This is precisely why "intillectual property" is an oxymoron. I do not own what you think or what is in your mind or that I have made you think because of what I 'communicated' to you, regardless of copyright, patent, license, etc. This is why I feel such things are morally and ethically inexcusable.
Ideas cannot be owned and the constitution makes it clear they are NOT property in article I. Clearly contrary to the constitution, the DMCA and UCITA may choose to treat these things "like" property, but that does not make them property.
Furthermore I feel "intillectual property" is often simply ideas derived from existing public knowledge. Occasionally there is a truelly original idea (such as public key crytography, or an invention like the phonograph) but most "proprietary" knowledge is simply embezzling from the pool of public knowledge. The Amazon "patent" is a wonderful example of this, as are all the new "business model" patents.
I suppose if humans innately felt they each owned ideas exclusivily we would all still be living in drafty caves today....
I am not sure if that is correct, I believe at most all that is required would be a license to do business in the given state, and that's just a few hundred dollars typically.
First, on your question of UCITA; it depends on which state the "contract" of the EULA is written to apply in, not what state you live. Hence, when it becomes law in Maryland (which will happen first), even though I may be in say New York, and the company selling me something is in say Colorodo, they can still construe their EULA to be under "Maryland law".
Incidently, since different states appearently are all modifying UCITA in slightly different ways, the fact that some states have chosen to add consumer protections does not mean you nessisarly have them, even though you may be living in such a state. One could still have the EULA construed under a less friendly state's version of the law.
Certainly the intend of this is to strip you of your right of first sale and redistribution of the book. This is fundimentally wrong for several reasons; first, even in article I of the constitution, "copyright" as stated is both a limited right that "expires", it is neither property nor "permenant", regardless of the illegal action of our congress in the Sony Bono copyright extensions.
Altering a seal is a permenant action, and to deny further distribution or rights forever based on it seems inconsistent. Similarly, the DMCA allows for "access controls" on "copyrighted works" which remain in effect even if the copyright on a given work being so protected expires as intended!
All these efforts are clearly unconstitutional in this country and against the very notion of basic human rights, the right to communicate ideas, the right to think, things that are most basic of all.
Of course, I wonder what is to stop even a physical book from having a taped "seal" with a EULA that must be broken to open and read it?
While in fact neither ACS nor the Bayonne project actually used any of the Ingate code (I actually have never even looked at it), I do believe one or more interesting projects could certainly emerge from it. I recall being told there is an example of the Excel switch control protocol, and perhaps a free switch control daemon project could come from it. There is presumably some good stuff related to clustering shared file systems between multiple hosts (what I recall of the Ingate platform is that it used a bunch of QNX/2 servers that all accessed a common SCSI array and common file system from it). There may be some code related to Dialogic hardware and it could certainly help seed the eccs "free" Dialogic driver project.
I am not sure if the Ingate platform could itself be ressurected as a free software project in whole, but one never knows. It might be easier for me to be somewhat skeptical on the matter as I have no emotional/sentimental attachment to that particular code base. However, in my own opinion, when you have a very large code base that is already x number of years old, and originally was built in a proprietary manner, it might be best to use it as a "reference library" while writing something new to replace it with.
While I understand the sentiment that some feel sometimes things are being done "open" just for the sake of claiming to be open even when its felt not to be the appropriate thing to do (though IMHO there is no case to be made for an advantage to "closed" solutions in any major market, but I digress), I believe telephony has an exceptionally strong case specifically for "open" solutions and that the GPL is the best vehicle both to protect the freedom offered in open telephony solutions and to promote it commercially.
One respect that makes telephony unique is that most telephony solutions (such as small office PBX's, voice mail systems, IVR's, etc) are primarly delivered thru a VAR channel, and there are some 5000 indipendent telephony dealers in this country alone. These dealerships are often forced to supply customers proprietary products that they are only allowed to modify in the expressed manner that has been permitted by the manufacturer. While each mfg talks about "forming partnerships" with their reseller channel, manufacturers use various means to keep control of the reseller and the end user (such as requiring "exclusivity" to carry brand X product, disclaiming of warrenties, etc) and, in that they are actually quite removed from what the end user actually wants and desires, they often produce less than "clueful" products.
What the GPL would mean for this market is that the reseller would be free to adjust a given solution to meet real and actual customer needs, and that the means to do so can not be taken away from the reseller later on. In this sense, it means one has to form a "real" partnership with the reseller channel rather than marketing sound-bites.
The telephony reseller channel is one where solutions are fit to customer needs and the majority of the profit often comes from service agreements and support, rather than the sale of tangible goods. This sounds like a classic case of the "open source" service business model to me, and it's practiced every day by a 50 billion dollar industry.
