You know that the first year the recording industry sees a decent increase in sales, instead of saying that their embrace of DRM-free digital downloads was responsible, they will say that their massive crackdown on pirates (arr!) was responsible, and that to further continue the increasing sales, they need to crack down more.
In my post, I had originally written the same thing, that they could hide it for just customers.
But then I actually read the GPL to double check my facts, and found this little nugget (emphasis mine:)
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange...
Now, the section a) immediately above it does say that they could distribute the code only to paying customers, but that they would have to include the source code with the product. (I suppose if their piece of hardware comes with a CD of drivers/etc, they could just put the source in some random folder on the disc...) But if they don't include the source with the product, then they have to offer the code to "any third party".
And, yes... I know floppies aren't often used for software interchange, but they are customarily used for it. I just bought a new motherboard that came with its SATA RAID drivers for Windows XP on a floppy disk. (Vista can finally load drivers from USB stick or CD during setup, but XP, even with SP3, still can't.) My point (I'm not writing this last part for you, McDutchie, but for the other 5 replies that jumped solely on my floppy reference,) was that they don't have to make it available in a manner particularly convenient for the average person.
...out on the web. Nothing in the GPL says that a licensee has to freely offer the code to absolutely anyone free of charge, to anyone that asks, in the manner the asker chooses. It says that they have to offer the code, in a manner of their choosing to anyone that asks.
In a commercial hardware product, that means that the company can insist on only distributing the code by sending it to you as a bunch of floppy disks, for all the GPL cares.
Now, once someone has the code, that person can then re-distribute the GPLed code however they feel.
One example: My Toshiba HD DVD Player (don't laugh, it was a present,) contains GPL code. Toshiba doesn't make this fact obvious. It's buried in the manual for the product. Toshiba doesn't make the code available on their website, because they're not required to. To quote the GPL 2.0 that my Toshiba uses:
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange...
The internet isn't the only medium customarily used for software interchange. And they are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for duplication and distribution. (See GPL section 1.) If they really felt ornery, they would be perfectly within their rights to charge you for the physical cost of a bunch of floppies, and the time (at minimum wage, or even higher,) some flunky had to spend copying onto those floppies.
Too lazy to RTFL (link,) because I've already RTFDTA (dead-tree article.)
The DTA mentions that you can get the dead-tree edition of the mag for free by going to www.wired.com/free. First 10,000 only, though, so better get crackin'!
As a computer repair person, I *INSIST* that parents should ALWAYS know their kids' passwords, even up to 18 year olds.
I hate to break it to you, but your little sister is under 18. Any property that she thinks of as "hers" is really your parents. (For that matter, if you're under 18, anything that is "yours" is really your parents.) I routinely remove passwords from "kids" computers because it is horrible security to let a kid have completely unfettered access to a computer with ZERO oversight. (I'm not saying that the parents MUST "check up", but that they should at least have the possibility.)
Heck, probably the mere fact that it's running Linux will be enough of a barrier to keep your parents out.
But it's only cheaper if you already own the HD DVD ROM drive and the Blu-ray burner; and you wait for the price of blank Blu-ray discs to come down. Unless you own every single HD DVD movie that was made, it's probably going to be cheaper to just re-buy the movies on Blu-ray.
The only thing I will miss are the combo DVD/HD DVD discs. I liked the idea of being able to play the same disc on my older 'kids' TV and my notebook computer, as well as on the HD DVD Player in full quality. (Of course, I have only even thought of paying money for one HD DVD movie, and it was the Combo version of Superman Returns. Partially for the sole reason of 'hedging my bets' in case HD DVD lost. Good thing I waited.)
Very good, actually, since it's true. Read the WIkipedia article.
And there have been way more than two Robert X. Cringelys.
