Do car dealerships have a sign on the door that says "Here's a car, you can have it for free, but we'd like you to give us some cash for it please". Of course not, and that's why Free Software will fail, but then there's the Open Source movement which seems to have a much better chance as the happy medium between the corperate society and communistic FSF movement.
Your example makes intuitive sense, yet more and better Free software is written every year. "Free software will fail"? I guess I must be wearing rose-colored glasses. Last time I checked Free software was improving dramatically. I seem to be typing this on a Free system, doing everything I want to do with a computer, including running a web server, a DNS server, a mail server, mailing lists, development, revision system, encryption, and hundreds of other things. How much would that cost on your proprietary system? Would I be able to afford it? The thing that drives people like you nuts, is that Free software can't be "destroyed" in the same way that a rival company can. It can't be bought out, because it isn't for sale. The only people this seems to bother are the capitalist extremists.
Communism in which the common man acts with regards to the community as a whole and not the individualistic gain of the self, is not our system. While it seems nice, cozy, and utopic, its not here and my magic 8-ball says that all possibilities point to no. Write all the papers and essays you want, but I'll stick to what works and what works is propritary software.
Free software is indeed like communism. The few can't deprive the many in this case (and I say this as a believer in capitalism). If proprietary software works for you, go for it. Just don't expect me to accept it for myself when I can do the same things for free, and with the freedom to make derivative works.
Should this be a wake-up call to never use Visual C++ unless you have a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft (obviously not for Free Software projects)?
How about just don't use proprietary tools if you can't be 100% sure that you're safe? Since you're asking, you're not sure, and no one here is going to be able to answer your question. If you want to know the real answer, spend the $200 to consult with a lawyer who specializes in copyright, or just use Free software.
Reminds me of the line: "If you had let the government come up with the cure to Polio, you'd have the best iron lung in the world but you'd be no closer to a vaccine."
That's funny, because I know more than a little bit about the economics of drug companies (having seen plenty of presentations by people that work at them on their economics and business strategies while in a class based on creating a drug industry business plan). Turns out, drug companies nearly always prefer drugs that treat, but not cure, disease. This gives them a nice long steady stream of revenue.
People funded by the NIH, on the other hand, choose their research based on what is interesting and rewarding for them and likely to get continued funding.
Personally, I think you need both, but a lot of the fundamental research that leads to cures and not just revenue-generating treatments comes from government funding, not private industry.
Personally, I agree with you, and even after having read the case law and the law reviews on this, I still agree that yours is the correct interpretation. But unfortunately, we are wrong in the sense that no court would agree with us.
My other law friend sent me a copy of
17 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 475 (2002)
Business Law: Contractual Assent and Enforceability in Cyberspace
which is a summary piece on "clickwrap" and "browsewrap" licenses, probably written by a law student. They summarize the case law and conclude that click-wrap license will almost certainly be upheld. However, there is a ray of hope in that certain clauses from these licenses may be struck down, especially the ones that contradict copyright law (such of first sale doctrine):
CONCLUSION
Courts possess effective methods for striking or modifying terms within online license agreements. These methods should prove increasingly important because courts will likely enforce clickwrap licenses. Even if the court finds that the consumer assents to the clickwrap agreement, the court should utilize the unconscionability doctrine, consumer protection statutes, and federal preemption to strike unfair terms of the license.
Many consumer protection statutes explicitly address "unconscionable" contract provisions, while others contain a range of mandatory standards for fair trade practices. n149 Courts may rely on such laws as alternatives or supplements to the common law unconscionability doctrine. In addition, courts may conclude that federal preemption of contractual terms is necessary, given the ubiquity of shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses, and their potential to radically alter the balance of rights codified in federal intellectual property laws. n150 Finally, courts should increasingly find that a vendor's "license" of goods actually represents a disguised sale of goods. n151 If vendors "sell" their products, courts will likely preempt terms that contradict "first sale" rights under the Copyright Act. The preemption and striking of terms within online licenses should maintain the integrity of federal intellectual property law, consumer protection law, and traditional ideals of good faith and fair dealing.
Patents and copyrights are good and usefull, but whenever people think in terms of then as "property" they almost inevitably either come to the false concusion that the law treats them the same, or they know the law and come to the conclusion that the law is broken because it doesn't treat them the same.
