I can't believe this will ever really materialize. I'm sure some politicians exploited the issue for their own benefit, but I suspect the idea will either go away or be implemented in a symbolic, watered-down manner.
That's basically what happened in Finland: police maintains the blacklist and supplies it to the ISPs, who may or may not use it, and even those who do, will upon complaint generally just advice their clients how it can be bypassed (changing DNS server settings).
What's more, the list has been leaked to the public (now in wikileaks) - and it turned out some 90%+ of the sites censored aren't child porn at all (mostly just adult, especially gay porn, also some totally non-porn sites).
But it's not going away, rather they are "trying to improve" it and at the same time some people are suggesting it should be extended to other "undesirable material" in the net, including racist sites, net poker and pirate bay...
Buy the most power machine money can buy
[...] little £79 PCs
[...]You can run about 100 think clients on such a system
However, it being a school - there's no chance it'll take off[...]
Why couldn't it take off in a school? A bunch of local schools here are using exactly that kind of system - with most of the clients being old machines that have been rescued from going to the junk yard (and were free for the schools).
Somewhat similar scheme was attempted in Finland... starting about a year ago. It wasn't officially mandatory but the minister in charge hinted it would be made so unless ISPs cooperated "voluntarily". It rather blew on their face when it was discovered how poorly it worked (like, 95%+ of the sites blocked weren't what they were supposed to be - e.g., w3c.org was blocked for a while), and after a public uproar they backed down - not dismantling the system or admitting it was a mistake, but saying "of course it was intended as voluntary to everybody all along".
Today, police still maintains the blacklist and many ISPs use it by default but if you complain, they just tell you how to bypass it (change DNS servers), and some ignore it completely.
Reverse engineering may be prohibited by a license agreement
That depends on the jurisdiction. Finnish copyright law explicitly states that a contract cannot prohibit it. (More precisely, it says that any such clause in a contract is void.)
Yes, but that only applies to businesses (section 7 (1)). Most or at least not all free software is not business.
Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all.
Yes. It would be interesting to know which countries have what kind of rules here. In general Finland follows EU in this kind of things, but in some areas Finland (along with other Scandinavian countries) have been ahead, in particular in consumer rights.
This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.
It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:
At least that Nokia EULA is for foreign consumption (mostly American, I suspect). In Finland it's mostly irrelevant (and if it were only readable after download, it would be entirely unenforceable). An interesting observation: I've never seen anything like that in Finnish, except where it's been directly translated from English.
I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable.
That sounds selfcontradictory. Finnish law does not talk about warranty disclaimers, but Consumer Protection Act, 38/1978, which in effect provides implicit warranty, states that "A contract term differing from the provisions of this chapter to the detriment of the buyer shall be void unless otherwise provided below." In a few cases defaults can be changed to seller's benefit, but even then only with a valid contract. And there have been court decisions declaring in-the-box contracts invalid.
Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.
I don't think Nokia or anyone else in Finland for that matter has ever even tried to use a warranty disclaimer in court.
Indeed warranties generally only come to court when the interpretation of provisions that go beyond what Consumer Protection Act provides, which is rather rare nowadays. In general the law is enough, warranty statements are irrelevant.
excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial
This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.
Could be. English patent law is notoriously most "US-like" in Europe. But even it provides such a limitation (even if limited), so your claim there are no such limitations is incorrect.
In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable
Product warranties aren't statutory, and what statutory rights may be waived by contract depends on the statute and on established rules of jurisprudence.
Right. Here the established jurisprudence is that nothing can be waived by one-sided disclaimers. Nor am I generally liable for what others' do with my product, only in cases explicitly defined in law (the notion of common law doesn't exist here), and those can not be disclaimed.
This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know. But please, educate me, and point out even one court case outside North America where such a disclaimer has had any effect or even been considered relevant. (I am sure there aren't any in Finland, I'll be very surprised if you find one in continental Europe, and mildly surprised if you find one even in the UK, or anywhere in Asia or Africa. Some Latin American countries are more likely to have followed USA here.) Disclaimers in actual contracts are another matter, of course - but no contract can be formed by one-sided declaration within a product (again, counterexamples of court cases outside USA would be welcome).