To recap the history: Infoworld created a back-page column written by "Robert X. Cringely", which was a pseudonym, even the first writer wasn't really named that. Mark Stephens was the third Infoworld writer to write for that column, and lasted about 8 years. (The longest term so far, although it's hard to tell, since Infoworld never actually admits who the current author is. For all we know, it could be a different writer each week nowadays.) When Stephens left, Infoworld sued HIM to prevent him from using the name. (It is unclear if he attempted to use it before they sued him; since he wrote a book under that pseudonym, they might have been being proactive, assuming that he would continue to want to write books under the pseudonym.) There was a settlement that stated that Mark Stephens could continue to use the name, as long as he didn't use it to write for competitors 'tech industry' magazines. Hence the reason he uses the name when writing for PBS, Fortune, and other non-directly-technical organizations. (Although his columns in each are technically-oriented.)
So, yes. The 'famous' Mark Stephens, the one who does the much more popular weekly "I, Cringely" column/website, is *NOT* the same person that writes the "Robert X. Cringely" column for Infoworld. (I read the column from its inception to the death of the paper mag, and Stephens was by far my favorite of the writers.)
Just to be clear, this is *NOT* the same as the more famous PBS Cringely.
Short story: The guy commonly thought of as "Robert X. Cringely" (in reality Mark Stephens,) was actually Infoworld's third writer in the Robert X. Cringely column (and therefore, the third to use the name.) He wrote it for so long, that when he left Infoworld, he got to keep the name, as long as he doesn't use it in another computer-industry magazine. Infoworld has been through a number of people writing as "Robert X. Cringely" since Mark Stephens' departure.
The Infoworld column is pretty standard back-page tech-mag column material, Stephens is the one you think "has been slipping".
Copyright. Copyright is designed to benefit those who truly create new works. If you real all early laws on copyright, you will find that it is *NOT* meant to be a system that guarantees income for the rest of the artist's life. It is meant to stimulate creativity by LIMITING the amount of time that the original artist gets full control, therefore cajoling the artist into creating new works. (The same general idea as patents.)
If you are going to change copyright law to be a 'guaranteed income for the life of the artist', fine. Then change it to just that. "Life of the artist". If the "artist" is a corporation, then give it a LOW span, based on 'averages'. Let's say that the average artist lives to be 80 years old. (Pretty close to the average lifespan nowadays in the "developed" world.) Let's also say that an 'average' artist creates works from age 20 to age 60. That would be forty years of work, and the average age of production is 40. The length from average age of production to death is also forty years. So let's place 'corporate' copyright term at forty years from time of creation. Period. Even better, for corporate-copyrighted material would be to have 10-year protection, with three 10-year renewals, so that if a company doesn't take active effort, it will expire in 10 years.
The other issue is putting a fee on recordable media. If you do that, then making unlimited noncommercial copies should instantly become legal. If I have paid a fee that is theoretically to compensate the artist for my making a copy, then I should therefore be allowed to make as many copies as I want, and do whatever I want with them, as long as I don't sell them. (Not to mention that in today's world, probably the vast majority of 'copying' is pure electronic, with no physical media.) Either way, I'd like to know if, in countries that already have these systems (Canada, for example,) do the actual ARTISTS see a single dime of this fee? If I buy five hundred packs of 500 CD-Rs in Ottawa, does Celine Dion or Sarah McLachlan see a single cent from that sale? How about the unknown artists that have major-label contracts? Do they see even one cent? (Note: "One Cent" is a trademark of the Royal Canadian Mint, all rights reserved.)
It's not the same as taking paper documents, but it is roughly equivalent to making photocopies of all of my paper documents. Which is a complete violation of privacy. What if I have all the plans and ideas for my next invention, that I haven't patented yet? What if the security clerk is actually a technical person, realizes what they are looking at, and steals my idea? Do I have any recourse?
There are obviously more Windows-running PCs than any other 'gaming' platform out there.
But if you are also talking about current-generation dedicated game hardware, then he must be talking about the Wii and the DS, as they outsell all other systems.
If he includes previous-gen consoles, then the PS2 is a big contender, as it STILL outsells the PS3. (By contrast, Xbox and GameCube sales essentially died overnight when Xbox 360 and Wii came out.)