I haven't gone into detail with my lawyer friend on this topic, but I got the impression from him that copyrights and patents are treated the same as physical property in the eyes of the law, at least of far as "ownership" of them is concerned. Of course, when it comes to punishment for violating these "properties", the rules are different... so it depends on the context. In corporate-speak, when they say they own certain intellectual property with a certain value, that is pretty accurate. When they talk about people "stealing" their intellectual property, it's not.
P.S. I emailed by lawyer friend about your thought-crime proposal. Hopefully he's not sick of my stupid questions already...
Oh, here's another one Slashdotters can't seem to get right: EULAs are binding if they are a valid contract.
PROCD v. ZEIDENBERG
Ironically, I found this ruling on a site saying that this ruling was "DIfferent case showing how shrink wrap licenses are not binding":
First Sale and U.S. Copyrights
In addition to that, a different college friend of mine who is now a lawyer was interested in the question, and did a case law search. The result was the same: EULAs are legally binding contracts, especially if you have to "click-through" the license agreement to make the program run. It may be critical that the person agreeing to the EULA "contract" makes some "affirmative action" to signify agreement. The "Click OK to agree" button is such an affirmative action.
Here is another example of EULAs being upheld,
Here is an analysis done by a non-lawyer but it has a lot of good cases. He says: "So, are clickwraps legal? It must be clear by now that the answer is 'it depends'". However, if you pay attention, you will see that all the cases he cites where the licensee took some "affirmative action", the license was upheld, as long as it was a valid contract. The real answer to the question is: "yes".
I should put up a Slashdotters are idiots who don't know what they're talking about page for all the people who don't even do a Google search before making up legal shit like they're experts.
He claims to have consulted with several lawyers, it adds credibility.
I'll bet his lawyer friends weren't IP lawyers. The difference is like the difference between a heart surgeon and a general practitioner. It will certainly be interesting if I'm totally wrong about this though... from my interactions with my lawyer friend, it seems like everything I thought about the law was upside-down.
Could you run another item by your IP lawyer friend? The DMCA makes it a crime to circumvent access controls by descrambling DRM. Any DRM that can be descrambled by a program can also be descrambled by a person doing nothing more than THINKING through the steps of the program and calculating mentally. Is there any reason they couldn't put me in prison for staring at a DRM'd e-book and reading the text in this manner? Doesn't that make the DMCA unconstitutional for creating thoughtcrime?
He's no fan of the DMCA, I can tell you that. In fact, he agrees with the majority opinion on Slashdot that all this stuff is the dying gasps of a soon to be dead industry. However, they have a lot stronger case under the law than almost anyone on this message board understands.
Your question is easy enough one that I can answer it (I think)... What you describe would actually fall under the civil remedies section of the DMCA. For you to be fined under this provision, the book publisher (or someone who was harmed by your action) would have to show with a preponderance of the evidence that you had in fact read their book by descrambling the DRM in your mind. If they can show this, I would guess they would win some damages. It's not really any crazier than the laws that say the government can take all your property if they find drugs on it, without having to prove that you put the drugs there.
I have asked him about the paradox that the DMCA makes it impossible to legally view copyright works that have fallen into the public domain. The legal answer (at least until a court rules differently) is: too bad.
He's actually more worried about the expanding power of contract law than copyright law. Things like software licenses and a lot of other things have taken contract law much further than before, apparently. At least there are some people in the government trying to keep some kind of sane limits on contract law: there was a case recently in New York where the Attorney General of New York sued Network Associates for a clause in their EULA saying users couldn't review the product without permission. Network Associates lost, but unfortunately it appears to be on a technicality (read the ruling to see what I'm talking about):
New York v. Network Associates decision
P.S. I wasn't saying that you (Alsee) are clueless, I was referring to the general Slashdot crowd. The fact that you have even looked at Title 17 puts you over 95% of the posters here.
I have talked about many similar issues with a friend of mine who is a lawyer specializing in IP. It is fascinating just how clueless the Slashdot crowd is when it comes to patent and copyright issues. The only rights to fair use are those that are consistent with the 4 points mentioned elsewhere, and a few very specific exceptions such as you are mentioning. Any other case would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by a judge who is going to use "good faith" and "intent", along with precendent, as their guide. None of those things are even close to allowing Cringely's proposal. For example, as I understand it, the "right" to transfer your CD to mp3 is not codified specifically in Title 17 (as computer software backups are), it is instead an assumption of "fair use", which would be easy to defend in court using the 4 points. However, if you're going to go into court and argue that Cringely's plan is "fair use", I can promise that you'll get slapped down so hard and fast your head will spin.
