What kind of message does this kind of thing send to hardware manufacturers that might want to release drivers for Linux?
Er, that people really, really want to give them money for their hardware? Have I missed something? Is selling your hardware not what they're supposed to be doing?
I am suggesting that you are ignorant as to the history of tea.
And I am suggesting that this makes no difference to the taste.
if the British understood tea, they would not put milk or sugar in it
Once again you argument boils down to "If you accept that I possess the One True Knowedge about tea then you will see that I am correct.". I drink tea white or black, with or without sugar. It is a flexible drink capable of combining with many other flavours as the fancy takes one.
The telephone
Invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, five years after his family moved to America from Britain where he had developed most of the techniques he needed.
electric light
Invented by Joseph Swan. Edison, finding himself beaten both to the invention and to the patent office where he tried to lodge Swan's invention under his own name had to join up and form the "Edison-Swan Electric Light Co". Edison spent a great deal of effort to remove Swan's part from history but that's another story.
The computer argument is for another day but the British claim is strong. I'll add the self-powered train to replace it rather than engage in an even longer debate about computers (and indeed, what is a computer). I could also throw in the electric motor and the theory of electro-magnitism, the fax machine (1843), the jet engine as well as the design break-through in tail planes which allowed the sound barrier to be broken, the World Wide Web, Radar, the sewing machine and television.
So, how can you claim that you are so much more developed when you come from a region of the British Empire that has always been underdeveloped when compared to England which was behind Chinese development by nearly a millenium.
Hare and the tortoise: China had stagnated; we caught up.
You are the first Irishman (if it be that you are not of the Scottish minority)
As I have said, I am British. I happen to come from the island of Ireland but that no more makes be Irish than coming from China makes one Russian because the countries share a land border. Also, the Scottish are decended from the (mostly, Northern) Irish due to the latter performing genocide on the Picts.
It is impossible to make a decent cup of any tea with the filthy sludge that passes for water in London.
It is best to filter it, but there is tea made for hard and sotf water; we have some at the moment. But we do still filter the stuff from the tap. That's what chalk does for your water.
Back home in NI the water is pretty good for tea and I like a nice Ceylon (black or white). I don't like lemon in general.
From a biological standpoint reproductive success is the only form of success.
That's a different standpoint from most civilised people.
However, is it China or England that is still barbaric enough to have a monarch?
Try this simple test: hand out leaflets saying that the people in charge of the country are liars and crooks. Call us if you ever get out of jail. Britain has a monarch with no powers, China has absolute dictatorship instead. Much better!
quantity has nothing whatsoever to do with quality
explan again why you think "reproductive success is the only form of success." Use both sides of the paper.
This is not a snobbery thing. It is a purity thing.
Hydrogen is pure but I prefer it mixed 2:1 with Oxygen.
You probably do not even know the name of the botanist sent to China to find tea leaves. His name was Robert Fortune.
Are you suggesting that if his name had been different then our tea would have tasted different? I assume that is your point since otherwise it is an irrelivant statement.
However, the assumption without merit that the British know anything of tea is pure snobbery in and of itself.
Here is the centre of your argument: that the only kind of "tea" is Chinese tea; no other counts. That is simple snobbery and bias as well as being manifestly wrong. India has produced tea for centuries now. Your position is no better than someone that claims that only China has silk and that silkworms grown in other countries don't count. Pure bullshit.
I was primarily trying to have fun at the expense of the English (who should by all means be put to expense as often as is convenient)
Sentiments shared by 99% of the people in Northern Ireland to more or less degrees of seriousness.
China is where tea was first discovered, refined, and understood.
None of which matters. Tea is international now and the simple fact is that the British drink it, blend it, and understand it just as well as anyone. That they happen to understand that the "purity" you speak of is spurious to the enjoyment and other values of the drink is your problem, not ours.
if i am posing, i must be posing for myself, right?
Vanity enjoys no audience more...
Precisely what has England developed over the last 2000 years?
The computer, the telephone, electric light. Things like that.
Is the English language even that old?
No, as I said, we've "developed" in 2000 years. Look it up; it's in most dictionaries.
I will give you a hint: it was discovered by Europeans on Columbus' third voyage.
Actually, I believe the people that lived in the Americas discovered it first. But I'd still ask the Irish for a good piece of potato bread first.
this is why the Emperor refused to see the represtative of the Queen as barbarians were not admitted into the palace
Apart from anything else, those Chinese are long gone and so is their culture.
Why do the British know more about tea than anyone?
