An EULA is, or attempts to be at least, a license to *use* something. The GPL has nothing to do with use, anyone can use GPL'ed software without a license. The GPL only covers redistribution, something you can't normally do with copyrighted works.
Two different types of licenses entirely.
This is one reason why EULA validity is greatly contested (ie: UCITA etc...) whereas the GPL has been largely unchallenged in legal authority since it was created. (way before UCITA or DMCA, etc...)
IMHO shrinkwrap/end-user software purchases should be governed by copyright law, without any licensing or contractual obligations. If you buy a copy, you have a right to use that copy however you see fit, including making enough personal copies to a) make full use of the software and b) backup the software. (there are further copyright rules on rentals and public showings, but you get the gist...)
My way of looking at software is, its just a string of ones and zeros. If I rightfully aquire it, I should be able to do anything I want with it. (aside from wrongful distribution)
Yes, but to expand on your office analogy a bit, if I'm considered a "thief" every time I grab a fresh pen out of the closet to get some work done, I'm likely to look for another job.
Just as if I'm called a "pirate" every time I try to make adequate use of goods I have purchased (like running DVDs on hardware/software of my choosing, or cracking games so I don't have to put the CD in the tray) I'm likely to give the finger to the whole industry and do something else with my time...
Without some measure of fair use, there really is no value in "buying" intellectual property because I won't be getting what I want even if I do pay for it.
No matter how many times you say otherwise, think otherwise, or pretend otherwise. Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Obviously, high prices are no excuse for breaking the law, but neither is "stopping pirates" an excuse for abusing the law and treading on your own customers.
First of all, there is no credible difference between holding a discussion over slashdot or holding a discussion over email.
Okay. Then why not try some penis enlargement pills at xxx.yyy.com.
Don't see that often on slashdot? Hmm... sounds like there must be *some* difference you're missing then because I get this every day in my inbox. Spammers aren't "holding a conversation" they're blasting the same message to hundreds or thousands of people on individual private channels of communication. Are these differences not credible?
I'm not sure it needs to be open source. At the least I'd like to be able to download a binary image of their entire "vote machine" and play with it on appropriate hardware. Of course, appropriate hardware may also be difficult to come by.
Bottom line: Open source by itself isn't enough. The current process appears far from anything likely to provide solid gaurantes.
Ya, bad-code is bad-code. The problem is bad code can cause far worse problems then a nice healthy conspiracy. Take a peek at MS LookOut, err I mean OutLook some time. No conspiracy alive could have caused that many problems on purpose.
As things are at the moment, my skin crawls at the thought of electronic voting used in the US for any serious election.
Of course, I'm a silly Libertarian, I lose if "either side" rigs the election...
We-ell... TCP/IP *is* complex, but I understand what it gives me. Also, some embedded systems use "partial" TCP implementations (with varying success).
So, in any program or application/device whatever I design, I have to weigh out benefits and drawbacks of every component I add, and every bit of processing requried in the "critical path". TCP/IP doesn't become wholly exempt from this process just because it is a standard...
The ARTICLE says that the US may not be able to block the web site. This sentence implies that the government wants to do so, but there is no information at all to support that idea. Nowhere does it say that the government has any intention of doing so.
I think it is significant to see this kind of wording in the popular press. It smacks of propoganda, no matter who is responsible for the line.
The rest is all conjecture sure, but I'm not at all happy with the possibilities and innuendo here. Why should I be? How long do you think it takes to turn popular opinion into law, especially in this climate?
Finally... What evidence do I see, in the article or elsewhere, showing actual ties to terrorist activity (read people dieing) by the operators of those websites? How far are we really from McCarthy era type black-balling with a few more teeth? I certainly haven't seen anything to show me this *isn't* going on...
This is NOT a "web freedom" thing,
You're right, it affects far more than just the web.
and in this case not even an out of control Bush administration thing.
Um... How do you know that exactly? Identifying terrorists is a rather recently added power of the Executive branch sure. What shows me it isn't being abused?
Um... What do you think the response to this would be in down-town Baghdad?
Just because *you* aren't currently sitting in jail, just because *I* don't currently have a knock at the door, doesn't mean there isn't some jack-booted thugging going on. Have you studied the US' treatment of Japanese American's during WWII? It was only different from the German treatment of Jews by degree of severity. Of course it must be okay if *our* government did it...
I tend to be more lazy than anything else, so I try not to put the complexity there in the first place.
