I don't disagree with your premise, but not all works on an ereader must necessarily be DRM laden.
While DRM is a large disadvantage of ebook vs printed on the readers that utilize it, because DRM is not a hard and fast requirement for ebooks in general, I wouldn't say it's the biggest one.
Probably the biggest disadvantage that active display technology readers have over the printed page is that they are simply harder on the eyes to read for extended periods. This is mitigated by using a passive display technology reader, but biggest disadvantages that passive display technologies (such as epaper) have today in comparison to the printed page of the same physical size as the display are inferior resolution and color capabilities. I would also suggest that slow display update times are an issue with passive display tech when flipping pages because I find the rate of updates slow enough to be very distracting... enough so that I do not really like using them at all.
Fix those things though... and there's not a whole lot left to complain about for electronic readers.
If you make one phone call per billing cycle the price does not amortize to even close to free.
True, but if you are on a month-to-month plan and not using a burner phone, then you are spending that money anyway. It becomes part of your monthly cost of living.
If you prefer to use a burner instead of paying every month for a service, that's fine... but not everyone does that.
Even with a fee for the service, if it does not matter how often or how much you use that service, it amortizes to being effectively free. The limit of some fixed positive number over x as x approaches infinity is zero. If the fixed positive number is small enough relative to average income levels, then even the fixed cost is inconsequential.
Lots of posts so far referencing Kingsman, but I would think that this only means that the number of voice calls or how long you talk does not create any additional cost to whatever fixed rate you pay everything that is bundled with the service.
I have free unlimited calls nationwide on my cell phone plan too... but I still pay for it, One fixed monthly rate... It's not that big a deal.
Can you elaborate? Exactly why does having only 31 bits of precision make a difference when dealing with positive numbers as opposed to 32, or 63 as opposed to 64? We're not even talking about anything close to an order of magnitude of difference here... it's just one factor of 2.
Java doesn't technically have POD anything... while things like int and float and double, etc, do conveniently map to specific POD data types, that is really just an artifact of how it is often implemented, and not really meant to be the way that one thinks of that data abstractly.
Seriously... 1.0 was broken in so many ways that it's not funny.
And I'd say it took them until 1.4 or so to get to a point of being possible to be productive with at scales that were practical for anything of significant size. The difference between 1.4 and 1.3 was astounding, and the differences I noticed in usability at my job at the time led to me choosing Java primarily for my own projects as well, and it remained a language favorite of mine for years.
The biggest reason I don't use it as much any more is because I don't have as much time to do coding on my own time as I used to, and my current job doesn't require it.
Idiots sue people they think they can get money from without just cause all the time... that doesn't mean they are going to win. If anything, this case gives precedent that fair use *IS* a legitimate defense to using an API, and when that defense is presented, an accuser is going to have to be prepared to show exactly why that defense shouldn't apply if they are going to have any significant hope of winning. Yeah, you'd have to go to court to defend yourself in the worst case, but given the circumstances, I'd think that would be about the same situation as X suing Y because Y was doing something X didn't like but wasn't actually illegal or causing any kind of real or financial harm to X. There isn't really a whole lot that Y can do to avoid being sued if X is feeling litigious anyways.
Honestly, what the fuck are people doing that a Java program doesn't work everywhere? I don't code in Java anymore because my current job doesn't require it, but when I did, everything that I wrote worked on every single platform that we tested.
Really, you don't have to ask... in fact, it's probably better that you don't know.
Let's just say that calling "news" is not only stretching the definition of the word, it is mutating it into something else entirely, and any similarity it may have to something that is ordinarily called "news" is most likely coincidental and probably even unintentional.
Yes, there is... the place where I used to work had a Linux antivirus program on their email server that would check any atttachments for Windows viruses (most of the computers on the network ran windows).
That's not my point.... the simple fact that he would even mention it as a contributing factor to not bother with AV software *IS* evidence that it is lulling him into the exact same sense of security that might happen with AV software.
I run Linux, and I don't bother with AV software either, but it's not because I run Linux, it's because AV software is shit.
