Nothing may stop the construction of a competing system today, but that misses the point
You seem to believe that owning a cable system is a profitable endevor. The fact is, in most places, adoption rates are lower than expected, and it's never been profitable, even when they have a wiring monopoly.
Back in the 80s, most real companies wouldn't touch cable as an investment. So, you got a bunch of sleezy small-timers, some with mob mystery money.
Now AT+T, deluded by Internet coolness and local telco service, bought up a bunch of cable systems, and guess what? Investors are shitting themselves looking at that $100 Billion in debt (and growing, mostly from cable build-out and upgrade costs ), despite AT+T monopoly in most regions. And cable telephone will probably never happen (why would it with cheap wireless?) AOL-TimeWarner only makes it fly because they make money on programming, although TW was losing money in net.
And you wonder why well capitalized companies (like the Bells) aren't falling all overthemselves to build out new cable systems and fight a price war with the existing providers?
Printing presses are fundementally different than computer displays. Look closely at a magazine, and you'll notice that the "dots" are 1) arranged diagonally, and 2) are of variable size.
The classic photoshop rule of thumb was to have a image DPI 3x to 5x the LPI of the press.
Because George McGovern should not have been able to legitimately claim to be the Democratic party candidate after highjacking the primary (in 1972)?
Face it, he and his followers are nutjobs, and they only got the Democratic party nomination because they were fanatical enough to flood the primary. I don't think his nomination was representative of Democratic party feelings at large.
Yes, this pretty much kills iPlanet's mail/directory server sell, unless they now suggest that you run another non-Netscape client. You'd think that someone over there at iPlanet would be verry interested in getting a patch into Mozilla, unless they are just legacying their messaging platform.
If it makes you feel any better, I am voting Nader, send money to the ACLU and EFF, and think software industry is eventually going to destroy themselves with their licencing practices.
However, from the practical day-to-day grunt work point of view of IT operations, I can still understand why the smart thing to do is to stay legal and pay your software licences. It's not like the IT deptartment of VA Beach, VA is going to change the world. They can't even keep track of their software.
IANAL, but here goes (from http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/copyright.act .chapt1b.html):
Sect. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [17 USCS Sect. 106], it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner
So lets look at "17 USCS Sect. 106" --
Subject to sections 107 through 120 [17 USCS Sects. 107-120], the owner of copyright under this title [17 USCS Sects. 101 et seq.] has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
...
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly
(5) 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, to display the copyrighted work publicly.
You'll notice that computer programs are excluded from "17 USCS Sect. 106", so there is no special law covering public "performance" (or "utilization") of software. (I think the GPL is perfectly clear on the library issue, but that is more of a programmatic issue than a runtime restriction.)
I'll conceed the point that modified GPL software requires that the author agrees to the contract. However, the requirements for modifications only under GPL2 are pretty minimal: some dated source code comments and that you won't remove any interactive notice.
On the political face of it, it seems to me like a seriously foolish move to require source disclosure on all modifications because it basically destroys the OSS advocate point that you have total control over your own software in favor of the communalist Free Software idea. Don't destroy your coalition because you can.
My take on ASPs is that they are just another garter group flash-in-the-pan nitch with the same 'innovative' business model that EDS had in the 1960s. Meanwhile, I see Java developers crying tears of blood over the GPL situation on this thread, and with my limited experience with Java, it's already become a issue. Meanwhile Microsoft, IBM, and everyone else is getting ready to roll out network aware platforms. I hope the GPL3 is ready for this coming network-distributed situation, and isn't hung up fighting some old battle against the timeshare/dumbterm systems, if only because of the practical reason that I might want to run GNU grep on MS.NET.
Are you trolling me? You should know very well that when one downloads GPL software, they are bound only by copyright conditions, which allow them to make modifications so long as they aren't distributed, and that you can do so while specifically not agreeing to the GPL.
