Well, it's still illegal. It's not a criminal offence, but it is illegal. Just like speeding isn't a criminal offence, but you can still be ticketed for speeding.
No, illegal implies that you're violating a law; speeding is illegal, and is a criminal offense, it's just at the lower end of the spectrum, so it turns out to be a very lightly punished misdemeanor.
In the US legal system, the modern philosophy regarding commercial contracts was basically developed in first half of the twentieth century by a group of judges practicing mainly in the northeast (Cardozo being the primary architect). This philosophy was that sometimes it makes more sense business-wise to breach a contract than to keep it, and if that's the case you should be allowed to do that, as long as the other side is compensated for the breach. They basically took away any legal or moral stigma from not doing what you contracted to do, if you had a good excuse.
After Microsoft mice and keyboards, then the XBOX and Zune, Microsoft is increasingly becoming a hardware vendor. Is it only a question of time before Microsoft starts to compete directly with the likes of Dell and HP?
I think that will not happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Besides making them even more liable to government intrusion regarding monopolies (and I think MS realizes that the next administration, whether republican or democrat, probably won't be as anti-anti-monopoly fanatic as this one), they're going to run into a huge amount of opposition from the larger manufacturers. I think there's a reason they never introduced a mouse-and-keyboard for the Xbox, and that's because they don't want to annoy their biggest customers.
I don't play any of these games myself, but it seems inevitable that you have to work your way up in one way or another.
Not really. Play at whatever level is fun for you. I never really played these kinds of games myself, but I remember back in my MUD days I had the most fun as a mid-level, kind of just off on my own exploring. Nobody says you have to reach level 60 or 70 or whatever the top level is these days.
"is it legal?" - "well, blablablabla cooperate with developers... blablabla...partners". translated: actually no, but if we offer some of our profit in exchange, it might get.
Eh, under US contract law it's not "illegal" to violate a contract, so it's not like they're breaking the law. MMORPG publishers might be able to sue them under breach of contract though.
I'm pretty sure the plan for the last 20 years or so has been to wait for Castro to die and take whatever sort of political change happens -- even if it's just a new dictator -- as evidence that the embargo was successful and therefore no longer necessary. It's just the Castro won't die.
It doesn't really cost us that much to keep the trade embargo up; what are we missing from Cuba that we couldn't get elsewhere, outside of cigars? If Castro dies and it stays communist, we'd probably keep the embargoes up because there just isn't enough benefit to us for removing them.
Miami, the party that reverses the embargo can count on losing the Cuban vote in Florida for at least a couple of elections, and with races as tight as they've been for as long as they've been Florida is pretty crucial to the presidency.
The Cuban vote in South Florida has always been solidly Republican, so I don't know if that makes that big a difference. In Miami the politicians basically run on who hates Castro more.
It's not a correction, simply a statement of fact; the word "gaol" dates from the middle ages. You're just not going to find it in the U.S. (the penal system of which is the topic of this story).
Judging by your medieval spelling of the word jail, I'm guessing you're not in the US. Here there actually is a difference between jail and prison. Go check wikipedia or something.
Reiser and Nina also apparently met through one of those "mail-order" bride services [google.com] or something very similar. She was then accused of embezzling money from Namesys while working as their CFO. Resier's lawyer would have to be an idiot not to argue this, and your points, for all their worth.
Are you kidding? Bring up ANOTHER motive? If she was facing any sort of criminal investigation, then I'd bring it up, but otherwise it's just another reason for Reiser to go after her. I would maybe play on the back-to-Russia angle, maybe even emphasize that "the kids are over there and refuse to come back, wonder why that is?"
By the way, why don't you get a lawyer without a college degree?
That's a specialized profession that requires a specified body of knowledge at the practitioner's command. Juries' jobs aren't to parse the law, their job is to analyze facts--was witness A credible when he said X, was it reasonable for B to expect the offer to sell to remain open, etc. Purely legal issues are decided by the judge.
Not to say I'm some kind of snob, but really, uneducated people are more easily swayed. And in the legal system where you depend on the judgement of a dozen people, I'd rather have them educated.
I'd rather have them open-minded and willing to accept instruction from the judge.
So, they're choosing your peers by the least common denominator?
Just because someone works with their hands doesn't make them a "least common denominator".
How quaint. We wouldn't want educated people deciding on something like that, now would we?
The juries I've seen take their jobs very seriously and they tend to strive to do a good job. Just because they don't have a college degree doesn't make them idiots, or mean their judgment is faulty.
Besides, no non-lawyer in their right mind would move to a class action suit if they have even a glimmer of a chance of a settlement or actually getting judgment in their favor. There are two people/entities that make money from a class action suit...the defense attorney (because, hey, they get paid regardless, right...) and the prosecuting attorney. Everyone else involved either a) gets nothing (they lose) or, b) gets a check 16 months later for $1.72.
