Moreover, copyright expiration is not relevant -at all- to software, because by the time any copyright on a piece of software expires (which will start in about 40 years), it won't be useful to run it, even if possible. There is currently no public domain in software except what was placed in it by the copyright holder, and for practical purposes there never will be. There is no software copyright expiration.
Re:SCO only getting 1 paragraph understandable...
on
The Year In Tech Law
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· Score: 1
Xerox's UI was neither open source nor "open research"; Apple may have ripped it off, but Microsoft -bought- it (license to use it). Xerox didn't intentionally give it away for free to anyone.
(Of course it would have been disastrous if the courts had upheld "look and feel" copyrights, even though overlapping windows are braindead and it would have been better if they had flopped).
Even with the crypto challenge, there is an easy crack. Two PCs, one secure, one not. insecure transparently forwards the challenge to the secure and sends back the response.
The fact of the matter is that technology like the internet can potentially, and may even now, allow for such efficient secondary markets (e.g., allowing NEW book buyers to get 70% of what they paid for it within 2 weeks of reading) that it puts a MAJOR hole in sales of books.
How many people are actually willing to pay 30% of a book's price to have it for 2 weeks? Even granting the efficiency, it doesn't seem like the hole could be "MAJOR".
Obviously something in the OS has to check the driver to see whether it's signed. All one has to do is find that bit of code and modify it (and then tell everyone else how). Illegal, yes
Really? What law?
DMCA... Heheh apparently you haven't been reading this site long. Search for DeCSS in the box at the bottom of the front page.
There are such programs. However you need to read up on Trusted Audio Path. Trusted Audio Path uses only digitally signed drivers for copyrighted audio.
It's still a secure-client model, so it's still inherently insecure. Obviously something in the OS has to check the driver to see whether it's signed. All one has to do is find that bit of code and modify it (and then tell everyone else how). Illegal, yes, but that's not going to stop EVERYBODY, and only ONE person needs to let the cat out of the bag.
Unless these guys take their gazillions and bury it in what would have to be an awfully big backyard, any money they have is either 1) employing
someone else in exchange for goods or services or 2) being invested and providing someone else's capital.
Uhh, sorry, NO. Where did all the oil required to build Elison's mansion come from? If he had not built such a big house, that oil could have gone to something more worthwhile. Ditto any other natural resource it uses, and I'm sure it uses lots of them. This is just libertarian rationalization.
Whether gazillionaires spend money on a box of Tic-Tacs? or a swimming-pool-sized subwoofer, someone is benefiting from that purchase.
Obviously someone is benefitting. The main beneficiary is Elison, of course. And any laborers he hires benefit too. But for all the money that went into the natural resources necessary to his decadence, NOBODY BENEFITED. So it's silly to imply that there's never anything wrong with spending.
To sum up. Spending on labor: hard to argue against that, under our current system. Spending on resources: you have not made your case.
I will also point out that there is a major problem with the system when more labor is good. The fact that we need to build stuff we don't need (for instance, nuclear submarines in CT where I am -- we kept building them for years in spite of no need, just so we wouldn't lose the jobs. The world would have been better if we had just set up a 10 year severance package -- at least then we wouldn't have wasted all that steel, and all the workers' time. God it's absurd), just so that people won't starve, is from any rational-technical criteria absolutely insane.
Please read Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness", Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" and "A General Statement of the Tragedy of the Commons" (whose author I forget) for more thinking along these lines, from minds greater than mine. (All three are available online. Use google)
Yeah, but lots of sites won't ship to addresses besides those that your CC company has on record. I imagine that eventually this will become either legally required or required by all major CC companies. Of course, it doesn't apply to stuff you don't ship, but there are ways to make that more secure too. I don't think it's quite the time to declare the imminent death of web commerce.
the first major bible printed in the West available online
Uhh? The Bible Gateway has dozens of major Bibles available online (in a bunch of languages, too), including NIV. I guess they may mean available IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, but that's not at all the same thing.
So when Microsoft carelessly allowed spies to copy their secrets, they lost the trade secret protection, didn't they?
