5) Slashdot Readership Covers A Wide Range of Opinions, Which Often Overlap and Contradict Each Other.
The only people who should believe that/. readers are one groupthinking, hypocritcal base are the ones trying to draw flames or troll based on revealing the "hypocrisy" of Slashdot.
My wife and I have not had cable for nigh upon 5 years now; we have a TV, but it's got a DVD, VCR and Gamecube hooked up to it.
Netflix has allowed me to watch TV shows that I'm interested in at my pace. A couple of episodes of Smallville here, some Stargate SG-1 there, etc. etc. We're also getting caught up on the movies that we missed in the theaters (mainly stuff that appeals to her than to me...) Other than that, the TV isn't on. I get my news from the radio, the local newspaper and Google News.
Instead, I read. And surf the net. And use Safari to "check out" books on subjects I'm interested in, to see if I want to buy them.
There are all sorts of things you can do if you're not sitting in front of the TV. For every amazing new TV show that's out there, there's probably an equally amazing comic, or novel, or movie. (And don't get me started on the crap that some people feel like wasting precious hours of their lives on...)
That a person on Slashdot can construct a hypothetical situation to support any point of view.
Hmm - looks like the first word I type does something. I should try help
#linux> help /lib/help: Permission denied
Funny, I type "help" on my linux box and I get:
GNU bash, version 2.05b.0(1)-release (i386-pc-linux-gnu)
These shell commands are defined internally.
Type `help' to see this list.
Type `help name' to find out more about the function `name'.
Use `info bash' to find out more about the shell in general.
Use `man -k' or `info' to find out more about commands not in this list.
A star (*) next to a name means that the command is disabled.
(There is more, but the lameness filter blocked it...)
So a help system that is incorrectly configured is apparently an example of the horrible usabiity of a command-line UI?
At this point, dad tries to read the manual, but it's all so much techno-gibberish that he is lost by the third page.
Nice bit of hand-waving there. "Darn, I forgot, the manuals might actually have useful information. Well, I'll just pretend that it's too geeky for poor old Dad to read through..."
If you don't like the prices, don't buy. That does not give you license to steal the property of others.
I missed the part in his summary where he was talking about stealing the music he wasn't going to buy. After all, we're talking about legitimate online music outlets, right? Or have they figured out how to apply a tariff to P2P?:)
I agree with Bruha; if the whole CD is good, I'll go and buy the whole CD instead of the single songs I want off of iTunes. Gouging me with a 200% price increase because the RIAA doesn't think it's making enough dime off of its online sales, or because they want me to buy the whole album instead, will just drive me back into the non-buying of music.
Even with the 20 or so free Pepsi songs I got, I've still spent a lot more at the iTMS in the last year than I have on physical CDs for the last two or three. And almost none of those CDs were new, so the RIAA is actually making more money off of me buying songs off of iTMS at $1/track than if I buy the whole CD for $5 at my local used CD store.
Go ahead, RIAA; continue driving your customers away with your rampant, obnoxious greed.
We are allowing for bad precedents to be set. The more we allow to slip out the more we will lose.
Then don't use iTMS; if no one does, it'll be a commercial failure and the record labels will know that their controls are too stringent.
Oops, that's not working. I guess plenty of people are willing to accept their restrictions after all.
So rather than using the Apple-provided pseudo-"analog hole" to burn AACs to CDs and re-encode them, someone comes up with a crack for FairPlay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the two primary platforms for AACs the iPod and iTunes (which play the DRM-hampered versions)?
What exactly are you going to play your un-DRMed AACs on? And I'm not trying to be facetious; I'd like to know if there are any other players...
As a person who is finally seeing the end of the tunnel to an unhappy 6-year "marriage" to a corporation a couple of friends and I formed, let me tell you...
If any one in your corporation or business insists that you don't need documentation, meeting notes, or contracts, they're either completely naive or planning to screw you over at some point.
Anything to do with money must be discussed, agreed upon, and enforced. All you need is one of your partners to bleed a little from the company here or there ("I'll put this DVD player on the corporate credit card, no one will care...") to seriously affect your bottom line, not to mention causing problems when it comes time to do the books.
