The GPL covers distributing the original owner's code. Legally speaking when you give a representation to a copyrighted work, you are distributing it to them, no matter by what means or how you are compensated in return. (This is why music services have to get permission from the copyright holder to use a CD in their playlist.)
They are so common in this industry, we have our own special name for them: Killer Apps.
Let's review, shall we?
VisiCalc...and its successors spawned a trillion dollar industry, made Steve Jobs a billionaire, and almost singlehandedly eliminated the profession of "bookkeeper".
WordPerfect...ditto for the profession of personal secretary. Only executives use them now.
Mosaic...let's see. Trillion dollar industry, hundreds of business models, hundreds of thousands of businesses, millions of lives and careers changed... seems pretty extreme to me.
I could go on, but you get the idea...
Re:"Young lady, in this house we obey the laws...
on
Energy From Vibrations
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The patent is certainly intended to cover large scale industrial equipment, not mobile phones. In that case, not only would you get excess electricity, but the very act of harnessing that power would also serve to quiet them -- a double bonus.
Hemos is like a lot of sci-fi fans: he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on.
Moderately scared? - Talk to Red Hat (or other mid-range players).
Not scared? - Build your own organization.
Understand, most Open Source/Free Software companies are built around supporting customers like you. People like you are their business model, their bread and butter. I've heard little but good news from the services they sell.
I doubt that as presently constituted, this is going to be counted a success. Certainly Slashdot will get some low percentage just from the good will they've built up, but this will likely wither over time as subscribers realize there isn't that much benefit.
Nearly every change made to Slashdot over the last several years has made it harder to offer any real diferentiation in a premium service. People buy totalfark subscriptions to get more time to "win photoshop contests" - while slashdot has hidden it's equivalent karma system (and most regulars have topped out anyway). The delay from story acceptance to publication isn't all that long - it can't be: Slashdot is primarily a news site. The sophisticated readership could avoid ads if they really wanted to (I suspect most don't because it's part of the social contract). Finally, there are too many people who have run afoul of Malda's notoriously thin skin to have built up a "save salon" type of outpouring. (Setting special flags on people's accounts just because they dared mod up a critique? How juvenile -- but I digress).
Still, there are a number of ideas that haven't been tried that might be of interest, if done right:
Have a special premium queue for stories, plus the promise that one story will be picked a day. Suitable markings to differentiate stories drawn from "preferred" queues ala google.
Allow premium users additional access to html. IMG tags anyone? Maybe combine this with small level of image storage.
The ability to "challenge" a mod down. Automatic if the mod is "overrated" which doesn't get metamodded; better yet, get rid of "overrated" it's an invitation to abuse.
The option of mirroring any content mentioned in slashdot (except ads) for any site owner who is a premium member. Most site owners love the attention slashdot brings them, it's just the slashdot effect that's so hard to deal with.
The ability to be modded to a value of "6". (The post still has to earn that value from the mods on it's own merits though.)
The ability to read from low karma to high. For fans of "alternative humor".
The ability to start at a +1 karma level (editable, of course, for those so unamerican as to believe money != speech). This would be especially attractive to people with "high uid" accounts.
A higher bandwidth channel to premium customers.
A java plug-in that downloads slashdot incrementally in the background, making those annoying page-load/drill-down delays go away.
Allowing edits of your own posted comment, so long as it hasn't been modded or responded to. If it has, you can still edit it, but a link is added to the original version.
I think this is a good start on you offering enough differentiation to make a "premium" view worth money without cutting into your site's popularity.
The bill for my business advice will arrive in the morning.
So he is more likely to know what he's talking about.
Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of all the inane cynicism that passes for reflective commentary in modern society. While it's true that the world has its villians, it is more true that people often just hold opinions irrespective of their economic interest. I for one, trust that Linus is among these favored many.
Q: If ISPs are really all that upset about spam, why haven't they done anything about it?
