So in reality, you do not have a god given right to use the source code.
Your argument is correct, except you need to replace the word "use", with "distribute". If you already have some copyrighted material, no restrictions can be placed on how you use it, only on how you redistribute it, or derivatives of it.
My point really was, what happens if you comply with the GPL, but then the copyright owner decides to sue you for violating his copyright?
Well, he can always sue, but in this case he won't win. The defendant can just point to the distribution license (the GPL) and thus prove he is in compliance with copyright law. I don't think a distribution license is treated as a contract, but more as a sign on a piece of land (i.e. "no trespassing", or "everyone can walk here").
It's quite simple to prove logically that your argument is incorrect. You assume that since a distribution license is a contract, it is not enforceable unless signed. This implies that any distribution license, which is not signed, is unenforceable. All we have to do is find such a distribution license, and show that it is enforceable. The "public domain" license would appear to be a sufficient candidate for that. Thus, your assumption is incorrect, since there exist distribution licenses which are enforceable.
I watched a bobsleigh competition on TV yesterday, and Corel was one of the sponsors. On almost every sleigh, there was a big "Corel Linux" logo, right at the front. I think that was pretty fun, I've never seen any Linux ads on TV before anyway.
I feel that either there is something about stock splits that I've misunderstood, or stock traders are more stupid than I think (maybe the author of the article is the one that is stupid?). To me, a stock split is just a change in form; instead of having 1 share worth 100 money units, you get n shares, each worth 100/n money units. It's like saying you have two half-apples instead of one apple. How can this possibly mean: "[...] the risky move will result in greater company value."?
I can understand if people like my mother, who was never much into mathematics, can fall for something like this, thinking that more shares will mean that a rise will have a larger impact, but surely large institutions (which I assume make up most of the volume) don't fall for things like this? Maybe if the price movements were reported as percentages instead of absolute values, this phenomenon would disappear.
This is not true. Theoretically you can have an infinite transfer rate in a given bandwidth, it's only constrained by the noise. For example, a standard phone line is 3 kHz, yet we can get 56 kbps through it.
You're contradicting yourself. First you state that the average consumer is too stupid to make an intelligent choice, and will just buy what's marketed well. Then you state that market forces will choose the most intelligent path automatically. Exactly what do these market forces consist of if not of consumers? Just because farmers are also producers does not mean that they are not consumers as well. The only way your argument would be logical is if you assume that farmers are somehow smarter than other consumers, which I don't see any reason to believe (I'm not bashing farmers, I just don't think they are much different than people in general).
This is what I meant, that people for some reason think that the actual price in some way relates to how the price will develop. The meaning of a share is that you are entitled to a certain share of a company's profits. If there are a total of 100 shares in a company, 1 share entitles you to 1%. If you split the shares 2:1, then there will be 200 shares, and 1 share will entitle you to 0.5%. So one share before the split, is equivalent to two shares after the split. This means that if the price would have risen $10 before the split, it should only rise $5 after the split, since each share is only worth half as much.
Of course, people do not always behave logically, and since the stock market is based on what people think are good prices, the stock market will not behave logically. But to try to predict how other people will behave is only speculation, and it's this kind of behavior which leads to crashes. A lot of people are investing money in the stock market only because it keeps going up, but this leads to feedback, i.e. the market will keep going up because people keep putting more money in it. What they don't think about is that once something happens that will start a decrease in prices, the same principle will make prices fall incredibly rapidly (if the prices don't have some real base), and they might lose almost everything.
I've never understood why a stock split should be so important, the total value is still the same, so if a company is overpriced before a split, it must still be overpriced after a split, since it doesn't change the total value, i.e. if I have 10 shares at $100, and it's split 10:1, then I will have 100 shares at $10. The only purpose I can see of a split is to avoid monstrous share prices, maybe some people want to invest only a few hundred dollars, and if the share price is in the thousands, that is impossible. Perhaps they're also done to fuel people's belief that the actual share price is somehow related to how the price will develop in the future.