Not necessarily. First of all, the named class members usually get sizeable awards. Secondly, there have been plenty of class actions where individual unnamed class members got very large awards.
"Class action" doesn't necessarily mean thousands of class members suing over relatively small injuries, and collecting relatively small amounts of money. You can have a class action with 20 class members who split a hundred million dollar award.
Is it that manufacturers are putting out more and more 'safe' (read: crap) music
Where on earth did so many people on slashdot get the bizarre misapprehension that pop, lowest-common-denominator music is somehow more prevalent now than it's been in the past? It's always been there, at least since the 50's, and if you weren't conscious during the 80's and 90's, I assure you that the majority of music released during the decades was "safe" bubble gum pop. Think back, do you remember that music? No? Of course you don't, it was immensely forgettable and put out for a quick buck.
And I know that 10 years from now the same people who try to paint this phenomenon as new will be repeating the same mantra again and again, "remember back in the early 2000s when music was good, before they started releasing commercialized garbage?".
Sure, jobs get automated out of existence, but new jobs always open up somewhere.
Not necessarily. There are places in the rust belt in the US where after the factories left nothing came in to replace them. People either move out, live hand-to-mouth with no chance of upward mobility, or live off of government assistance.
It's too early to be posting on slashdot I guess. Those sentences should have read:
For Ubuntu, maybe. I guess someone can try asking for it and see.
They could argue they're not distributing anymore, and shouldn't be held to the contract, but from what I understand the GPL has a 3 year distribution requirement.
Anyone can ask for source code from Microsoft. If Microsoft doesn't give out source, then they are violating the GPL and hence copyright law.
For Ubuntu, maybe. I guess someone can
They could argue they're not distributing anymore, and shouldn't be held
If it was a employee doing this, I suppose MS can argue in court that they suffered from sabotage and can't be held responsible. Is that a valid legal defense? Or are companies always bound by the actions of their employees, with their only recourse being to fire the employee?
Principals can be bound by the actions of their agents in certain situations, but not always if the agent wasn't authorized to take the action. Generally the principal should repudiate the action right away, and I don't know if a court would consider removing the link as a repudiation (but MS could certainly argue it). I think a question may come up as prejudice, i.e. was anyone prejudiced as a result of the mistake. I don't really see how anyone could win on that front against MS.
Even if you successfully sued MS for breach of contract, I can't see how the damages would be anything more than nominal.
Oh, I think the best way for you to get a date is to purchase the packet driver collection on a floppy disk
Well let's make it easier than that. OSI was founded in 1998. According to OSI's website:
The 'open source' label was invented at a strategy session held on
February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California. The people present
included Todd Anderson, Chris Peterson (of the Foresight Institute), John
"maddog" Hall and Larry Augustin (both of Linux International), Sam Ockman (of the
Silicon Valley Linux User's Group), Michael Tiemann, and Eric Raymond.
So I'm going to assume that your use of it "in commerce" happened at some point after that. Makes sense, right? You're a member of the OSI I hear, and presumably if they were spreading falsehoods about the genesis of the label, you'd say something.
Let's turn our clocks back a bit and look at a press release from 1996:
"CALDERA. ANNOUNCES OPEN SOURCE CODE MODEL FOR DOS
DR DOS. + the Internet = Caldera OpenDOS
PROVO, Utah Sept. 10, 1996 Caldera. Inc. today announced that it will
openly distribute the source code for DOS via the Internet as part of
the company's plans to encourage continued development of DOS
technologies and applications, further leveling the playing field for
software developers worldwide. This effort, targeted to benefit both
individual developers and industry partners, follows Caldera's
commitment to embrace and fund an open software environment. Caldera
also announced plans for internal development and marketing of DOS,
including a new product called Caldera OpenDOS."
Skip ahead a little, and they spell it out:
DOS users will also benefit from the exchange of technical support
that occurs between end users in an open-source development
environment. For example, the community of Linux users connected via
the Internet provide each other with technical support for Linux-based
products that surpasses the quality, speed and value of technical
support historically provided by major industry software vendors.
Caldera believes that openly publishing the source code for DOS will
create a similar environment.
Hmmm, definitely sounds like a definition of open source to me. And they're using it in commerce to boot. Of course, they don't follow all of OSI's little requirements, but that's the point, isn't it--OSI is claiming control over a term they didn't create.
Or have you thought twice about disparaging our trademark?
