From what I'm reading elsewhere, the student had already raised a fuss and got Kerry to say he'd answer his questions when they said that they weren't taking any more questions due to time restraints, and then proceeded to ask two questions (which were answered) instead of just the one (like everybody else did), and was about one minute into a rant regarding freemasonry or some other crackpot conspiracy theory before security came in to get him off the microphone and let the proceeding continue. Oh, and yeah, he barged in without having (and paying for) a ticket in the first place, which was why security was there around him anyway.
This guy was creating a public disturbance. He deserved what he got, IMO. He'll also be charged and probably fined for it.
It's not in this article, but it's been going on for many years now. The Red Cross, in it's various countries, has been actively enforcing that the Red Cross symbol is not used by anybody for anything.
In Finland, you need a license to carry a gun. Licenses are not available to ex-convicts. In the USA, there's generally a waiting period of some kind (varies a bit from place to place) and/or a background check. Ex-cons generally cannot (legally) buy a gun here either.
Most guns are owned by people in the countryside and by rare sports shooters. Like I said before, most guns in the USA are hunting rifles, owned by people in the countryside. City dwellers tend to go for handguns, but rarely carry them around with them.
So, Finland stands for all those gun control laws you oppose. And so does Switzerland, the most law-abiding, control-freak-run country in the world, from what I hear, and also a small, close-knit community that is in no way comparable to the USA. So stop comparing us. Actually, Switzerland has just the opposite. They have the highest number of guns per capita anywhere in the world. They're also virtually all well-trained on how to use them. Look it up.
Every time I read one of these American gun control discussions, I lose every urge to travel to the US. You scare me. Amazingly enough, every time I have one of these gun control discussions, I lose all urge to travel to Europe. A place where I cannot legally defend my own person is not a place I want to be.
Call me crazy, but I prefer to live as a free man than to live a safe life of slavery.
The vast majority of the guns in Finland are hunting rifles, which are awkward to use when mugging someone and far from ideal in a gang war. The vast majority of guns in the USA are also hunting rifles. Your point?
Well, in general, lighters and matches are banned on carry-on luggage, for the obvious unintentional fire hazard. Actually, matches have never been banned as carry-on items, and lighters were recently allowed onboard again: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/20/national /main3080127.shtml
So yes, you can indeed carry matches and lighters onto a plane.
There is really no difference from directly emitting light and having it reflected, except the brightness, and reading a book in the sun is quite bright. In fact, being outdoors is often bright compared to indoors where you have your desktop PC. So it really depends on the screen, its settings, and your environment. I agree with this, however you shouldn't be reading books in the sun either, not without some sunglasses that can cut down the high levels of UV. Also, being outdoors in the sun is a good way to get sunburn if you do it for any length of time.
If you haven't noticed recently, the sun is not, generally speaking, friendly to the human body. Unless you like blindness and skin cancer, of course.
Every time someone complains that black on white hurts their eyes, I suggest they play with the brightness first to see if that takes care of things. Even at it's lowest setting, most monitors output unhealthy levels of light when on full white mode. This is especially true with newer LCD monitors, which continually seem to ramp up the brightness of the bulb in order to make the monitor have a better contrast ratio.
Frankly, I can't even look at screens outputting all white anymore. It immediately hurts. I don't know how people can stand it. Perhaps you're all blinder than I am or something.
Or do you throw sunglasses on the moment you get close to doors and windows? I wear sunglasses whenever I'm outdoors. If you don't, then you're a fool. Do you know how much ultraviolet light is out there? Ask any eye doctor anywhere, you're an idiot for exposing your sight to full-on sunlight.
Did you stop and realise that eyes are designed to operate in the presence of light for prolonged periods? We are not nocturnal creatures you know. In point of fact, eyes are not designed to operate in the presence of sunlight for prolonged periods. They become damaged over time. With dimmer lighting, your eyesight is sharper longer, well into old age.
For me, white text on a predominantly black screen fatigues my eyes noticeably. Simple as that. Actually, it's not that simple. "Eye fatigue" is caused by not moving the eyes for long periods of time. This says that you're using poor fonts, not that the colors are wrong.
Also, having tired eyes is better than blindness. Or, in most cases, loss of visual acuity. I hope you enjoy needing reading glasses when you turn 50.
Black background with bright letters is NOT easier on the eyes. I prefer white background because I dont have burned white lines on my eyes after reading. Oh, you are so, so wrong.
