Can somebody please explain, non-cynically please, why exactly it is that punitive damages in excess of ten time actual damages is cruel and unusual punishment when when I sue a multi-billion dollar company, however no U.S. court has kicked punitive damages to the curb when a company wants *100,000* times the 15$ retail value of a CD?
Do I need to fucking incorporate myself under the law to be protected by the constitution now?
Pugugly inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pugugly holdings, LLC.
Every time I find the terms in U.S. law on find law, they seem to be used interchangeably. It seems to me that they are actually the same, but yes, I'd like to hear a definitive statement from an attorney on this
Quick Question - There seems to me to be an inherent illegality here, maybe someone can explain why I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong, maybe someone can file a complaint with the copyright office? As a violation of federal law and a matter of defrauding the court, it seems to me that if this chain of logic holds, they could be disbarred for doing this.
As I understand it,
A) A lawyer, issuing a Cease and Desist letter, is operating as an Officer of the court;
I don't know that I'm right on this, but it seems to be implied in everything I can find on it. Doesn't mean I'm right.
B) An Officer of the court is also an Officer of the U.S. Government:
Again, I'm not sure I'm right, but everything I can find referencing this in the law seems to indicate that yes, these are interchangeable terms.
C) Documents created by people acting as Officers of the U.S. Government are not copyrightable.
"(e) False Representation. - Any person who knowingly makes a false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any written statement filed in connection with the application, shall be fined not more than $2,500."
Presenting that copyright to the court would in turn be fraud of the court.
IANAL - but it seems to me that he's attempting to illegally discharge a contract. A contract consists of (paraphrased from Business Law, UCC applications 10th ed.) Offer: the Offerer makes proposal indicating willingness to enter a contract Acceptance: the Offeree accepts the contract Mutual Assent: Meeting of the minds, i.e., both people believe they're agreeing to the same mutual obligations Capacity: both parties have have legal capacity to have made the contract. Consideration: An exchange of things of value to each party. Legality: Obviously the contract has to be regarding things that are legal to do.
I haven't seen any argument saying that the offer, or legality of the GPL as a contract is in question. Since the GPL gives additional rights not covered under the law normally, and triggers acceptance of the GPL upon the exercise of those rights, I don't see Acceptance or Mutual Assent as being up for question either.
An argument has been made as to whether the gentleman had the capacity to license the item under the GPL. Stipulated that, if he did not have the legal capacity to do so, the GPL is void, it is still his responsibility to make that statement - he has not made any such statement, so I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that he entered the GPL with the right to do so in regard to the copyrights and was not a minor, mentally incompetent, drugged, or intoxicated.
Which really only leaves consideration. The GPL gives rights and obligations not applicable under the law (Which is by the way, my biggest problem with most software licenses. There is typically no consideration, so there should be no contractual obligation.).
The rights granted by the GPL are certainly consideration to the offeree - I do not have any inherent right to look at the source code for every program I have (Well, not since I started Dual-booting again anyway - {G}). So, has the Offerer received any consideration?
Well, if he has accepted money in exchange for this work, definitely so. If he has not received money (maybe not - it's on sourceforge) then what would his consideration be?
He has a right to any improvements I might make. In exchange for my right to modify the program, I have offered to him to make available any public improvement I make to that program, even licensing those improvements under the GPL as well. An argument might be made that that's an option, which has certain UCC implications (Options need to be in writing, for a reasonable time period, and qualify as a 'merchant' under the UCC, which is a pretty wide net. A Merchant = someone who deals with the goods sold in the ordinary course of business or otherwise claims to have knowledge/skills peculiar to that business. I can see, theoretically, that not everyone would qualify, but quite a few would - if you're involved in the computer business, that should qualify.) That's consideration, in and of itself, even if I never actually improve the code myself. If it's an option, that narrows it down a bit, but not much (Note - there is another category, illusory consideration, which could be argued for, which would make it not a legal contract. Since there are other obligations such as making the source code available and such, I'm disregarding it, but it's another argument to be made)
Which makes it (to my mind) a contract, and he does not have the right (once accepted) to unilaterally discharge (Not revoke btw - you can revoke an Offer, you discharge a contract). Now, if he is the sole person that added code to this program, then he may have the right to negotiate for discharge from his obligations in exchange for my discharge from my obligations - but he would literally have to negotiate that with everyone that has a copy of the program - these are individual obligations. If he is *not* the sole owner of the code, then he and each contributor would themselves have to agree that they wanted the contract discharged before he even had a choice regarding whether he want to negotiate with me, someone t
The blurb advertises alternative evolutionary theories, but I've never heard of any theory that didn't presume selection of superior adaptations. The only critique I've ever heard of that is the accusation of circular reasoning, i.e.