In nethack, there is a Troll class of monsters, that behave just like normal monsters, but is nearly impossible to get rid of. If you kill them, and leave the corpse, it will come alive again after a while, and continue hunting you. The only way to get rid of it is to eat the corpse, or put it in a box and lock it.
From reading these discussions I get the feeling Microsoft is a bit similar, I agree though. The name Microsoft is so ubiquitous that by simply having that name, you can sell almost anything (and thus achieve dominance etc. etc.), it's some sort of herd behaviour I suppose. It's like you need to bury the whole of Microsoft for a while, until people get the name out of their heads, and things can start over.
Since the Internet is inherently global, I think you should assume that anyone visiting your website for example, can be of any nationality. Slashdot doesn't try to cater to everyone who visits, and I think this is good, but even if I'm not interested in some strange niche subject an article is about, it's possible that I would have been, or it's possible that I might become interested, maybe from reading the article. However, nationality is not the same as interest, and even if I wanted to become American, it's possible that I wouldn't be allowed to.
While I think it's reasonable that an article can be about America, I don't think it's reasonable that an article should be directed towards Americans, this is in a way discrimination. This article tries to answer the question "What will happen in the future, with all these strange technology trends going on?", in a sort of fuzzy, we-are-all-a-big-family way, but the domain of the question is only limited to America! Sure, the information is interesting, but these types of articles always leave me with the feeling that the well-being of Americans is more important to Slashdot than the well-being of other people, which is not a very nice feeling.
I think a good comparison is if you're having a conversation with a group of people, all normal, except one, who doesn't have any legs. Now, when you pick a topic of conversation, it's not very nice to talk about something which inherently excludes this individual, playing soccer for example. And even if you do talk about soccer, it's common courtesy to try to find some aspect which includes the one with no legs, talking about famous games for example, instead of how good it feels to actually play. While being of a different nationality is in no way a disability, the mechanics work in a similar way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be nice if Slashdot (and all Americans), would consider that there exists people who are not American, but who are still as important as Americans. Jon Katz may not write this way intentionally, he seems to have worked as a writer concerned with fundamentally American human values, so this may just be his natural way of describing things, but sometimes I still find it slightly offensive. I would have appreciated at least a mention in the article about how technology might affect other countries, especially the very poor ones, and not just the note about American people being afraid of terrorist attacks.
I didn't know these definitions were so diluted, here is another source: "...For this reason socialism as a doctrine is ill defined, although its main purpose, the establishment of cooperation in place of competition remains fixed.". Here are the clear definitions from that source:
socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
communism: a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
I think you're stretching it a bit to distinguish your definitions by "common" and "state", don't these words essentially mean the same thing in this context? It seems to me that both your definitions are interchangeable, mine too. Regardless, I don't think it's very useful to argue definitions, it's important to know what words mean, but I think we have a pretty clear picture of what someone generally means when they say "communism" or "capitalism" or "socialism".
What is important is that you somehow assume that communism must be an ideal society, whereas capitalism must not. Why should this necessarily be the case? Pure capitalism is probably as impractical as pure communism, there must always be a kind of compromise when you deal with people.
In your original post, you said that communism is an impractical political system, based on I assume what is happening in China. I replied that Sweden partially implements communism successfully, as a counter-example. You then say that Sweden is not a "real" communistic country because it does not implement it fully? By that reasoning, USA is not a "real" capitalism because the state owns property, pays welfare etc., no? I would like to hear why you think these two cases are different.
You say this like a mantra to keep people from thinking for themselves. Do you have any proof of your statement (especially since your post is rated 4)? Most of Europe is socialistic (communism without revolution), and it works very well. If you mean by communism, that everything is free, then it probably does not work. However, such an extreme implementation of capitalism doesn't work either, for the same reason, ie. people would be too selfish and lazy to help the weak and disabled.
In Sweden, education and health care is free, if you are too poor, you get support from the government for rent, food, children etc. Yet Sweden is a very successful country. Can you tell me what part of this is the "does not work" part? If not, then this is a counter-example to your statement, and your statement is thus false.
Slashdot Mirror
Your argument is correct, except you need to replace the word "use", with "distribute". If you already have some copyrighted material, no restrictions can be placed on how you use it, only on how you redistribute it, or derivatives of it.
