I can login to my home machine in California, while I am working in India. The quality of the graphics is limited only by the speed of the network.
What do I win ?
However, this doesn't address Microsoft's assertion that it doesn't accept the GPLv3 license, and is thus unaffected by it. In general, a license such as the GPL is a license given by the copyright holder to do something that would otherwise be prohibited by the copyright law. In the case of the GPL, it gives third parties the right to distribute the copyrighted material - something which without the license would be copyright infringement. Microsoft asserts that what it is doing with their voucher system is not illegal distribution under the copyright law definitions.
Nice try.
Microsoft is conveying the code. It cannot do that without accepting the terms of GPLv3. Its that simple.
Microsoft has a choice :
1. Stop conveying the code and say whatever you like about GPLv3.
2. Obey GPLv3 and keep conveying/distributing/propagating the code.
The copyright law is what is irrelevant here - the act of distribution / conveyance / propagation of GPLv3 is what binds Microsoft to the license.
From the license http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt:
"Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps:
(1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License
giving you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify it."
and
"You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or
modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under
this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third
paragraph of section 11)."
and
"You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or
run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work
occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission
to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However,
nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or
modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do
not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a
covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so."
That is about as plain a language as there possibly can be. That Microsoft declares that the license does not apply to them, is utterly irrelevant and borderline laughable. This is not to say that Microsoft would necessarily get convicted for doing this should this ever somehow make it to court. They have a long purse and any number of favors to call in in Washington DC.
I could declare that the laws of my state do not apply to me. Which would be utter bullshit.
However, Microsoft is probably not in violation yet, but the structure of their deal with Novell (no expiry date on coupons), and Novell's insistence on using GPLv3 covered software in their distro, has put Microsoft in a situation that it is doomed to be in violation unless it can :
1. Purchase back all the coupons it has sold so far before the first piece of GPLv3 software makes it into SLED (and I am not sure even that would be necessarily enough). and
2. Stop selling the rest.
Remember - Microsoft does not need to accept GPLv3 if all it does is to run the software, and not convey/propagate/distribute it in any way, shape or form. Mere possession and personal use of GPLv3 software does not require acceptance of the license.
Nothing wrong with your argument, except one thing. If Microsoft is an American company, why is allowed to sell products overseas ?
Asking for access to foreign markets at will, and denying the companies that benefit, from applying the same standards to labor is like asking to live on the Moon and the Earth at the same time.
Make up your mind. Is Microsoft an American company allowed to sell goods only to American consumers or is it more than that ?
H-1B is perhaps the single most misused immigration program in history (next to perhaps the 1985 amnesty for illegal aliens). It is badly administered, many H-1B's are entry level workers (totally contrary to the spirit of the law).
But it is NOT a wage suppression mechanism. Because it CANNOT be one - every H-1B application needs a Department of Labor certification that states that the imported worker will be paid AT LEAST (and it is usually marginally more) as much as the corresponding domestic worker.
I am as mad about our failed immigration system as the rest of you folks, but I think we can dispense with the FUD.
Are you by any chance aware that the Department of Labor requires that an imported H-1B worker (I agree that the program is broken as it is being used for a purpose totally different from the one it was created for) has to be paid at least as much as the prevailing wage for a domestic worker ?
H-1B is H-1BS and many other things, but a wage suppression mechanism it ain't.
As long as taxes for virtual goods and services are virtual in themselves.
In which case, I might end up voting for some of my virtual representatives some day.
While the idea of granting citizenship to H-1B people is debatable (does economic utility translate to political allegiance ?), H-1B visa workers are apparently treated identically to US residents like me when it comes to social security and medicare taxes.
I found this on Google :
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=60 2432
In particular:
"107. Totalization Agreements http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.01/ha ndbook-0107.html [ssa.gov]..."What are "totalization agreements"? The Social Security Act allows the President to enter into international agreements to coordinate the U.S. social security programs with the social security programs of other countries. These agreements are known as "totalization agreements." With what countries does the U.S. have totalization agreements? The United States currently has Social Security agreements in effect with 21 countries - Australia (2002), Austria (1991), Belgium (1984), Canada (1984), Chile (2001), Germany (1979), Finland (1992), France (1988), Greece (1994), Ireland (1993), Italy (1978), Japan (2005), Luxembourg (1993), the Netherlands (1990), Norway (1984), Portugal (1989), South Korea (2001), Spain (1988), Sweden (1987), Switzerland (1980), and the United Kingdom (1985). What are the purposes of totalization agreements? Totalization agreements have three main purposes: 1. To eliminate dual social security coverage and taxation. This situation occurs when a person from one country works in the other country and is required to pay social security taxes to both countries for the same work; 2. To avoid situations in which workers lose benefit rights because they have divided their careers between two countries. Under an agreement, such workers may qualify for partial U.S. or foreign benefits based on combined work credits from both countries. 3. To increase benefit portability by guaranteeing that neither country will impose restrictions on benefit payments based solely on residence or presence in the other country."
