not GNU-heads. Linus himself researched a lot, and came up with some definition of derived works, according to USofA copyright law and copyright case law. You can search for it in Google, if you want. Probably in groklaw, too. And Linus is the anti-GNU-head, he is a very pragmatic guy. If he thinks it can hold, it prolly can hold.
You really sould not post this as AC; you have a sensible point, even if I disagree with you.
You see, many symbols exported by the kernel can be found in similar kernels: in the BSD kernels, p.ex., or even in the device driver kit of even the solaris kernel. I dunno, maybe even the NT kernel DDK export some of those. Those are exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL() because if a loadable module uses it, the fact of using it does not characterize that the loadable module was made only for linux, and can only -- or mainly -- be used inside the context of linux. Now, the symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() are saying: "whoa, cowboy, this is intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the kernel, if you wanna see this, show me yours".
Summarizing, by using a symbol that was exported with EXPORTED_SYMBOL_GPL() -- as opposed to EXPORT_SYMBOL() -- a loadable kernel module is declaring itself a derived work of the kernel. Like: "yes, I was done not obeying some device driver kit, but with intimate knowledge of the kernel and its internal calls and data, so I am a derivative work, and hence I am GPL-licensed, because the license of the kernel makes me so."
So, to be linked with EXPORTED_SYMBOL_GPL() exported symbols, you declare:
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
If you don't want your loadable module to be GPL-licensed, you refrain to use the innards of the kernel (which would make you a derivative work), and declare:
MODULE_LICENSE("all the source are belong to us");
but doing
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0you are suckers");
is most certainly a copyright violation because indicates that the (closed-source) module wants to use the innards of linux, hence is a derivative work (at least as per USofAn law, and probably per Brazilian law, too), hence it should be GPL-licensed and is not.
So, what should be done is: (a) patch the kernel so this hack starts not working. this will raise awareness of why the driver is not working anymore. (b) send a C&D polite letter to the module publisher. they are distributing a derived work of the kernel, sans source code. they must stop distributing it (their license is now void) and/or pay damages and/or distribute the source code to their module under the terms of the GPL.
Because there were found in the kernel some modules with firmware in which the firmware has *no valid license* or has a misplaced source-less GPL license (which would redeem the entire kernel package undistributable if included).
google for slipstream. Now, serious: 7-zip is better and is Free Software. I always install Mozilla and the PuTTY family. Cygwin if I think I will use the machine a lot. VIM !!!
Your representative in your Congress, or the local equivalent, or the local Dictator, according to the country/state you live in.
More seriously, the USofA ``Congress revised the federal copyright statute in 1976 to provide copyright owners with statutory protection for derivative works. A derivative work can take the form of "any . . . work [that] may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represents an original work of authorship, is a 'derivative work.'" (emphasis added) 17 U.S.C. 101 (1994).
In short, a derivative work is a whole work based on one or more other whole works. ''
There is an equivalent provision in the Brazilian Author's Rights Law (Law 9610/98), roughly translated: section 5, "for the effects of this law, it's considered: [...] VI. work: [...] (g) derivative work: the one which, altough constitutes a new intelectual creation, results of some transformation of the original work".
Is lying to the user. Lying that they (users) are not loading a derivative work of the kernel, so that they (users) don't know they are entitled to the rights granted to them by the GPL licensing of the kernel as a whole *and* derivative works.
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() means: "if you use this symbol, then your driver is inequivocably a derivative work of the kernel". Why? Because there are some ways of writing device drivers that make the drivers *not* be a derivative work of the kernel. P.ex., the NTFS driver distributed by Microsoft, NTFS.DLL, is not a derivative work of the kernel, but might, by way of (GPL'd) glue code, be load in the addressing space of the kernel and linked to it.
MODULE_LICENSE("Other license") means: "this module is constructed in a way that makes it a non-derivative of the kernel; you can modprobe it, and as it's not derivative, the GPL does not apply to it; don't allow it to see those symbols that would make it derivative";
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") means: "the license of this module is GPL, please do the linking for me to the symbols that will make me a derivative work of the kernel", while
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0but not really") means: "I'm a fucking liar, and I want to roll the dice without paying the price (I want to be a non-GPL-licensed derivative of the kernel)."