A corporation is like a marriage; both need real work and a serious commitment if they're going to succeed. If anyone thinks they can just "phone it in" or consider themselves the "idea man", the other partners need to knock some sense into him, and fast.
I would seriously reconsider bringing relatives or love interests into the business. My father, who ran his two of his own businesses for 25 and 30 years, told me "never go into business with someone you want to remain friends with." And if your romantic relationship goes sour, it will definitely impact the day-to-day business (and you want to be really careful if it comes to terminating her employment).
P.S. redesign slashdot [alistapart.com] using modern web standards, editors!
Funny you should mention that article, because in that same article you find:
Before you panic because I'm picking on Slashdot, let me inform you that I asked Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, the guru behind Slashdot, for permission to post this information, and he stated in his reply email:
Have fun. Feel free to submit patches back to us if you come up with anything useful. Slashdot's source code is open source and available at www.slashcode.com.
So did the people who did all that work submit those patches?
I think I'd rather put spam filters on backbone routers. That sounds a lot cheaper for everyone.
Unfortunately, much of my legitimate traffic gets flagged as spam by my ISP's spam filter (though Thunderbird has no problem).
And before you think I'm talking to those nice guys from Nigeria who want me to help them with a problem, or looking to enlarge my penis, let me give you some samples:
half of the emailed receipts I get -- a trial key from Dantz, some "thank you for your order" emails from Amoeba Software (makers of Audio Hijack and InformIT
a couple of emails from my mother-in-law about my brother in law, who's been sick recently
several posts from mailing lists I'm on -- security focus and the likes are really good at getting flagged, for some reason
Spammers seem to be hard at work trying to ruin the effectiveness of spam filters; once people turn them off, or have their rules so messed up spam can get through, they'll return in force. The closer the Bayesian filter is to the end user, the more effective is it for that user.
I don't want a backbone provider or my ISP deciding what of my email traffic is legitimate or not. A good example would be spam I've been getting in the form of "eBay question for seller" emails. Too bad for them; I haven't sold anything on eBay for several months. However, I do buy and sell stuff through eBay, and it'd be easier for Thunderbird to adapt to the change in my preferences than some backbone provider.
With B5 doing extremely well in DVD boxset form (Doyle commented that 350,000 boxsets at about $80 apiece would bring in $21 million) he remarked that they could effectively film a season and throw it in a box set and it'll eventually make money.
Obviously, that has some pitfalls -- I'm not going to shell out $75 to $100 for a season of a show I haven't watched any of -- but it does lend credence to what you're saying.
Another example would be Red Vs. Blue. Sure, the episodes are free for download in a low-res form; if you donate money, you can get access to high-res versions of the episodes; at the end of the season, they sell a whole season on DVD, and the best part is, if you basically donate the amount the DVD costs over the course of the season, you get it for free!
Leaving aside the fact that Paramount would bury them in lawyers for basically doing fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series, Starship Exeter would be another good example of something that might be entertaining, at $8 - $10 a DVD for two episodes, to pick up once in a while. (I'm not sure how they're making money doing basically fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series; I assume it's simply for the fun of it.)
I haven't had cable for over 4 years, and it hasn't hampered my ability to socialize with the world; I get my news from Google News and the local paper; friends will record stuff and loan it to me once in a while (I watched Battlestar Galactica and the SciFi Dune miniseries this way) and if you're good at listening, you can get people to tell you what happened on that show you used to watch. (Oral storytelling takes on a new life...?) I'm thinking of signing up for NetFlix and watching TV shows on DVD that way, at least enough to know whether or not I want to buy the box set.
If the MPAA or the networks or whoever want to try to force me to watch shows their way, on their schedule, they will fail. In fact, I'd say they've already failed, not just with me, but with the demographic that's typically the most lucrative for them as well.
I can't find the Groklaw article now, but a summary from a Groklaw reader who "attended" one of their conference calls said that it was pretty obvious that SCO wasn't letting anybody ask questions that they didn't know (and therefore couldn't predict or spin to their advantage).
No sense in upsetting the investors with those questions they don't want to answer...
