Farms... sure, but I was thinking of a solar-powered machine small enough to fit on the roof of an average house, and generate enough food to feed that family.
Thermodynamcis probably makes such a device impossible, but imagine if it existed. Widespread deployment would end the hunger problem, yes? (and I know that an argument can be put forth that world-wide hunger is due more to politics and inefficiencies of distribution, than scarcity of production, but work with me here).
Now imagine that such machines were patented, and licensed on a month to month basis, rather than sold. Would that be moral?
To the extent that the investment necessary to design such a device was recouped and then some (after all, the inventor of such a thing would deserve wealth, by any standard), yes. They could even try to profit indefinitely as they tried to keep the design secret. But, once reverse engineered, beyond a reasonable exploitive monopoly period, the "gravy train" should end: no one should profit indefinately by restraining others from duplicating what they do.
I suggest that the situation with software is similar.
It boils down to the following paradox: Profit from scarcity that causes misery may be wrong, but such profit is necessary to mitigate one's own miseries, hence the justification for making things artificially scarce. However, this does little to aleviate the scarcity to begin with. Something needs to break the profit stream in order that the root problem can be addressed. Historically, we have resorted to violence to do this in the case of scarce natural resources (water, oil), and often make the hoarder worse off than if he had shared to begin with, usually as a form of punishment. Of course, you can't steal software, only copy it, so that kind of punishment is not possible. The U.S. tried limited patents and copyrights, to provide the necessary balance between rewarding innovation, and social progress, but the terms have become absurd on both. Do we have to resort once again, to violence to restore a more reasonable balance? I hope not.
Perens' article was a good rebuttal to Mundie's FUD slinging, but it left me wanting: it was an open source justification for a free software license.
While all the points he makes are true, and the economic beneifits of free software are obvious, that is not the primary moral justification for software being free. Repeat after me, "When software is free, the world is a better place."
Now, it stands to reason, that part of the world being a better place is certainly the economic benefit that free software provides to reduce operating costs. In fact, one could argue that if there were no such effect, free software wouldn't be too great a thing -- who'd want it if it had no value (rather like some excuses for programs I've seen)? And they'd be right. These are open source arguments, though, and miss the fact that freeing software not only results in lowered operating costs for businesses that use it, but it changes the every environment in which they operate.
There are two primary schools of economic thought: planned economies and free markets. Politically, you have the statists on one side and the libertarians and anarchists on the other. Proponents from both sides argue that "their" way serves to distribute scarce resources in the most effective way, and that's what we want, no? -- effective distribution of scarce resources.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't make the scarcity go away, does it? Oh sure, the technological advancements that lead to efficiency improvements do eventually trickle down to everyone so that certain scarcities are less visible, but that's just a kludge. Think water. Most cities have methods for distributing drinking water to the point that, although the amount of water available may remain the same, it hardly seems locally scarce, even though it may have come from far away.
Free software serves to reduce the scarcity of good code out there. It provides value without relying on scarcity as the source of that value. It is a threat only to those who seek to leverage their possession of a scarce resource for maximum value. Now, if that resource is naturally scarce, fine: once sold, it is gone. But if the resource is artificially scarce, you can manufacture more of it for no cost, and charge whatever the market will bear, for pure profit (until you saturate the market, that is, but time-limited use licenses take care of that "problem" -- Microsoft's latest licensing strategy). It gives the owner incredible power over society as a whole (until society revolts).
But it costs money to produce code! People can't afford to give it away!! Well, if they depend on making it scarce for their livelyhood, no, but that is a bootstrapping problem: you make something artificially scarce in order to deal with real scarcities in your life. You'd have to do this less if there were less scarcities to worry about (imagine if we had solar-powered food-generation machines). And indeed, some have managed to give code away. RMS has done this exclusively, though by living a rather austere lifestyle. His choice. Others give code away when they can afford to. Each such contribution changes our environment for the better. For hackers who breathe code, this is, of course, a godsend (RMS, an atheist, might not like that choice of wording -- "GPLsend" then). Perhaps that's why we like the GPL so much, even those of use that produce restrictively-licensed code for a living.
So, you don't need economic arguments to defend the GPL. It is as good and wonderful for the world as are the lack of patents on fire, wheels, and language. The only people who will criticize it are those that profit from the misery that scarcity brings.
Well, there are simpler approaches: content that is encrypted with the public key corresponding to a unique private key that all your equipment shares. So, you could copy all you want, but display would be controlled. This causes some problems for fair-use excepts (if you can excerpt, you an excerpt and reassmble the entire work), but they can be probably overcome by replacing the excerpt with a proxy for same.
Of course, such a scheme would require a decent key distribution framework, and certificate authorities, as well as the need for handling anonymous distribution (yes user #mumblyfoo has a copy, which someone paid for, but we don't know who). The issue of key escrow to handle failed companies also arises. Personally, I think these are workable.
The big hot area of DRM, of course, is he entertainment industry. My understanding is that even strong crypto-based DRM isn't enough for those control freaks. They want to ensure that even if content is cracked, it can't be redistributed. This, of course, is not technically possible. It may be legally possible by making everyone a criminal, of course.
I once worked in a place where asking for anything in writing could get you fired.
I no longer work there.
In my case, company policy prevented people from taking vacations at "inopportune" times. This was in writing. I could not take a vacation ever because I was too critical to the work that was being done. When it was suggested that I could take a vaction, without negative repercussions for doing so at an "inopportune" time, and I asked for that guarantee in writing, I was met with a stone wall. In the end I worked 60 hour average weeks, 52 yeeks a year, for 3-1/2 years before leaving. I was very close to having a nervous breakdown from fatigue.
Things like, "It is not an appropriate time for a vacation because you have to fix the bugs that X introduced and can't fix... besides he is on vacation" very quickly lead to anger.
Re:Cut and dried Copyright violation
on
Abusing the GPL?
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· Score: 4, Informative
if you (re)distribute changes, you must at least distribute those changes as source code.
