That's not really true - Cedega discloses their source code for some parts (e.g. their direct3D code), but the license used is not at all an Open Source (or Free Software) license. But ignoring that, some essential parts (like the copy protection implementation) are not provided except in binary form. To be fair, their agreement with the copy protection software company probably doesn't allow source disclosure of those parts.
Looking at the certificate, it seems it is a valid certificate, but signed by MSFT. Most non-Microsoft browsers do not by default trust MS' root certificate.
MS would have to have their cert signed by Verisign or something like that; or it could ignore the few percent of non-MSIE users that do not click through the cert warnings anyway.
Yeah, why is a "to-kill" abortion doctors list different? Because in contrast to such a list, the DMCA *will be* affecting his right to publish open source code (besides, there's an obvious difference in scope).
You assume that he is just having political issues with the DMCA and as a UK citizen, he won't be affected anyway. However, he has strong ties to the US (remember, Red Hat's US-based, and he does work for them) and the Skylarov episode shows that it actually _is_ a possible reason for indictment if you write code that defies some arbitrary rules. This is what the DMCA has been used for.
This is why Alan Cox has all the right in the world, as a kernel maintainer in the global Free Software/Open Source community, to do everything he can to allow him to continue writing code. Fighting the DMCA is not a politically correct thing, it's a necessity for him to keep on working. If it's _also_ what he - coincidentally - believes in, it doesn't change its validity.
> The consequences on the
> growth of the web will be disastrous if we don't
> take sensible steps like allowing patented
> technology into web standards.
Do you have any evidence supporting your claim that Internet growth would be hindered? I mean, it's exactly the opposite: Historically, there have been <b>no</b> patents regulating the use of web technologies and almost everyone would argue that this <i>allowed</i> the web to become ubiquitous.
With regards to your "transistors claim": one might argue that I have a computer now because the patent on transistors finally expired and computers can be constructed without paying royalties for those, thus empowering me to own a computer even though I'm not exactly wealthy. And that without the patent, we might have had personal computers much earlier.
And why should patents be necessary to recoup research investments? I thought product sales of the finished/improved product are what's necessary to recoup the costs. Time to market (together with the experience gained by being the first) can be much more preventive of cheap imitators than patents. So, while patents are possibly helpful[1] to securing investments, they are certainly not "absolutely necessary".
Yours Malte #8-)
[1] I doubt even that, since most inventors/innovators can't afford to even enter the market because all the base technologies everyone needs are patented and only established players with patent-exchange agreements are able to compete, not newcomers faced with prohibitive royalty costs.
Hello,
for a VPN solution try IPSec, it's powerful and secure though a little complex. There's also a PPTP solution out there for Linux that's interoperable with the MS one (If I recall correctly). For a web server with an ASP/Access replacement, try Apache with PHP and MySQL. However, MySQL is "just" the database itself, not a frontend (Access is both). If you need a frontend, there are some, StarOffice might even fit the bill.
If you need easy administration, try Webmin, it allows you to configure your system via a web interface. If you want rapid and easy deployment, you might want to use Redhat as a base distro, if you want a powerful Linux with a learning curve, try Debian (administration after the initial installation and configuration gets very easy with Debian, though install and config take a while). But I'll not get into distro wars further, SuSE and Mandrake also earn their points:)
Hope this helps. Oh, and as to where to find information on those applications, just type them into google and they're bound to be among the first few hits.
> Other's have commented on your "unelected
> president" remark,
Yep. Both ESR and RMS seem to be unable to resist putting unrelated issues close to their heart into their statements about the NY/DC/PA attacks. This hurts their credibility.
> but I'll go further to express my view that this
> is an anti-patriotic, and un-American statement
> in this time of crisis.
Why un-American? Please define what an American statement would be. I thougt the US is a pluralistic country tolerating many viewpoints. Or is it strictly necessary to be patriotic to be American? Anyway, why is a word of caution that hardliners in the US government might (ab)use the emotional state of the population to introduce loss of civil rights, paving the way right to becoming a state like the one you're now fighting against (Afghanistan). While you might argue against this, it is still a valid point of view and might be considered more patriotic (saving the freedom the US wants to be based on in face of what to some seems to be a warmongering president) than advocating (blind?) convergence on *one* point of view ("unity").
