Certainly the entire concept of a "golden age" of gaming is flawed, but you have to agree that many of the foundations of gaming were set in 8-bit and 16-bit...
I certainly do agree. Games are, like many things, an evolving format. Most games are built upon ideas and concepts from their predecessors. Usually with a slight twist. Infrequently with a novel and new idea thrown in. Always with minor improvements to graphics and sound, but do those changes really matter?!
But I wasn't arguing against the evolution of games. I was more arguing that despite what some romantics claim, the gameplay in the older games really isn't up to par with modern games. I have over 20 years video gaming experience (gosh, I feel so old) and the newer games are IMHO simply better. I have fond memories of old games but I find myself frequently disappointed when I pull them out of retirement for some reminiscing.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just jaded by the graphics in older games but I don't think I'm particularly influenced by graphics. I still play nethack! But GTA3 keeps me coming back for more. I've clocked up 200 hours on that game. I don't think I clocked up more than 20 hours on any NES or SNES game. I can only think it's because GTA3 offers such a large "world" with so much to do, and so many ways to do it. To my mind, that makes GTA3 one of the leading games in gameplay.
I can see myself picking up Mario 3 to play again and again, even today, even after I just beat it, but I won't do that with the Half-Life single player.
Ahh, but what about HL multiplayer. You still play that, yes? I play more HL than I play Mario. They're both great, but given the choice I would pick HL over Mario.
I don't strongly disagree with anything you said, btw. Games are still a matter of taste and interpretation. I think that, overall, modern games have better gameplay than older games but I'm happy if you feel otherwise.
I get a kick in a similar fashion out of hearing different ages reminisce. People a few years ahead of me, who were brought up with a coleco or intellivision in their hands, never stop talking about the golden age of games. Back when "graphics didn't matter and the gameplay was the core attraction".
Amusingly enough, all my friends from my generation (who were raised primarily with the C64, 8-bit NES, SNES, Atari, and Sega generation hardware), seem to think the golden age of gaming began and ended with these systems. Someone recently on slashdot cracked me up when they posted something about how the Nintendo and Sega 8 & 16-bit ages of gaming were the height of gaming history because "that's when graphics didn't matter, and the gameplay was pure".
I did grow up in that "golden age". In fact, I'm even older than that (my first console was a 20-in-1 Pong machine). But I'm not deluded. Like you say, people who think the NES was the pinnacle of gaming make me laugh.
Just consider modern games like GTA3 or GT3 or HL... 8-bit games can't hold a candle to them. The gameplay in HL is 100x greater than I ever got out of Mario. I remember the 8-bit games fondly and I enjoy the occasional retro experience with Galaga or Wizball, but I don't think I'd still be playing video games if 8-bit was all we had.
I think retro-gamers need to remember that 8-bit games were attractive to us as kids but adults from that era weren't very interested. The games didn't really offer a lot. Modern games can keep the average adult interested as well. It's not just a generation thing, either. 50 year olds I work with - who were never interested in NES or SNES - are now avid Xbox or PS2 gamers. I think that's a perfect sign that the modern games are simply more enjoyable for all ages.
Buying a Palladium-enabled computer will be like buying a car with a top speed of 65 miles per hour. The fact is, everyone bends the law a little bit from time to time... and a reasonable police officer won't pull you over for doing 68 in a 65. It's just not that big of a deal. Likewise, if someone (God forbid!) decides to install the same copy of Word on two different computers in their house, it's not likely that the FBI will come knocking on their door for a license violation.
The problem I have with your analogy is that it implies Palladium is only going to interfere with illegal activities (like speeding). The reality is that Palladium also intereferes with legal activities.
A better analogy, I think, is that Palladium is like a speed-limiter on your car that also prevents you from wearing green shirts while driving, playing classical music on the stereo, or changing your own tyre if you get a flat.
Kernel == OS, for purposes of this discussion. Read a book on OS design sometime...
