suddenly have an urge to watch "Life of Brian"?
One of the first things your lawyers tell you when you are involved in litigation is to shut up about it. Why is Sun blogging about a case they are actively involved in?
That's been worked around before, by blacklisting. Basically, you sell the binary and source to your customers. Any customer who passes on the source or binaries, you blacklist. You refuse to sell them any newer versions, and refuse to sell them support. Customers quickly learn that they should not give out your code, even though it would not be a GPL violation for them to do so.
This works best when the code is for something that doesn't have much outside developer interest, so that as a practical matter, the company selling it is really the only good place to get it, unless you want to fork the thing.
I don't have to worry because I have a policy of not lying in federal court.
In some districtis, such as those in Florida, where there are a ton of drug related criminal cases to deal with, you can't even get a civil case, like a patent case, on the calendar.
I don't think the results in Texas are significantly better for patent plaintiffs than they are in other courts. It's just that in Texas the case can procede faster, which is generally good for both plaintiffs and defendants.
Sure they would. If the box says "Super Space Blaster for OS X", then they should not expect it to work on any platform other than OS X. If the box says "Cross-platform Super Space Blaster! Works on any Java system!", then it works on any platform.
And sometime people need to write a platform-dependant application. Why should they have to use a separate language for that?
Why can't Java be both a language AND a platform? If you need cross-platform, use the Java langauge AND platform, but if you need to write a Windows-only program, or a Unix-only program, or an OS X-only program, use the Java language but not the Java platform.
Wow. Someone who is paid to promote ODF doesn't like people who have problems with ODF. Is there going to be film at 11?
They did the same thing with Java. If they had let people implement Java as an ordinary language, with platform-specific features, so that I could have used Java instead of C on Windows or Mac for writing Windows or Mac apps, when I want to take advantage of the specific platform, and still have used Java for portable apps when I didn't need platform-specific stuff, Java would have become one of the main languages for application programming for desktop systems. But Sun decided that it must remain pure, and only be usable for the kind of things they wanted it used for (writing portable code), and so we all had to write our non-portable apps in C, and it was usually easier to just write our portable apps in C, too, and use #ifdefs to deal with different platforms, and Java became insignificant on the desktop.
Part of being "open" means letting people do things that you might not like, such as interoperate with Word, or write Mac programs that use Mac features in Java. Sun needs to realize this, and let us use their interesting technology without telling us HOW we have to use it.
The patent license from Sun for ODF only covers version 1.0, plus any subsequent versions that Sun participates in the development of. That means that if Sun doesn't like the direction ODF goes, they can stop it by stepping back. Sun has stated that ODF is meant to support exactly those features needed by StarOffice, no more. Until Sun makes ODF an actual open standard, that can be evolved outside of Sun's control, so that it can evolve to handle both Office and StarOffice documents, it is simply not an option.