The GPL does address the issue of what constitutes "source code" at some length. From section 3:
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
I'd hardly think that obfuscated source would qualify as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
Political or practical? Just like Bill Gates doesn't like people using his code for free, some people like to be able to profit (in an non-financial sense) from their code. By releasing code in a GPL manner, one gets the advantage of both their own code, and of other peoples' code and work.
This is practical only in the sense that it is a reasonable belief to hold. However, it is political in that it is based on the philosophy of a particular ethical view, hence political (politics: philosophy of ethics).
There are other ethical views, for example, the view that I can claim my work, but not derivatives. The BSD license reflects this, and enjoys some success.
Some people just hate the idea of being forced to pay to use their own code.
Whether derivative works are still "their own" is debatable, but if you believe that they are, then yes, the GPL is the license for you.
This gets into a whole grey area of what constitutes a derivative work. While copyright law is fairly clear, it breaks down when it comes to code binaries, because correct aggregation can create derived "functionality" that is greater than that of the individual component parts -- i.e. put the right code in the right place and it will find it's parts.
The same ethos which suggests that source derivatives of GPL code should remain free would also suggest that functional derivatives should remain free, no?
Again, some might say yes, and others no, but to those that would say yes, the GPL is not "strong enough" -- probably because of its rootings in copyright law.
thought americans had a constitutional right to remove their government by revolution?
Well, that right is claimed, but of course, you have to win the revolution, so you better bring a decent army.
presumably as long as you declare a revolution you are immune you legal prosecution for anything done in the name of the revolution.
Obviously it isn't that simple: what is "legal" in a revolutionary climate very much depends on who's "law" you chose to accept. The U.S. Declaration of Independence lays out some sensible principles though: the biggest beef was that fact the that Colonies' grievences were ignored by King George.... not "addressed and summarily dismissed," but blatently ignored.
Not all of the code was exclusively written by Linus. And, he did not set out to make an operating system but rather a kernel.
The failure of GNU to catch on with the Hurd as a micro-kernel has more to do with the slow development of the Hurd than the FSF political agenda: Debian GNU/Linux is a fairly succesful example.
The arguable greater popularity of other Linux-based operating systems with non-free code is a testament to the fact that people are willing to give up software freedom for convenience. Fair enough. However, I wonder how many understand the true nature of what they are giving up. What if they need support? How can they audit for spyware?
As computers become more ubiquitious, and essential parts of our lives, the need for transparancy in what they do will become ever more important.
My point is simply this: as computer systems become more complex, the boundary between simple aggregation and losely coupled linking becomes more blurred. Many GPL proponents like the GPL because it severely limits the ways in which GPL code can be coopted to help providers of non-free code, so yes, this is political. However, this desire is going to be increasingly not met by more tenuous ways to "get around" the spirit of what these people want. I suggest only a way that they can have their cake and eat it to, without necessarly completely buying into the political viewpoint.
The two most basic indicators of health care are the infant mortality rate and life expectancy. In both these stats [cia.gov], Canada is ahead of the United States. Infant mortality in Canada is 5.0/1000 live births vs. 6.7/1000 in the U.S. Life expectancy in Canada is 79.5 years vs 77.3 in the U.S. If the Canadian government is deciding anything, it is that more children should live and live longer.
These differences do not strike me as statistically different. Furthermore, the U.S. has populations where environmental risks are likely to result in greater mortality rates overall. You could argue, I suppose, that this is due to the same attitudes that make a lack of socialized medicine a bad thing, but I'd consider the correlation much stronger with the higher overall and local population density.
That's the way insurance works, even in the U.S.
Except, insurance in the U.S. is voluntary and you can generally chose your carrier (though employers often have preferred carriers at attractive group rates). Unlike a nationalized health care system, insurers have to compete for business. Monopolies are generally bad for the consumer. Involuntary monopolies are worse.
You can, of course, always come back to Canada and receive treatment as soon as you cross the border.
No, I can't. Not for six months anyway. If I returned, I'd have to pay into the health insurance system for six months before I could collect any benefits. Of course, I could retain insurance in the U.S. for that period, or indefinately. To be fair, I was entitled to Canadian health insurance benefits for 6 months after I left, but surrendered my rights to them so that I could claim non-residency -- a rather difficult thing to do.
In fact, I could not claim Canadian health insurance benefits six months after having left Canada even if I elected to continue paying Canadian taxes (dual tax residency is possible, for example, if I continued to own a home in Canada). The residency requirements for taxation are not the same as the residency requirements to collect benefits.
I've often thought that one should use whatever means are commensurate with the threat at hand to defend one's constitutional rights, including killing those who would take them away, collateral damage be damned, if it comes to that. Otherwise, such rights are meaningless.
The only issue then, after (for example) killing the dozen cops trying to arrest you for daring to run Linux, is whether you have a constitutional right to do so.
If so, you go scott free.
If not, you fry.
I'd think that, with the stakes so high, we would not see very much murder in the name of defending bogus rights that do not exist.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 2
Sure, there's always a way to defeat the system. The point is to come up with a system that catches blatent abusers. Consider Napster. Would it have been on the radar so much if there weren't Windoze clients?
Hollywood has to resign itself to the fact that it gets increasingly harder to catch the more determined and discreet violators, and requires correspondingly increasingly draconian measures to catch incrementally fewer "criminals".
At some point, even people willing to accept some "safeguards" will reject measures that are too draconian.
As I understand it, "mere" strong crypto offered by hardware manufacturers is still not good enough for Hollywood. Some other poster said it best: [my paraphrase] "explain to soccer moms that their kid's computer now costs double to protect the porn industry's copyrights".
Medical malpractice occurs in every health care system. Condemning a whole system based on one possible example is unreasonable.
When the system is run by the state, without recourse to alternatives (it is generally not possible for Canadians to pay for medical care: Canadian doctors who accept payment can not be part of the national health care system, and the taxes are so high that few can afford to go to American hospitals. It is argued, in fact, that it is "unfair" for some to afford "better" care while other's can't. Of course this does not stop Canadian politicians from , often at the Canadian taxpayer's expense.), it is quite appropriate to hold "the system" ultimately accountable for the practices of it's practitioners.