Firstly, if you're using a CRT all day with a white background, then you have an electron beam lighting up phosphors and thus beaming light straight at your eyes all the time you're looking at it. It's like staring directly at a light bulb if you have to use the PC for any length of time.
Secondly, if you're using an LCD, it's likely backlit by a very bright bulb. "White" means opening the LCD molecules and letting that light through. So, in fact, you ARE staring at a light bulb when looking at a white LCD screen.
Computers Screens are not paper. They have light coming from them and hitting your eyes. Paper products have light reflected off of them, usually at much lower intensity to start with.
So reading dark letters on light backgrounds is fine for paper. But on a TV Screen, it's *provably* better for your eyes to have dark backgrounds and light lettering. If this hurts your eyes, use wider fonts instead of razor thin lettering.
I agree with you that Otto seemed to be Trolling, though with semi-thought out arguments. You need to look up "trolling" again, because I was doing no such thing.
When he tried to say "Pay $200 now and $10 per month..." is cheaper than "Pay $500 now" he was wrong. No, I'm not. Figure depreciation into it as well. That $500 box today will only be worth $200 tommorrow. If you upgrade on a regular basis, then it may be well worth it to spend lower now and a small monthly rate.
Or are you one of those people who doesn't grasp why people lease cars either?
What is more wrong is that the device isn't worth $500. Well, not NOW it's not. When it was new, the build cost of it was over $1000.
What I think is wrong is that Otto seems to feel that "evil companies/individuals" are going to undermine Tivo by producing the $200-300 boxes and distributing them without the built-in "subscription" that Tivo charges. No, that's not it at all. You're more than welcome to build your own box and use Tivo's software on it. That's the purpose of the GPL. What "Tivoization" is is for Tivo to prevent you from putting your own software on the box that Tivo built and sold to you on the cheap. In other words, to take Tivo's box, sold at a discount, and cut off their revenue stream by hacking it to, say, not have to call home to get guide data. That's why Tivo locked down their boxes. And that's what the GPLv3 is trying to prevent.
It doesn't make it an 'open' platform, but it isn't an '100% closed' platform either. Somewhere in the middle. No, it absolutely is still a closed platform. A webpage is not an application. Calling it an "AJAX App" doesn't make it not a webpage.
Until you can run native code on the thing, it's a closed platform. There is no middle ground.
If you call being able to run arbitrary AJAX apps '100% locked down', then we disagree on what '100% locked down' means. You keep saying "AJAX Apps" as if they're more than Javascript and (X)HTML. Since when did having a functional web browser turn the thing into an "open" platform?
I think that when you say devices need to be entirely locked-down, you are going a bit too far. Computers aren't locked down. Cellphones have varying degrees of being locked-down (even the iPhone, a locked-down system, can run AJAX apps through the browser). Computers aren't locked down because they're general purpose items.
Cellphones are 100% locked down. Even the iPhone is locked down. Sure, you can run scripted apps, but can you run native code on the thing? Many cell phones can do Java J2ME apps, but these are extremely sandboxed. While they can be hacked to do other things, this is not something an "end-user" would normally do or be capable of doing.
Many devices can allow certain parts of them to not be locked down. Those parts can utilize GPL3 code. Others can't. This makes the GPL3 suitable only for parts of those systems, we agree on that part. No, we don't agree on that part, because I know of *no* device that is halfway-locked-down as you describe.
Computers don't count, they're general purpose, locking them down eliminates the whole point of having them, unless you're making a special purpose device out of them like, say, a DVR.
You know, I'm struggling to imagine why anyone would consider this to be a bad thing. I for one am sick of companies who employ this tactic. And because you're sick of it, you want to make it impossible for them to do it? Gee, strongarm much?
You know, you could just *NOT BUY* these products that use this tactic. Some of us don't mind it too much, since it gives us affordable products at reasonable prices for the expected lifetime of those products.
The lifetime of the average consumer video device is 5-6 years, maximum. Spending a huge amount of money up front vs. paying for it by buying a service over that period of time... Well, each person can make that choice for themselves, can't they?
TiVo made a profit selling them the box, they then need to work to keep their customers connected to their service. Tivo never would have made a profit selling the boxes. They sold them at a loss. If the price was high enough to make a profit on the things, they would have been $500 instead of $200. And then they would not have sold nearly as many of them. Certainly not enough to reach profitability. Furthermore, at the time, they required phone lines to connect back to the service (broadband was not quite as widespread then, so they didn't put ethernet in them), so there was an ongoing maintenance cost as well, for use of the phone lines.
