The large chain bookstores already track author popularity very closely and, if your last book didn't do well, your next book may not get the opportunity to do well. This discourages authors from branching out or trying something new. Several authors have found themselves forced to adopt new pen names to get around these problems.
I fear that this proposed system is only going to make things worse, not better. Yes, I would like to see SF treated with a little respect, but I'd also like to see authors free to experiment and to try something new and off the beaten track. I'm afraid that this will kill off what little market remains for interesting and innovative writers, and leave us with nothing but "popular" cookie-cutter pablum.
Well, except for the fact that fraud is not a free speech right (whether you're an actual person or a corporation), and the fact that the law does say that corporations are people (no matter how silly or counterintuitive that claim is), aside from those niggling little details, yes.
The first and biggest misunderstanding in your post is that all slashdot visitors share a common viewpoint. If one person rails against MS, and another person cheers on Apple, that's not hypocrisy. It might be hypocrisy if it were the same person in each case, but you haven't shown that. And even if you did, that would only suggest that that one person was hypocritical, not all slashdot visitors.
Or, to put it another way, it's as if I accused you of hypocrisy because slashdot visitors criticise Microsoft, and here you are, defending them. That's every bit as hypocritical as what you're accusing others of. (Zero is equal to zero.)
The second, and more egregious, mistake is assuming that Microsoft and Apple are equivalent. Here's a clue for ya: Microsoft has been found guilty of anti-competitive behavior in a court of law. Apple hasn't. I'm not really a fan of Apple, but to assume that people should judge these two companies by the same standards is just plain foolish.
Which leads to the conclusion that even if you could find some specific individuals to accuse of hypocrisy, your accusations might not stand up too well.
My god man, I remember the IBM and AT&T cases, and MS makes both of those companies (who were pretty foul in their day) look like saints!
I have no Adobe software on my machine. In fact, the only non-free/non-open-source software on my machine is a few games. I clicked the link, and the document opened up. Adobe may have originated the format, but that doesn't mean squat at this point. Find something more relevent to troll about.
Postscript is an Adobe-originated format too -- yet Richard M. Stallman's own Emacs system uses postscript for printing. As does pretty much everything else found on a typical Linux system which prints. Is that ironic? Or just...a fact?
People have religions. Corporations, not being people, can't have religions. You might as well talk about corporations wearing blue jeans. The people who own corporations, on the other hand, as well as the employees of those people, may have religions, and discriminating on the basis of the religions of any of those people would remain illegal.
the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure
The people who own the corporations have those rights, so the corporations don't need psuedo-human status to gain those rights. My car doesn't need its own status as a "people" to be free from search and seizure.
the right to due process (5th) and speedy and public jury trials for criminal offenses (6th)
People have due process. The officers of the corporation are people, and are responsible for the actions of the corporation that they own and control (just as I'm responsible for the actions of the car that I drive). I mean, it might be nice if my car (not me) got sued after an accident, but it doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't make any sense in the case of corporations either.
Giving corporations the legal status of property makes far more sense than calling them "people", and doesn't take any rights away from any real person anywhere.
American programming is of higher quality because it is ad-supported.
First of all, you're begging the question. Is American programming of higher quality? From my observations, I'd say the answer is no, but I admit that this is highly subjective. Then, to make matters worse, you assume a causal chain for what may be merely coincidence. (A "non causa pro causa" argument.) Perhaps American programming is better simply because America is a wealthy country.
Let me propose a counter-argument to your counter-argument. "American programming is of lower quality because it's ad-supported." I can't prove that any more than you can prove your assertion. But it's every bit as plausible. It begs a different question, and, like your statement, offers no evidence to back up what may be a coincidence. Nevertheless, it seems to me to be far more in line with the facts.:)
In any case, a refresher course in logic and logical fallacies would seem to be in order here. I highly recommend this list of logical fallacies. IMO, it should be required reading for all slashdot posters.
p.s. I note that the American Film industry, which is not ad-supported, generally produces much higher-quality fare than the American TV industry (again, IMO). I'm not sure this actually proves anything, but it certainly throws more doubt on extra88's original premise.
