Linus himself does not think GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep adopting it.
People are adopting gpl3 for some of the same reasons they adopted gpl2, which is to ensure that users are free to modify their software to suit their needs.
I have to say that I agree. In all such things I ask myself: "What would Eban Moglen do?" Until recently he was the legal genius behind the GPL. (maybe he still is, I'm a bit confused) His approach was always to resolve the problem without needing to sue. It really does seem to me that these guys went off half cocked. If you want to see what happens when you do that, check out SCO.
Well at first I thought as you did, at least until I went to Hava's forums to see what got everybody up in arms. The support drones first response was to accuse the users of violating Hava's EULA:
Greetings all.
I have a little secret to let you in on - HAVA runs Linux! Yes, much of the source is GPL and we should publish those sections which we have modified per the terms of GPL. A project is underway to pull this together.
A couple of observations - some of you appear to be violating the terms of the End User License Agreement, specifically:
Quote: 2. Restrictions
You recognize and agree that the HAVA Software including its structure, source code and the design and structure of modules or programs, constitute valuable trade secrets owned by Snappymultimedia or its licensors. You will not copy or use the HAVA Software except as expressly permitted by this EULA and, specifically, you will not
[...]
(b) yourself or through any third party modify, reverse engineer, disassemble or decompile the HAVA Software in whole or part, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law, and then only after you have notified Snappymultimedia in writing of your intended activities;
Seems to me that some of you have just come out blatantly admitting you are reverse engineering the firmware - or trying to. How should we handle this?
Also, please realize that NOT ALL of HAVA's important functionality is covered by GPL, so you won't actually have everything you need to get HAVA working. _________________ Best regards,
The only way the DMCA is going away is the supreme court or congress (super unlikely).
There is another way, which would be a Constitutional amendment along the lines of "Congress shall pass no laws restricting the right of the people to freely share information." It would have to come through the states calling for another Constitutional convention though.
That is what this country really needs. The FURIAA would basically reaffirm the First Amendment by ensuring that Congress shall make no laws restricting the free sharing of information among the people.
the point is still the same, just because you can do something doesn't mean it is right or legal to do.
No, it is not the same. Downloading a file from the internet should be no more illegal than picking up a book, or a wallet, from the sidewalk. It is only what you do with the found item afterwards that should count.
I think this implies that you simply shouldn't copy the file then, not that you can.
The internet works by copying information from one computer to another so the default is to assume that everything can be copied. If this were not true then even simple web browsing would be impossible.
so if I find your social security card, drivers license and birth certificate its ok for me to copy them because I can? even give them to a few friends of mine? thanks!
Picking up my wallet from the street is not a crime, but using the information contained within to commit fraud is.
I know most slashdot'ers look at it the other way but I have always thought that hosting the files is not the issue, that person has done nothing. The downloader is the one actually making the copy, writing out a new file.
How is the downloader suppose to determine if the file being offered is infringing? If people are just expected to assume that everything is illegal then browsing the web pretty much becomes impossible.
You shouldn't be downloading "full movies" from these types of sites anyway. It's clearly illegal and only lets the MPAA say "See?
Downloading should not be considered infringing, or "illegal", because it really is no different than picking up a book found on the street. Besides, there is no sure way for a person to determine the copyright status of a file.
You didn't answer my question. You just paraphrased your previous post. Again, clarifying myself, how does that justify stealing? I mean, if you're so interested in "preserving and advancing the species" by "sharing knowledge and culture", then why not just *buy* a copy of World of Warcraft or the new NIN album and put it in a time capsule?
Sharing is not stealing. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, if I light your candle with my candle you now have a flame while mine is in no way diminished. The same applies to music, software and any other electronically distributed content. Burying flames in capsules tend to extinguish them.
Huh? What's that? Oh, I see. You didn't *really* have an interest in preserving and advancing the species... you were just trying out a flimsy defense for getting something for free...
Yes, actually I do have an interest in advancing and preserving the species. That's probably why I chose nursing over IT when I in college and I would doing my patients a huge disservice if I did not share my knowledge of why a certain treatment is necessary to help their condition.
At the risk of repeating myself again the reality is people share knowledge and they share culture, they always have and they always will. Your parents and friends share with you what they have experienced just as their parents and friends shared their experiences with them. It would be unnatural for them not to do so.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Copyright law abridges free speech by granting monopolies on the expression of ideas.
Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.
It can be detected, but not trivially if the cheating is subtle. Coding the cheat to occur randomly and only if a certain period of time has elapsed since the previous vote was entered would make it very difficult to detect. In most elections in the US the difference between the leading candidates is usually just a couple of percentage points so randomly changing one vote in twenty cast at least two minutes apart would make the testing of millions of simulated votes difficult.
