So if you hand someone a Redhat CD you *must* also give them the Redhat source CDs even though they don't want them otherwise you violate GPL?
Yes.
Or, you could offer to provide the sources any time in the next three years, to them, and anyone else to whom they redistribute.
To get around this, you offer them the source CDs at the same time as the binaries, and make it clear that they get either or both, but can't come back to you for what they didn't get. You must be prepared to make good on the source CDs offered, though.
This, IMHO, is not a GPL violation: you have offered source, and not only has the offer been declined, but the requestor has agreed to not ask again for it. The GPL merely requires that you offer (and, obviously, to be prepared to make good on your offer).
Note that this is not a transferrable offer, as it would have to be if you distributed under (c). You are, in effect, redistributing under (a), albeit by proxy.
If someone declines your offer, it does mean that they can't redistribute unless they get sources from someone other than you.
If you are re-distributiong non-commercially, without modification, upstream source is fine (which makes sense)
Only if the upstream provider is willing to provide source for a resonable price to their binaries tht you redistribute non-commercially for a period of three years.
Most would-be upstream providers do not do this. Instead they make source available as long as they distribute binaries.
There is a simple technical solution to this, though:
Anyone who tries to download binaries from your site is encouraged to (a) download the source first "from your site" or explicitly decline it, on the understanding that it may cease to be available. This, IMHO, is not a GPL violation: you have offered source, and not only has the offer been declined, but the requestor has agreed to not ask again for it. The GPL merely requires that you offer (and, obviously, to be prepared to make good on your offer).
If someone excercizes your offer, you redirect their requests to your "upstream" provider (first verifying that their hashes are what you expect --- hmm, does.tar put a hash at the head of the archive?). After they've gotten source, then you send them binaries.
So if Debian is offering binary packages of something that is under the GPL they MUST be offering a written offer under section (b) and therefore you are clearly free to pass that written offer third parties under section (c). Assuming you're not commercially distributing the work, but this guy probably is, so what's so hard about replacing their name with yours. All this is supposed to encourage you to use section (a) and distribute the source code with the binaries.. why is that so hard?
Because non-commercial redistribution under (c) requires someone else to distribute under (b), and, AFAIK, neither Debian, nor Red Hat (including Fedora), or anyone other major distro does this. Instead they distribute under (a).
The practical upshot is that your upstream provider can go *poof*, which is quite alright for them: they don't have to distribute source anymore when they stop distributing binaries.
Arguments about version skew between upstream and downstream distros are moot as long as you take care to update the third party unmodified stuff in your distro when the upstream provider does: the GPL applies to individual software packages and not the aggregate.
Frankly, the FSF could provide a service, for a fee, where they agree to host the sources according to (b) to what you redistribute under (c). First one needing this service pays the storage costs for the requisite three years out on an ongoing basis. Others pay a discounted rate for the same data, with the difference credited toward future storage charges of those already paying. The FSF, in turn, could charge for downloads or distribution on physical media, with some part credited to contributors.
Popular packages could pay for their own storage eventually and might even earn a small profit for the contributors. There remain issues (not the least of which is profiting from someone else's work by simply making it available), but I think the market can take care of them. (If you don't like someone getting roalties from your code, distribute it yourself.)
When we think of a subsidy, we generally think of enabling someone to purchase something below cost, and, indeed, one would have to consume an unhealty amount of soda to eat into the fast food franchise's profits.
However, lets assume that the franchise wishes to earn a particular gross profit on soda, on average. Their soda revenue is proprortional to the number of customers served, but their soda expense is proportional to the amount of soda consumed. Let's say the average soda consumption is two per person, and that half of the customers consume one, and other half consume three. If the three-soda customers cut back to one soda, the soda expense has been halved, and the soda revenue remains the same. To maintain the same gross profit margin, the franchise can cut the price of "all you can guzzle soda" for each customer by the cost of a soda.
The one-soda customer now realizes a savings: his soda costs less by a few pennies. The three-soda customer is now paying almost triple for his soda than before (not quite triple since the price has been reduced).