Well, he can always sue, but in this case he won't win. The defendant can just point to the distribution license (the GPL) and thus prove he is in compliance with copyright law. I don't think a distribution license is treated as a contract, but more as a sign on a piece of land (i.e. "no trespassing", or "everyone can walk here").
It's quite simple to prove logically that your argument is incorrect. You assume that since a distribution license is a contract, it is not enforceable unless signed. This implies that any distribution license, which is not signed, is unenforceable. All we have to do is find such a distribution license, and show that it is enforceable. The "public domain" license would appear to be a sufficient candidate for that. Thus, your assumption is incorrect, since there exist distribution licenses which are enforceable.
I watched a bobsleigh competition on TV yesterday, and Corel was one of the sponsors. On almost every sleigh, there was a big "Corel Linux" logo, right at the front. I think that was pretty fun, I've never seen any Linux ads on TV before anyway.
I feel that either there is something about stock splits that I've misunderstood, or stock traders are more stupid than I think (maybe the author of the article is the one that is stupid?). To me, a stock split is just a change in form; instead of having 1 share worth 100 money units, you get n shares, each worth 100/n money units. It's like saying you have two half-apples instead of one apple. How can this possibly mean: "[...] the risky move will result in greater company value."?
I can understand if people like my mother, who was never much into mathematics, can fall for something like this, thinking that more shares will mean that a rise will have a larger impact, but surely large institutions (which I assume make up most of the volume) don't fall for things like this? Maybe if the price movements were reported as percentages instead of absolute values, this phenomenon would disappear.
This is not true. Theoretically you can have an infinite transfer rate in a given bandwidth, it's only constrained by the noise. For example, a standard phone line is 3 kHz, yet we can get 56 kbps through it.
You're contradicting yourself. First you state that the average consumer is too stupid to make an intelligent choice, and will just buy what's marketed well. Then you state that market forces will choose the most intelligent path automatically. Exactly what do these market forces consist of if not of consumers? Just because farmers are also producers does not mean that they are not consumers as well. The only way your argument would be logical is if you assume that farmers are somehow smarter than other consumers, which I don't see any reason to believe (I'm not bashing farmers, I just don't think they are much different than people in general).
This is what I meant, that people for some reason think that the actual price in some way relates to how the price will develop. The meaning of a share is that you are entitled to a certain share of a company's profits. If there are a total of 100 shares in a company, 1 share entitles you to 1%. If you split the shares 2:1, then there will be 200 shares, and 1 share will entitle you to 0.5%.
So one share before the split, is equivalent to two shares after the split. This means that if the price would have risen $10 before the split, it should only rise $5 after the split, since each share is only worth half as much.
Of course, people do not always behave logically, and since the stock market is based on what people think are good prices, the stock market will not behave logically. But to try to predict how other people will behave is only speculation, and it's this kind of behavior which leads to crashes. A lot of people are investing money in the stock market only because it keeps going up, but this leads to feedback, i.e. the market will keep going up because people keep putting more money in it. What they don't think about is that once something happens that will start a decrease in prices, the same principle will make prices fall incredibly rapidly (if the prices don't have some real base), and they might lose almost everything.
I've never understood why a stock split should be so important, the total value is still the same, so if a company is overpriced before a split, it must still be overpriced after a split, since it doesn't change the total value, i.e. if I have 10 shares at $100, and it's split 10:1, then I will have 100 shares at $10. The only purpose I can see of a split is to avoid monstrous share prices, maybe some people want to invest only a few hundred dollars, and if the share price is in the thousands, that is impossible. Perhaps they're also done to fuel people's belief that the actual share price is somehow related to how the price will develop in the future.
In nethack, there is a Troll class of monsters, that behave just like normal monsters, but is nearly impossible to get rid of. If you kill them, and leave the corpse, it will come alive again after a while, and continue hunting you. The only way to get rid of it is to eat the corpse, or put it in a box and lock it.
