Hmm... why do I feel like I've been vaguely insulted?:-P
such as M-Audio, RME, and other companies
Thanx for the new audio keywords. Gotta keep my google primed at all times.
yes, i talk like this when i've been drinking.
Well don't just stand there, pass one over. It'll loosen up the works for this code-merge I have to get through tonight. (...must quit reading slashdot...must work...*urgk!*)
My point was that if you *bought* a copy of a work, there's no license to be adhered to, allowed or not allowed to do things based on copyright law, not some dubious license. Whereas if you *borrowed* a copy of a work you might only be able to play it upside down in your underwear while singing yankee doodle if that's what the license terms say. (Assuming the judge stops laughing long enough to award damages once you get to court.)
However, first sale doctrine does not allow you to buy a book in english, translate it to french and then sell the french translation to someone.
Hmm... This is an "unauthorized translation" and certainly can't become a registered copyright as long as it is unauthorized, but it may be anywhere between freely distributable and considered an infringement depending on fair-use rights in your jurisdiction. Sure makes a nice red-herring in any case since it is a right that is unavailable under copyright and license alike.
Well... I was thinking "full quality digital" protection. There's a fair amount of degradation between the digital bits on your hard-drive and the analog going into your brain on that "line out".
Qaint. Pretend I don't have any rights so there's nothing to take away. It would be funny if it weren't both pathetic and threatening at the same time. (pathetic because it is so naive, threatening because day by day it becomes more of a reality...)
To turn it back on you (forwards to the rest of the world). Copyright's are exclusive rights of the copyright holder including the right to:
1) To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
2) To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
3) To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
4) To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
5) To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
6) In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
So, anything not in this list I'm allowed to do no questions asked. In fact, the only way a copyright holder could (possibly) get me to give up further rights would be to get me to agree the work is being rented, leased etc. rather than being sold. (...A dirty trick if pulled off successfully...)
Consumer rights under copyright:
1) First Sale, the right to resell something once you're done using it.
2) Fair use, the right to freely use portions of a work for criticism, parody and the like.
3) Archival, the right to make backup copies of purchased works.
4) Reverse Engineering, the right to take apart and understand a purchased work.
Perhaps you can see why I think pretending these rights don't exist is coercive at best...
...The client could then decrypt the song using its private key...
And uh, where exactly is this private key going to be hidden on a users own machine that they can't find it? This is exactly the fundamental flaw of DRM everyone keeps talking about. If the client can decrypt it, the client can be hacked. For software clients this is no longer even a question. For hardware clients, we're just not sure yet... but the cost would be significant even if it did work.
Note: Things like Palladium which would try to take away a user's "root access" to their system *might* create a platform that could make hard DRM possible, but that's all thoery until it hits the field. (And it's questionable whether customers will swallow that particular cactus bulb. Some folks speculate the only reason many products *cough*DVD*cough* survive today is because customers know they can get around supposed restrictions.)
In other words, your "rights" are not being violated by DRM.
Yes, but it is law (the DMCA in the US) that says we cannot violate policies set by DRM, not the technology itself. So consumer rights *are* being taken away. Who you decide to point your finger at is really a minor technicality.
In other words, forbidding once removed is just the same as forbidding directly.
In this case, you're talking about *your* house, not about a house you built that someone else bought. If your house-builder had locked rooms in YOUR house that you weren't allowed in, wouldn't you be a little suspicious, if not a whole lot ticked off?
I really fail to see how anyone can expect to continue to own any part of something they've sold. It's just plain silly and it's going to become very damaging to society at large before long.
releasing open-source drivers is a great way to kill VAR interest in your product, since the only place a VAR can add value is in the software or in support, and most people won't pay extra for support.
Speaking as a developer working for a company that does some work as a VAR, why the heck would we care whether we're building our value added components on top of open source or proprietary drivers? Perhaps if the drivers were completely GPL'ed we'd have to be a little careful making sure either a) we get a different license or b) "bundling" couldn't be claimed, but that's the only speedbump I can think of.
Am I missing something or is it entirely possible to sell server's pre-configured with proprietary software packages on a GNU/Linux operating system?
...One would expect the breakthroughs to be in the hardware itself...
Well, that certainly wasn't true for winmodems. Often very cheap hardware is just a proxy for the software that runs it... Now, as the hardwaare gets more complex and capable, then what you say becomes more true.
I'd figure an experienced coder would never use l as a loop variable. Too easy to confuse with 1. (Of course, syntax highlighting helps, but still...) Also, why not use the tags so we can read your stuff?
