BTW whats the alternative? If you think they shouldnt be allowed to fine foreign companies then I assume you must be suggesting that all anti trust laws be abolished (since fines are the only way you have any sway over foreign companies, and if you can escape all anti trust laws simply by setting up shop in the country with the laws which suit you then there is very little use for them anywhere in a world with a globalized economy).
That Plasmak stuff seems interesting, if a little too commercially hyped... the compression approach doesnt sound too different from magnetized target fusion (http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/mtf.htm).
Without support from NVIDIA/ATI/IMG/etc there is very little justification for these projects (ATI and IMG have said they will use closed source drivers for their new cards, NVIDIA has made its policy clear a long time ago).
That particular scenario would have failed. But there are plenty of flight paths over densely populated city's, and you dont need any prolonged hijack situation to crash a plane... especially with a little fire power.
Some signal processing code running with altivec could run a tad faster, but they were always slower across the board for the rest.
Let alone price performance ratio of course, but this new processor is unlikely to change that... if you are on a limited budget and want the fastest linux box for your money you go x86, was that way and will probably stay that way.
There are many 3D cards supported, but how many recent ones? NVIDIA does its own thing, IMG will be doing its own thing too... that leaves ATI, Matrox might be getting back in the game but they never released the specs to their setup engine and with pixel&vertex shaders moving forward I doubt they will give enough data for drivers competetive with Windows.
So really in the future whats the purpose of open source OpenGL? Only for ATI cards and academic purposes?
You point me where in the GPL it say's I have to keep a running administration of my commercial use of covered code which I have to pass on to the some third party?
That comes on top of the GPL (or rather it would if the GPL would allow that).
Have you thought about uses of the information he acquires through his patent license BTW? I can think up some sinister scenarios, he can of course sell the info for marketing purposes... but far more profitable is to let the GPL version get popular, bankrupt the company (which voids the existing license) and then sell the patent and the listing of commercial users to get a nice complete list of who to extort license fees from.
BTW you didnt cover my main point, whats the difference between putting further restrictions in the patent license or just putting in a monetary fee for use? Either both are allowed or both are disallowed... so which is it? You think he should also be allowed to demand money from commercial users of his so called GPL code? Or you think that as long as they comply with the GPL they should be able to use it?
Have you read his patent license? He requires things beyond whats required by the GPL, that is enough... if you think he should be able to get away with that then why draw the line at him asking money for patent licenses? There is no fundamental difference.
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
The best you can do with patents you want to be allowed to be used in GPL'd code is to require the licensee to use them in GPL'd code... thats about it as far as restrictions you can put on use.
The GPL grants certain rights, those are restricted by the patent license... and thats not allowed, simple really.
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
+
"If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License."
=
No if's and or but's about it...
Requiring someone to give usage information to be allowed to use it is as legal as any other requirement beyond whats in the GPL. If the patent license forced you to pay mr. Yodaiken money would you still uphold his right to do this? If one is legal then so is the other.
It may suck for mr Yodaiken, but if he wants to modify GPL'd code using his patented technology and distribute it then he will have to give an even more open license.
"So IMO the GPL violation occurs when somebody sells a product utilizing RTLinux, RTAI (or a similar product) or when somebody runs the product commercially."
Where does it state in the GPL that you are not allowed to sell covered software or use it commercially? GPL covers distribution not use... you could never violate the GPL by selling or using covered code if you complied to its requirements.
Apart from the fact that the patent is bloody obvious (as can be seen by the development of L4-Linux) I cant say Im charmed with the following parts of the license :
"5.
Licensee and any subsequent user of the Patented Process through
Licensee's products or services will give notice of their full name,
address, telephone number, E-mail address and date of first use or
access to the Patented Process, whichever is earlier, to Licensor by
sending an E-mail to license@fsmlabs.com.
6.
You will keep complete and accurate records of all commercial uses
of the Patented Process and all commercial distributions of the Patented
Process whether that distribution occurs directly or as part of your
products or services. You will also provide copies of all such records
upon request from Licensor."
"3.