But it still says the license is terminated if you "initiate or participate in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor." To me, that's the big one. If they limited it to "any intellectual property action" involving the Original Code, then I might find it acceptable. But as it is, they're reserving the right to publish my science fiction stories without paying me or even attributing me. That's just ridiculous -- even Microsoft doesn't go that far!
Speaking as someone who occasionally tries to promote Linux/BSD and free software inside the science fiction community, I have to say that I personally agree that this license is unacceptable as it stands.
No, the point is that you said that no OS has shipped without a browser since 1998. I pointed out that there are OSes which ship without a browser today! And that, more to the point, most OSes still make it optional.
Note that the fact that a browser is optional with, e.g. Red Hat does not prevent Red Hat from shipping documentation in HTML format.
[S]hould Microsoft *have* to...
That's the question. MS has been found guilty in a court of law. Now we're discussing possible penalties for their transgressions. They've claimed that this particular penalty is impossible for them to implement. That's clearly not true. (Gee, MS lying in public? There's a shock!) Whether it's a reasonable penalty is a completely separate question.
And no one is demanding that Windows systems be prevented from having a browser. Once again, you've turned this around. The demand is that the browser be optional. Saying that this would make Windows be "unable to parse the single most significant new file format of the last few years" is just silly. Is Red Hat Linux "unable to [blah-blah]"? Sure doesn't look like it to me! Yet their browsers are optional.
Regarding command-line administration -- what does that have to do with remote adminisration? There are plenty of approaches (including the use of HTML/Jscript and a LOCAL browser) which don't involve the command line. Anyway, "TMTOWTDI" is not a justification for any random approach. No matter how you cut it, the bogosort sucks!
There are still several OSes today which ship without a browser. Consider the single-disk flavors of Linux, e.g. www.linuxrouter.org. Furthermore, even the distros that offer a browser make it optional. What's the point of installing a browser on a system that isn't even going to have a monitor attached?
X11 has APIs, but they're X11 APIs, not Linux APIs (and the fact that X11 is portable is not relevent here -- even if X11 were Linux-only, it would still have its own API, separate from the Linux API). Many, many Linux systems are installed without X11. (A few of these even have a GUI.)
The question here isn't about shipping, it's about installing. Do I have to install a browser? Not "can I?", but "must I?"
FreeBSD is both open source and free software. Go look at the definition of open source, and compare it to (for example) Debian's definition of free software.
The GPL is a copyleft (and not the only one), and copyleft-style licenses are what MS objects to. But copylefts like the GPL and non-copyleft free licenses like BSD/MIT/X all fall into the categories known variously as "Free Software", and "Open Source". Anyone who's been paying any attention at all should know this.
The term "Open Source" was invented to try to avoid the ambiguities and confusion generated by the term "Free Software". NOT to mean something different. There may be some minor quibbles between the OSI and the FSF about some licenses (only one that I know of), but in general, they're talking about the same thing. In recent days, I've seen ridiculous claims on/. that java is open source (check the OS definition referenced above, and you'll see that it clearly is not), and other such confusion. Clearly, the new term has NOT reduced the confusion factor. If anything, it's made it worse. Which is what I predicted would happen years ago.
Oh well, if people weren't easily confused, they'd probably be much more boring.:)
I think the only disagreement we have is that I don't believe all of the GPL's restrictions are based on copyright law
Like what? Certainly the "restriction" against distributing proprietary derivative works stems from copyright law. (And that's not a restriction, it's simply a failure to grant a right you didn't have in the first place.) What other "restrictions" did you have in mind?
I doubt that the GPL is more enforcable than a EULA.
And your reason for this doubt is...?
Re:limits on granted rights, not copyrights
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What loss of privacy? Copyright law does not allow you to make ANY additions. GPL allows you to make non-private additions. You never had any right to make private additions in the first place, so you certainly didn't lose ANYTHING.
(Note that all of this only applies if you want to distribute your derivative works -- obviously, you can make private modifications to GPL'd works for your own use without publishing anything.)
If you don't have a right, you can't claim that the GPL takes away that right you didn't have, merely because it doesn't grant you that right that you didn't have. The GPL doesn't give you the right to rob banks, but I hardly think you can accuse the GPL of taking away your right to rob banks!