If you have a calculator that's only designed to do a dozen different sums, it's *trivial* to prove whether or not it is doing those sums correctly, or whether some sort of environment effect is affecting the results.
The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting a voting machine that can not comply with the law.
The issue is that the underlying OS has the ability to modify the results of any application it runs. Say, for example, Gates decides to run for President. Balmer could easily have the input coded to skew the results in Bill's favor in very subtle ways that only a thorough examination of the underlying system code would expose.
You have no right to take the fruits of other peoples hard work without compensating them. This is just morally wrong, and an incentive for everyone to sit on their ass and leech of other people.
Sharing information is a natural human survival trait. It allows people to pass knowledge and culture from one generation to the next. Those that you call "leeches" are ensuring the preservation of species. It is morally wrong of you to expect to draw freely from the human experience without contributing back in kind.
This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living. They wouldn't want someone looking at their code more than an author would want someone reading a book that's still in progress.
Great analogy! It would even make sense if the author could keep people from reading the words he used to write the book when he distributes it.
It is not the federal government's job to run humanistic compassionate programs.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If the MAFIAA provides a valuable service to you, and expects money in exchange, it seems reasonable that you should give them money. If they aren't providing a valueable service, then don't pirate their garbage. Jerks like you give the rest of us who oppose the current copyright regime a bad name.
No matter how much of a perfect boycott you are aiming for, it just ain't going to happen. People have been freely sharing culture and knowledge since the dawn of time and will continue to do so no matter what draconian laws are put in place because that is their nature. Marketers, including those who work for RIAA members, know this and even use it their advantage with word of mouth campaigns.
I don't understand why schools let themselves get enslaved by proprietary software when kids could learn a whole lot more by experimenting with different solutions to problems.
Look, like most I just don't have time to visit a couple of hundred sites to keep up on things. I want headlines and leads with enough information to let me know whether or not it is worth the effort to visit the news source. They should be thanking Google for providing the opportunity to garner more readers and subsequently increase their ad revenue.
Slashdot Mirror
I really don't want to tell the 2nd and 3rd person what to do.
The problem is by not telling the 2nd person what to do you are not even giving the 3rd person a chance.
Linus himself does not think GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep adopting it.
People are adopting gpl3 for some of the same reasons they adopted gpl2, which is to ensure that users are free to modify their software to suit their needs.
I have to say that I agree. In all such things I ask myself: "What would Eban Moglen do?" Until recently he was the legal genius behind the GPL. (maybe he still is, I'm a bit confused) His approach was always to resolve the problem without needing to sue. It really does seem to me that these guys went off half cocked. If you want to see what happens when you do that, check out SCO.
Well at first I thought as you did, at least until I went to Hava's forums to see what got everybody up in arms. The support drones first response was to accuse the users of violating Hava's EULA:
Greetings all.
I have a little secret to let you in on - HAVA runs Linux! Yes, much of the source is GPL and we should publish those sections which we have modified per the terms of GPL. A project is underway to pull this together.
A couple of observations - some of you appear to be violating the terms of the End User License Agreement, specifically:
Quote:
2. Restrictions
You recognize and agree that the HAVA Software including its structure, source code and the design and structure of modules or programs, constitute valuable trade secrets owned by Snappymultimedia or its licensors. You will not copy or use the HAVA Software except as expressly permitted by this EULA and, specifically, you will not
[...]
(b) yourself or through any third party modify, reverse engineer, disassemble or decompile the HAVA Software in whole or part, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law, and then only after you have notified Snappymultimedia in writing of your intended activities;
Seems to me that some of you have just come out blatantly admitting you are reverse engineering the firmware - or trying to. How should we handle this?
Also, please realize that NOT ALL of HAVA's important functionality is covered by GPL, so you won't actually have everything you need to get HAVA working.
_________________
Best regards,
MyHAVA Support
The only way the DMCA is going away is the supreme court or congress (super unlikely).
There is another way, which would be a Constitutional amendment along the lines of "Congress shall
pass no laws restricting the right of the people to freely share information." It would have to come
through the states calling for another Constitutional convention though.
I wasn't aware of the First Amendment guaranteeing that intellectual property is free to the people.
Copyright law restricts how ideas may be expressed.
That is what this country really needs. The FURIAA would basically reaffirm the First Amendment by ensuring that Congress shall make no laws restricting the free sharing of information among the people.
is this or is this not the proof that ATI is the solution for linux graphics?
For those of us who absolutely refuse to use closed sourced drivers their older cards have already proven to be the best solution for desktops.
the point is still the same, just because you can do something doesn't mean it is right or legal to do.
No, it is not the same. Downloading a file from the internet should be no more illegal than picking up a book, or a wallet, from the sidewalk. It is only what you do with the found item afterwards that should count.
I think this implies that you simply shouldn't copy the file then, not that you can.