In my father's case, I found out that he was not informed of the gravity of his illness precisely because the Canadian health care system could not help him, and another one could, if only for enough money, thus perpetuating the lie that Canada has the best health care system in the world. While "available to all" might be one interpretation of "best", it certainly isn't the only one. I'm told that Canada now routinely does send gravely ill people to the U.S. for technologically superior care. I'm sure those people thank their favorite deity that such a place exists.
The bottom line is that people die in Canada because there isn't enough quality health care to go around, and ultimately the state choses who lives or dies.
Frankly, I think it better that life and death be decided by chance than by governmental decree. No government has the right to play the part of a deity.
What's absurd, if not barbaric, is the fact that half of the one million Americans who file for bankruptcy each year do so because of medical bills and other problems arising from serious illness or injury.
Better broke than dead, no? Bankruptcy in the U.S. isn't the stigma it is in Canada, espescially because of things like medical bills. It isn't pleasant, of course, but better than the alternative. If the Canadian government were to provide health care to everyone, regardless of need, instead of such individual bancruptcies, the state as a whole would incure a heaver debt load to be distributed on the backs of all Canadians. Should the healthy bear the costs of the sick to that degree?
Americans generally say, "No way! I've got my own expenses to worry about." Canadians, OTOH, seam happy to let the government pick who lives and who dies, hoping that they get to live. Not being one to trust government very much (less is better), I prefer to place my economic well-being at the hand of the charity of my fellows if I find myself in dire need, rather than my life at the hands of the state.
That's why this Canadian legally works in the U.S.A. and pays taxes to an American government.
It is difficult, and, in some ways the GPL isn't strong enough.
Consider that simply aggregating the right components in the right way, so they "self-assemble" at run-time to form a greater whole might very well involve "abuse" of GPL code. Just look at Linux-based distributions with a great deal of non-free code and how much they benefit from a free kernel, network code, graphical system, etc. 80% free and 20% non-free. Is that fair? I'm sure that some GPL proponents would say no, even thought the GPL was not violated.
One way to deal with this is to add a clause that prohibits redistribution "if intended for the purpose of causing a computing apparatus to provide functionality essential to a larger work, and that larger work is not distributed under the same license".
Now, "intended" and "essential" might be subject to debate, and possibly interpretation by a court, but simple aggregation without creating a specific greater functional work, would still be permitted.
IIRC, the FSF permitted IPC only so that a non-free shell could be loaded to run within emacs when there were no free shells available.
Communication between GPL and non-GPL code via pipes and sockets is generally O.K. so long as it isn't a sham for what would otherwise be a function call to an integral part of the larger work. In the case of emacs and a shell, it isn't emacs that needs the shell, but rather the user of emacs.
I dunno. I have a PPO plan, as do most people I know. It sucks if you don't have insurance, of course, but hospitals can't turn away people requireing immediate, urgent care (this includes women about to give birth despite occasional propaganda to the contrary).
The thing is, unemployment is generally low, even in a recession (5% is considered high), and most people who work have insurance.
My father died (in Canada), of a ruptured aortic anurysm. It was discovered a few years earlier during a hernia repair operation and he was not told. By U.S. standards, surgery would have been possible, albeit with a 30-40% mortality rate. By Canadian standards, surgery was not possible, and because of all the taxes he paid during his life to support, among the other things, the Canadian health care system, he couldn't have afforded surgery in the U.S. (though, had I known, I could have afforded to pay for it).
I think it better that people die for lack of money to save themselves than lack of technology to save them, as undesirable as either option is. If only the very rich can afford something today, more will be able to afford it tomorrow, and everyone within a generation. From my personal experience spending a week in an American hospital in 1998, Canadian health care was barbaric by comparison.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 2
Er, IIRC existing scanners were not made illegal by this law, only new ones.
Though, unconstitutionality has not stopped lawmakers before.
The biggest problem here is that the solution to the problem is not wrong on it's face, but rather that, if misimplemented, would be a horrible curtailment of traditional freedoms. There is sufficient mistrust of government to reasonably expect that such perverse misimplementation is what will actually be legislated if even the slightest hint of theoretical acceptability is suggested.
Basically, we are talking about "code as law enforcement" and have to decide just what laws we are willing to have enforced so brutally and mechanically.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 2
Yes, this certainly is a double-edged sword.
But first, to respond to your mandated escrow point: Content decryption keys have to be kept secret from end-users, but known to their equipment. Such keys can be generated for end-users by licensed escrow providers, who will download them (encrypted, of course) to trusted equipment. This way, each user has a unique key, and content encrypted for her. Tamper-proof hardware and strong-crypto limit a user's ability to decrypt such protected content. An escrow service assures that defective equipment can be replaced and rekeyed. But, the big thing here is that the equipment has control over decrypting and therefore releasing into the public domain. Properly done, this could be a good thing.
The problem, of course, is ensuring that (a) laws balance copyright (which they currently do not, IMHO), (b) equipment respects these laws. IOW, if a law stipulate that copyright expire at a particular time and associated content may then enter the public domain, and code or equipment enforces that law, then the code or equipment must also ensure that it release the content upon demand at that time. If not, the manufacturer is held liable, criminally liable if the defect is intentional. I can envision manufacturers obtaining "code/law complience insurance" for this.
Of course, Hollywood has rejected simple encryption, and probably public key cryptography because, once cracked, copyright content can be freely distributed via a high-bandwidth internet. This problem too, can be addressed, though not without raising privacy concerns.
Watermarking, of course, is impossible: if you can crack the encryption (not necessarily an easy feat - defeating the DRM that protects the keys is likey easier), you can probably crack the watermark as well. You can't stop redistribution of copyright content that way. But there is a way to catch blatent, widespread distribution: TCP session digest logs (where the privacy issues arise).
