Actually, this is a good argument against the SSSCA. If the SSSCA were passed, every living organism on the planet would be an unlicensed copying device.
And, what prevents your employer from sticking a piece of GPL software in a box and selling it?
Among other things, CD burners and rival software companies.
Well, you can't do anything about the CD burners. You can't even hunt down and punish everybody who uses them 'improperly' because you'd have 3/4s of the country in jail and nobody to sell your software to.
As for the rival software company, why would people buy it from them when you're the people who make it, maintain it, and know the most about it? Also, you're sort of seeing it happen too with the fight between MySQL and NuSphere. I think trademark protection is actually much more approriate for this kind of thing than copyright protection.
When people buy software, they buy capabilities, yes, but they also buy the software's future. Trademark is an excellent way of having a continuing brand on your software so people can identify you by the service you provide, and the future you create.
If toilet designers invent a method for creating a toilet that uses 50% less water when flushed, and never back up, should they not be allowed to market and profit from this method?
It's called making and selling a better toilet.
I make a contractual agreement with my employer: what I invent is sold to them, and becomes their property. It's called terms of employment . What they do with their own property (e.g., put it in shrink-wrapped boxes and sell it) is up to them. I don't expect to be paid again and again, because I've agreed to sell the rights to another party. If I don't like the arrangement, I can go work somewhere else, or become a plumber.
And, what prevents your employer from sticking a piece of GPL software in a box and selling it?
1. "No it's not!" Ok, put a third-party software CD in the drive, select "install", have the software install with minimal user intervention, and place shortcuts automatically in the root menu. What, "tar xfvz;./configure;make;make install"? Why?
I guess you've never heard of package management. I 'click install' rather routinely and it works just fine. It's called 'Red Carpet' and 'Ximian GNOME'.
I was quite pleased with the gcc 2.96 release. I got to start using some C++ features that I've been wanting to use for a long time, but didn't work with the older compilers. I submitted a few bug reports, but recent versions have been stable as a rock for me.
Ummm, I legitimately bought WarCraft, and WarCraft II. I've never played them online, and never intend to. In fact, I haven't played either WarCraft or WarCraft II in several years. I bought WarCraft II (for some unknown reason) right after it came out, played a few games of it, and left it because I didn't like it.
And, it is a world of corporate domination, whether that's their explicit (or even conscious) goal or not. I don't care how hard they work, they don't deserve the kind of control they're asking for.
Your use of language is childish. Your argument is asinine.
I've thought every single one of Blizzard's RTSs was total garbage. I've like their Diablo series, but they really add very little to Angband (text based Unix game, easily as complex in gameplay as Diablo, horrible graphics) besides pretty graphics. And now with the sutpid bnetd debacle, they can kiss any business I have have sent their way goodbye.
crap, no one told you? the Matrix was a movie. just a story. that's all
And I suppose all metaphor is lost on you then? I guess you think 'Animal Farm' had nothing to do with politics then, or that the rose painting in scene in 'Alice and Wonderland' was just a silly scene for children to enjoy. How pitiful.
I don't wanna hear a single comment about the bnetd stuff, I'm happy to pay them $50 for hours and hours of mindless-computer-fun, and I understand them wanting to keep the online play within their control.
*troll off*
Then you're an idiot, and I hope that when someone decides again that you can't use a different phone on your phone line than the official phone company one, you're happy with that too. You deserve a corporate world in which you have no choices to make so that the nice corporations can maintain the control they deserve over the products they were so nice as to make for you.
Stupid sheep. Willing and eager member of The Matrix. You'd want to be in it even if you DID know what it was.
While I quite agree with you that Lindows named its product to connote an association with Windows, I do not believe they do so in such a way as to dilute the Windows trademark and create confusion in people's minds. I don't anybody, given the word 'Lindows' would assume it was a Microsoft product, or that it was Microsoft Windows.
I believe that's the legal standard for deciding whether or not a trademark is being infringed. I actually believe that, for the consumer, allowing Lindows to be called Lindows is a help. It associates it with the product it tries to emulate while being distinct enough to not be confused with the product it tries to emulate.
I've been thinking of buying one of these forever, but I need it to work with Linux. I do all of my development under Linux, and my workstation at work runs it. It would be incredibly nice to save whiteboard doodles. I have used a digital camera for this in the past, but something like Mimio would be great.
I wholeheartedly agree! If more dandruff haired greaseball sociotard IT geeks would do stupid shit like detirmine what their employer may use based on their own opensource hangups maybe more of you would be trying to act smug in a fucking breadline.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but my employers are quite aware of the basis on which I make descisions. If a site can't make itself accessible without resorting to some stupid secret garbage animated BS, then they don't need our business, period.
If I could browse with gifs turned off, I would (that's a great suggestion for a squid rule actually, I'll have to try that). I wouldn't browse with jpgs turned off because they're just fine. Nice, open patent-free spec. Open Source implementations, jpg is great.