In particular, the biggest users of H-1B visa (citizens of India and China), are not covered - which means that they pay social security taxes (and medicare) like you and me, but have no expectation of ever receiving the benefits unless they become citizens. I am not going to win any friends on slashdot by saying this, but it seems to me that we are in a sense exploiting most H-1B workers (since they are from India and China) by taxing them without any legal right to enjoy the benefits when they grow old unless they become citizens in the meantime.
Its a different matter that my brother keeps telling me that even I am not going to be getting any benefits by the time I am old enough to retire as the social security system is going to go bust long before that, but at least we have the legal right to them. So, your suggestion that we make these H-1B workers citizens may do a lot to fix this wrong, but other than that, I do not see how it solves anything.
While the idea of granting citizenship to H-1B people is debatable (does economic utility translate to political allegiance ?), H-1B visa workers are apparently treated identically to US residents like me when it comes to social security and medicare taxes. I found this on Google :
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=60 2432
In particular :
"107. Totalization Agreements
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.01/ha ndbook-0107.html..."What are "totalization agreements"?
The Social Security Act allows the President to enter into
international agreements to coordinate the U.S. social security
programs with the social security programs of other countries. These
agreements are known as "totalization agreements."
With what countries does the U.S. have totalization agreements?
The United States currently has Social Security agreements in effect
with 21 countries - Australia (2002), Austria (1991), Belgium (1984),
Canada (1984), Chile (2001), Germany (1979), Finland (1992), France
(1988), Greece (1994), Ireland (1993), Italy (1978), Japan (2005),
Luxembourg (1993), the Netherlands (1990), Norway (1984), Portugal
(1989), South Korea (2001), Spain (1988), Sweden (1987), Switzerland
(1980), and the United Kingdom (1985).
What are the purposes of totalization agreements?
Totalization agreements have three main purposes:
1. To eliminate dual social security coverage and taxation. This
situation occurs when a person from one country works in the other
country and is required to pay social security taxes to both countries
for the same work;
2. To avoid situations in which workers lose benefit rights because
they have divided their careers between two countries. Under an
agreement, such workers may qualify for partial U.S. or foreign
benefits based on combined work credits from both countries.
3. To increase benefit portability by guaranteeing that neither
country will impose restrictions on benefit payments based solely on
residence or presence in the other country."
In particular, the biggest users of H-1B visa (citizens of India and China), are not covered - which means that they pay social security taxes (and medicare) like you and me, but have no expectation of ever receiving the benefits unless they become citizens.
I am not going to win any friends on slashdot by saying this, but it seems to me that we are in a sense exploiting most H-1B workers (since they are from India and China) by taxing them without any legal right to enjoy the benefits when they grow old unless they become citizens in the meantime. Its a different matter that my brother keeps telling me that even I am not going to be getting any benefits by the time I am old enough to retire as the social security system is going to go bust long before that, but at least we have the legal right to them.
So, your suggestion that we make these H-1B workers citizens may do a lot to fix this wrong, but other than that, I do not see how it solves anything.
The H-1B is supposed to be a temp visa for positions that can't be filled domestically, but I see very few people using it that way. The sponsoring companies are using it as a means to keep labor costs down, and the visa holders seem to mostly be using it as a stepping stone to citizenship(the ones I know are).
Now that does not make sense. I am a journalist covering India for the past few years and have met many Indians who have returned to their country after brief stints in the US (sometimes as short as 3 months).
One of the requirements for issuing an H-1B visa is the Department of Labor certification in course of which the salary of an H-1B employee is set to be at least the prevailing wage for that job description.
H-1B might be overused and invoked even when there are fellow Americans willing and able to do that job but "a means to keep labor costs down", it ain't. Its simply illegal to hire an H-1B worker and pay him/her less than the prevaling wage.