I've read about a half-dozen books on OS design and they all disagree with you. If you read Tanenbaum's book then he explicitly lists the C library and the Bourne shell as being components of UNIX-like operating system. If you read Steven's book then he says the same things. Lions's book also make the distinction between the UNIX kernel and the UNIX operating system. They all employ the analogy of UNIX being a "nut" containing both a kernel and a shell.
I subscribe to this old-school definition of UNIX because I've been using UNIX since before Linux even existed. That means the original UNIX written by Thompson and Ritchie. That means the kernel, C library, Bourne shell and standard utilities like ls and sed and awk. Linux fills a vital role in that OS: the kernel. GNU fills every other category on a typical Linux system.
Re: the tiresome GNU/BSD/Linux/XFree86/Mozilla "argument" that somebody will undoubtedly trot out. I've never seen XFree86 or Openoffice listed in a definition of a UNIX OS. They didn't even exist back in 1970. So they don't count. They are not UNIX. They never were. They still aren't.
Modern GNU/Linux systems are equivalent to the original goal of GNU: a replacement for UNIX. That is all that RMS wants recognised. He justs want people to understand that GNU - a replacement for UNIX - has been completed with the combination of the incomplete GNU and the Linux kernel.
I'm rather sorry I mentioned "original" at all now, since my (+5 Insightful, BTW)
Giggle. Isn't that cute. He thinks the moderators aren't on crack.
The point, for the last time, is that, no matter whether the original mentions god or not, the current one does, and we make some people say it, so there should be one they can say without god in it.
Actually your point was that the original said it, and you were wrong.
That is, the Pledge of Allegiance will (and should always) continue to include the phrase "under god." NO matter what you do, the original is sitll the original -- you can't change it.
Just admit that you were wrong. It's not hard.
But you can't admit that you're wrong, can you?
Lesson in life, sonny. Nobody will think less of you for making a mistake. But people will think less of you when you refuse to admit to your mistakes.
Somehow, you and about a half-dozen other idiots read just enough of my post to confuse youreselves into thinking I was pro-god-pledge, which I'm not.
I'm afraid the only idiot here is the person who thought that the original pledge mentioned God, and then tried to defend his idiocy by complaining about the number of people who corrected him.
The belief that there is no god is in fact a religious belief.
That statement is debatable, but in any event it is irrelevant because not all atheists hold the belief that there is no god. Some atheists simply do not hold the belief that there is a god.
If you cannot discern the difference then I advise reading groups.google.com because this has been argued only a billion times before.
And if you dare say the word "agnostic" I will bitchslap you with Huxley's essay until you bleed.
I agree with your point, but I'm afraid it's irrelevant. That is, the Pledge of Allegiance will (and should always) continue to include the phrase "under god." NO matter what you do, the original is sitll the original -- you can't change it.
Except the original pledge written in 1892 didn't mention God at all. That bit was added in 1954 by the McArthy government.
So given that the pledge had 56 years without the "under God" phrase, and 49 years with it, isn't it about time for another change?
How about...
I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under Buddha, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
This way everybody gets a turn. And surely you won't have any objections to inserting a deity you don't worship into the pledge? There are a lot of Buddhist Americans, after all.
Isn't it scary that I'm Australian and I know more about your pledge than you do?
The problem with all these spam preventing ideas is that they don't get to the root of the problem; the spammers. I have a foolproof solution.
Capital punishment.
Simply kill the spammers. Send spam? Instant death. No jury. No judge. Maybe the spammers can be the first to appreciate the benefits of "Real Cheap Life Insurance" when they're frying on the electric chair.
Would you say the same if store bought computers with Lindows had Mozilla by default?
How about we wait until Lindows and Mozilla have 93% of the desktop market before answering that.
Or does your rant only apply when MSFT is in question?
MSFT is the only convicted monopolist with a known insecure desktop that I can see.
And btw, integrating the browser with the OS [this particular OS] *makes sense*. Similar to KDE the file browser/explorer re-uses the codebase as the web browser.
Integration is irrelevant. The case was about monopolist behaviour. You are focussing on the technical but MSFT did not get convicted because of purely technical decisions.