A minor point on warranties is that here they're limited by 100% refund and thus don't apply to free stuff at all. (The notion of punitive damages is also unknown, awards are limited to actual demostrable damages.)
A patent is an exclusive right to make and use, period. There is no limitation on commercial exploitation.
That is not true. You are correct that there is significant variation between countries here, also within Europe, but all I know of exclude non-commercial use one way or another. Two examples:
If you can name any European patent law which does not have a similar limitation, please do so. (Non-European ones, apart from US, would also be of interest.)
Are you seriously arguing that one could enter a contract by the act of downloading a program without even clicking any OK in the process?
This is precisely how the GPL works: by distributing, you have agreed to the license granting you the right to distribute.
By *distributing*, which is copyright holder's exclusive right. Downloading is not distributing. Even if we ignore the detail that copying for your personal use is excluded from copyright holder's rights, I would argue that when someone puts a file up for download, they're thereby giving permission to download it, and any conditions on that must be agreed on beforehand.
If the download button contains terms of service, or declares that "by clicking 'Download' you agree to the {following|linked|above|incorporated by reference} terms, then that's how it works.
*IF* it so declares - although even that is debatable, what kind of agreement can really be entered that way. But many download sites do nothing like that.
1. Warranty is imputed by statute. You must disclaim implied warranties or they are assumed to be present.
Here there is apparently a radical difference between American and European law. Here it is well established that a one-sided declaration can not reduce consumer's statutory rights, only add to them. Statutory warranties cannot be disclaimed; even attempting to do so could be considered fraudulent. Some statutory rights cannot even be removed by contract (law explicitly declares such contracts void).
2. Limitation of liability is for the copyright owner, not the user. Without caps, limits, or other mechanisms, you are open to a wide range of damages, and juries tend to return sizable awards.
Here I won't be liable to what someone does with my stuff unless I've claimed it does something it doesn't, and in no case can I avoid liability by disclaiming it. And juries don't award anything, that's another American oddity.
3. Litigation agreements, e.g., choice of law, is a civil procedure issue, not a substantive issue.
Choice of law? Surely there are sufficient default rules (and indeed trying to change them is very limited). Certainly that is in itself not important for me to worry if I put a program up for download.
4. Patent licenses are irrespective of noncommercial use.
HUH? A patent is nothing but exclusive right of commercial exploitation of an invention. Patents do not apply to non-commercial use at all. At least not by European patent convention, but I doubt even USA can be *that* different.
if you put a file up for download without requiring an explicit contract beforehand
Yes, but this scenario almost never occurs. Any given website has terms of use
Nowhere near all of them. Indeed generally only American ones, and ones by big corporations seem to, as far as I can see. And not even all Americans, see, e.g., Daniel Bernstein
If [copyright holders] choose to make separate contractual requirements as a condition of acquisition, they are free to do so.
I'n with you so far but...
Only once the owner has given his permission does a copy change hands.
Whether the download itself was legal or not cannot depend on things that happen after it.
Are you seriously arguing that one could enter a contract by the act of downloading
a program without even clicking any OK in the process? I don't think so.
After you've downloaded the program you either have already broken a law and no
contract can help it or you haven't and need not enter any contract to do what
no law prohibits you from doing.
The lack of restrictions does not imply a lack of applicable terms, however, as, for the nth time, the warranty, liability, litigation, compulsory patent license, and conditional modification/distribution grant applies to everyone. Everyone is obligated to respect those terms, found expressly within the text of the license, and requiring acknowledgment.
Warranty? Absent agreement there obviously won't be any. Liability, litigation? If I do something illegal with the program, I'll be liable in any case. Ditto patent license (which don't matter for noncommercial use anyway). The rest are covered by copyright and do need license.
Everyone is obligated to respect those terms, found expressly within the text of the license, and requiring acknowledgment.
All of those terms are either obvious, direct consequences of law regardless of any license, or meaningless. Law gives certain implied warranties which cannot be disclaimed, any license can only give extras but such need not be disclaimed explicitly.