Imagine if ISPs kept logs of a message digest of each TCP session. Transferring content without permission would leave a "fingerprint", if you will. If copyright violation becomes noticible (the latest "hot" movie, for example), the culprits can be caught by such fingerprints. This is certainly not perfect: salts can be added to the decrypted content, polluting the message digests. But, casual pirates are lazy, and the addition of a salt means the need to remove it by the recipient, which, in turn, means special software. Surely, distribution of such circumvention software would appear on the MPAA radar, and could easily be prosecuted under the DMCA. It isn't perfect, but an imperfect system, combined with narrow anti-circumvention laws (the DMCA being way too broad in scope), would likely appease the "lets at least buy a law if the perfect tech doesn't exist" crowd. Add a touch of auditability of on-line activity, and prosecution of large numbers of violators becomes possible (think of getting a moving violation ticket on the information highway).
Would that be an unreasonable invasion of privacy? Depends. If only digests are maintained, and court orders are necessary to match digests to up/downloaders, or to get aggregate digest information without identifying users, this does not strike me as all that unreasonable: it matches traditional wiretap laws in spirit (yeah, I know, those have been made much more privacy-invadint lately).
The biggest problem with all this is the potential for industry, police, and state abuse. Simple, unambiguous, and clear provisions for defining acceptable legal defenses under the law have to be part of any law with authorizes such intrusive practices: Caught with a suspicious digest? Show that it came from a beniegn source, or that you reported the violation (i.e. receiving copyright content instead of "acceptable" goatse.cx porn). In these cases, espescially, circumstantial evidence must not be interpreted as guilt.
I was thinking of +4 and, particularly +5 comments that get seen (by default) on the main article page. Heck, I probably post close to 50 +3 comments during an active/. month.
The concerns about earning something of economic value are warranted, of course, but I think they are less worrying if they earn discounts, and not outright credits. As for karma whoring, what's the issue? I'm not suggesting discounts for karma, but rather positive moderations, and I think the feedback between the two is damped enough for this to not be a problem. If someone gets karma becase of positive mods, don't they deserve it?
Anyway, it's your site, not mine, do what you will. But, I'd hate to see the posters who have the most valued comments leave because of an ad or subscription policy. I'd be surprised to learn that half of all readers don't care about comments at all -- do that many never click beyond the headlines to see top level +4 and +5 posts?
Not good enough. Providing a reward for accepted articles is one facet, but not all valuable content comes from accepted articles. +4 and +5 comments count too. Their submitters should be rewarded because they draw readership.
You know, it would be nice if the view meter was put in place before subscriptions went into effect, so people could have a better idea of theyr viewing habits. Honestly, I really don't know how many pages I view in a day/week/month.
Also, I'd think that one of the attractions of this site is user-participation and dialog. Perhaps +5 posts should gain some small number of free views. Heck, any non-negative posts should get at least 1 or 2 free views.
You know, as revolting as such a game sounds, I could support it if one had the choice of inserting the ethnic group of one's choice in the various roles.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 4, Informative
I'm all for REAL copyright that still provides for fair use.
Yes, and the problem with most technological "solutions" is that they either seriously impede fair use by design, or make it cumbersome to excercise one's fair use rights. Horror stories of content being tied to particular hardware abound. What happens when the hardware breaks?
However, I think the hour is not as dark as it seams, and there may be a silver lining to this particular cloud. As Lawrence Lessig points out, code is becoming a proxy for law enforcement. By itself, this is ominous only because laws can be repealed, but code can't. But, what if every law had sunset clauses, and code to enforce it had to honour them? A copyright law enforced by code could also enforce release into the public domain at the appropriate time. No "Sonny Bono" act could change that, though, I suppose the act of benefitting from this "earlier law" enforcement could be made illegal. Still, I'd question the constitutionality of a law that made existing equipment functionality retroactively illegal.
I think, sadly, it's a given that we'll have hardware copy protection. Given public key cryptography, and an escrow mechanism for user-specific secret private keys within the equipment you own, it is technologically feasable. The challenge is for the public to standardize and control the depoloyment of same to ensure that the law it enforces reflects balance in copyright of digital content, as the constitution broadly intends.
I see a great potential here for crypto-hackers to ally with hardware manufacturers to produce a system with which we can live, and not one that enforces Hollywood's idea of maniacal control. While the best proportion of SSSCA-mandated hardware in a system is none at all, I'd settle for 1%, in playback or transcoding interfaces, espescially if I can leverage it to protect my own private content, and not in storage devices.
The GPL limits distributing without source, not "commercially".
Correct.
But the GPL does add additional restrictions if you distribute commercially: you must either provide source with binaries (if you provide binaries on "media", or a transferrable written offer to provide source. If you do not distribute commercially, it is sufficient to provide a reference to where you obtained the source.
One issue is whether pointing to an FTP server counts as providing source "on media" (for the case where, for example, you ship binaries on a CD, with a link to an FTP server for source). My understanding is that the FSF and RMS think "No." This is because network access may be nonexistant or prohibitively expensive for some.
Of course, if you provide both binaries and source on a server somewhere, you're O.K.
Why put anything in the licence that benefits the infringer.
Because infringement can be inadvertent and accidental. I'd rather have a "grace" period spelled out, than have to rely on the forgiveness of the license holder. 30 days strikes me as reasonable. Of course, any time you put a specific limit on something, it will be too long for some, and too short for others.
The recent affidavit before the court is a testament to the fact that the FSF prefers complience to retribution (as, it appears, do most slashdotters). If that is the case, formally giving up the right to vengeful persecution for the slightest inadvertent infraction, is certainly in the correct spirit.
Of course, this defense should not be available for repeated, intentional, violations opening a 30 day window of opportunity each time (and I suspect that is what you fear). I think that acceptable wording could be drafted to balance heavyhandedness for blatent intentional infringement against grace for temporary lapses, even though reasonable dilligence was exercized.
The bottom line is that while I like the idea of a GPL "death penalty", I also think that some safeguards be in place so it is not abused.
