What does a constitution have to do with contract law? That's not what a constitution is for. This is contract law related.
The issue is much simpler: what you need is either an amendment to the law that allows the right to class action trials to be waived in a contract, or the creation of a law that forbids waiving such rights. Whatever applicable.
Many years ago I got a letter for joining a class action against Paypal, whom I used occasionally at the time. I don't know exactly what it was for, but all I had to do was send a letter to some US law firm, and a year later or so I got a few dollars credited into my account. About $5 or so, not much, just enough to pay for lunch or so.
I don't mind. If people are handing out money, I'm happy to receive some. Even if I'm not American, never even having set foot in the US, just happen to be using that service. All in all it was quite interesting.
Considering how divided the two main parties are, not much chance that they would be able to, even if they tried. I don't know the exact procedure but likely it'll involve things like having a 2/3 majority.
Woz explains what he means; Apple is simply producing improved versions of its own products rather than creating new markets [post Steve Jobs].
Steve Jobs died now just over a year ago. Some will call it "ages in the computer world", but that depends on your perspective. Indeed many types of devices (particularly mobile phones) have a complete new generation every half year or so. Over the past year Apple introduced the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad mini, amongst many other accessories and whatnot. That's not too bad. The 4S was shortly after Jobs' death, so is a Jobs-era product, the other two are much newer.
Indeed they did not introduce anything revolutionary, but then how often did Steve Jobs do that? Not too often I'd wager. Major releases were of course the Apple II back in it's day, and more recently the iPod, later the iPhone and iPad. These shook up the market, but other than the iPod which was totally new they're not that magnificently different. The iPod evolved to have a touch screen, then got a phone component added and it became the iPhone. The iPhone was then upscaled, the phone part removed, and one has the iPad. The underlying OS, and I see the iOS as a major key to their success, is the same for all, making it relatively straightforward.
OK I highly simplify it, but the point is: this are not totally new devices, they are rather logical evolutions, albeit with significant steps in between. And the iPod was 2001, the iPhone 2007, and the iPad 2010. So maybe in a year or two we could expect something revolutionary by Apple. Not every year, that's too much to ask.
There are proprietary drivers around. Binary-only, no sources. Iirc ATI or Nvidia video card drivers are proprietary. How it works I don't know but I think it's got to do with an open source "glue layer" between the kernel and the binary driver.
I wonder how they can gain 700% performance gain. It sounds just too much.
Why? Because there is a limit to the total amount of data an access point can handle: this is a hard limit, defined by the WiFi protocols and transciever hardware. This would suggest that a congested access point handles no more than 12% of the maximum traffic - and that is for all the connected nodes together.
If a protocol can handle say 10 Mbit/s, then you can't magically make it 80 Mbit/s. So to have 700% gain, you have to start off at a mere 1.25 Mbit/s throughput. If 45 clients are actively using an access point at the same time, it's hard to imagine that this access point is doing only 1.25 Mbit of traffic, and that prioritising some traffic would suddenly boost that to the full 10 Mbit. Actually in such a situation I would really expect the access point to become saturated, and to be transmitting data at nearly 10 Mbit/s, and that if there is a serious backlog of data to be transmitted that this is due to lack of spare bandwidth.
As long as they themselves own the copyright, they can release it any way they want. Release it once under GPL; later release it under a proprietary license. No problem there.
And that's exactly what they claim: they own the copyright to all code used in that closed source driver, no GPL code owned by other people is included. That they released (part of) that code as GPL code as well, doesn't mean they can not release the same code under a different license. Possibly with some additions/alterations. It's their code, they can use it as they fit. One of the few things they can not do is withdrawing the code released under the GPL.
There are hundreds of ways to design and build a house - and houses are indeed being built in hundreds of different ways. There is no "one size fits all". Indeed OS software gets forked all the time, alternative projects are started, and often more than one survives. Just like in a real ecosystem, diversity brings strength and resilience..
IE, typically the one and only browser installed on new computers, use is far more prevalent in the US than in Europe for example.