The Licensor may terminate this License and end all uses of the
Patented Process if, for any reason, Licensor believes that the Licensee
is, or is about to become, bankrupt. In addition, Licensor may terminate
this License and end all uses of the Patented Process if Licensee files
a petition for bankruptcy or if an involuntary petition for bankruptcy
is filed against Licensee during a bankruptcy proceeding."
His intentions might be good, but do we have to suffer for the fact that he chose the wrong kernel to extend in this way (he should have gone with xBSD) with the erosion of what the GPL stands for?
GPL does have some things to say about patents BTW.
But it isnt about copyrights really as much as its about contracts, without the GPL he has no rights to distribute Linux at all... his only line of defense is saying that he's abiding by the GPL. Which makes copyright law inconsequential:)
Copyright law only comes into the picture if hes proven not to be abiding by the GPL.
When I first ran accross the supposedly GPL'd software from Lizardtech the same idea occurred to me (http://djvu.sourceforge.net/).
Its a related problem, but in some way's even worse because they are not even infringing upon anything... people can pretend source code is released under the GPL while its patent license is too restrictive or non existant. What actually happens is that because they are the copyright owner they can release it anyway they like it and tack the GPL on it, but since you cannot comply by the GPL and use that source code thats just an empty gesture.
In this case the only possible way to prevent it is through trademarks and/or certification.
The patent licenses are markedly different, the one on Advogato makes no further restrictions than those already expressed in the GPL... the RTLinux one does (the e-mail requirement, the administration requirements etc etc... why he wants that information and how it would be used is an interesting question BTW).
Well we differ of opinion, there's a lot of doomsday scenerio's with biological weapons which I think are feasible (weapons plucked from nature, no need to engineer it... just "lucky" enough to find it, or heist a germ research center). The problem is that those kind scenarios are unlikely to be very well contained.
I never said they shouldnt go into Afghanistan BTW, just that just because they were indiscriminate is not a reason act likewise... and it would be extremely counterproductive to boot.
The people who are behind these kind of attacks have very twisted causes, but near total and indiscriminate annihilation of the human race thankfully isnt one of them.
What I think they should do? Find out who did it for sure, in the meantime have the UN sanction Afghanistan a little more for not extraditing Bin Laden for the first WTC bombing... then if it does turn out it was him for sure go in there and get him with a minimum of casualties, and smart bomb another couple of terrorist camps ala Clinton (although I have this suspicion thats pretty futile).
Striking at them with a "devestating blow" and wiping "them out" (them meaning not only the terrorist, but also the government and anyone who is unlucky enough to be around) will accomplish nothing but even greater trouble. The only way to justify a full blown war is if you are going to replace the existing government, even then doing it with excessive casualties is likely to just make it harder for everyone down the line.
Looking for quick and easy "final solutions" like just "nuking" their capital and whereever you think Bin Laden is hiding is lunacy (which is what I read between the line of the guy I was replying too).
They hit you pretty hard, are you too scared? You either create more terrorists or you try to wipe them all out, trying to wipe them all out wont work and what you are left with is a couple of determined people who no longer care about preserving life anywhere anymore.
Consider for a moment what a group of determined people with nothing left to live for and no lives to preserve anywhere anymore could do (think filo viruses).
"whoever planned today's attack considers that ANY American is part of the ENEMY. By that token, ANY of their citizens become part of our enemy, so there are no innocents there, either."
Sorry you lost me for a moment there with that "By that token". If we are allowed to say their civilians arent innocent then how could they have targeted innocent people in the first place? Or does it only count as wrong for the first one to use this rationalization and after that it becomes a valid one for the second party to use?
Innocent people will die in a war, officially declared or not, on the "other side" too... thats not to say there isnt a war to be fought, but have some respect for those people and recognise them as such. They deserve it no more or less than any of the people who have died in New York and Pittsburgh, although hopefully there will be a whole lot less of them.
Slashdot Mirror
They seem to have a right to a hearing.
BTW whats the alternative? If you think they shouldnt be allowed to fine foreign companies then I assume you must be suggesting that all anti trust laws be abolished (since fines are the only way you have any sway over foreign companies, and if you can escape all anti trust laws simply by setting up shop in the country with the laws which suit you then there is very little use for them anywhere in a world with a globalized economy).