[boldfaced parts emphasized by me] "UNIX-based Code" shall mean any Code or Method that:
(i) in its literal or non-literal expression, structure, format, use, functionality or adaptation (ii) is based on, developed in, derived from or is similar to (iii) any Code contained in or Method devised or developed in (iv) UNIX System V or UnixWare(R), or (v) any modification or derivative work based on or licensed under UNIX System V or UnixWare.
So they're bascially selling a license which purports to cover any code, in anything, that just so happens to behave the same way code in Unix System V or UnixWare behaves, or any product derived from those sources. Pretty broad spectrum, neh?
This is why people have been saying it's a bad idea to buy an SCO "IP license" until they are found to have rights to any "IP" in Linux. Because you're entering into a legally-binding agreement with a company that will audit you to try to intimidate you into "compliance".
Contrary to the notion where you get some kind of security in buying a license to use someone's IP, SCO's license gives you the exact opposite; no warranty, no indemnity (but Mr. McBride, what about all the times you claimed Linux users were at risk because of lack of warranty indemnification? And they explicitly state that there's no protection if you happen to infringe on someone else's intellectual property rights by using this license... like, say, the Linux kernel developers whose GPL-licesned code would be infringed?) and the right for SCO to audit you any time they want and make you cough up money if you "pirate" Linux by putting it on another machine -- oh, and the licenses are not transferrable between machines, either.
Sucker. Anyone who buys an SCO IP license has, in my opinion, no right to cry later when it turns out they bought a pig in a poke.
It's different because, while Debian components work on a package level, he's talking about a modular level.
That is, a collection of packages that work together thematically. For example; a simple productivity module which includes mozilla firefox, evolution, and openoffice. Or a multimedia module which includes xmms, mplayer, and a smattering of DVD players. Or a server module, which includes apache, samba, et al.
After rereading the submission and copy of nmap's release notes, I see that Fyodor isn't revoking SCO's license to nmap because he doesn't like them, he's accusing them of violating the GPL and telling them their license to use nmap is revoked as a result.
On that thought, I think Fyodor is missing a bet here; IIRC, the penalties for intentional copyright infringement can be quite large. (After all, isn't that what SCO originally accused IBM of?) He should talk to a lawyer and get them to draft a "cease and desist" letter to SCO.
If they want to use his code for free under the GPL, they have to abide by it. Otherwise, if they want to license it separately, they should have to pay $$$ just like a "real, Constitutional" license agreement.
Jay (= (Maybe there should be a slew of copyright registation requests sent to the Library of Congress for source code...)
Could the FSF take the lead in a class action suit, where the class consists of all GPL code owners that have products redistributed by SCO?
We're back to "the FSF can't sue someone for violating the license on someone else's code." The fact that the FSF authored the GPL does not give them any standing when it comes to licensor or licensee.
And so far as I know, the only GPLed project whose license is being violated by SCO is the Linux kernel. As long as SCO honors the GPL on the products that it distributes with UnixWare (gcc, Samba, etc.) the developers don't have any standing to sue.
Now this gets interesting: if SCO continues to distributed NMAP will the FSF start filing lawsuits?
Unless the FSF holds the copyright to nmap (or had it assigned to them), they have no legal standing with which to sue, as it's not their code being used in contradiction of the license.
This is why the FSF wants people to assign copyright to them for any contribution to FSF projects; it makes their recordkeeping and paperwork easier in case something like this happens.
CC RDF metadata can include fields for name of author, name of copyright holder, and the name of the work. The Creative Commons page on embedding license information in non-web files covers how validating the license would work.
You embed a link to a web page into the license data; the web page confirms the embedded license data. If the license link is not there, or the license data at the webpage and the embedded license data don't match, then it does not validate; a good agent would notify you of this, and perhaps even not let you download the non-validating files.
Yes, you could put up a fraudulent site with fraudulent license data. But that's like saying "selling used cars isn't practical, because I could steal a car and forge the registration." There's a reason fraud is a crime...
A community that wants to encourage distribution of legitimate works would not let a fraudulent site stay up for long once discovered, which would break the validation chain. And that is the community this system is designed to serve.