If a company feels compelled to force their potential customers to use the secret decoding ring of Flash to look at the information they have about their products, they're not a company we need to business with, period. It's unprofessional of them, and speaks ill of their willingness to treat us well when we're they're customer.
I disable Flash, even if my browser supports it. I don't need closed standards like Flash on my browser. So, companies that have all Flash websites don't get my business. It's that simple. If the site isn't accessible without Flash, it doesn't get looked at by me. I encourage everybody else to do the same. There already are a couple of companies that have lost my business and the business of my employers over this.
Umm, the dot com crash happened because the 'flat rate' was generally '0', not because they had a flat rate for a metered resource. Sorry to *ahem* burst your bubble.
The PowerPC has an explicit little-endian mode to enable NT to be ported to it. In fact, 5 years ago, many of the RISC processors adopted a little-endian mode just so that NT could be ported to them.
Microsoft writes such brain damaged software. *sigh* Every Unix app in existence knows that the OS API is in the endianness of the host machine (except when speaking about network addresses).
As others have said before, if Judge K. is persuaded by the dissenting nine states and the Tunney comments and she tries to apply realistic remedies to Microsoft she will find her tits caught in the same big wringer.
I don't know whether I should be pleased that someone has found a way to include women in these kinds of analogies, or apalled at people's continuing inability to express themselves without painfully vivid anatomical metaphors. At any rate, you've accomplished something of note. Congrats, I guess. *grin*
And, although it's rather controversial these days, I don't believe it protects those who want to make copies of DVDs and CDs and distribute them over the net or to their friends. That is an issue of "Fair Use", not free speech.
Well, if this is what was happening, I'd not have too much of a problem. Of course, to actually keep people from sharing information with their friends, you'd have to install a policeperson in each and every person's house. And, after doing that a good 25% of the country would be hauled off to jail each year for copyright violation. If that's the kind of world you want to live in, that's fine.
But, that isn't what's happening. The distributors know that the public would never stand for enforcement on that level. So, they go after software and hardware that enables people to do these things. That IS a free speech issue, particularily in the case of software.
One, you aren't modifying the game to run it on bnet. Two, by your own admission, you do own the copy.
If you want to stick it in a microwave, you're free to. If you want to make modifications to it locally and not distribute them, you're free to do that too. Copyright law only says that you can't distribute copies publically or off to random people. It's called 'Fair Use'.
I don't care what the stupid license agreements say. They're largely unenforceable, and morally wrong anyway. If a license agreement in the front cover of a book isn't legally binding, one on the front cover of a DVD box or inside a game box isn't either.
No company's 'ownership' rights reach inside my own house to things I've bought and control. Such thinking leads the way to an invasive police state, and I will have none of it.
Once they sell the game, it ceases to be their property and becomes your property. I don't want some corporation saying what I can do with a socket wrench because they're the ones who made it. Similarily, Blizzard can't tell me how and where I can play their games after I buy them.
EULAs are shifty legally, and most likely unenforceable. I also consider them to be just plain wrong. Once I buy it, it becomes my property, end of story.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this is a good argument against the SSSCA. If the SSSCA were passed, every living organism on the planet would be an unlicensed copying device.
Well, you can't do anything about the CD burners. You can't even hunt down and punish everybody who uses them 'improperly' because you'd have 3/4s of the country in jail and nobody to sell your software to.
As for the rival software company, why would people buy it from them when you're the people who make it, maintain it, and know the most about it? Also, you're sort of seeing it happen too with the fight between MySQL and NuSphere. I think trademark protection is actually much more approriate for this kind of thing than copyright protection.
When people buy software, they buy capabilities, yes, but they also buy the software's future. Trademark is an excellent way of having a continuing brand on your software so people can identify you by the service you provide, and the future you create.
It's called making and selling a better toilet.
And, what prevents your employer from sticking a piece of GPL software in a box and selling it?
I guess you've never heard of package management. I 'click install' rather routinely and it works just fine. It's called 'Red Carpet' and 'Ximian GNOME'.
Each individual pipe and fitting is unique from all others, unlike each copy of an idea.
An idea doesn't belong to anybody.
No other property in existence has an explicit lifetime attached to its ownership. Intellectual 'property' is not property.
I was quite pleased with the gcc 2.96 release. I got to start using some C++ features that I've been wanting to use for a long time, but didn't work with the older compilers. I submitted a few bug reports, but recent versions have been stable as a rock for me.
Ummm, I legitimately bought WarCraft, and WarCraft II. I've never played them online, and never intend to. In fact, I haven't played either WarCraft or WarCraft II in several years. I bought WarCraft II (for some unknown reason) right after it came out, played a few games of it, and left it because I didn't like it.
And, it is a world of corporate domination, whether that's their explicit (or even conscious) goal or not. I don't care how hard they work, they don't deserve the kind of control they're asking for.
Your use of language is childish. Your argument is asinine.