Re:Well beyond copyright law
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The so-called "viral" parts of the GPL only apply to code which constitutes a derived work. Without the GPL, you would not have had the right to create such a derived work in the first place. So, no, the GPL is not taking away your rights to keep your own source code private. It is adding LIMITED rights for you to create derivative works which include your own code. If your code stands alone (does not depend on the GPL'd code), then the GPL does not affect it at all. In other words, the "viral" thing is really copyright law (which does cover derived works). The GPL merely adds some limited rights to the "viral" requirements of copyright law.
Under copyright law, you cannot distribute modifications to MY program at all unless I grant you permission to do so. Doesn't matter that you wrote bits of the code, if it's based on my code, it qualifies as a derivative work.
Under the GPL, you can distribute your modifications under the terms of the GPL, even if it is a derived work. That's a big difference. No, you can't distribute a proprietary derivative of my GPL'd code, but you can't distribute a proprietary derivative of my unlicensed-but-copyrighted code either. The GPL may not give you all the rights you wish you had to my code, but it gives you rights you wouldn't otherwise have.
Here's an analogy that may help. Suppose I hate Jar-Jar Binks. (Pretty hard to imagine, eh?:) Suppose I design my own CGI character, who I find less offensive. That does not give me the right to distribute copies of Star Wars with my character substituted in. Sad but true.
Re:limits on granted rights, not copyrights
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No, because under copyright law, you can't add code to my program in the first place! The GPL grants you the right to add code, but only under limited circumstances. You seem to be confusing copyright law defaults with the BSD/MIT/X style licenses.
I think that if you took the teachers in your district, and said to them, "you can learn to use this new free software, or we can lay off 20 of you in order to pay MS license fees," you'd get a much different reaction.
Granted, you, personally, are probably not in a position to make such a statement. But, in effect, this is what MS is saying, although they would prefer that people not notice the fact that the first option exists. And the end result may be that you are now in a better position to make your point.
"Hi, would you like me to help save your jobs?" sounds much better than "hi, would you like me to give you some free thing you've never heard of?":)
limits on granted rights, not copyrights
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If I sell you a CD with source to software I wrote, and that software is copyrighted by me, and I provide NO LICENSE, then you cannot redistribute that code, modified or not.
If I provide you the same CD, but with the addition of a GPL license, then you can redistribute modified versions under the terms of the GPL.
The fact that you cannot redistribute the code under ANOTHER license is not going beyond copyright law. The rights you gain under the GPL may be limited (as compared to, say, BSD/Mit), but it is still purely a grant of rights. There are no restrictions in the GPL. All restrictions on your use of my code stem from copyright law, and copyright law alone.
Accepting the GPL is always voluntary. If you use my GPL'd code in your program, then you have violated copyright law unless you accept the GPL, but you're still not required to accept the GPL. You can, instead, plead guilty to copyright violation.
Re:Where is the BSA for the GPL?
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The GPL is viral in that all of the closed code compiled with it would become open-sourced by such a violation.
NO! The GPL only has effect if you accept it. If the company that owned the closed code didn't want to accept the GPL, they would become liable for copyright infringement, and would lose their rights to use the GPL'd code, but nothing in copyright law forces them to open up their own code! And if they don't accept the GPL (which is entirely voluntary), copyright law is the only thing which applies.
If they do accept the GPL, then they would have to open up their code, and then they could go on using the GPL'd code. But that is a choice. It doesn't happen automatically, no matter what MS wants you to believe.
...horizontally across the freeway. Who's fault?:)
My car is usually horizontal when it's on the freeway, or anywhere else, for that matter. Driving with e.g. your headlights on the pavement instead of your wheels is not something I'd normally recommend.
I know you meant "perpendicularly" -- it was obvious enough from context -- but I just can't get the image of the car sliding along on its nose, with the driver saying, "ah, finally I'm safe!" out of my head....:)
Heck, how many lawyers have you EVER seen on Slashdot???
A few. Not many, but more than zero.
We need a new saying, instead of IANAL, we need just IAAL.
Try a Google search for "site:slashdot.org IAAL", and you'll get several hits. Note that most of them come with a different disclaimer -- instead of "IANAL", they'll say something like "IAAL, but this should not be considered legal advice."