All limitations, restrictions, and return promises must be made at t=0. You must give assent at that time to all of it. Refusal of the warranty disclaimer denies you a license; you have no right to use the software at that point, unless you want to be open to crushing liability.
Is "crushing liability" some strange American legal term? Perhaps I should've said earlier that I really only know European jurisprudence. Here such limitations are mostly either automatic or invalid, there is no need for such disclaimers.
You can't run the program without lawful possession, and the copyright holder has exclusive rights to determine what possession to give you.
Downloading a file cannot by itself create a contract, and whether or not it is legal cannot be changed after the fact. So if you put a file up for download without requiring an explicit contract beforehand, whoever downloads it then has a legal copy and can use it and do with it anything that's not explicitly granted to copyright holder only or break other laws. Or if the download was illegal, it remains that way regardless of any contracts made afterwards. At least here there's no separate punishment for unauthorized use of stolen goods, nor can theft be made legal by any agreement afterwards.
Once the copyright holder has given you the copy (with whatever terms, conditions, or caveats it may have), you have a statutory license to make your copy operate--but in no way is that an unlimited right. If the copy says "one computer only", they mean it. If the copy is for noncommercial use only, they mean it. If the copy is OEM for your Dell machine only, they mean it. Copyright law does not give you the authority to ignore license restrictions unless they are independently illegal.
"One computer only" is valid because it restricts copying. "Noncommercial use only" is invalid, unless there's a real contract at the time of purchase/download or the use (after downloading) implies copying.
One gray area here is when program use does imply copying. It can reasonably be argued th
The GPL specifies assent by performance. Those terms are valid and enforceable.
Yes, but only insofar as they refer to acts that the copyright holder has exclusive right to:
"Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance..." GPL v2, s.
Notice that "running" and "using" are not mentioned.
When I buy a book, I don't need a license to read it. When I buy scissors, I don't need a license to use them. Why should software be different?
Further, the only way to provide evidence of copyright infringement is to refer back to the license
Copyright covers copying and distributing, not using. Using a program cannot be copyright infringement; at most it can be contract breach, if there is a valid contract.
If I acquire a work as an end user, but then later learn how to program and want to go back and exercise rights granted to me at t=0, the only way those restrictions can apply is if I gave assent at t=0.
Yes, but only because those rights are exclusively granted to copyright holder. Running the program is not.
"The act of running the Program is not restricted" appears in Section 0 under the Terms--this text is essential information. Were your interpretation understood to be correct, this kind of notification would be superfluous, and in accordance with the rules of interpretation, all words are deemed to have value.
Since you don't need a permission to run the program in the first place, that is irrelevant. I guess you could argue that if I modify or distribute the program, for which I need permission granted by the license, then I'd be bound by those words as well, but that's beside the point.
Any use constitutes acceptance of the terms and restrictions and acknowledgment of the notices and disclaimers.
Nope. Once you legally possess a piece of software, you can legally use it. If you got it by downloading it from the net without breaking any laws in that act, you got it legally. And if you did break laws there, you can't undo that by accepting a license. Whatever you do or don't after downloading it, cannot change the legality of the download.
If you had to click "I agree" in order to download it in the first place, the situation is different. Such agreements may or may not be binding. And downloading may be illegal if it was put up for download without permission.
But any licenses you only discover after downloading can't alter the legality of your possession of the software, nor your right to run it. They can only affect rights you would not otherwise have, in particular allow (re)distribution and copying, which are otherwise copyright holders' exclusive rights.
In this case, "hackable" means that they have thrown the
doors wide open, and published almost everything that they know about
it (schematics, etc), and are inviting people to dream up new
uses
It's not a first for HP, though: they did just that with HP71B way
back in mid-80s (and before that HP-41 internal docs, including source
code, were released to users' groups with "not manufacturer supported"
label).
"The only thing between them and ownership of Saudi Arabia is the loyalty of King Fahd's military forces."
A minor nit: King Fahd's been dead for a while. It's King Abdullah now.
But that's no big change, Abdullah was effectively doing King's job for years as Crown Prince.
When Abdullah dies, however, it's a whole new ballgame. There are no more able-bodied sons of Abdul-Aziz left, so a new generation will have to take over. (All Saudi Kings since Abdul-Aziz's death in 1953 have been his sons.)
