Doesn't the GPL have a patent clause, which the linked to license violates?
Not only that, but they have some stupid javascript code that prevents you from copying text from that page in an intuitive manner. Also, they explicitly state that the GPL does not license anyone to use any patents in the code, which is wrong.
Paste from their Download spiel: [All emphasis mine] To the extent that you, or your licensees under the GPL, make any modifications to, or derive (through reverse engineering or otherwise) other software products and/or functionality from, the OpenTV Distributed GNU Utilities ("Modifications and/or Derivatives"), neither OpenTV nor the GPL licenses you, implicitly or otherwise, under any OpenTV patents that cover the Modifications and/or Derivatives, whether alone or in combination with the OpenTV Distributed GNU Utilities.
From the GPL: Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that re-distributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
Go after the people and companies hiring the spamhausen.
Ha ha, it is to laugh. Is there any form of advertising that is illegal? These days, businesses are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in pursuit of a profit. As long as it's not an outright scam, it's okay. Taking advantage of suckers and advertising to get them is what made America great. P.T. Barnum isn't reviled by history.
1. Sue IBM. 2. Irritate the dinosaur. 3. Get bought by dinosaur.
This has been brought up time and time again as the speculative motive behind this suit. I've determined that there is another angle for this kind of strategic suit: Microsoft (satisfies the/. bigotry as well!). In the Xenix days Microsoft was a major investor in SCO, so it's certainly possible that this is an end-around to undercut Linux with a little backroom nudge. It would have the additional benefit of perhaps exposing M$ as a possible bailout vector for the SCO posse. So, Linux is undercut and M$ gets some foundation for integrating Unix into Windows, feature-creeping into the free unix space.
I know this violates Hanlon's Razor, but it sure is an entertaining thought.
$1000 per week isn't that much, and anybody after the easy money like this guy purports to be is also going to inflate his estimate of how much he made. I'm betting he got out of the business because he sucked at it and couldn't make enough. It sure makes more sense that he's attempting to demystify spamming because of sour grapes, but not so sour that he would rat out with any specific information. If he was serious, he wouldn't have any qualms about revealing the things he holds back on.
It's nice to know that people spend a whole lot of good time religeously studying something like Klingon, instead of some useless subject, like Portugese or Japanese.
Indeed. We can only hope that some day the Multnoman council will see fit to search out Portuguese or Japanese (perhaps both!) translators who can work for the government in Oregon. There are many people who speak only those languages who attempt to flow through the county's mental health system without success. Until then, we can tackle the business of telling crazy people that they're wasting their time on this Klingon business. That they may have a job waiting for them if they want to learn some Japanese or Portuguese (perhaps both!) could be the key motivator. We will know we have succeeded when the first of these patients speak to us in a language other than Klingon. The Portuguese and Japanese among them await this development with an tici pation.
He's in an interesting position by pushing an OS for folks without CS (or generally geeky) backgrounds.
It does not take CS or general geekiness to understand the concept of multiple user accounts and security. Dumbing down the product is a classically conservative design decision on Robertson's part. He has an opportunity to evolve the "user experience" away from Microcentric areas but drops the ball, presumably because it would be a training and support issue (and consequently a barrier to adoption).
After reading that paragraph in the interview I instantly thought about double-clicking a mouse. All through the years of my computer affinity, and specifically since the introduction and popularization of Windows, there is no interface concept more alien to non-geeks than the double-click. I can't tell you how many times I watched people have twitchy machines because they turned the double click gap way up (to match their slow, untrained muscles), or risk RSI by making the double-click a wholly deliberate click:click as fast as they could.
Now everybody is hip to the double-click, but I remember its growing pains and in fact one of them lingers on in the form of "double-clicking URL links" that I see all the time. Coindentally, this is exactly the *quality* of habit that would make the popular computing community a better place: if people learn to use multiple accounts, then they'll try to use that concept everywhere. Support costs for this would eventually go down as people learn and the knowledge is spread around, much like not having to teach people how to double-click anymore.
Call me cynical, but it's going to be a losing battle if Lindows' mission is to get people to use Linux. Linux is an OS for tinkerers and not everybody likes to tinker. Lindows' greater strength is in getting people to install "Something Besides Microsoft Windows" and if users can avoid (the Robertson-touted huge issue of) viruses by learning the concept of security levels and the like, then that is a step toward making Lindows (and by extension Linux) a more attractive option when Joe Grandpa gets a new PC.
