"No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings. They merely placed personal copies onto shared directories on their computers which were accessible by other computer users via an online download service," the judge wrote.
So this is what happens when you have tech-literate judges! Where can we get some from?
... Slashdot groupthink". Althought [sic] the author supports her point with seemingly sound arguments, there are no references. It's all idealism.
Here's a heads up to the rest of the world: Most people who abuse security holes don't write them.... The reason people fight publication of exploit code is because, without that code, most exploits would not happen.
If I understand your post correctly, you are of the opinion that security by obscurity is a valid method. Would you care to back up your "seemingly sound" arguments with some references?
If the US has moral or other objections to online gambling it should be permitted to enforce them.
And if Europe has moral or other objections to environmental pollution by GM crops, it should be permitted to enforce them. And if India has moral or other objections to pharmaceuticals companies preventing cheap generic drugs being made available to the poor, it should be permitted to enforce them.
The WTO aims for free trade at all costs (and the costs are high). This position is entirely consistent with the dominant US political and economic view of capitalism and the WTO is one of the means by which the US government exerts its influence over other sovereign nations.
You are quite right that it is ludicrous to allow an organisation such as the WTO to over-ride local democracy, but legalising on-line gambling is an inconsequential issue compared to most of the problems that the WTO causes the world.
an online casino could set it so you win 50% of the time for bets under $5, but almost never with $100.
A friend of mine worked for an on-line gambling company here in the UK (it mainly caters for Americans). Most of the bets were sports bets which are not susceptible to that kind of fraud.
so the WTO is writing our laws for us so that 19 whole companies in these teeney little islands can allow us citizens to gamble while at work? right...
Kind of similar to the way that the WTO tells the EU's 300 million citizens that they must allow GM crops to be grown on their land so that one or two US companies can try and sell seeds that nobody wants.
The sooner the WTO is abolished, the better it will be for the whole world.
OK, now instead of creating a poxy one table "test document", open MS Word, create a document with actual content, apply liberal and inconsistent formatting, and then use spaces to line things up (you know, just like you are a regular office secretary who doesn't know you can use tab stops or other 'tricky' things like that). Insert a table if you like. Be sure to use bullet points, and add headers and footers.
Then send the document to a customer, supplier or business partner who uses a different version of MS Office. Go and visit them and while you are there have a look at how the document looks on their system. You may be unpleasantly surprised at how unprofessional your company's documents look to others.
(don't try this test if it is a transatlantic business partnership - the different paper sizes cause such a mess that you will probably cry)
Imagine the Wine team not only having access to the Windows source... but being given legal permission by the government to use it
The press release explicitly states that MS must release the APIs but does not
need to release the source code because it is not required for interoperability.
it can be very annoying if you are switching between US-UK computers/keyboards.
Switching between keyboards is no problem. My home desktop and laptop, both bought in the US, have US keyboards (surprise!) whereas my work machine has a UK keyboard. Spending half my time on different keyboards doesn't matter. I don't even notice switching between the two different layouts. You get used to it very quickly. Besides, if it is a problem, buying a new keyboard won't take a huge chunk out of the money saved by buying a PC in the US.
Making the lawyer liable for costs is probably not a good idea. Many lawyers would then have a great incentive to refuse to take cases against large corporations with deep pockets.
The system we have in the UK seems to work quite well. Basically, the judge can award costs as he sees fit. This usually means that someone bringing a frivolous lawsuit against someone else can expect to end up paying the other party's costs, whereas an individual defending themselves against a large corporation does not usually have to worry about paying the corporation's costs. Hence it is a lot harder for companies to intimidate individuals and force them to settle out of court to avoid the risk of losing.
I remember one interesting libel case that I researched for a school report. Someone sued somebody else because they didn't properly seal an envelope and they felt that this meant inaccurate information about them might be made available to secretaries in the company to which the letter was sent. They won the case but the judge thought the case was frivolous and awarded damages of 1 pence and ordered both the plaintiff and the defendent to pay their own costs.
From what I understand, a specific license would fit the bill to swathe Project Gutenberg library, such as Attribution-NoDerivative 1.0.
Given that the texts in Project Gutenburg are all out of copyright, does PG have any (moral or legal) right to impose restrictive licences on the library, and if so, would it be possible to enforce such a licence?
how would you choose then who has to show sources?
The GPL makes it very, very clear who must make the source code available - whoever distributes the binary. Thus, if one cannot supply the source code to a binary driver which is a derivative of GPL'd work, one is not entitled to distribute the driver at all. Targetting the supplier at the end of the chain should have knock-on effects all the way up the chain. If vendors cannot legally supply drivers which infringe upon the GPL, they may be inclined to spend their money buying from companies that do respect its terms.
You have well and truly lost the plot with this rant.