There is a significant difference when the eavesdropper isn't targeting anyone specifically but throwing their net wide in the hope of catching something interesting. If (almost) all net traffic were routinely encrypted, it would be much harder. As it is, encryption rather marks you as an interesting target.
Even if you have nothing to hide now, one day you may, and then you probably don't want to advertise the fact by sudden conspicuous switch to encryption.
You might want to encrypt everything possible simply to make life harder for those who listen everything in the hope of catching something valuable.
ID simply says that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously on its own, therefore God must have done it.
One big problem with that "therefore" is that "God did it" doesn't really explain anything at all - it is effectively equivalent to saying "it happened by process X", i.e., "we don't know how it happened", unless you explain _how_ God did it. The explanatory power of the "God hypothesis" is in its details - i.e., nonexistent.
In effect, what Creationists want is that the origin of life &c _should_not_ be explained or understood.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't believe this will ever really materialize. I'm sure some politicians exploited the issue for their own benefit, but I suspect the idea will either go away or be implemented in a symbolic, watered-down manner.
That's basically what happened in Finland: police maintains the blacklist and supplies it to the ISPs, who may or may not use it, and even those who do, will upon complaint generally just advice their clients how it can be bypassed (changing DNS server settings).
What's more, the list has been leaked to the public (now in wikileaks) - and it turned out some 90%+ of the sites censored aren't child porn at all (mostly just adult, especially gay porn, also some totally non-porn sites).
But it's not going away, rather they are "trying to improve" it and at the same time some people are suggesting it should be extended to other "undesirable material" in the net, including racist sites, net poker and pirate bay...
Buy the most power machine money can buy [...] little £79 PCs [...]You can run about 100 think clients on such a system
However, it being a school - there's no chance it'll take off[...]
Why couldn't it take off in a school? A bunch of local schools here are using exactly that kind of system - with most of the clients being old machines that have been rescued from going to the junk yard (and were free for the schools).
No, that doesn't do the same.
The pattern '^[^#]' matches lines that have a non-# character in the beginning, i.e., all but empty lines and lines beginning with #.
I prefer
grep '^[^#]' httpd.conf | less
for the same purpose.
Somewhat similar scheme was attempted in Finland... starting about a year ago. It wasn't officially mandatory but the minister in charge hinted it would be made so unless ISPs cooperated "voluntarily". It rather blew on their face when it was discovered how poorly it worked (like, 95%+ of the sites blocked weren't what they were supposed to be - e.g., w3c.org was blocked for a while), and after a public uproar they backed down - not dismantling the system or admitting it was a mistake, but saying "of course it was intended as voluntary to everybody all along".
Today, police still maintains the blacklist and many ISPs use it by default but if you complain, they just tell you how to bypass it (change DNS servers), and some ignore it completely.
There're English stories about it here and here.
Reverse engineering may be prohibited by a license agreement
That depends on the jurisdiction. Finnish copyright law explicitly states that a contract cannot prohibit it. (More precisely, it says that any such clause in a contract is void.)
Finland most certainly does have product liability and tort damages, and claims are not limited to 100% refund of purchase price.
Yes, in case a commercial product causes unexpected damage. Warranty (the thing doesn't work as promised) is limited to refund.
Liability does extend to free products. See e.g., http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1990/en19900694.pdf.
Yes, but that only applies to businesses (section 7 (1)). Most or at least not all free software is not business.
Where Finland does differ from many other countries is that product liability cannot be disclaimed. At all.
Yes. It would be interesting to know which countries have what kind of rules here. In general Finland follows EU in this kind of things, but in some areas Finland (along with other Scandinavian countries) have been ahead, in particular in consumer rights.
This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know.
It is not. Unfortunately, due to billing issues, I do not subscribe to international databases through Westlaw and cannot quickly or cheaply produce a list of cases. However, given that the law of contract in virtually all UN member states is such that terminology is presumed legal, here are a few from a cursory Google search:
England: http://www.solartronanalytical.com/legal/disclaimers.htm Finland: http://europe.nokia.com/A4164022
At least that Nokia EULA is for foreign consumption (mostly American, I suspect). In Finland it's mostly irrelevant (and if it were only readable after download, it would be entirely unenforceable). An interesting observation: I've never seen anything like that in Finnish, except where it's been directly translated from English.