Your scheme would require legal agreement up front, before the the software is downloaded, executed, or even before the source can be examined. Sounds like a click-through to me. (Not to mention a political nightmare and a removal of one of the supposed advantages of OSS(tm).)
Commercial Software - You've got three choices.
1) Don't use it.
2) Choose a leinent vendor like Microsoft and risk a audit.
3) Choose a strict vendor and deal with hardware keys and all sorts of bullshit copyprotection.
Microsoft is a racket. They spam out their software everywhere and they have to get people to pay for it. It's a better situation for everyone (even with the audits) than the copy protection stuff.
See my other post. The current GPL does not require that one agrees to anything before making the software available to any users. Think about the implications of changing that. (For one, start removing the term "copyleft" from the jargon.)
Right. The current GPL (unlike a EULA) doesn't restrict one's actions in any way when running a program. One also is not required to agree to it to recieve a copy of the software.
Your proposal would restrict runtime rights and would only be enforacble if the terms were agreed to before the distribution happened. (Meaning that it would require a click-through EULA. That is a correct reading of your post, no?)
I know ASPs can be a sore point, especially considering that people are predicting that they will become very popular. But really, there's not much difference between an ASP and the timeshare services which existed long before GPL2 was written. The GPL survived timesharing, and it should be able to survive ASPs without fundementally changing it by turning into a EULA. I would perfer that you focused your considerable efforts into clarifying the CORBA/RMI/DCOM/SOAP/RPC distributed computing situation.
Well, computer software copyright law has the concept that running a program (i.e. copying it into RAM and executing it) is "fair use" and is not covered by copyright restrictions. As far as I know, there's no distinction between running software "publically" or privately in software copyright law.
Currently the GPL does not infringe on any "fair use" rights of the user. In fact, it grants more rights than normal copyright would. Once a licence starts to restrict a users runtime rights, it's no longer a "copyleft" and instead is more of a EULA.
No. Art Tatum is wrong -- running software is "fair use" under US copyright law even in a hosting or ASP situation. That means that copyright law doesn't apply so neither does the GPL.
Microsoft shipped TCP/IP in 1993 bundled into WinNT, and in 1994 for Windows for Workgroups. (The piece they didn't ship until later was a PPP driver, hence Trumpet.)
This in the period when IBM was charging $300 for their OS/2 TCP/IP kit, Novell charged even more, and Apple only made theirs available to educational instititions.
Microsoft might have been behind Unix vendors, but they were ahead of their main competitiors at the time. (Plus, it was pretty clear even back in the 80s that NetBEUI LanMan networks were unworkable.)
That makes sense if virtually everything on your box is exectuables or flat data files.
However, if you have a substantial chunk of database-like files (this could be anything from the Windows Registry to Outlook PST files to Lotus Notes files), you are going to have some fragmentation due to background indexing and so on.
My datapoint is that after defraging my drives (all NTFS on SCSI), I couldn't tell the difference at all.
Well, I saw a low level Microsoft audit once, and the OS tally was done by counting machines in "Server Manager". The assumption was that workstation = office licence, although we only had one type of MS Office deployed.
(This was all friendly, no lawyers, even though it was at a shop who is MS's #1 competitor in a particular industry. It really just comes down to how honest MS thinks you are. The jackboots are reserved for the people who are pretty certainly ripping them off, as it sounds like VA city in question was doing. [See posts from employees there.])
Now, imagine what happens when M$ moves forward with their goals of... the elimination of CDs
Othe corporate level, Microsoft has no such goal. For a low price (~$2500) they happily mail you out a monthly subscription of unlocked CDs all of their business software.
Don't forget the #1 mantra of MS Marketing - First Hit's for Free. They want a certain amount of piracy and illegal use, knowing they'll get their due in the long run. (Compare this to classic 'enterprise' vendors. I'm working with BEA, and we have to beg them to even get a 1 month 'evaluation' licence for WLS.)