The EFF's chief technologist revealed that he doesn't run an anti-virus program, partly because he's using Linux, and partly because he feels anti-virus software creates a false sense of security.
By virtue of the fact that he has even mentioned that using Linux is part of his reason to not run antivirus software, wouldn't the fact that he is using Linux be considered to be lulling him into exactly the same sort of false sense of security that he is accusing antivirus software of creating?
is there a legal requirement for me to get it on paper or not?
No, there is not.
Obviously the author is not going to sue me because that would be dishonest but can anyone else do so?
Potentially...if someone else has legitimate interest, such as what might happen if the copyright holder happens to be represented by an aggressively litigious agency that has no written records of any permission being given, or if copyright ownership was transferred to someone else since permission was acquired. While perhaps this might turn out favorably if you can contact the person who granted permission, it is very possible that they may no longer even be reachable when a lawsuit happens, possibly even deceased, so you would not be able to get them to attest to any verbal consent having ever been given at a time when you need it most. Written permission from the original copyright holder might be required in such circumstances to prove to another party that you were actually given legitimate permission by an authorized party to copy the work.
I was completely ignoring the issue of whether interfering with privacy is immorral or illegal. I was simply pointing out that there is no possible way that their claim of wanting to "improve [the user's] Facebook ads and products experiences" can be even remotely true. Whatsapp content is encrypted, end to end... so Whatsapp doesn't know anything about what is inside of it. Thus, that information cannot be harvested for data to determine what kinds of things people are talking about through the app, and with no real additional information about its users, Whatsapp have nothing upon which to offer any kind of "better advertising" for their users. It is completely untenable that their claim could ever be true, and even ignoring absolutely all historical precedent, or assumptions of incentive or motive for doing so, the lie is obvious to anyone who looks simply at the plain facts of what Whatsapp actually does.
Fair observation. In addition to the cases that you noted, there is also the concept of fair use, which because it does not require explicit permission from the copyright holder, it would not require you to agree to abide by the terms of the GPL either... as long as fair use can be deemed applicable. There are probably other cases too that I can't think of right off the top of my head, but these are typically exceptions to copyright and not the general rule. As such, it would probably have been more correct for me to have written
if it is a derivative work then you generally still need the original copyright holder's permission to do something with it
But Slashdot doesn't let people edit their posts after they hit submit.
Otherwise... yes, it's a valid criticism of how I phrased it in my original post. I do not believe that it deflates the point I was making, however.
Look at almost any copyright notice in any non-free work and you'd see what I mean about the notion of written permission. Published works are copyrighted by default in NA, and so a certain level of accountability is generally required to confirm authorization to copy the work. Thus, it tends to be the default that written permission is the default requirement for getting permission to copy someone else's copyrighted work. If verbal permission, or some other arrangement were actually all that were required, the copyright notice itself would generally explicitly say so.... Even on free works, such as GPL, BSD, MIT, etc, the copyright license itself essentially constitutes written permission to copy the work freely.
BSD licensing does not imply that people think less of their code
Actually, it only directly implies that people who use BSD licensing think less about derivative works from their code than people who use the GPL. This is perfectly fine, but since derivative works would typically contain substantial portions of the original code, by extension, the lack of care about derivative works of their ccde thereby reduces to a lack of care about their own code, from that perspective.
If they make changes to your copyrighted content, then while the new product isn't entirely your code anymore, it is still considered a derivative work of your code. One needs permission from the copyright holder to make derivative works of copyrighted content, and the GPL simply states what terms a person has to agree to in order to receive such permission, saving the recipient who may be interested in creating such a derivative work from having to hunt down the copyright holder and seek express written permission that they would otherwise have to obtain to legally have any ability to create and publish such derivative works.
I never understood why the GPL busy bodies were so concerned with what i did with the code i write.:)
They aren't. They are concerned about derivative works of THEIR OWN code, concerns that they are legally entitled to have by virtue of having the copyright on the code that they wrote. The fact that a derivative work might have your own code in it is entirely superfluous, if it is a derivative work then you still need the original copyright holder's permission to do something with it. The GPL outlines the terms necessary to receive such permission. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't disagree with your premise, but not all works on an ereader must necessarily be DRM laden.