From the Trademark FAQ, whose authors (unlike me) actually are lawyers:
A trade secret owner can prevent the following groups of people from copying, using and benefiting from its trade secrets or disclosing them to others without permission:
[...]
people who knowingly obtain trade secrets from people who have no right to disclose them
people who learn about a trade secret by accident or mistake, but had reason to know that the information was a protected trade secret,
[...]
There is one group of people that cannot be stopped from using
information protected under trade secret law. These are people who
discover the secret independently, that is, without using illegal means
or violating agreements or state laws. [...]
The question becomes, does an individual who stumbles upon MSFT code have reason to know the information is protected trade secret? In most cases, probably. But then, an anonymous contribution in the form of a diff emailed to the SAMBA project is fair game -- without having seen the MSFT code themselves, SAMBA has no reason to believe it's a trade secret, and thus does not fall under the restrictions of trade secret law. Of course, it may also be protected by copyright, in which case (AFAIK) ignorance is not a valid defense.
Sorry, but because @home was controlling infrormation that
belonged to them. This is not censorship.
Information can't belong to people (or companies). The purpose of copyright is to encourage the production of arts and information. @HOME was not selling this, nobody else is making money from selling copies or avoiding paying @HOME by getting copies for free, and it is not the purpose of copyright law to encourage companies to write internal memos. They are using copyright law, not to prevent an IP "tragedy of the commons" which copyright law is intended to do, but to shield themselves from criticism. Whether or not the publication of internal @HOME documents is technically illegal, it is patently against the spirit of copyright law to prevent it -- and incidentally the spirit of copyright law is codified in the legally-binding US Constitution. Any copyright laws this fellow may be breaking are thus, IMO, unconstitutional.
Since it's mine I get to decide what to do with it.
It's by no means given that it's "yours", and even if it was, that would not mean that you are free to restrict its use however you choose -- even the most staunch supporters of copyright usually believe it should expire eventually and allow fair use. Anyway, I wonder what you mean by "get to"? Do you mean it is right? Legal? That you should not be prevented? None of these would follow from your unestablished premise, "it's mine".
Stallman is absorbed in self interest and could care less about other people. He's admitted to not getting married and having children because he feels that the need to support the family would conflict with his goal of working for free.
How does the latter have anything to do with the former??
The problem with using the term "copylefted" instead of "free software" is that there is such a thing as non-copylefted free software -- for instance, software in the public domain, or BSD-licensed software.
I had an old sofa I didn't want any more. I decided to give it to Goodwill.
Goodwill turned around and sold it for $50.
Should I be screaming outrage? I GAVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE YOU MOTHER FREEAKERS!
Don't you realize the difference? Only one person can use the sofa at a time anyway. Goodwill can't give the sofa to every single person in the world at the same time at zero (or negligible) cost to themselves. They can't patch a hole in the seat of just that one couch and in doing so fix all the holes in all the couches in every house in the world. They can't knit a matching pillow and consequently cause a matching pillow to magically appear on every couch in the world. These things cannot be done with couches, but they can be done with software. To not do them is acceptable -- there may be better things to do with one's time, or one may merely lack the ability -- but to prevent others from doing them is not acceptable, and so far as we can guarantee people the ability to do them, we should. That is why people support free software. You may disagree, but the knee-jerk dismissal you have presented is not a good argument for your position.
The values of the VOTERS in the city especially. If the mayor and the city council put into place a
ban on homosexual relationships in San Francisco for instance, they'd probably be ousted come the
next election. If you disagree with the community values implemented by your local government, you
need to exercise your vote. If the majority of people agree with you then the people that put the values into place will be gone and they can be changed along with the laws. If not, then you are SOL and simply need to deal with it.
Very true, but that doesn't make it right. By the way, I do hope you are aware that there are indeed many states in which homosexual sex (if not "relationships") is illegal; see http://www.aclu.org/issues/gay/sodomy.ht ml for more info.