I would love to see you bring that before a judge: "Your Honor", you whine, "he's DISPARAGING OUR TRADEMARK". A trademark you don't have. Do you really think this is going to fly? Are you so sure there's a "disparagement of trademark" cause of action, anyway? Do you think you're going to meet the elements of one, if it does exist?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's still illegal. It's not a criminal offence, but it is illegal. Just like speeding isn't a criminal offence, but you can still be ticketed for speeding.
No, illegal implies that you're violating a law; speeding is illegal, and is a criminal offense, it's just at the lower end of the spectrum, so it turns out to be a very lightly punished misdemeanor.
In the US legal system, the modern philosophy regarding commercial contracts was basically developed in first half of the twentieth century by a group of judges practicing mainly in the northeast (Cardozo being the primary architect). This philosophy was that sometimes it makes more sense business-wise to breach a contract than to keep it, and if that's the case you should be allowed to do that, as long as the other side is compensated for the breach. They basically took away any legal or moral stigma from not doing what you contracted to do, if you had a good excuse.
After Microsoft mice and keyboards, then the XBOX and Zune, Microsoft is increasingly becoming a hardware vendor. Is it only a question of time before Microsoft starts to compete directly with the likes of Dell and HP?
I think that will not happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Besides making them even more liable to government intrusion regarding monopolies (and I think MS realizes that the next administration, whether republican or democrat, probably won't be as anti-anti-monopoly fanatic as this one), they're going to run into a huge amount of opposition from the larger manufacturers. I think there's a reason they never introduced a mouse-and-keyboard for the Xbox, and that's because they don't want to annoy their biggest customers.
I don't play any of these games myself, but it seems inevitable that you have to work your way up in one way or another.
Not really. Play at whatever level is fun for you. I never really played these kinds of games myself, but I remember back in my MUD days I had the most fun as a mid-level, kind of just off on my own exploring. Nobody says you have to reach level 60 or 70 or whatever the top level is these days.
"is it legal?" - "well, blablablabla cooperate with developers ... blablabla...partners". translated: actually no, but if we offer some of our profit in exchange, it might get.
Eh, under US contract law it's not "illegal" to violate a contract, so it's not like they're breaking the law. MMORPG publishers might be able to sue them under breach of contract though.
I'm pretty sure the plan for the last 20 years or so has been to wait for Castro to die and take whatever sort of political change happens -- even if it's just a new dictator -- as evidence that the embargo was successful and therefore no longer necessary. It's just the Castro won't die.
It doesn't really cost us that much to keep the trade embargo up; what are we missing from Cuba that we couldn't get elsewhere, outside of cigars? If Castro dies and it stays communist, we'd probably keep the embargoes up because there just isn't enough benefit to us for removing them.
Miami, the party that reverses the embargo can count on losing the Cuban vote in Florida for at least a couple of elections, and with races as tight as they've been for as long as they've been Florida is pretty crucial to the presidency.
The Cuban vote in South Florida has always been solidly Republican, so I don't know if that makes that big a difference. In Miami the politicians basically run on who hates Castro more.
It means there's a nice warm international vacation destination with no Americans.
We're not so bad...
It's not a correction, simply a statement of fact; the word "gaol" dates from the middle ages. You're just not going to find it in the U.S. (the penal system of which is the topic of this story).
Why innovate when you can embrace, extend, extinguish.
...and that's why Google invented the search engine.
In a custody dispute like that, everyone resorts to trying to make the other person look like a bad parent.
I've done a little bit of work on divorce cases and I can definitely vouch for that; it's amazing what dueling spouses will accuse each other of.
Judging by your medieval spelling of the word jail, I'm guessing you're not in the US. Here there actually is a difference between jail and prison. Go check wikipedia or something.
Reiser and Nina also apparently met through one of those "mail-order" bride services [google.com] or something very similar. She was then accused of embezzling money from Namesys while working as their CFO. Resier's lawyer would have to be an idiot not to argue this, and your points, for all their worth.
Are you kidding? Bring up ANOTHER motive? If she was facing any sort of criminal investigation, then I'd bring it up, but otherwise it's just another reason for Reiser to go after her. I would maybe play on the back-to-Russia angle, maybe even emphasize that "the kids are over there and refuse to come back, wonder why that is?"
By the way, why don't you get a lawyer without a college degree?
That's a specialized profession that requires a specified body of knowledge at the practitioner's command. Juries' jobs aren't to parse the law, their job is to analyze facts--was witness A credible when he said X, was it reasonable for B to expect the offer to sell to remain open, etc. Purely legal issues are decided by the judge.
Not to say I'm some kind of snob, but really, uneducated people are more easily swayed. And in the legal system where you depend on the judgement of a dozen people, I'd rather have them educated.
I'd rather have them open-minded and willing to accept instruction from the judge.
So, they're choosing your peers by the least common denominator?
