Okay, your license covers inclusion, but doesn't the GPL explicitely prohibit the inclusion of non-GPL software? Please don't flame me, I'm really trying to understand here.
both sides, Microsoft and the Fortune 500 purchasing agents. In both cases, those two players can't see the forest (the reasons for buying software) because of the trees (cost).
I am not an IT professional. I am a design engineer. I wonder why are we getting in the mode of buying software because it's cheaper, regardless of whether it performs better for those using it? As an employee of one of the top 100 in the Fortune 500 companies, I have not seen any major OS features and only a few Office Features that offer any reason to upgrade.
I must carefully select what software I want upgraded on my computer (right now I am given a choice), because my daily job does not allow me to spend too much time relearning what I can already do with what I've got. Upgrades had better *significantly* improve the ease of use for me, or else the time to retrain myself to do daily tasks ends up far more expensive than the time saved using minor feature updates.
Frankly, the security of the system does concern me, and an *upgrade* of the Win95 system I am using to at least approach the security of most UN*ces might offer some financial/competitive benefit for the company on par with what our engineering teams deliver, but how will that benefit compare to the lost timing in upgrading my operational skills? What, exactly, does Win2k or XP offer that will offset the slowdown of my machine (let's face it, hardware upgrades are not always realized as often as software upgrades)?
I admit, it would take some real effort on a company's part to answer those questions. More often than not, the questions are simply not asked. More often than that, new questions are asked later (by upper management, the same ones who signed off on the software *upgrades*) along the lines of "Why has our productivity gone down so much this year? I want answers, and I want them now." Thus the viscious cycle continues...
I'm not a right winger, or a left winger. I'm somewhere in betweener.
There is a country today that has no single governing body, and yet it is recognized as a single nation still. This country is in Africa, and it's name is Somalia.
Child mortality rate is unknown, but is estimated to be several thousand percent worse than it's closest competitor.
The grass isn't greener there: it's mostly a desert with a few lush regions near it's limited number of waterways.
There are no taxes.
There are no government health programs. Hell, there isn't a recognizable health program at all (except for the field medics in each of the local warlord's entourages).
Business is great (according to the business owners quoted in a recent Detroit newspaper).
Business expenses include paying local warlords or mercenaries for protection.
There is no gun control. Anyone can own a gun. If you don't, well, there isn't much of a backup plan.
Drugs were (are they still today?) the major cash resource. Great place for computer hacking stoners.
There is a college in the Capital. Not sure if any brave souls still operate it (it was heavily damaged from mortar fire when I was there). However, this is a moot point if they have not rebuilt any of the grade schools leveled by mortar fire prior to the NATO peacekeeping force (please tell me if you went to that college recently on a foreign exchange program).
Don't go digging up the land. You won't like what you find.
I could go on, but I'm not sure how anything else compares to the above. After all, many of the issues above were discussed in the US's recent elections. About 60% or so of the US population proved they did not want to be like Somalia by casting their votes. Does that mean the remaining 40% do? If you are part of the later 40% and have useful skills to aid the Somalians, are you planning on moving there anytime soon?
As much as I detest the current EULA's, no one has offered anything better. I do not understand why someone has not created a EULA that gives the ownerships and rights people are requesting. Sure, it's a significant gamble on the part of the releasing authority, but no more so than what a civil engineer or commercial aircraft engineer has to worry about when they release a product.
The competitive advantage such a license would give someone like Corel might turn out to be similar to the growth in acceptance of the GPL (I am NOT equating the two, just a statistic that would be shared by the two)! They can take an existing product, such as WordPerfect, attach a new EULA (a suggestion for Corel: make it much more open to aid in the debugging process) that applies to those who purchase a service agreement. I don't think any changeover would be immediate, but it sure would get the attention of the businesses who require that level of support. I'm betting the effect on Word and other word processor software would be profound.
Is it really this easy for Microsoft to assimilate even as intelligent (albeit less paranoid than I) a crowd as slashdot?
Who really wants or needs the MS standard? I believe they realized right away what a mistake they made when they altered the standard. There are other choices for encryption, there are other models to use to get around the requirement, and there is no practical value to what they have done. Sure, some admins may have Kerberos in place with Unix and would like to link Samba using Kerberos, but how many?