Well, a NT domain controller is also used for local authentication on NT workstations, so if you can get a NIS "gina" for NT, that should work. If.
Your right about an audit being a big pain in the ass, however, if you are site licencing, paying MS their due, and have policies in place, the chance of an audit is almost nil. Think of the site licence as an insurance policy - costs more in the short term, could save a significant amount of money and hassle in the long run.
EMACs on a college network is a good example of why the so-called "ASP Loophole" really isn't anything new. Stallman must have had seen this issue back in the 80s as the "Timesharing Loophole", and the GPL doesn't accomdate it.
(At least under US copyright law, it's clear - running a program is not "copying" or distribution, so long as you aren't copying it across the network to run.)
In order for Linux to represent a realistic possibility, some major system integrator like IBM, PWC, EDS, or such needs to provide a "reference" by taking a 20,000 workstation company and "disrupting" them over to use Linux to run desktop applications.
A long time ago, I was involved in a Novell to NT *server* conversion about this size. Once out in the departmental trenches, we found a disgusting amount of *desktop* applications that were dependant on NetWare or other various pieces of Novell software. This basically stopped NetWare removal in it's tracks for a number of years.
I can't even imagine how much a desktop conversion of this size would cost. Once you started looking, god knows how many little VisualBasic programs, Access databases, Paradox databases, FoxPro databases, BTrieve databases, custom Excel spreadsheets, MS Word macros, legacy Win3.1 programs, and so on you'd find.
It's not just a matter of replacing 'desktop' functionality, it's a matter of rewriting a large percentage of the line-of-business applications. (Which brings up the greater point of the Linux desktop API wars. I can't imagine any IT directory with 20000 seats willing to bet his balls on either KDE or Gnome...)
I know that if the company I work for ever got audited, all hell would break loose
Well, would you prefer the alternatives such as hardware keys or licence manager software or any of multitude of the pain-in-the-ass stuff that high-end software companies do?
In the scheme of thing Microsoft is a pretty leinant company. They send out all sorts of unlocked software and free developer licences in the hope that you'll put the stuff into production and they will eventually get paid. It's worked out rather well for both them and their customers, although in the short term it does make it easy to rip them off.
licenses for each copy of NT Workstation 4.0 were left with the individual workstations
Well, every company I've worked for with more than 100 employees actually site-licences Microsoft stuff. I've seen the audit procedure - someone uses "Server Manager" or "Network Neighborhood" to count up machines running different software pieces, then make an estimate for growth, and then you pay the fee and everyone's happy.
This might sound more expensive on the face of it, and you do end up paying twice for Windows in some circumstances. But compare this to the administrative nightmare of tracking individual holograms, which it is the IT department's responsibility to do. Hell, I'd estimate that a database system to properly track individual licences would run $5000-$20000, and would require a.5 FTE just to run the damn thing. Not quite saving money. Or you could leave the holograms laying around which is just an invitation to end up paying for everything agin down the road.
The question of the day is, would it cost more to pay M$ for the unaccounted-for pieces of software, or to switch to Linux?
First of all, do you really have any idea what conversion costs are? If you aren't ripping Microsoft off, it's always cheaper to pay them than to convert. (The possible exception being replacing NT F+P seat licences with Samba connections, but even then you need a working domain controller...) Not to mention that in most cases, people actually *want* to run MS software, and are just lax about the licence tracking.
The question of the day really is, how much does your company have it's shit together? If you are installing things willy-nilly and leaving licences in peoples desks, you basically just dropping the soap as far as commercial software companies are concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing may stop the construction of a competing system today, but that misses the point
You seem to believe that owning a cable system is a profitable endevor. The fact is, in most places, adoption rates are lower than expected, and it's never been profitable, even when they have a wiring monopoly.
Back in the 80s, most real companies wouldn't touch cable as an investment. So, you got a bunch of sleezy small-timers, some with mob mystery money.