Coffee is _supposed_ to be boiling hot when served,
No it's not. Boiling hot water burns the beans and ruins the coffee. You're supposed to brew it a few degrees below boiling. It's tea that you brew with boiling water.
But this is totally irrelevant, because the temperature you serve the coffee doesn't have to be the same as the temperature you brewed the coffee. It was very negligent for McD's to serve boiling coffee to anybody, and exceptionally negligent to serve boiling coffee to anybody in a car, where the expectation for spilled liquids is fairly high. This was the finding of the court, and I agree with it.
The crux of the matter is SCO can revoke for cause, when the licensee is in violation of the contract.
One point that may cause a violation is the release of code that is a derivative, of code that was placed in SVR4,
No, they cannot. The license explicitly says that the license is irrevocable. It does not say "irrevocable except for these cases where the license can be revoked". That would be silly.
The license does say that SCO can enjoin IBM from infringing their rights. That's a different meaning to revoke. Revocation is simply one way of enjoining. But the license explicitly says that revocation is not going to happen. SCO will need to use another method to enjoin IBM. Possibilities include fines, penalties, royalties, injunctions, etc.
But not revocation. SCO cannot revoke the license. You are playing into SCO's plot by thinking they have a point. They are fibbing. Go to Groklaw. This particular point has been beaten to death. SCO CANNOT REVOKE THE LICENSE WITH IBM.
Likewise, a private license for use of some property can also be revoked under the agreed terms. Generally, if the agreed terms are violated, the license can be revoked. If SGI and/or IBM did release UNIX intellectual property to the public, that would be such a violation. And we do know SCO is claiming that.
Addendum X to the UNIX license with IBM says the license is irrevocable. There are no words in the license or addendum that say "oh, unless you do this, in which case we can revoke it". The license is irrevocable.
The license even makes things clearer: it says the license is perpetual. Now explain to me why the license would say perpetual and irrevocable and less than a page later give conditions for revocation? Hint: it doesn't.
The UNIX license with SGI might be different. Somehow I doubt it. I recall SGI saying that they also have an irrevocable agreement in an addendum.
The addendum says that the UNIX license can be enjoined if there are any violations. This means to force into compliance. Not to revoke. If the license is irrevocable and it states that the license is irrevocable then it'd hardly make sense if the license could actually be revoked.
In the most imaginative intepretation, enjoin could perhaps permit an injunction. But that will require a judge to decide, and SCO first has to submit a request for injunction to the court (and you might notice they haven't done that). The word "enjoin" definitely doesn't give SCO the right to revoke the license, because it's very clear that the license is irrevocable.
I don't really care if he's an editor or not, writing a "review" of Windows XP whose basic premise is "It's not like Linux, and all the Linux software I like is different on it" is drivel.
Well, I think it's amusing because I still remember the various "reviews" of Linux that basically made the same "It's not like Windows therefore it sucks" comments.
They're probably referring to the free Ancient UNIX sources (which is BSD licensed, not public domain, but anyway).
No, they're referring to V32, which is one of those ancient unices but is also public domain. Go read up on the BSD case.
I have read the USL vs BSDI case. There was no judgement that V32 was in the public domain. The judge threw out the preliminary injunction with a comment that scared USL into a settlement out of court. The judge did not say that V32 is in the public domain. He specifically said:
Consequently, I find that Plaintiff has failed to
demonstrate a likelihood that it can successfully defend its copyright in 32V.
Note that the judge does not explicitly say that V32 is in the public domain, just that he thinks USL would have had a hard time proving that it isn't. It never actually got decided in court because of the settlement. I agree that if the matter ever did go to court again, the decision would be that V32 is in the public domain.
Not that it's a problem because Caldera released the V32 code under a BSD license last year.
Sigh. You do know he never said that about 640kb, don't you? It's an urban myth.