I own the.org and.info domains of my last name. A distant cousin owned the.com. He let it lapse, and it was picked up by a domain squatter instantly. They want over 500 Euro for the domain. Which is silly, since my last name is so uncommon, there are only 40-ish people in the WORLD with my last name. None of us are famous, none of us own a business with our family name in it. (There are a few of us who own businesses, but none with our name in it.)
I've waited three years for the name to expire, but they keep re-registering it. I've told them outright that I'm willing to pay $35, and that's it. By my measure, they'll hit that mark in their own spending next year.
Ah, yes. Had forgotten about the Genesis vs. SNES wars. Atari vs. Intellivision wasn't much of a war. Intellivision was clearly technically superior, yet had a clearly smaller market.
The most influential have to be the Atari 2600, NES, PlayStation 2, and Wii.
The 'best', well... Best at what? I would argue that the PlayStation 3 is the 'best' game console ever, as it has the most powerful processor and graphics, Blu-ray, and the controller contains most of the capabilities of the Wii-mote, while retaining the best of previous generation controllers. (Well, with the Japanese DualShock 3, anyway.) Even so, it hasn't been very influential. (Other than maybe the slight benefit it has given to Blu-ray over HD DVD.) (Oh, and I have a Wii, might buy an XB360, and have never even CONSIDERED buying a PS3, so my statements aren't Sony fanboyism.)
If we're going to ask for 'best' of each generation, then it's just going to be a pissing match of one-ups.
As for my list up top? 2600 essentially created the home game console market. Yes, there were better (technically) consoles at the same time, and even Atari made better ones. But the 2600 was the grandaddy of game consoles. NES has an obvious place in history, reviving the game console market after the crash. PlayStation 2 is a bit of a tough call, but it was probably responsible for the creation of true 'fanboys' more than anything. The first console to have lines and sellouts at launch, and at the time, it really was a major leap over the competition. And, well, we know what the Wii has done. It has made technical power irrelevant. It has re-focused on actual gameplay. (I'm sure soon we'll see just as 'revolutionary' games for the XB360 and PS3, which will make their technical power an important selling point again. But we haven't seen it quite yet. When/if that happens, I expect the PS3 to start to out-sell the XB360.)
That says that if I modify a GPL program, then someone else modifies it "under" me, that if I crew up and make MY use void, people "under" me still have a valid license.
This is for the licensee, not the licensor.
As the copyright holder, he can revoke the license in its entirety for all licensees. This stops someone other than the copyright holder from revoking downstream licensees.
While Ethanol is 'cleaner' than gasoline, when you take the whole lifecycle of the product into account, Ethanol fuel has ALWAYS been cheaper than gasoline. Here in Portland, Oregon, one of the few stations that sells E85 sells it for generally 30 cents a gallon less than the cheapest regular gasoline in town, and a good 50 cents cheaper than their own regular gasoline. Yet even at that much cheaper, it still costs me more to travel a given distance because of the mileage decrease.
$1.00 per gallon to produce is not the same thing as $1.00 at the pump. According to California, producing 1 gallon of gasoline costs about $2.25 per gallon. So while this is cheaper, it's not going to mean $1.00 at the pump. (Using the California figures, assuming that no extra profit is made, this would be about $2.00 per gallon. Still better than $3.25 per gallon, but it was just three years ago $2.00 a gallon was a HIGH price.)
The writer still holds the copyright. He/she just LICENSED to you the right to use it under a certain set of conditions. Nowhere in the license does it say that the licensee has been granted the license in perpetuity. Nowhere in GPL 2.0 does it state that the license can NOT be revoked. GPL 3.0, yes. GPL 2.0, no.
The copyright holder is still the copyright holder. He/she can remove the license whenever he/she wants.
And, as others have said, if legal issues make the software in violation of copyright, trademark, etc; you can't release it under the GPL in the first place. It's entirely possible that the revocation of GPL is because the software is "illegal" somewhere. (Likely the US, if anywhere. And please note that I'm using the term illegal to include something that may not be an actual violation of US law, but is an infringement on a patent or copyright.)