Now AT+T, deluded by Internet coolness and local telco service, bought up a bunch of cable systems, and guess what? Investors are shitting themselves looking at that $100 Billion in debt (and growing, mostly from cable build-out and upgrade costs ), despite AT+T monopoly in most regions. And cable telephone will probably never happen (why would it with cheap wireless?) AOL-TimeWarner only makes it fly because they make money on programming, although TW was losing money in net.
And you wonder why well capitalized companies (like the Bells) aren't falling all overthemselves to build out new cable systems and fight a price war with the existing providers?
Printing presses are fundementally different than computer displays. Look closely at a magazine, and you'll notice that the "dots" are 1) arranged diagonally, and 2) are of variable size.
The classic photoshop rule of thumb was to have a image DPI 3x to 5x the LPI of the press.
Because George McGovern should not have been able to legitimately claim to be the Democratic party candidate after highjacking the primary (in 1972)?
Face it, he and his followers are nutjobs, and they only got the Democratic party nomination because they were fanatical enough to flood the primary. I don't think his nomination was representative of Democratic party feelings at large.
-- (signed) Richard J. Daley
I'm running Mozilla just fine as a power user, and Mozilla/Netscape has been classically clueless about mutliuser security even on Unix.
That's just spin. Speculate about it this way:
For every 1 Nader voter, there were 10 other non-aligned people who made up their mind in the the voting booth.
For every 1 Nader voter, there was most likely 2-5 solid democrats who failed to make it to the polls for what ever reason.
For every 1 Nadar voter, there was someone who was drummed up by Jeb Bush's operation that wouldn't have voted otherwise.
Yes, this pretty much kills iPlanet's mail/directory server sell, unless they now suggest that you run another non-Netscape client. You'd think that someone over there at iPlanet would be verry interested in getting a patch into Mozilla, unless they are just legacying their messaging platform.
If it makes you feel any better, I am voting Nader, send money to the ACLU and EFF, and think software industry is eventually going to destroy themselves with their licencing practices.
However, from the practical day-to-day grunt work point of view of IT operations, I can still understand why the smart thing to do is to stay legal and pay your software licences. It's not like the IT deptartment of VA Beach, VA is going to change the world. They can't even keep track of their software.
IANAL, but here goes (from http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/copyright.act .chapt1b.html):
Sect. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [17 USCS Sect. 106], it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner
So lets look at "17 USCS Sect. 106" --
Subject to sections 107 through 120 [17 USCS Sects. 107-120], the owner of copyright under this title [17 USCS Sects. 101 et seq.] has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
...
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly
(5) 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, to display the copyrighted work publicly.
You'll notice that computer programs are excluded from "17 USCS Sect. 106", so there is no special law covering public "performance" (or "utilization") of software. (I think the GPL is perfectly clear on the library issue, but that is more of a programmatic issue than a runtime restriction.)
I'll conceed the point that modified GPL software requires that the author agrees to the contract. However, the requirements for modifications only under GPL2 are pretty minimal: some dated source code comments and that you won't remove any interactive notice.
On the political face of it, it seems to me like a seriously foolish move to require source disclosure on all modifications because it basically destroys the OSS advocate point that you have total control over your own software in favor of the communalist Free Software idea. Don't destroy your coalition because you can.
My take on ASPs is that they are just another garter group flash-in-the-pan nitch with the same 'innovative' business model that EDS had in the 1960s. Meanwhile, I see Java developers crying tears of blood over the GPL situation on this thread, and with my limited experience with Java, it's already become a issue. Meanwhile Microsoft, IBM, and everyone else is getting ready to roll out network aware platforms. I hope the GPL3 is ready for this coming network-distributed situation, and isn't hung up fighting some old battle against the timeshare/dumbterm systems, if only because of the practical reason that I might want to run GNU grep on MS.NET.
Are you trolling me? You should know very well that when one downloads GPL software, they are bound only by copyright conditions, which allow them to make modifications so long as they aren't distributed, and that you can do so while specifically not agreeing to the GPL.