Let me give you an example of an inadvertent infringement: I once sent a RedHat-derived CD to someone (with our own GPL code and source) and forgot to include the Red Hat sources. Technically, I was in violation of the GPL even though I already knew they had the relevant sources. They didn't even want me to send them something they already had. However, the GPL did not cover the relationship betweem me and them, but betweem me and the copyright holders so what they wanted was irrelevant: I either had to provide the sources, or a transferrable offer to provide them. I was not prepared to do the latter, because we were not prepared to provide source to any and all who asked for it and didn't obtain binaries directly from us. So, I made sure I sent a source CD with the next update.
RMS was aware of this slip (we were discussing subtle nuances of GPL complience at the time and the pragmatic problems some requirements caused (hint: making a supportable source distribution is not always easy)) and, IIRC, considered their statement of already having the sources "good enough" to qualify as our meeting the requirement that they have them. However, the FSF was not the only copyright-holder affected, so I made sure to dot the i's and cross the t's as it were and sent sources anyway.
Should I suffer a "GPL death penalty" because of this gaffe? I don't think so, because (a) I was not grossly negligent, (b) I compensated for the harm caused (sent source), (c) acted in good faith. If the case went to a civil court, I'm sure I'd prevail: civil courts are about restitution, and not revenge.
Omiting reasonable "forgiveness" clauses in a license leaves the matter entirely up to the courts, and they might be more forgiving than the copyright holder might wish. Putting them in strengthens the copyright holder's position, IMHO, and does not weaken it.
Slashdot Mirror
Thermodynamcis probably makes such a device impossible, but imagine if it existed. Widespread deployment would end the hunger problem, yes? (and I know that an argument can be put forth that world-wide hunger is due more to politics and inefficiencies of distribution, than scarcity of production, but work with me here).
Now imagine that such machines were patented, and licensed on a month to month basis, rather than sold. Would that be moral?
To the extent that the investment necessary to design such a device was recouped and then some (after all, the inventor of such a thing would deserve wealth, by any standard), yes. They could even try to profit indefinitely as they tried to keep the design secret. But, once reverse engineered, beyond a reasonable exploitive monopoly period, the "gravy train" should end: no one should profit indefinately by restraining others from duplicating what they do.
I suggest that the situation with software is similar.
It boils down to the following paradox: Profit from scarcity that causes misery may be wrong, but such profit is necessary to mitigate one's own miseries, hence the justification for making things artificially scarce. However, this does little to aleviate the scarcity to begin with. Something needs to break the profit stream in order that the root problem can be addressed. Historically, we have resorted to violence to do this in the case of scarce natural resources (water, oil), and often make the hoarder worse off than if he had shared to begin with, usually as a form of punishment. Of course, you can't steal software, only copy it, so that kind of punishment is not possible. The U.S. tried limited patents and copyrights, to provide the necessary balance between rewarding innovation, and social progress, but the terms have become absurd on both. Do we have to resort once again, to violence to restore a more reasonable balance? I hope not.
While all the points he makes are true, and the economic beneifits of free software are obvious, that is not the primary moral justification for software being free. Repeat after me, "When software is free, the world is a better place."
Now, it stands to reason, that part of the world being a better place is certainly the economic benefit that free software provides to reduce operating costs. In fact, one could argue that if there were no such effect, free software wouldn't be too great a thing -- who'd want it if it had no value (rather like some excuses for programs I've seen)? And they'd be right. These are open source arguments, though, and miss the fact that freeing software not only results in lowered operating costs for businesses that use it, but it changes the every environment in which they operate.
There are two primary schools of economic thought: planned economies and free markets. Politically, you have the statists on one side and the libertarians and anarchists on the other. Proponents from both sides argue that "their" way serves to distribute scarce resources in the most effective way, and that's what we want, no? -- effective distribution of scarce resources.
Well, yeah, but that doesn't make the scarcity go away, does it? Oh sure, the technological advancements that lead to efficiency improvements do eventually trickle down to everyone so that certain scarcities are less visible, but that's just a kludge. Think water. Most cities have methods for distributing drinking water to the point that, although the amount of water available may remain the same, it hardly seems locally scarce, even though it may have come from far away.
Free software serves to reduce the scarcity of good code out there. It provides value without relying on scarcity as the source of that value. It is a threat only to those who seek to leverage their possession of a scarce resource for maximum value. Now, if that resource is naturally scarce, fine: once sold, it is gone. But if the resource is artificially scarce, you can manufacture more of it for no cost, and charge whatever the market will bear, for pure profit (until you saturate the market, that is, but time-limited use licenses take care of that "problem" -- Microsoft's latest licensing strategy). It gives the owner incredible power over society as a whole (until society revolts).
But it costs money to produce code! People can't afford to give it away!! Well, if they depend on making it scarce for their livelyhood, no, but that is a bootstrapping problem: you make something artificially scarce in order to deal with real scarcities in your life. You'd have to do this less if there were less scarcities to worry about (imagine if we had solar-powered food-generation machines). And indeed, some have managed to give code away. RMS has done this exclusively, though by living a rather austere lifestyle. His choice. Others give code away when they can afford to. Each such contribution changes our environment for the better. For hackers who breathe code, this is, of course, a godsend (RMS, an atheist, might not like that choice of wording -- "GPLsend" then). Perhaps that's why we like the GPL so much, even those of use that produce restrictively-licensed code for a living.
So, you don't need economic arguments to defend the GPL. It is as good and wonderful for the world as are the lack of patents on fire, wheels, and language. The only people who will criticize it are those that profit from the misery that scarcity brings.
Of course, such a scheme would require a decent key distribution framework, and certificate authorities, as well as the need for handling anonymous distribution (yes user #mumblyfoo has a copy, which someone paid for, but we don't know who). The issue of key escrow to handle failed companies also arises. Personally, I think these are workable.
The big hot area of DRM, of course, is he entertainment industry. My understanding is that even strong crypto-based DRM isn't enough for those control freaks. They want to ensure that even if content is cracked, it can't be redistributed. This, of course, is not technically possible. It may be legally possible by making everyone a criminal, of course.
I no longer work there.