Please do not mix illegal immigrants up with H-1B workers. The former do depress wages, while the latter are required by law to be paid at least as much as their American counterparts. Of course, I do not expect that such inconvenient facts will be considered, given the foul mood that the entire country is in.
I am not sure if you fell off the turnip truck yesterday, but Apple is the creator of Mac OS X. It has a vested interest in bundling its software with its hardware.
Dell is not the creator of Microsoft Windows version X.
Now go back and find a better analogy.
The year of the report is 2002. The report proceeds to note the similarity between Indian culture and Islamic culture.
Note that "5000" is the number for only murdered brides. That number does not include the many Indian women murdered by Indian man for supposedly shaming the Indian family.
Forgive me for pointing out an obvious flaw in that "argument". Are we not assuming that honor killings are widespread in India ? I have lived for years in India as a bureau reporter, and while one hears of 3 or 4 bride burning cases every few months, I have never heard of honor killings. That is something that is extremely common in Pakistan.
I am sorry, but your attempts to equate Indian and Islamic cultures simply do not wash.
That figure of 5000 is on a population that is now 1 billion plus. I daresay that more women are killed by their husbands in crimes of passion, in my home state of California in an average year.
3 million prostitutes in a population of 1 billion ? Eastern Europe and Russia have a far greater proportion than that.
The parent article tries to paint India as a Western nation. The facts indicate otherwise.
Vietnam is more Western than India. Honor killings are extremely rare in Vietnam. It has a much lower rate of children prostitution than India because Vietnamese law enforcement actually punishes the customers of child prostitutes. Note that Vietnam is still a relatively poor nation, so poverty cannot explain the popularity of honor killings and children prostitution in India. The explanation is in the non-Western culture of India.
India is clearly not a Western nation. These are people from a proud ancient civilization that developed almost completely untouched by the various schools of thought that moulded our European and American histories until beginning of colonialism in this part of Asia.
Why would you feel the need to knock down a strawman ?
I have lurked on slashdot for many months, and have learned that India is a fairly disliked country among the tech types who post here. I can understand why that is so. While Silicon Valley is stagnating, Indian tech cities are experiencing a boom unprecedented in their history. There is a massive loss of jobs back home and that is an emotive issue. How this translates into an obsession that includes painting India as a retrograde and primitive Islamist culture with honor killings, is something I will not comment on, as I do not understand your motivation behind raising such canards.
In my experience, India is one of the most virulently anti-Islamic countries I have ever lived in (and my prior jaunts include Serbia in early 90s, Russia in mid 90s and Israel for a few months in 2002). I do not sympathize with such notions, but given what I have learned of Indian history, its not surprising at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I can login to my home machine in California, while I am working in India. The quality of the graphics is limited only by the speed of the network.
What do I win ?
Microsoft is conveying the code. It cannot do that without accepting the terms of GPLv3. Its that simple.
Microsoft has a choice :
1. Stop conveying the code and say whatever you like about GPLv3.
2. Obey GPLv3 and keep conveying/distributing/propagating the code.
The copyright law is what is irrelevant here - the act of distribution / conveyance / propagation of GPLv3 is what binds Microsoft to the license. From the license http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
and
and
That is about as plain a language as there possibly can be. That Microsoft declares that the license does not apply to them, is utterly irrelevant and borderline laughable. This is not to say that Microsoft would necessarily get convicted for doing this should this ever somehow make it to court. They have a long purse and any number of favors to call in in Washington DC.
I could declare that the laws of my state do not apply to me. Which would be utter bullshit.
However, Microsoft is probably not in violation yet, but the structure of their deal with Novell (no expiry date on coupons), and Novell's insistence on using GPLv3 covered software in their distro, has put Microsoft in a situation that it is doomed to be in violation unless it can :
1. Purchase back all the coupons it has sold so far before the first piece of GPLv3 software makes it into SLED (and I am not sure even that would be necessarily enough).
and 2. Stop selling the rest.
Remember - Microsoft does not need to accept GPLv3 if all it does is to run the software, and not convey/propagate/distribute it in any way, shape or form. Mere possession and personal use of GPLv3 software does not require acceptance of the license.