Because we drink vast quantities of it in hundreds of blends. Go to any super market in Britain and you will be able to choose from any one of several dozen teas from around the world. It is even possible to purchase tea blended for the water in your local area without resorting to specialist tea shops.
What is it in English or British culture that makes them more knowledgable about tea than a group of people who have been exposed to it for more than 2,000 years?
The fact that we have actually developed over those 2000 years, instead of spending our energy deciding which master to bend our knee to, helps.
"We must be the best because we are English. There is no real reason for it, really, other than being English. We are English, so we are great."
I am not English, I am Northern Irish. Northern Ireland is the area of highest per-capita tea consumption in Britain.
Finally, if Earl Grey is piss, then with all that precious knowledge of tea in which the English are possessed, why do the English still drink it?
The simple answer to that is that almost no one does: it is a very small market indeed. The vast majority of tea drunk in Britain is normal, Indian, or blended Indian/Chinese tea. My personal experance is that Kenyan tea is improving greatly and some of the best tea now comes from there. But, the important point is that British people can enjoy a range of teas which most countries can only dream of and can enjoy them free from snobs and posers intent on telling them what they are supposed to like.
the Ordnance Survey (http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/) - seems more than happy to keep all it's data heavily restricted and screw every last penny our of anyone who wants to use it.
Yes, I've noticed that. Unfortunately the OS was privatised as part of the government's drive to have nothing to do other than taking bribes so it's effectivly lost to the nation now.
The English do not even know the first thing about good tea.
The British know more about tea than anyone. Just because the Chinese found it and never developed it does not mean that their version is perfect, just primative.
Here is a little hint: tea is to Eastern culture as wine is to Western culture.
Yes: pretentious bullshitting designed for the impressing of the foolish and the self-comfort of the hopelessly shallow.
I have studied US copyright law in some detail. You can too: it's all on line.
He COULD be right about the non-extension provision (Section 300... I think) of the code nullifying the GPL, what, then, of IBM's counterpropsal?
The idea that a copyright holder can not authorize others to copy or make derivative works is not only in total opposition of the law as written but would be the biggest shake up of copyright law in American history. It's not going to happen. The fact that SCO want it to also mean that the code would be public domain is just Alice In Wonderland territory.
He made it up because his job is to argue for an interpretation of laws, contracts, and events that is most favorable to his client.
Yes but the words he want you to interpret are:
From US Law Tile 17 Sec 106:
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
.
.
.
Arguing that the right to authorize others to make derivative means that doing so is illegal is not a serious legal position.
He's a lawyer, I'm not, you're not.
Oh, I'm scared! A lawyer is just an ordinary person that happens to have the morals of a hyena. They don't have special alphabets that transform the meaning of the law. They do have case law, and that can do the trick (a bent judge like Kaplen is always useful) but in this case there is no case law that backs up this silly idea either.
This will go to court, because neither IBM nor SCO are going to back down
It won't go to court unless SCO are forced into court. They have nothing to gain from going to court and are making a very tidy profit on the stock market by staying out of court where their claims would sink and take the share price with them in a matter of hours.
Isn't that kind of like covering your eyes and ears and repeating "SCO does not exist. They can't hurt me!"
No, it like thinking for yourself, analysing the issue and coming to an informed rational conclusion: SCO are lying and are running scared of having their "IP concerns" resolved. No one refuses to allow an alleged thief to return their property. No one. Because, if any hypothetical SCO code was taken out of the kernel there is no reason SCO could not still sue for past damages. So if they have really had code stolen they can only benifit by releasing details of it.
Likewise, they can only benifit from NOT revealing the code if they are not actually being damaged, which can only be the case if there is no real IP violation.
QED: SCO have nothing; SCO are nothing. No amount of a lawyer's opinion for hire changes that.
Remember: saying your lawyer agrees with you is like saying your hooker says you're good in bed: it doesn't prove anything except what sort of company you keep.
The main thrust is that he's betting on the fact that Copyright law trumps whatever provisions are in the
GPL
Which it doesn't. There is no reason to think it might. None. Even a lawyer saying it might is not a reason. He just made it up because he's being paid by the hour to say anything that sounds good. It doesn't have to make sense. Which is just as well.
Copyright law specifically allows things like the GPL in clear, plain language.
SCO have nothing, SCO are nothing. This won't get to court because SCO don't want it to get to court; if they did it would already be there. That's why they don't release any code and allow the "damage" to be fixed: they don't want their IP protected because they know it doesn't exist.
SCO sure as hell don't want a jury to get at this; they can't even show that a crime has happened, let alone proving who did it.