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This is precisely why "intillectual property" is an oxymoron. I do not own what you think or what is in your mind or that I have made you think because of what I 'communicated' to you, regardless of copyright, patent, license, etc. This is why I feel such things are morally and ethically inexcusable.
Ideas cannot be owned and the constitution makes it clear they are NOT property in article I. Clearly contrary to the constitution, the DMCA and UCITA may choose to treat these things "like" property, but that does not make them property.
Furthermore I feel "intillectual property" is often simply ideas derived from existing public knowledge. Occasionally there is a truelly original idea (such as public key crytography, or an invention like the phonograph) but most "proprietary" knowledge is simply embezzling from the pool of public knowledge. The Amazon "patent" is a wonderful example of this, as are all the new "business model" patents.
I suppose if humans innately felt they each owned ideas exclusivily we would all still be living in drafty caves today....
I am not sure if that is correct, I believe at most all that is required would be a license to do business in the given state, and that's just a few hundred dollars typically.
First, on your question of UCITA; it depends on which state the "contract" of the EULA is written to apply in, not what state you live. Hence, when it becomes law in Maryland (which will happen first), even though I may be in say New York, and the company selling me something is in say Colorodo, they can still construe their EULA to be under "Maryland law".
Incidently, since different states appearently are all modifying UCITA in slightly different ways, the fact that some states have chosen to add consumer protections does not mean you nessisarly have them, even though you may be living in such a state. One could still have the EULA construed under a less friendly state's version of the law.
Certainly the intend of this is to strip you of your right of first sale and redistribution of the book. This is fundimentally wrong for several reasons; first, even in article I of the constitution, "copyright" as stated is both a limited right that "expires", it is neither property nor "permenant", regardless of the illegal action of our congress in the Sony Bono copyright extensions.
Altering a seal is a permenant action, and to deny further distribution or rights forever based on it seems inconsistent. Similarly, the DMCA allows for "access controls" on "copyrighted works" which remain in effect even if the copyright on a given work being so protected expires as intended!
All these efforts are clearly unconstitutional in this country and against the very notion of basic human rights, the right to communicate ideas, the right to think, things that are most basic of all.
Of course, I wonder what is to stop even a physical book from having a taped "seal" with a EULA that must be broken to open and read it?
While in fact neither ACS nor the Bayonne project actually used any of the Ingate code (I actually have never even looked at it), I do believe one or more interesting projects could certainly emerge from it. I recall being told there is an example of the Excel switch control protocol, and perhaps a free switch control daemon project could come from it. There is presumably some good stuff related to clustering shared file systems between multiple hosts (what I recall of the Ingate platform is that it used a bunch of QNX/2 servers that all accessed a common SCSI array and common file system from it). There may be some code related to Dialogic hardware and it could certainly help seed the eccs "free" Dialogic driver project.
I am not sure if the Ingate platform could itself be ressurected as a free software project in whole, but one never knows. It might be easier for me to be somewhat skeptical on the matter as I have no emotional/sentimental attachment to that particular code base. However, in my own opinion, when you have a very large code base that is already x number of years old, and originally was built in a proprietary manner, it might be best to use it as a "reference library" while writing something new to replace it with.
While I understand the sentiment that some feel sometimes things are being done "open" just for the sake of claiming to be open even when its felt not to be the appropriate thing to do (though IMHO there is no case to be made for an advantage to "closed" solutions in any major market, but I digress), I believe telephony has an exceptionally strong case specifically for "open" solutions and that the GPL is the best vehicle both to protect the freedom offered in open telephony solutions and to promote it commercially.
One respect that makes telephony unique is that most telephony solutions (such as small office PBX's, voice mail systems, IVR's, etc) are primarly delivered thru a VAR channel, and there are some 5000 indipendent telephony dealers in this country alone. These dealerships are often forced to supply customers proprietary products that they are only allowed to modify in the expressed manner that has been permitted by the manufacturer. While each mfg talks about "forming partnerships" with their reseller channel, manufacturers use various means to keep control of the reseller and the end user (such as requiring "exclusivity" to carry brand X product, disclaiming of warrenties, etc) and, in that they are actually quite removed from what the end user actually wants and desires, they often produce less than "clueful" products.
What the GPL would mean for this market is that the reseller would be free to adjust a given solution to meet real and actual customer needs, and that the means to do so can not be taken away from the reseller later on. In this sense, it means one has to form a "real" partnership with the reseller channel rather than marketing sound-bites.
The telephony reseller channel is one where solutions are fit to customer needs and the majority of the profit often comes from service agreements and support, rather than the sale of tangible goods. This sounds like a classic case of the "open source" service business model to me, and it's practiced every day by a 50 billion dollar industry.