> Even our president's (and he is our president
> whether you voted for him or not) bitterest
> political rivals have rallied around him as a
> central point of leadership. Introducing
> factious sentiment at a time when unity is
> critical is an un-American viewpoint.
It's actually sad that everything the president says can't be criticized anymore because it would harm unity. It's the same reason inhabitants of not so few Arabic countries (thankfully not all) wouldn't listen to reason but stick to "their moralic leader, Osama bin Laden". Note that while he's a prime suspect, that alone doesn't make him guilty. It's not unlikely that he's just a rallying point for the terrorists and no hand himself in the plan to attack the WTC etc. If that's the case, that obviously can't mean he should be killed or Afghanistan as a country should be attacked.
Well, I'd appreciate it if you could Cc: me on replies, since I'll not check back here very regularly. malte AT cornils DOT net
Yours Malte #8-)
Re:Mirrrors list (someone had to do it, right?)
on
KDE 2.2 Released
·
· Score: 1
Hi pdiaz,
>Now, could anybody tell me when the debian
>(potato) packages of the 2.2. will be available?
unfortunately, it looks like rkrusty won't package the 2.2 release for potato. Either someone else does it, or it won't be available. It'll still be in woody in about 14 days if all goes well and already is in sid (with objprelink, BTW). This makes sense since woody-base is already frozen.
If it's not a production machine, consider upgrading to woody.
-Arondylos
Ahh, obviously you are equipped with advanced optical implants which compare images by doing a correlation after doing a Fourier transform on the original picture. This results in perfect equivalence of the Sid Meier graphics and the freeciv graphics since both are designed to be equivalent in the Fourier-transformed space.
Right?
Actually, they are using a tileset drawn by some of the Civ fans from the apolyton forum, and it is under the GPL IIRC. It looks rather similar to the Microprose Civ II Tileset, but there shouldn't be any copyright issues.
So, the news is out; a possible MS splitup will take years yet. And since IMHO "winning" by means of a lawsuit is quite boring (not that I hate MS, I just tend to disagree with their methods and motives almost all the time:)), let's just make sure that any threat emerging from Redmond to our freedom is negated:
1st) code under an open-source license for whichever operating system you like
if you can't do that for any reason,
2nd) buy a pin-up of RMS
3th) visit some *real* penguins, tape them with some kind of video camera, encode as Sorenson-Quicktime and send that to LKML. In no time whatsoever, Quicktime will be a supported standard under Linux.
4th) buy a mega-tube of sunblocker and give that to Alan Cox, he'll start coding for 2.4 again
5th) Join $cientology, get high in their ranks, tell the masters that Microsoft is responsible for www.xenu.org. Watch as Tom Cruise features in the first Linux movie. (get out of CO$ again, of course)
6th) write clean code
7th) goto 7th
8th) get a life
Now when I've found a way to escape from 8th, I'll heed my own advice.
If it is legal in the US to put a *description* of the decoding algorithm in English on a webpage (AFAIK this is covered as "freedom of speech") one could use a version like this:
"First, calculate the sum of an array of variables"
and write an English to C translator which parses for keywords like "sum", "array" etc and transforms these to the respective C code.
Since a "generic" English to C (although it would certainly yield very bad results with other texts, even algorithms) translator is certainly not illegal, it would be legal to publish a written English description of the code together with the source/binary to this hypothetic translator. The user would use his cc to compile, there would be a script to help with the installation of "some code" (again, tailored to DeCSS code) and voila...