Gee, MS can either keep people locked into their proprietary document formats, or they can let a moderately sizable portion of the market escape and start promoting other formats. No-brainer there. Of course they're going to keep making Office/IE for Mac.
The only reason that I can see why they haven't already made Office/IE for Linux is that MS has a bug up their butt about the GPL. Don't be surprised if they release their lock-in magic for FreeBSD before long.
Supporting (or should that be "supporting") Apple is a big win for them in another way too, though, because a certain percentage of Apple users are going to realize that they're mostly using MS products, and are going to find the idea of a switch to an MS platform that much more palatable. Especially given the price advantage of the (admitedly flakey) commodity hardware platform.
What the Linux community needs to do in response (IMO) is also support OS/X as well as we can, so that we make Linux (and, by extension, the BSDs) another viable out for Mac users. And gain the sympathy of the more loyal Mac users, who will surely appreciate having more software (esp. free software) available for their platform.
I know that I'm brushing up my ObjC and starting to browse the GNUstep sites.
I'm an old ERB fan myself, but let's not forget that he is the author of Tarzan. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's taken Hollywood this long to option up the Barsoom tales. As for the studios "ruining" the stories, well, they sorta ruined Tarzan too, but the end result was, in the long run, still very entertaining.
We're not exactly talking great literature here. Yes, I'm a fan, but I don't delude myself. These are entertaining young-adult action-adventure stories, and as such, the creators of The Mummy seem like a perfectly good choice.
As for Deja Thoris' "nekkid bosoms", well, consider the Tarzan movies, and don't get your hopes up. If they found an exuse to cover Jane's breasts, they'll probably find an excuse to cover Deja Thoris' too. No biggie, if these are popular and produce spinoffs, eventually, a modern Bo Derek will step up to the plate and offer her hooters for the role.:)
Slashdot Mirror
He is definitely not me -- we seem to have a new form of karma-whoring on our hands. If we're lucky, he'll get some more redundant mods.
The large chain bookstores already track author popularity very closely and, if your last book didn't do well, your next book may not get the opportunity to do well. This discourages authors from branching out or trying something new. Several authors have found themselves forced to adopt new pen names to get around these problems.
I fear that this proposed system is only going to make things worse, not better. Yes, I would like to see SF treated with a little respect, but I'd also like to see authors free to experiment and to try something new and off the beaten track. I'm afraid that this will kill off what little market remains for interesting and innovative writers, and leave us with nothing but "popular" cookie-cutter pablum.
I think if you browse around on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America web pages, you may find some articles that address these concerns in greater detail.
Well, except for the fact that fraud is not a free speech right (whether you're an actual person or a corporation), and the fact that the law does say that corporations are people (no matter how silly or counterintuitive that claim is), aside from those niggling little details, yes.
The first and biggest misunderstanding in your post is that all slashdot visitors share a common viewpoint. If one person rails against MS, and another person cheers on Apple, that's not hypocrisy. It might be hypocrisy if it were the same person in each case, but you haven't shown that. And even if you did, that would only suggest that that one person was hypocritical, not all slashdot visitors.
Or, to put it another way, it's as if I accused you of hypocrisy because slashdot visitors criticise Microsoft, and here you are, defending them. That's every bit as hypocritical as what you're accusing others of. (Zero is equal to zero.)
The second, and more egregious, mistake is assuming that Microsoft and Apple are equivalent. Here's a clue for ya: Microsoft has been found guilty of anti-competitive behavior in a court of law. Apple hasn't. I'm not really a fan of Apple, but to assume that people should judge these two companies by the same standards is just plain foolish.
Which leads to the conclusion that even if you could find some specific individuals to accuse of hypocrisy, your accusations might not stand up too well.
My god man, I remember the IBM and AT&T cases, and MS makes both of those companies (who were pretty foul in their day) look like saints!
I have no Adobe software on my machine. In fact, the only non-free/non-open-source software on my machine is a few games. I clicked the link, and the document opened up. Adobe may have originated the format, but that doesn't mean squat at this point. Find something more relevent to troll about.