Recently, I had to reinstall the box, and forgot to replace her shortcut, and guess what... She said "My interet is gone". So what you say is true, but it doesn't just apply to IE.
When my girlfriend had to get used to my machine, she hated Mozilla (she was using AOL prior to that). Now, whenever she has to use someone elses machine, she gets annoyed and wants to know how to make windows come up in the background with the third button, or why there are popups, and so on. She has trouble believing that Mozilla can do all kinds of things that IE can't.
AOL shut down all her browser windows when she disconnected (even if it was a line failure). Now she gets pissed off at me if I reboot once a week because her 12 Mozilla tabs get shut.
For non-technical users, it's just whatever they're used to. They will notice missing features though! She also gets annoyed when OpenOffice can't do something that Wordperfect could.
Hmm... I am also writing code that will probably be used "in the real world", but I see the GPL differently. As I see it, the GPL allows me to "publish" my code, yet anyone who wants to make money with it by basing proprietary software on it will have to come to me (more like my university) for a license to do that.
Are you making significant money from your code copyright? I would be surprised if more than a tiny fraction of CS grad students make a lot of money from copyright on their code, but then again I'm an engineer, so I wouldn't really know.
I know that grants make all intellectual property revenues look like chump change in my department. One exception would be professors who write a commonly-used textbook.
Considering the economic hit that the students are taking it seems only fair that they keep at least copyright on their work.
What in the world are you talking about? I am a published graduate student, and I have never heard of such a thing. Please post a citation of a peer-reviewed publication you still retain copyright to.
I'm not aware of any case where Microsoft or any other big company is trying to shutdown an Open Source project using patent laws.
Here are a few. While it may not seem like much, the patents that are currently being pursued (such as Microsoft's patents on "digital rights management"), have the potential to completely lock free software out of the "normal" internet.
I assumed that would be the case, since they're basically just underpowered PCs anyway. I have played with the low-end 8-bit microcontrollers (Motorola HC11, PICs, etc), and those are pretty cheap, but much less powerful. I guess whether or not I would get excited about eCos depends on how expensive the target controller boards are. If they're reasonable (< $50), I could do some fun things with them.
You're right. This is like a policeman following you everywhere you go, all the time. Is that legal in Britain? At least pre-9/11, that would require a warrant in the US.
During our final presentation last week in a CS class, a fellow was trying to explain to the teacher why his entire presentation featured scrunched up, barely legible text.
A student in kinetics class giving his final presentation yesterday had to write equations on the board because Powerpoint is not compatible between the Mac and PC version. It is difficult to verify that the presentations will look right because the prof wants us to send him the Powerpoint files via email the morning of the talk. I have seen similar problems with OpenOffice. My conclusion is that neither OpenOffice nor Microsoft Office is ready for prime time.
My script is doing this, but it has a flaw: it is difficult to delete or move folders. I just use a tree-walker to make sure that all the branches at each level of the bookmarks tree match. If a folder is in one bookmarks but not in the other, it copies the folder to the one missing it, and likewise with bookmarks. This requires no intervention because the assumption is always to add missing branches.
This is OK most of the time since most of what I do is add folders and bookmarks, and much less often move them around or delete them. To move or delete I have to do the operations on one bookmarks file and then overwrite the others.
If anyone is interested, my script is based on one by Jeremy Buchmann available here.
It is possible but certainly not trivial to implement a transaction system that will allow you to merge bookmark trees with a common ancestor. You could then assume that the transaction (like "delete the folder art/noses") with the most recent time would take precedence. Integrating something like this into Mozilla would really be sweet.
What happens if you make changes on client A, forget to sync, then make changes on client B? That seems to me like a likely thing to happen unless the sync is either automatic or you are very reliable about remembering to do it (I am not).
I wrote a crude script that will sync bookmarks A and B, but it's not release quality. A really nice GUI version of that is needed.
I haven't found a single good solution. I use a combination approach:
For daily work, I use CVS. This is nice because I can access it at home or work or laptop, and backup is not needed if you don't care about revision history.
rsync over ssh
afio using bzip2 with 100k blocks. With tar -cz, if you have a single bad bit, the whole archive is bad. You're screwed. With the afio approach, you lose the file where the corruption occurred, and if you're lucky, you only lose the 100k block where the corruption occurred.
Slashdot Mirror
People funded by the NIH, on the other hand, choose their research based on what is interesting and rewarding for them and likely to get continued funding.
Personally, I think you need both, but a lot of the fundamental research that leads to cures and not just revenue-generating treatments comes from government funding, not private industry.