Theft means to take something that's being sold without paying for it, or to take something that's not being sold without permission. So yeah, copying IS theft.
In the context of this thread you're making a leap of logic that doesn't hold up. In the slow process of copying a statue, you start out with a blank block of marble (or whatever). The people selling the statues aren't selling blocks of marble. They're also not selling chisels or hammers (in the context of 'selling a statue', let's presume that's all they do). So where are you locating the act of theft? Nothing that is being sold is being "taken".
You go on to assert that "taking something that's not being sold" constitutes theft. Are you serious? What if the "something" isn't a tangible item, or if it isn't saleable? "Could be sold but isn't...hands off!" But perhaps you were being too brief and imprecise in your statements.
As to your second point, there are no "natural laws" except the usual "death and..." jokes. Everything legal and legislative has been invented as an evolved means of dealing with the issues of society. Also, "theft" is an artificial construct invented in response to the development of property laws.
I mean, if I know I'm going to get better download speed and reliability downloading PSP demos from the software manufacturer, why would I try to "con" anyone into thinking that P2P was legit by doing it otherwise? To try and beef up the appearance of real, fair use?
Yes. P2P *does* have substantial non-infringing uses which do not get enough publicity, so it's important to help provide the world with plenty of evidence of the fair-use aspects of P2P. If you haven't been paying attention (or are not US residents), the Fair Use provisions of US (and soon-to-be Iraqi) copyright law have been trundled over by copyright interests and their lobbyists with the effect of severely narrowing the legal interpretation so as to be nearly meaningless. Nobody thinks P2P is a useless technology, it's just that the RIAA and MPAA think they should be able to set the rules, and perhaps even to be the only ones allowed to supply content to P2P systems. We have seen before that they would have liked to prevent you from giving your friend a cassette or video tape on the sidewalk, it's not like they're going to stop trying everytime any new form of media distribution and representation comes up.
If I create some new piece of art, if I elect to give it away, that is my perogative. However, as an artist, if I wish to sell my art to make a living (which will allow me to buy supplies to make more art, among other things), then I have to charge a certain price for my art.
You miss a fundamental aspect of the current copyright crisis, which I think is best illustrated by the following question: Should you be able to forbid people to take a picture of your art?
OK, perhaps I should be more clear. How is modifying the machine to run illegally-copied games an exercise in free speech?
It isn't, publishing the book is. The modifications are an exercise of Fair Use provisions in copyright law. Fair Use says that you can do whatever you want in the privacy of your own <x> with something you've bought.
And your "99%" line is canonical luser-speak for "I don't feel like thinking about this anymore".
Well, if I see you burning a flag next to my town hall, I will exercise my right to free speach by beating you to a bloody pulp.
Once you're threatening assault you're beyond free-speech issues, Mr. Redneck.
If you feel that this country sucks so much that you are going to dishonor all of its citizens and their ancestors who laid down their lives for this country, then get the fuck out.
Nice. "You're either with us or you're against us" is a rallying cry of the lowest sort. Laws have already been passed to reduce the number of freedoms US citizens have during these warlike times. You also seem to be operating under the assumption that the US would not have the freedoms it does without military action, but in the current environment it is the military action that is causing the number of American freedoms to shrink. Perhaps it's worth considering that the US actually has the freedoms it does *in spite* of what our soldiers have done.
There are many areas of law where the burden of proof rests on the accused, but criminal law isn't one of them. Thanks for playing. Nice justification of blind vengeance, tho.
So I'm Asking Slashdot : What should companies be doing to prevent the loss of income from pirating while leaving inviolate the right of the consumer to make copies of materials to which we own legal license?
Simple. Realize that these companies are not losing money to piracy.
The kids are entrepreneurs, even if it's in a business I despise, taking advantage of the resources they've paid for.
Are we supposed to believe that university network resources are completely supported by tuition? I would venture (though in typical Slashdot fashion I have no numbers) that there's a certain amount of taxpayer money involved. Furthermore, it's very common for end-user bandwidth agreements to include a clause prohibiting the resale of any portion of a connection.