He did say it back in 1981. It wasn't Microsoft's fault because it's a flow-on effect from the IBM PC design, though MS-DOS could have conceivably worked around it, but he's still an idiot for saying it.
like my man chuck d public enemy reprezent!! says "I trust the consumer more than I trust the people at the helm of these (recording) companies," and the o so great one liner: "P2P to me means power to the people,"
Chuck D is an amazing person. I've been listening to Public Enemy for years and I really enjoy their music. But it wasn't until the head to head between Lars and Chuck D that I realised what an intelligent person Chuck D is. It's not just because I agree with what he says - though I admit that does bias me - but it's clear that he is thoughtful and intelligent. I don't normally have respect for artists who express their opinions because, face it, most artists are braindead morons who couldn't tie their own shoelaces without an instruction manual. But I soon found myself looking for more and more writings by Chuck D. The man is brilliant.
The comparisons are interesting. Now if only there was someone out there truly analogous to Henry Ford - coming out with a true alternative commodity. Kazaa and its ilk are merely repackaging someone else's property, intellectual though it may be - the point of the Ford case is he won based on the reality that the patent was BS.
I don't see the difference. Ford was repackaging somebody elses intellectual property; namely a patent he didn't own and hadn't licensed. The fact that the patent was eventually declared bogus is immaterial because Ford was infringing the patent before the courts overturned the patent. How is this any different to the current state of affairs with people willingly infringing copyrights and muttering about the bogosity of music copyright? There is the potential, however unlikely, of modern copyright being declared invalid or at least being made more reasonable. Not that I'm holding my breath.
I reckon I deserve props for using the word "bogosity" in an otherwise serious sentence.
Um no. There are plenty of companies that have affiliate programs with thousands of members. There's no way to keep track of how each of your members are advertising. The results you'll get will be putting lots of innocent companies out of business.
The company can easily instruct the affiliates not to use spamming services. I've seen an affiliate contract. There are 100s of rules about what the affiliate can and cannot do. It'd be trivial to add another rule saying "advertising through spam will result in termination of the affiliation". If the company chooses not to put this rule into the contract then they're not innocent.
I wonder if spelling mistakes can be used to trace an accent? I quite often screwup "seperate" with "separate", I think because of my own accent. Does "rediculous" - which is incredibly common on/. - indicate a southern style American drawl?
Think about it, the whole idea with fraud is that their claims had no merit. SGI has cleared everything up, but has confirmed that there is System V code in Linux.
SGI also said that the 200 lines were already in the public domain. They're probably referring to the free Ancient UNIX sources (which is BSD licensed, not public domain, but anyway). SCO released the Ancient UNIX code base under a BSD license in 2001. The code showed at SCOForum was part of this release. SGI has every right to use that code. I think SGI is bending over backwards here to prove that even though they have a right to that code, they are willing to assist SCO in removing infringements. SCO is not helping them. This will prove useful to SGI during any future court cases. SGI is showing good faith. SCO is showing bad faith.
Even if SCO is eventually torn apart, McBride has a solid defense that there is in fact some of their code in Linux, even if it has been cleared out.
Shrug. Even if there are, SCO's claims for recompensation have to be reasonable. SGI is saying there are 200 of disputable origin from 1,000,000s of lines of code. It is unreasonable for SCO to claim that their 200 lines is more important than the copyrights of 1000s of other developers across 1,000,000s of lines of code.
This is why we have judges. A judge will try their best to produce a fair outcome. If the 200 lines of code are so damn important that Linux couldn't survive without them, then maybe SCO has a justification to charge $699. But SGI has said the 200 lines are trivial, unimportant, and have been REMOVED from 2.4.22 without affecting Linux functionality. How much monetary compensation do you think a judge will award? I suspect not much, if anything.
So Darl might still face fraud charges. His actions to fix the problem need to be reasonable. If you're a landlord and your tenant is a day late with their rent, you aren't allowed to possess their car, or abduct their children, or kill their pets. SCO is making threats against IBM and SGI that are excessive given current knowledge of what the infringement might be. If SCO is doing this in full knowledge that actual damages might be very small, then fraud is definitely on the cards.