There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority; just because voters have the power to e.g. segregate the schools does not mean that we are incorrect in unequivocally stating that this wrong. Might is not right, and criticism of injustice -- even when perpetrated through legal means -- is essential to any society. We must not accept what seems to be your implication, viz. that because a majority supports it, it is just. A majority can be as unjust as a dictator, and should not be exempt from criticism merely by virtue of being a majority.
What?? You think Clinton should have won in 1992? That's absurd! Most of the people in the country in 1992 preferred Bush to Clinton. So what if Perot's policies were put into place? That's just because there's a tendency for a government that's representative in any way to do what the public wants; it doesn't mean that the right person won the election. Let's say that Bush actually got more votes than Clinton, but due to a rounding error Clinton won. If everything turned out fine in the end, would that mean the rounding error was actually good, and that we should continue to allow giant rounding errors in future elections!?
Do you realize that wars have been started against the will of majorities because anti-war candidates have "split the vote"? In such an instance, would you consider this as having "worked perfectly" if in the next election the vote-splitting was remedied by convergence of the vote-splitters??
Ralph Nader probably won't do that well in this election. But if he does, the democrats will swing back to the radical left-endorsing radical environmental policies, more government, higher taxes and isolationist trade policies.
So what? It is apparent (at least not unreasonable) that the majority of Americans prefer McCain to both Bush and to Gore; the fact that, in spite of this, McCain could not become a contender for the presidency, is an outrage and an affront to democracy.
Honestly, I can't even see why you would consider the above listed effect good. Sure, it means that third parties can influence the major parties by drawing away votes. Who cares? That influence is almost always contrary to the will of the public -- it certainly would be in the Nader example you list. It means better representing the views of Democrats at the expense of representing the views of Republicans; what we want is a comprimise between the two groups. If Naders started replacing Gores in the Democratic Party, that would have the potential of even more seriously dissatisfying all Republicans, while appealing more only to a group of Democrats much smaller in comparison. Plurality in general polarizes elections, guaranteeing that half of the populus will be seriously dissatisfied, rather than Condorcet which tends to produce a populus that is all somewhat dissatisfied, but only in those areas where the individual's views are unpopular.
In this example, let's remove the labels. There are three candidates. One is supported by 40% of the people, and the other two
by 30%. Who should be elected? If none of the three can reconcile their differences to create a majority voting block, the 40%!
Let's analyze this a little further. Let's say there are three candidates running for office; we'll call them Notnilc, Hsub, and Torep. If every voter in the country *honestly* gave their absolute *favorite* candidate, Notnilc would be chosen by 45%, Hsub by 40%, Torep by 15%. So, based on the entire country's HONEST FAVORITE, we should elect Notnilc, right? But wait, let's say that all the people who picked Torep prefer hsub to Notnilc. In the previous election, that preference remained entirely unrepresented in the election result (indeed, it wasn't even recorded). So let's say the pollsters outside the election booths hold their own pseudo-election. In this election, voters are not allowed to vote Torep. Obviously, this results in a victory for Hsub -- yet voter's do not prefer Hsub to Notnilc in the latter case any more than they do in the former. Their positions have not changed at all.
To repeat:
* The majority of the public prefers Hsub to Notnilc (55% to 45%), in BOTH cases.
* Whether or not Torep runs has no effect on the actual desires of the voters with regard to the question of whether Hsub is preferable to Notnilc. They ALWAYS prefer Hsub to Notnilc.
* As stated, in BOTH cases Hsub is preferred to Notnilc; however, in only ONE case does Hsub win.
Let's think of it another way. Let's pretend 1% of the US are Nazis, and 99% are Jeffersonians. Let's say someone gets ahold of Thomas Jefferson's DNA, and someone else gets ahold of Hitler's DNA. Jefferson is cloned 5000 times, Hitler is cloned only once. In the next election, all 5000 Jeffersons run against Hitler. Who wins? Let's say that right after Hitler wins, he is challenged to a 1-on-1 election by Jefferson #536. Who wins that?
Remember, the GPL doesn't stop Intellectual Property from existing under the law, and make everything free. It (and other free licences) just makes Free Software possible.