What traits are selected for? Adaptive traits.
What are Adaptive Traits? Traits that are Selected for.
Not sure I've ever heard a good reason *why* that's not circular - [G]. Of course, I suppose it's circular reasoning that lost items are always in the last place I look too, but that doesn't make it logical for me to keep looking once I've found one - [G].
Pug
P.S. "Lameness Filter Encountered?" for using some ascii arrows for clarification? The Lameness filter is arguable pretty damn lame!
Worth noting - I presume you can change the URL by updating this preference here under about config? app.update.url - the URL just a short root https://aus2.mozilla.org/update/3/ a list of variables in it, then/update.xml . Presumably you could set this to whatever corporate server you wanted to and simply update things as they are tested?
My immediate reaction was kind of "He was taught not to question this in school? I came from a hick Indiana highschool, and we weren't taught that way?"
Not that thought he didn't have anything to say, but what he calls 'faith' in science I would call a logical assumption or an axiom. And the difference is simple - neither an article of faith or an axiom can be proven. But an article of faith can't be disproven - an axiom or assumption can. And that's the difference between science and religion.
If we based science on faith, then we wouldn't have rockets, we'd still believe in the ether, we would know with certainty that the problems with Mercury's orbit were measurement issues, not that Newtonian physics is incomplete.
There are things I take on faith - I think there are unique qualities to the soul that are real, yet not disprovable, and thus beyond the purview of science and logic. But that is not the same as taking *science* on faith.
Just FYI, for those that are contemplating an XP upgrade/downgrade/lateral redeployment/whatever, I *highly* recommend Nlite - it's a program for making XP install CD's with whatever you need to rip out culled, whatever device drivers et al.
There are features I never mastered - you can set it up to install your drivers, default programs, etcetera, and such - I've never gone farther than saving my 'must have' programs and drivers on the CD so I can install them when I need them, but you can do lots more, and you can rip out all sorts of XP detritus and have a really nice, fast os. Great for your game partition (Sorry, wine is great for some things, but it sucketh much on many).
Sorry - but that strikes me as an "Oh Really?!?" moment, in regard to windows at least. Explorer crashes fairly consistently on any version of windows - the big advantage of XP is that when explorer crashes it doesn't generally crash everything else with it and *usually* restarts itself.
Not that I haven't seen that too under XP. But yes, it's a heck of an improvement.
Now I have officially wimped out and am dualbooting to play games under windows, which really simplifies many things since I keep everything else on the Ubuntu partition except the games and a copy of Firefox and utorrent to download patches with. But if it wasn't for games, I believe I'd be done with Windows.
Vista can *have* it's "So Beautiful, So Disturbing" appeal. As it happens I have a os that looks good in jeans even when she has dirt under her fingernails.
But did anyone else read this and assume this was some P!=NP mathematics problem you just had not heard of?
I was going "The home library problem? That *must* be some variation of the traveling salesman problem, I wonder if the description is as obvious as it sounds . .."
I'm not sure I think Ubuntu is an improvement on that score. I have had so many times I wanted to install one program, and found it came with a 30 program Suite to clutter up my menus with.
Games are the worst offenders - I want one good logic game, I don't need a copy of hangman and 20 other 'educational' games with it, but they are not the only offender. It wouldn't be so bad if it was in add/remove programs with something saying "This game is a part of the educational games suite, This list of programs will also be installed . ..". I'm sure if I was smart enough with apt-get,I could get the individual programs uninstalled, but it's a pain.
That may be the single thing I still find most annoying about Ubuntu -
"The Business Software Alliance took in 13 Million in fines and settlements last year, 90% of it from small businesses like yours.
Ubuntu Linux includes High quality office software, database programs, and enterprise class software of every description. One Low price - Free. With better security, higher uptime, and lets face it, any license the Business Software Alliance hates, can't be all bad.
Closed source - why would you risk your company on it?"
I'm been on Ubuntu for six months or so (Linux for wimps like me - and there was much rejoicing!), But the best thing I had for Media on XP is Mplayer.