Because the franchise anticipates multi-soda customers, it must price its soda appropriately.
In effect, the fewer-than-average soda consumers subsidize the cost of the more-than-average soda consumers. But, because price is so much greater than cost in this case, we do not consider it a subsidy in the traditional sense.
However, if a fast food franchise tried the "all the soda you can guzzle" deal, charging only a dime per soda where their costs were a nickel, they would quickly have to raise the price for all significantly to accomodate the multi-soda belchmeisters. At this point, the soda-misers would very definately feel the economic effect of the soda-gluttons.
Hey, if you're too stupid to go to a competing store ("competing" meaning one *not* owned by Loblaw's) then it's your own damn fault.
Well, lesse.
The discount grocery stores were generally worse in terms of price, selection, and bag charges.
The few stores that bagged groceries free of charge were either few and far between, or charged high prices (no doubt to compensate for the cost of bags).
But, why should I suffer the inconvenience to have to find a store in Ontario that bags groceries and has reasonable prices, when it is almost impossible to find one in the U.S. that doesn't bag for free, even the discount stores?
I continue to be amazed at the general good level of customer service in the U.S. Recently, I picked up a 6-pack of Deshutes Inversion I.P.A. at an Albertson's supermarket and only found it was lacking a bottle when I got to the cashier. After being asked if I intended to only buy 5 bottles of beer at the single bottle price, and answering in the negative, someone was dispatched to retrieve the sixth bottle from the other end of the store. Granted, one can find lousy service anywhere if one looks hard enough, but my experience has been that service in Quebec (where I lived from 1961-1997) and Ontario (2003-2004) has generally become horrible: I've been rebuffed for asking for purchase receipts for pete's sake, when it is du rigeur to receive them anywhere I've been in the U.S (1997-2003, 2004-present).
Now, it is possible to find "bag your own groceries" areas in supermarkets, but (a) I've always seen them in the self-serve checkout lines (which are often preferable because the lines tend to go faster), and (b) there is no charge for the bags.
The bottom line is that something which is inconvenient to the customer appears to be becoming ubiquitous in Canada, and continues to be rare in the places in the U.S. I've lived (suburbs of Chicago, Dallas, and now Seattle).
The only correlation I can see is the growth of customer inconvenience in Canada appears to tied to the continued adherence to socialism.
It will be interesting to see if these differences reverse themselves as Canada continues to have a balanced budget whereas even the right-wing has gone spend-happy in the U.S. (Nah, what is more likely is that the loony will continue to rise against the U.S. dollar).
My experience relates to almost all supermarkets in the Whitby, ON area in 2003-2004.
Boxes, recycled from use as product packaging (instead of bags) were available for free and one could box one's own groceries. However, (a) the boxes were some distance from the cachier area (10-20 feet), (b) there was little room in the cachier area to box, (c) the time it took to find suitable boxes caused a backlog in the line, and (d) many boxes were either too large to fit back in the grocery cart, or too small to be of use.
Well, the point is valid, that some soda-drinkers will get more for their money, and others less.
But, this does not make it socialist: it is not enforced en-masse by a government. Patrons are free to take their business elsewhere if they think they are paying too much for soda while others get a free ride.
In fact, there are many situations where subsidizing those that otherwise can not, or will not, go along, with the prix du jure makes sense. I'd rather have poor kids go to a summer day camp than wander the streets looking for trouble, and I'm glad that many organizations that run such camps offer subsidies based on "need", where the organization decides what qualifies as need. Certainly this increases the cost for everyone else. But, it keeps the rascals from causing trouble.
But, no one is forced to put their kids in that particular summer camp, or pay an "inflated" price to accomodate the subsidy.
Socialism would establish such camps as state-run, and force their fundung.
One could argue that public schools fall into the socialist camp, and to some extent they do. However, in the U.S. at least, they are funded out of very local property taxes and it does not take much effort to replace the taxing body if they become exorbitant, or to move to another county that taxes less or more effectively (in terms of services provided for taxes collected). "Voting with one's feet is practical". Not so, when the tax exists on a national level.