Please, free software existed before copyright and patent applied to software, and would probably continue to exist -- indeed, flourish -- in the absence of software patent/copyright. It is only proprietary software that needs copyright law to any significant degree (though, of course, it is not totally necessary). IMO software copyright/patent is, if anything, a hinderance to free software.
Also, the requirement that newbies keep dev tools on their systems, download automatic updates for the same, or worry about a cracker using
the compiler to take over Mom's Web and email machine has been severely inhibited.
Your comment about a "cracker using
the compiler to take over Mom's Web and email machine" is so absurd that you almost seem to be a troll. Nevertheless, I will play the odds, assume you are genuinely that clueless in matters of computer security, and give a serious answer to your one almost-valid criticism, i.e. "the requirement that newbies keep dev tools on their systems". Of course the solution is obvious: simply have the installer refrain from installing by default programs that are not likely to be used by most people. Now, it may be the case that development tools could not fit on the disc. This would be a valid criticism, but I doubt it is actually the case.
AFAIK the Fraunhoffer encoder is the *only* proprietary thing about it, and Fraunhoffer *already* tried to crack down on its use.
To some extent they have, but they haven't been doing so aggressively.
Build your own
psycho-acoustic model and encoder and you are set, AFIAK. Maybe you know more about the math than I do, but that's
long been my impression.
To the question of whether any patent-free mp3 encoders exist: Here is the announcement that Debian will not include mp3 encoders because of Fraunhaufer's patent, including a link to the patent on IBM's patent DB web site. Furthermore, according to the LAME web site, "Personal and commercial use of compiled versions of LAME (or any other mp3 encoder) requires a patent license in
some countries." The LAME web site server is notably located outside of the US.
There is an MP3 IP FAQ which answers the question "16. If I don't use their source, can I make my own MP3 encoder without paying FhG?" with "If you infringe on their techniques, it is within their rights to seek recourse, whether or not you had help from them, or whether or not you intentionally or knowingly infriged."
As to my claim that it may not be mathematically possible to create an MP3 encoder without infringing Fraunhaufer's patents -- I was just repeating what I have heard from many knowledgeable people. I doubt anyone has proved that it is impossible, but the bottom line is that nobody has done it yet, and the best policy is probably to refrain from using MP3 until someone does, if someone does. Or how about this: just don't use any patented encoders. That includes all existing MP3 encoders, so you'd better stick with OGG!
For a complete overview of the MP3 patent situation see this page from mp3-tech.org mirrored on LAME's site: ht tp://javatest.a-net.nl/servlet/pedit.Main/http://w ww.mp3-tech.org/patents.html. Select quote: "You can try to write an MP3 encoder without using this [Fraunhaufer's patented] encoding scheme, so in this case you will not have to pay, but it's obvious that it's nearly impossible."
GNU's Not UNIX because it is not closed comercial source code. It's free and you are it's master. GCC, G77, find, and
the rest are all great gifts.
That has nothing to do with how GNU got its name. GNU's not Unix(tm) because Unix(tm) is trademark AT&T/Bell, and without a license from AT&T/Bell (which GNU does not have) it would be illegal to say GNU is Unix(tm), even if it was Unix(tm), which (of course) it is. See, it's funny: laugh.:)
As to the original poster's comments: if Apple had used their own proprietary compiler, then yes, it would have been sufficient to include that rather than gcc. However, they didn't use proprietary tools, they used GNU, so GNU should have been the tools to include (actually, they apparently used some proprietary tools in addition to GNU, but nevertheless, it definitely would have been better if GNU had been included, as well as the proprietary tools. But apparently, they are available through a free download, so it's somewhat of a non-issue, except that the ability of newbies to explore and learn programming has been somewhat inhibited).
The FILE FORMAT itself is an open standard, adopted by IEEE, IIRC.
That would be very unfortunate; I hope you are wrong. In any case, the file format is "open" in the sense that it is not secret, but there *are* patent restrictions on it.
You can get non-proprietary encoder, which LAME is now. Maybe they renamed the program now it is its own encoder.