Bah, I'd think those would be good to keep around. Otherwise someone might actually flip the magic switch or drop the ball on getting a sane implementation.
Actually fixing the problems may be more work than its worth, let the community do their job...
Just what exactly do you think the word perogative means?
I don't recall faulting the choice for BitKeeper in any way shape or form. I simply objected to your apparent notion that "no other tools cut it". This is patently untrue. The decision was one of preference, nothing more, nothing less. You just said so yourself.
Just as Linus is free to choose BitKeeper, I'm free to dislike that choice. That's my perogative. I'm not saying I know (or care) enough to have an opinion at this point, but it certainly does appear that lack of a free/open source client is something of an obstacle to getting and keeping certain developers on board. If you're so stigmatized you can't even talk about that fact, you might want to turn down the flame-thrower a bit...
Gosh, get a clue, will you! Or read the lkml archives. Linus chose bitkeeper precisely because all the alternatives you mention don't cut it.
Ya, somewhat smaller projects than the Linux kernel like Apache, Mozilla, the GCC and Debian just can't get off the ground since they don't use BitKeeper. Maybe if they switched they'd have better luck...
I mean really, it's Mr. Torvald's perogative to choose a source control tool he likes and sure when you're on someone else's court you play by their rules. But that hardly makes BitKeeper the holy grail of all source control tools.
Without reading every overblown word on this guys website, I don't exactly see where he answers what I'd think would be the two most important questions:
1) What is this thing capable of making (besides itself)?
2) How much human effort is involved in getting it to make anything? (ie: what resources are required, how must they be arranged, can this thing build several instances at once, or must it be "refilled" every go round...)
3) How many of us (if any) got viruses from downloading and reading that word document on his website?
That's a very hard problem, but much easier than educating millions of users about the finer points of information security
Lemme guess, you're a Palladium fan...
I suppose it would be too difficult to simply write systems that do things users ask them to do, rather than writing systems that are an end unto the mighty distributor expecting users to do as they are asked... If web browsing were simply browsing the web, ie: reading HTML and other files, rather than downloading and running indeterminate applications of dubious origin, then this wouldn't even be a problem.
G, I even remember a time when to get a virus via email you had to purposely download a file and then do something stupid with it... (Like execute it) We "techies" used to laugh and laugh when we heard about these "viruses" you could catch from merely "opening" an email. Guess we're not laughing any more.
how many useful java applets do you use on a daily basis?
And the same could be said for flash... and yet it plagues the web. The whole point of Java is to provide a safe "sandbox" for applets to play in without providing full access to your system. Why should that be relagated to a whitelist? The only part that needs whitelisting is Java code requesting more access than it has any right to expect in the first place.
Sun chose a warning dialog since, well, they didn't write the browsers they expect to run under. Is it their fault everyone else over-uses warning and error dialogs? I know this is one "exploit" I would never fall victim to before or after reading this silly article. I mean yeesh, give full system access to an application without knowing what it is or does, what do you expect?
I totally agree about the "hold door open to close and lock" thing, but there is recent technology that prevents a person from ever locking their keys in the car.
It's called remote keyless entry and it comes on your keychain. If you always use that to lock your doors, and if it is impossible to lock said doors when they are open, it is patently impossible to lock your keys in the car (unless you are also in the car with them). Actually, this same principle would have worked before remote keyless entry if people were willing to take the effort to use a key to lock their door every time... but they weren't.
When it comes to software and applications we're still pre-remote keyless entry. We haven't come up with that nearly unbreakable solution that's still very easy to use yet.
That's a good one. They'd have to have been there in the first place to leave. There are even less women in engineering than in CS... At least that's been my experience.
Perhaps CS is merely becoming more in tune with engineering in general, as opposed to being something new and different, and women are moving on for whatever reason they aren't, in general, engineers? (Whatever that reason may be, I have no clue...)
You seem to have entirely missed the point that your own presented alternative to for-cost tax software (spreadsheet or paper and calculator) makes even less sense and is more error prone than even fairly raw open source tax software.
Why don't I write such software myself? 1) I don't have that itch. 2) Even if I did, it would be foolish to start from scratch.
Slashdot Mirror
you're impeccably correct;
:-P
Hmm... why do I feel like I've been vaguely insulted?
such as M-Audio, RME, and other companies
Thanx for the new audio keywords. Gotta keep my google primed at all times.
yes, i talk like this when i've been drinking.