Now I assume that Americans are, on average, just as competent and knowledgeable as Europeans when it comes to alternative browsers (that browser selection screen doesn't seem to do much; MS just got fined again for failing to make it work). So I'd say there is your proof: many Americans choose IE over the alternatives.
Internet Explorer would be dead by now if Mozilla and friends would just get with the program and include group policies and the ability to restrict software functionality (like automatic updates!) from a centralized source. But the community keeps bringing it back because it simply refuses to listen to what corporations ask for.
Besides that I doubt IE would be dead, I also don't think that's a good thing.
Why is it always that competing products have to be killed? It's not just with browsers, it's with other software and hardware too (think "iPad-killer" kind of stuff).
Wikipedia lists four browsers at >15% market share, with Firefox at #3, behind IE. Corporate-developed Chrome is #1, IE is #2.
This looks great to me. There is choice, there is competition, and there are four popular choices meaning no single browser can define the web like IE did with their IE6-specific code. IE is still competing in this market, down to a 22% level, which means they have to really work to stay alive. And we see that with the vast advances MS has made with their browser.
I don't like IE, tried it recently again (new laptop with Win7) and it just didn't work right. Somehow the UI was way too cluttered for me, so I went back to Firefox. Other people may like IE, well good for them. It's not that bad a browser any more. Microsoft is actively developing it, is adding new features, and now they're pretty much done catching up to the competition in that field they can start trying to surpass the competition by adding innovative features. And if those are good, FF will copy them again, just like IE copied a lot from FF and other browsers.
That's what competition is doing to you. Just killing off all competitors, and have FF be the >90% browser will bring us back to the late 90s and early 00s, the heydays of IE6. With a stagnant web, little to no innovation. It's not something I am longing for, at all. If anything Chrome is currently the one to go after.
so basically if they developed the code and use a closed source OS that is not linux then redhat don't have a leg to stand on..
The OS they use is irrelevant. You can very well have closed-source, proprietary software (or even drivers) that run under Linux. That the Linux source falls under the GPL doesn't mean your software has to be GPL, too.
You only need to release your code under the GPL if you use other software that is GPL licensed (and to which you do not own copyright yourself).
Agreed. And I'm also not about to read the kernel mailing list, but I have some other considerations about this and finding/dealing with GPL infringements in general.
A large part of code shipped is closed source. Proprietary operating systems, drivers, applications, whatever. That makes it, by nature, hard to check whether your GPLed source code's copyright is infringed upon: how can one check whether a closed source software program uses parts of published open source code? This is hard, really hard. If it can be proven, at all, without looking at the source of the suspected software.
What I know is that people generally look for various pointers: unique variable names and function names, specific API calls that they developed, and that have no equivalent in other code. Or even specific functionality that you developed and that had never been developed before. Find a lot of those names in the suspected compiled code, and there is reason to believe that their source code is being used there. Maybe they could even find the name of their own code in the suspected code: very often function names use the program's name itself for name space.
And in this case, assuming there is a reasonable suspicion of infringement, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the potential infringing party to defend themselves by giving insight in the code - and from what I heard about e.g. the SCO court cases is that often the judges demand parties to come up with certain information that the other party needs as evidence. This doesn't necessarily mean publishing the code: it means having the complainant and/or an independent party look at the potentially offending code, and verifying whether it's infringing. Looking at the suspected software's source is, after all, the only way to prove with certainty whether or not the GPL code is used in there.
A potential issue is of course the revelation of trade secrets. I can imagine that this RTS company has come up with e.g. a very clever way to massively improve performance, and that just by reading the code, the Red Hat developer may learn enough to use a similar technique in his own work. That's probably why RTS doesn't want third parties to look at their code.
It is most definitely something that's intended to ship to third parties, so this may just be a pre-emptive move by this Red Hat developer to make sure no infringement will take place.
If so, why doesn't AT&T not simply start directly offering those alternative connections to customers? Instead of irritating them, losing a lot of goodwill in the process, and possibly have them switch to another provider instead?
Great copy-pasta, I've seen this before. And yes, hardware isn't as easy to develop as software is.