For a simple contrast, look at ReplayTV. ReplayTV did exactly what you suggest. They sold their boxes at a slight profit. They also went out of business in just a few years. Tivo, on the other hand, is still around.
Would you buy a Sony TV with the expectation that you could only watch Sony produced programming? These are not even comparable.. Tivo's "service" is to provide TV Guide information, which is the same regardless of who provides it. Now, more recently, they've expanded into web control of the box, Tivo Mobile, Amazon Unbox downloads, etc, etc.. However that doesn't change the fact that they were selling something that would be largely the same through any provider. Their goal was not to shut out competitors, their goal was to shut out people from getting the information off the web for free (via scrapers) and eliminating their service entirely while they were still trying to get off the ground and achieve profitability. They sold the hardware at a loss in order to reach more people and didn't want unscrupulous people taking advantage of them for it. That doesn't seem all that unethical to me.
Obviously not! By that example, it follows that TiVo's strategy has been unethical from day one -- it's not just contrary to the GPLv3, but to v2 and even v1 as well. Linus Torvalds, who actually owns the copyright to the code in question, disagrees with you and says that Tivo has fully complied with the GPLv2, in his viewpoint.
Since it's actually his code that they used, your opinion means exactly zero.
I was aware that Tivo did eventually concede and publish their source code on their website (and they should be commended for that), so if I wanted to I could build a "Tivo" system. No, there's no "eventually" about it, they did this even before the very first box was ever sold. They actually went so far as to print the text of the GPLv2 in the User Manual as well as a link to their site to download the code.
Tivo didn't get bullied into doing this. They did it from the very beginning, period. They did the right thing all the way down the line.
I don't understand what is preventing people from writing software and running it on the Tivo box. The Tivo hardware verifies that the copy of the Linux kernel it boots is signed using Tivo's own private key. So while you can compile Tivo's kernel changes and run them on another box, you can't put the changes on the Tivo box, because you do not have the ability to sign it with their private key. If you do so, the Tivo refuses to boot.
This can be hacked around, BTW. But that's beside the point.
Exactly, you must be able to run modified versions of the GPL3 code on the device. But not the rest of the code. So, in essence, you are forced to design your hardware so that the end-user can modify it. Which, essentially, eliminates any realistic usage of GPLv3 code in the real world, because no hardware manufacturer in his right mind would ever agree to such a thing.
We live in a world where our electronic devices must fit within guidelines imposed upon us by other entities. These entities include other companies, the government, law, etc. All electronic devices must fit standards and these guidelines in order for them to be legally sold or even manufactured.
Most of the guidelines of the GPLv3 are impossible to reconcile with most of the rest of the guidelines in the world. End result: No GPLv3 code will be used on real world devices.
So, in the original example, the code that runs the networking stack on a cellphone can be proprietary and Tivoized, while other parts of the phone might be GPL3 (and others have other licenses).
If you must Tivoize an entire device, then GPL3 is not a possibility. However, cellphones are not such a case (for example, the OpenMoko phone has a proprietary network stack, but is otherwise open-source). OpenMoko is straight up illegal in the USA at present. And it seems highly unlikely that they'll ever get FCC Certification on any of their devices. So using them as an example is poor, at best.
In any case, the GPL3 will make sense for some projects and not others, just like any FOSS license. Because of the hardware restrictions, it is unlikely for it to ever make any real-world sense for anybody to put GPLv3 software onto end-user devices.
BTW, this also makes the GPLv3 a preferential license. It gives end-users more rights than it gives other users (hardware developers). At least the GPLv2 was democratic, and gave everybody the same rights.
No, you're wrong. Tivo already gave back the 2% of code changes they made. A Tivo competitor could indeed create their own hardware and run Tivo's code on it. What a Tivo competitor could NOT do would be to write their own code and replace it on Tivo's boxes, thus cutting Tivo off from their revenue stream.
In essence, the GPLv3 makes it impossible for anybody to sell blades after giving away the razor.
If I have a product that runs various types of code: some GPL3 code and some (say) BSD code, then I can keep the BSD code closed-source, prevent it from running if modified (Tivoization), and so forth. I can't do the same to the GPL3 code, of course, but the GPL3 license doesn't apply to the BSD code. Or what am I missing? The GPLv3 requires you to make the hardware capable of being end-user modifiable, so that the end-user can install modified versions of the code onto the device. That is fundamentally incompatible with the terms on virtually all proprietary hardware.