Last time I was in Ontario, Canada (2003), it was normal to have to pay a nickel or a dime for a grocery bag and to have to bag one's own groceries.
It took a while to get used to implied free refills on soda in fast food restaurants in the U.S.: for a while I'd throw out my empty cup and go to buy another one if I was really thirsty, having been brainwashed in Canada that anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden. Not surprisingly, the cashier would usually think me an idiot for throwing out my old cup. Sometimes they'd get mad that I wanted a replacement, not realizing that I was prepared to pay a second time. Only when I was reassured that, yes, the availability of self-serve soda implies free refills, did I believe it.
Thankfully, I am now filing I140 and I485, having received an LC. Hopefully the brainwashing of my socialist upbringing will start to fade with time.
According to the article, this guy had previously been asked by the police to move along and stop using their wireless network.
Either he was on public property, in which case the police can simply ask him to move along, or he's on private property, in which case the police have no business being there, unless they were called by the owner, or had a warrant.
But, even in the latter case, why not simply charge him with trespassing? Just because a business is open to the public doesn't mean the owner can't ask someone to leave.
As far as I can see, he was not charged with trespassing, but something that may or may not be illegal ("theft" indeed -- access was free).
but if you sell somone a gun in order for them to commit a murder, tthen you'r an accomplice
Well, yes, "in order to" goes toward intent.
The trouble with much recent legislation is that the bar for establishing intent is dangously low.
Just what is "enabling" in the context of telling someone about a gambling site? I've enabled them to visit it, perhaps, but have I enabled them to gamble? To use your gun analogy, simply selling the gun to someone enables them to kill with it, but I am not an accomplice to murder unless I know that is what they intend. In the present scenario, the state does not have to prove that my linking to a gambling site is intended to cause others to gamble, just that it facilitates their finding that site.
Take another example, near and dear to the slashdoterii: DMCA. It is supposed to restrict bypassing access control methods, but people are prosecuted for accessing content they are already permitted to access so that they may copy it for their own use. Now, having made that copy, distribution without the copyright holder's consent is illegal, but it always was, without the DMCA.
So, what is the crime? Accessing the data, which I am licenced to? Or, making a copy for my use? Last time I checked, fair use wasn't made illegal. The crime is that my circumvention of the access protection mechanism enables the creation of copies the distribution of would violate someone's copyright. Nowhere does intent come into it anymore, as it does in the gun/murder scenario. The state does not have to show that I circumvented an access control mechanism with the intent to violate copyright.
Fair use hasn't been lost, it's just that it now requires actions that enable crime regardless of intent and regardless if precautions are taken to mitigate the possiblity of such crime (e.g. I keep the DVD copies out of the public internet, either behind a firewall, or on a non-internetworked system).
Here we get to "what would a reasonable person think?" Sadly, today, a "reasonable" person wouldn't go to the trouble of trying to preserve the content they have licensed to see, they would just license another copy. That might be fine, if, having presented proof of license of the original copy, and destruction thereof, one can get a new copy at a discount, for the cost of media. But that is not the case. A "reasonable" person would balk at anything which requires effort. Doing anything out of the ordinary raises suspicion. Even knowing how raises suspicion.
And what if you link to a site that links to a site that links to a gambling site?
There are two trobling aspects to this:
1. Legislators pass laws without understanding the ramifications of just *what* the law makes illegal, when anyone with half a brain can see the absurdities that result.
2. It is becomming increasingly difficult for a reasonable person to know what is legal and what isn't. Besides the sheer number of laws, often an "unreasonable" action might be perfectly harmless.
For example, it is unreasonable to go to the trouble to build a cool cached DVD distribution system for content one has on DVDs that one has purchased. However, it harms no one, and yet, it quite likely violates the DMCA because of the need to rely on contraband access control methods (libdvdcss). Less esoterically, there might be a loophole in the wording of a law that allows it to be circumvented for practical purposes. Increasingly there is legislative language that forbids actions designed to circumvent a law.
