In your case, it seems like you have a GPL driver (PWC) which has a binary plugin that you also create (PWCX) and which contains code that you are contractually bound not to release.
Okay, so the question is, is the code in PWCX derived from the code in PWC? Obviously the proprietary stuff isn't, as you got it from someone and had to sign an NDA to get it. There may be some minor "glue" code in PWCX needed to use the PWC plugin structures. So I'd say that it's not derivitive, simply because you took some [b]already existing closed code[/b] and modified it to make it work with some open code. The act of modifying closed code to make it interoperate with GPL code doesn't make the closed code GPL.
The problem is really that "derived work" is poorly defined. What makes a work derived?
- If I write a complete Linux kernel module from absolute scratch, then it's clearly derived. I wrote it from nothing and wrote it specifically for Linux. So the GPL applies.
- If I take existing code from, say, a Windows driver, port it to Linux, and make it work as a kernel module, then is it a derived work? What Linus is saying is that it doesn't have to be.
It's all about intent. In the second case, I clearly ported the code to make it work with Linux, but I didn't originally write it for Linux in the first place. It was a Windows driver. I began by porting it from Windows to Linux. It's clearly not a derived work at this stage.
Later, I might have even optimized and rewrote portions of the code to make it work better in Linux. Is it a derived work now? Eventually, through the process of optimization and rewriting, I may have completely seperated the codebase from the Windows and Linux drivers.. Now is it a derived work? This is the gray area, because there's no clearly defined point at which something becomes a derived work or not. If I were to dump the driver and write it from scratch for Linux, without referring to the Windows driver, then it is clearly a derived work now, because it was written for Linux from essentially nothing but knowledge of the hardware and knowledge of the Linux kernel. But porting it in is a fuzzier question.
Take nVidia's drivers. It's pretty obvious that they started out by porting the Windows driver codebase into a kernel module. A lot of changes were obviously needed to do this, but it makes the most sense to start with code you already have. In the process of optimizing for Linux and rewriting portions of the code, then they may have changed the code so considerably that you can no longer easily recognize its origins from the Windows driver codebase. But is it a derived work of the kernel? Probably not.
But simply "being a module" isn't what makes it not a derived work of the kernel, it's the origins of the code that determines that. A module may be derived or it may not be. But simply including code from the kernel headers in a project isn't enough to make it obviously derived. I could include that code because that code is necessary to port the driver over to the Linux kernel, but the driver itself clearly wasn't created to work in the kernel, I'm porting it from somewhere else, and likely I don't have to GPL it.
This whole mess [b]isn't about code[/b]. This is about legal definitions and intents and such. That's why there's all this confusion. The only thing any developer making closed source modules needs to worry about is their ability to show that the closed code is not a derived work, and the legal aspects of "derived work" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the code itself.
Darl believes his company owns the rights to Unix and to all derivative works. If true, then all the Linux kernel developers have been extending and improving a derivative of the original Unix (never mind that Linus started from scratch). Not only that, they've been doing it without permission of the copyright holder and it doesn't matter that these derivatives are GPL'd because they're illegal, unauthorized copies.
This is probably true, and what their line of thinking seems to be. But, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think there's anything in Linux that comes from the original Unix source? It uses a similar interface and such, but it's still a completely separate look alike, and always has been, right? I admit that I'm not up on my history, but I thought Linus developed the kernel from scratch, and all the GNU tools and such were ported in and are not part of the "Unix" base anyway. Anybody know better than me?
What I'm saying is that SCO may actually realize that the GPL IS valid, and that to save their asses in the coming copyright lawsuit they are getting on record saying that they understand the GPL to be in disagreement with copyright law and thus non-binding (note: even though they understand to the contrary). This way, when in court they have plausible deniability against WILLFUL infringement.
I see what you're saying, but that seems really thin. Because even if the GPL is non-binding, then they still don't have any rights to use said GPL'd code. The GPL is what gave them the right to use that code in the first place. Without the GPL, they have no rights at all. It simply wasn't their code to use. So if they used it, then their infringement was willful because they didn't own the copyright and wouldn't have any reason to think that they actually could use the code.
While I see your argument, I don't think even they'd be dumb enough to try something like that. They're dumb, but they have lawyers, and even a dumb lawyer should know better than that.
That's why the SCO intends to prove that GPL'd software is really Public Domain software.
Wow. That's a hard one to prove. For one thing, everything is copyrighted from the moment of its creation (since 1978), unless you specifically put it into the public domain. I don't think that releasing it with a licensing agreement (the GPL) could be successfully argued to be doing so. While they could conceivably succeed in getting the GPL nulled for them (being as it is a license, the best they really could hope for is to nullify their agreement to it, not rule it "unconstitutional" or any such thing), I see no way in which they could successfully put all GPL'd works into the public domain. It'd take something heavy and major to get a judge to agree that this huge body of copyrighted material is no longer copyrighted (which is the legal definition of "public domain": not copyrighted).