Now,
* is this legal? (up to the compiling stage)
* someone would have to do it!:)
* it's probably still illegal to compile it as a binary (which is IMHO ridiculous)
Disclaimer:
I do NOT endorse any copyright theft and have never played any DVD nor VOB (my computer would be too slow anyway). Copyright is the basis for Copyleft. Still, for me this is really a freedom of speech issue -> an algorithm can't possibly be banned! (the RSA patent issue was painful enough)
Slashdot Mirror
That's not really true - Cedega discloses their source code for some parts (e.g. their direct3D code), but the license used is not at all an Open Source (or Free Software) license. But ignoring that, some essential parts (like the copy protection implementation) are not provided except in binary form. To be fair, their agreement with the copy protection software company probably doesn't allow source disclosure of those parts.
Crossover Office does have provide the code used in their version of Wine: have a look at http://www.codeweavers.com/products/source/
Looking at the certificate, it seems it is a valid certificate, but signed by MSFT. Most non-Microsoft browsers do not by default trust MS' root certificate.
MS would have to have their cert signed by Verisign or something like that; or it could ignore the few percent of non-MSIE users that do not click through the cert warnings anyway.
Yeah, why is a "to-kill" abortion doctors list different? Because in contrast to such a list, the DMCA *will be* affecting his right to publish open source code (besides, there's an obvious difference in scope).
You assume that he is just having political issues with the DMCA and as a UK citizen, he won't be affected anyway. However, he has strong ties to the US (remember, Red Hat's US-based, and he does work for them) and the Skylarov episode shows that it actually _is_ a possible reason for indictment if you write code that defies some arbitrary rules. This is what the DMCA has been used for.
This is why Alan Cox has all the right in the world, as a kernel maintainer in the global Free Software/Open Source community, to do everything he can to allow him to continue writing code. Fighting the DMCA is not a politically correct thing, it's a necessity for him to keep on working. If it's _also_ what he - coincidentally - believes in, it doesn't change its validity.
Yours Arondylos #8-)
Hi,
you wrote:
> The consequences on the
> growth of the web will be disastrous if we don't
> take sensible steps like allowing patented
> technology into web standards.
Do you have any evidence supporting your claim that Internet growth would be hindered? I mean, it's exactly the opposite: Historically, there have been <b>no</b> patents regulating the use of web technologies and almost everyone would argue that this <i>allowed</i> the web to become ubiquitous.
With regards to your "transistors claim": one might argue that I have a computer now because the patent on transistors finally expired and computers can be constructed without paying royalties for those, thus empowering me to own a computer even though I'm not exactly wealthy. And that without the patent, we might have had personal computers much earlier.
And why should patents be necessary to recoup research investments? I thought product sales of the finished/improved product are what's necessary to recoup the costs. Time to market (together with the experience gained by being the first) can be much more preventive of cheap imitators than patents. So, while patents are possibly helpful[1] to securing investments, they are certainly not "absolutely necessary".
Yours Malte #8-)
[1] I doubt even that, since most inventors/innovators can't afford to even enter the market because all the base technologies everyone needs are patented and only established players with patent-exchange agreements are able to compete, not newcomers faced with prohibitive royalty costs.
Hello,
:)
for a VPN solution try IPSec, it's powerful and secure though a little complex. There's also a PPTP solution out there for Linux that's interoperable with the MS one (If I recall correctly). For a web server with an ASP/Access replacement, try Apache with PHP and MySQL. However, MySQL is "just" the database itself, not a frontend (Access is both). If you need a frontend, there are some, StarOffice might even fit the bill.
If you need easy administration, try Webmin, it allows you to configure your system via a web interface. If you want rapid and easy deployment, you might want to use Redhat as a base distro, if you want a powerful Linux with a learning curve, try Debian (administration after the initial installation and configuration gets very easy with Debian, though install and config take a while). But I'll not get into distro wars further, SuSE and Mandrake also earn their points
Hope this helps. Oh, and as to where to find information on those applications, just type them into google and they're bound to be among the first few hits.
Hope this helps
Yours Malte #8-)
> Other's have commented on your "unelected
> president" remark,
Yep. Both ESR and RMS seem to be unable to resist putting unrelated issues close to their heart into their statements about the NY/DC/PA attacks. This hurts their credibility.
> but I'll go further to express my view that this
> is an anti-patriotic, and un-American statement
> in this time of crisis.