Giving up control of content and giving it away free are not rational ideas in a market economy, yet everyone's cheering.
Now, Radiohead's experiment might be considered to have been "giving it away free", but iTunes Plus, eMusic, and Amazonmp3 are *NOT* "giving it away free".
Giving up some amount of control (releasing DRM-free is not giving up *ALL* control; putting all content on the Pirate Bay would be giving up control,) in exchange for customer happiness is a good business decision.
The music industry is still going downhill because in spite of its embrace of DRM-free digital music, it still operates deep down in a way that stifles musician creativity in favor of high-profit crap.
Down sampling is down sampling, not lossy compression.
Down sampling is a form of lossy compression. One example: If I record audio with my 48 KHz, 16-bit DAT recorder, then burning it to CD loses data in its effort to "compress" it to fit on the CD. Hence, "lossy compression."
Another example: TIFF pictures. By definition, it is commonly considered "lossless", but if I take my picture in my camera's RAW mode, I do, indeed lose data when converting to TIFF.
As other people have said, down sampling is a form of compression. And it is often lossy. Just because I don't make an effort to reverse the loss (as I do with JPEG and MP3,) doesn't mean it's not lossy.
Here you go. Straight from the horse's mouth. It is to be called "SuperSpeed USB".
And, if they do like they did with USB 2.0, they will make a point of separating out the USB version from the speed. i.e. When referring to the standard, you call it "USB 1.1" or "USB 2.0", no matter what speed. And when referring to the speed, you call it "USB Low Speed", "USB Full Speed", or "USB Hi-Speed". I imagine this will continue to hold true, and it will be "USB 3.0" when referring to USB 3.0-compliant hardware, and "SuperSpeed USB" when referring to the new speed.
That was my exact though (minus the "Supreme Ranger" part.) I was searching the thread to make sure nobody else had made fun of the name, and came on your post.
I swear I was going to post "Super Mega Ultra Speed USB"... (Of course, now I would look like a copycat.)
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly.
You know that the first year the recording industry sees a decent increase in sales, instead of saying that their embrace of DRM-free digital downloads was responsible, they will say that their massive crackdown on pirates (arr!) was responsible, and that to further continue the increasing sales, they need to crack down more.
In my post, I had originally written the same thing, that they could hide it for just customers.
But then I actually read the GPL to double check my facts, and found this little nugget (emphasis mine:)
Now, the section a) immediately above it does say that they could distribute the code only to paying customers, but that they would have to include the source code with the product. (I suppose if their piece of hardware comes with a CD of drivers/etc, they could just put the source in some random folder on the disc...) But if they don't include the source with the product, then they have to offer the code to "any third party".
And, yes... I know floppies aren't often used for software interchange, but they are customarily used for it. I just bought a new motherboard that came with its SATA RAID drivers for Windows XP on a floppy disk. (Vista can finally load drivers from USB stick or CD during setup, but XP, even with SP3, still can't.) My point (I'm not writing this last part for you, McDutchie, but for the other 5 replies that jumped solely on my floppy reference,) was that they don't have to make it available in a manner particularly convenient for the average person.
...out on the web. Nothing in the GPL says that a licensee has to freely offer the code to absolutely anyone free of charge, to anyone that asks, in the manner the asker chooses. It says that they have to offer the code, in a manner of their choosing to anyone that asks.
In a commercial hardware product, that means that the company can insist on only distributing the code by sending it to you as a bunch of floppy disks, for all the GPL cares.
Now, once someone has the code, that person can then re-distribute the GPLed code however they feel.
One example: My Toshiba HD DVD Player (don't laugh, it was a present,) contains GPL code. Toshiba doesn't make this fact obvious. It's buried in the manual for the product. Toshiba doesn't make the code available on their website, because they're not required to. To quote the GPL 2.0 that my Toshiba uses:
The internet isn't the only medium customarily used for software interchange. And they are allowed to charge a reasonable fee for duplication and distribution. (See GPL section 1.) If they really felt ornery, they would be perfectly within their rights to charge you for the physical cost of a bunch of floppies, and the time (at minimum wage, or even higher,) some flunky had to spend copying onto those floppies.