I've have strongly disliked Quicktime for a long time, because it sticks it's little fingerprints into things worse than anything I've ever seen that's not from Redmond. I ripped my XP configuration out with Nlite, and setup my install CD with registry keys that hook everything to Mplayer. Short, sweet, runs everything that's not encrypted, and it doesn't try and grab everything in the world like Quicktime does. Setting up the original registry keys took a bit, but it works great, runs easy, low profile, and everything you want to do can be done from command line switches.
You can make a strong argument for VLC, if you need the options it gives (Or really can't stand having a command prompt popped up and want a GUI), but for simple ease of use - use Mplayer.
I don't get it. I have firefox open now. It has 170 Mb used in task manager. A lot.
It's been open for three days on my work machine. Who the heck are these people that are whining about it grabbing a Gig of memory? I have 25 plugins, including one that saves all my closed tabs, and after 3 days I'm at 170 Meg. You're doing something wrong.
Sorry, conservative or not, getting your business info from a Murdoch owned company seems to me to be a good way to go broke.
Put it this way, how much is your decision to buy into the stock called "Iraq War" influenced by whether you listen to NPR or Fox? Going by this reputation for fair and balanced, do you want to risk your money in the belief that Rupert Murdoch wouldn't deceive you when he can make actually make money doing so?
I'll wait a few years and see what happens to news coverage from the journal, but my knee jerk response is that assuming that Murdoch *won't* bias reporting to his advantage is naive.
Slashdot Mirror
Can somebody please explain, non-cynically please, why exactly it is that punitive damages in excess of ten time actual damages is cruel and unusual punishment when when I sue a multi-billion dollar company, however no U.S. court has kicked punitive damages to the curb when a company wants *100,000* times the 15$ retail value of a CD?
Do I need to fucking incorporate myself under the law to be protected by the constitution now?
Pugugly inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pugugly holdings, LLC.
Mmmmmm - I just love it when the soft gooey center is just right. Dip it in a red giant, and just nibble it . . .
Pug
Every time I find the terms in U.S. law on find law, they seem to be used interchangeably. It seems to me that they are actually the same, but yes, I'd like to hear a definitive statement from an attorney on this
Quick Question - There seems to me to be an inherent illegality here, maybe someone can explain why I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong, maybe someone can file a complaint with the copyright office? As a violation of federal law and a matter of defrauding the court, it seems to me that if this chain of logic holds, they could be disbarred for doing this.
As I understand it,
A) A lawyer, issuing a Cease and Desist letter, is operating as an Officer of the court;
I don't know that I'm right on this, but it seems to be implied in everything I can find on it. Doesn't mean I'm right.
B) An Officer of the court is also an Officer of the U.S. Government:
Again, I'm not sure I'm right, but everything I can find referencing this in the law seems to indicate that yes, these are interchangeable terms.
C) Documents created by people acting as Officers of the U.S. Government are not copyrightable.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/chapters/1/sections/section_101.html
"A "work of the United States Government" is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties."
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/chapters/1/sections/section_105.html
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
D) If A --> B --> C, it seems to me submitting a Cease and Desist letter for copyright is in fact defrauding the federal government. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/chapters/5/sections/section_506.html
"(e) False Representation. - Any person who knowingly makes a false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any written statement filed in connection with the application, shall be fined not more than $2,500."
Presenting that copyright to the court would in turn be fraud of the court.
Am I completely off base on this?
Pug
IANAL - but it seems to me that he's attempting to illegally discharge a contract.
A contract consists of (paraphrased from Business Law, UCC applications 10th ed.)
Offer: the Offerer makes proposal indicating willingness to enter a contract
Acceptance: the Offeree accepts the contract
Mutual Assent: Meeting of the minds, i.e., both people believe they're agreeing to the same mutual obligations
Capacity: both parties have have legal capacity to have made the contract.
Consideration: An exchange of things of value to each party.
Legality: Obviously the contract has to be regarding things that are legal to do.
I haven't seen any argument saying that the offer, or legality of the GPL as a contract is in question. Since the GPL gives additional rights not covered under the law normally, and triggers acceptance of the GPL upon the exercise of those rights, I don't see Acceptance or Mutual Assent as being up for question either.
An argument has been made as to whether the gentleman had the capacity to license the item under the GPL. Stipulated that, if he did not have the legal capacity to do so, the GPL is void, it is still his responsibility to make that statement - he has not made any such statement, so I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that he entered the GPL with the right to do so in regard to the copyrights and was not a minor, mentally incompetent, drugged, or intoxicated.