Nevertheless it's a good thing. Better than keeping it closed. Maybe you and I can't do anything with it directly, there are certainly people that can learn from it. It can be used as study object in universities, for example (where students routinely design and bake their own microchips, too).
Yes; for the very fact that the user thinks the password protects them, while in reality it's not so much. More and more users these days are aware of the idea of password protecting wifi networks. Routers should simply require the user to set a password (or intentionally open up the network) on first installation - using some kind of setup tool and network cable.
The last few times I had Internet installed at either office or home, the tech always took their own laptop to set it up. So at least he has all the tools he needs at hand. I really don't understand that Bigpond Cable tech didn't carry his own laptop...
Average security-illiterate consumer that just wants stuff to work: "I want to connect to my WiFi. Let's check the manual... oh that's network 'mycomcastrouter' and key 'mycomcastkey' as written on a sticker on the bottom of the device. That's easy." Selects network, enters key, connects to his WiFi router, and is happy.
Note the absence of the "sets up a WiFi password" in the above sequence.
I really first misread it as "Man Arrested For Photo of Burning Puppy On Facebook". Shocked, I thought that would definitely be a good reason for arrest, for cruelty against animals.
Then I reread the headline, and realised it's an o, not a u. Poppies. So he's probably been smoking something bad. Reason for arrest, indeed. But who would be so stupid of putting photos of them doing drugs on Facebook? Shocking. The stupidity.
Then reading the summary I realised it's for burning some flower. Just a flower. Even more shocking - being arrested for burning a flower. OK that flower is a symbol of remembrance, and thus burning such a flower and telling the world you did it will certainly upset people, it's definitely not a nice thing to do, but also not exactly a reason for arrest imho.
So the whole issue is quite ridiculous. And a bit shocking, still.
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Is it that such penalties are defined in law to be so low? Or is it the judges that hand out those lenient penalties?
Which local stores?
What does a constitution have to do with contract law? That's not what a constitution is for. This is contract law related.
The issue is much simpler: what you need is either an amendment to the law that allows the right to class action trials to be waived in a contract, or the creation of a law that forbids waiving such rights. Whatever applicable.
Many years ago I got a letter for joining a class action against Paypal, whom I used occasionally at the time. I don't know exactly what it was for, but all I had to do was send a letter to some US law firm, and a year later or so I got a few dollars credited into my account. About $5 or so, not much, just enough to pay for lunch or so.
I don't mind. If people are handing out money, I'm happy to receive some. Even if I'm not American, never even having set foot in the US, just happen to be using that service. All in all it was quite interesting.
Considering how divided the two main parties are, not much chance that they would be able to, even if they tried. I don't know the exact procedure but likely it'll involve things like having a 2/3 majority.
Woz explains what he means; Apple is simply producing improved versions of its own products rather than creating new markets [post Steve Jobs].
Steve Jobs died now just over a year ago. Some will call it "ages in the computer world", but that depends on your perspective. Indeed many types of devices (particularly mobile phones) have a complete new generation every half year or so. Over the past year Apple introduced the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad mini, amongst many other accessories and whatnot. That's not too bad. The 4S was shortly after Jobs' death, so is a Jobs-era product, the other two are much newer.
Indeed they did not introduce anything revolutionary, but then how often did Steve Jobs do that? Not too often I'd wager. Major releases were of course the Apple II back in it's day, and more recently the iPod, later the iPhone and iPad. These shook up the market, but other than the iPod which was totally new they're not that magnificently different. The iPod evolved to have a touch screen, then got a phone component added and it became the iPhone. The iPhone was then upscaled, the phone part removed, and one has the iPad. The underlying OS, and I see the iOS as a major key to their success, is the same for all, making it relatively straightforward.
OK I highly simplify it, but the point is: this are not totally new devices, they are rather logical evolutions, albeit with significant steps in between. And the iPod was 2001, the iPhone 2007, and the iPad 2010. So maybe in a year or two we could expect something revolutionary by Apple. Not every year, that's too much to ask.