Yes, LAME is not proprietary, however the algorithms it (illegally) uses *are* proprietary, in that they are patented and use through LAME is not authorized. Furthermore, it does not appear mathematically possible to encode MP3s without infringing Fraunhaufer's patents.
The format decoders are totally free of proprietary IP and patents, IIRC.
That's true. I realize that, in practice, mp3 almost seems free. But realize that the mp3 situation is precisely analogous to the GIF situation. The mp3 format is becoming a de facto standard but it is not quite popular enough, just as it once was with GIF. Right now, LAME and other encoders are in practice allowed to exist without serious resistence, just as GIF encoders once were permitted, before GIF became the de facto standard for non-lossy compressed images. I do not think it is paranoid to expect a GIF-like crack-down on MP3 encoders once MP3 becomes ubiquitous, especially as it becomes utilized in hardware which cannot simply be upgraded to add OGG support as our browsers are upgraded to add PNG support. Once MP3 achieves this ubiquity it will be too late for people to switch to another format without a great deal of work, just as it is proving very difficult to get people to switch to PNG right now.
Fraunhaufer is relatively benevolent right now, because MP3 users are armed with the power to change format, and so they have ot be. But the history of GIF and others (esp. trademarks) teaches us that as soon as the power shifts into the hands of the corporation, the benevolence will end. So that's why I say burn all mp3s.
Finally one of the panel stood up and said. I'm sorry, MP3s are here you're too late. There is hardware available, consumers like it and it has already been adopted as the defacto standard. You have no place to decide whether it gets adopted or not.
I stood up and clapped.
It's a sad day when advocacy of the adoption of patented, proprietary codecs merely on the basis of inertia is applauded. (I know that wasn't your point, but let's not put mp3 on a pedastal anyway.)
Slashdot Mirror
Moreover, copyright expiration is not relevant -at all- to software, because by the time any copyright on a piece of software expires (which will start in about 40 years), it won't be useful to run it, even if possible. There is currently no public domain in software except what was placed in it by the copyright holder, and for practical purposes there never will be. There is no software copyright expiration.
Xerox's UI was neither open source nor "open research"; Apple may have ripped it off, but Microsoft -bought- it (license to use it). Xerox didn't intentionally give it away for free to anyone.
(Of course it would have been disastrous if the courts had upheld "look and feel" copyrights, even though overlapping windows are braindead and it would have been better if they had flopped).
Even with the crypto challenge, there is an easy crack. Two PCs, one secure, one not. insecure transparently forwards the challenge to the secure and sends back the response.
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To sum up. Spending on labor: hard to argue against that, under our current system. Spending on resources: you have not made your case.
I will also point out that there is a major problem with the system when more labor is good. The fact that we need to build stuff we don't need (for instance, nuclear submarines in CT where I am -- we kept building them for years in spite of no need, just so we wouldn't lose the jobs. The world would have been better if we had just set up a 10 year severance package -- at least then we wouldn't have wasted all that steel, and all the workers' time. God it's absurd), just so that people won't starve, is from any rational-technical criteria absolutely insane.
Please read Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness", Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" and "A General Statement of the Tragedy of the Commons" (whose author I forget) for more thinking along these lines, from minds greater than mine. (All three are available online. Use google)
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Yeah, but lots of sites won't ship to addresses besides those that your CC company has on record. I imagine that eventually this will become either legally required or required by all major CC companies. Of course, it doesn't apply to stuff you don't ship, but there are ways to make that more secure too. I don't think it's quite the time to declare the imminent death of web commerce.
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The link is correct, just labelled incorrectly. Sorry!
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The problem with using the term "copylefted" instead of "free software" is that there is such a thing as non-copylefted free software -- for instance, software in the public domain, or BSD-licensed software.
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There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority; just because voters have the power to e.g. segregate the schools does not mean that we are incorrect in unequivocally stating that this wrong. Might is not right, and criticism of injustice -- even when perpetrated through legal means -- is essential to any society. We must not accept what seems to be your implication, viz. that because a majority supports it, it is just. A majority can be as unjust as a dictator, and should not be exempt from criticism merely by virtue of being a majority.