Well don't just stand there, pass one over. It'll loosen up the works for this code-merge I have to get through tonight. (...must quit reading slashdot...must work...*urgk!*)
First sale isn't the only consumer right.
My point was that if you *bought* a copy of a work, there's no license to be adhered to, allowed or not allowed to do things based on copyright law, not some dubious license. Whereas if you *borrowed* a copy of a work you might only be able to play it upside down in your underwear while singing yankee doodle if that's what the license terms say. (Assuming the judge stops laughing long enough to award damages once you get to court.)
However, first sale doctrine does not allow you to buy a book in english, translate it to french and then sell the french translation to someone.
Hmm... This is an "unauthorized translation" and certainly can't become a registered copyright as long as it is unauthorized, but it may be anywhere between freely distributable and considered an infringement depending on fair-use rights in your jurisdiction. Sure makes a nice red-herring in any case since it is a right that is unavailable under copyright and license alike.
Well... I was thinking "full quality digital" protection. There's a fair amount of degradation between the digital bits on your hard-drive and the analog going into your brain on that "line out".
buy.
You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
Now if you said "lend" or "lease" I wouldn't feel like you were trying to trick someone.
Qaint. Pretend I don't have any rights so there's nothing to take away. It would be funny if it weren't both pathetic and threatening at the same time. (pathetic because it is so naive, threatening because day by day it becomes more of a reality...)
To turn it back on you (forwards to the rest of the world). Copyright's are exclusive rights of the copyright holder including the right to:
1) To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
2) To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
3) To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
4) To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
5) To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
6) In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
So, anything not in this list I'm allowed to do no questions asked. In fact, the only way a copyright holder could (possibly) get me to give up further rights would be to get me to agree the work is being rented, leased etc. rather than being sold. (...A dirty trick if pulled off successfully...)
Consumer rights under copyright:
1) First Sale, the right to resell something once you're done using it.
2) Fair use, the right to freely use portions of a work for criticism, parody and the like.
3) Archival, the right to make backup copies of purchased works.
4) Reverse Engineering, the right to take apart and understand a purchased work.
Perhaps you can see why I think pretending these rights don't exist is coercive at best...
- you know, those people who actually have LEGAL RIGHTS to the content -
What like the customers who bought an instance of a copy protected work, but can't use it according to the supposed rules of copyright?
...The client could then decrypt the song using its private key...
... but the cost would be significant even if it did work.
And uh, where exactly is this private key going to be hidden on a users own machine that they can't find it? This is exactly the fundamental flaw of DRM everyone keeps talking about. If the client can decrypt it, the client can be hacked. For software clients this is no longer even a question. For hardware clients, we're just not sure yet
Note: Things like Palladium which would try to take away a user's "root access" to their system *might* create a platform that could make hard DRM possible, but that's all thoery until it hits the field. (And it's questionable whether customers will swallow that particular cactus bulb. Some folks speculate the only reason many products *cough*DVD*cough* survive today is because customers know they can get around supposed restrictions.)
In other words, your "rights" are not being violated by DRM.
Yes, but it is law (the DMCA in the US) that says we cannot violate policies set by DRM, not the technology itself. So consumer rights *are* being taken away. Who you decide to point your finger at is really a minor technicality.
In other words, forbidding once removed is just the same as forbidding directly.
In this case, you're talking about *your* house, not about a house you built that someone else bought. If your house-builder had locked rooms in YOUR house that you weren't allowed in, wouldn't you be a little suspicious, if not a whole lot ticked off?
I really fail to see how anyone can expect to continue to own any part of something they've sold. It's just plain silly and it's going to become very damaging to society at large before long.
I follow you till that last bit:
releasing open-source drivers is a great way to kill VAR interest in your product, since the only place a VAR can add value is in the software or in support, and most people won't pay extra for support.
Speaking as a developer working for a company that does some work as a VAR, why the heck would we care whether we're building our value added components on top of open source or proprietary drivers? Perhaps if the drivers were completely GPL'ed we'd have to be a little careful making sure either a) we get a different license or b) "bundling" couldn't be claimed, but that's the only speedbump I can think of.
Am I missing something or is it entirely possible to sell server's pre-configured with proprietary software packages on a GNU/Linux operating system?
...One would expect the breakthroughs to be in the hardware itself...
Well, that certainly wasn't true for winmodems. Often very cheap hardware is just a proxy for the software that runs it... Now, as the hardwaare gets more complex and capable, then what you say becomes more true.
Bah, I'd think those would be good to keep around. Otherwise someone might actually flip the magic switch or drop the ball on getting a sane implementation.