There are proprietary drivers around. Binary-only, no sources. Iirc ATI or Nvidia video card drivers are proprietary. How it works I don't know but I think it's got to do with an open source "glue layer" between the kernel and the binary driver.
I wonder how they can gain 700% performance gain. It sounds just too much.
Why? Because there is a limit to the total amount of data an access point can handle: this is a hard limit, defined by the WiFi protocols and transciever hardware. This would suggest that a congested access point handles no more than 12% of the maximum traffic - and that is for all the connected nodes together.
If a protocol can handle say 10 Mbit/s, then you can't magically make it 80 Mbit/s. So to have 700% gain, you have to start off at a mere 1.25 Mbit/s throughput. If 45 clients are actively using an access point at the same time, it's hard to imagine that this access point is doing only 1.25 Mbit of traffic, and that prioritising some traffic would suddenly boost that to the full 10 Mbit. Actually in such a situation I would really expect the access point to become saturated, and to be transmitting data at nearly 10 Mbit/s, and that if there is a serious backlog of data to be transmitted that this is due to lack of spare bandwidth.
As long as they themselves own the copyright, they can release it any way they want. Release it once under GPL; later release it under a proprietary license. No problem there.
And that's exactly what they claim: they own the copyright to all code used in that closed source driver, no GPL code owned by other people is included. That they released (part of) that code as GPL code as well, doesn't mean they can not release the same code under a different license. Possibly with some additions/alterations. It's their code, they can use it as they fit. One of the few things they can not do is withdrawing the code released under the GPL.
There are lots of people in the EU still using IE. And as choice is mandatory there, obviously they chose to use it.
There are hundreds of ways to design and build a house - and houses are indeed being built in hundreds of different ways. There is no "one size fits all". Indeed OS software gets forked all the time, alternative projects are started, and often more than one survives. Just like in a real ecosystem, diversity brings strength and resilience..
IE, typically the one and only browser installed on new computers, use is far more prevalent in the US than in Europe for example.
Now I assume that Americans are, on average, just as competent and knowledgeable as Europeans when it comes to alternative browsers (that browser selection screen doesn't seem to do much; MS just got fined again for failing to make it work). So I'd say there is your proof: many Americans choose IE over the alternatives.
To prepare you for the shock when you are forced to upgrade.
Internet Explorer would be dead by now if Mozilla and friends would just get with the program and include group policies and the ability to restrict software functionality (like automatic updates!) from a centralized source. But the community keeps bringing it back because it simply refuses to listen to what corporations ask for.
Besides that I doubt IE would be dead, I also don't think that's a good thing.
Why is it always that competing products have to be killed? It's not just with browsers, it's with other software and hardware too (think "iPad-killer" kind of stuff).
Wikipedia lists four browsers at >15% market share, with Firefox at #3, behind IE. Corporate-developed Chrome is #1, IE is #2.
This looks great to me. There is choice, there is competition, and there are four popular choices meaning no single browser can define the web like IE did with their IE6-specific code. IE is still competing in this market, down to a 22% level, which means they have to really work to stay alive. And we see that with the vast advances MS has made with their browser.
I don't like IE, tried it recently again (new laptop with Win7) and it just didn't work right. Somehow the UI was way too cluttered for me, so I went back to Firefox. Other people may like IE, well good for them. It's not that bad a browser any more. Microsoft is actively developing it, is adding new features, and now they're pretty much done catching up to the competition in that field they can start trying to surpass the competition by adding innovative features. And if those are good, FF will copy them again, just like IE copied a lot from FF and other browsers.
That's what competition is doing to you. Just killing off all competitors, and have FF be the >90% browser will bring us back to the late 90s and early 00s, the heydays of IE6. With a stagnant web, little to no innovation. It's not something I am longing for, at all. If anything Chrome is currently the one to go after.
Seems like RTS customers are the ones who would have a right to demand the source to whatever GPLed software they bought or been given.
Which, according to RTS, is none at all. No GPL software included in their offerings, so no source needs to be given to anyone.
so basically if they developed the code and use a closed source OS that is not linux then redhat don't have a leg to stand on..