That Plasmak stuff seems interesting, if a little too commercially hyped ... the compression approach doesnt sound too different from magnetized target fusion (http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/mtf.htm).
"Without that patent, we wouldn't even be having this discussion."
Proove it.
Didnt he use the LED's for front lighting but below the plastic cover? (if so that post is spot on ...)
Without support from NVIDIA/ATI/IMG/etc there is very little justification for these projects (ATI and IMG have said they will use closed source drivers for their new cards, NVIDIA has made its policy clear a long time ago).
If by making false assumption you were the cause of all life on this planet to be destroyed would I be justified in hunting you down and killing you?
That particular scenario would have failed. But there are plenty of flight paths over densely populated city's, and you dont need any prolonged hijack situation to crash a plane ... especially with a little fire power.
Some signal processing code running with altivec could run a tad faster, but they were always slower across the board for the rest.
... if you are on a limited budget and want the fastest linux box for your money you go x86, was that way and will probably stay that way.
Let alone price performance ratio of course, but this new processor is unlikely to change that
Actually ATI is switching to binary drivers for linux too ...
There are many 3D cards supported, but how many recent ones? NVIDIA does its own thing, IMG will be doing its own thing too ... that leaves ATI, Matrox might be getting back in the game but they never released the specs to their setup engine and with pixel&vertex shaders moving forward I doubt they will give enough data for drivers competetive with Windows.
So really in the future whats the purpose of open source OpenGL? Only for ATI cards and academic purposes?
Arent they trying to implement a portable version of the Common Language Runtime library?
There are people left who dont use JIT's? (which is not an interpreter)
Actually I totally misread the bankrupcy bit :) Still, what does he want that info for?
You point me where in the GPL it say's I have to keep a running administration of my commercial use of covered code which I have to pass on to the some third party?
... but far more profitable is to let the GPL version get popular, bankrupt the company (which voids the existing license) and then sell the patent and the listing of commercial users to get a nice complete list of who to extort license fees from.
... so which is it? You think he should also be allowed to demand money from commercial users of his so called GPL code? Or you think that as long as they comply with the GPL they should be able to use it?
That comes on top of the GPL (or rather it would if the GPL would allow that).
Have you thought about uses of the information he acquires through his patent license BTW? I can think up some sinister scenarios, he can of course sell the info for marketing purposes
BTW you didnt cover my main point, whats the difference between putting further restrictions in the patent license or just putting in a monetary fee for use? Either both are allowed or both are disallowed
Have you read his patent license? He requires things beyond whats required by the GPL, that is enough ... if you think he should be able to get away with that then why draw the line at him asking money for patent licenses? There is no fundamental difference.
... thats about it as far as restrictions you can put on use.
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
The best you can do with patents you want to be allowed to be used in GPL'd code is to require the licensee to use them in GPL'd code
The GPL grants certain rights, those are restricted by the patent license ... and thats not allowed, simple really.
...
... you could never violate the GPL by selling or using covered code if you complied to its requirements.
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
+
"If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License."
=
No if's and or but's about it
Requiring someone to give usage information to be allowed to use it is as legal as any other requirement beyond whats in the GPL. If the patent license forced you to pay mr. Yodaiken money would you still uphold his right to do this? If one is legal then so is the other.
It may suck for mr Yodaiken, but if he wants to modify GPL'd code using his patented technology and distribute it then he will have to give an even more open license.
"So IMO the GPL violation occurs when somebody sells a product utilizing RTLinux, RTAI (or a similar product) or when somebody runs the product commercially."
Where does it state in the GPL that you are not allowed to sell covered software or use it commercially? GPL covers distribution not use
Apart from the fact that the patent is bloody obvious (as can be seen by the development of L4-Linux) I cant say Im charmed with the following parts of the license :
"5.
Licensee and any subsequent user of the Patented Process through
Licensee's products or services will give notice of their full name,
address, telephone number, E-mail address and date of first use or
access to the Patented Process, whichever is earlier, to Licensor by
sending an E-mail to license@fsmlabs.com.
6.