Your scheme would require legal agreement up front, before the the software is downloaded, executed, or even before the source can be examined. Sounds like a click-through to me. (Not to mention a political nightmare and a removal of one of the supposed advantages of OSS(tm).)
Commercial Software - You've got three choices.
1) Don't use it.
2) Choose a leinent vendor like Microsoft and risk a audit.
3) Choose a strict vendor and deal with hardware keys and all sorts of bullshit copyprotection.
Microsoft is a racket. They spam out their software everywhere and they have to get people to pay for it. It's a better situation for everyone (even with the audits) than the copy protection stuff.
See my other post. The current GPL does not require that one agrees to anything before making the software available to any users. Think about the implications of changing that. (For one, start removing the term "copyleft" from the jargon.)
Right. The current GPL (unlike a EULA) doesn't restrict one's actions in any way when running a program. One also is not required to agree to it to recieve a copy of the software.
Your proposal would restrict runtime rights and would only be enforacble if the terms were agreed to before the distribution happened. (Meaning that it would require a click-through EULA. That is a correct reading of your post, no?)
I know ASPs can be a sore point, especially considering that people are predicting that they will become very popular. But really, there's not much difference between an ASP and the timeshare services which existed long before GPL2 was written. The GPL survived timesharing, and it should be able to survive ASPs without fundementally changing it by turning into a EULA. I would perfer that you focused your considerable efforts into clarifying the CORBA/RMI/DCOM/SOAP/RPC distributed computing situation.
Well, computer software copyright law has the concept that running a program (i.e. copying it into RAM and executing it) is "fair use" and is not covered by copyright restrictions. As far as I know, there's no distinction between running software "publically" or privately in software copyright law.
Currently the GPL does not infringe on any "fair use" rights of the user. In fact, it grants more rights than normal copyright would. Once a licence starts to restrict a users runtime rights, it's no longer a "copyleft" and instead is more of a EULA.
No. Art Tatum is wrong -- running software is "fair use" under US copyright law even in a hosting or ASP situation. That means that copyright law doesn't apply so neither does the GPL.
Microsoft shipped TCP/IP in 1993 bundled into WinNT, and in 1994 for Windows for Workgroups. (The piece they didn't ship until later was a PPP driver, hence Trumpet.)
This in the period when IBM was charging $300 for their OS/2 TCP/IP kit, Novell charged even more, and Apple only made theirs available to educational instititions.
Microsoft might have been behind Unix vendors, but they were ahead of their main competitiors at the time. (Plus, it was pretty clear even back in the 80s that NetBEUI LanMan networks were unworkable.)
That makes sense if virtually everything on your box is exectuables or flat data files.
However, if you have a substantial chunk of database-like files (this could be anything from the Windows Registry to Outlook PST files to Lotus Notes files), you are going to have some fragmentation due to background indexing and so on.
My datapoint is that after defraging my drives (all NTFS on SCSI), I couldn't tell the difference at all.
Well, I saw a low level Microsoft audit once, and the OS tally was done by counting machines in "Server Manager". The assumption was that workstation = office licence, although we only had one type of MS Office deployed.
(This was all friendly, no lawyers, even though it was at a shop who is MS's #1 competitor in a particular industry. It really just comes down to how honest MS thinks you are. The jackboots are reserved for the people who are pretty certainly ripping them off, as it sounds like VA city in question was doing. [See posts from employees there.])
Now, imagine what happens when M$ moves forward with their goals of ... the elimination of CDs
Othe corporate level, Microsoft has no such goal. For a low price (~$2500) they happily mail you out a monthly subscription of unlocked CDs all of their business software.
Don't forget the #1 mantra of MS Marketing - First Hit's for Free. They want a certain amount of piracy and illegal use, knowing they'll get their due in the long run. (Compare this to classic 'enterprise' vendors. I'm working with BEA, and we have to beg them to even get a 1 month 'evaluation' licence for WLS.)