Actually fixing the problems may be more work than its worth, let the community do their job...
Just what exactly do you think the word perogative means?
I don't recall faulting the choice for BitKeeper in any way shape or form. I simply objected to your apparent notion that "no other tools cut it". This is patently untrue. The decision was one of preference, nothing more, nothing less. You just said so yourself.
Just as Linus is free to choose BitKeeper, I'm free to dislike that choice. That's my perogative. I'm not saying I know (or care) enough to have an opinion at this point, but it certainly does appear that lack of a free/open source client is something of an obstacle to getting and keeping certain developers on board. If you're so stigmatized you can't even talk about that fact, you might want to turn down the flame-thrower a bit...
Thanx. For once a reason that makes a bit of sense...
Gosh, get a clue, will you! Or read the lkml archives. Linus chose bitkeeper precisely because all the alternatives you mention don't cut it.
Ya, somewhat smaller projects than the Linux kernel like Apache, Mozilla, the GCC and Debian just can't get off the ground since they don't use BitKeeper. Maybe if they switched they'd have better luck...
I mean really, it's Mr. Torvald's perogative to choose a source control tool he likes and sure when you're on someone else's court you play by their rules. But that hardly makes BitKeeper the holy grail of all source control tools.
Thanx for the info!
Don't worry about #3, that was supposed to be a joke... (Mind you I've always measured my humor in groans.)
On a completely different note, does anyone else remember the Slylandro probes from Star Control 2?
Of course, bag of mostly water. My glowy bits tingle with excitement just thinking about it.
Without reading every overblown word on this guys website, I don't exactly see where he answers what I'd think would be the two most important questions:
1) What is this thing capable of making (besides itself)?
2) How much human effort is involved in getting it to make anything? (ie: what resources are required, how must they be arranged, can this thing build several instances at once, or must it be "refilled" every go round...)
3) How many of us (if any) got viruses from downloading and reading that word document on his website?
Bah, buy an FPGA, those can already do this for the most part since their hardware interactions are software driven...
That's a very hard problem, but much easier than educating millions of users about the finer points of information security
Lemme guess, you're a Palladium fan...
I suppose it would be too difficult to simply write systems that do things users ask them to do, rather than writing systems that are an end unto the mighty distributor expecting users to do as they are asked... If web browsing were simply browsing the web, ie: reading HTML and other files, rather than downloading and running indeterminate applications of dubious origin, then this wouldn't even be a problem.
G, I even remember a time when to get a virus via email you had to purposely download a file and then do something stupid with it... (Like execute it) We "techies" used to laugh and laugh when we heard about these "viruses" you could catch from merely "opening" an email. Guess we're not laughing any more.
how many useful java applets do you use on a daily basis?
And the same could be said for flash... and yet it plagues the web. The whole point of Java is to provide a safe "sandbox" for applets to play in without providing full access to your system. Why should that be relagated to a whitelist? The only part that needs whitelisting is Java code requesting more access than it has any right to expect in the first place.
Sun chose a warning dialog since, well, they didn't write the browsers they expect to run under. Is it their fault everyone else over-uses warning and error dialogs? I know this is one "exploit" I would never fall victim to before or after reading this silly article. I mean yeesh, give full system access to an application without knowing what it is or does, what do you expect?
I totally agree about the "hold door open to close and lock" thing, but there is recent technology that prevents a person from ever locking their keys in the car.
It's called remote keyless entry and it comes on your keychain. If you always use that to lock your doors, and if it is impossible to lock said doors when they are open, it is patently impossible to lock your keys in the car (unless you are also in the car with them). Actually, this same principle would have worked before remote keyless entry if people were willing to take the effort to use a key to lock their door every time... but they weren't.
When it comes to software and applications we're still pre-remote keyless entry. We haven't come up with that nearly unbreakable solution that's still very easy to use yet.
Are women leaving engineering as a broader trend?
That's a good one. They'd have to have been there in the first place to leave. There are even less women in engineering than in CS... At least that's been my experience.
Perhaps CS is merely becoming more in tune with engineering in general, as opposed to being something new and different, and women are moving on for whatever reason they aren't, in general, engineers? (Whatever that reason may be, I have no clue...)
You seem to have entirely missed the point that your own presented alternative to for-cost tax software (spreadsheet or paper and calculator) makes even less sense and is more error prone than even fairly raw open source tax software.
Why don't I write such software myself?
1) I don't have that itch.
2) Even if I did, it would be foolish to start from scratch.