Slashdot Mirror
I certainly do agree. Games are, like many things, an evolving format. Most games are built upon ideas and concepts from their predecessors. Usually with a slight twist. Infrequently with a novel and new idea thrown in. Always with minor improvements to graphics and sound, but do those changes really matter?!
But I wasn't arguing against the evolution of games. I was more arguing that despite what some romantics claim, the gameplay in the older games really isn't up to par with modern games. I have over 20 years video gaming experience (gosh, I feel so old) and the newer games are IMHO simply better. I have fond memories of old games but I find myself frequently disappointed when I pull them out of retirement for some reminiscing.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just jaded by the graphics in older games but I don't think I'm particularly influenced by graphics. I still play nethack! But GTA3 keeps me coming back for more. I've clocked up 200 hours on that game. I don't think I clocked up more than 20 hours on any NES or SNES game. I can only think it's because GTA3 offers such a large "world" with so much to do, and so many ways to do it. To my mind, that makes GTA3 one of the leading games in gameplay.
Ahh, but what about HL multiplayer. You still play that, yes? I play more HL than I play Mario. They're both great, but given the choice I would pick HL over Mario.
I don't strongly disagree with anything you said, btw. Games are still a matter of taste and interpretation. I think that, overall, modern games have better gameplay than older games but I'm happy if you feel otherwise.
"Vonce the rocket goes up
Who cares vere it comes down
That's not my department",
Says Werner von Braun.
I did grow up in that "golden age". In fact, I'm even older than that (my first console was a 20-in-1 Pong machine). But I'm not deluded. Like you say, people who think the NES was the pinnacle of gaming make me laugh.
Just consider modern games like GTA3 or GT3 or HL... 8-bit games can't hold a candle to them. The gameplay in HL is 100x greater than I ever got out of Mario. I remember the 8-bit games fondly and I enjoy the occasional retro experience with Galaga or Wizball, but I don't think I'd still be playing video games if 8-bit was all we had.
I think retro-gamers need to remember that 8-bit games were attractive to us as kids but adults from that era weren't very interested. The games didn't really offer a lot. Modern games can keep the average adult interested as well. It's not just a generation thing, either. 50 year olds I work with - who were never interested in NES or SNES - are now avid Xbox or PS2 gamers. I think that's a perfect sign that the modern games are simply more enjoyable for all ages.
The problem I have with your analogy is that it implies Palladium is only going to interfere with illegal activities (like speeding). The reality is that Palladium also intereferes with legal activities.
A better analogy, I think, is that Palladium is like a speed-limiter on your car that also prevents you from wearing green shirts while driving, playing classical music on the stereo, or changing your own tyre if you get a flat.
I've read about a half-dozen books on OS design and they all disagree with you. If you read Tanenbaum's book then he explicitly lists the C library and the Bourne shell as being components of UNIX-like operating system. If you read Steven's book then he says the same things. Lions's book also make the distinction between the UNIX kernel and the UNIX operating system. They all employ the analogy of UNIX being a "nut" containing both a kernel and a shell.
I subscribe to this old-school definition of UNIX because I've been using UNIX since before Linux even existed. That means the original UNIX written by Thompson and Ritchie. That means the kernel, C library, Bourne shell and standard utilities like ls and sed and awk. Linux fills a vital role in that OS: the kernel. GNU fills every other category on a typical Linux system.
Re: the tiresome GNU/BSD/Linux/XFree86/Mozilla "argument" that somebody will undoubtedly trot out. I've never seen XFree86 or Openoffice listed in a definition of a UNIX OS. They didn't even exist back in 1970. So they don't count. They are not UNIX. They never were. They still aren't.
Modern GNU/Linux systems are equivalent to the original goal of GNU: a replacement for UNIX. That is all that RMS wants recognised. He justs want people to understand that GNU - a replacement for UNIX - has been completed with the combination of the incomplete GNU and the Linux kernel.
Giggle. Isn't that cute. He thinks the moderators aren't on crack.
Actually your point was that the original said it, and you were wrong.
Just admit that you were wrong. It's not hard.
But you can't admit that you're wrong, can you?