Well, a NT domain controller is also used for local authentication on NT workstations, so if you can get a NIS "gina" for NT, that should work. If.
Your right about an audit being a big pain in the ass, however, if you are site licencing, paying MS their due, and have policies in place, the chance of an audit is almost nil. Think of the site licence as an insurance policy - costs more in the short term, could save a significant amount of money and hassle in the long run.
EMACs on a college network is a good example of why the so-called "ASP Loophole" really isn't anything new. Stallman must have had seen this issue back in the 80s as the "Timesharing Loophole", and the GPL doesn't accomdate it.
(At least under US copyright law, it's clear - running a program is not "copying" or distribution, so long as you aren't copying it across the network to run.)
Not true. To tie this together properly, you need to tie individual licenses to individual machines.
Maybe in theory, but in practice if you have 200 machines and 200 licences on hand, Microsoft is not going to care.
Conclusions:
Linux users are overrepresented by about 200-600%.
Netscape users are overrepresented by about 200%.
NT (v4,v5) users are overrepresented by about 450-900%
In order for Linux to represent a realistic possibility, some major system integrator like IBM, PWC, EDS, or such needs to provide a "reference" by taking a 20,000 workstation company and "disrupting" them over to use Linux to run desktop applications.
A long time ago, I was involved in a Novell to NT *server* conversion about this size. Once out in the departmental trenches, we found a disgusting amount of *desktop* applications that were dependant on NetWare or other various pieces of Novell software. This basically stopped NetWare removal in it's tracks for a number of years.
I can't even imagine how much a desktop conversion of this size would cost. Once you started looking, god knows how many little VisualBasic programs, Access databases, Paradox databases, FoxPro databases, BTrieve databases, custom Excel spreadsheets, MS Word macros, legacy Win3.1 programs, and so on you'd find.
It's not just a matter of replacing 'desktop' functionality, it's a matter of rewriting a large percentage of the line-of-business applications. (Which brings up the greater point of the Linux desktop API wars. I can't imagine any IT directory with 20000 seats willing to bet his balls on either KDE or Gnome...)
I know that if the company I work for ever got audited, all hell would break loose
.5 FTE just to run the damn thing. Not quite saving money. Or you could leave the holograms laying around which is just an invitation to end up paying for everything agin down the road.
Well, would you prefer the alternatives such as hardware keys or licence manager software or any of multitude of the pain-in-the-ass stuff that high-end software companies do?
In the scheme of thing Microsoft is a pretty leinant company. They send out all sorts of unlocked software and free developer licences in the hope that you'll put the stuff into production and they will eventually get paid. It's worked out rather well for both them and their customers, although in the short term it does make it easy to rip them off.
licenses for each copy of NT Workstation 4.0 were left with the individual workstations
Well, every company I've worked for with more than 100 employees actually site-licences Microsoft stuff. I've seen the audit procedure - someone uses "Server Manager" or "Network Neighborhood" to count up machines running different software pieces, then make an estimate for growth, and then you pay the fee and everyone's happy.
This might sound more expensive on the face of it, and you do end up paying twice for Windows in some circumstances. But compare this to the administrative nightmare of tracking individual holograms, which it is the IT department's responsibility to do. Hell, I'd estimate that a database system to properly track individual licences would run $5000-$20000, and would require a
The question of the day is, would it cost more to pay M$ for the unaccounted-for pieces of software, or to switch to Linux?
First of all, do you really have any idea what conversion costs are? If you aren't ripping Microsoft off, it's always cheaper to pay them than to convert. (The possible exception being replacing NT F+P seat licences with Samba connections, but even then you need a working domain controller...) Not to mention that in most cases, people actually *want* to run MS software, and are just lax about the licence tracking.
The question of the day really is, how much does your company have it's shit together? If you are installing things willy-nilly and leaving licences in peoples desks, you basically just dropping the soap as far as commercial software companies are concerned.