You will keep complete and accurate records of all commercial uses
of the Patented Process and all commercial distributions of the Patented
Process whether that distribution occurs directly or as part of your
products or services. You will also provide copies of all such records
upon request from Licensor."
"3.
The Licensor may terminate this License and end all uses of the
Patented Process if, for any reason, Licensor believes that the Licensee
is, or is about to become, bankrupt. In addition, Licensor may terminate
this License and end all uses of the Patented Process if Licensee files
a petition for bankruptcy or if an involuntary petition for bankruptcy
is filed against Licensee during a bankruptcy proceeding."
His intentions might be good, but do we have to suffer for the fact that he chose the wrong kernel to extend in this way (he should have gone with xBSD) with the erosion of what the GPL stands for?
GPL does have some things to say about patents BTW.
... his only line of defense is saying that he's abiding by the GPL. Which makes copyright law inconsequential :)
But it isnt about copyrights really as much as its about contracts, without the GPL he has no rights to distribute Linux at all
Copyright law only comes into the picture if hes proven not to be abiding by the GPL.
When I first ran accross the supposedly GPL'd software from Lizardtech the same idea occurred to me (http://djvu.sourceforge.net/).
... people can pretend source code is released under the GPL while its patent license is too restrictive or non existant. What actually happens is that because they are the copyright owner they can release it anyway they like it and tack the GPL on it, but since you cannot comply by the GPL and use that source code thats just an empty gesture.
Its a related problem, but in some way's even worse because they are not even infringing upon anything
In this case the only possible way to prevent it is through trademarks and/or certification.
The patent licenses are markedly different, the one on Advogato makes no further restrictions than those already expressed in the GPL ... the RTLinux one does (the e-mail requirement, the administration requirements etc etc ... why he wants that information and how it would be used is an interesting question BTW).
Well we differ of opinion, there's a lot of doomsday scenerio's with biological weapons which I think are feasible (weapons plucked from nature, no need to engineer it ... just "lucky" enough to find it, or heist a germ research center). The problem is that those kind scenarios are unlikely to be very well contained.
... and it would be extremely counterproductive to boot.
I never said they shouldnt go into Afghanistan BTW, just that just because they were indiscriminate is not a reason act likewise
The people who are behind these kind of attacks have very twisted causes, but near total and indiscriminate annihilation of the human race thankfully isnt one of them.
What I think they should do? Find out who did it for sure, in the meantime have the UN sanction Afghanistan a little more for not extraditing Bin Laden for the first WTC bombing ... then if it does turn out it was him for sure go in there and get him with a minimum of casualties, and smart bomb another couple of terrorist camps ala Clinton (although I have this suspicion thats pretty futile).
Striking at them with a "devestating blow" and wiping "them out" (them meaning not only the terrorist, but also the government and anyone who is unlucky enough to be around) will accomplish nothing but even greater trouble. The only way to justify a full blown war is if you are going to replace the existing government, even then doing it with excessive casualties is likely to just make it harder for everyone down the line.
Looking for quick and easy "final solutions" like just "nuking" their capital and whereever you think Bin Laden is hiding is lunacy (which is what I read between the line of the guy I was replying too).
They hit you pretty hard, are you too scared? You either create more terrorists or you try to wipe them all out, trying to wipe them all out wont work and what you are left with is a couple of determined people who no longer care about preserving life anywhere anymore.
Consider for a moment what a group of determined people with nothing left to live for and no lives to preserve anywhere anymore could do (think filo viruses).
Its not only a-moral, its just plain stupid.
"whoever planned today's attack considers that ANY American is part of the ENEMY. By that token, ANY of their citizens become part of our enemy, so there are no innocents there, either."
... thats not to say there isnt a war to be fought, but have some respect for those people and recognise them as such. They deserve it no more or less than any of the people who have died in New York and Pittsburgh, although hopefully there will be a whole lot less of them.
Sorry you lost me for a moment there with that "By that token". If we are allowed to say their civilians arent innocent then how could they have targeted innocent people in the first place? Or does it only count as wrong for the first one to use this rationalization and after that it becomes a valid one for the second party to use?
Innocent people will die in a war, officially declared or not, on the "other side" too