You can embed a link to a webpage with the license information into an MP3 or image file. A validator would check that the page exists, and that the licensing terms match. Verify is a Mac OS X application that does exactly this.
While this doesn't prevent fraudulent sites ("Why yes, I am Paul McCartney and I am dedicating The White Album to the public domain"), a friendly e-mail to the webmaster (or at worst, DMCA takedown letter -- wow, using the DMCA for good?) removes the fraudulent page, and the license no longer validates.
Well, their comic "A Spectrum of Rights" explains it better than I can, but in brief, you have several licensing options:
Are you required to give attribution to the author?
Is commercial distribution allowed, or non-commercial distribution only?
Are derivative works allowed, or must the work be distributed as provided?
Are derivative works allowed to be relicensed, or must they be distributed under the same terms as the work being derived from?
For the GPL and LGPL metadata, they added options for "Make source code available" and "Preserve copyright and licensing notices"; those are not necessarily appropriate for an MP3 file or a text file, and don't seem to be available from the license generator.
Those first four options can be combined to form eleven different licensing combinations, and the CC website will generate the necessary metadata and provide you with links to the "human-readable" (heh) and legal license documentation. The GPL would probably be considered similar to the Attribution-ShareAlike license.
The important thing to remember is Creative Commons is not a license, it's a spectrum of licenses that can be tailored to your needs. And remember, you can always contact the author and work out a better deal if their license doesn't work for you.
...is when Mark Heise, counsel for SCO at this hearing, was asked why SCO needed IBM's source code to AIX to determine if there is any infringement occuring, when SCO has certified that Sun and HP are not infringing without having shown any source code.
Heise replied (not sure of the exact quote, transcript isn't available yet) "As for HP, there is a fundamental difference in that theyhaven'tsaidtheyarecontributing to Linux". Dave Marriott, counsel for IBM at the hearing, replied that HP has, in fact, contributed to Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone remember when slashdot would link to nifty project sites, nifty home-brew stuff and the like?
What, like these stories from yesterday?
Jay (=
If we really wanted .Net functionality on Linux, we would make peace with Sun and pull Java into the OSS world.
As far as I can tell, the fact that Linux is a viable platform for running Java applications is one of the things keeping Java in the running.
So what exactly does the Linux community have to "make peace" with Sun over?
Is it the fact that the Java platform is "non-free" according to Richard Stallman? That's not something we did to Sun; some recent Slashdot articles have covered IBM's offer to help Sun open-source Java. Although talks may still be going on, Scott McNealy has said there will be no open-source Java -- at least, not one coming from Sun.
Any issues with "pulling Java into the OSS world" are Sun's issues, not the Linux community's.
Jay (=
You forgot...
/. readers are one groupthinking, hypocritcal base are the ones trying to draw flames or troll based on revealing the "hypocrisy" of Slashdot.
5) Slashdot Readership Covers A Wide Range of Opinions, Which Often Overlap and Contradict Each Other.
The only people who should believe that
Jay (=
My wife and I have not had cable for nigh upon 5 years now; we have a TV, but it's got a DVD, VCR and Gamecube hooked up to it.
Netflix has allowed me to watch TV shows that I'm interested in at my pace. A couple of episodes of Smallville here, some Stargate SG-1 there, etc. etc. We're also getting caught up on the movies that we missed in the theaters (mainly stuff that appeals to her than to me...) Other than that, the TV isn't on. I get my news from the radio, the local newspaper and Google News.
Instead, I read. And surf the net. And use Safari to "check out" books on subjects I'm interested in, to see if I want to buy them.
There are all sorts of things you can do if you're not sitting in front of the TV. For every amazing new TV show that's out there, there's probably an equally amazing comic, or novel, or movie. (And don't get me started on the crap that some people feel like wasting precious hours of their lives on...)
Jay (=
Because he wants the stability of MSIE with the site compatibility of Mozilla, of course...
Jay (=
Who would aspire to write a clean user interface for joe blow's project that might be dead or obsolete before you get done with it?