The important thing to remember here is that both XML and gzip are complex to some degree, so they should only be added if they provide some important benefit.
Also, proper requirements analysis and design, performed seperate from any coding, cannot be obsoleted by a "silver bullet" like XML. If you don't take pains to create useful, flexible, modularized software, at all stages, then the pains will find you instead.
XML is good for some things, its just "highly hyped" at the moment, so it also gets used in places it probably shouldn't. (Like everywhere its been used at the company I work... XML would certainly be useful in my industry, but only on an industry-wide basis not within a single small company.)
gzip is trivial? How many lines of code are in a typical gzip implementation? What is the memory profile during execution and typical speed of operation based on file size? Have you written gzip compressors and decompressors often enough you think it would be *easy* to re-create from scratch? If I were in an embedded system the overhead of supporting gzip might be very significant. (especially when combined with an XML parser)
As to learning a new XML DTD, I'd rather not learn any arbitrary new formats if I can help it. It might be easier to learn one XML DTD than one "random text-based data format", but if I wind up learning 5 times the formats because each format is easier to create and propogate, then I've ultimately lost.
Regular expressions are a great way to type in a search string and find something, but what if we used "XML based" search strings instead. I'd probably wind up typing in 4 times the characters to get the same work done. No fun at all on an interactive command line.
Actually it all depends, MIME formats all have a network defined byte order of some sort, and I can send certain "binary" files from MACS to PC's and back and they work on both. All of this was true long before XML came on the scene.
In fact, JPEG, GIF and all the other image formats are "binary" and don't seem to suffer any bad side effects from being so. Ergo byte-order and machine compatability don't seem like good reasons.
Hmm... that begins to make a bit of sense. Very combinable with other W3C standards. I suppose it works pretty well that way if most images are meant to be created by humans and easily readible by humans. Truly a "markup format" for images.
As to verbose... Well, gzip certainly helps, but I keep hoping for a compression format tailored to handle XML, or a translated XML format designed for compactness and easy machine manipulation. (Hadn't there been some effort on this in the embedded space?)
Well... my problem with "java only" developers is that they often seem to forget how to do good old fashioned procedural programming and write extremely tiny functions and classes with really nasty inter-relationships...
A clean API is a clean API, whether it is object oriented or not. The standard C libraries, and associated documentation also have a certain "cleanliness". The standard C libraries are just way way smaller and less capable than those in Java.
You'd see that donating money to the website is now illegal, and banks are supposed to "freeze funds" of those operating the website... Though, they weren't sure how this would work in practice.
Even all out blocking was mentioned thusly: But the law may not enable the United States to block access to the Web sites, if only for technical reasons.
That's funny, I don't recall the bill of rights and free speech being called "technical reasons" when I studied US history in high-school and college.
At the very least, any good slashdotter over 18 should go read every site on that list and make a determination for themself. To even consider that the US needs to "wholly block" sites from another country, seems... unfree. (Note: I'll be doing my reading from an internet cafe and I'll be paying in cash)
Call it a "war on terror" if you like, I'll continue to consider it a "war on freedom".
The problem is... some of the biased points stick quite well on certain products.
For example:
Ok, so rather than design the apps safely out of the box, we need to handcuff the users and do the dirty work ourselves. I guess all those Outlook viruses were our fault.
If we're talking about Microsoft Outlook (Or "LookOut" as I've come to affectionately call it) then we're talking about an "innovation" the world would truly have been better off without.
If we're talking about Windows 2000 or SQL Server 2000 then we're talking about a couple half-way decent products, with some flaws, which are perfectly workable in the right hands.
And, uh... Outlook *is* explicitly mentioned in this case. This is a product I've seriously considered changing jobs to avoid.
Slashdot Mirror
An EULA is, or attempts to be at least, a license to *use* something. The GPL has nothing to do with use, anyone can use GPL'ed software without a license. The GPL only covers redistribution, something you can't normally do with copyrighted works.
Two different types of licenses entirely.
This is one reason why EULA validity is greatly contested (ie: UCITA etc...) whereas the GPL has been largely unchallenged in legal authority since it was created. (way before UCITA or DMCA, etc...)
IMHO shrinkwrap/end-user software purchases should be governed by copyright law, without any licensing or contractual obligations. If you buy a copy, you have a right to use that copy however you see fit, including making enough personal copies to a) make full use of the software and b) backup the software. (there are further copyright rules on rentals and public showings, but you get the gist...)