But, then, what is out of the scope of a law, and what is a circumvention?
In Canada, one can write a morgage to one's self out of an RRSP (rather like an IRA or 401(k)). But, the mortgage has to be insured against default, and that generally makes the whole venture one of questionable value. However, one can write a mortgage out of one's RRSP on a property a friend owns, and vice versa, and no such insurance is required. Is that legitimate, or an "end run" around the law?
In the end, that depends on a judge's decision.
What I have observed is that when legal loopholes are exploited by the few, they are largely ignored. But when a loophole starts to be exploited to the point of being widely visable, a crackdown occurs. When questions of intent are in legislative language, it is dangerous: instead of additional legislation to close a loophole, one merely trouts out the "intent" charge under the existing law. It requires a lawyer, and depending on the loophole exploited, possibly a very shrewd (and expensive) one to defend against such charges.
It should not be necessary to have to have a legal team at one's disposal just to know whether one is breaking the law or not. It should be easy for a reasonable person to determine this for most day to day activities. The benefit is that violations of the law then become far more clear cut to decide.
that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal
Not taking steps to kill everyone you encounter enables them to commit illegal acts, and such enablement is illegal, so you have to kill people?
What? Murder is illegal?
So, what you're saying is that commiting an act is illegal as is not commiting it?
If I'm guilty of a crime by simply existing, then the law is fscked enough to be ignored in its entirety. And again, we come to the conclusion that murder is fine.
Jesting aside, the bigger issue here is one of grandfathering. Usually, when a physical state is no longer permitted, existing occurances of it are grandfathered, either for some time, or indefinately (think home wiring that was up to code when it was installed, but no longer is).
In this case, an existing web site suddenly became illegal by a legislative act. It takes time to change things, and yet there was no grace period in the legislation?
Clearly, legislators are clueless about information -- they appear to think it exists only when accessed and can't be prepared for such access beforehand.
A full 1080p picture has around 10 times more pixels per square inch than a normal DVD (which is 480p)
Hmm. Assume we display that 1080p letterboxed on a 4:3 display which is actually capable of resolving letterboxed 1080p (Some 4:3 sony sets have the vertical resolution to do this when leterboxing). Assume we care only about the letterboxed content that's actually displayed.
1080x1920/480*640=2073600/307200=6.75
If we don't letterbox the 1080p and cut off the extra width, we get
(1080/480)^2 = 5.0625.
Perhaps you were thinking of comparing it to 480i in which case the numbers would be 13.50 and 10.1250, respectively?
If you were the first employee, your old boss would have been an investor, and thus didn't make out like a bandit, but rather left with somewhat less than they had invested.
But, as employee #1, you should have negotiated a better severance package, for the risk involved (along with the golden handcuff vesting schedule). Of course, that would probably mean that you'd probably be required to give serious notice if you decided to leave (I was once in an employment situation where either side had to give the other six months notice, by contract).
Yet he suffers from the poor hygeine and physical effects of a long term beer drinker.
Actually, I think his vice is sweets, though that is from a limited observation. And, while I've noticed that he perspires like the rest of us, I've not seen evidence that he is unclean. Perhaps he shuns deoderants and antipersperants. These have been shown to be worse for hygine in the long run than daily showering.
And when you're going to visit a leader of a country, please try playing the part.
I dunno. I see your point, but 165000 signatures on a petition should speak for themselves. Frankly, I think a representative of the people (at least the 165000 signatories) should look like one of them. His co-delegates appears respectible, if casual.
In my opinion, it matters not what one looks like, it matters how one acts: polite but firm strikes me as reasonable.
Frankly, the French P.M. dropped the ball on this one. His office should (a) have known that RMS is not a nobody, (b) been aware of the scope of the petition, (c) sent a reasonably high-ranking official to receive the delegation, (d) apologize for the PM's personal absense, and accept the petition.