It's patently obvious that ISPs could eliminate spam simply by blacklisting individuals who engage in the practice (and other ISPs who don't follow it). This is how credit ratings work, an area in which there is both a greater monetary incentive for misbehaviour and much lower (technical) barrier to entry.
Properly implemented, such an individual blacklist would eliminate most worldwide spam - since only a couple dozen individuals are responsible for more than 90% of the phenonema.
It seems to me that the real reason ISPs don't stop spam is due to base economics: spam houses pay money. So spam elmination has become a classic games theory problem - money you spend to search for spammers on your own network is wasted; you just have to respond enough to keep off the RTBL.
And because detection is always someone else's problem, spammers will continue to thrive in the time it takes to process the request.
Given the US court system is (and always has been) a legal crap shoot - e.g. the judge you get is far more important than the law - no one can tell how this will turn out.
However, I believe the smart money is on the "censors" in this case, because they aren't actually modifying the media. Again, just like with Google's page rank system and "net nannies" sold to private parties, this is simply another form of "opinion" they're peddling. And in general, you can't sue people to change their opinion. (Or rather, you can, but it won't do any good.)
Speaking of oddities however, it's been quite a while since I've seen something as surreal as a Microsoft employee complaining about Google's "monopoly" against Search King. Dahlia Lithwick seems to think that court case is somehow much closer than it seems to me, which scares me because she has real legal training, so maybe the courts really are going to start forcing people to alter or not publicize their opinions.
Take a look at neopets. They're a kids gamesite which offers games, many of which are little more than thinly disguised advertisements. For example, this Disney 101 Dalmations game (you won't be able to play it directly unless you create a login).
A multi-billion dollar market? Not likely. However, it does look multi-million dollar market is in the bag.
Elegant code like this?
on
Immortal Code
·
· Score: 4, Funny
int main() { printf("Hello world\n"); return 0; }
Seems like the most well known piece of code in programming history.
Nike is not arguing for the "free speech" right to "deceive" - that is a twisted interpretation made by the author you quote. They are arguing for the "free speech" right to make a political argument. In this specific case, the right to assert that their actions in third-world countries do more good than harm.
Given that today even Michael Moore calls Phil Knight (the founder of Nike - who made the company's first sneakers himself using a waffle iron) one of the "good guys" in terms of corporate responsibility, that isn't an unreasonable position.
And even if you disagree, it certainly isn't fraud.
It's highly unlikely Verisign will ever get beaten up this way. In fact, it's nearly impossible.
The reason is economics. Setting up a fake web site is far too much effort to waste for the money a typical crook gets from small customer transactions before the whole thing is shut down. That's why fraud is largely a phenonema confined to sites like ebay, where all you have to do is compose what is little more than an html email.
Of course, that's the reason the whole "certificate" scheme works despite its obvious flaws. It isn't necessary, and in fact, is little other than a way for browser operators to shake down web sites.
I disagree - strongly. Operating systems are already "trusted" in this sense. They already implement "user owned" TORA. That's what the permissions system is there for -
which your "CTRL ALT DEL" example illustrates admirably. If I'm running Linux as a normal user, download a virus, and run it, at most all it can do is screw up my account - not the OS, not my configuration, nothing else.
The only reason why anyone would want this kind of permissions placed into the BIOS (including, quite tellingly, implementing on-chip encryption) is if you were trying to remove the user's ultimate ability to control his own machine. Period.
I am a bit concerned that the information you provided misled your readers into thinking AMI was promoting Palladium or taking some sort of anti-open-source stance.
It plainly is anti open-source.
TPM has no benefit to end users. All it does is give Microsoft an argument to use with ISVs as to why they shouldn't develop products for open source platforms. They can say: "If you ever release your product for Linux, some people will disassemble it. But with our "trusted" OSes, you'll never have to worry about crackers, because we don't let our customers control their own machines".
It's a powerful argument. There may even be a few ISVs stupid enough to fall for it. (Most ISVs don't go out of business from cracks, they die when Microsoft itself uses its monopoly power to sieze the market the ISV developed.)