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Do you realize that wars have been started against the will of majorities because anti-war candidates have "split the vote"? In such an instance, would you consider this as having "worked perfectly" if in the next election the vote-splitting was remedied by convergence of the vote-splitters??
So what? It is apparent (at least not unreasonable) that the majority of Americans prefer McCain to both Bush and to Gore; the fact that, in spite of this, McCain could not become a contender for the presidency, is an outrage and an affront to democracy.Honestly, I can't even see why you would consider the above listed effect good. Sure, it means that third parties can influence the major parties by drawing away votes. Who cares? That influence is almost always contrary to the will of the public -- it certainly would be in the Nader example you list. It means better representing the views of Democrats at the expense of representing the views of Republicans; what we want is a comprimise between the two groups. If Naders started replacing Gores in the Democratic Party, that would have the potential of even more seriously dissatisfying all Republicans, while appealing more only to a group of Democrats much smaller in comparison. Plurality in general polarizes elections, guaranteeing that half of the populus will be seriously dissatisfied, rather than Condorcet which tends to produce a populus that is all somewhat dissatisfied, but only in those areas where the individual's views are unpopular.
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To repeat:
* The majority of the public prefers Hsub to Notnilc (55% to 45%), in BOTH cases.
* Whether or not Torep runs has no effect on the actual desires of the voters with regard to the question of whether Hsub is preferable to Notnilc. They ALWAYS prefer Hsub to Notnilc.
* As stated, in BOTH cases Hsub is preferred to Notnilc; however, in only ONE case does Hsub win.
Let's think of it another way. Let's pretend 1% of the US are Nazis, and 99% are Jeffersonians. Let's say someone gets ahold of Thomas Jefferson's DNA, and someone else gets ahold of Hitler's DNA. Jefferson is cloned 5000 times, Hitler is cloned only once. In the next election, all 5000 Jeffersons run against Hitler. Who wins? Let's say that right after Hitler wins, he is challenged to a 1-on-1 election by Jefferson #536. Who wins that?
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linux 2.4's ramfs dynamically resizes. The traditional method of creating an ext2fs on a ramdisk does not.
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There is an MP3 IP FAQ which answers the question "16. If I don't use their source, can I make my own MP3 encoder without paying FhG?" with "If you infringe on their techniques, it is within their rights to seek recourse, whether or not you had help from them, or whether or not you intentionally or knowingly infriged."
As to my claim that it may not be mathematically possible to create an MP3 encoder without infringing Fraunhaufer's patents -- I was just repeating what I have heard from many knowledgeable people. I doubt anyone has proved that it is impossible, but the bottom line is that nobody has done it yet, and the best policy is probably to refrain from using MP3 until someone does, if someone does. Or how about this: just don't use any patented encoders. That includes all existing MP3 encoders, so you'd better stick with OGG!
For a complete overview of the MP3 patent situation see this page from mp3-tech.org mirrored on LAME's site: ht tp://javatest.a-net.nl/servlet/pedit.Main/http://w ww.mp3-tech.org/patents.html. Select quote: "You can try to write an MP3 encoder without using this [Fraunhaufer's patented] encoding scheme, so in this case you will not have to pay, but it's obvious that it's nearly impossible."
As to the original poster's comments: if Apple had used their own proprietary compiler, then yes, it would have been sufficient to include that rather than gcc. However, they didn't use proprietary tools, they used GNU, so GNU should have been the tools to include (actually, they apparently used some proprietary tools in addition to GNU, but nevertheless, it definitely would have been better if GNU had been included, as well as the proprietary tools. But apparently, they are available through a free download, so it's somewhat of a non-issue, except that the ability of newbies to explore and learn programming has been somewhat inhibited).
Fraunhaufer is relatively benevolent right now, because MP3 users are armed with the power to change format, and so they have ot be. But the history of GIF and others (esp. trademarks) teaches us that as soon as the power shifts into the hands of the corporation, the benevolence will end. So that's why I say burn all mp3s.
[ogg vorbis for digital audio]