Well, for one, if the code is open, then the project isn't really "dead". Just fork your version and go on with life.
Coordinating your patches with Joe Blow's adding of new or improved functionality, that might be a more reasonable concern.
Jay (=
So what did we learn from this?
That a person on Slashdot can construct a hypothetical situation to support any point of view.
Hmm - looks like the first word I type does something. I should try help
/lib/help: Permission denied
#linux> help
Funny, I type "help" on my linux box and I get:
(There is more, but the lameness filter blocked it...)
So a help system that is incorrectly configured is apparently an example of the horrible usabiity of a command-line UI?
At this point, dad tries to read the manual, but it's all so much techno-gibberish that he is lost by the third page.
Nice bit of hand-waving there. "Darn, I forgot, the manuals might actually have useful information. Well, I'll just pretend that it's too geeky for poor old Dad to read through..."
Jay (=
If you don't like the prices, don't buy. That does not give you license to steal the property of others.
:)
I missed the part in his summary where he was talking about stealing the music he wasn't going to buy. After all, we're talking about legitimate online music outlets, right? Or have they figured out how to apply a tariff to P2P?
I agree with Bruha; if the whole CD is good, I'll go and buy the whole CD instead of the single songs I want off of iTunes. Gouging me with a 200% price increase because the RIAA doesn't think it's making enough dime off of its online sales, or because they want me to buy the whole album instead, will just drive me back into the non-buying of music.
Even with the 20 or so free Pepsi songs I got, I've still spent a lot more at the iTMS in the last year than I have on physical CDs for the last two or three. And almost none of those CDs were new, so the RIAA is actually making more money off of me buying songs off of iTMS at $1/track than if I buy the whole CD for $5 at my local used CD store.
Go ahead, RIAA; continue driving your customers away with your rampant, obnoxious greed.
Jay (=
We are allowing for bad precedents to be set. The more we allow to slip out the more we will lose.
Then don't use iTMS; if no one does, it'll be a commercial failure and the record labels will know that their controls are too stringent.
Oops, that's not working. I guess plenty of people are willing to accept their restrictions after all.
So rather than using the Apple-provided pseudo-"analog hole" to burn AACs to CDs and re-encode them, someone comes up with a crack for FairPlay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the two primary platforms for AACs the iPod and iTunes (which play the DRM-hampered versions)?
What exactly are you going to play your un-DRMed AACs on? And I'm not trying to be facetious; I'd like to know if there are any other players...
Jay (=
As a person who is finally seeing the end of the tunnel to an unhappy 6-year "marriage" to a corporation a couple of friends and I formed, let me tell you...
Jay (=
P.S. redesign slashdot [alistapart.com] using modern web standards, editors!
Funny you should mention that article, because in that same article you find:
So did the people who did all that work submit those patches?
Jay (=
I think I'd rather put spam filters on backbone routers. That sounds a lot cheaper for everyone.
Unfortunately, much of my legitimate traffic gets flagged as spam by my ISP's spam filter (though Thunderbird has no problem).
And before you think I'm talking to those nice guys from Nigeria who want me to help them with a problem, or looking to enlarge my penis, let me give you some samples:
half of the emailed receipts I get -- a trial key from Dantz, some "thank you for your order" emails from Amoeba Software (makers of Audio Hijack and InformIT
a couple of emails from my mother-in-law about my brother in law, who's been sick recently
several posts from mailing lists I'm on -- security focus and the likes are really good at getting flagged, for some reason
Spammers seem to be hard at work trying to ruin the effectiveness of spam filters; once people turn them off, or have their rules so messed up spam can get through, they'll return in force. The closer the Bayesian filter is to the end user, the more effective is it for that user.
I don't want a backbone provider or my ISP deciding what of my email traffic is legitimate or not. A good example would be spam I've been getting in the form of "eBay question for seller" emails. Too bad for them; I haven't sold anything on eBay for several months. However, I do buy and sell stuff through eBay, and it'd be easier for Thunderbird to adapt to the change in my preferences than some backbone provider.
Jay (=
Jerry Doyle, the actor who played Security Chief Michael Garibaldi on Babylon 5, said that the first season was filmed for about $950,000 an episode -- he figured it was about $19 million for the whole season.