There are no *security updates* for *testing*. There are no *specific security updates* for *unstable*, but usually it is updated together with the security updates for woody. Now, for those security updates go into sarge, they must wait the grace period. Hence, unstable is safer in general than testing.
No one is forcing you to upgrade. Just don't. Take a look in the security advisories and only upgrade what you must. As I said in other post (sid user) I upgrade only once each 2-to-3 weeks.
I use this amazing res in a 15" CRT because it won't go 1280x1024... (LG520i) and I use tabs a lot, tabbed browser, tabbed IDE (KDevelop), tabbed terminal (konsole) or konsole + screen (better keyboard support, can detach. the day konsole can detach a terminal session, I won't use screen anymore!)
I ditched sarge because sid *is* more stable, specially if you use id as a desktop distro. I apt-get upgrade once each 2 weeks *or* if some security advisory (which I read everyday) tells me so -- in the second case, I usually only update the buggy guy.
Unfortunately, this resolution (again, 1280x720) is not really adequate for full-time use as a computer monitor. It's great for the occasional web surfing, but I wouldn't want to do any real work on it.
Why? I use everyday to work 1280x720 (using it right now)... and I'm curious....
Hmmm... I don't know. Our (theoretically experienced) sysadms and DBA's had their share of dificulty with their (Compaq at the time) servers, running only MS-SQL and nothing more on them... Not as bad uptime as the geo-devel team, but sure not a sea of roses.
I must have forgot to comment out those win_crash() calls!!!!!!!!! Let me take the phone and call the guys!!! They will thank me a lot for it!!!:-) -- This post contains attempt of Humour. Do not punch it, or the Humour can leak.
During the years of 2001 and 2002, I used Win2k + BorlandC++builder (version 5/6/7? don't remember) to develop an geoprocessing app. My win2k never stood up more than one work day (max 10h). I actually used its failures to know it was time to go home, because they happened invariably in 8 1/2-9 1/2 hours uptime. And yes, no viruses, no driver snafu, no nothing, simply leaked system resources.
As I said before, the paper trail does not add any security, except if you are able to invest a really huge amount of money to make it work.
To add security, you would have to bind each vote to its voter (and you don't want to do that -- in my country, you can't do that). Today, in our system, you bind a mean of 2500 votes to its voters, by tallying them in one box. This is acceptable.
How could you make paper trail secure? bigger, thicker paper (imagine 2500 carton-paper, ISO A6 size, ballots) and the paraphernalia to get them, authenticate them, print them, barcode or OCR-able-print them, authenticate the printing, the poll worker signing it, or the party officials, so you know the cards in the box (huge, huge box) are (a) automatically countable/recountable, (b) manually countable/recountable, (c) verified as "official", (d) difficult to counterfeit, (e) cryptographically signed, (f) non-traceable to each voter.
Man, this is HARD. I've seen in someplace something like "a receipt in which some pixels are printed in the receipt, some are printed in the paper ballot, and they must match or not match... bla bla bla". In two words: ex-pensive:-)
Easier way: open, public-software electronic voting machine, well protected, distributed system of responsabilities to test and authenticate everything, honest politicians (ops, not gonna happen), checked-by-society and by political parties (better if you have many of those instead of Conservative Party and More Conservative Party).
OT: I always laugh my a** off when I watch CPAN or CNN or even Fox News (heaven forbid!), because when some politician is shown, the subtitle says John Jones - D - MA, with just one letter to the party!!! Our parties here are known by their abbreviations (PT, PMDB, PFL), and in the lets-have-fifty-parties time we had, some of them had 6 letter abbrevs! hehehe.
In Brasil, elections are *always* on Sundays. People who work at elections are picked up by the Electoral Court (much alike jury duty) and they have a leave of 2 workdays for each day they are summoned by the Court, whatever may be their job.
Since in my last posts (the ones that appear in my slashdot page) I mentioned a dozen times: "people don't want to count votes by hand, don't want to recount votes by hand, and it's not that safe because you can sneak in a lot of pre-printed ballots at any time, or sneak out a lot of your opponent's ballots"
Slashdot Mirror
This is the biggest-non-news non-story in /. ever.
not GNU-heads. Linus himself researched a lot, and came up with some definition of derived works, according to USofA copyright law and copyright case law. You can search for it in Google, if you want. Probably in groklaw, too. And Linus is the anti-GNU-head, he is a very pragmatic guy. If he thinks it can hold, it prolly can hold.