Postscript is an Adobe-originated format too -- yet Richard M. Stallman's own Emacs system uses postscript for printing. As does pretty much everything else found on a typical Linux system which prints. Is that ironic? Or just...a fact?
the right to be free of religious persecution
People have religions. Corporations, not being people, can't have religions. You might as well talk about corporations wearing blue jeans. The people who own corporations, on the other hand, as well as the employees of those people, may have religions, and discriminating on the basis of the religions of any of those people would remain illegal.
the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure
The people who own the corporations have those rights, so the corporations don't need psuedo-human status to gain those rights. My car doesn't need its own status as a "people" to be free from search and seizure.
the right to due process (5th) and speedy and public jury trials for criminal offenses (6th)
People have due process. The officers of the corporation are people, and are responsible for the actions of the corporation that they own and control (just as I'm responsible for the actions of the car that I drive). I mean, it might be nice if my car (not me) got sued after an accident, but it doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't make any sense in the case of corporations either.
Giving corporations the legal status of property makes far more sense than calling them "people", and doesn't take any rights away from any real person anywhere.
American programming is of higher quality because it is ad-supported.
:)
First of all, you're begging the question. Is American programming of higher quality? From my observations, I'd say the answer is no, but I admit that this is highly subjective. Then, to make matters worse, you assume a causal chain for what may be merely coincidence. (A "non causa pro causa" argument.) Perhaps American programming is better simply because America is a wealthy country.
Let me propose a counter-argument to your counter-argument. "American programming is of lower quality because it's ad-supported." I can't prove that any more than you can prove your assertion. But it's every bit as plausible. It begs a different question, and, like your statement, offers no evidence to back up what may be a coincidence. Nevertheless, it seems to me to be far more in line with the facts.
In any case, a refresher course in logic and logical fallacies would seem to be in order here. I highly recommend this list of logical fallacies. IMO, it should be required reading for all slashdot posters.
p.s. I note that the American Film industry, which is not ad-supported, generally produces much higher-quality fare than the American TV industry (again, IMO). I'm not sure this actually proves anything, but it certainly throws more doubt on extra88's original premise.
Imagine paying $1.80US for Windows XP Professional?
:)
Gee, that's only about $51.80US more than I'd be willing to pay.
But it still says the license is terminated if you "initiate or participate in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor." To me, that's the big one. If they limited it to "any intellectual property action" involving the Original Code, then I might find it acceptable. But as it is, they're reserving the right to publish my science fiction stories without paying me or even attributing me. That's just ridiculous -- even Microsoft doesn't go that far!
Speaking as someone who occasionally tries to promote Linux/BSD and free software inside the science fiction community, I have to say that I personally agree that this license is unacceptable as it stands.
No, the point is that you said that no OS has shipped without a browser since 1998. I pointed out that there are OSes which ship without a browser today! And that, more to the point, most OSes still make it optional.
Note that the fact that a browser is optional with, e.g. Red Hat does not prevent Red Hat from shipping documentation in HTML format.
[S]hould Microsoft *have* to...
That's the question. MS has been found guilty in a court of law. Now we're discussing possible penalties for their transgressions. They've claimed that this particular penalty is impossible for them to implement. That's clearly not true. (Gee, MS lying in public? There's a shock!) Whether it's a reasonable penalty is a completely separate question.
And no one is demanding that Windows systems be prevented from having a browser. Once again, you've turned this around. The demand is that the browser be optional. Saying that this would make Windows be "unable to parse the single most significant new file format of the last few years" is just silly. Is Red Hat Linux "unable to [blah-blah]"? Sure doesn't look like it to me! Yet their browsers are optional.
Regarding command-line administration -- what does that have to do with remote adminisration? There are plenty of approaches (including the use of HTML/Jscript and a LOCAL browser) which don't involve the command line. Anyway, "TMTOWTDI" is not a justification for any random approach. No matter how you cut it, the bogosort sucks!
There are still several OSes today which ship without a browser. Consider the single-disk flavors of Linux, e.g. www.linuxrouter.org. Furthermore, even the distros that offer a browser make it optional. What's the point of installing a browser on a system that isn't even going to have a monitor attached?