I would be interested to see any Finnish law that specifies that an agreement with a warranty disclaimer, operative as specified under the laws of Finland, is not enforceable.
That sounds selfcontradictory. Finnish law does not talk about warranty disclaimers, but Consumer Protection Act, 38/1978, which in effect provides implicit warranty, states that "A contract term differing from the provisions of this chapter to the detriment of the buyer shall be void unless otherwise provided below." In a few cases defaults can be changed to seller's benefit, but even then only with a valid contract. And there have been court decisions declaring in-the-box contracts invalid.
Surely Nokia has been sued over a warranty claim; this issue would no doubt arise, and I have never heard of a Finnish citizen suing Nokia over a warranty claim such that the warranty disclaimer was held to be invalid.
I don't think Nokia or anyone else in Finland for that matter has ever even tried to use a warranty disclaimer in court. Indeed warranties generally only come to court when the interpretation of provisions that go beyond what Consumer Protection Act provides, which is rather rare nowadays. In general the law is enough, warranty statements are irrelevant.
excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial
This covers private AND noncommercial. It does not specify that noncommercial use alone is non-infringing, particularly in light of the fact that "commercial" is broadly construed.
Could be. English patent law is notoriously most "US-like" in Europe. But even it provides such a limitation (even if limited), so your claim there are no such limitations is incorrect.
In Finland, accepting your translation, such a section would be enforceable
I vaguely r
Product warranties aren't statutory, and what statutory rights may be waived by contract depends on the statute and on established rules of jurisprudence.
Right. Here the established jurisprudence is that nothing can be waived by one-sided disclaimers. Nor am I generally liable for what others' do with my product, only in cases explicitly defined in law (the notion of common law doesn't exist here), and those can not be disclaimed.
This whole business of disclaimers is more or less entirely US invention, as far as I know. But please, educate me, and point out even one court case outside North America where such a disclaimer has had any effect or even been considered relevant. (I am sure there aren't any in Finland, I'll be very surprised if you find one in continental Europe, and mildly surprised if you find one even in the UK, or anywhere in Asia or Africa. Some Latin American countries are more likely to have followed USA here.) Disclaimers in actual contracts are another matter, of course - but no contract can be formed by one-sided declaration within a product (again, counterexamples of court cases outside USA would be welcome).
A minor point on warranties is that here they're limited by 100% refund and thus don't apply to free stuff at all. (The notion of punitive damages is also unknown, awards are limited to actual demostrable damages.)
A patent is an exclusive right to make and use, period. There is no limitation on commercial exploitation.
That is not true. You are correct that there is significant variation between countries here, also within Europe, but all I know of exclude non-commercial use one way or another. Two examples:
Finnish Patent law, para 1, defines patent as "exclusive right to professional exploitation" of an invention (my translation, original at http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1967/19670550).
UK Patent Act of 1977, 60.-(5) (a), excludes acts "done privately and for purposes which are not commercial" (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patentsact1977.pdf).
If you can name any European patent law which does not have a similar limitation, please do so. (Non-European ones, apart from US, would also be of interest.)
Are you seriously arguing that one could enter a contract by the act of downloading a program without even clicking any OK in the process?
This is precisely how the GPL works: by distributing, you have agreed to the license granting you the right to distribute.
By *distributing*, which is copyright holder's exclusive right. Downloading is not distributing. Even if we ignore the detail that copying for your personal use is excluded from copyright holder's rights, I would argue that when someone puts a file up for download, they're thereby giving permission to download it, and any conditions on that must be agreed on beforehand.
If the download button contains terms of service, or declares that "by clicking 'Download' you agree to the {following|linked|above|incorporated by reference} terms, then that's how it works.
*IF* it so declares - although even that is debatable, what kind of agreement can really be entered that way. But many download sites do nothing like that.