The internet works by copying information from one computer to another so the default is to assume that everything can be copied. If this were not true then even simple web browsing would be impossible.
so if I find your social security card, drivers license and birth certificate its ok for me to copy them because I can? even give them to a few friends of mine? thanks!
Picking up my wallet from the street is not a crime, but using the information contained within to commit fraud is.
I know most slashdot'ers look at it the other way but I have always thought that hosting the files is not the issue, that person has done nothing. The downloader is the one actually making the copy, writing out a new file.
How is the downloader suppose to determine if the file being offered is infringing? If people are just expected to assume that everything is illegal then browsing the web pretty much becomes impossible.
You shouldn't be downloading "full movies" from these types of sites anyway. It's clearly illegal and only lets the MPAA say "See?
Downloading should not be considered infringing, or "illegal", because it really is no different than picking up a book found on the street. Besides, there is no sure way for a person to determine the copyright status of a file.
You didn't answer my question. You just paraphrased your previous post. Again, clarifying myself, how does that justify stealing? I mean, if you're so interested in "preserving and advancing the species" by "sharing knowledge and culture", then why not just *buy* a copy of World of Warcraft or the new NIN album and put it in a time capsule?
Sharing is not stealing. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, if I light your candle with my candle you now have a flame while mine is in no way diminished. The same applies to music, software and any other electronically distributed content. Burying flames in capsules tend to extinguish them.
Huh? What's that? Oh, I see. You didn't *really* have an interest in preserving and advancing the species... you were just trying out a flimsy defense for getting something for free...
Yes, actually I do have an interest in advancing and preserving the species. That's probably why I chose nursing over IT when I in college and I would doing my patients a huge disservice if I did not share my knowledge of why a certain treatment is necessary to help their condition.
At the risk of repeating myself again the reality is people share knowledge and they share culture, they always have and they always will. Your parents and friends share with you what they have experienced just as their parents and friends shared their experiences with them. It would be unnatural for them not to do so.
You must have missed the first amendment.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Copyright law abridges free speech by granting monopolies on the expression of ideas.
How are they preserving the species by hawking copies of World of Warcraft or the new NIN album?
Sharing knowledge and culture preserves and advances the species by increasing the base of information from which people can draw from and add to.
C:\>date %ELECTION_DATE%
C:\>voting_app.exe
Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.
It can be detected, but not trivially if the cheating is subtle. Coding the cheat to occur randomly and only if a certain period of time has elapsed since the previous vote was entered would make it very difficult to detect. In most elections in the US the difference between the leading candidates is usually just a couple of percentage points so randomly changing one vote in twenty cast at least two minutes apart would make the testing of millions of simulated votes difficult.
If you have a calculator that's only designed to do a dozen different sums, it's *trivial* to prove whether or not it is doing those sums correctly, or whether some sort of environment effect is affecting the results.
if(app == voting_app)
The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting a voting machine that can not comply with the law.
The issue is that the underlying OS has the ability to modify the results of any application it runs. Say, for example, Gates decides to run for President. Balmer could easily have the input coded to skew the results in Bill's favor in very subtle ways that only a thorough examination of the underlying system code would expose.
You have no right to take the fruits of other peoples hard work without compensating them. This is just morally wrong, and an incentive for everyone to sit on their ass and leech of other people.
Sharing information is a natural human survival trait. It allows people to pass knowledge and culture from one generation to the next. Those that you call "leeches" are ensuring the preservation of species. It is morally wrong of you to expect to draw freely from the human experience without contributing back in kind.
This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living. They wouldn't want someone looking at their code more than an author would want someone reading a book that's still in progress.
Great analogy! It would even make sense if the author could keep people from reading the words he used to write the book when he distributes it.
It is not the federal government's job to run humanistic compassionate programs.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If the MAFIAA provides a valuable service to you, and expects money in exchange, it seems reasonable that you should give them money. If they aren't providing a valueable service, then don't pirate their garbage. Jerks like you give the rest of us who oppose the current copyright regime a bad name.
No matter how much of a perfect boycott you are aiming for, it just ain't going to happen. People have been freely sharing culture and knowledge since the dawn of time and will continue to do so no matter what draconian laws are put in place because that is their nature. Marketers, including those who work for RIAA members, know this and even use it their advantage with word of mouth campaigns.
I don't understand why schools let themselves get enslaved by proprietary software when kids could learn a whole lot more by experimenting with different solutions to problems.
It looks to me that YOU should be paying Google. You're the one getting the useful service.
I pay Google for its services the same way as I pay for other advertising supported media services.
Look, like most I just don't have time to visit a couple of hundred sites to keep up on things. I want headlines and leads with enough information to let me know whether or not it is worth the effort to visit the news source. They should be thanking Google for providing the opportunity to garner more readers and subsequently increase their ad revenue.