X11 has APIs, but they're X11 APIs, not Linux APIs (and the fact that X11 is portable is not relevent here -- even if X11 were Linux-only, it would still have its own API, separate from the Linux API). Many, many Linux systems are installed without X11. (A few of these even have a GUI.)
The question here isn't about shipping, it's about installing. Do I have to install a browser? Not "can I?", but "must I?"
Good God, how did this get modded "Insightful"?
/. that java is open source (check the OS definition referenced above, and you'll see that it clearly is not), and other such confusion. Clearly, the new term has NOT reduced the confusion factor. If anything, it's made it worse. Which is what I predicted would happen years ago.
:)
FreeBSD is both open source and free software. Go look at the definition of open source, and compare it to (for example) Debian's definition of free software.
The GPL is a copyleft (and not the only one), and copyleft-style licenses are what MS objects to. But copylefts like the GPL and non-copyleft free licenses like BSD/MIT/X all fall into the categories known variously as "Free Software", and "Open Source". Anyone who's been paying any attention at all should know this.
The term "Open Source" was invented to try to avoid the ambiguities and confusion generated by the term "Free Software". NOT to mean something different. There may be some minor quibbles between the OSI and the FSF about some licenses (only one that I know of), but in general, they're talking about the same thing. In recent days, I've seen ridiculous claims on
Oh well, if people weren't easily confused, they'd probably be much more boring.
Gee, and for a brief, shining moment there, I thought you might be more than a troll, despite the trollish nick.
Why do I believe that God is a giant purple carrot with buck teeth and a phony French accent? The absence of any evidence to the contrary.
I think the only disagreement we have is that I don't believe all of the GPL's restrictions are based on copyright law
Like what? Certainly the "restriction" against distributing proprietary derivative works stems from copyright law. (And that's not a restriction, it's simply a failure to grant a right you didn't have in the first place.) What other "restrictions" did you have in mind?
I doubt that the GPL is more enforcable than a EULA.
And your reason for this doubt is...?
What loss of privacy? Copyright law does not allow you to make ANY additions. GPL allows you to make non-private additions. You never had any right to make private additions in the first place, so you certainly didn't lose ANYTHING.
(Note that all of this only applies if you want to distribute your derivative works -- obviously, you can make private modifications to GPL'd works for your own use without publishing anything.)
If you don't have a right, you can't claim that the GPL takes away that right you didn't have, merely because it doesn't grant you that right that you didn't have. The GPL doesn't give you the right to rob banks, but I hardly think you can accuse the GPL of taking away your right to rob banks!
The so-called "viral" parts of the GPL only apply to code which constitutes a derived work. Without the GPL, you would not have had the right to create such a derived work in the first place. So, no, the GPL is not taking away your rights to keep your own source code private. It is adding LIMITED rights for you to create derivative works which include your own code. If your code stands alone (does not depend on the GPL'd code), then the GPL does not affect it at all. In other words, the "viral" thing is really copyright law (which does cover derived works). The GPL merely adds some limited rights to the "viral" requirements of copyright law.
Under copyright law, you cannot distribute modifications to MY program at all unless I grant you permission to do so. Doesn't matter that you wrote bits of the code, if it's based on my code, it qualifies as a derivative work.
Under the GPL, you can distribute your modifications under the terms of the GPL, even if it is a derived work. That's a big difference. No, you can't distribute a proprietary derivative of my GPL'd code, but you can't distribute a proprietary derivative of my unlicensed-but-copyrighted code either. The GPL may not give you all the rights you wish you had to my code, but it gives you rights you wouldn't otherwise have.
Here's an analogy that may help. Suppose I hate Jar-Jar Binks. (Pretty hard to imagine, eh?:) Suppose I design my own CGI character, who I find less offensive. That does not give me the right to distribute copies of Star Wars with my character substituted in. Sad but true.
No, because under copyright law, you can't add code to my program in the first place! The GPL grants you the right to add code, but only under limited circumstances. You seem to be confusing copyright law defaults with the BSD/MIT/X style licenses.
I think that if you took the teachers in your district, and said to them, "you can learn to use this new free software, or we can lay off 20 of you in order to pay MS license fees," you'd get a much different reaction.