If they have batteries, a short circuit will cause the battery to get warm for a while, or it will release some slightly caustic goo and you have to wash your hands. But if they have capacitors, you get an explosion and a violent electrical arc.
Never shorted a car battery with a screwdriver, eh?
You get a violent electrrical arc and (quite possibly), an explosion, as well as all that acidic goo.
Of course, my biggest question is who is silly enough to throw out working storage space? My inner packrat insists that precious Gigabytes should coveted.
Packrat?
Pfffft.
I've only recently thrown out (destroyed) 150 Mb MFM drives.
(though I do tend to save any 0.1" IDC jumpers on them).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
Or, you could offer to provide the sources any time in the next three years, to them, and anyone else to whom they redistribute.
To get around this, you offer them the source CDs at the same time as the binaries, and make it clear that they get either or both, but can't come back to you for what they didn't get. You must be prepared to make good on the source CDs offered, though.
Note that this is not a transferrable offer, as it would have to be if you distributed under (c). You are, in effect, redistributing under (a), albeit by proxy.
If someone declines your offer, it does mean that they can't redistribute unless they get sources from someone other than you.
Only if the upstream provider is willing to provide source for a resonable price to their binaries tht you redistribute non-commercially for a period of three years.
Most would-be upstream providers do not do this. Instead they make source available as long as they distribute binaries.
There is a simple technical solution to this, though:
Anyone who tries to download binaries from your site is encouraged to (a) download the source first "from your site" or explicitly decline it, on the understanding that it may cease to be available. This, IMHO, is not a GPL violation: you have offered source, and not only has the offer been declined, but the requestor has agreed to not ask again for it. The GPL merely requires that you offer (and, obviously, to be prepared to make good on your offer).
If someone excercizes your offer, you redirect their requests to your "upstream" provider (first verifying that their hashes are what you expect --- hmm, does .tar put a hash at the head of the archive?). After they've gotten source, then you send them binaries.
Because non-commercial redistribution under (c) requires someone else to distribute under (b), and, AFAIK, neither Debian, nor Red Hat (including Fedora), or anyone other major distro does this. Instead they distribute under (a).
The practical upshot is that your upstream provider can go *poof*, which is quite alright for them: they don't have to distribute source anymore when they stop distributing binaries.
Arguments about version skew between upstream and downstream distros are moot as long as you take care to update the third party unmodified stuff in your distro when the upstream provider does: the GPL applies to individual software packages and not the aggregate.
Frankly, the FSF could provide a service, for a fee, where they agree to host the sources according to (b) to what you redistribute under (c). First one needing this service pays the storage costs for the requisite three years out on an ongoing basis. Others pay a discounted rate for the same data, with the difference credited toward future storage charges of those already paying. The FSF, in turn, could charge for downloads or distribution on physical media, with some part credited to contributors.
Popular packages could pay for their own storage eventually and might even earn a small profit for the contributors. There remain issues (not the least of which is profiting from someone else's work by simply making it available), but I think the market can take care of them. (If you don't like someone getting roalties from your code, distribute it yourself.)
That isn't strictly true.
When we think of a subsidy, we generally think of enabling someone to purchase something below cost, and, indeed, one would have to consume an unhealty amount of soda to eat into the fast food franchise's profits.
However, lets assume that the franchise wishes to earn a particular gross profit on soda, on average. Their soda revenue is proprortional to the number of customers served, but their soda expense is proportional to the amount of soda consumed. Let's say the average soda consumption is two per person, and that half of the customers consume one, and other half consume three. If the three-soda customers cut back to one soda, the soda expense has been halved, and the soda revenue remains the same. To maintain the same gross profit margin, the franchise can cut the price of "all you can guzzle soda" for each customer by the cost of a soda.
The one-soda customer now realizes a savings: his soda costs less by a few pennies. The three-soda customer is now paying almost triple for his soda than before (not quite triple since the price has been reduced).
Because the franchise anticipates multi-soda customers, it must price its soda appropriately.
