At these scales, every successive step in shrinking the architecture takes a lot of innovation. These processors are getting uncomfortably close to the width of a single atom. The pathways are getting so thin that there's a danger with electrons in one pathway jumping to a nearby one (such as what happens in a zener diode). If atoms don't line up just right, they can end up too far apart and increase resistance. Otherwise inconsequential amounts of EMI can trip pathways that shouldn't be active.
So no, 45nm isn't just "65nm, only better". Every step at this point becomes harder and harder.
The largest customers of Microsoft Windows are businesses, not home users. Businesses generally buy new OEM hardware and get the OS and Office with the machine. There are cases where they might get some older hardware together and run a not-so-ligit OS on it, but I think that's the exception. Most PHBs consider the warranty coverage of new hardware to far outweigh the advantage of trying to keep current hardware around.
If you want Linux on the desktop, then businesses are where it has to start, and home users will follow.
Since you're an expert, I'm sure you can point out the court cases where those gray areas were worked out. The opinion of people on the Internet, even when they have a law degree, is ultimately meaningless unless its backed up by case law established in court.
Maybe someone can help me understand something I'm unclear on: How does one go about creating proprietary software that runs on Linux (the kernel) without "violating the GPL?"
Something like 'gcc -o program program.c' would work.
When people say the GPL is "viral", they usually mean that just running the software on a Linux kernel means you have to license it under the GPL, which isn't the case at all. It's only when you start fiddling "deeply" into the kernel or system libs that licensing becomes an issue. Of course, there can be gray areas of what "deeply" means.
Advocates would love to see every program on Linux be open, but the GPL doesn't require this.
As a rule, if you don't enforce your copyrights, you lose them. Whoever does owns Unix doesn't seem to be coming forward. The "whoever" in that sentence is very telling; the Unix copyrights have been parceled out by several different ambiguous contracts and court rulings, so nobody really knows who owns them. Anybody who claims they own them will probably go the same route SCO did.
The FSF could sue not for the source on the software, but for distributing a non-verbatim copy of the GPL license itself.
I don't see how that could possibly work. A company trying this tactic can easily distribute a verbatim copy of the GPL, thus fulfilling obligations on the copyright for the text of the license. Since there is no section in the GPL that requires the original copyright holder to release the source (since there's no practical way for the GPL to do that), they could easily meet all requirements of the GPL while still distributing a verbatim copy.
The trademark attempt might work, but without being registered it becomes much harder to hold up in court.
The GPL's (v3) own copyright is covered by this statement at the beginning:
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Legally speaking, the GPL can't practically restrict what the original copyright holder can do with their own code. What the AC reply implied was correct; the only group the copyright holder could sue is itself.
I haven't seen anything to indicate the FSF holds a registered trademark on the term "GPL". Citation to the contrary is welcome.
That's not the only reason why hosting companies use things like cPanel. It's because if they didn't, they'd have to give you far more unrestricted access to the system, which is obviously bad on a shared hosting environment.
If they own all the copyrights to the source, they can license it however they want.
Additionally, the requirements to release the source only apply to derivative works. In theory, the original copyright holder could put a binary release under the GPL without providing any source code.
The first point, avoiding large corporations, is probably the most effective way that I have avoided office politics deciding the fate of my job. You can form more personal bonds in a small company and it is much more difficult for someone else to hide their incompetence.
My personal experience (clearly being a statistically significant single datapoint . . . ) was in two small business (one around 20 employees, the other around 40 employees), and both were extremely cut throat. In particular, the second one had the employees forming close, almost family-like ties, but management was completely insane. That's where I discovered that being the guy that is considered absolutely invaluable doesn't actually insure job security, but rather makes you a target by people who consider you a threat to their own position.
Now I work under a consulting company under a Fortune 500, where I'm almost completely insulated from the normal office politics. Whenever I have a bad day, I watch "Office Space" and remember why I'm so lucky.
Linus already knows Linux is big, though. For a (relatively) small project like dosbox, being told that a big publisher like iD is using your software would be a big ego boost (and incentive to keep working on the project).
On a legal level, this is similar to Jack Thompson threatening to sue Microsoft. I'll shamelessly reuse an analogy used in that/. discussion--it's like kicking the largest gorilla in the group right in the balls. Sony has plenty of lawyers, and will likely pound this company into nonexistence.