In my case, company policy prevented people from taking vacations at "inopportune" times. This was in writing. I could not take a vacation ever because I was too critical to the work that was being done. When it was suggested that I could take a vaction, without negative repercussions for doing so at an "inopportune" time, and I asked for that guarantee in writing, I was met with a stone wall. In the end I worked 60 hour average weeks, 52 yeeks a year, for 3-1/2 years before leaving. I was very close to having a nervous breakdown from fatigue.
Things like, "It is not an appropriate time for a vacation because you have to fix the bugs that X introduced and can't fix... besides he is on vacation" very quickly lead to anger.
The GPL does address the issue of what constitutes "source code" at some length. From section 3:
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
I'd hardly think that obfuscated source would qualify as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
This is practical only in the sense that it is a reasonable belief to hold. However, it is political in that it is based on the philosophy of a particular ethical view, hence political (politics: philosophy of ethics).
There are other ethical views, for example, the view that I can claim my work, but not derivatives. The BSD license reflects this, and enjoys some success.
Some people just hate the idea of being forced to pay to use their own code.
Whether derivative works are still "their own" is debatable, but if you believe that they are, then yes, the GPL is the license for you.
This gets into a whole grey area of what constitutes a derivative work. While copyright law is fairly clear, it breaks down when it comes to code binaries, because correct aggregation can create derived "functionality" that is greater than that of the individual component parts -- i.e. put the right code in the right place and it will find it's parts.
The same ethos which suggests that source derivatives of GPL code should remain free would also suggest that functional derivatives should remain free, no?
Again, some might say yes, and others no, but to those that would say yes, the GPL is not "strong enough" -- probably because of its rootings in copyright law.
Well, that right is claimed, but of course, you have to win the revolution, so you better bring a decent army.
presumably as long as you declare a revolution you are immune you legal prosecution for anything done in the name of the revolution.
Obviously it isn't that simple: what is "legal" in a revolutionary climate very much depends on who's "law" you chose to accept. The U.S. Declaration of Independence lays out some sensible principles though: the biggest beef was that fact the that Colonies' grievences were ignored by King George.... not "addressed and summarily dismissed," but blatently ignored.
The failure of GNU to catch on with the Hurd as a micro-kernel has more to do with the slow development of the Hurd than the FSF political agenda: Debian GNU/Linux is a fairly succesful example.
The arguable greater popularity of other Linux-based operating systems with non-free code is a testament to the fact that people are willing to give up software freedom for convenience. Fair enough. However, I wonder how many understand the true nature of what they are giving up. What if they need support? How can they audit for spyware?
As computers become more ubiquitious, and essential parts of our lives, the need for transparancy in what they do will become ever more important.
My point is simply this: as computer systems become more complex, the boundary between simple aggregation and losely coupled linking becomes more blurred. Many GPL proponents like the GPL because it severely limits the ways in which GPL code can be coopted to help providers of non-free code, so yes, this is political. However, this desire is going to be increasingly not met by more tenuous ways to "get around" the spirit of what these people want. I suggest only a way that they can have their cake and eat it to, without necessarly completely buying into the political viewpoint.
These differences do not strike me as statistically different. Furthermore, the U.S. has populations where environmental risks are likely to result in greater mortality rates overall. You could argue, I suppose, that this is due to the same attitudes that make a lack of socialized medicine a bad thing, but I'd consider the correlation much stronger with the higher overall and local population density.
That's the way insurance works, even in the U.S.
Except, insurance in the U.S. is voluntary and you can generally chose your carrier (though employers often have preferred carriers at attractive group rates). Unlike a nationalized health care system, insurers have to compete for business. Monopolies are generally bad for the consumer. Involuntary monopolies are worse.
You can, of course, always come back to Canada and receive treatment as soon as you cross the border.
No, I can't. Not for six months anyway. If I returned, I'd have to pay into the health insurance system for six months before I could collect any benefits. Of course, I could retain insurance in the U.S. for that period, or indefinately. To be fair, I was entitled to Canadian health insurance benefits for 6 months after I left, but surrendered my rights to them so that I could claim non-residency -- a rather difficult thing to do.
In fact, I could not claim Canadian health insurance benefits six months after having left Canada even if I elected to continue paying Canadian taxes (dual tax residency is possible, for example, if I continued to own a home in Canada). The residency requirements for taxation are not the same as the residency requirements to collect benefits.
I've often thought that one should use whatever means are commensurate with the threat at hand to defend one's constitutional rights, including killing those who would take them away, collateral damage be damned, if it comes to that. Otherwise, such rights are meaningless.
The only issue then, after (for example) killing the dozen cops trying to arrest you for daring to run Linux, is whether you have a constitutional right to do so.
If so, you go scott free.
If not, you fry.
I'd think that, with the stakes so high, we would not see very much murder in the name of defending bogus rights that do not exist.
Hollywood has to resign itself to the fact that it gets increasingly harder to catch the more determined and discreet violators, and requires correspondingly increasingly draconian measures to catch incrementally fewer "criminals".
At some point, even people willing to accept some "safeguards" will reject measures that are too draconian.
As I understand it, "mere" strong crypto offered by hardware manufacturers is still not good enough for Hollywood. Some other poster said it best: [my paraphrase] "explain to soccer moms that their kid's computer now costs double to protect the porn industry's copyrights".
When the system is run by the state, without recourse to alternatives (it is generally not possible for Canadians to pay for medical care: Canadian doctors who accept payment can not be part of the national health care system, and the taxes are so high that few can afford to go to American hospitals. It is argued, in fact, that it is "unfair" for some to afford "better" care while other's can't. Of course this does not stop Canadian politicians from , often at the Canadian taxpayer's expense.), it is quite appropriate to hold "the system" ultimately accountable for the practices of it's practitioners.
In my father's case, I found out that he was not informed of the gravity of his illness precisely because the Canadian health care system could not help him, and another one could, if only for enough money, thus perpetuating the lie that Canada has the best health care system in the world. While "available to all" might be one interpretation of "best", it certainly isn't the only one. I'm told that Canada now routinely does send gravely ill people to the U.S. for technologically superior care. I'm sure those people thank their favorite deity that such a place exists.