My other law friend sent me a copy of 17 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 475 (2002)
Business Law: Contractual Assent and Enforceability in Cyberspace
which is a summary piece on "clickwrap" and "browsewrap" licenses, probably written by a law student. They summarize the case law and conclude that click-wrap license will almost certainly be upheld. However, there is a ray of hope in that certain clauses from these licenses may be struck down, especially the ones that contradict copyright law (such of first sale doctrine):
CONCLUSION
Courts possess effective methods for striking or modifying terms within online license agreements. These methods should prove increasingly important because courts will likely enforce clickwrap licenses. Even if the court finds that the consumer assents to the clickwrap agreement, the court should utilize the unconscionability doctrine, consumer protection statutes, and federal preemption to strike unfair terms of the license. Many consumer protection statutes explicitly address "unconscionable" contract provisions, while others contain a range of mandatory standards for fair trade practices. n149 Courts may rely on such laws as alternatives or supplements to the common law unconscionability doctrine. In addition, courts may conclude that federal preemption of contractual terms is necessary, given the ubiquity of shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses, and their potential to radically alter the balance of rights codified in federal intellectual property laws. n150 Finally, courts should increasingly find that a vendor's "license" of goods actually represents a disguised sale of goods. n151 If vendors "sell" their products, courts will likely preempt terms that contradict "first sale" rights under the Copyright Act. The preemption and striking of terms within online licenses should maintain the integrity of federal intellectual property law, consumer protection law, and traditional ideals of good faith and fair dealing.
I haven't gone into detail with my lawyer friend on this topic, but I got the impression from him that copyrights and patents are treated the same as physical property in the eyes of the law, at least of far as "ownership" of them is concerned. Of course, when it comes to punishment for violating these "properties", the rules are different... so it depends on the context. In corporate-speak, when they say they own certain intellectual property with a certain value, that is pretty accurate. When they talk about people "stealing" their intellectual property, it's not.
P.S. I emailed by lawyer friend about your thought-crime proposal. Hopefully he's not sick of my stupid questions already...
Ironically, I found this ruling on a site saying that this ruling was "DIfferent case showing how shrink wrap licenses are not binding": First Sale and U.S. Copyrights
In addition to that, a different college friend of mine who is now a lawyer was interested in the question, and did a case law search. The result was the same: EULAs are legally binding contracts, especially if you have to "click-through" the license agreement to make the program run. It may be critical that the person agreeing to the EULA "contract" makes some "affirmative action" to signify agreement. The "Click OK to agree" button is such an affirmative action.
Here is another example of EULAs being upheld, Here is an analysis done by a non-lawyer but it has a lot of good cases. He says: "So, are clickwraps legal? It must be clear by now that the answer is 'it depends'". However, if you pay attention, you will see that all the cases he cites where the licensee took some "affirmative action", the license was upheld, as long as it was a valid contract. The real answer to the question is: "yes".
I should put up a Slashdotters are idiots who don't know what they're talking about page for all the people who don't even do a Google search before making up legal shit like they're experts.
I'll bet his lawyer friends weren't IP lawyers. The difference is like the difference between a heart surgeon and a general practitioner. It will certainly be interesting if I'm totally wrong about this though... from my interactions with my lawyer friend, it seems like everything I thought about the law was upside-down.
He's no fan of the DMCA, I can tell you that. In fact, he agrees with the majority opinion on Slashdot that all this stuff is the dying gasps of a soon to be dead industry. However, they have a lot stronger case under the law than almost anyone on this message board understands.
Your question is easy enough one that I can answer it (I think)... What you describe would actually fall under the civil remedies section of the DMCA. For you to be fined under this provision, the book publisher (or someone who was harmed by your action) would have to show with a preponderance of the evidence that you had in fact read their book by descrambling the DRM in your mind. If they can show this, I would guess they would win some damages. It's not really any crazier than the laws that say the government can take all your property if they find drugs on it, without having to prove that you put the drugs there.
I have asked him about the paradox that the DMCA makes it impossible to legally view copyright works that have fallen into the public domain. The legal answer (at least until a court rules differently) is: too bad.
He's actually more worried about the expanding power of contract law than copyright law. Things like software licenses and a lot of other things have taken contract law much further than before, apparently. At least there are some people in the government trying to keep some kind of sane limits on contract law: there was a case recently in New York where the Attorney General of New York sued Network Associates for a clause in their EULA saying users couldn't review the product without permission. Network Associates lost, but unfortunately it appears to be on a technicality (read the ruling to see what I'm talking about): New York v. Network Associates decision
P.S. I wasn't saying that you (Alsee) are clueless, I was referring to the general Slashdot crowd. The fact that you have even looked at Title 17 puts you over 95% of the posters here.