If a company deploys critical software without having arranged suitable support (internal or external) for it, and with no contingency plans in place, they deserve everything they get.
That is true whether the software comes from Microsoft, IBM or the bloke in the pub round the corner. The difference is that companies can (perhaps) be more confident that vendors such as Microsoft and IBM will still be around in 10 years when they need to call on the help which they have paid for in their support contract. But this is not a weakness of free software. It just means that there is a new opportunity for well-established companies to offer support for products over which they do not have exclusive distribution rights.
Why do you think that software should come with warranties that you don't get in everyday life? If I were to write a book, or put up a website with information on it, and some years later it transpired that some of the information was inaccurate, there would be no legal obligation for me to correct the mistakes. I may choose to do so, but if the book only sold 2 copies and it would take significant research to be able to correct the mistakes, then I would probably not be inclined to do so.
Similarly if I, as a hobby, were to create some trinket, perhaps a watch, which I then gave to you as a gift, it would be highly unreasonable of you to demand that I improve it if it doesn't keep accurate enough time for you.
If you want guarantees, you have to form a contract with someone and be prepared to pay for the service that you desire. With Free Software, you are free to choose someone other than the original developer to provide you with such support. This is one of the great benefits of Free Software - you are not tied to the original vendor. However, unless you pay the original author, you have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand *anything* of them. To demand that someone update a gift to be more satisfactory to you is to demonstrate an incredible degree of ingratitude.
WIPO is an agency of the United Nations... and most of the world knows that the US does not pay it's UN dues
The US may not pay *all* of its dues, but that doesn't mean that it does not have a tremendous degree of influence regarding the policies drawn up by UN agencies. Nor does it prevent the US from then using its economic might to force other countries to sign up to the policies it favours, as you can see in this extract of the new US/Australian free (preferred) trade agreement which demands that both parties sign up to WIPO policies.
I know that here a company was fined 1.000.000 NOK for carrying kiddie porn groups, while strangely enough warez and mp3 groups go completely unpunished.
Why is that strange? I don't think you would find anyone (well not many people, at least) who would consider warez and mp3 groups to be as much of a threat to society as paedophiles.
umm, useing e-mail to "serve" people or get ahold of them is NOT a reliable means. Call them, mail them or go vist their offices.
relying on e-mail was his mistake.
In most cases I would probably agree with you, but in the case of America On-Line, an internet service provider, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to have the technical nous to be able to process and audit messages which are sitting on their mail servers.
Europe is based on capitalism, sure, but culturally is different and hopefully capitalism will not reach the extremes we see in the USA.
You are absolutely correct. I have just finished reading an excellent book which explores in detail the difference between American and European capitalism: Will Hutton's "The state we're in". I strongly recommend this book.
Even if they don't switch chips, what does it mean to fuse assembly code with custom processors? Assembly code has to be converted into machine code before it can be used, so the statement sounds dodgy to start with. Then, you have the problem that if the code is written in assembly language, it is going to be very, very hard for any auditors to check that there is no election rigging going on - have you ever tried reading someone else's assembly code?
I'm not convinced by those specs. They seem like marketing material designed to fool those the technologically illiterate. How is the fact that the software program in "Assembly Language" is fused on a customised micro processor chip" a guarantee that the system is tamper-proof?
[The technicians] have been told to meet a deadline brought forward by the Election Commission after the poll was called early by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.
And we all know that bringing the deadline forward to meet changing customer requirements is the best possible way of ensuring that software is bug free...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, here in the UK (BST, not GMT). Israel, of course, is further East. It's definitely April Fools day over there at the moment.
So this is what happens when you have tech-literate judges! Where can we get some from?
His English spelling and grammar are significantly better than my French spelling and grammar. You did notice that he is French, didn't you?
If I understand your post correctly, you are of the opinion that security by obscurity is a valid method. Would you care to back up your "seemingly sound" arguments with some references?
And if Europe has moral or other objections to environmental pollution by GM crops, it should be permitted to enforce them. And if India has moral or other objections to pharmaceuticals companies preventing cheap generic drugs being made available to the poor, it should be permitted to enforce them.
The WTO aims for free trade at all costs (and the costs are high). This position is entirely consistent with the dominant US political and economic view of capitalism and the WTO is one of the means by which the US government exerts its influence over other sovereign nations.
You are quite right that it is ludicrous to allow an organisation such as the WTO to over-ride local democracy, but legalising on-line gambling is an inconsequential issue compared to most of the problems that the WTO causes the world.
A friend of mine worked for an on-line gambling company here in the UK (it mainly caters for Americans). Most of the bets were sports bets which are not susceptible to that kind of fraud.
Kind of similar to the way that the WTO tells the EU's 300 million citizens that they must allow GM crops to be grown on their land so that one or two US companies can try and sell seeds that nobody wants.