Hope you guys can fix everything with your election.
I hope so, too...Too lazy to RTFL (link,) because I've already RTFDTA (dead-tree article.)
The DTA mentions that you can get the dead-tree edition of the mag for free by going to www.wired.com/free. First 10,000 only, though, so better get crackin'!
As a computer repair person, I *INSIST* that parents should ALWAYS know their kids' passwords, even up to 18 year olds.
I hate to break it to you, but your little sister is under 18. Any property that she thinks of as "hers" is really your parents. (For that matter, if you're under 18, anything that is "yours" is really your parents.) I routinely remove passwords from "kids" computers because it is horrible security to let a kid have completely unfettered access to a computer with ZERO oversight. (I'm not saying that the parents MUST "check up", but that they should at least have the possibility.)
Heck, probably the mere fact that it's running Linux will be enough of a barrier to keep your parents out.
But it's only cheaper if you already own the HD DVD ROM drive and the Blu-ray burner; and you wait for the price of blank Blu-ray discs to come down. Unless you own every single HD DVD movie that was made, it's probably going to be cheaper to just re-buy the movies on Blu-ray.
The only thing I will miss are the combo DVD/HD DVD discs. I liked the idea of being able to play the same disc on my older 'kids' TV and my notebook computer, as well as on the HD DVD Player in full quality. (Of course, I have only even thought of paying money for one HD DVD movie, and it was the Combo version of Superman Returns. Partially for the sole reason of 'hedging my bets' in case HD DVD lost. Good thing I waited.)
Very good, actually, since it's true. Read the WIkipedia article.
And there have been way more than two Robert X. Cringelys.
To recap the history: Infoworld created a back-page column written by "Robert X. Cringely", which was a pseudonym, even the first writer wasn't really named that. Mark Stephens was the third Infoworld writer to write for that column, and lasted about 8 years. (The longest term so far, although it's hard to tell, since Infoworld never actually admits who the current author is. For all we know, it could be a different writer each week nowadays.) When Stephens left, Infoworld sued HIM to prevent him from using the name. (It is unclear if he attempted to use it before they sued him; since he wrote a book under that pseudonym, they might have been being proactive, assuming that he would continue to want to write books under the pseudonym.) There was a settlement that stated that Mark Stephens could continue to use the name, as long as he didn't use it to write for competitors 'tech industry' magazines. Hence the reason he uses the name when writing for PBS, Fortune, and other non-directly-technical organizations. (Although his columns in each are technically-oriented.)
So, yes. The 'famous' Mark Stephens, the one who does the much more popular weekly "I, Cringely" column/website, is *NOT* the same person that writes the "Robert X. Cringely" column for Infoworld. (I read the column from its inception to the death of the paper mag, and Stephens was by far my favorite of the writers.)
Short story: The guy commonly thought of as "Robert X. Cringely" (in reality Mark Stephens,) was actually Infoworld's third writer in the Robert X. Cringely column (and therefore, the third to use the name.) He wrote it for so long, that when he left Infoworld, he got to keep the name, as long as he doesn't use it in another computer-industry magazine. Infoworld has been through a number of people writing as "Robert X. Cringely" since Mark Stephens' departure.
The Infoworld column is pretty standard back-page tech-mag column material, Stephens is the one you think "has been slipping".
Copyright. Copyright is designed to benefit those who truly create new works. If you real all early laws on copyright, you will find that it is *NOT* meant to be a system that guarantees income for the rest of the artist's life. It is meant to stimulate creativity by LIMITING the amount of time that the original artist gets full control, therefore cajoling the artist into creating new works. (The same general idea as patents.)