Why un-American? Please define what an American statement would be. I thougt the US is a pluralistic country tolerating many viewpoints. Or is it strictly necessary to be patriotic to be American? Anyway, why is a word of caution that hardliners in the US government might (ab)use the emotional state of the population to introduce loss of civil rights, paving the way right to becoming a state like the one you're now fighting against (Afghanistan). While you might argue against this, it is still a valid point of view and might be considered more patriotic (saving the freedom the US wants to be based on in face of what to some seems to be a warmongering president) than advocating (blind?) convergence on *one* point of view ("unity").
> Even our president's (and he is our president
> whether you voted for him or not) bitterest
> political rivals have rallied around him as a
> central point of leadership. Introducing
> factious sentiment at a time when unity is
> critical is an un-American viewpoint.
It's actually sad that everything the president says can't be criticized anymore because it would harm unity. It's the same reason inhabitants of not so few Arabic countries (thankfully not all) wouldn't listen to reason but stick to "their moralic leader, Osama bin Laden". Note that while he's a prime suspect, that alone doesn't make him guilty. It's not unlikely that he's just a rallying point for the terrorists and no hand himself in the plan to attack the WTC etc. If that's the case, that obviously can't mean he should be killed or Afghanistan as a country should be attacked.
Well, I'd appreciate it if you could Cc: me on replies, since I'll not check back here very regularly. malte AT cornils DOT net
Yours Malte #8-)
>Now, could anybody tell me when the debian
>(potato) packages of the 2.2. will be available?
unfortunately, it looks like rkrusty won't package the 2.2 release for potato. Either someone else does it, or it won't be available. It'll still be in woody in about 14 days if all goes well and already is in sid (with objprelink, BTW). This makes sense since woody-base is already frozen. If it's not a production machine, consider upgrading to woody. -Arondylos
Ahh, obviously you are equipped with advanced optical implants which compare images by doing a correlation after doing a Fourier transform on the original picture. This results in perfect equivalence of the Sid Meier graphics and the freeciv graphics since both are designed to be equivalent in the Fourier-transformed space. Right?
Actually, they are using a tileset drawn by some of the Civ fans from the apolyton forum, and it is under the GPL IIRC. It looks rather similar to the Microprose Civ II Tileset, but there shouldn't be any copyright issues.
1st) code under an open-source license for whichever operating system you like
if you can't do that for any reason,
2nd) buy a pin-up of RMS
3th) visit some *real* penguins, tape them with some kind of video camera, encode as Sorenson-Quicktime and send that to LKML. In no time whatsoever, Quicktime will be a supported standard under Linux.
4th) buy a mega-tube of sunblocker and give that to Alan Cox, he'll start coding for 2.4 again
5th) Join $cientology, get high in their ranks, tell the masters that Microsoft is responsible for www.xenu.org. Watch as Tom Cruise features in the first Linux movie. (get out of CO$ again, of course)
6th) write clean code
7th) goto 7th
8th) get a life
Now when I've found a way to escape from 8th, I'll heed my own advice.
Have fun...
If it is legal in the US to put a *description* of the decoding algorithm in English on a webpage (AFAIK this is covered as "freedom of speech") one could use a version like this:
:)
"First, calculate the sum of an array of variables"
and write an English to C translator which parses for keywords like "sum", "array" etc and transforms these to the respective C code.
Since a "generic" English to C (although it would certainly yield very bad results with other texts, even algorithms) translator is certainly not illegal, it would be legal to publish a written English description of the code together with the source/binary to this hypothetic translator. The user would use his cc to compile, there would be a script to help with the installation of "some code" (again, tailored to DeCSS code) and voila...
Now,
* is this legal? (up to the compiling stage)
* someone would have to do it!
* it's probably still illegal to compile it as a binary (which is IMHO ridiculous)
Disclaimer:
I do NOT endorse any copyright theft and have never played any DVD nor VOB (my computer would be too slow anyway). Copyright is the basis for Copyleft. Still, for me this is really a freedom of speech issue -> an algorithm can't possibly be banned! (the RSA patent issue was painful enough)
-Malte