But it's all a moot point. Why shouldn't we be trying to nip this in the bud? Why shouldn't we be spreading the word to everyone we know that people who buy AMI will very soon have to accept whatever draconian "Clickthrough" is on the software package, giving up their legal rights for no consideration whatsoever?
In short, why shouldn't we be trying to drive AMI out of business?
I'm a Democrat, and no fan of the Bush administration, but this comment is certainly not Flamebait.
The concept of catching people who deliberately intrude into other people's systems is a much different from general snooping on people who are going about their daily business. Honeypots are not the problem. It's systems like Carnivore we need to be worried about.
Actually, Butthead, no one likes to pay more taxes than necessary. It's just that, thanks to American plutocratic propaganda, the majority of Americans have a vastly inflated idea of the percentage of waste in U.S. government. It centers around 25%. They also don't want to cut defense, social security and medicare, and veterans benefits. Yet combined with interest on the debt, these all add up to more than 80% of the US government outlays.
Do the math.
Also, despite your fallacious assertions, the founding fathers were hardly a group of politicans who all saw eye to eye. The Constitution was a document forged of numerous compromises, and it is clear from reading the history, they had different interpretations of what its language meant even as it was being written. Certainly, the actual policies behind the GOP slogan of "keeping government small" (e.g. shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class and poor), is not something the majority would likely have supported.
Finally, I never said I wanted to kick anyone's "asses of the country". I only said if you hate the U.S. so much, including its elected government, you do have the option to leave. That isn't flamebait. It's fact.
Most of that 40% you pay isn't Income Tax. It's unemployment insurance, social security, and state sales taxes. They wouldn't go away under a flat tax, so your tax bill would get significantly higher.
The reason you hear so much whining about income tax, and little about the rest, is that most other forms of tax are regressive - meaning the more money you make, the less as a percentage you pay. For example, your social security taxes are locked at a maximum of around 20,000. A lot for you, but for a multimillionaire owner of a media cartel, it's nothing - hence you hear very little complaining about it in the news.
It's MY money? Funny, I don't remember printing it.
I also don't remember the Constitution starting out with THEY THE PEOPLE. I believe it is WE THE PEOPLE. That is, the THEY you are talking about are your fellow Americans - who think this country is so great, even the occasional idiot President can't screw it up.
In fact, the only reason why a bunch of dumb green paper has any value at all is that the People of the United States with its billion megaton nuclear arsenal SAYS it does. (Which is actually quite a powerful argument if you think about it.)
But if you really really really hate THEY, or rather the U.S., don't let the screen door bang you on your way out. Ditto if you want all the benefits of living here without shouldering any of the costs.
In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
Women are prohibited from wearing patent leather shoes in public.
It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday.
It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
The Ohio driver's education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car.
Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited.
Breast feeding is not allowed in public.
It is illegal for more than five women to live in a house.
It is illegal to mistreat anything of great importance.
No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July.
I don't think Oregon has any patent on foolish laws. In fact, they tend to have extremely good ones. Furthermore, there is a difference between "considering a law" and passing one.
But I guess it's too much to expect the typical slashdot poster or moderator to understand that.
And once they landed at the maw of Mount Doom, it was undefended. Remember? Frodo just walked right in.
But the reason it was undefended was that Sauron was tricked into thinking that the Ring was in Gondor. There was considerable plotting in Return of the King over this point. The entire mad charge against Mordor at the end was made to make it seem like someone claimed the ring, and in his newfound hubris was going to march right in and destroy Sauron.
Further, simply because King Eagle could fly to Mount Doom after the power of Sauron was broken, does not mean it was possible for him to do so before. Many dark magics were intimated in the books that were not fully fleshed out. There is no reason to believe that with his full powers, Sauron could not have slaughtered a winged ringbearer, or used the power of the ring to subvert him.
Could the prosecutors claim the judge was biased and interfered, and demand a retrial?