If you are going to change copyright law to be a 'guaranteed income for the life of the artist', fine. Then change it to just that. "Life of the artist". If the "artist" is a corporation, then give it a LOW span, based on 'averages'. Let's say that the average artist lives to be 80 years old. (Pretty close to the average lifespan nowadays in the "developed" world.) Let's also say that an 'average' artist creates works from age 20 to age 60. That would be forty years of work, and the average age of production is 40. The length from average age of production to death is also forty years. So let's place 'corporate' copyright term at forty years from time of creation. Period. Even better, for corporate-copyrighted material would be to have 10-year protection, with three 10-year renewals, so that if a company doesn't take active effort, it will expire in 10 years.
The other issue is putting a fee on recordable media. If you do that, then making unlimited noncommercial copies should instantly become legal. If I have paid a fee that is theoretically to compensate the artist for my making a copy, then I should therefore be allowed to make as many copies as I want, and do whatever I want with them, as long as I don't sell them. (Not to mention that in today's world, probably the vast majority of 'copying' is pure electronic, with no physical media.) Either way, I'd like to know if, in countries that already have these systems (Canada, for example,) do the actual ARTISTS see a single dime of this fee? If I buy five hundred packs of 500 CD-Rs in Ottawa, does Celine Dion or Sarah McLachlan see a single cent from that sale? How about the unknown artists that have major-label contracts? Do they see even one cent? (Note: "One Cent" is a trademark of the Royal Canadian Mint, all rights reserved.)
It's not the same as taking paper documents, but it is roughly equivalent to making photocopies of all of my paper documents. Which is a complete violation of privacy. What if I have all the plans and ideas for my next invention, that I haven't patented yet? What if the security clerk is actually a technical person, realizes what they are looking at, and steals my idea? Do I have any recourse?
There are obviously more Windows-running PCs than any other 'gaming' platform out there.
But if you are also talking about current-generation dedicated game hardware, then he must be talking about the Wii and the DS, as they outsell all other systems.
If he includes previous-gen consoles, then the PS2 is a big contender, as it STILL outsells the PS3. (By contrast, Xbox and GameCube sales essentially died overnight when Xbox 360 and Wii came out.)
I own the .org and .info domains of my last name. A distant cousin owned the .com. He let it lapse, and it was picked up by a domain squatter instantly. They want over 500 Euro for the domain. Which is silly, since my last name is so uncommon, there are only 40-ish people in the WORLD with my last name. None of us are famous, none of us own a business with our family name in it. (There are a few of us who own businesses, but none with our name in it.)
I've waited three years for the name to expire, but they keep re-registering it. I've told them outright that I'm willing to pay $35, and that's it. By my measure, they'll hit that mark in their own spending next year.
Ah, yes. Had forgotten about the Genesis vs. SNES wars. Atari vs. Intellivision wasn't much of a war. Intellivision was clearly technically superior, yet had a clearly smaller market.
The most influential have to be the Atari 2600, NES, PlayStation 2, and Wii.
The 'best', well... Best at what? I would argue that the PlayStation 3 is the 'best' game console ever, as it has the most powerful processor and graphics, Blu-ray, and the controller contains most of the capabilities of the Wii-mote, while retaining the best of previous generation controllers. (Well, with the Japanese DualShock 3, anyway.) Even so, it hasn't been very influential. (Other than maybe the slight benefit it has given to Blu-ray over HD DVD.) (Oh, and I have a Wii, might buy an XB360, and have never even CONSIDERED buying a PS3, so my statements aren't Sony fanboyism.)
If we're going to ask for 'best' of each generation, then it's just going to be a pissing match of one-ups.
As for my list up top? 2600 essentially created the home game console market. Yes, there were better (technically) consoles at the same time, and even Atari made better ones. But the 2600 was the grandaddy of game consoles. NES has an obvious place in history, reviving the game console market after the crash. PlayStation 2 is a bit of a tough call, but it was probably responsible for the creation of true 'fanboys' more than anything. The first console to have lines and sellouts at launch, and at the time, it really was a major leap over the competition. And, well, we know what the Wii has done. It has made technical power irrelevant. It has re-focused on actual gameplay. (I'm sure soon we'll see just as 'revolutionary' games for the XB360 and PS3, which will make their technical power an important selling point again. But we haven't seen it quite yet. When/if that happens, I expect the PS3 to start to out-sell the XB360.)