:)
Granted, you, personally, are probably not in a position to make such a statement. But, in effect, this is what MS is saying, although they would prefer that people not notice the fact that the first option exists. And the end result may be that you are now in a better position to make your point.
"Hi, would you like me to help save your jobs?" sounds much better than "hi, would you like me to give you some free thing you've never heard of?"
If I sell you a CD with source to software I wrote, and that software is copyrighted by me, and I provide NO LICENSE, then you cannot redistribute that code, modified or not.
If I provide you the same CD, but with the addition of a GPL license, then you can redistribute modified versions under the terms of the GPL.
The fact that you cannot redistribute the code under ANOTHER license is not going beyond copyright law. The rights you gain under the GPL may be limited (as compared to, say, BSD/Mit), but it is still purely a grant of rights. There are no restrictions in the GPL. All restrictions on your use of my code stem from copyright law, and copyright law alone.
Accepting the GPL is always voluntary. If you use my GPL'd code in your program, then you have violated copyright law unless you accept the GPL, but you're still not required to accept the GPL. You can, instead, plead guilty to copyright violation.
The GPL is viral in that all of the closed code compiled with it would become open-sourced by such a violation.
NO! The GPL only has effect if you accept it. If the company that owned the closed code didn't want to accept the GPL, they would become liable for copyright infringement, and would lose their rights to use the GPL'd code, but nothing in copyright law forces them to open up their own code! And if they don't accept the GPL (which is entirely voluntary), copyright law is the only thing which applies.
If they do accept the GPL, then they would have to open up their code, and then they could go on using the GPL'd code. But that is a choice. It doesn't happen automatically, no matter what MS wants you to believe.
...horizontally across the freeway. Who's fault? :)
:)
My car is usually horizontal when it's on the freeway, or anywhere else, for that matter. Driving with e.g. your headlights on the pavement instead of your wheels is not something I'd normally recommend.
I know you meant "perpendicularly" -- it was obvious enough from context -- but I just can't get the image of the car sliding along on its nose, with the driver saying, "ah, finally I'm safe!" out of my head....
Heck, how many lawyers have you EVER seen on Slashdot???
A few. Not many, but more than zero.
We need a new saying, instead of IANAL, we need just IAAL.
Try a Google search for "site:slashdot.org IAAL", and you'll get several hits. Note that most of them come with a different disclaimer -- instead of "IANAL", they'll say something like "IAAL, but this should not be considered legal advice."
Gee, MS can either keep people locked into their proprietary document formats, or they can let a moderately sizable portion of the market escape and start promoting other formats. No-brainer there. Of course they're going to keep making Office/IE for Mac.
The only reason that I can see why they haven't already made Office/IE for Linux is that MS has a bug up their butt about the GPL. Don't be surprised if they release their lock-in magic for FreeBSD before long.
Supporting (or should that be "supporting") Apple is a big win for them in another way too, though, because a certain percentage of Apple users are going to realize that they're mostly using MS products, and are going to find the idea of a switch to an MS platform that much more palatable. Especially given the price advantage of the (admitedly flakey) commodity hardware platform.
What the Linux community needs to do in response (IMO) is also support OS/X as well as we can, so that we make Linux (and, by extension, the BSDs) another viable out for Mac users. And gain the sympathy of the more loyal Mac users, who will surely appreciate having more software (esp. free software) available for their platform.
I know that I'm brushing up my ObjC and starting to browse the GNUstep sites.
I'm an old ERB fan myself, but let's not forget that he is the author of Tarzan. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's taken Hollywood this long to option up the Barsoom tales. As for the studios "ruining" the stories, well, they sorta ruined Tarzan too, but the end result was, in the long run, still very entertaining.
:)
We're not exactly talking great literature here. Yes, I'm a fan, but I don't delude myself. These are entertaining young-adult action-adventure stories, and as such, the creators of The Mummy seem like a perfectly good choice.
As for Deja Thoris' "nekkid bosoms", well, consider the Tarzan movies, and don't get your hopes up. If they found an exuse to cover Jane's breasts, they'll probably find an excuse to cover Deja Thoris' too. No biggie, if these are popular and produce spinoffs, eventually, a modern Bo Derek will step up to the plate and offer her hooters for the role.