They could, but they certainly never would. Why? Because if they did, and the appeal is denied (which, contrary to public perception, is what usually happens to most appeals), that would set a more far-reaching precedent.
Slashdot Mirror
The GPL covers distributing the original owner's code. Legally speaking when you give a representation to a copyrighted work, you are distributing it to them, no matter by what means or how you are compensated in return. (This is why music services have to get permission from the copyright holder to use a CD in their playlist.)
There is no story here.
Let's review, shall we?
VisiCalc ...and its successors spawned a trillion dollar industry, made Steve Jobs a billionaire, and almost singlehandedly eliminated the profession of "bookkeeper".
WordPerfect ...ditto for the profession of personal secretary. Only executives use them now.
Mosaic ...let's see. Trillion dollar industry, hundreds of business models, hundreds of thousands of businesses, millions of lives and careers changed... seems pretty extreme to me.
I could go on, but you get the idea...
The patent is certainly intended to cover large scale industrial equipment, not mobile phones. In that case, not only would you get excess electricity, but the very act of harnessing that power would also serve to quiet them -- a double bonus.
Hemos is like a lot of sci-fi fans: he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on.
Very scared? - Talk to IBM.
Moderately scared? - Talk to Red Hat (or other mid-range players).
Not scared? - Build your own organization.
Understand, most Open Source/Free Software companies are built around supporting customers like you.
People like you are their business model, their bread and butter. I've heard little but good news from the services they sell.
Don't sit on your butt. Pick up the phone.
Nearly every change made to Slashdot over the last several years has made it harder to offer any real diferentiation in a premium service. People buy totalfark subscriptions to get more time to "win photoshop contests" - while slashdot has hidden it's equivalent karma system (and most regulars have topped out anyway). The delay from story acceptance to publication isn't all that long - it can't be: Slashdot is primarily a news site. The sophisticated readership could avoid ads if they really wanted to (I suspect most don't because it's part of the social contract). Finally, there are too many people who have run afoul of Malda's notoriously thin skin to have built up a "save salon" type of outpouring. (Setting special flags on people's accounts just because they dared mod up a critique? How juvenile -- but I digress).
Still, there are a number of ideas that haven't been tried that might be of interest, if done right:
Have a special premium queue for stories, plus the promise that one story will be picked a day. Suitable markings to differentiate stories drawn
from "preferred" queues ala google.
Allow premium users additional access to html. IMG tags anyone? Maybe combine this with small level of image storage.
The ability to "challenge" a mod down. Automatic if the mod is "overrated" which doesn't get metamodded; better yet, get rid of "overrated" it's an invitation to abuse.
The option of mirroring any content mentioned in slashdot (except ads) for any site owner who is a premium member. Most site owners love the attention slashdot brings them, it's just the slashdot effect that's so hard to deal with.
The ability to be modded to a value of "6". (The post still has to earn that value from the mods on it's own merits though.)
The ability to read from low karma to high. For fans of "alternative humor".
The ability to start at a +1 karma level (editable, of course, for those so unamerican as to believe money != speech). This would be especially attractive to people with "high uid" accounts.
A higher bandwidth channel to premium customers.
A java plug-in that downloads slashdot incrementally in the background, making those annoying page-load/drill-down delays go away.
Allowing edits of your own posted comment, so long as it hasn't been modded or responded to. If it has, you can still edit it, but a link is added to the original version.
I think this is a good start on you offering enough differentiation to make a "premium" view worth money without cutting into your site's popularity.
The bill for my business advice will arrive in the morning.
So he is more likely to know what he's talking about.
Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of all the inane cynicism that passes for reflective commentary in modern society. While it's true that the world has its villians, it is more true that people often just hold opinions irrespective of their economic interest. I for one, trust that Linus is among these favored many.
(Not joking this time)
Q: If ISPs are really all that upset about spam, why haven't they done anything about it?
It's patently obvious that ISPs could eliminate spam simply by blacklisting individuals who engage in the practice (and other ISPs who don't follow it). This is how credit ratings work, an area in which there is both a greater monetary incentive for misbehaviour and much lower (technical) barrier to entry.