Yeah, ITU...great idea. Let us all harken back to that Simpsons episode where the smart people are put in charge of the town. Meanwhile, if you read the article cited you will come across a URL. A URL that says a little something about why the ITU wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. Maybe you could check it out?
Well, the general idea is that "trouble" is the point, but how do you really know that death is one of the results? Keep in mind that conditions of the Cold War Soviet Union were greatly denigrated and exaggerated for propaganda purposes.
Don't be stupid. Microsoft signed a contract and reneged on it, that's all. It's not like Sun pulled this out of the air and said "Hey, I think MS should have Java in IE, let's try to force them!" They're just being told to live up to the contract.
So, the answer to the Debian question is "Debian wouldn't have signed a contract". They would have? Then would they have signed it in bad faith like MS did?
Your point remains the same through them, that because *some* consumers don't use their own faculties to express their preferences that consumers as a rule "do not want" to choose what they expose themselves to. And perhaps most ridiculously, that because there is an act of selection involved *at all* ("from thousands to dozens") that support for choice is misplaced. Gosh, if only there were just one thing to buy. Then perhaps we could all get on with our lives.
"So no I don't think consumers have any interest in choosing between such a wide range of sources."
It's not very sound to generalize based on a particular example, and even less sound to use yourself as the generalizing principle. You engage in "post hoc ergo propter hoc" by reasoning that because some group of consumers use unsophisticated selection criteria that consumers don't have any interest in doing their own choosing.
Well, if you prefer "Greatest Hits" compilers to make your choices for you, and I am able to find all the music I like without buying any "Greatest Hits" albums, does that mean that actually *half* of all consumers prefer to make their own choices? Your logic is lame. Just because record companies are trying to squeeze every last penny out of a band's catalog doesn't mean that consumers are demanding it. You're assuming that a particular premise is true based on its ability to support your chosen conclusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't the GPL have a patent clause, which the linked to license violates?
.
Not only that, but they have some stupid javascript code that prevents you from copying text from that page in an intuitive manner. Also, they explicitly state that the GPL does not license anyone to use any patents in the code, which is wrong.
Paste from their Download spiel: [All emphasis mine]
To the extent that you, or your licensees under the GPL, make any modifications to, or derive (through reverse engineering or otherwise) other software products and/or functionality from, the OpenTV Distributed GNU Utilities ("Modifications and/or Derivatives"), neither OpenTV nor the GPL licenses you , implicitly or otherwise, under any OpenTV patents that cover the Modifications and/or Derivatives , whether alone or in combination with the OpenTV Distributed GNU Utilities.
From the GPL:
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that re-distributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all
Go after the people and companies hiring the spamhausen.
Ha ha, it is to laugh. Is there any form of advertising that is illegal? These days, businesses are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in pursuit of a profit. As long as it's not an outright scam, it's okay. Taking advantage of suckers and advertising to get them is what made America great. P.T. Barnum isn't reviled by history.
Nonono... the business plan is:
/. bigotry as well!). In the Xenix days Microsoft was a major investor in SCO, so it's certainly possible that this is an end-around to undercut Linux with a little backroom nudge. It would have the additional benefit of perhaps exposing M$ as a possible bailout vector for the SCO posse. So, Linux is undercut and M$ gets some foundation for integrating Unix into Windows, feature-creeping into the free unix space.
1. Sue IBM.
2. Irritate the dinosaur.
3. Get bought by dinosaur.
This has been brought up time and time again as the speculative motive behind this suit. I've determined that there is another angle for this kind of strategic suit: Microsoft (satisfies the
I know this violates Hanlon's Razor, but it sure is an entertaining thought.
You know what? I'm skeptical.
$1000 per week isn't that much, and anybody after the easy money like this guy purports to be is also going to inflate his estimate of how much he made. I'm betting he got out of the business because he sucked at it and couldn't make enough. It sure makes more sense that he's attempting to demystify spamming because of sour grapes, but not so sour that he would rat out with any specific information. If he was serious, he wouldn't have any qualms about revealing the things he holds back on.
It's nice to know that people spend a whole lot of good time religeously studying something like Klingon, instead of some useless subject, like Portugese or Japanese.