Dump LaTeX, it sucks big time; you might as well use Word. Plain TeX is better in every way, especially in combination with eplain for bibliographies, indexing, contents and such stuff.
What does a Linux kernel coding god need with an MBA?
I know, it seems a total waste of his talents. MBA's are just little bit of paper to say you can lie convincingly with PowerPoint. I wouldn't include them under the heading of "education".
What the hell is keeping IBM/RedHat/FSF/HP/Samba/the Pope from having an injunction slapped on these crooks?
For fuck's sake: they are publicly stating that they are going to start an extortion racket! Where's the bloody police? Where's the C&D letters? Why is it so easy to lie and steal if you are a company? Any human individual would be behind bars by now.
Reading between the lines it appears that the correct headline is "Chinese Government to avoid foreign-owned software which has licence fees"; although that's not very snappy.
Plus, there's no reason why a Chinese programmer can't contribute to Red Flag or the kernel for that matter.
I don't think I'm stretching at all when I say he'd easily equate it to a mugging.
Actually, I misread your post. I do agree with what you said insofar that it related to propriety software (as opposed to just generally selling software, which is what I thought you had meant) but again, I'm not talking about locking anything up, just requesting payment for work done. I don't care if you go off and use the code in your own project; I just don't see that its immoral to ask that you pay for the code. There are practical, policing, issues with this too but I'd rather see a system that rewards creators more than the current GPL does while still protecting the next user down the line's rights too.
In RMS's view, asking where you're supposed to ""earn"" your mortgage payments (if not proprietary software development) is like a thief asking how he's supposed to put food on the table (if he can't mug people)
I doubt that he would agree with this but I know what you mean. However, it's easy when you live off grants and the products of self-promotion. In the real world it's not that simple.
Bulk buying is cheaper, also only requires support from one company.
Do they get all their school supplies from one vendor as well?
Probably do, yes.
If so, how could he possibly not be aware of recent (and not-so-recent) events pertaining to virus infections and security issues as well as some of the licensing fiascos that MS has foisted on its users.
Those are reported on the news as "computer viruses"; as far as he's concerned they happen to everyone that uses computers. Also, he probably doesn't care.
If your program is good why hide it, if someone uses it then dollars to dognuts if they can afford the help you will be the one who does the support.
But my idea of support is a good manual, then I can get on to the next program. My problem isn't "open" Vs "closed", it's "Free" (to copy/distribute) Vs "You like my work, you pay me for it".
RMS's view of non-free software is that it is like a vampire: it might looks good and be really, really cool and do all sorts of things you'd like to do (fly, never age, meet girls) but in the end it is evil and will suck you dry.
No ethical compromise is possible with such a thing - some evil is all evil - that's why he won't support even "conveniance" non-free software or those that associate with it.
I see his point but I still don't know where I, as a programmer, am supposed to earn my mortgage payments. Telling me to become a marketing droid is not a reasonable answer.
Slashdot Mirror
Er, that people really, really want to give them money for their hardware? Have I missed something? Is selling your hardware not what they're supposed to be doing?
TWW
And I am suggesting that this makes no difference to the taste.
if the British understood tea, they would not put milk or sugar in it
Once again you argument boils down to "If you accept that I possess the One True Knowedge about tea then you will see that I am correct.". I drink tea white or black, with or without sugar. It is a flexible drink capable of combining with many other flavours as the fancy takes one.
The telephone
Invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, five years after his family moved to America from Britain where he had developed most of the techniques he needed.
electric light
Invented by Joseph Swan. Edison, finding himself beaten both to the invention and to the patent office where he tried to lodge Swan's invention under his own name had to join up and form the "Edison-Swan Electric Light Co". Edison spent a great deal of effort to remove Swan's part from history but that's another story.
The computer argument is for another day but the British claim is strong. I'll add the self-powered train to replace it rather than engage in an even longer debate about computers (and indeed, what is a computer). I could also throw in the electric motor and the theory of electro-magnitism, the fax machine (1843), the jet engine as well as the design break-through in tail planes which allowed the sound barrier to be broken, the World Wide Web, Radar, the sewing machine and television.
So, how can you claim that you are so much more developed when you come from a region of the British Empire that has always been underdeveloped when compared to England which was behind Chinese development by nearly a millenium.
Hare and the tortoise: China had stagnated; we caught up.
You are the first Irishman (if it be that you are not of the Scottish minority)
As I have said, I am British. I happen to come from the island of Ireland but that no more makes be Irish than coming from China makes one Russian because the countries share a land border. Also, the Scottish are decended from the (mostly, Northern) Irish due to the latter performing genocide on the Picts.