With B5 doing extremely well in DVD boxset form (Doyle commented that 350,000 boxsets at about $80 apiece would bring in $21 million) he remarked that they could effectively film a season and throw it in a box set and it'll eventually make money.
Obviously, that has some pitfalls -- I'm not going to shell out $75 to $100 for a season of a show I haven't watched any of -- but it does lend credence to what you're saying.
Another example would be Red Vs. Blue. Sure, the episodes are free for download in a low-res form; if you donate money, you can get access to high-res versions of the episodes; at the end of the season, they sell a whole season on DVD, and the best part is, if you basically donate the amount the DVD costs over the course of the season, you get it for free!
Leaving aside the fact that Paramount would bury them in lawyers for basically doing fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series, Starship Exeter would be another good example of something that might be entertaining, at $8 - $10 a DVD for two episodes, to pick up once in a while. (I'm not sure how they're making money doing basically fanfic episodes in the vein of Star Trek: the Original Series; I assume it's simply for the fun of it.)
I haven't had cable for over 4 years, and it hasn't hampered my ability to socialize with the world; I get my news from Google News and the local paper; friends will record stuff and loan it to me once in a while (I watched Battlestar Galactica and the SciFi Dune miniseries this way) and if you're good at listening, you can get people to tell you what happened on that show you used to watch. (Oral storytelling takes on a new life...?) I'm thinking of signing up for NetFlix and watching TV shows on DVD that way, at least enough to know whether or not I want to buy the box set.
If the MPAA or the networks or whoever want to try to force me to watch shows their way, on their schedule, they will fail. In fact, I'd say they've already failed, not just with me, but with the demographic that's typically the most lucrative for them as well.
Jay (=
I can't find the Groklaw article now, but a summary from a Groklaw reader who "attended" one of their conference calls said that it was pretty obvious that SCO wasn't letting anybody ask questions that they didn't know (and therefore couldn't predict or spin to their advantage).
No sense in upsetting the investors with those questions they don't want to answer...
Jay (=
some Doritos 3D's
Heathen! The cool ranch Doritos 3Ds were manna from the gods I tell you!
God, I could only find the cool ranch 3Ds a couple of times, but I could almost eat a whole bag at one sitting.
Jay (=
(Geez, Do I sound like a pot smoker or what...?)
What are the chances that any of these "licensees" will get their money refunded when SCO loses?
Why would they get a refund? Have you looked at the SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux?
If you terminate the license, you don't get a refund. They can terminate your license if you're doing something wrong, but a) SCO terminated IBM's Unix license without proper notification of the breach and b) SCO has described contracts as "what you use against parties you have relationships with."
They're selling a license that covers...
So they're bascially selling a license which purports to cover any code, in anything, that just so happens to behave the same way code in Unix System V or UnixWare behaves, or any product derived from those sources. Pretty broad spectrum, neh?
This is why people have been saying it's a bad idea to buy an SCO "IP license" until they are found to have rights to any "IP" in Linux. Because you're entering into a legally-binding agreement with a company that will audit you to try to intimidate you into "compliance".
Contrary to the notion where you get some kind of security in buying a license to use someone's IP, SCO's license gives you the exact opposite; no warranty, no indemnity (but Mr. McBride, what about all the times you claimed Linux users were at risk because of lack of warranty indemnification? And they explicitly state that there's no protection if you happen to infringe on someone else's intellectual property rights by using this license... like, say, the Linux kernel developers whose GPL-licesned code would be infringed?) and the right for SCO to audit you any time they want and make you cough up money if you "pirate" Linux by putting it on another machine -- oh, and the licenses are not transferrable between machines, either.
Sucker. Anyone who buys an SCO IP license has, in my opinion, no right to cry later when it turns out they bought a pig in a poke.
Jay (=
It's different because, while Debian components work on a package level, he's talking about a modular level.
That is, a collection of packages that work together thematically. For example; a simple productivity module which includes mozilla firefox, evolution, and openoffice. Or a multimedia module which includes xmms, mplayer, and a smattering of DVD players. Or a server module, which includes apache, samba, et al.