Which really only leaves consideration. The GPL gives rights and obligations not applicable under the law (Which is by the way, my biggest problem with most software licenses. There is typically no consideration, so there should be no contractual obligation.).
The rights granted by the GPL are certainly consideration to the offeree - I do not have any inherent right to look at the source code for every program I have (Well, not since I started Dual-booting again anyway - {G}). So, has the Offerer received any consideration?
Well, if he has accepted money in exchange for this work, definitely so. If he has not received money (maybe not - it's on sourceforge) then what would his consideration be?
He has a right to any improvements I might make. In exchange for my right to modify the program, I have offered to him to make available any public improvement I make to that program, even licensing those improvements under the GPL as well. An argument might be made that that's an option, which has certain UCC implications (Options need to be in writing, for a reasonable time period, and qualify as a 'merchant' under the UCC, which is a pretty wide net. A Merchant = someone who deals with the goods sold in the ordinary course of business or otherwise claims to have knowledge/skills peculiar to that business. I can see, theoretically, that not everyone would qualify, but quite a few would - if you're involved in the computer business, that should qualify.) That's consideration, in and of itself, even if I never actually improve the code myself. If it's an option, that narrows it down a bit, but not much (Note - there is another category, illusory consideration, which could be argued for, which would make it not a legal contract. Since there are other obligations such as making the source code available and such, I'm disregarding it, but it's another argument to be made)
Which makes it (to my mind) a contract, and he does not have the right (once accepted) to unilaterally discharge (Not revoke btw - you can revoke an Offer, you discharge a contract). Now, if he is the sole person that added code to this program, then he may have the right to negotiate for discharge from his obligations in exchange for my discharge from my obligations - but he would literally have to negotiate that with everyone that has a copy of the program - these are individual obligations. If he is *not* the sole owner of the code, then he and each contributor would themselves have to agree that they wanted the contract discharged before he even had a choice regarding whether he want to negotiate with me, someone t
Do we really want to start selecting for highly confident enemies?
On the other hand, given that confident != competent - Can we get Bush to go work for the bad guys?
Pug
Seriously, selection of unsuccessful traits?
The blurb advertises alternative evolutionary theories, but I've never heard of any theory that didn't presume selection of superior adaptations. The only critique I've ever heard of that is the accusation of circular reasoning, i.e.
What traits are selected for? Adaptive traits.
What are Adaptive Traits? Traits that are Selected for.
Not sure I've ever heard a good reason *why* that's not circular - [G]. Of course, I suppose it's circular reasoning that lost items are always in the last place I look too, but that doesn't make it logical for me to keep looking once I've found one - [G].
Pug
P.S. "Lameness Filter Encountered?" for using some ascii arrows for clarification? The Lameness filter is arguable pretty damn lame!
Worth noting - I presume you can change the URL by updating this preference here under about config? app.update.url - the URL just a short root https://aus2.mozilla.org/update/3/ a list of variables in it, then /update.xml .
Presumably you could set this to whatever corporate server you wanted to and simply update things as they are tested?
Pug
My immediate reaction was kind of "He was taught not to question this in school? I came from a hick Indiana highschool, and we weren't taught that way?"
Not that thought he didn't have anything to say, but what he calls 'faith' in science I would call a logical assumption or an axiom. And the difference is simple - neither an article of faith or an axiom can be proven. But an article of faith can't be disproven - an axiom or assumption can. And that's the difference between science and religion.
If we based science on faith, then we wouldn't have rockets, we'd still believe in the ether, we would know with certainty that the problems with Mercury's orbit were measurement issues, not that Newtonian physics is incomplete.
There are things I take on faith - I think there are unique qualities to the soul that are real, yet not disprovable, and thus beyond the purview of science and logic. But that is not the same as taking *science* on faith.
Pug
Just FYI, for those that are contemplating an XP upgrade/downgrade/lateral redeployment/whatever, I *highly* recommend Nlite - it's a program for making XP install CD's with whatever you need to rip out culled, whatever device drivers et al.
There are features I never mastered - you can set it up to install your drivers, default programs, etcetera, and such - I've never gone farther than saving my 'must have' programs and drivers on the CD so I can install them when I need them, but you can do lots more, and you can rip out all sorts of XP detritus and have a really nice, fast os. Great for your game partition (Sorry, wine is great for some things, but it sucketh much on many).