While DRM is a large disadvantage of ebook vs printed on the readers that utilize it, because DRM is not a hard and fast requirement for ebooks in general, I wouldn't say it's the biggest one.
Probably the biggest disadvantage that active display technology readers have over the printed page is that they are simply harder on the eyes to read for extended periods. This is mitigated by using a passive display technology reader, but biggest disadvantages that passive display technologies (such as epaper) have today in comparison to the printed page of the same physical size as the display are inferior resolution and color capabilities. I would also suggest that slow display update times are an issue with passive display tech when flipping pages because I find the rate of updates slow enough to be very distracting... enough so that I do not really like using them at all.
Fix those things though... and there's not a whole lot left to complain about for electronic readers.
... as long as it doesn't uninstall apps from currently working devices that are running an older version of iOS.
... what does that mean for OSX? It runs on Intel hardware these days too.
True, but if you are on a month-to-month plan and not using a burner phone, then you are spending that money anyway. It becomes part of your monthly cost of living.
If you prefer to use a burner instead of paying every month for a service, that's fine... but not everyone does that.
This is kinda what I was wondering about here too.... it makes me a bit suspect that something is going on that isn't kosher.
Even with a fee for the service, if it does not matter how often or how much you use that service, it amortizes to being effectively free. The limit of some fixed positive number over x as x approaches infinity is zero. If the fixed positive number is small enough relative to average income levels, then even the fixed cost is inconsequential.
Lots of posts so far referencing Kingsman, but I would think that this only means that the number of voice calls or how long you talk does not create any additional cost to whatever fixed rate you pay everything that is bundled with the service.
I have free unlimited calls nationwide on my cell phone plan too... but I still pay for it, One fixed monthly rate... It's not that big a deal.
Can you elaborate? Exactly why does having only 31 bits of precision make a difference when dealing with positive numbers as opposed to 32, or 63 as opposed to 64? We're not even talking about anything close to an order of magnitude of difference here... it's just one factor of 2.
Java doesn't technically have POD anything... while things like int and float and double, etc, do conveniently map to specific POD data types, that is really just an artifact of how it is often implemented, and not really meant to be the way that one thinks of that data abstractly.
Uh, no. 1.2, at least.
Seriously... 1.0 was broken in so many ways that it's not funny.
And I'd say it took them until 1.4 or so to get to a point of being possible to be productive with at scales that were practical for anything of significant size. The difference between 1.4 and 1.3 was astounding, and the differences I noticed in usability at my job at the time led to me choosing Java primarily for my own projects as well, and it remained a language favorite of mine for years.
The biggest reason I don't use it as much any more is because I don't have as much time to do coding on my own time as I used to, and my current job doesn't require it.
How vague... Like what, exactly?
Idiots sue people they think they can get money from without just cause all the time... that doesn't mean they are going to win. If anything, this case gives precedent that fair use *IS* a legitimate defense to using an API, and when that defense is presented, an accuser is going to have to be prepared to show exactly why that defense shouldn't apply if they are going to have any significant hope of winning. Yeah, you'd have to go to court to defend yourself in the worst case, but given the circumstances, I'd think that would be about the same situation as X suing Y because Y was doing something X didn't like but wasn't actually illegal or causing any kind of real or financial harm to X. There isn't really a whole lot that Y can do to avoid being sued if X is feeling litigious anyways.
Here's the thing the very important thing you might not realize:
Fair use of a copyrighted work is *NOT* breaking the law.
Honestly, what the fuck are people doing that a Java program doesn't work everywhere? I don't code in Java anymore because my current job doesn't require it, but when I did, everything that I wrote worked on every single platform that we tested.
No, you don't.
Really, you don't have to ask... in fact, it's probably better that you don't know.
Let's just say that calling "news" is not only stretching the definition of the word, it is mutating it into something else entirely, and any similarity it may have to something that is ordinarily called "news" is most likely coincidental and probably even unintentional.