Alright. Not emo. Don't go to coffee shops very often (in Portland, of all places, second only to Seattle in people per coffee shop!)
Yet I see them very regularly. At a concert (not emo) over the weekend, I saw at least five within a 10-person radius of me.
That says that if I modify a GPL program, then someone else modifies it "under" me, that if I crew up and make MY use void, people "under" me still have a valid license.
This is for the licensee, not the licensor.
As the copyright holder, he can revoke the license in its entirety for all licensees. This stops someone other than the copyright holder from revoking downstream licensees.
Ah, yes. Forgot about that.
While Ethanol is 'cleaner' than gasoline, when you take the whole lifecycle of the product into account, Ethanol fuel has ALWAYS been cheaper than gasoline. Here in Portland, Oregon, one of the few stations that sells E85 sells it for generally 30 cents a gallon less than the cheapest regular gasoline in town, and a good 50 cents cheaper than their own regular gasoline. Yet even at that much cheaper, it still costs me more to travel a given distance because of the mileage decrease.
$1.00 per gallon to produce is not the same thing as $1.00 at the pump. According to California, producing 1 gallon of gasoline costs about $2.25 per gallon. So while this is cheaper, it's not going to mean $1.00 at the pump. (Using the California figures, assuming that no extra profit is made, this would be about $2.00 per gallon. Still better than $3.25 per gallon, but it was just three years ago $2.00 a gallon was a HIGH price.)
The writer still holds the copyright. He/she just LICENSED to you the right to use it under a certain set of conditions. Nowhere in the license does it say that the licensee has been granted the license in perpetuity. Nowhere in GPL 2.0 does it state that the license can NOT be revoked. GPL 3.0, yes. GPL 2.0, no.
The copyright holder is still the copyright holder. He/she can remove the license whenever he/she wants.
And, as others have said, if legal issues make the software in violation of copyright, trademark, etc; you can't release it under the GPL in the first place. It's entirely possible that the revocation of GPL is because the software is "illegal" somewhere. (Likely the US, if anywhere. And please note that I'm using the term illegal to include something that may not be an actual violation of US law, but is an infringement on a patent or copyright.)
Now, Radiohead's experiment might be considered to have been "giving it away free", but iTunes Plus, eMusic, and Amazonmp3 are *NOT* "giving it away free".
Giving up some amount of control (releasing DRM-free is not giving up *ALL* control; putting all content on the Pirate Bay would be giving up control,) in exchange for customer happiness is a good business decision.
The music industry is still going downhill because in spite of its embrace of DRM-free digital music, it still operates deep down in a way that stifles musician creativity in favor of high-profit crap.
Down sampling is a form of lossy compression. One example: If I record audio with my 48 KHz, 16-bit DAT recorder, then burning it to CD loses data in its effort to "compress" it to fit on the CD. Hence, "lossy compression."
Another example: TIFF pictures. By definition, it is commonly considered "lossless", but if I take my picture in my camera's RAW mode, I do, indeed lose data when converting to TIFF.
As other people have said, down sampling is a form of compression. And it is often lossy. Just because I don't make an effort to reverse the loss (as I do with JPEG and MP3,) doesn't mean it's not lossy.
And, if they do like they did with USB 2.0, they will make a point of separating out the USB version from the speed. i.e. When referring to the standard, you call it "USB 1.1" or "USB 2.0", no matter what speed. And when referring to the speed, you call it "USB Low Speed", "USB Full Speed", or "USB Hi-Speed". I imagine this will continue to hold true, and it will be "USB 3.0" when referring to USB 3.0-compliant hardware, and "SuperSpeed USB" when referring to the new speed.
Bwahaha!!!
That was my exact though (minus the "Supreme Ranger" part.) I was searching the thread to make sure nobody else had made fun of the name, and came on your post.
I swear I was going to post "Super Mega Ultra Speed USB"... (Of course, now I would look like a copycat.)
If you RTFA, you'll see that it's "SuperSpeed".