TWW
It is best to filter it, but there is tea made for hard and sotf water; we have some at the moment. But we do still filter the stuff from the tap. That's what chalk does for your water.
Back home in NI the water is pretty good for tea and I like a nice Ceylon (black or white). I don't like lemon in general.
TWW
That's a different standpoint from most civilised people.
However, is it China or England that is still barbaric enough to have a monarch?
Try this simple test: hand out leaflets saying that the people in charge of the country are liars and crooks. Call us if you ever get out of jail. Britain has a monarch with no powers, China has absolute dictatorship instead. Much better!
quantity has nothing whatsoever to do with quality
explan again why you think "reproductive success is the only form of success." Use both sides of the paper.
This is not a snobbery thing. It is a purity thing.
Hydrogen is pure but I prefer it mixed 2:1 with Oxygen.
You probably do not even know the name of the botanist sent to China to find tea leaves. His name was Robert Fortune.
Are you suggesting that if his name had been different then our tea would have tasted different? I assume that is your point since otherwise it is an irrelivant statement.
However, the assumption without merit that the British know anything of tea is pure snobbery in and of itself.
Here is the centre of your argument: that the only kind of "tea" is Chinese tea; no other counts. That is simple snobbery and bias as well as being manifestly wrong. India has produced tea for centuries now. Your position is no better than someone that claims that only China has silk and that silkworms grown in other countries don't count. Pure bullshit.
I was primarily trying to have fun at the expense of the English (who should by all means be put to expense as often as is convenient)
Sentiments shared by 99% of the people in Northern Ireland to more or less degrees of seriousness.
China is where tea was first discovered, refined, and understood.
None of which matters. Tea is international now and the simple fact is that the British drink it, blend it, and understand it just as well as anyone. That they happen to understand that the "purity" you speak of is spurious to the enjoyment and other values of the drink is your problem, not ours.
if i am posing, i must be posing for myself, right?
Vanity enjoys no audience more...
Precisely what has England developed over the last 2000 years?
The computer, the telephone, electric light. Things like that.
Is the English language even that old?
No, as I said, we've "developed" in 2000 years. Look it up; it's in most dictionaries.
I will give you a hint: it was discovered by Europeans on Columbus' third voyage.
Actually, I believe the people that lived in the Americas discovered it first. But I'd still ask the Irish for a good piece of potato bread first.
TWW
Apart from anything else, those Chinese are long gone and so is their culture.
Why do the British know more about tea than anyone?
Because we drink vast quantities of it in hundreds of blends. Go to any super market in Britain and you will be able to choose from any one of several dozen teas from around the world. It is even possible to purchase tea blended for the water in your local area without resorting to specialist tea shops.
What is it in English or British culture that makes them more knowledgable about tea than a group of people who have been exposed to it for more than 2,000 years?
The fact that we have actually developed over those 2000 years, instead of spending our energy deciding which master to bend our knee to, helps.
"We must be the best because we are English. There is no real reason for it, really, other than being English. We are English, so we are great."
I am not English, I am Northern Irish. Northern Ireland is the area of highest per-capita tea consumption in Britain.
Finally, if Earl Grey is piss, then with all that precious knowledge of tea in which the English are possessed, why do the English still drink it?
The simple answer to that is that almost no one does: it is a very small market indeed. The vast majority of tea drunk in Britain is normal, Indian, or blended Indian/Chinese tea. My personal experance is that Kenyan tea is improving greatly and some of the best tea now comes from there. But, the important point is that British people can enjoy a range of teas which most countries can only dream of and can enjoy them free from snobs and posers intent on telling them what they are supposed to like.
TWW
Yes, I've noticed that. Unfortunately the OS was privatised as part of the government's drive to have nothing to do other than taking bribes so it's effectivly lost to the nation now.
TWW
The British know more about tea than anyone. Just because the Chinese found it and never developed it does not mean that their version is perfect, just primative.
Here is a little hint: tea is to Eastern culture as wine is to Western culture.
Yes: pretentious bullshitting designed for the impressing of the foolish and the self-comfort of the hopelessly shallow.
Earl Grey is piss, though.
TWW
TWW
I have studied US copyright law in some detail. You can too: it's all on line.
He COULD be right about the non-extension provision (Section 300... I think) of the code nullifying the GPL, what, then, of IBM's counterpropsal?