No non-end-user modifiable device can ever include any GPLv3 code of any kind, period. GPLv3 code is fundamentally incompatible with all embedded systems, all end-user products, etc.
I don't think you even understand what the spirit of the GPL actually is.
Let's move straight to the Tivo argument. Tivo took the kernel and some other stuff, stuck it in a box, and then (eventually) made the box only run kernel binaries that they had signed using their key. Mind you, at the same time, Tivo also released all their code changes back into the open source community, on their website.
Now, they clearly stuck to the letter of the GPLv2. They released all their changes. What some people seem to have a problem with is that Tivo boxes only run official Tivo code. That is, I can't compile my own kernel and put it on those boxes they sold me (well, I can actually, as the hacks to disable their checks are trivial, but nevertheless).
So, how does that violate the spirit of the GPL? They *gave back the damn source changes*. If I wanted to build my own box I could run their code changes on that box all I want. There's absolutely nothing in the spirit of the GPL that requires them to force them to allow their HARDWARE to run anybody else's software.
The FSF has completely turned their back on what made them good to begin with, and I will no longer contribute to them or anything RMS is involved with ever again. Why? Because they have proven themselves not to be interested in freedom, their real interest is socialism. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too. You must make your hardware open enough so that I can steal from you. And no, I'm sorry, but that's not what they used to stand for. And it's damn well never what I stood for.
Let's assume that you're right about that (but I have no idea of the particulars of cellphone companies). If so, this would only refer, presumably, to the part of the cellphone software that accesses the network. So that particular part could not be GPL3. So what? They can write that part of the code separately, run it in userspace, under whatever license they want. Even a GPL3 kernel couldn't stop them from doing that. Actually, it would. Read the damn thing closer. What do you think "tivoization" is anyway?
Odd, then, that so many corporations (IBM, Sun, Novell, Red Hat) would participate in the GPL3 process and then voice approval for it when it was complete. So clearly something is wrong in your reasoning. IBM, Sun, Novell, and Red Hat all primarily make software products to sell to other companies, not to end-users. Different situation. I'm talking about actual products that people buy and use. Not code that companies buy.
This is a particularly bizarre claim, considering the Samba team is moving to GLPv3. Samba is probably one of the most important open source projects outside of the Linux kernel and the core GNU apps. I have a hard time believing that 3.2.x releases will stagnate while 3.0.x will blossom with all the fruit of the free software goodness. In fact, I rather think the opposite is true, and that it is 3.0.x that will stagnate as those companies who refuse to put GPLv3 software into their products are left to try to do the massive development job on their own while the really development teams moves to the new license. On the contrary, you're failing to see the bigger picture.
Many companies ABSOLUTELY CANNOT use code under the GPLv3. The requirements of the GPLv3 make it basically impossible to use that code with any other type code, including GPLv2 code, BTW.
So Samba 3.2 isn't going to be used by anybody. Get it yet? For anything other than trivial uses of the Samba codebase, you can't distribute it along with your code under other licenses.
As far as the "massive development job", Samba is good code, it's complex code... but it's not miracle code. If somebody really, really needed Samba, then they could reimplement just the part the needed. Most likely, they'd switch to something else entirely.
The fact is that we will soon see GPLv3 software running beside GPLv2, LGPL, BSD and who knows what else. There isn't some big dividing line that means GPLv3 or some later open source license will mean absolute exclusivity. Of course there is. If I make changes to a GPLv3 codebase and put it in a product that uses *anything* proprietary, regardless of what it is, and then ship that product, I'm violating the GPLv3. Therefore I cannot use GPLv3 code in any sort of product, because *all* products worth a damn have proprietary components.
That is the fundemental FUD in all of this, the big lie that gets repeated over and over again by the dogmatists within the open source movement and the shills for those companies who would just as soon see open source enslaved or disappear entirely. Get real. GPLv2 is enough. Splitting the license base and making open source even more difficult by forcing companies to understand and deal with new, incompatible, licenses helps open source not at all.
I'm sorry, but you are still incorrect. Yes, you're correct in that they need to register the modem ID on the back end and such. But here's a cautionary tale for you:
I recently was switched to Comcast. My equipment continued to work, everything is happy and fine. I moved about 6 months later, and they told me to take the equipment with me.