The bottom line is that people die in Canada because there isn't enough quality health care to go around, and ultimately the state choses who lives or dies.
Frankly, I think it better that life and death be decided by chance than by governmental decree. No government has the right to play the part of a deity.
What's absurd, if not barbaric, is the fact that half of the one million Americans who file for bankruptcy each year do so because of medical bills and other problems arising from serious illness or injury.
Better broke than dead, no? Bankruptcy in the U.S. isn't the stigma it is in Canada, espescially because of things like medical bills. It isn't pleasant, of course, but better than the alternative. If the Canadian government were to provide health care to everyone, regardless of need, instead of such individual bancruptcies, the state as a whole would incure a heaver debt load to be distributed on the backs of all Canadians. Should the healthy bear the costs of the sick to that degree?
Americans generally say, "No way! I've got my own expenses to worry about." Canadians, OTOH, seam happy to let the government pick who lives and who dies, hoping that they get to live. Not being one to trust government very much (less is better), I prefer to place my economic well-being at the hand of the charity of my fellows if I find myself in dire need, rather than my life at the hands of the state.
That's why this Canadian legally works in the U.S.A. and pays taxes to an American government.
Consider that simply aggregating the right components in the right way, so they "self-assemble" at run-time to form a greater whole might very well involve "abuse" of GPL code. Just look at Linux-based distributions with a great deal of non-free code and how much they benefit from a free kernel, network code, graphical system, etc. 80% free and 20% non-free. Is that fair? I'm sure that some GPL proponents would say no, even thought the GPL was not violated.
One way to deal with this is to add a clause that prohibits redistribution "if intended for the purpose of causing a computing apparatus to provide functionality essential to a larger work, and that larger work is not distributed under the same license".
Now, "intended" and "essential" might be subject to debate, and possibly interpretation by a court, but simple aggregation without creating a specific greater functional work, would still be permitted.
Communication between GPL and non-GPL code via pipes and sockets is generally O.K. so long as it isn't a sham for what would otherwise be a function call to an integral part of the larger work. In the case of emacs and a shell, it isn't emacs that needs the shell, but rather the user of emacs.
The thing is, unemployment is generally low, even in a recession (5% is considered high), and most people who work have insurance.
My father died (in Canada), of a ruptured aortic anurysm. It was discovered a few years earlier during a hernia repair operation and he was not told. By U.S. standards, surgery would have been possible, albeit with a 30-40% mortality rate. By Canadian standards, surgery was not possible, and because of all the taxes he paid during his life to support, among the other things, the Canadian health care system, he couldn't have afforded surgery in the U.S. (though, had I known, I could have afforded to pay for it).
I think it better that people die for lack of money to save themselves than lack of technology to save them, as undesirable as either option is. If only the very rich can afford something today, more will be able to afford it tomorrow, and everyone within a generation. From my personal experience spending a week in an American hospital in 1998, Canadian health care was barbaric by comparison.
Though, unconstitutionality has not stopped lawmakers before.
The biggest problem here is that the solution to the problem is not wrong on it's face, but rather that, if misimplemented, would be a horrible curtailment of traditional freedoms. There is sufficient mistrust of government to reasonably expect that such perverse misimplementation is what will actually be legislated if even the slightest hint of theoretical acceptability is suggested.
Basically, we are talking about "code as law enforcement" and have to decide just what laws we are willing to have enforced so brutally and mechanically.
No, just kill you.
But first, to respond to your mandated escrow point: Content decryption keys have to be kept secret from end-users, but known to their equipment. Such keys can be generated for end-users by licensed escrow providers, who will download them (encrypted, of course) to trusted equipment. This way, each user has a unique key, and content encrypted for her. Tamper-proof hardware and strong-crypto limit a user's ability to decrypt such protected content. An escrow service assures that defective equipment can be replaced and rekeyed. But, the big thing here is that the equipment has control over decrypting and therefore releasing into the public domain. Properly done, this could be a good thing.
The problem, of course, is ensuring that (a) laws balance copyright (which they currently do not, IMHO), (b) equipment respects these laws. IOW, if a law stipulate that copyright expire at a particular time and associated content may then enter the public domain, and code or equipment enforces that law, then the code or equipment must also ensure that it release the content upon demand at that time. If not, the manufacturer is held liable, criminally liable if the defect is intentional. I can envision manufacturers obtaining "code/law complience insurance" for this.
Of course, Hollywood has rejected simple encryption, and probably public key cryptography because, once cracked, copyright content can be freely distributed via a high-bandwidth internet. This problem too, can be addressed, though not without raising privacy concerns.
Watermarking, of course, is impossible: if you can crack the encryption (not necessarily an easy feat - defeating the DRM that protects the keys is likey easier), you can probably crack the watermark as well. You can't stop redistribution of copyright content that way. But there is a way to catch blatent, widespread distribution: TCP session digest logs (where the privacy issues arise).
Imagine if ISPs kept logs of a message digest of each TCP session. Transferring content without permission would leave a "fingerprint", if you will. If copyright violation becomes noticible (the latest "hot" movie, for example), the culprits can be caught by such fingerprints. This is certainly not perfect: salts can be added to the decrypted content, polluting the message digests. But, casual pirates are lazy, and the addition of a salt means the need to remove it by the recipient, which, in turn, means special software. Surely, distribution of such circumvention software would appear on the MPAA radar, and could easily be prosecuted under the DMCA. It isn't perfect, but an imperfect system, combined with narrow anti-circumvention laws (the DMCA being way too broad in scope), would likely appease the "lets at least buy a law if the perfect tech doesn't exist" crowd. Add a touch of auditability of on-line activity, and prosecution of large numbers of violators becomes possible (think of getting a moving violation ticket on the information highway).
Would that be an unreasonable invasion of privacy? Depends. If only digests are maintained, and court orders are necessary to match digests to up/downloaders, or to get aggregate digest information without identifying users, this does not strike me as all that unreasonable: it matches traditional wiretap laws in spirit (yeah, I know, those have been made much more privacy-invadint lately).