So what evidence do you need of "attempted" infringement? Will having a BitTorrent client on your system be enough? I can easily see a RIAA lawyer taking that stance in court.
Yup. No driver real model, passes everything important off to the BIOS (and ignores everything important that it can't), can't multitask on its own, a memory limitation that seems very obvious in retrospect, no sensible pipes, and a file system that's constantly losing track of its own mind. But apparently, someone wants credit for it.
I like to think I have a more objective view of the quality. I didn't recognize Moore's name until well into BSG's production. When I heard he had previously worked on Star Trek, I went back and checked some of my favorite episodes and found that many of them were written by Moore. For instance, The Pegasus, The Siege of AR-558, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, and Redemption.
However, nearly all of these show Star Fleet officers falling short of Federation ideals. The Pegasus, for instance, has an Admiral supporting illegal research into cloaking technology. AR-558 has Star Fleet soldiers, who should have been rotated off the front line months ago, defending a rock so useless that it doesn't even have a proper name, all because it holds a major enemy communications junction.
As I said, I don't think that path is a good idea for Star Trek. The Federation is the sort of world I'd want to live in (peaceful at the core, but also pushing the boundaries of science and exploration). Admittedly, this may make a rather boring story. Which is why I'm just as happy that Moore found a different series to work on.
The writers still gave some support to the Federation Utopia in Enterprise, with Cogenitor. They meet an alien species, and instead of charging weapons, they become friends and work together in exploring a nearby star. The episode would have worked without any conflict at all.
Unfortunately, Trip had to do something stupid (why is the dumbest man on the ship also the chief engineer?) and cause a bunch of problems. Throw those bits out and you'll have a wonderful episode that brings back a sense of wonder to space exploration.
Slashdot Mirror
At these scales, every successive step in shrinking the architecture takes a lot of innovation. These processors are getting uncomfortably close to the width of a single atom. The pathways are getting so thin that there's a danger with electrons in one pathway jumping to a nearby one (such as what happens in a zener diode). If atoms don't line up just right, they can end up too far apart and increase resistance. Otherwise inconsequential amounts of EMI can trip pathways that shouldn't be active.
So no, 45nm isn't just "65nm, only better". Every step at this point becomes harder and harder.
The largest customers of Microsoft Windows are businesses, not home users. Businesses generally buy new OEM hardware and get the OS and Office with the machine. There are cases where they might get some older hardware together and run a not-so-ligit OS on it, but I think that's the exception. Most PHBs consider the warranty coverage of new hardware to far outweigh the advantage of trying to keep current hardware around.
If you want Linux on the desktop, then businesses are where it has to start, and home users will follow.
Since you're an expert, I'm sure you can point out the court cases where those gray areas were worked out. The opinion of people on the Internet, even when they have a law degree, is ultimately meaningless unless its backed up by case law established in court.
Maybe someone can help me understand something I'm unclear on: How does one go about creating proprietary software that runs on Linux (the kernel) without "violating the GPL?"
Something like 'gcc -o program program.c' would work.
When people say the GPL is "viral", they usually mean that just running the software on a Linux kernel means you have to license it under the GPL, which isn't the case at all. It's only when you start fiddling "deeply" into the kernel or system libs that licensing becomes an issue. Of course, there can be gray areas of what "deeply" means.
Advocates would love to see every program on Linux be open, but the GPL doesn't require this.
At high speeds, the effects of this rotational inertia dramatically affect the stability of the vehicle when it hits a bump.
Which is why they do these high speed experimental tests in salt flats :)
If you're putting out enough heat to melt 400lbs of ice in a few seconds, then yes, you need the ice.
As a rule, if you don't enforce your copyrights, you lose them. Whoever does owns Unix doesn't seem to be coming forward. The "whoever" in that sentence is very telling; the Unix copyrights have been parceled out by several different ambiguous contracts and court rulings, so nobody really knows who owns them. Anybody who claims they own them will probably go the same route SCO did.
The FSF could sue not for the source on the software, but for distributing a non-verbatim copy of the GPL license itself.
I don't see how that could possibly work. A company trying this tactic can easily distribute a verbatim copy of the GPL, thus fulfilling obligations on the copyright for the text of the license. Since there is no section in the GPL that requires the original copyright holder to release the source (since there's no practical way for the GPL to do that), they could easily meet all requirements of the GPL while still distributing a verbatim copy.