In effect, the fewer-than-average soda consumers subsidize the cost of the more-than-average soda consumers. But, because price is so much greater than cost in this case, we do not consider it a subsidy in the traditional sense.
However, if a fast food franchise tried the "all the soda you can guzzle" deal, charging only a dime per soda where their costs were a nickel, they would quickly have to raise the price for all significantly to accomodate the multi-soda belchmeisters. At this point, the soda-misers would very definately feel the economic effect of the soda-gluttons.
Well, lesse.
The discount grocery stores were generally worse in terms of price, selection, and bag charges.
The few stores that bagged groceries free of charge were either few and far between, or charged high prices (no doubt to compensate for the cost of bags).
But, why should I suffer the inconvenience to have to find a store in Ontario that bags groceries and has reasonable prices, when it is almost impossible to find one in the U.S. that doesn't bag for free, even the discount stores?
I continue to be amazed at the general good level of customer service in the U.S. Recently, I picked up a 6-pack of Deshutes Inversion I.P.A. at an Albertson's supermarket and only found it was lacking a bottle when I got to the cashier. After being asked if I intended to only buy 5 bottles of beer at the single bottle price, and answering in the negative, someone was dispatched to retrieve the sixth bottle from the other end of the store. Granted, one can find lousy service anywhere if one looks hard enough, but my experience has been that service in Quebec (where I lived from 1961-1997) and Ontario (2003-2004) has generally become horrible: I've been rebuffed for asking for purchase receipts for pete's sake, when it is du rigeur to receive them anywhere I've been in the U.S (1997-2003, 2004-present).
Now, it is possible to find "bag your own groceries" areas in supermarkets, but (a) I've always seen them in the self-serve checkout lines (which are often preferable because the lines tend to go faster), and (b) there is no charge for the bags.
The bottom line is that something which is inconvenient to the customer appears to be becoming ubiquitous in Canada, and continues to be rare in the places in the U.S. I've lived (suburbs of Chicago, Dallas, and now Seattle).
The only correlation I can see is the growth of customer inconvenience in Canada appears to tied to the continued adherence to socialism.
It will be interesting to see if these differences reverse themselves as Canada continues to have a balanced budget whereas even the right-wing has gone spend-happy in the U.S. (Nah, what is more likely is that the loony will continue to rise against the U.S. dollar).
Boxes, recycled from use as product packaging (instead of bags) were available for free and one could box one's own groceries. However, (a) the boxes were some distance from the cachier area (10-20 feet), (b) there was little room in the cachier area to box, (c) the time it took to find suitable boxes caused a backlog in the line, and (d) many boxes were either too large to fit back in the grocery cart, or too small to be of use.
I'd think the barrier between the customer area and coffe preparation area serves to imply "forbidden".
But, this does not make it socialist: it is not enforced en-masse by a government. Patrons are free to take their business elsewhere if they think they are paying too much for soda while others get a free ride.
In fact, there are many situations where subsidizing those that otherwise can not, or will not, go along, with the prix du jure makes sense. I'd rather have poor kids go to a summer day camp than wander the streets looking for trouble, and I'm glad that many organizations that run such camps offer subsidies based on "need", where the organization decides what qualifies as need. Certainly this increases the cost for everyone else. But, it keeps the rascals from causing trouble.
But, no one is forced to put their kids in that particular summer camp, or pay an "inflated" price to accomodate the subsidy.
Socialism would establish such camps as state-run, and force their fundung.
One could argue that public schools fall into the socialist camp, and to some extent they do. However, in the U.S. at least, they are funded out of very local property taxes and it does not take much effort to replace the taxing body if they become exorbitant, or to move to another county that taxes less or more effectively (in terms of services provided for taxes collected). "Voting with one's feet is practical". Not so, when the tax exists on a national level.
It took a while to get used to implied free refills on soda in fast food restaurants in the U.S.: for a while I'd throw out my empty cup and go to buy another one if I was really thirsty, having been brainwashed in Canada that anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden. Not surprisingly, the cashier would usually think me an idiot for throwing out my old cup. Sometimes they'd get mad that I wanted a replacement, not realizing that I was prepared to pay a second time. Only when I was reassured that, yes, the availability of self-serve soda implies free refills, did I believe it.