I don't use MS Word, I usually install OOo
You really sould not post this as AC; you have a sensible point, even if I disagree with you.
You see, many symbols exported by the kernel can be found in similar kernels: in the BSD kernels, p.ex., or even in the device driver kit of even the solaris kernel. I dunno, maybe even the NT kernel DDK export some of those. Those are exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL() because if a loadable module uses it, the fact of using it does not characterize that the loadable module was made only for linux, and can only -- or mainly -- be used inside the context of linux. Now, the symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() are saying: "whoa, cowboy, this is intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the kernel, if you wanna see this, show me yours".
Summarizing, by using a symbol that was exported with EXPORTED_SYMBOL_GPL() -- as opposed to EXPORT_SYMBOL() -- a loadable kernel module is declaring itself a derived work of the kernel. Like: "yes, I was done not obeying some device driver kit, but with intimate knowledge of the kernel and its internal calls and data, so I am a derivative work, and hence I am GPL-licensed, because the license of the kernel makes me so."
So, to be linked with EXPORTED_SYMBOL_GPL() exported symbols, you declare:
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
If you don't want your loadable module to be GPL-licensed, you refrain to use the innards of the kernel (which would make you a derivative work), and declare:
MODULE_LICENSE("all the source are belong to us");
but doing
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0you are suckers");
is most certainly a copyright violation because indicates that the (closed-source) module wants to use the innards of linux, hence is a derivative work (at least as per USofAn law, and probably per Brazilian law, too), hence it should be GPL-licensed and is not.
So, what should be done is:
(a) patch the kernel so this hack starts not working. this will raise awareness of why the driver is not working anymore.
(b) send a C&D polite letter to the module publisher. they are distributing a derived work of the kernel, sans source code. they must stop distributing it (their license is now void) and/or pay damages and/or distribute the source code to their module under the terms of the GPL.
Because there were found in the kernel some modules with firmware in which the firmware has *no valid license* or has a misplaced source-less GPL license (which would redeem the entire kernel package undistributable if included).
google for slipstream.
Now, serious: 7-zip is better and is Free Software.
I always install Mozilla and the PuTTY family.
Cygwin if I think I will use the machine a lot.
VIM !!!
Don't forget.
Your representative in your Congress, or the local equivalent, or the local Dictator, according to the country/state you live in.
More seriously, the USofA ``Congress revised the federal copyright statute in 1976 to provide copyright owners with statutory protection for derivative works. A derivative work can take the form of "any . . . work [that] may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represents an original work of authorship, is a 'derivative work.'" (emphasis added) 17 U.S.C. 101 (1994).
In short, a derivative work is a whole work based on one or more other whole works. ''
(from here)
There is an equivalent provision in the Brazilian Author's Rights Law (Law 9610/98), roughly translated: section 5, "for the effects of this law, it's considered: [...] VI. work: [...] (g) derivative work: the one which, altough constitutes a new intelectual creation, results of some transformation of the original work".
PS. to the Brazucas here, the laws governing software copyrights are the Software Law (9609/98) and the Author's Rights Law (9610/98). (links to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Is lying to the user. Lying that they (users) are not loading a derivative work of the kernel, so that they (users) don't know they are entitled to the rights granted to them by the GPL licensing of the kernel as a whole *and* derivative works.
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() means: "if you use this symbol, then your driver is inequivocably a derivative work of the kernel".
Why? Because there are some ways of writing device drivers that make the drivers *not* be a derivative work of the kernel. P.ex., the NTFS driver distributed by Microsoft, NTFS.DLL, is not a derivative work of the kernel, but might, by way of (GPL'd) glue code, be load in the addressing space of the kernel and linked to it.
MODULE_LICENSE("Other license") means: "this module is constructed in a way that makes it a non-derivative of the kernel; you can modprobe it, and as it's not derivative, the GPL does not apply to it; don't allow it to see those symbols that would make it derivative";
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") means: "the license of this module is GPL, please do the linking for me to the symbols that will make me a derivative work of the kernel", while
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0but not really") means: "I'm a fucking liar, and I want to roll the dice without paying the price (I want to be a non-GPL-licensed derivative of the kernel)."
Got it?
There are no *security updates* for *testing*.
There are no *specific security updates* for *unstable*, but usually it is updated together with the security updates for woody.