I've thought every single one of Blizzard's RTSs was total garbage. I've like their Diablo series, but they really add very little to Angband (text based Unix game, easily as complex in gameplay as Diablo, horrible graphics) besides pretty graphics. And now with the sutpid bnetd debacle, they can kiss any business I have have sent their way goodbye.
I'm 30, and had never watched an episode of Buffy or even known who Sarah Michelle Gellar was until a couple of months ago.
And I suppose all metaphor is lost on you then? I guess you think 'Animal Farm' had nothing to do with politics then, or that the rose painting in scene in 'Alice and Wonderland' was just a silly scene for children to enjoy. How pitiful.
Then you're an idiot, and I hope that when someone decides again that you can't use a different phone on your phone line than the official phone company one, you're happy with that too. You deserve a corporate world in which you have no choices to make so that the nice corporations can maintain the control they deserve over the products they were so nice as to make for you.
Stupid sheep. Willing and eager member of The Matrix. You'd want to be in it even if you DID know what it was.
While I quite agree with you that Lindows named its product to connote an association with Windows, I do not believe they do so in such a way as to dilute the Windows trademark and create confusion in people's minds. I don't anybody, given the word 'Lindows' would assume it was a Microsoft product, or that it was Microsoft Windows.
I believe that's the legal standard for deciding whether or not a trademark is being infringed. I actually believe that, for the consumer, allowing Lindows to be called Lindows is a help. It associates it with the product it tries to emulate while being distinct enough to not be confused with the product it tries to emulate.
It is prettier and friendlier. :-) Perhaps you should send it to someone at gnu.org to see if they'll use it.
That's amusing. :-) Are you from Hawaii?
I've been thinking of buying one of these forever, but I need it to work with Linux. I do all of my development under Linux, and my workstation at work runs it. It would be incredibly nice to save whiteboard doodles. I have used a digital camera for this in the past, but something like Mimio would be great.
Hello there. :-)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but my employers are quite aware of the basis on which I make descisions. If a site can't make itself accessible without resorting to some stupid secret garbage animated BS, then they don't need our business, period.
If I could browse with gifs turned off, I would (that's a great suggestion for a squid rule actually, I'll have to try that). I wouldn't browse with jpgs turned off because they're just fine. Nice, open patent-free spec. Open Source implementations, jpg is great.
If a company feels compelled to force their potential customers to use the secret decoding ring of Flash to look at the information they have about their products, they're not a company we need to business with, period. It's unprofessional of them, and speaks ill of their willingness to treat us well when we're they're customer.
I disable Flash, even if my browser supports it. I don't need closed standards like Flash on my browser. So, companies that have all Flash websites don't get my business. It's that simple. If the site isn't accessible without Flash, it doesn't get looked at by me. I encourage everybody else to do the same. There already are a couple of companies that have lost my business and the business of my employers over this.
Umm, the dot com crash happened because the 'flat rate' was generally '0', not because they had a flat rate for a metered resource. Sorry to *ahem* burst your bubble.
The PowerPC has an explicit little-endian mode to enable NT to be ported to it. In fact, 5 years ago, many of the RISC processors adopted a little-endian mode just so that NT could be ported to them.
Microsoft writes such brain damaged software. *sigh* Every Unix app in existence knows that the OS API is in the endianness of the host machine (except when speaking about network addresses).
I don't know whether I should be pleased that someone has found a way to include women in these kinds of analogies, or apalled at people's continuing inability to express themselves without painfully vivid anatomical metaphors. At any rate, you've accomplished something of note. Congrats, I guess. *grin*
Well, if this is what was happening, I'd not have too much of a problem. Of course, to actually keep people from sharing information with their friends, you'd have to install a policeperson in each and every person's house. And, after doing that a good 25% of the country would be hauled off to jail each year for copyright violation. If that's the kind of world you want to live in, that's fine.
But, that isn't what's happening. The distributors know that the public would never stand for enforcement on that level. So, they go after software and hardware that enables people to do these things. That IS a free speech issue, particularily in the case of software.
One, you aren't modifying the game to run it on bnet. Two, by your own admission, you do own the copy.
If you want to stick it in a microwave, you're free to. If you want to make modifications to it locally and not distribute them, you're free to do that too. Copyright law only says that you can't distribute copies publically or off to random people. It's called 'Fair Use'.
I don't care what the stupid license agreements say. They're largely unenforceable, and morally wrong anyway. If a license agreement in the front cover of a book isn't legally binding, one on the front cover of a DVD box or inside a game box isn't either.
No company's 'ownership' rights reach inside my own house to things I've bought and control. Such thinking leads the way to an invasive police state, and I will have none of it.
Once they sell the game, it ceases to be their property and becomes your property. I don't want some corporation saying what I can do with a socket wrench because they're the ones who made it. Similarily, Blizzard can't tell me how and where I can play their games after I buy them.
EULAs are shifty legally, and most likely unenforceable. I also consider them to be just plain wrong. Once I buy it, it becomes my property, end of story.