The OS they use is irrelevant. You can very well have closed-source, proprietary software (or even drivers) that run under Linux. That the Linux source falls under the GPL doesn't mean your software has to be GPL, too.
You only need to release your code under the GPL if you use other software that is GPL licensed (and to which you do not own copyright yourself).
Agreed. And I'm also not about to read the kernel mailing list, but I have some other considerations about this and finding/dealing with GPL infringements in general.
A large part of code shipped is closed source. Proprietary operating systems, drivers, applications, whatever. That makes it, by nature, hard to check whether your GPLed source code's copyright is infringed upon: how can one check whether a closed source software program uses parts of published open source code? This is hard, really hard. If it can be proven, at all, without looking at the source of the suspected software.
What I know is that people generally look for various pointers: unique variable names and function names, specific API calls that they developed, and that have no equivalent in other code. Or even specific functionality that you developed and that had never been developed before. Find a lot of those names in the suspected compiled code, and there is reason to believe that their source code is being used there. Maybe they could even find the name of their own code in the suspected code: very often function names use the program's name itself for name space.
And in this case, assuming there is a reasonable suspicion of infringement, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the potential infringing party to defend themselves by giving insight in the code - and from what I heard about e.g. the SCO court cases is that often the judges demand parties to come up with certain information that the other party needs as evidence. This doesn't necessarily mean publishing the code: it means having the complainant and/or an independent party look at the potentially offending code, and verifying whether it's infringing. Looking at the suspected software's source is, after all, the only way to prove with certainty whether or not the GPL code is used in there.
A potential issue is of course the revelation of trade secrets. I can imagine that this RTS company has come up with e.g. a very clever way to massively improve performance, and that just by reading the code, the Red Hat developer may learn enough to use a similar technique in his own work. That's probably why RTS doesn't want third parties to look at their code.
It is most definitely something that's intended to ship to third parties, so this may just be a pre-emptive move by this Red Hat developer to make sure no infringement will take place.
If so, why doesn't AT&T not simply start directly offering those alternative connections to customers? Instead of irritating them, losing a lot of goodwill in the process, and possibly have them switch to another provider instead?
Great copy-pasta, I've seen this before. And yes, hardware isn't as easy to develop as software is.
Nevertheless it's a good thing. Better than keeping it closed. Maybe you and I can't do anything with it directly, there are certainly people that can learn from it. It can be used as study object in universities, for example (where students routinely design and bake their own microchips, too).
As soon as you come up with a printer that can actually print working circuits, including microchips, then the rest will be trivial.
Yes; for the very fact that the user thinks the password protects them, while in reality it's not so much. More and more users these days are aware of the idea of password protecting wifi networks. Routers should simply require the user to set a password (or intentionally open up the network) on first installation - using some kind of setup tool and network cable.
The last few times I had Internet installed at either office or home, the tech always took their own laptop to set it up. So at least he has all the tools he needs at hand. I really don't understand that Bigpond Cable tech didn't carry his own laptop...
Average security-illiterate consumer that just wants stuff to work: "I want to connect to my WiFi. Let's check the manual... oh that's network 'mycomcastrouter' and key 'mycomcastkey' as written on a sticker on the bottom of the device. That's easy." Selects network, enters key, connects to his WiFi router, and is happy.
Note the absence of the "sets up a WiFi password" in the above sequence.
I really first misread it as "Man Arrested For Photo of Burning Puppy On Facebook". Shocked, I thought that would definitely be a good reason for arrest, for cruelty against animals.
Then I reread the headline, and realised it's an o, not a u. Poppies. So he's probably been smoking something bad. Reason for arrest, indeed. But who would be so stupid of putting photos of them doing drugs on Facebook? Shocking. The stupidity.
Then reading the summary I realised it's for burning some flower. Just a flower. Even more shocking - being arrested for burning a flower. OK that flower is a symbol of remembrance, and thus burning such a flower and telling the world you did it will certainly upset people, it's definitely not a nice thing to do, but also not exactly a reason for arrest imho.
So the whole issue is quite ridiculous. And a bit shocking, still.