The cable box had issues and got replaced, but the weird bit is the cable modem. The cable modem worked fine before, but at the new location, every webpage gave me Comcast's web page and forced me to download an EXE and run it. I did so (using a virtual machine, to avoid changes to my system) and the gist of it was that it gave me a webpage form to register the device. However, it required an unusual account number which I had never seen before. Fortunately, it was one of the numbers my installer guy had written on the pink slip of paper that he gave to me, and I was able to register the modem.
However, there is and was absolutely NO way to go directly to that website that I could find. Using the EXE was a requirement. It worked well enough on a virtual Windows box, but nevertheless, it was windows-only for getting the thing hooked up.
After the modem was registered, everything works fine. I plugged a router into it and it's kicking along quite nicely.
Yet another would be by creating a perceived problem with OSS. We've seen a real giant (Linus) come out and blast the GPLv3. While that doesn't mean anything ultimately, it can to companies. I think you're missing a larger point on this one. For a lot of companies, code under the GPLv3 is simply not usable. Period. Cell phone companies, to use an earlier example, *cannot* comply with the restrictions of the GPLv3 and still use the necessary code they have to use to make the thing work on the network.
I know many people at many tech shops, and a shocking lot of companies have come out and said to their programmers or other in-house IT staff, that GPLv3 code can not be used for any project of any kind. Why? Because the GPLv3 is restrictive enough that it conflicts with other agreements these companies already have and cannot or will not break. It's simpler for a company to simply ban the stuff outright than it is to analyse the license ramifications on every single little project.
The end result is that GPLv3 code will, eventually, stagnate. Moving code to GPLv3 basically ensures that nobody will use it other than hobbyists. And while that's fine, it may not be what you want to happen. It's almost certainly not the intention of the GPLv3... or maybe it is. With the FSS being so f-ed up in the head lately, who can tell?
Regardless, it's not FUD... It's actually the license. It's unusable as it stands by a great many people, and the end result is that they will find other, less-restrictive, code to use instead.
Googlemail.com has been available for a long time. And if you have a gmail account, you can send mail to your address but @ googlemail.com instead, and it works just fine.
All they'll do is to advertise googlemail.com in those locations. It's not like they have to give this guy the domain name or anything.
So tell me L in CA - I'm curious... In Canada we have certain constitutional rights protected under the charter. On of those rights is the right to a trial - I understand that the right to trial is also Constitutionally protected in the US also. I read further down this thread that people have waved their rights on Wall Street to have all their legal proceedings run by quasi-judicial councils instead on the NASD... IANAL, nor in CA. Still...
Yes and no... Both parties can agree to waive their rights to trial and present to the court an agreed upon set of facts. If you agree to this in a contract, you don't lose your rights, as such. You've waived them, but if you later renege on that and take the other guy to court anyway, you leave yourself liable for breach of contract, and you could be breaking the contract entirely. Which you may want or not want.
The short of it is that, in most states (and federal?), the right of trial by jury is absolute. If you demand it, you get it. If you don't demand it, you waive it.
Does your employer in the US have the right to force upon you as a term of employment anything that violates statute - either by Congress or the State government? Define "statute". Law? Criminal? Civil? Waiving of your rights? Depends on what the particular thing they demand is. They can demand anything they like, and hire you or not depending on your agreement thereby. However, their demands may or may not hold up in court or after the fact. Take the classic cases of the non-compete clauses. I think those are completely busted now, to the point that nobody bothers asking for them anymore, but that didn't stop them from asking originally even when they never held up in the courts.
They were quite clear that contract law can never in Canada trump a law enacted by an Act of the House of Commons or even an act by our Provincial Legislature. Is that the case in the US too? That's up to a court to decide. I would not use the word "never", however generally the law trumps contracts. They can't ask you to break the law. Well, they *can*, but that doesn't mean it will hold up in court.
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From what I'm reading elsewhere, the student had already raised a fuss and got Kerry to say he'd answer his questions when they said that they weren't taking any more questions due to time restraints, and then proceeded to ask two questions (which were answered) instead of just the one (like everybody else did), and was about one minute into a rant regarding freemasonry or some other crackpot conspiracy theory before security came in to get him off the microphone and let the proceeding continue. Oh, and yeah, he barged in without having (and paying for) a ticket in the first place, which was why security was there around him anyway.
This guy was creating a public disturbance. He deserved what he got, IMO. He'll also be charged and probably fined for it.
It's not in this article, but it's been going on for many years now. The Red Cross, in it's various countries, has been actively enforcing that the Red Cross symbol is not used by anybody for anything.