From reading these discussions I get the feeling Microsoft is a bit similar, I agree though. The name Microsoft is so ubiquitous that by simply having that name, you can sell almost anything (and thus achieve dominance etc. etc.), it's some sort of herd behaviour I suppose. It's like you need to bury the whole of Microsoft for a while, until people get the name out of their heads, and things can start over.
The difference is that search engines (presumably) don't store this kind of information (ie. store which IP searched for what).
Since the Internet is inherently global, I think you should assume that anyone visiting your website for example, can be of any nationality. Slashdot doesn't try to cater to everyone who visits, and I think this is good, but even if I'm not interested in some strange niche subject an article is about, it's possible that I would have been, or it's possible that I might become interested, maybe from reading the article. However, nationality is not the same as interest, and even if I wanted to become American, it's possible that I wouldn't be allowed to.
While I think it's reasonable that an article can be about America, I don't think it's reasonable that an article should be directed towards Americans, this is in a way discrimination. This article tries to answer the question "What will happen in the future, with all these strange technology trends going on?", in a sort of fuzzy, we-are-all-a-big-family way, but the domain of the question is only limited to America! Sure, the information is interesting, but these types of articles always leave me with the feeling that the well-being of Americans is more important to Slashdot than the well-being of other people, which is not a very nice feeling.
I think a good comparison is if you're having a conversation with a group of people, all normal, except one, who doesn't have any legs. Now, when you pick a topic of conversation, it's not very nice to talk about something which inherently excludes this individual, playing soccer for example. And even if you do talk about soccer, it's common courtesy to try to find some aspect which includes the one with no legs, talking about famous games for example, instead of how good it feels to actually play. While being of a different nationality is in no way a disability, the mechanics work in a similar way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be nice if Slashdot (and all Americans), would consider that there exists people who are not American, but who are still as important as Americans. Jon Katz may not write this way intentionally, he seems to have worked as a writer concerned with fundamentally American human values, so this may just be his natural way of describing things, but sometimes I still find it slightly offensive. I would have appreciated at least a mention in the article about how technology might affect other countries, especially the very poor ones, and not just the note about American people being afraid of terrorist attacks.
The clause is redundant though. We can identify two statements:
1. Minors are not legally bound by contracts. (implicit)
2. Corel wants you to "sign" a contract certifying you're not a minor. (explicit)
So if I'm a minor, and certify that I'm an adult, I'm not legally bound to have been telling the truth. This makes the clause completely redundant.
I didn't know these definitions were so diluted, here is another source: "...For this reason socialism as a doctrine is ill defined, although its main purpose, the establishment of cooperation in place of competition remains fixed.". Here are the clear definitions from that source:
socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
communism: a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
I think you're stretching it a bit to distinguish your definitions by "common" and "state", don't these words essentially mean the same thing in this context? It seems to me that both your definitions are interchangeable, mine too. Regardless, I don't think it's very useful to argue definitions, it's important to know what words mean, but I think we have a pretty clear picture of what someone generally means when they say "communism" or "capitalism" or "socialism".
What is important is that you somehow assume that communism must be an ideal society, whereas capitalism must not. Why should this necessarily be the case? Pure capitalism is probably as impractical as pure communism, there must always be a kind of compromise when you deal with people.
In your original post, you said that communism is an impractical political system, based on I assume what is happening in China. I replied that Sweden partially implements communism successfully, as a counter-example. You then say that Sweden is not a "real" communistic country because it does not implement it fully? By that reasoning, USA is not a "real" capitalism because the state owns property, pays welfare etc., no? I would like to hear why you think these two cases are different.
You say this like a mantra to keep people from thinking for themselves. Do you have any proof of your statement (especially since your post is rated 4)? Most of Europe is socialistic (communism without revolution), and it works very well. If you mean by communism, that everything is free, then it probably does not work. However, such an extreme implementation of capitalism doesn't work either, for the same reason, ie. people would be too selfish and lazy to help the weak and disabled.
In Sweden, education and health care is free, if you are too poor, you get support from the government for rent, food, children etc. Yet Sweden is a very successful country. Can you tell me what part of this is the "does not work" part? If not, then this is a counter-example to your statement, and your statement is thus false.