The biggest problem with all this is the potential for industry, police, and state abuse. Simple, unambiguous, and clear provisions for defining acceptable legal defenses under the law have to be part of any law with authorizes such intrusive practices: Caught with a suspicious digest? Show that it came from a beniegn source, or that you reported the violation (i.e. receiving copyright content instead of "acceptable" goatse.cx porn). In these cases, espescially, circumstantial evidence must not be interpreted as guilt.
I was thinking of +4 and, particularly +5 comments that get seen (by default) on the main article page. Heck, I probably post close to 50 +3 comments during an active /. month.
The concerns about earning something of economic value are warranted, of course, but I think they are less worrying if they earn discounts, and not outright credits. As for karma whoring, what's the issue? I'm not suggesting discounts for karma, but rather positive moderations, and I think the feedback between the two is damped enough for this to not be a problem. If someone gets karma becase of positive mods, don't they deserve it?
Anyway, it's your site, not mine, do what you will. But, I'd hate to see the posters who have the most valued comments leave because of an ad or subscription policy. I'd be surprised to learn that half of all readers don't care about comments at all -- do that many never click beyond the headlines to see top level +4 and +5 posts?
Not good enough. Providing a reward for accepted articles is one facet, but not all valuable content comes from accepted articles. +4 and +5 comments count too. Their submitters should be rewarded because they draw readership.
Also, I'd think that one of the attractions of this site is user-participation and dialog. Perhaps +5 posts should gain some small number of free views. Heck, any non-negative posts should get at least 1 or 2 free views.
You know, as revolting as such a game sounds, I could support it if one had the choice of inserting the ethnic group of one's choice in the various roles.
Yes, and the problem with most technological "solutions" is that they either seriously impede fair use by design, or make it cumbersome to excercise one's fair use rights. Horror stories of content being tied to particular hardware abound. What happens when the hardware breaks?
However, I think the hour is not as dark as it seams, and there may be a silver lining to this particular cloud. As Lawrence Lessig points out, code is becoming a proxy for law enforcement. By itself, this is ominous only because laws can be repealed, but code can't. But, what if every law had sunset clauses, and code to enforce it had to honour them? A copyright law enforced by code could also enforce release into the public domain at the appropriate time. No "Sonny Bono" act could change that, though, I suppose the act of benefitting from this "earlier law" enforcement could be made illegal. Still, I'd question the constitutionality of a law that made existing equipment functionality retroactively illegal.
I think, sadly, it's a given that we'll have hardware copy protection. Given public key cryptography, and an escrow mechanism for user-specific secret private keys within the equipment you own, it is technologically feasable. The challenge is for the public to standardize and control the depoloyment of same to ensure that the law it enforces reflects balance in copyright of digital content, as the constitution broadly intends.
I see a great potential here for crypto-hackers to ally with hardware manufacturers to produce a system with which we can live, and not one that enforces Hollywood's idea of maniacal control. While the best proportion of SSSCA-mandated hardware in a system is none at all, I'd settle for 1%, in playback or transcoding interfaces, espescially if I can leverage it to protect my own private content, and not in storage devices.
Correct.
But the GPL does add additional restrictions if you distribute commercially: you must either provide source with binaries (if you provide binaries on "media", or a transferrable written offer to provide source. If you do not distribute commercially, it is sufficient to provide a reference to where you obtained the source.
One issue is whether pointing to an FTP server counts as providing source "on media" (for the case where, for example, you ship binaries on a CD, with a link to an FTP server for source). My understanding is that the FSF and RMS think "No." This is because network access may be nonexistant or prohibitively expensive for some.
Of course, if you provide both binaries and source on a server somewhere, you're O.K.
Because infringement can be inadvertent and accidental. I'd rather have a "grace" period spelled out, than have to rely on the forgiveness of the license holder. 30 days strikes me as reasonable. Of course, any time you put a specific limit on something, it will be too long for some, and too short for others.
The recent affidavit before the court is a testament to the fact that the FSF prefers complience to retribution (as, it appears, do most slashdotters). If that is the case, formally giving up the right to vengeful persecution for the slightest inadvertent infraction, is certainly in the correct spirit.
Of course, this defense should not be available for repeated, intentional, violations opening a 30 day window of opportunity each time (and I suspect that is what you fear). I think that acceptable wording could be drafted to balance heavyhandedness for blatent intentional infringement against grace for temporary lapses, even though reasonable dilligence was exercized.
The bottom line is that while I like the idea of a GPL "death penalty", I also think that some safeguards be in place so it is not abused.
Let me give you an example of an inadvertent infringement: I once sent a RedHat-derived CD to someone (with our own GPL code and source) and forgot to include the Red Hat sources. Technically, I was in violation of the GPL even though I already knew they had the relevant sources. They didn't even want me to send them something they already had. However, the GPL did not cover the relationship betweem me and them, but betweem me and the copyright holders so what they wanted was irrelevant: I either had to provide the sources, or a transferrable offer to provide them. I was not prepared to do the latter, because we were not prepared to provide source to any and all who asked for it and didn't obtain binaries directly from us. So, I made sure I sent a source CD with the next update.
RMS was aware of this slip (we were discussing subtle nuances of GPL complience at the time and the pragmatic problems some requirements caused (hint: making a supportable source distribution is not always easy)) and, IIRC, considered their statement of already having the sources "good enough" to qualify as our meeting the requirement that they have them. However, the FSF was not the only copyright-holder affected, so I made sure to dot the i's and cross the t's as it were and sent sources anyway.
Should I suffer a "GPL death penalty" because of this gaffe? I don't think so, because (a) I was not grossly negligent, (b) I compensated for the harm caused (sent source), (c) acted in good faith. If the case went to a civil court, I'm sure I'd prevail: civil courts are about restitution, and not revenge.
Omiting reasonable "forgiveness" clauses in a license leaves the matter entirely up to the courts, and they might be more forgiving than the copyright holder might wish. Putting them in strengthens the copyright holder's position, IMHO, and does not weaken it.