Properly implemented, such an individual blacklist would eliminate most worldwide spam - since only a couple dozen individuals are responsible for more than 90% of the phenonema.
It seems to me that the real reason ISPs don't stop spam is due to base economics: spam houses pay money. So spam elmination has become a classic games theory problem - money you spend to search for spammers on your own network is wasted; you just have to respond enough to keep off the RTBL.
And because detection is always someone else's problem, spammers will continue to thrive in the time it takes to process the request.
Given the US court system is (and always has been) a legal crap shoot - e.g. the judge you get is far more important than the law - no one can tell how this will turn out.
However, I believe the smart money is on the "censors" in this case, because they aren't actually modifying the media. Again, just like with Google's page rank system and "net nannies" sold to private parties, this is simply another form of "opinion" they're peddling. And in general, you can't sue people to change their opinion. (Or rather, you can, but it won't do any good.)
Speaking of oddities however, it's been quite a while since I've seen something as surreal as a Microsoft employee complaining about Google's "monopoly" against Search King. Dahlia Lithwick seems to think that court case is somehow much closer than it seems to me, which scares me because she has real legal training, so maybe the courts really are going to start forcing people to alter or not publicize their opinions.
Take a look at neopets. They're a kids gamesite which offers games, many of which are little more than thinly disguised advertisements. For example, this Disney 101 Dalmations game (you won't be able to play it directly unless you create a login).
A multi-billion dollar market? Not likely. However, it does look multi-million dollar market is in the bag.
int main()
{
printf("Hello world\n");
return 0;
}
Seems like the most well known piece of code in programming history.
Nike is not arguing for the "free speech" right to "deceive" - that is a twisted interpretation made by the author you quote. They are arguing for the "free speech" right to make a political argument. In this specific case, the right to assert that their actions in third-world countries do more good than harm.
Given that today even Michael Moore calls Phil Knight (the founder of Nike - who made the company's first sneakers himself using a waffle iron) one of the "good guys" in terms of corporate responsibility, that isn't an unreasonable position.
And even if you disagree, it certainly isn't fraud.
It's highly unlikely Verisign will ever get beaten up this way. In fact, it's nearly impossible.
The reason is economics. Setting up a fake web site is far too much effort to waste for the money a typical crook gets from small customer transactions before the whole thing is shut down. That's why fraud is largely a phenonema confined to sites like ebay, where all you have to do is compose what is little more than an html email.
Of course, that's the reason the whole "certificate" scheme works despite its obvious flaws. It isn't necessary, and in fact, is little other than a way for browser operators to shake down web sites.
I disagree - strongly. Operating systems are already "trusted" in this sense. They already implement "user owned" TORA. That's what the permissions system is there for - which your "CTRL ALT DEL" example illustrates admirably. If I'm running Linux as a normal user, download a virus, and run it, at most all it can do is screw up my account - not the OS, not my configuration, nothing else.
The only reason why anyone would want this kind of permissions placed into the BIOS (including, quite tellingly, implementing on-chip encryption) is if you were trying to remove the user's ultimate ability to control his own machine. Period.
It plainly is anti open-source.
TPM has no benefit to end users. All it does is give Microsoft an argument to use with ISVs as to why they shouldn't develop products for open source platforms. They can say: "If you ever release your product for Linux, some people will disassemble it. But with our "trusted" OSes, you'll never have to worry about crackers, because we don't let our customers control their own machines".
It's a powerful argument. There may even be a few ISVs stupid enough to fall for it. (Most ISVs don't go out of business from cracks, they die when Microsoft itself uses its monopoly power to sieze the market the ISV developed.)
But it's all a moot point. Why shouldn't we be trying to nip this in the bud? Why shouldn't we be spreading the word to everyone we know that people who buy AMI will very soon have to accept whatever draconian "Clickthrough" is on the software package, giving up their legal rights for no consideration whatsoever?
In short, why shouldn't we be trying to drive AMI out of business?