_ crosss_.html
Here's an article about where the Canadian Red Cross complained about the symbol being used on health kits in video games: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/12/canadian_red
Call me crazy, but I prefer to live as a free man than to live a safe life of slavery.
So yes, you can indeed carry matches and lighters onto a plane.
If you haven't noticed recently, the sun is not, generally speaking, friendly to the human body. Unless you like blindness and skin cancer, of course. Every time someone complains that black on white hurts their eyes, I suggest they play with the brightness first to see if that takes care of things. Even at it's lowest setting, most monitors output unhealthy levels of light when on full white mode. This is especially true with newer LCD monitors, which continually seem to ramp up the brightness of the bulb in order to make the monitor have a better contrast ratio.
Frankly, I can't even look at screens outputting all white anymore. It immediately hurts. I don't know how people can stand it. Perhaps you're all blinder than I am or something.
Also, having tired eyes is better than blindness. Or, in most cases, loss of visual acuity. I hope you enjoy needing reading glasses when you turn 50.
Firstly, if you're using a CRT all day with a white background, then you have an electron beam lighting up phosphors and thus beaming light straight at your eyes all the time you're looking at it. It's like staring directly at a light bulb if you have to use the PC for any length of time.
Secondly, if you're using an LCD, it's likely backlit by a very bright bulb. "White" means opening the LCD molecules and letting that light through. So, in fact, you ARE staring at a light bulb when looking at a white LCD screen.
Computers Screens are not paper. They have light coming from them and hitting your eyes.
Paper products have light reflected off of them, usually at much lower intensity to start with.
So reading dark letters on light backgrounds is fine for paper.
But on a TV Screen, it's *provably* better for your eyes to have dark backgrounds and light lettering. If this hurts your eyes, use wider fonts instead of razor thin lettering.
Or are you one of those people who doesn't grasp why people lease cars either? What is more wrong is that the device isn't worth $500. Well, not NOW it's not. When it was new, the build cost of it was over $1000. What I think is wrong is that Otto seems to feel that "evil companies/individuals" are going to undermine Tivo by producing the $200-300 boxes and distributing them without the built-in "subscription" that Tivo charges. No, that's not it at all. You're more than welcome to build your own box and use Tivo's software on it. That's the purpose of the GPL. What "Tivoization" is is for Tivo to prevent you from putting your own software on the box that Tivo built and sold to you on the cheap. In other words, to take Tivo's box, sold at a discount, and cut off their revenue stream by hacking it to, say, not have to call home to get guide data. That's why Tivo locked down their boxes. And that's what the GPLv3 is trying to prevent.
Until you can run native code on the thing, it's a closed platform. There is no middle ground.
Cellphones are 100% locked down. Even the iPhone is locked down. Sure, you can run scripted apps, but can you run native code on the thing? Many cell phones can do Java J2ME apps, but these are extremely sandboxed. While they can be hacked to do other things, this is not something an "end-user" would normally do or be capable of doing. Many devices can allow certain parts of them to not be locked down. Those parts can utilize GPL3 code. Others can't. This makes the GPL3 suitable only for parts of those systems, we agree on that part. No, we don't agree on that part, because I know of *no* device that is halfway-locked-down as you describe.
Computers don't count, they're general purpose, locking them down eliminates the whole point of having them, unless you're making a special purpose device out of them like, say, a DVR.
You know, you could just *NOT BUY* these products that use this tactic. Some of us don't mind it too much, since it gives us affordable products at reasonable prices for the expected lifetime of those products.
The lifetime of the average consumer video device is 5-6 years, maximum. Spending a huge amount of money up front vs. paying for it by buying a service over that period of time... Well, each person can make that choice for themselves, can't they? TiVo made a profit selling them the box, they then need to work to keep their customers connected to their service. Tivo never would have made a profit selling the boxes. They sold them at a loss. If the price was high enough to make a profit on the things, they would have been $500 instead of $200. And then they would not have sold nearly as many of them. Certainly not enough to reach profitability. Furthermore, at the time, they required phone lines to connect back to the service (broadband was not quite as widespread then, so they didn't put ethernet in them), so there was an ongoing maintenance cost as well, for use of the phone lines.