No, if MS wants to see acceptance of a standard in the IT environment, they need SOMEONE ELSE to implement that standard for them. That strategy would be blatantly obvious if they simply released their (un)standard, so they released it a way that appealed most strongly to those who want to take away MS's power over their IT lives. Now someone will go and implement the MS (un)standard on SAMBA, MS will have another publicity target to say someone stole their Trade Secret, and many IT professionals will find it easier to implement Win2000 into their Kerberos-encrypted networks.
One other thought: Could this be used, much like the deCSS suits, to stop distribution of SAMBA as a tool of piracy if tried in the same (clueless) court in California?
Min. Requirements: 64M RAM, 450MHz Pentium, 65k bugs, 500 Meg install, 2 Month waits for security patches, paying an extra $105 per system, and a daily revision of world-wide standards. Modern innovation delivered to the masses.
This posting looks remarkably familiar. I'm struggling through with my slow modem connection to find the posting in a previous Slashdot discussion. I seem to recall an argument where the GPL was being enforced on a renegade trying to release binary patches to the Quake code NOT under the GPL. Help, someone with a faster connection? Ron Gaw
One more time: This is an ideal way to deal with our issues, but it still misses in many, many ways. Your response also indicates a belief that the big money always wins. That fear in itself is an incredible weapon, and I think you are using it too much to the detraction of the OS community.
Here is some reality: Many large, money laden corporations, such as the one I work for, patent everything they can. Oftentimes, they take these patents and use them to "barter" for other patents. Very seldom do brick and mortar companies now use these against each other to stop the other: They are simply used as bargaining points to gain access to the other company's patents. Patents are paper gold. They serve little purpose other than to defend a person's ability to use an idea, no matter what they were intended to do. Many companies outside of software use them to defend themselves against suite for producing an idea, not to stop another. Stopping another is only a temporary solution, as there is little to deter another company from creating their own derivative or similar work, reinvent the patent (with enough resources), and go to work anyway. Disclosure offers little help in this area. Seldom does the end user care how a company developed their products anyway!
In truth, the software companies of today are VERY immature, albeit powerful and money laden. It may take them 20 years or more from now to learn the lessons of trading patents. How long did it take aviation to learn those rules? Or automotive? You should not read this note and simply believe me. You need to look at history and what repeats. Then you might believe.
Disclosure gives us nothing to trade. Period. We have no furs, no corn, no money (for the most part), nor anything else to trade. What we have is an incredible capacity for ideas, wanting to be shared, but hindered by those who want to make money off those ideas. We are not "evil" for getting patents. We are building equity in the community.
Please, please stick to your ideals. They are certainly worthwhile and useful. But don't be afraid to look at them deeper and understand what you are arguing for or against. There are obviously lawyers who follow our cause (look to many recent DeCSS and other slashdot items for the proof) and support us. Patents cost companies money because they must retain lawyers. I seriously doubt there are not a few patent lawyers who would not volunteer their time for a good cause.
I almost agree, but there are serious assumptions you make that are not realistic:
Disclosure does NOT protect against derivative works. What method do you propose to protect someone from disclosing their brilliant idea, then having a commercial business patent ideas derived from the disclosure with particular application? Let's say someone patents 1-Click technology, an obvious spin-off of "tabs". How are people protected from this?
How does the community get access to existing patents? What mechanism is there to drive commercial companies to submit their patents, thus protecting the community, when it means a newer competitor can simply use that idea and do it cheaper? Here, open disclosure is only a one-way street, and offers NOTHING TO THE COMMUNITY beyond the initial donation.
What immediate tool do we have to combat the worst of these patents? Whether you agree with the philosophy or not, if you don't arm the community now within existing law, there are many who will change simple standards, patent the changes, then make these the new standards. Don't be blind to reality. Face it, and find it's weaknesses.
I agree with the ideas in your comments. You just haven't offered any methods of making them useful beyond the initial idea donation. Ron
Like so many, my frustrations grow every day with stories like this. I do not directly blame Amazon, considering what they are facing. My frustration stems not just from what Amazon is doing (and feels they justifiably need to do), but also from the lack of effort to turn the "Open Source" philosophy into a defendable method.
Why is it so hard to imagine "Open Source" patents along the lines of the GPL? I do not need to ask how hard it is to create a GPL'd repository of patents, because we all know it will be difficult. However, if we do not do this, it will not be long before open source is a thing of the past. This is not a prediction, it is a fact. How many more patents can software companies get on their code or algorithms or even business models before the open source community sees the light?