Thankfully, I am now filing I140 and I485, having received an LC. Hopefully the brainwashing of my socialist upbringing will start to fade with time.
Either he was on public property, in which case the police can simply ask him to move along, or he's on private property, in which case the police have no business being there, unless they were called by the owner, or had a warrant.
But, even in the latter case, why not simply charge him with trespassing? Just because a business is open to the public doesn't mean the owner can't ask someone to leave.
As far as I can see, he was not charged with trespassing, but something that may or may not be illegal ("theft" indeed -- access was free).
Well, yes, "in order to" goes toward intent.
The trouble with much recent legislation is that the bar for establishing intent is dangously low.
Just what is "enabling" in the context of telling someone about a gambling site? I've enabled them to visit it, perhaps, but have I enabled them to gamble? To use your gun analogy, simply selling the gun to someone enables them to kill with it, but I am not an accomplice to murder unless I know that is what they intend. In the present scenario, the state does not have to prove that my linking to a gambling site is intended to cause others to gamble, just that it facilitates their finding that site.
Take another example, near and dear to the slashdoterii: DMCA. It is supposed to restrict bypassing access control methods, but people are prosecuted for accessing content they are already permitted to access so that they may copy it for their own use. Now, having made that copy, distribution without the copyright holder's consent is illegal, but it always was, without the DMCA.
So, what is the crime? Accessing the data, which I am licenced to? Or, making a copy for my use? Last time I checked, fair use wasn't made illegal. The crime is that my circumvention of the access protection mechanism enables the creation of copies the distribution of would violate someone's copyright. Nowhere does intent come into it anymore, as it does in the gun/murder scenario. The state does not have to show that I circumvented an access control mechanism with the intent to violate copyright.
Fair use hasn't been lost, it's just that it now requires actions that enable crime regardless of intent and regardless if precautions are taken to mitigate the possiblity of such crime (e.g. I keep the DVD copies out of the public internet, either behind a firewall, or on a non-internetworked system).
Here we get to "what would a reasonable person think?" Sadly, today, a "reasonable" person wouldn't go to the trouble of trying to preserve the content they have licensed to see, they would just license another copy. That might be fine, if, having presented proof of license of the original copy, and destruction thereof, one can get a new copy at a discount, for the cost of media. But that is not the case. A "reasonable" person would balk at anything which requires effort. Doing anything out of the ordinary raises suspicion. Even knowing how raises suspicion.
There are two trobling aspects to this:
1. Legislators pass laws without understanding the ramifications of just *what* the law makes illegal, when anyone with half a brain can see the absurdities that result.
2. It is becomming increasingly difficult for a reasonable person to know what is legal and what isn't. Besides the sheer number of laws, often an "unreasonable" action might be perfectly harmless.
For example, it is unreasonable to go to the trouble to build a cool cached DVD distribution system for content one has on DVDs that one has purchased. However, it harms no one, and yet, it quite likely violates the DMCA because of the need to rely on contraband access control methods (libdvdcss). Less esoterically, there might be a loophole in the wording of a law that allows it to be circumvented for practical purposes. Increasingly there is legislative language that forbids actions designed to circumvent a law.
But, then, what is out of the scope of a law, and what is a circumvention?
In Canada, one can write a morgage to one's self out of an RRSP (rather like an IRA or 401(k)). But, the mortgage has to be insured against default, and that generally makes the whole venture one of questionable value. However, one can write a mortgage out of one's RRSP on a property a friend owns, and vice versa, and no such insurance is required. Is that legitimate, or an "end run" around the law?
In the end, that depends on a judge's decision.