Lesson in life, sonny. Nobody will think less of you for making a mistake. But people will think less of you when you refuse to admit to your mistakes.
Grow up.
I'm afraid the only idiot here is the person who thought that the original pledge mentioned God, and then tried to defend his idiocy by complaining about the number of people who corrected him.
Lamer.
That statement is debatable, but in any event it is irrelevant because not all atheists hold the belief that there is no god. Some atheists simply do not hold the belief that there is a god.
If you cannot discern the difference then I advise reading groups.google.com because this has been argued only a billion times before.
And if you dare say the word "agnostic" I will bitchslap you with Huxley's essay until you bleed.
And if another atheist doesn't accept this so-called "ultimate reality" then you have proven nothing.
But this argument already bores me. It's the same argument that's been repeated on usenet for decades.
Except the original pledge written in 1892 didn't mention God at all. That bit was added in 1954 by the McArthy government.
So given that the pledge had 56 years without the "under God" phrase, and 49 years with it, isn't it about time for another change?
How about...
This way everybody gets a turn. And surely you won't have any objections to inserting a deity you don't worship into the pledge? There are a lot of Buddhist Americans, after all.
Isn't it scary that I'm Australian and I know more about your pledge than you do?
If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair colour.
Nah, they just stone them to death, like they did in the good old days.
The problem with all these spam preventing ideas is that they don't get to the root of the problem; the spammers. I have a foolproof solution.
Capital punishment.
Simply kill the spammers. Send spam? Instant death. No jury. No judge. Maybe the spammers can be the first to appreciate the benefits of "Real Cheap Life Insurance" when they're frying on the electric chair.
Don't moderate me funny. I'm not joking.
How about we wait until Lindows and Mozilla have 93% of the desktop market before answering that.
MSFT is the only convicted monopolist with a known insecure desktop that I can see.
Integration is irrelevant. The case was about monopolist behaviour. You are focussing on the technical but MSFT did not get convicted because of purely technical decisions.
No it's not. Boiling hot water burns the beans and ruins the coffee. You're supposed to brew it a few degrees below boiling. It's tea that you brew with boiling water.
But this is totally irrelevant, because the temperature you serve the coffee doesn't have to be the same as the temperature you brewed the coffee. It was very negligent for McD's to serve boiling coffee to anybody, and exceptionally negligent to serve boiling coffee to anybody in a car, where the expectation for spilled liquids is fairly high. This was the finding of the court, and I agree with it.
No, they cannot. The license explicitly says that the license is irrevocable. It does not say "irrevocable except for these cases where the license can be revoked". That would be silly.
The license does say that SCO can enjoin IBM from infringing their rights. That's a different meaning to revoke. Revocation is simply one way of enjoining. But the license explicitly says that revocation is not going to happen. SCO will need to use another method to enjoin IBM. Possibilities include fines, penalties, royalties, injunctions, etc.
But not revocation. SCO cannot revoke the license. You are playing into SCO's plot by thinking they have a point. They are fibbing. Go to Groklaw. This particular point has been beaten to death. SCO CANNOT REVOKE THE LICENSE WITH IBM.
Addendum X to the UNIX license with IBM says the license is irrevocable. There are no words in the license or addendum that say "oh, unless you do this, in which case we can revoke it". The license is irrevocable.
The license even makes things clearer: it says the license is perpetual. Now explain to me why the license would say perpetual and irrevocable and less than a page later give conditions for revocation? Hint: it doesn't.
The UNIX license with SGI might be different. Somehow I doubt it. I recall SGI saying that they also have an irrevocable agreement in an addendum.
The addendum says that the UNIX license can be enjoined if there are any violations. This means to force into compliance. Not to revoke. If the license is irrevocable and it states that the license is irrevocable then it'd hardly make sense if the license could actually be revoked.
In the most imaginative intepretation, enjoin could perhaps permit an injunction. But that will require a judge to decide, and SCO first has to submit a request for injunction to the court (and you might notice they haven't done that). The word "enjoin" definitely doesn't give SCO the right to revoke the license, because it's very clear that the license is irrevocable.