Yes, there is... the place where I used to work had a Linux antivirus program on their email server that would check any atttachments for Windows viruses (most of the computers on the network ran windows).
That's not my point.... the simple fact that he would even mention it as a contributing factor to not bother with AV software *IS* evidence that it is lulling him into the exact same sense of security that might happen with AV software.
I run Linux, and I don't bother with AV software either, but it's not because I run Linux, it's because AV software is shit.
By virtue of the fact that he has even mentioned that using Linux is part of his reason to not run antivirus software, wouldn't the fact that he is using Linux be considered to be lulling him into exactly the same sort of false sense of security that he is accusing antivirus software of creating?
No, there is not.
Potentially...if someone else has legitimate interest, such as what might happen if the copyright holder happens to be represented by an aggressively litigious agency that has no written records of any permission being given, or if copyright ownership was transferred to someone else since permission was acquired. While perhaps this might turn out favorably if you can contact the person who granted permission, it is very possible that they may no longer even be reachable when a lawsuit happens, possibly even deceased, so you would not be able to get them to attest to any verbal consent having ever been given at a time when you need it most. Written permission from the original copyright holder might be required in such circumstances to prove to another party that you were actually given legitimate permission by an authorized party to copy the work.
I was completely ignoring the issue of whether interfering with privacy is immorral or illegal. I was simply pointing out that there is no possible way that their claim of wanting to "improve [the user's] Facebook ads and products experiences" can be even remotely true. Whatsapp content is encrypted, end to end... so Whatsapp doesn't know anything about what is inside of it. Thus, that information cannot be harvested for data to determine what kinds of things people are talking about through the app, and with no real additional information about its users, Whatsapp have nothing upon which to offer any kind of "better advertising" for their users. It is completely untenable that their claim could ever be true, and even ignoring absolutely all historical precedent, or assumptions of incentive or motive for doing so, the lie is obvious to anyone who looks simply at the plain facts of what Whatsapp actually does.
Fair observation. In addition to the cases that you noted, there is also the concept of fair use, which because it does not require explicit permission from the copyright holder, it would not require you to agree to abide by the terms of the GPL either... as long as fair use can be deemed applicable. There are probably other cases too that I can't think of right off the top of my head, but these are typically exceptions to copyright and not the general rule. As such, it would probably have been more correct for me to have written
But Slashdot doesn't let people edit their posts after they hit submit.
Otherwise... yes, it's a valid criticism of how I phrased it in my original post. I do not believe that it deflates the point I was making, however.
Look at almost any copyright notice in any non-free work and you'd see what I mean about the notion of written permission. Published works are copyrighted by default in NA, and so a certain level of accountability is generally required to confirm authorization to copy the work. Thus, it tends to be the default that written permission is the default requirement for getting permission to copy someone else's copyrighted work. If verbal permission, or some other arrangement were actually all that were required, the copyright notice itself would generally explicitly say so.... Even on free works, such as GPL, BSD, MIT, etc, the copyright license itself essentially constitutes written permission to copy the work freely.
Actually, it only directly implies that people who use BSD licensing think less about derivative works from their code than people who use the GPL. This is perfectly fine, but since derivative works would typically contain substantial portions of the original code, by extension, the lack of care about derivative works of their ccde thereby reduces to a lack of care about their own code, from that perspective.
If they make changes to your copyrighted content, then while the new product isn't entirely your code anymore, it is still considered a derivative work of your code. One needs permission from the copyright holder to make derivative works of copyrighted content, and the GPL simply states what terms a person has to agree to in order to receive such permission, saving the recipient who may be interested in creating such a derivative work from having to hunt down the copyright holder and seek express written permission that they would otherwise have to obtain to legally have any ability to create and publish such derivative works.
They aren't. They are concerned about derivative works of THEIR OWN code, concerns that they are legally entitled to have by virtue of having the copyright on the code that they wrote. The fact that a derivative work might have your own code in it is entirely superfluous, if it is a derivative work then you still need the original copyright holder's permission to do something with it. The GPL outlines the terms necessary to receive such permission. Nothing more, and nothing less.