My way of looking at software is, its just a string of ones and zeros. If I rightfully aquire it, I should be able to do anything I want with it. (aside from wrongful distribution)
Yes, but to expand on your office analogy a bit, if I'm considered a "thief" every time I grab a fresh pen out of the closet to get some work done, I'm likely to look for another job.
Just as if I'm called a "pirate" every time I try to make adequate use of goods I have purchased (like running DVDs on hardware/software of my choosing, or cracking games so I don't have to put the CD in the tray) I'm likely to give the finger to the whole industry and do something else with my time...
Without some measure of fair use, there really is no value in "buying" intellectual property because I won't be getting what I want even if I do pay for it.
No matter how many times you say otherwise, think otherwise, or pretend otherwise. Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Obviously, high prices are no excuse for breaking the law, but neither is "stopping pirates" an excuse for abusing the law and treading on your own customers.
First of all, there is no credible difference between holding a discussion over slashdot or holding a discussion over email.
Okay. Then why not try some penis enlargement pills at xxx.yyy.com.
Don't see that often on slashdot? Hmm... sounds like there must be *some* difference you're missing then because I get this every day in my inbox. Spammers aren't "holding a conversation" they're blasting the same message to hundreds or thousands of people on individual private channels of communication. Are these differences not credible?
I'm not sure it needs to be open source. At the least I'd like to be able to download a binary image of their entire "vote machine" and play with it on appropriate hardware. Of course, appropriate hardware may also be difficult to come by.
Bottom line: Open source by itself isn't enough. The current process appears far from anything likely to provide solid gaurantes.
to cause giant problems.
Ya, bad-code is bad-code. The problem is bad code can cause far worse problems then a nice healthy conspiracy. Take a peek at MS LookOut, err I mean OutLook some time. No conspiracy alive could have caused that many problems on purpose.
As things are at the moment, my skin crawls at the thought of electronic voting used in the US for any serious election.
Of course, I'm a silly Libertarian, I lose if "either side" rigs the election...
Well, ya. As a human-human communication format XML tromps on JPEG, PNG, GIF and friends.
And I'm beginning to see where vector graphics are all about alternative interpretations, addons and the like...
We-ell... TCP/IP *is* complex, but I understand what it gives me. Also, some embedded systems use "partial" TCP implementations (with varying success).
So, in any program or application/device whatever I design, I have to weigh out benefits and drawbacks of every component I add, and every bit of processing requried in the "critical path". TCP/IP doesn't become wholly exempt from this process just because it is a standard...
I thought this was all CS 101. (or 202 at worst)
SVGZ. Is that just gzipped SVG or is it something else?
Ya... XML *does* compress well, that's one of the reasons I consider it verbose. (part of the definition of verbose IMHO.)
The ARTICLE says that the US may not be able to block the web site. This sentence implies that the government wants to do so, but there is no information at all to support that idea. Nowhere does it say that the government has any intention of doing so.
I think it is significant to see this kind of wording in the popular press. It smacks of propoganda, no matter who is responsible for the line.
The rest is all conjecture sure, but I'm not at all happy with the possibilities and innuendo here. Why should I be? How long do you think it takes to turn popular opinion into law, especially in this climate?
Finally... What evidence do I see, in the article or elsewhere, showing actual ties to terrorist activity (read people dieing) by the operators of those websites? How far are we really from McCarthy era type black-balling with a few more teeth? I certainly haven't seen anything to show me this *isn't* going on...
This is NOT a "web freedom" thing,
You're right, it affects far more than just the web.
and in this case not even an out of control Bush administration thing.
Um... How do you know that exactly? Identifying terrorists is a rather recently added power of the Executive branch sure. What shows me it isn't being abused?
Um... What do you think the response to this would be in down-town Baghdad?
Just because *you* aren't currently sitting in jail, just because *I* don't currently have a knock at the door, doesn't mean there isn't some jack-booted thugging going on. Have you studied the US' treatment of Japanese American's during WWII? It was only different from the German treatment of Jews by degree of severity. Of course it must be okay if *our* government did it...
I tend to be more lazy than anything else, so I try not to put the complexity there in the first place.
The important thing to remember here is that both XML and gzip are complex to some degree, so they should only be added if they provide some important benefit.
Also, proper requirements analysis and design, performed seperate from any coding, cannot be obsoleted by a "silver bullet" like XML. If you don't take pains to create useful, flexible, modularized software, at all stages, then the pains will find you instead.