The idea that a copyright holder can not authorize others to copy or make derivative works is not only in total opposition of the law as written but would be the biggest shake up of copyright law in American history. It's not going to happen. The fact that SCO want it to also mean that the code would be public domain is just Alice In Wonderland territory.
TWW
Yes but the words he want you to interpret are:
Arguing that the right to authorize others to make derivative means that doing so is illegal is not a serious legal position.
He's a lawyer, I'm not, you're not.
Oh, I'm scared! A lawyer is just an ordinary person that happens to have the morals of a hyena. They don't have special alphabets that transform the meaning of the law. They do have case law, and that can do the trick (a bent judge like Kaplen is always useful) but in this case there is no case law that backs up this silly idea either.
This will go to court, because neither IBM nor SCO are going to back down
It won't go to court unless SCO are forced into court. They have nothing to gain from going to court and are making a very tidy profit on the stock market by staying out of court where their claims would sink and take the share price with them in a matter of hours.
SCO has nothing; SCO is nothing.
TWW
No, it like thinking for yourself, analysing the issue and coming to an informed rational conclusion: SCO are lying and are running scared of having their "IP concerns" resolved. No one refuses to allow an alleged thief to return their property. No one. Because, if any hypothetical SCO code was taken out of the kernel there is no reason SCO could not still sue for past damages. So if they have really had code stolen they can only benifit by releasing details of it.
Likewise, they can only benifit from NOT revealing the code if they are not actually being damaged, which can only be the case if there is no real IP violation.
QED: SCO have nothing; SCO are nothing. No amount of a lawyer's opinion for hire changes that.
Remember: saying your lawyer agrees with you is like saying your hooker says you're good in bed: it doesn't prove anything except what sort of company you keep.
TWW
Which it doesn't. There is no reason to think it might. None. Even a lawyer saying it might is not a reason. He just made it up because he's being paid by the hour to say anything that sounds good. It doesn't have to make sense. Which is just as well.
Copyright law specifically allows things like the GPL in clear, plain language.
SCO have nothing, SCO are nothing. This won't get to court because SCO don't want it to get to court; if they did it would already be there. That's why they don't release any code and allow the "damage" to be fixed: they don't want their IP protected because they know it doesn't exist.
SCO sure as hell don't want a jury to get at this; they can't even show that a crime has happened, let alone proving who did it.
TWW
Not very global; it's basically a wing of the US Trade Department. It is very like the mob, though, I agree with that.
TWW
TWW
TWW
I know, it seems a total waste of his talents. MBA's are just little bit of paper to say you can lie convincingly with PowerPoint. I wouldn't include them under the heading of "education".
TWW
For fuck's sake: they are publicly stating that they are going to start an extortion racket! Where's the bloody police? Where's the C&D letters? Why is it so easy to lie and steal if you are a company? Any human individual would be behind bars by now.
TWW
SCO are just a pack of lying shits.
TWW
Plus, there's no reason why a Chinese programmer can't contribute to Red Flag or the kernel for that matter.
TWW
Actually, I misread your post. I do agree with what you said insofar that it related to propriety software (as opposed to just generally selling software, which is what I thought you had meant) but again, I'm not talking about locking anything up, just requesting payment for work done. I don't care if you go off and use the code in your own project; I just don't see that its immoral to ask that you pay for the code. There are practical, policing, issues with this too but I'd rather see a system that rewards creators more than the current GPL does while still protecting the next user down the line's rights too.
TWW
I doubt that he would agree with this but I know what you mean. However, it's easy when you live off grants and the products of self-promotion. In the real world it's not that simple.
TWW
Bulk buying is cheaper, also only requires support from one company.
Do they get all their school supplies from one vendor as well?
Probably do, yes.
If so, how could he possibly not be aware of recent (and not-so-recent) events pertaining to virus infections and security issues as well as some of the licensing fiascos that MS has foisted on its users.
Those are reported on the news as "computer viruses"; as far as he's concerned they happen to everyone that uses computers. Also, he probably doesn't care.
TWW
But my idea of support is a good manual, then I can get on to the next program. My problem isn't "open" Vs "closed", it's "Free" (to copy/distribute) Vs "You like my work, you pay me for it".
TWW
He's not President: he lost the election. He is an unelected military despot. You know, like Gadaffi and Saddam, all of them are from the same mould.
TWW
No ethical compromise is possible with such a thing - some evil is all evil - that's why he won't support even "conveniance" non-free software or those that associate with it.
I see his point but I still don't know where I, as a programmer, am supposed to earn my mortgage payments. Telling me to become a marketing droid is not a reasonable answer.
TWW