1. Warranty is imputed by statute. You must disclaim implied warranties or they are assumed to be present.
Here there is apparently a radical difference between American and European law. Here it is well established that a one-sided declaration can not reduce consumer's statutory rights, only add to them. Statutory warranties cannot be disclaimed; even attempting to do so could be considered fraudulent. Some statutory rights cannot even be removed by contract (law explicitly declares such contracts void).
2. Limitation of liability is for the copyright owner, not the user. Without caps, limits, or other mechanisms, you are open to a wide range of damages, and juries tend to return sizable awards.
Here I won't be liable to what someone does with my stuff unless I've claimed it does something it doesn't, and in no case can I avoid liability by disclaiming it. And juries don't award anything, that's another American oddity.
3. Litigation agreements, e.g., choice of law, is a civil procedure issue, not a substantive issue.
Choice of law? Surely there are sufficient default rules (and indeed trying to change them is very limited). Certainly that is in itself not important for me to worry if I put a program up for download.
4. Patent licenses are irrespective of noncommercial use.
HUH? A patent is nothing but exclusive right of commercial exploitation of an invention. Patents do not apply to non-commercial use at all. At least not by European patent convention, but I doubt even USA can be *that* different.
if you put a file up for download without requiring an explicit contract beforehand
Yes, but this scenario almost never occurs. Any given website has terms of use
Nowhere near all of them. Indeed generally only American ones, and ones by big corporations seem to, as far as I can see. And not even all Americans, see, e.g., Daniel Bernstein
.
If [copyright holders] choose to make separate contractual requirements as a condition of acquisition, they are free to do so.
I'n with you so far but...
Only once the owner has given his permission does a copy change hands.
Whether the download itself was legal or not cannot depend on things that happen after it. Are you seriously arguing that one could enter a contract by the act of downloading a program without even clicking any OK in the process? I don't think so.
After you've downloaded the program you either have already broken a law and no contract can help it or you haven't and need not enter any contract to do what no law prohibits you from doing.
The lack of restrictions does not imply a lack of applicable terms, however, as, for the nth time, the warranty, liability, litigation, compulsory patent license, and conditional modification/distribution grant applies to everyone. Everyone is obligated to respect those terms, found expressly within the text of the license, and requiring acknowledgment.
Warranty? Absent agreement there obviously won't be any. Liability, litigation? If I do something illegal with the program, I'll be liable in any case. Ditto patent license (which don't matter for noncommercial use anyway). The rest are covered by copyright and do need license.
Everyone is obligated to respect those terms, found expressly within the text of the license, and requiring acknowledgment.
All of those terms are either obvious, direct consequences of law regardless of any license, or meaningless. Law gives certain implied warranties which cannot be disclaimed, any license can only give extras but such need not be disclaimed explicitly.
All limitations, restrictions, and return promises must be made at t=0. You must give assent at that time to all of it. Refusal of the warranty disclaimer denies you a license; you have no right to use the software at that point, unless you want to be open to crushing liability.
Is "crushing liability" some strange American legal term? Perhaps I should've said earlier that I really only know European jurisprudence. Here such limitations are mostly either automatic or invalid, there is no need for such disclaimers.
You can't run the program without lawful possession, and the copyright holder has exclusive rights to determine what possession to give you.
Downloading a file cannot by itself create a contract, and whether or not it is legal cannot be changed after the fact. So if you put a file up for download without requiring an explicit contract beforehand, whoever downloads it then has a legal copy and can use it and do with it anything that's not explicitly granted to copyright holder only or break other laws. Or if the download was illegal, it remains that way regardless of any contracts made afterwards. At least here there's no separate punishment for unauthorized use of stolen goods, nor can theft be made legal by any agreement afterwards.
Once the copyright holder has given you the copy (with whatever terms, conditions, or caveats it may have), you have a statutory license to make your copy operate--but in no way is that an unlimited right. If the copy says "one computer only", they mean it. If the copy is for noncommercial use only, they mean it. If the copy is OEM for your Dell machine only, they mean it. Copyright law does not give you the authority to ignore license restrictions unless they are independently illegal.