So Microsoft http://publicintegrity.org/lobby/profile.aspx?act= clients&year=2003&cl=L002186 and Apple http://publicintegrity.org/lobby/profile.aspx?act= clients&year=2003&cl=L000538 have some of the bigger IT lobbying efforts around, and FCC bureaucrats don't know the difference between their ass and 2 holes in the ground.
What is the news ?
Nothing wrong with your argument, except one thing. If Microsoft is an American company, why is allowed to sell products overseas ? Asking for access to foreign markets at will, and denying the companies that benefit, from applying the same standards to labor is like asking to live on the Moon and the Earth at the same time. Make up your mind. Is Microsoft an American company allowed to sell goods only to American consumers or is it more than that ?
H-1B is perhaps the single most misused immigration program in history (next to perhaps the 1985 amnesty for illegal aliens). It is badly administered, many H-1B's are entry level workers (totally contrary to the spirit of the law).
But it is NOT a wage suppression mechanism. Because it CANNOT be one - every H-1B application needs a Department of Labor certification that states that the imported worker will be paid AT LEAST (and it is usually marginally more) as much as the corresponding domestic worker.
I am as mad about our failed immigration system as the rest of you folks, but I think we can dispense with the FUD.
Are you by any chance aware that the Department of Labor requires that an imported H-1B worker (I agree that the program is broken as it is being used for a purpose totally different from the one it was created for) has to be paid at least as much as the prevailing wage for a domestic worker ? H-1B is H-1BS and many other things, but a wage suppression mechanism it ain't.
As long as taxes for virtual goods and services are virtual in themselves. In which case, I might end up voting for some of my virtual representatives some day.
I found this on Google :
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=6
Its a different matter that my brother keeps telling me that even I am not going to be getting any benefits by the time I am old enough to retire as the social security system is going to go bust long before that, but at least we have the legal right to them. So, your suggestion that we make these H-1B workers citizens may do a lot to fix this wrong, but other than that, I do not see how it solves anything.
While the idea of granting citizenship to H-1B people is debatable (does economic utility translate to political allegiance ?), H-1B visa workers are apparently treated identically to US residents like me when it comes to social security and medicare taxes. I found this on Google : http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=60 2432
In particular :
"107. Totalization Agreements
http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.01/ha ndbook-0107.html ..."What are "totalization agreements"?
The Social Security Act allows the President to enter into
international agreements to coordinate the U.S. social security
programs with the social security programs of other countries. These
agreements are known as "totalization agreements."
With what countries does the U.S. have totalization agreements?
The United States currently has Social Security agreements in effect
with 21 countries - Australia (2002), Austria (1991), Belgium (1984),
Canada (1984), Chile (2001), Germany (1979), Finland (1992), France
(1988), Greece (1994), Ireland (1993), Italy (1978), Japan (2005),
Luxembourg (1993), the Netherlands (1990), Norway (1984), Portugal
(1989), South Korea (2001), Spain (1988), Sweden (1987), Switzerland
(1980), and the United Kingdom (1985).
What are the purposes of totalization agreements?
Totalization agreements have three main purposes:
1. To eliminate dual social security coverage and taxation. This
situation occurs when a person from one country works in the other
country and is required to pay social security taxes to both countries
for the same work;
2. To avoid situations in which workers lose benefit rights because
they have divided their careers between two countries. Under an
agreement, such workers may qualify for partial U.S. or foreign
benefits based on combined work credits from both countries.
3. To increase benefit portability by guaranteeing that neither
country will impose restrictions on benefit payments based solely on
residence or presence in the other country."
In particular, the biggest users of H-1B visa (citizens of India and China), are not covered - which means that they pay social security taxes (and medicare) like you and me, but have no expectation of ever receiving the benefits unless they become citizens.
I am not going to win any friends on slashdot by saying this, but it seems to me that we are in a sense exploiting most H-1B workers (since they are from India and China) by taxing them without any legal right to enjoy the benefits when they grow old unless they become citizens in the meantime. Its a different matter that my brother keeps telling me that even I am not going to be getting any benefits by the time I am old enough to retire as the social security system is going to go bust long before that, but at least we have the legal right to them.
So, your suggestion that we make these H-1B workers citizens may do a lot to fix this wrong, but other than that, I do not see how it solves anything.
I am not sure if you fell off the turnip truck yesterday, but Apple is the creator of Mac OS X. It has a vested interest in bundling its software with its hardware. Dell is not the creator of Microsoft Windows version X. Now go back and find a better analogy.