The trademark attempt might work, but without being registered it becomes much harder to hold up in court.
The GPL's (v3) own copyright is covered by this statement at the beginning:
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Legally speaking, the GPL can't practically restrict what the original copyright holder can do with their own code. What the AC reply implied was correct; the only group the copyright holder could sue is itself.
I haven't seen anything to indicate the FSF holds a registered trademark on the term "GPL". Citation to the contrary is welcome.
That's not the only reason why hosting companies use things like cPanel. It's because if they didn't, they'd have to give you far more unrestricted access to the system, which is obviously bad on a shared hosting environment.
If they own all the copyrights to the source, they can license it however they want.
Additionally, the requirements to release the source only apply to derivative works. In theory, the original copyright holder could put a binary release under the GPL without providing any source code.
The first point, avoiding large corporations, is probably the most effective way that I have avoided office politics deciding the fate of my job. You can form more personal bonds in a small company and it is much more difficult for someone else to hide their incompetence.
My personal experience (clearly being a statistically significant single datapoint . . . ) was in two small business (one around 20 employees, the other around 40 employees), and both were extremely cut throat. In particular, the second one had the employees forming close, almost family-like ties, but management was completely insane. That's where I discovered that being the guy that is considered absolutely invaluable doesn't actually insure job security, but rather makes you a target by people who consider you a threat to their own position.
Now I work under a consulting company under a Fortune 500, where I'm almost completely insulated from the normal office politics. Whenever I have a bad day, I watch "Office Space" and remember why I'm so lucky.
Spillover effects of desktop monoculture. Any virus that can infect a Windows desktop can theoretically infect a Windows server, too.
Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
Linus already knows Linux is big, though. For a (relatively) small project like dosbox, being told that a big publisher like iD is using your software would be a big ego boost (and incentive to keep working on the project).
Yes, let's be legalistic jerks about the whole thing instead of forgive and forgetting. It works for the RIAA.
1) Create a mixture of fart sounds over short clips from your own CD ripps, looping for a full hour.
2) Turn it into the RIAA with the rest of the sound files.
3) Profit!
My plan even gets an ever-elusive step 2.
On a legal level, this is similar to Jack Thompson threatening to sue Microsoft. I'll shamelessly reuse an analogy used in that /. discussion--it's like kicking the largest gorilla in the group right in the balls. Sony has plenty of lawyers, and will likely pound this company into nonexistence.
The current law is US Code 17, section 506 (a), which contains "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain".
Say someone is infringing the Linux copyright could a judge charge them per source.c file?
Why stop there? Why not charge them per line?
So what evidence do you need of "attempted" infringement? Will having a BitTorrent client on your system be enough? I can easily see a RIAA lawyer taking that stance in court.
Read again. Those sections outline what the current law is. This new bill goes much deeper.
Yup. No driver real model, passes everything important off to the BIOS (and ignores everything important that it can't), can't multitask on its own, a memory limitation that seems very obvious in retrospect, no sensible pipes, and a file system that's constantly losing track of its own mind. But apparently, someone wants credit for it.
I like to think I have a more objective view of the quality. I didn't recognize Moore's name until well into BSG's production. When I heard he had previously worked on Star Trek, I went back and checked some of my favorite episodes and found that many of them were written by Moore. For instance, The Pegasus, The Siege of AR-558, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, and Redemption.
However, nearly all of these show Star Fleet officers falling short of Federation ideals. The Pegasus, for instance, has an Admiral supporting illegal research into cloaking technology. AR-558 has Star Fleet soldiers, who should have been rotated off the front line months ago, defending a rock so useless that it doesn't even have a proper name, all because it holds a major enemy communications junction.
As I said, I don't think that path is a good idea for Star Trek. The Federation is the sort of world I'd want to live in (peaceful at the core, but also pushing the boundaries of science and exploration). Admittedly, this may make a rather boring story. Which is why I'm just as happy that Moore found a different series to work on.
The writers still gave some support to the Federation Utopia in Enterprise, with Cogenitor. They meet an alien species, and instead of charging weapons, they become friends and work together in exploring a nearby star. The episode would have worked without any conflict at all.
Unfortunately, Trip had to do something stupid (why is the dumbest man on the ship also the chief engineer?) and cause a bunch of problems. Throw those bits out and you'll have a wonderful episode that brings back a sense of wonder to space exploration.