On the other hand, with an "Open Source", GPL'd repository of patents, we will have the same group of tools to use with commercial companies in trades for use of their patents. This is EXACTLY why they patent in the first place! What makes us different today? How can we make a difference tomorrow?
Does anyone in the U.S., or the world for that matter, really believe we are going to change the patent system in time to save us? I am not counting on it, not because I think the government is corrupt and never would, but because I think the government is of and by the people, who do not seem to understand what is going on until it is too late. We need to take action now, and allow time and history to aid us in the greater battle.
I welcome reply comments directly to me on this, because I want to better understand all the sides. Email me at ronmlgaw@umich.edu if you have additional comments. Tim, I invite you to discuss this further, as your voice is heard far and wide and will certainly garner significant input in a more timely manner.
We are limiting our response to the MPAA in far too narrow of a spectrum. Most of the complaints are here on Slashdot. There has been limited press coverage to suppliment the efforts of the EFF. A choice few have mentioned writing congressman (which, unrealistically, many people feel will be ineffective since all politicians are in on this. My guess is congress is just clueless ATPIT).
In order for the message to reach the common viewer, we need to convince hollywood's own employees, the acters and actresses. Generally speaking, this is a very diversified group of people. We are far more likely to find well known, well spoken individuals here who are willing to speak out against this both inside their industry and, more importantly, to the outside world where the common man will listen.
I wish I had a list of celebrity emails or addresses. However, I'm guessing that such information IS available, and if used judiciously, stands a good chance of getting non-techno representatives to defeat these ridiculus, restrictive agreements.
I'm getting pictures of Sandra Bullock speaking to E! and telling them how the Net is becoming a reality....
Perhaps we need to aid the defense in constructive ways. Let's use our resources to put a presentation of DVD copying without decrypting, then play the copied DVD on a DVD player. If we can do this, then the judge may begin to understand that DeCSS is NOT necessary in the way the plaintiff's are claiming.
There may be some significant opportunities here for us to create visual clues to aid the judge in understanding, unlike the 1000 words the plaintiffs are using to confuse the judge.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, your license covers inclusion, but doesn't the GPL explicitely prohibit the inclusion of non-GPL software? Please don't flame me, I'm really trying to understand here.
both sides, Microsoft and the Fortune 500 purchasing agents. In both cases, those two players can't see the forest (the reasons for buying software) because of the trees (cost).
I am not an IT professional. I am a design engineer. I wonder why are we getting in the mode of buying software because it's cheaper, regardless of whether it performs better for those using it? As an employee of one of the top 100 in the Fortune 500 companies, I have not seen any major OS features and only a few Office Features that offer any reason to upgrade.
I must carefully select what software I want upgraded on my computer (right now I am given a choice), because my daily job does not allow me to spend too much time relearning what I can already do with what I've got. Upgrades had better *significantly* improve the ease of use for me, or else the time to retrain myself to do daily tasks ends up far more expensive than the time saved using minor feature updates.
Frankly, the security of the system does concern me, and an *upgrade* of the Win95 system I am using to at least approach the security of most UN*ces might offer some financial/competitive benefit for the company on par with what our engineering teams deliver, but how will that benefit compare to the lost timing in upgrading my operational skills? What, exactly, does Win2k or XP offer that will offset the slowdown of my machine (let's face it, hardware upgrades are not always realized as often as software upgrades)?
I admit, it would take some real effort on a company's part to answer those questions. More often than not, the questions are simply not asked. More often than that, new questions are asked later (by upper management, the same ones who signed off on the software *upgrades*) along the lines of "Why has our productivity gone down so much this year? I want answers, and I want them now." Thus the viscious cycle continues...
I'm not a right winger, or a left winger. I'm somewhere in betweener.
There is a country today that has no single governing body, and yet it is recognized as a single nation still. This country is in Africa, and it's name is Somalia.
Child mortality rate is unknown, but is estimated to be several thousand percent worse than it's closest competitor.
The grass isn't greener there: it's mostly a desert with a few lush regions near it's limited number of waterways.
There are no taxes.
There are no government health programs. Hell, there isn't a recognizable health program at all (except for the field medics in each of the local warlord's entourages).
Business is great (according to the business owners quoted in a recent Detroit newspaper).