"One computer only" is valid because it restricts copying. "Noncommercial use only" is invalid, unless there's a real contract at the time of purchase/download or the use (after downloading) implies copying.
One gray area here is when program use does imply copying. It can reasonably be argued th
The GPL specifies assent by performance. Those terms are valid and enforceable.
Yes, but only insofar as they refer to acts that the copyright holder has exclusive right to:
"Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance..." GPL v2, s.
Notice that "running" and "using" are not mentioned.
When I buy a book, I don't need a license to read it. When I buy scissors, I don't need a license to use them. Why should software be different?
Further, the only way to provide evidence of copyright infringement is to refer back to the license
Copyright covers copying and distributing, not using. Using a program cannot be copyright infringement; at most it can be contract breach, if there is a valid contract.
If I acquire a work as an end user, but then later learn how to program and want to go back and exercise rights granted to me at t=0, the only way those restrictions can apply is if I gave assent at t=0.
Yes, but only because those rights are exclusively granted to copyright holder. Running the program is not.
"The act of running the Program is not restricted" appears in Section 0 under the Terms--this text is essential information. Were your interpretation understood to be correct, this kind of notification would be superfluous, and in accordance with the rules of interpretation, all words are deemed to have value.
Since you don't need a permission to run the program in the first place, that is irrelevant. I guess you could argue that if I modify or distribute the program, for which I need permission granted by the license, then I'd be bound by those words as well, but that's beside the point.
Any use constitutes acceptance of the terms and restrictions and acknowledgment of the notices and disclaimers.
Nope. Once you legally possess a piece of software, you can legally use it. If you got it by downloading it from the net without breaking any laws in that act, you got it legally. And if you did break laws there, you can't undo that by accepting a license. Whatever you do or don't after downloading it, cannot change the legality of the download.
If you had to click "I agree" in order to download it in the first place, the situation is different. Such agreements may or may not be binding. And downloading may be illegal if it was put up for download without permission.
But any licenses you only discover after downloading can't alter the legality of your possession of the software, nor your right to run it. They can only affect rights you would not otherwise have, in particular allow (re)distribution and copying, which are otherwise copyright holders' exclusive rights.
In this case, "hackable" means that they have thrown the doors wide open, and published almost everything that they know about it (schematics, etc), and are inviting people to dream up new uses
It's not a first for HP, though: they did just that with HP71B way back in mid-80s (and before that HP-41 internal docs, including source code, were released to users' groups with "not manufacturer supported" label).
"The only thing between them and ownership of Saudi Arabia is the loyalty of King Fahd's military forces."
A minor nit: King Fahd's been dead for a while. It's King Abdullah now.
But that's no big change, Abdullah was effectively doing King's job for years as Crown Prince.
When Abdullah dies, however, it's a whole new ballgame. There are no more able-bodied sons of Abdul-Aziz left, so a new generation will have to take over. (All Saudi Kings since Abdul-Aziz's death in 1953 have been his sons.)
There is a significant difference when the eavesdropper isn't targeting anyone specifically but throwing their net wide in the hope of catching something interesting. If (almost) all net traffic were routinely encrypted, it would be much harder. As it is, encryption rather marks you as an interesting target.
Unless the defendant confesses, or they find the defendant's fingerprints in the victims blood, then there is no proof, only evidence.
Given the number of false confessions, even confession is no proof, only evidence. And fingerprint matches are not 100% reliable either.
Even if you have nothing to hide now, one day you may, and then you probably don't want to advertise the fact by sudden conspicuous switch to encryption.
You might want to encrypt everything possible simply to make life harder for those who listen everything in the hope of catching something valuable.
Single-user mode won't help much if the whole disk is encrypted (increasingly common these days).
ID simply says that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously on its own, therefore God must have done it.
One big problem with that "therefore" is that "God did it" doesn't really explain anything at all - it is effectively equivalent to saying "it happened by process X", i.e., "we don't know how it happened", unless you explain _how_ God did it. The explanatory power of the "God hypothesis" is in its details - i.e., nonexistent. In effect, what Creationists want is that the origin of life &c _should_not_ be explained or understood.
I still use DOS 5 regularly... in a HP200LX palmtop, which has it in ROM.