Kinda like tasksel then?
Jay (=
After rereading the submission and copy of nmap's release notes, I see that Fyodor isn't revoking SCO's license to nmap because he doesn't like them, he's accusing them of violating the GPL and telling them their license to use nmap is revoked as a result.
On that thought, I think Fyodor is missing a bet here; IIRC, the penalties for intentional copyright infringement can be quite large. (After all, isn't that what SCO originally accused IBM of?) He should talk to a lawyer and get them to draft a "cease and desist" letter to SCO.
If they want to use his code for free under the GPL, they have to abide by it. Otherwise, if they want to license it separately, they should have to pay $$$ just like a "real, Constitutional" license agreement.
Jay (=
(Maybe there should be a slew of copyright registation requests sent to the Library of Congress for source code...)
Could the FSF take the lead in a class action suit, where the class consists of all GPL code owners that have products redistributed by SCO?
We're back to "the FSF can't sue someone for violating the license on someone else's code." The fact that the FSF authored the GPL does not give them any standing when it comes to licensor or licensee.
And so far as I know, the only GPLed project whose license is being violated by SCO is the Linux kernel. As long as SCO honors the GPL on the products that it distributes with UnixWare (gcc, Samba, etc.) the developers don't have any standing to sue.
Jay (=
Now this gets interesting: if SCO continues to distributed NMAP will the FSF start filing lawsuits?
Unless the FSF holds the copyright to nmap (or had it assigned to them), they have no legal standing with which to sue, as it's not their code being used in contradiction of the license.
This is why the FSF wants people to assign copyright to them for any contribution to FSF projects; it makes their recordkeeping and paperwork easier in case something like this happens.
Jay (=
CC RDF metadata can include fields for name of author, name of copyright holder, and the name of the work. The Creative Commons page on embedding license information in non-web files covers how validating the license would work.
You embed a link to a web page into the license data; the web page confirms the embedded license data. If the license link is not there, or the license data at the webpage and the embedded license data don't match, then it does not validate; a good agent would notify you of this, and perhaps even not let you download the non-validating files.
Yes, you could put up a fraudulent site with fraudulent license data. But that's like saying "selling used cars isn't practical, because I could steal a car and forge the registration." There's a reason fraud is a crime...
A community that wants to encourage distribution of legitimate works would not let a fraudulent site stay up for long once discovered, which would break the validation chain. And that is the community this system is designed to serve.
Jay (=
You can embed a link to a webpage with the license information into an MP3 or image file. A validator would check that the page exists, and that the licensing terms match. Verify is a Mac OS X application that does exactly this.
While this doesn't prevent fraudulent sites ("Why yes, I am Paul McCartney and I am dedicating The White Album to the public domain"), a friendly e-mail to the webmaster (or at worst, DMCA takedown letter -- wow, using the DMCA for good?) removes the fraudulent page, and the license no longer validates.
Jay (=
Well, their comic "A Spectrum of Rights" explains it better than I can, but in brief, you have several licensing options:
Those first four options can be combined to form eleven different licensing combinations, and the CC website will generate the necessary metadata and provide you with links to the "human-readable" (heh) and legal license documentation. The GPL would probably be considered similar to the Attribution-ShareAlike license.
The important thing to remember is Creative Commons is not a license, it's a spectrum of licenses that can be tailored to your needs. And remember, you can always contact the author and work out a better deal if their license doesn't work for you.
Jay (=
I'm not sending anyone a check for $699.
Don't worry, you couldn't even if you wanted to.
Jay (=
...is when Mark Heise, counsel for SCO at this hearing, was asked why SCO needed IBM's source code to AIX to determine if there is any infringement occuring, when SCO has certified that Sun and HP are not infringing without having shown any source code.
Heise replied (not sure of the exact quote, transcript isn't available yet) "As for HP, there is a fundamental difference in that they haven't said they are contributing to Linux". Dave Marriott, counsel for IBM at the hearing, replied that HP has, in fact, contributed to Linux.
Talk about not having done your homework...
Jay (=