Indeed. We can only hope that some day the Multnoman council will see fit to search out Portuguese or Japanese (perhaps both!) translators who can work for the government in Oregon. There are many people who speak only those languages who attempt to flow through the county's mental health system without success. Until then, we can tackle the business of telling crazy people that they're wasting their time on this Klingon business. That they may have a job waiting for them if they want to learn some Japanese or Portuguese (perhaps both!) could be the key motivator. We will know we have succeeded when the first of these patients speak to us in a language other than Klingon. The Portuguese and Japanese among them await this development with an tici pation.
He's in an interesting position by pushing an OS for folks without CS (or generally geeky) backgrounds.
It does not take CS or general geekiness to understand the concept of multiple user accounts and security. Dumbing down the product is a classically conservative design decision on Robertson's part. He has an opportunity to evolve the "user experience" away from Microcentric areas but drops the ball, presumably because it would be a training and support issue (and consequently a barrier to adoption).
After reading that paragraph in the interview I instantly thought about double-clicking a mouse. All through the years of my computer affinity, and specifically since the introduction and popularization of Windows, there is no interface concept more alien to non-geeks than the double-click. I can't tell you how many times I watched people have twitchy machines because they turned the double click gap way up (to match their slow, untrained muscles), or risk RSI by making the double-click a wholly deliberate click:click as fast as they could.
Now everybody is hip to the double-click, but I remember its growing pains and in fact one of them lingers on in the form of "double-clicking URL links" that I see all the time. Coindentally, this is exactly the *quality* of habit that would make the popular computing community a better place: if people learn to use multiple accounts, then they'll try to use that concept everywhere. Support costs for this would eventually go down as people learn and the knowledge is spread around, much like not having to teach people how to double-click anymore.
Call me cynical, but it's going to be a losing battle if Lindows' mission is to get people to use Linux. Linux is an OS for tinkerers and not everybody likes to tinker. Lindows' greater strength is in getting people to install "Something Besides Microsoft Windows" and if users can avoid (the Robertson-touted huge issue of) viruses by learning the concept of security levels and the like, then that is a step toward making Lindows (and by extension Linux) a more attractive option when Joe Grandpa gets a new PC.
Theft means to take something that's being sold without paying for it, or to take something that's not being sold without permission. So yeah, copying IS theft.
In the context of this thread you're making a leap of logic that doesn't hold up. In the slow process of copying a statue, you start out with a blank block of marble (or whatever). The people selling the statues aren't selling blocks of marble. They're also not selling chisels or hammers (in the context of 'selling a statue', let's presume that's all they do). So where are you locating the act of theft? Nothing that is being sold is being "taken".
You go on to assert that "taking something that's not being sold" constitutes theft. Are you serious? What if the "something" isn't a tangible item, or if it isn't saleable? "Could be sold but isn't...hands off!" But perhaps you were being too brief and imprecise in your statements.
As to your second point, there are no "natural laws" except the usual "death and..." jokes. Everything legal and legislative has been invented as an evolved means of dealing with the issues of society. Also, "theft" is an artificial construct invented in response to the development of property laws.
I mean, if I know I'm going to get better download speed and reliability downloading PSP demos from the software manufacturer, why would I try to "con" anyone into thinking that P2P was legit by doing it otherwise? To try and beef up the appearance of real, fair use?
Yes. P2P *does* have substantial non-infringing uses which do not get enough publicity, so it's important to help provide the world with plenty of evidence of the fair-use aspects of P2P. If you haven't been paying attention (or are not US residents), the Fair Use provisions of US (and soon-to-be Iraqi) copyright law have been trundled over by copyright interests and their lobbyists with the effect of severely narrowing the legal interpretation so as to be nearly meaningless. Nobody thinks P2P is a useless technology, it's just that the RIAA and MPAA think they should be able to set the rules, and perhaps even to be the only ones allowed to supply content to P2P systems. We have seen before that they would have liked to prevent you from giving your friend a cassette or video tape on the sidewalk, it's not like they're going to stop trying everytime any new form of media distribution and representation comes up.
If I create some new piece of art, if I elect to give it away, that is my perogative. However, as an artist, if I wish to sell my art to make a living (which will allow me to buy supplies to make more art, among other things), then I have to charge a certain price for my art.