For a simple contrast, look at ReplayTV. ReplayTV did exactly what you suggest. They sold their boxes at a slight profit. They also went out of business in just a few years. Tivo, on the other hand, is still around. Would you buy a Sony TV with the expectation that you could only watch Sony produced programming? These are not even comparable.. Tivo's "service" is to provide TV Guide information, which is the same regardless of who provides it. Now, more recently, they've expanded into web control of the box, Tivo Mobile, Amazon Unbox downloads, etc, etc.. However that doesn't change the fact that they were selling something that would be largely the same through any provider. Their goal was not to shut out competitors, their goal was to shut out people from getting the information off the web for free (via scrapers) and eliminating their service entirely while they were still trying to get off the ground and achieve profitability. They sold the hardware at a loss in order to reach more people and didn't want unscrupulous people taking advantage of them for it. That doesn't seem all that unethical to me.
Since it's actually his code that they used, your opinion means exactly zero.
Tivo didn't get bullied into doing this. They did it from the very beginning, period. They did the right thing all the way down the line. I don't understand what is preventing people from writing software and running it on the Tivo box. The Tivo hardware verifies that the copy of the Linux kernel it boots is signed using Tivo's own private key. So while you can compile Tivo's kernel changes and run them on another box, you can't put the changes on the Tivo box, because you do not have the ability to sign it with their private key. If you do so, the Tivo refuses to boot.
This can be hacked around, BTW. But that's beside the point.
We live in a world where our electronic devices must fit within guidelines imposed upon us by other entities. These entities include other companies, the government, law, etc. All electronic devices must fit standards and these guidelines in order for them to be legally sold or even manufactured.
Most of the guidelines of the GPLv3 are impossible to reconcile with most of the rest of the guidelines in the world. End result: No GPLv3 code will be used on real world devices. So, in the original example, the code that runs the networking stack on a cellphone can be proprietary and Tivoized, while other parts of the phone might be GPL3 (and others have other licenses).
If you must Tivoize an entire device, then GPL3 is not a possibility. However, cellphones are not such a case (for example, the OpenMoko phone has a proprietary network stack, but is otherwise open-source). OpenMoko is straight up illegal in the USA at present. And it seems highly unlikely that they'll ever get FCC Certification on any of their devices. So using them as an example is poor, at best. In any case, the GPL3 will make sense for some projects and not others, just like any FOSS license. Because of the hardware restrictions, it is unlikely for it to ever make any real-world sense for anybody to put GPLv3 software onto end-user devices.
BTW, this also makes the GPLv3 a preferential license. It gives end-users more rights than it gives other users (hardware developers). At least the GPLv2 was democratic, and gave everybody the same rights.
No, you're wrong. Tivo already gave back the 2% of code changes they made. A Tivo competitor could indeed create their own hardware and run Tivo's code on it. What a Tivo competitor could NOT do would be to write their own code and replace it on Tivo's boxes, thus cutting Tivo off from their revenue stream.
In essence, the GPLv3 makes it impossible for anybody to sell blades after giving away the razor.
No non-end-user modifiable device can ever include any GPLv3 code of any kind, period. GPLv3 code is fundamentally incompatible with all embedded systems, all end-user products, etc.
I don't think you even understand what the spirit of the GPL actually is.
Let's move straight to the Tivo argument. Tivo took the kernel and some other stuff, stuck it in a box, and then (eventually) made the box only run kernel binaries that they had signed using their key. Mind you, at the same time, Tivo also released all their code changes back into the open source community, on their website.
Now, they clearly stuck to the letter of the GPLv2. They released all their changes. What some people seem to have a problem with is that Tivo boxes only run official Tivo code. That is, I can't compile my own kernel and put it on those boxes they sold me (well, I can actually, as the hacks to disable their checks are trivial, but nevertheless).
So, how does that violate the spirit of the GPL? They *gave back the damn source changes*. If I wanted to build my own box I could run their code changes on that box all I want. There's absolutely nothing in the spirit of the GPL that requires them to force them to allow their HARDWARE to run anybody else's software.
The FSF has completely turned their back on what made them good to begin with, and I will no longer contribute to them or anything RMS is involved with ever again. Why? Because they have proven themselves not to be interested in freedom, their real interest is socialism. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too. You must make your hardware open enough so that I can steal from you. And no, I'm sorry, but that's not what they used to stand for. And it's damn well never what I stood for.
Many companies ABSOLUTELY CANNOT use code under the GPLv3. The requirements of the GPLv3 make it basically impossible to use that code with any other type code, including GPLv2 code, BTW.
So Samba 3.2 isn't going to be used by anybody. Get it yet? For anything other than trivial uses of the Samba codebase, you can't distribute it along with your code under other licenses.