The sooner the WTO is abolished, the better it will be for the whole world.
Then send the document to a customer, supplier or business partner who uses a different version of MS Office. Go and visit them and while you are there have a look at how the document looks on their system. You may be unpleasantly surprised at how unprofessional your company's documents look to others.
(don't try this test if it is a transatlantic business partnership - the different paper sizes cause such a mess that you will probably cry)
The press release explicitly states that MS must release the APIs but does not need to release the source code because it is not required for interoperability.
The press release
Nonsense. Tie a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat and drop it over a very expensive carpet. Instant perpetual motion machine!
(For the hard of thinking: cats always land on their feet; toast always lands butter-side down - natural laws of the universe)
Switching between keyboards is no problem. My home desktop and laptop, both bought in the US, have US keyboards (surprise!) whereas my work machine has a UK keyboard. Spending half my time on different keyboards doesn't matter. I don't even notice switching between the two different layouts. You get used to it very quickly. Besides, if it is a problem, buying a new keyboard won't take a huge chunk out of the money saved by buying a PC in the US.
The system we have in the UK seems to work quite well. Basically, the judge can award costs as he sees fit. This usually means that someone bringing a frivolous lawsuit against someone else can expect to end up paying the other party's costs, whereas an individual defending themselves against a large corporation does not usually have to worry about paying the corporation's costs. Hence it is a lot harder for companies to intimidate individuals and force them to settle out of court to avoid the risk of losing.
I remember one interesting libel case that I researched for a school report. Someone sued somebody else because they didn't properly seal an envelope and they felt that this meant inaccurate information about them might be made available to secretaries in the company to which the letter was sent. They won the case but the judge thought the case was frivolous and awarded damages of 1 pence and ordered both the plaintiff and the defendent to pay their own costs.
Then report them and help make the searches better.
Given that the texts in Project Gutenburg are all out of copyright, does PG have any (moral or legal) right to impose restrictive licences on the library, and if so, would it be possible to enforce such a licence?
The GPL makes it very, very clear who must make the source code available - whoever distributes the binary. Thus, if one cannot supply the source code to a binary driver which is a derivative of GPL'd work, one is not entitled to distribute the driver at all. Targetting the supplier at the end of the chain should have knock-on effects all the way up the chain. If vendors cannot legally supply drivers which infringe upon the GPL, they may be inclined to spend their money buying from companies that do respect its terms.
If a company deploys critical software without having arranged suitable support (internal or external) for it, and with no contingency plans in place, they deserve everything they get.
That is true whether the software comes from Microsoft, IBM or the bloke in the pub round the corner. The difference is that companies can (perhaps) be more confident that vendors such as Microsoft and IBM will still be around in 10 years when they need to call on the help which they have paid for in their support contract. But this is not a weakness of free software. It just means that there is a new opportunity for well-established companies to offer support for products over which they do not have exclusive distribution rights.
Similarly if I, as a hobby, were to create some trinket, perhaps a watch, which I then gave to you as a gift, it would be highly unreasonable of you to demand that I improve it if it doesn't keep accurate enough time for you.
If you want guarantees, you have to form a contract with someone and be prepared to pay for the service that you desire. With Free Software, you are free to choose someone other than the original developer to provide you with such support. This is one of the great benefits of Free Software - you are not tied to the original vendor. However, unless you pay the original author, you have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand *anything* of them. To demand that someone update a gift to be more satisfactory to you is to demonstrate an incredible degree of ingratitude.
The US may not pay *all* of its dues, but that doesn't mean that it does not have a tremendous degree of influence regarding the policies drawn up by UN agencies. Nor does it prevent the US from then using its economic might to force other countries to sign up to the policies it favours, as you can see in this extract of the new US/Australian free (preferred) trade agreement which demands that both parties sign up to WIPO policies.
Same thing ... WIPO is an instrument of the US government.
Why is that strange? I don't think you would find anyone (well not many people, at least) who would consider warez and mp3 groups to be as much of a threat to society as paedophiles.
relying on e-mail was his mistake.
In most cases I would probably agree with you, but in the case of America On-Line, an internet service provider, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to have the technical nous to be able to process and audit messages which are sitting on their mail servers.
Even if they don't switch chips, what does it mean to fuse assembly code with custom processors? Assembly code has to be converted into machine code before it can be used, so the statement sounds dodgy to start with. Then, you have the problem that if the code is written in assembly language, it is going to be very, very hard for any auditors to check that there is no election rigging going on - have you ever tried reading someone else's assembly code?
I'm not convinced by those specs. They seem like marketing material designed to fool those the technologically illiterate. How is the fact that the software program in "Assembly Language" is fused on a customised micro processor chip" a guarantee that the system is tamper-proof?
And we all know that bringing the deadline forward to meet changing customer requirements is the best possible way of ensuring that software is bug free ...