I have talked about many similar issues with a friend of mine who is a lawyer specializing in IP. It is fascinating just how clueless the Slashdot crowd is when it comes to patent and copyright issues. The only rights to fair use are those that are consistent with the 4 points mentioned elsewhere, and a few very specific exceptions such as you are mentioning. Any other case would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by a judge who is going to use "good faith" and "intent", along with precendent, as their guide. None of those things are even close to allowing Cringely's proposal. For example, as I understand it, the "right" to transfer your CD to mp3 is not codified specifically in Title 17 (as computer software backups are), it is instead an assumption of "fair use", which would be easy to defend in court using the 4 points. However, if you're going to go into court and argue that Cringely's plan is "fair use", I can promise that you'll get slapped down so hard and fast your head will spin.
How much does that cost?
When my girlfriend had to get used to my machine, she hated Mozilla (she was using AOL prior to that). Now, whenever she has to use someone elses machine, she gets annoyed and wants to know how to make windows come up in the background with the third button, or why there are popups, and so on. She has trouble believing that Mozilla can do all kinds of things that IE can't.
AOL shut down all her browser windows when she disconnected (even if it was a line failure). Now she gets pissed off at me if I reboot once a week because her 12 Mozilla tabs get shut.
For non-technical users, it's just whatever they're used to. They will notice missing features though! She also gets annoyed when OpenOffice can't do something that Wordperfect could.
Hmm... I am also writing code that will probably be used "in the real world", but I see the GPL differently. As I see it, the GPL allows me to "publish" my code, yet anyone who wants to make money with it by basing proprietary software on it will have to come to me (more like my university) for a license to do that.
Are you making significant money from your code copyright? I would be surprised if more than a tiny fraction of CS grad students make a lot of money from copyright on their code, but then again I'm an engineer, so I wouldn't really know.
I know that grants make all intellectual property revenues look like chump change in my department. One exception would be professors who write a commonly-used textbook.
I assumed that would be the case, since they're basically just underpowered PCs anyway. I have played with the low-end 8-bit microcontrollers (Motorola HC11, PICs, etc), and those are pretty cheap, but much less powerful. I guess whether or not I would get excited about eCos depends on how expensive the target controller boards are. If they're reasonable (< $50), I could do some fun things with them.
As a non-professional, where can I find low-cost boards that will run this system, and how much do they cost?
You're right. This is like a policeman following you everywhere you go, all the time. Is that legal in Britain? At least pre-9/11, that would require a warrant in the US.
...with the Slashdot anti-lameness filters.
A student in kinetics class giving his final presentation yesterday had to write equations on the board because Powerpoint is not compatible between the Mac and PC version. It is difficult to verify that the presentations will look right because the prof wants us to send him the Powerpoint files via email the morning of the talk. I have seen similar problems with OpenOffice. My conclusion is that neither OpenOffice nor Microsoft Office is ready for prime time.
What does that do?
This is OK most of the time since most of what I do is add folders and bookmarks, and much less often move them around or delete them. To move or delete I have to do the operations on one bookmarks file and then overwrite the others.
If anyone is interested, my script is based on one by Jeremy Buchmann available here.
It is possible but certainly not trivial to implement a transaction system that will allow you to merge bookmark trees with a common ancestor. You could then assume that the transaction (like "delete the folder art/noses") with the most recent time would take precedence. Integrating something like this into Mozilla would really be sweet.
What happens if you make changes on client A, forget to sync, then make changes on client B? That seems to me like a likely thing to happen unless the sync is either automatic or you are very reliable about remembering to do it (I am not).
I wrote a crude script that will sync bookmarks A and B, but it's not release quality. A really nice GUI version of that is needed.
Links please?
For daily work, I use CVS. This is nice because I can access it at home or work or laptop, and backup is not needed if you don't care about revision history.
rsync over ssh
afio using bzip2 with 100k blocks. With tar -cz, if you have a single bad bit, the whole archive is bad. You're screwed. With the afio approach, you lose the file where the corruption occurred, and if you're lucky, you only lose the 100k block where the corruption occurred.
Rubberhose is non-free. If you want an alpha-quality steganographic filesystem that also doesn't work on 2.4 kernels, check out StegFS