Sounds like a plan to me.
I'm a Democrat, and no fan of the Bush administration, but this comment is certainly not Flamebait.
The concept of catching people who deliberately intrude into other people's systems is a much different from general snooping on people who are going about their daily business. Honeypots are not the problem. It's systems like Carnivore we need to be worried about.
(just for example -- *BSDs will be equally affected) so far.
So does this mean BSD is dying yet?
(sorry, had to)
Actually, Butthead, no one likes to pay more taxes than necessary. It's just that, thanks to American plutocratic propaganda, the majority of Americans have a vastly inflated idea of the percentage of waste in U.S. government. It centers around 25%. They also don't want to cut defense, social security and medicare, and veterans benefits. Yet combined with interest on the debt, these all add up to more than 80% of the US government outlays.
Do the math.
Also, despite your fallacious assertions, the founding fathers were hardly a group of politicans who all saw eye to eye. The Constitution was a document forged of numerous compromises, and it is clear from reading the history, they had different interpretations of what its language meant even as it was being written. Certainly, the actual policies behind the GOP slogan of "keeping government small" (e.g. shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class and poor), is not something the majority would likely have supported.
Finally, I never said I wanted to kick anyone's "asses of the country". I only said if you hate the U.S. so much, including its elected government, you do have the option to leave. That isn't flamebait. It's fact.
Most of that 40% you pay isn't Income Tax. It's unemployment insurance, social security, and state sales taxes. They wouldn't go away under a flat tax, so your tax bill would get significantly higher.
The reason you hear so much whining about income tax, and little about the rest, is that most other forms of tax are regressive - meaning the more money you make, the less as a percentage you pay. For example, your social security taxes are locked at a maximum of around 20,000. A lot for you, but for a multimillionaire owner of a media cartel, it's nothing - hence you hear very little complaining about it in the news.
It's MY money? Funny, I don't remember printing it.
I also don't remember the Constitution starting out with THEY THE PEOPLE. I believe it is WE THE PEOPLE. That is, the THEY you are talking about are your fellow Americans - who think this country is so great, even the occasional idiot President can't screw it up.
In fact, the only reason why a bunch of dumb green paper has any value at all is that the People of the United States with its billion megaton nuclear arsenal SAYS it does. (Which is actually quite a powerful argument if you think about it.)
But if you really really really hate THEY, or rather the U.S., don't let the screen door bang you on your way out. Ditto if you want all the benefits of living here without shouldering any of the costs.
The MPAA/RIAA would love this interpretation of the law.
That way, they'd never file a report, and you'd have to buy your CD collection all over again.
No thanks.
In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
Women are prohibited from wearing patent leather shoes in public.
It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday.
It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
The Ohio driver's education manual states that you must honk the horn whenever you pass another car.
Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited.
Breast feeding is not allowed in public.
It is illegal for more than five women to live in a house.
It is illegal to mistreat anything of great importance.
No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July.
I don't think Oregon has any patent on foolish laws. In fact, they tend to have extremely good ones.
Furthermore, there is a difference between "considering a law" and passing one.
But I guess it's too much to expect the typical slashdot poster or moderator to understand that.
But the reason it was undefended was that Sauron was tricked into thinking that the Ring was in Gondor. There was considerable plotting in Return of the King over this point. The entire mad charge against Mordor at the end was made to make it seem like someone claimed the ring, and in his newfound hubris was going to march right in and destroy Sauron.
Further, simply because King Eagle could fly to Mount Doom after the power of Sauron was broken, does not mean it was possible for him to do so before. Many dark magics were intimated in the books that were not fully fleshed out. There is no reason to believe that with his full powers, Sauron could not have slaughtered a winged ringbearer, or used the power of the ring to subvert him.
Sorry, it's not a plot hole. Try again.
They could, but they certainly never would. Why? Because if they did, and the appeal is denied (which, contrary to public perception, is what usually happens to most appeals), that would set a more far-reaching precedent.