You miss a fundamental aspect of the current copyright crisis, which I think is best illustrated by the following question: Should you be able to forbid people to take a picture of your art?
OK, perhaps I should be more clear. How is modifying the machine to run illegally-copied games an exercise in free speech?
It isn't, publishing the book is. The modifications are an exercise of Fair Use provisions in copyright law. Fair Use says that you can do whatever you want in the privacy of your own <x> with something you've bought.
And your "99%" line is canonical luser-speak for "I don't feel like thinking about this anymore".
Why not just outlaw reading? Make it punishable with a death penalty.
We wouldn't have to steam all of the fun out of life if we just outlaw *learning*. That's where the real problem is.
Jesus you suck.
Well, if I see you burning a flag next to my town hall, I will exercise my right to free speach by beating you to a bloody pulp.
Once you're threatening assault you're beyond free-speech issues, Mr. Redneck.
If you feel that this country sucks so much that you are going to dishonor all of its citizens and their ancestors who laid down their lives for this country, then get the fuck out.
Nice. "You're either with us or you're against us" is a rallying cry of the lowest sort. Laws have already been passed to reduce the number of freedoms US citizens have during these warlike times. You also seem to be operating under the assumption that the US would not have the freedoms it does without military action, but in the current environment it is the military action that is causing the number of American freedoms to shrink. Perhaps it's worth considering that the US actually has the freedoms it does *in spite* of what our soldiers have done.
Right, it's just a language. How much sense does it make to patent a sentence?
There are many areas of law where the burden of proof rests on the accused, but criminal law isn't one of them. Thanks for playing. Nice justification of blind vengeance, tho.
So I'm Asking Slashdot : What should companies be doing to prevent the loss of income from pirating while leaving inviolate the right of the consumer to make copies of materials to which we own legal license?
Simple. Realize that these companies are not losing money to piracy.
The kids are entrepreneurs, even if it's in a business I despise, taking advantage of the resources they've paid for.
Are we supposed to believe that university network resources are completely supported by tuition? I would venture (though in typical Slashdot fashion I have no numbers) that there's a certain amount of taxpayer money involved. Furthermore, it's very common for end-user bandwidth agreements to include a clause prohibiting the resale of any portion of a connection.
"Persons" can be used to refer to a number of discrete individuals.
4. Hotmail is planning an advertising campaign.
Yeah, ITU...great idea. Let us all harken back to that Simpsons episode where the smart people are put in charge of the town. Meanwhile, if you read the article cited you will come across a URL. A URL that says a little something about why the ITU wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. Maybe you could check it out?
Uh, no. Your speculation falls flat.
Well, the general idea is that "trouble" is the point, but how do you really know that death is one of the results? Keep in mind that conditions of the Cold War Soviet Union were greatly denigrated and exaggerated for propaganda purposes.
Don't be stupid. Microsoft signed a contract and reneged on it, that's all. It's not like Sun pulled this out of the air and said "Hey, I think MS should have Java in IE, let's try to force them!" They're just being told to live up to the contract.
So, the answer to the Debian question is "Debian wouldn't have signed a contract". They would have? Then would they have signed it in bad faith like MS did?
Your point remains the same through them, that because *some* consumers don't use their own faculties to express their preferences that consumers as a rule "do not want" to choose what they expose themselves to. And perhaps most ridiculously, that because there is an act of selection involved *at all* ("from thousands to dozens") that support for choice is misplaced. Gosh, if only there were just one thing to buy. Then perhaps we could all get on with our lives.
"So no I don't think consumers have any interest in choosing between such a wide range of sources."
Bitter much?
It's not very sound to generalize based on a particular example, and even less sound to use yourself as the generalizing principle. You engage in "post hoc ergo propter hoc" by reasoning that because some group of consumers use unsophisticated selection criteria that consumers don't have any interest in doing their own choosing.
Well, if you prefer "Greatest Hits" compilers to make your choices for you, and I am able to find all the music I like without buying any "Greatest Hits" albums, does that mean that actually *half* of all consumers prefer to make their own choices? Your logic is lame. Just because record companies are trying to squeeze every last penny out of a band's catalog doesn't mean that consumers are demanding it. You're assuming that a particular premise is true based on its ability to support your chosen conclusion.