Well, I think it's amusing because I still remember the various "reviews" of Linux that basically made the same "It's not like Windows therefore it sucks" comments.
I have read the USL vs BSDI case. There was no judgement that V32 was in the public domain. The judge threw out the preliminary injunction with a comment that scared USL into a settlement out of court. The judge did not say that V32 is in the public domain. He specifically said:
Note that the judge does not explicitly say that V32 is in the public domain, just that he thinks USL would have had a hard time proving that it isn't. It never actually got decided in court because of the settlement. I agree that if the matter ever did go to court again, the decision would be that V32 is in the public domain.
Not that it's a problem because Caldera released the V32 code under a BSD license last year.
He did say it back in 1981. It wasn't Microsoft's fault because it's a flow-on effect from the IBM PC design, though MS-DOS could have conceivably worked around it, but he's still an idiot for saying it.
Chuck D is an amazing person. I've been listening to Public Enemy for years and I really enjoy their music. But it wasn't until the head to head between Lars and Chuck D that I realised what an intelligent person Chuck D is. It's not just because I agree with what he says - though I admit that does bias me - but it's clear that he is thoughtful and intelligent. I don't normally have respect for artists who express their opinions because, face it, most artists are braindead morons who couldn't tie their own shoelaces without an instruction manual. But I soon found myself looking for more and more writings by Chuck D. The man is brilliant.
I don't see the difference. Ford was repackaging somebody elses intellectual property; namely a patent he didn't own and hadn't licensed. The fact that the patent was eventually declared bogus is immaterial because Ford was infringing the patent before the courts overturned the patent. How is this any different to the current state of affairs with people willingly infringing copyrights and muttering about the bogosity of music copyright? There is the potential, however unlikely, of modern copyright being declared invalid or at least being made more reasonable. Not that I'm holding my breath.
I reckon I deserve props for using the word "bogosity" in an otherwise serious sentence.
The company can easily instruct the affiliates not to use spamming services. I've seen an affiliate contract. There are 100s of rules about what the affiliate can and cannot do. It'd be trivial to add another rule saying "advertising through spam will result in termination of the affiliation". If the company chooses not to put this rule into the contract then they're not innocent.
"Ridiculous" would be even better.
I wonder if spelling mistakes can be used to trace an accent? I quite often screwup "seperate" with "separate", I think because of my own accent. Does "rediculous" - which is incredibly common on /. - indicate a southern style American drawl?
SGI also said that the 200 lines were already in the public domain. They're probably referring to the free Ancient UNIX sources (which is BSD licensed, not public domain, but anyway). SCO released the Ancient UNIX code base under a BSD license in 2001. The code showed at SCOForum was part of this release. SGI has every right to use that code. I think SGI is bending over backwards here to prove that even though they have a right to that code, they are willing to assist SCO in removing infringements. SCO is not helping them. This will prove useful to SGI during any future court cases. SGI is showing good faith. SCO is showing bad faith.
Shrug. Even if there are, SCO's claims for recompensation have to be reasonable. SGI is saying there are 200 of disputable origin from 1,000,000s of lines of code. It is unreasonable for SCO to claim that their 200 lines is more important than the copyrights of 1000s of other developers across 1,000,000s of lines of code.
This is why we have judges. A judge will try their best to produce a fair outcome. If the 200 lines of code are so damn important that Linux couldn't survive without them, then maybe SCO has a justification to charge $699. But SGI has said the 200 lines are trivial, unimportant, and have been REMOVED from 2.4.22 without affecting Linux functionality. How much monetary compensation do you think a judge will award? I suspect not much, if anything.
So Darl might still face fraud charges. His actions to fix the problem need to be reasonable. If you're a landlord and your tenant is a day late with their rent, you aren't allowed to possess their car, or abduct their children, or kill their pets. SCO is making threats against IBM and SGI that are excessive given current knowledge of what the infringement might be. If SCO is doing this in full knowledge that actual damages might be very small, then fraud is definitely on the cards.