Pug
Sorry - but that strikes me as an "Oh Really?!?" moment, in regard to windows at least. Explorer crashes fairly consistently on any version of windows - the big advantage of XP is that when explorer crashes it doesn't generally crash everything else with it and *usually* restarts itself.
Not that I haven't seen that too under XP. But yes, it's a heck of an improvement.
Now I have officially wimped out and am dualbooting to play games under windows, which really simplifies many things since I keep everything else on the Ubuntu partition except the games and a copy of Firefox and utorrent to download patches with. But if it wasn't for games, I believe I'd be done with Windows.
Vista can *have* it's "So Beautiful, So Disturbing" appeal. As it happens I have a os that looks good in jeans even when she has dirt under her fingernails.
Pug
Personally, I'm holding out for Orion Slave girls.
." -- How has that not been filked yet? Tom, I'm so disappointed in you!
Or even Harry Mudd and enough Venus Drug I can contaminate the Water Supply with it.
"I wish they all could be green or-i-on Giiiirrrrllllss . . .
Pug
I always assumed that merely posting on Slashdot qualified me to vilify the parent? Has this changed?!?
Pug
Buckland's Big Blue Book of witchcraft for Children, now available at Hook's, Osco, and other fine stores!
Sorry, old Pagan joke - {G}
Pug
But did anyone else read this and assume this was some P!=NP mathematics problem you just had not heard of?
."
I was going "The home library problem? That *must* be some variation of the traveling salesman problem, I wonder if the description is as obvious as it sounds . .
Pug
Common mistake - Always unplug the router first.
Pug
Not since we signed the Berne convention in '89.
One of our many problems with copyright.
Pug
I'm not sure I think Ubuntu is an improvement on that score. I have had so many times I wanted to install one program, and found it came with a 30 program Suite to clutter up my menus with.
.". I'm sure if I was smart enough with apt-get,I could get the individual programs uninstalled, but it's a pain.
Games are the worst offenders - I want one good logic game, I don't need a copy of hangman and 20 other 'educational' games with it, but they are not the only offender. It wouldn't be so bad if it was in add/remove programs with something saying "This game is a part of the educational games suite, This list of programs will also be installed . .
That may be the single thing I still find most annoying about Ubuntu -
Pug
"The Business Software Alliance took in 13 Million in fines and settlements last year, 90% of it from small businesses like yours.
Ubuntu Linux includes High quality office software, database programs, and enterprise class software of every description. One Low price - Free. With better security, higher uptime, and lets face it, any license the Business Software Alliance hates, can't be all bad.
Closed source - why would you risk your company on it?"
{G} - Pug
I'm been on Ubuntu for six months or so (Linux for wimps like me - and there was much rejoicing!), But the best thing I had for Media on XP is Mplayer.
I've have strongly disliked Quicktime for a long time, because it sticks it's little fingerprints into things worse than anything I've ever seen that's not from Redmond. I ripped my XP configuration out with Nlite, and setup my install CD with registry keys that hook everything to Mplayer. Short, sweet, runs everything that's not encrypted, and it doesn't try and grab everything in the world like Quicktime does. Setting up the original registry keys took a bit, but it works great, runs easy, low profile, and everything you want to do can be done from command line switches.
You can make a strong argument for VLC, if you need the options it gives (Or really can't stand having a command prompt popped up and want a GUI), but for simple ease of use - use Mplayer.
Pug
Don't be a playa hater!
(Nobody made that pun yet? I'm so shocked)
Pug
I don't get it. I have firefox open now. It has 170 Mb used in task manager. A lot.
It's been open for three days on my work machine. Who the heck are these people that are whining about it grabbing a Gig of memory? I have 25 plugins, including one that saves all my closed tabs, and after 3 days I'm at 170 Meg. You're doing something wrong.
Pug
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - [Grin].
Pug
Sorry, conservative or not, getting your business info from a Murdoch owned company seems to me to be a good way to go broke.
Put it this way, how much is your decision to buy into the stock called "Iraq War" influenced by whether you listen to NPR or Fox? Going by this reputation for fair and balanced, do you want to risk your money in the belief that Rupert Murdoch wouldn't deceive you when he can make actually make money doing so?
I'll wait a few years and see what happens to news coverage from the journal, but my knee jerk response is that assuming that Murdoch *won't* bias reporting to his advantage is naive.
Pug