Just because someone works with their hands doesn't make them a "least common denominator".
How quaint. We wouldn't want educated people deciding on something like that, now would we?
The juries I've seen take their jobs very seriously and they tend to strive to do a good job. Just because they don't have a college degree doesn't make them idiots, or mean their judgment is faulty.
Besides, no non-lawyer in their right mind would move to a class action suit if they have even a glimmer of a chance of a settlement or actually getting judgment in their favor. There are two people/entities that make money from a class action suit...the defense attorney (because, hey, they get paid regardless, right...) and the prosecuting attorney. Everyone else involved either a) gets nothing (they lose) or, b) gets a check 16 months later for $1.72.
Not necessarily. First of all, the named class members usually get sizeable awards. Secondly, there have been plenty of class actions where individual unnamed class members got very large awards.
"Class action" doesn't necessarily mean thousands of class members suing over relatively small injuries, and collecting relatively small amounts of money. You can have a class action with 20 class members who split a hundred million dollar award.
You have a remarkably naive notion of the jury pool, which is typically middle-aged, middle class and small-C conservative.
I know around here jurors tend to be overwhelmingly blue collar.
where 12 of you're pears
Mmmmm, jurylicious.
Is it that manufacturers are putting out more and more 'safe' (read: crap) music
Where on earth did so many people on slashdot get the bizarre misapprehension that pop, lowest-common-denominator music is somehow more prevalent now than it's been in the past? It's always been there, at least since the 50's, and if you weren't conscious during the 80's and 90's, I assure you that the majority of music released during the decades was "safe" bubble gum pop. Think back, do you remember that music? No? Of course you don't, it was immensely forgettable and put out for a quick buck.
And I know that 10 years from now the same people who try to paint this phenomenon as new will be repeating the same mantra again and again, "remember back in the early 2000s when music was good, before they started releasing commercialized garbage?".
Sure, jobs get automated out of existence, but new jobs always open up somewhere.
Not necessarily. There are places in the rust belt in the US where after the factories left nothing came in to replace them. People either move out, live hand-to-mouth with no chance of upward mobility, or live off of government assistance.
It's too early to be posting on slashdot I guess. Those sentences should have read:
For Ubuntu, maybe. I guess someone can try asking for it and see.
They could argue they're not distributing anymore, and shouldn't be held to the contract, but from what I understand the GPL has a 3 year distribution requirement.
Anyone can ask for source code from Microsoft. If Microsoft doesn't give out source, then they are violating the GPL and hence copyright law.
For Ubuntu, maybe. I guess someone can
They could argue they're not distributing anymore, and shouldn't be held
If it was a employee doing this, I suppose MS can argue in court that they suffered from sabotage and can't be held responsible. Is that a valid legal defense? Or are companies always bound by the actions of their employees, with their only recourse being to fire the employee?
Principals can be bound by the actions of their agents in certain situations, but not always if the agent wasn't authorized to take the action. Generally the principal should repudiate the action right away, and I don't know if a court would consider removing the link as a repudiation (but MS could certainly argue it). I think a question may come up as prejudice, i.e. was anyone prejudiced as a result of the mistake. I don't really see how anyone could win on that front against MS.
Even if you successfully sued MS for breach of contract, I can't see how the damages would be anything more than nominal.
come on, it's like nude-female jello wrestling - you just hope it goes the distance.
That's the greatest analogy I've ever heard in my life.
Well let's make it easier than that. OSI was founded in 1998. According to OSI's website:
So I'm going to assume that your use of it "in commerce" happened at some point after that. Makes sense, right? You're a member of the OSI I hear, and presumably if they were spreading falsehoods about the genesis of the label, you'd say something.
Let's turn our clocks back a bit and look at a press release from 1996:
Skip ahead a little, and they spell it out:
Hmmm, definitely sounds like a definition of open source to me. And they're using it in commerce to boot. Of course, they don't follow all of OSI's little requirements, but that's the point, isn't it--OSI is claiming control over a term they didn't create.
Or have you thought twice about disparaging our trademark?
I would love to see you bring that before a judge: "Your Honor", you whine, "he's DISPARAGING OUR TRADEMARK". A trademark you don't have. Do you really think this is going to fly? Are you so sure there's a "disparagement of trademark" cause of action, anyway? Do you think you're going to meet the elements of one, if it does exist?
Wikipedia says OpenDOS is proprietary, and it only had disclosed source until they took it back
But the point is they used the term before OSI "invented" it.
Maybe you didn't get it the first time: he originated the "Open Source" phrase. The phrase wasn't in common use today.
They didn't. Caldera used the phrase when they opened up DR-DOS back in 1996. And they used the phrase to mean the same general idea.