What I have observed is that when legal loopholes are exploited by the few, they are largely ignored. But when a loophole starts to be exploited to the point of being widely visable, a crackdown occurs. When questions of intent are in legislative language, it is dangerous: instead of additional legislation to close a loophole, one merely trouts out the "intent" charge under the existing law. It requires a lawyer, and depending on the loophole exploited, possibly a very shrewd (and expensive) one to defend against such charges.
It should not be necessary to have to have a legal team at one's disposal just to know whether one is breaking the law or not. It should be easy for a reasonable person to determine this for most day to day activities. The benefit is that violations of the law then become far more clear cut to decide.
Twenty bucks says someone will claim MSFT was behind the legislation if that happens.
Not taking steps to kill everyone you encounter enables them to commit illegal acts, and such enablement is illegal, so you have to kill people?
What? Murder is illegal?
So, what you're saying is that commiting an act is illegal as is not commiting it?
If I'm guilty of a crime by simply existing, then the law is fscked enough to be ignored in its entirety. And again, we come to the conclusion that murder is fine.
Jesting aside, the bigger issue here is one of grandfathering. Usually, when a physical state is no longer permitted, existing occurances of it are grandfathered, either for some time, or indefinately (think home wiring that was up to code when it was installed, but no longer is).
In this case, an existing web site suddenly became illegal by a legislative act. It takes time to change things, and yet there was no grace period in the legislation?
Clearly, legislators are clueless about information -- they appear to think it exists only when accessed and can't be prepared for such access beforehand.
Hmm. Assume we display that 1080p letterboxed on a 4:3 display which is actually capable of resolving letterboxed 1080p (Some 4:3 sony sets have the vertical resolution to do this when leterboxing). Assume we care only about the letterboxed content that's actually displayed.
1080x1920/480*640=2073600/307200=6.75
If we don't letterbox the 1080p and cut off the extra width, we get
(1080/480)^2 = 5.0625.
Perhaps you were thinking of comparing it to 480i in which case the numbers would be 13.50 and 10.1250, respectively?
Still, I thought WAV <-> FLAC translators were rather common.
In my case, I needed the space saving FLAC offered, though, if I had the room, I'dve probably used WAV for simplicity.
FWIW, I also transcoded to .mp3, rather like an "audio thumbnail".
But, as employee #1, you should have negotiated a better severance package, for the risk involved (along with the golden handcuff vesting schedule). Of course, that would probably mean that you'd probably be required to give serious notice if you decided to leave (I was once in an employment situation where either side had to give the other six months notice, by contract).
Heh.
I did once refer to him as an "evangelical atheist", the oxymoron being intentional.
Actually, I think his vice is sweets, though that is from a limited observation. And, while I've noticed that he perspires like the rest of us, I've not seen evidence that he is unclean. Perhaps he shuns deoderants and antipersperants. These have been shown to be worse for hygine in the long run than daily showering.
And when you're going to visit a leader of a country, please try playing the part.
I dunno. I see your point, but 165000 signatures on a petition should speak for themselves. Frankly, I think a representative of the people (at least the 165000 signatories) should look like one of them. His co-delegates appears respectible, if casual.
In my opinion, it matters not what one looks like, it matters how one acts: polite but firm strikes me as reasonable.
Frankly, the French P.M. dropped the ball on this one. His office should (a) have known that RMS is not a nobody, (b) been aware of the scope of the petition, (c) sent a reasonably high-ranking official to receive the delegation, (d) apologize for the PM's personal absense, and accept the petition.
If you're gonna troll, troll right. While it's fine to parody or satire, inacuracies greatly reduce the chance of the troll catching a newb unawares:
RMS does not drink beer.
Never shorted a car battery with a screwdriver, eh?
You get a violent electrrical arc and (quite possibly), an explosion, as well as all that acidic goo.
Sorry to be a spelling/grammer nazi, but just what kind of word is mouses?
'sides, I always thought the plural of mouse was meese? (Or, is that the plural of moose? No, that's moose.)
Packrat?
Pfffft.
I've only recently thrown out (destroyed) 150 Mb MFM drives.
(though I do tend to save any 0.1" IDC jumpers on them).