As far as the "massive development job", Samba is good code, it's complex code... but it's not miracle code. If somebody really, really needed Samba, then they could reimplement just the part the needed. Most likely, they'd switch to something else entirely. The fact is that we will soon see GPLv3 software running beside GPLv2, LGPL, BSD and who knows what else. There isn't some big dividing line that means GPLv3 or some later open source license will mean absolute exclusivity. Of course there is. If I make changes to a GPLv3 codebase and put it in a product that uses *anything* proprietary, regardless of what it is, and then ship that product, I'm violating the GPLv3. Therefore I cannot use GPLv3 code in any sort of product, because *all* products worth a damn have proprietary components. That is the fundemental FUD in all of this, the big lie that gets repeated over and over again by the dogmatists within the open source movement and the shills for those companies who would just as soon see open source enslaved or disappear entirely. Get real. GPLv2 is enough. Splitting the license base and making open source even more difficult by forcing companies to understand and deal with new, incompatible, licenses helps open source not at all.
The only winners will be the lawyers.
I'm sorry, but you are still incorrect. Yes, you're correct in that they need to register the modem ID on the back end and such. But here's a cautionary tale for you:
I recently was switched to Comcast. My equipment continued to work, everything is happy and fine. I moved about 6 months later, and they told me to take the equipment with me.
The cable box had issues and got replaced, but the weird bit is the cable modem. The cable modem worked fine before, but at the new location, every webpage gave me Comcast's web page and forced me to download an EXE and run it. I did so (using a virtual machine, to avoid changes to my system) and the gist of it was that it gave me a webpage form to register the device. However, it required an unusual account number which I had never seen before. Fortunately, it was one of the numbers my installer guy had written on the pink slip of paper that he gave to me, and I was able to register the modem.
However, there is and was absolutely NO way to go directly to that website that I could find. Using the EXE was a requirement. It worked well enough on a virtual Windows box, but nevertheless, it was windows-only for getting the thing hooked up.
After the modem was registered, everything works fine. I plugged a router into it and it's kicking along quite nicely.
I know many people at many tech shops, and a shocking lot of companies have come out and said to their programmers or other in-house IT staff, that GPLv3 code can not be used for any project of any kind. Why? Because the GPLv3 is restrictive enough that it conflicts with other agreements these companies already have and cannot or will not break. It's simpler for a company to simply ban the stuff outright than it is to analyse the license ramifications on every single little project.
The end result is that GPLv3 code will, eventually, stagnate. Moving code to GPLv3 basically ensures that nobody will use it other than hobbyists. And while that's fine, it may not be what you want to happen. It's almost certainly not the intention of the GPLv3... or maybe it is. With the FSS being so f-ed up in the head lately, who can tell?
Regardless, it's not FUD... It's actually the license. It's unusable as it stands by a great many people, and the end result is that they will find other, less-restrictive, code to use instead.
Googlemail.com has been available for a long time. And if you have a gmail account, you can send mail to your address but @ googlemail.com instead, and it works just fine.
All they'll do is to advertise googlemail.com in those locations. It's not like they have to give this guy the domain name or anything.
Yes and no... Both parties can agree to waive their rights to trial and present to the court an agreed upon set of facts. If you agree to this in a contract, you don't lose your rights, as such. You've waived them, but if you later renege on that and take the other guy to court anyway, you leave yourself liable for breach of contract, and you could be breaking the contract entirely. Which you may want or not want.
The short of it is that, in most states (and federal?), the right of trial by jury is absolute. If you demand it, you get it. If you don't demand it, you waive it. Does your employer in the US have the right to force upon you as a term of employment anything that violates statute - either by Congress or the State government? Define "statute". Law? Criminal? Civil? Waiving of your rights? Depends on what the particular thing they demand is. They can demand anything they like, and hire you or not depending on your agreement thereby. However, their demands may or may not hold up in court or after the fact. Take the classic cases of the non-compete clauses. I think those are completely busted now, to the point that nobody bothers asking for them anymore, but that didn't stop them from asking originally even when they never held up in the courts. They were quite clear that contract law can never in Canada trump a law enacted by an Act of the House of Commons or even an act by our Provincial Legislature. Is that the case in the US too? That's up to a court to decide. I would not use the word "never", however generally the law trumps contracts. They can't ask you to break the law. Well, they *can*, but that doesn't mean it will hold up in court.