Business expenses include paying local warlords or mercenaries for protection.
There is no gun control. Anyone can own a gun. If you don't, well, there isn't much of a backup plan.
Drugs were (are they still today?) the major cash resource. Great place for computer hacking stoners.
There is a college in the Capital. Not sure if any brave souls still operate it (it was heavily damaged from mortar fire when I was there). However, this is a moot point if they have not rebuilt any of the grade schools leveled by mortar fire prior to the NATO peacekeeping force (please tell me if you went to that college recently on a foreign exchange program).
Don't go digging up the land. You won't like what you find.
I could go on, but I'm not sure how anything else compares to the above. After all, many of the issues above were discussed in the US's recent elections. About 60% or so of the US population proved they did not want to be like Somalia by casting their votes. Does that mean the remaining 40% do? If you are part of the later 40% and have useful skills to aid the Somalians, are you planning on moving there anytime soon?
As much as I detest the current EULA's, no one has offered anything better. I do not understand why someone has not created a EULA that gives the ownerships and rights people are requesting. Sure, it's a significant gamble on the part of the releasing authority, but no more so than what a civil engineer or commercial aircraft engineer has to worry about when they release a product.
The competitive advantage such a license would give someone like Corel might turn out to be similar to the growth in acceptance of the GPL (I am NOT equating the two, just a statistic that would be shared by the two)! They can take an existing product, such as WordPerfect, attach a new EULA (a suggestion for Corel: make it much more open to aid in the debugging process) that applies to those who purchase a service agreement. I don't think any changeover would be immediate, but it sure would get the attention of the businesses who require that level of support. I'm betting the effect on Word and other word processor software would be profound.
Is it really this easy for Microsoft to assimilate even as intelligent (albeit less paranoid than I) a crowd as slashdot?
Who really wants or needs the MS standard? I believe they realized right away what a mistake they made when they altered the standard. There are other choices for encryption, there are other models to use to get around the requirement, and there is no practical value to what they have done. Sure, some admins may have Kerberos in place with Unix and would like to link Samba using Kerberos, but how many?
No, if MS wants to see acceptance of a standard in the IT environment, they need SOMEONE ELSE to implement that standard for them. That strategy would be blatantly obvious if they simply released their (un)standard, so they released it a way that appealed most strongly to those who want to take away MS's power over their IT lives. Now someone will go and implement the MS (un)standard on SAMBA, MS will have another publicity target to say someone stole their Trade Secret, and many IT professionals will find it easier to implement Win2000 into their Kerberos-encrypted networks.
One other thought: Could this be used, much like the deCSS suits, to stop distribution of SAMBA as a tool of piracy if tried in the same (clueless) court in California?
Min. Requirements: 64M RAM, 450MHz Pentium, 65k bugs, 500 Meg install, 2 Month waits for security patches, paying an extra $105 per system, and a daily revision of world-wide standards. Modern innovation delivered to the masses.
This posting looks remarkably familiar. I'm struggling through with my slow modem connection to find the posting in a previous Slashdot discussion. I seem to recall an argument where the GPL was being enforced on a renegade trying to release binary patches to the Quake code NOT under the GPL. Help, someone with a faster connection?
Ron Gaw
One more time: This is an ideal way to deal with our issues, but it still misses in many, many ways. Your response also indicates a belief that the big money always wins. That fear in itself is an incredible weapon, and I think you are using it too much to the detraction of the OS community.
Here is some reality: Many large, money laden corporations, such as the one I work for, patent everything they can. Oftentimes, they take these patents and use them to "barter" for other patents. Very seldom do brick and mortar companies now use these against each other to stop the other: They are simply used as bargaining points to gain access to the other company's patents. Patents are paper gold. They serve little purpose other than to defend a person's ability to use an idea, no matter what they were intended to do. Many companies outside of software use them to defend themselves against suite for producing an idea, not to stop another. Stopping another is only a temporary solution, as there is little to deter another company from creating their own derivative or similar work, reinvent the patent (with enough resources), and go to work anyway. Disclosure offers little help in this area. Seldom does the end user care how a company developed their products anyway!
In truth, the software companies of today are VERY immature, albeit powerful and money laden. It may take them 20 years or more from now to learn the lessons of trading patents. How long did it take aviation to learn those rules? Or automotive? You should not read this note and simply believe me. You need to look at history and what repeats. Then you might believe.