Now, for those security updates go into sarge, they must wait the grace period.
Hence, unstable is safer in general than testing.
aj tought software != data. so, before SC changed, no problem; after, can't release. simple, ah?
No one is forcing you to upgrade.
Just don't. Take a look in the security advisories and only upgrade what you must.
As I said in other post (sid user) I upgrade only once each 2-to-3 weeks.
I use this amazing res in a 15" CRT because it won't go 1280x1024... (LG520i)
and I use tabs a lot, tabbed browser, tabbed IDE (KDevelop), tabbed terminal (konsole) or konsole + screen (better keyboard support, can detach. the day konsole can detach a terminal session, I won't use screen anymore!)
I ditched sarge because sid *is* more stable, specially if you use id as a desktop distro. I apt-get upgrade once each 2 weeks *or* if some security advisory (which I read everyday) tells me so -- in the second case, I usually only update the buggy guy.
I really don't agree with his views in respect to (a) non-free and debian; (b) GFDL. In all other accounts, I agree with him.
Unfortunately, this resolution (again, 1280x720) is not really adequate for full-time use as a computer monitor. It's great for the occasional web surfing, but I wouldn't want to do any real work on it.
Why? I use everyday to work 1280x720 (using it right now)... and I'm curious....
Hmmm... I don't know. Our (theoretically experienced) sysadms and DBA's had their share of dificulty with their (Compaq at the time) servers, running only MS-SQL and nothing more on them... Not as bad uptime as the geo-devel team, but sure not a sea of roses.
I must have forgot to comment out those win_crash() calls!!!!!!!!! Let me take the phone and call the guys!!! They will thank me a lot for it!!! :-)
--
This post contains attempt of Humour. Do not punch it, or the Humour can leak.
During the years of 2001 and 2002, I used Win2k + BorlandC++builder (version 5/6/7? don't remember) to develop an geoprocessing app. My win2k never stood up more than one work day (max 10h). I actually used its failures to know it was time to go home, because they happened invariably in 8 1/2-9 1/2 hours uptime. And yes, no viruses, no driver snafu, no nothing, simply leaked system resources.
It's very offensive here in Brasil. It means "take it up your a**". Well, back to the drawing board .... :-)
did not threaten. hehe.
As I said before, the paper trail does not add any security, except if you are able to invest a really huge amount of money to make it work.
:-)
To add security, you would have to bind each vote to its voter (and you don't want to do that -- in my country, you can't do that). Today, in our system, you bind a mean of 2500 votes to its voters, by tallying them in one box. This is acceptable.
How could you make paper trail secure? bigger, thicker paper (imagine 2500 carton-paper, ISO A6 size, ballots) and the paraphernalia to get them, authenticate them, print them, barcode or OCR-able-print them, authenticate the printing, the poll worker signing it, or the party officials, so you know the cards in the box (huge, huge box) are (a) automatically countable/recountable, (b) manually countable/recountable, (c) verified as "official", (d) difficult to counterfeit, (e) cryptographically signed, (f) non-traceable to each voter.
Man, this is HARD. I've seen in someplace something like "a receipt in which some pixels are printed in the receipt, some are printed in the paper ballot, and they must match or not match... bla bla bla". In two words: ex-pensive
Easier way: open, public-software electronic voting machine, well protected, distributed system of responsabilities to test and authenticate everything, honest politicians (ops, not gonna happen), checked-by-society and by political parties (better if you have many of those instead of Conservative Party and More Conservative Party).
OT: I always laugh my a** off when I watch CPAN or CNN or even Fox News (heaven forbid!), because when some politician is shown, the subtitle says John Jones - D - MA, with just one letter to the party!!! Our parties here are known by their abbreviations (PT, PMDB, PFL), and in the lets-have-fifty-parties time we had, some of them had 6 letter abbrevs! hehehe.
In Brasil, elections are *always* on Sundays. People who work at elections are picked up by the Electoral Court (much alike jury duty) and they have a leave of 2 workdays for each day they are summoned by the Court, whatever may be their job.
Since in my last posts (the ones that appear in my slashdot page) I mentioned a dozen times: "people don't want to count votes by hand, don't want to recount votes by hand, and it's not that safe because you can sneak in a lot of pre-printed ballots at any time, or sneak out a lot of your opponent's ballots"