XML is good for some things, its just "highly hyped" at the moment, so it also gets used in places it probably shouldn't. (Like everywhere its been used at the company I work... XML would certainly be useful in my industry, but only on an industry-wide basis not within a single small company.)
gzip is trivial? How many lines of code are in a typical gzip implementation? What is the memory profile during execution and typical speed of operation based on file size? Have you written gzip compressors and decompressors often enough you think it would be *easy* to re-create from scratch? If I were in an embedded system the overhead of supporting gzip might be very significant. (especially when combined with an XML parser)
As to learning a new XML DTD, I'd rather not learn any arbitrary new formats if I can help it. It might be easier to learn one XML DTD than one "random text-based data format", but if I wind up learning 5 times the formats because each format is easier to create and propogate, then I've ultimately lost.
Regular expressions are a great way to type in a search string and find something, but what if we used "XML based" search strings instead. I'd probably wind up typing in 4 times the characters to get the same work done. No fun at all on an interactive command line.
Actually it all depends, MIME formats all have a network defined byte order of some sort, and I can send certain "binary" files from MACS to PC's and back and they work on both. All of this was true long before XML came on the scene.
In fact, JPEG, GIF and all the other image formats are "binary" and don't seem to suffer any bad side effects from being so. Ergo byte-order and machine compatability don't seem like good reasons.
Hmm... that begins to make a bit of sense. Very combinable with other W3C standards. I suppose it works pretty well that way if most images are meant to be created by humans and easily readible by humans. Truly a "markup format" for images.
As to verbose... Well, gzip certainly helps, but I keep hoping for a compression format tailored to handle XML, or a translated XML format designed for compactness and easy machine manipulation. (Hadn't there been some effort on this in the embedded space?)
varying byteorders? I thought that had been resolved years ago when "network byte order" was established...
I'm not sure I buy the "parsing ease" hard-line.
Now I've got to use a rather complex decompression library and a rather complex XML parsing library just to get back to where I could have started?
All I see is overhead.
Well... my problem with "java only" developers is that they often seem to forget how to do good old fashioned procedural programming and write extremely tiny functions and classes with really nasty inter-relationships...
A clean API is a clean API, whether it is object oriented or not. The standard C libraries, and associated documentation also have a certain "cleanliness". The standard C libraries are just way way smaller and less capable than those in Java.
It's not about leet.
It's about whether to torture yourself with a "sofa" that has big ugly spikes sticking up or to simply sit on a nice solid floor...
Well... It's a tough question. Surf anonymously or let others eaves-drop on what you do and read.
Normally, I choose anonymity, encryption and the like. I don't see why I should make myself easy to spy on.
In this case, you may be right. I'll think on it.
Can somebody tell me why SVG would be implemented using XML? I mean .png, .gif, and .jpg don't use verbose ascii storage formats do they?
What ever happened to compact binary image formats?
You'd see that donating money to the website is now illegal, and banks are supposed to "freeze funds" of those operating the website... Though, they weren't sure how this would work in practice.
Even all out blocking was mentioned thusly:
But the law may not enable the United States to block access to the Web sites, if only for technical reasons.
That's funny, I don't recall the bill of rights and free speech being called "technical reasons" when I studied US history in high-school and college.
At the very least, any good slashdotter over 18 should go read every site on that list and make a determination for themself. To even consider that the US needs to "wholly block" sites from another country, seems... unfree. (Note: I'll be doing my reading from an internet cafe and I'll be paying in cash)
Call it a "war on terror" if you like, I'll continue to consider it a "war on freedom".
bwahhahahhahha
"no consideration" tee hee.
".NET better than what it ripped off" ho ho!
First off... Java is FREE! Linux is FREE! Why the heck would he consider paying a cow when he can get the milk for free??!
And get a copy of gVim and the GCC...
Once you go command line, you never come back.
The problem is... some of the biased points stick quite well on certain products.
For example:
Ok, so rather than design the apps safely out of the box, we need to handcuff the users and do the dirty work ourselves. I guess all those Outlook viruses were our fault.
If we're talking about Microsoft Outlook (Or "LookOut" as I've come to affectionately call it) then we're talking about an "innovation" the world would truly have been better off without.
If we're talking about Windows 2000 or SQL Server 2000 then we're talking about a couple half-way decent products, with some flaws, which are perfectly workable in the right hands.
And, uh... Outlook *is* explicitly mentioned in this case. This is a product I've seriously considered changing jobs to avoid.