Disclosure gives us nothing to trade. Period. We have no furs, no corn, no money (for the most part), nor anything else to trade. What we have is an incredible capacity for ideas, wanting to be shared, but hindered by those who want to make money off those ideas. We are not "evil" for getting patents. We are building equity in the community.
Please, please stick to your ideals. They are certainly worthwhile and useful. But don't be afraid to look at them deeper and understand what you are arguing for or against. There are obviously lawyers who follow our cause (look to many recent DeCSS and other slashdot items for the proof) and support us. Patents cost companies money because they must retain lawyers. I seriously doubt there are not a few patent lawyers who would not volunteer their time for a good cause.
Ron
I almost agree, but there are serious assumptions you make that are not realistic:
Disclosure does NOT protect against derivative works. What method do you propose to protect someone from disclosing their brilliant idea, then having a commercial business patent ideas derived from the disclosure with particular application? Let's say someone patents 1-Click technology, an obvious spin-off of "tabs". How are people protected from this?
How does the community get access to existing patents? What mechanism is there to drive commercial companies to submit their patents, thus protecting the community, when it means a newer competitor can simply use that idea and do it cheaper? Here, open disclosure is only a one-way street, and offers NOTHING TO THE COMMUNITY beyond the initial donation.
What immediate tool do we have to combat the worst of these patents? Whether you agree with the philosophy or not, if you don't arm the community now within existing law, there are many who will change simple standards, patent the changes, then make these the new standards. Don't be blind to reality. Face it, and find it's weaknesses.
I agree with the ideas in your comments. You just haven't offered any methods of making them useful beyond the initial idea donation. Ron
Mr. O'Reily,
Like so many, my frustrations grow every day with stories like this. I do not directly blame Amazon, considering what they are facing. My frustration stems not just from what Amazon is doing (and feels they justifiably need to do), but also from the lack of effort to turn the "Open Source" philosophy into a defendable method.
Why is it so hard to imagine "Open Source" patents along the lines of the GPL? I do not need to ask how hard it is to create a GPL'd repository of patents, because we all know it will be difficult. However, if we do not do this, it will not be long before open source is a thing of the past. This is not a prediction, it is a fact. How many more patents can software companies get on their code or algorithms or even business models before the open source community sees the light?
On the other hand, with an "Open Source", GPL'd repository of patents, we will have the same group of tools to use with commercial companies in trades for use of their patents. This is EXACTLY why they patent in the first place! What makes us different today? How can we make a difference tomorrow?
Does anyone in the U.S., or the world for that matter, really believe we are going to change the patent system in time to save us? I am not counting on it, not because I think the government is corrupt and never would, but because I think the government is of and by the people, who do not seem to understand what is going on until it is too late. We need to take action now, and allow time and history to aid us in the greater battle.
I welcome reply comments directly to me on this, because I want to better understand all the sides. Email me at ronmlgaw@umich.edu if you have additional comments. Tim, I invite you to discuss this further, as your voice is heard far and wide and will certainly garner significant input in a more timely manner.
Ron Gaw
We are limiting our response to the MPAA in far too narrow of a spectrum. Most of the complaints are here on Slashdot. There has been limited press coverage to suppliment the efforts of the EFF. A choice few have mentioned writing congressman (which, unrealistically, many people feel will be ineffective since all politicians are in on this. My guess is congress is just clueless ATPIT).
In order for the message to reach the common viewer, we need to convince hollywood's own employees, the acters and actresses. Generally speaking, this is a very diversified group of people. We are far more likely to find well known, well spoken individuals here who are willing to speak out against this both inside their industry and, more importantly, to the outside world where the common man will listen.
I wish I had a list of celebrity emails or addresses. However, I'm guessing that such information IS available, and if used judiciously, stands a good chance of getting non-techno representatives to defeat these ridiculus, restrictive agreements.
I'm getting pictures of Sandra Bullock speaking to E! and telling them how the Net is becoming a reality....
Perhaps we need to aid the defense in constructive ways. Let's use our resources to put a presentation of DVD copying without decrypting, then play the copied DVD on a DVD player. If we can do this, then the judge may begin to understand that DeCSS is NOT necessary in the way the plaintiff's are claiming.
There may be some significant opportunities here for us to create visual clues to aid the judge in understanding, unlike the 1000 words the plaintiffs are using to confuse the judge.