So, basically, Darl of SCO is saying that he realizes that SCO has distributed Linux under GPL after he knew about what he claims as his infringement of SCO IP. And because that distribution would negate all his claims of infringed IP, he has no other choice but to dispute the legality of the GPL. Well, maybe he doesn't realize that, but at least his lawyers did.
That's a very interesting point you have there, one I had not considered. Of course, I believe he fails to see the flaw in his argument. That flaw is obvious, really...
SCO's distribution of Linux under GPL wasn't wholly their IP. They didn't create it from nothing here. Perhaps some of it was, certainly, but there's certainly a lot of it that was part of the Linux kernel, or a contribution by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of open source developers. They own the copyright on all that code, and they released it under the GPL. The GPL is essentially their license to let SCO used their copyrighted code. If SCO rejects the GPL or is successful in having it overturned, they don't magically get all that copyrighted code. Instead they get a big class action suit smacking them square in the face for copyright infringement, because now they've used other people's copyrighted material, without permission, for profit, etc, etc...
I just don't think SCO realizes the depth and power of the GPL. It's based upon copyright law itself. If you overturn it, then you fall back to the normal copyright law, which states that you can't use copyrighted code, period. It doesn't matter that the developer has shown it to the world, it's still that developer's property, and it is not SCO's to use. Fighting the GPL is not smart, because even if you win, you lose.
>By McBride's reckoning, the GPL deprives creators of their right to profit from their creations if they incorporate GPL'd code into their creation.
I think McBride is failing to see that nobody has to incorporate GPL'd code into their creation. If you don't want to use the GPL on your code, then don't use code covered by the GPL already. It makes perfect sense to the rest of us, but he seems to have some kind of ego thing going on where he thinks that SCO should be free to rip off everybody else without giving anything in return. That seems to be his entire argument, albeit in more verbose language.
It's very rare for public key encryption to be used for a streaming method of sending data. For one thing, it's too slow. Encrypting and decrypting to a public key method is just CPU intensive. Not as intensive as generating the keypair itself, but still nontrivial. Generally you use public key encryption to exchange a private key for some other symmetric encryption. The private key is random and only good for that one session.
So first, the phones would exchange public keys. Next, each phone would choose a random session key for some symmetric encryption method like Blowfish or AES or something. Then, each phone would send its random session key to the other phone, using the other phone's public key. They'd decrypt these using their private keys and thus obtain the key to decrypt the rest of the traffic from the other phone from then on. For added security, they could shift keys every so often by the same method.. Choose a new key and send it to the other phone using his public key.
It'd be a little bit more complex than that, but that's the essentials. It's highly unlikely that it's using the public key for all of the encryption.
It's only $12, so it's not like he's charging a lot for it. It does have some nifty features. First, yeah, it sticks a driver in so that it can capture sound data directly. But it's got some other coolness to it, actually.
-The 30 second auto-buffer lets you hit record after the song has started and still get the song. -Choose your own format, of course. But it can send the data to an encoder too (Ogg, LAME, whatever) before saving it off to disc. -Detection of the beginning and ends of sound being played so as to trim the silences and save into separate files automagically if you so choose (works surprisingly well). -Suppress system beeps and such while it's recording, so you don't get those in the resulting file. -Timer based recording so that you can have it record a daily radio show or something similar.
And some other nifty stuff. It's rather well thought out, actually. It's worth the $12 if you want to convert virtually any DRMed format to something a little less protected. But it's worth the $12 not because it simply saves the stuff to disc like some free drivers might be capable of doing, but because it's a good program overall with some good effort put into it.
Oh, it works with iTunes too. Just change QuickTime's playback settings to "Playback through TotalRecorder" and it works just fine.
Oh yes. And Wal-Mart does this too, and does it incredibly well. Wal-Mart more or less *creates* the prices in this country, on all kinds of items. They have no scruples about using exactly the kind of leverage you talk about either. They've done it before.
They don't censor stuff, they just refuse to carry it.
While you're technically correct in that Wal-Mart itself does not rework albums to add bleeps and adjust album art and such, the refusal to carry such albums combined with Wal-Mart's market leverage has the same impact as if they did.
Like someone said above, Wal-Mart does 14% of the music sales across the country. That's a hell of a lot of selling power. The upshot of this is that the labels created censored versions of the works specifically so Wal-Mart will carry them.
For some smaller bands, this equates to there only being a censored version of the work available. It's not worth the extra expense for the label to create two versions if they don't expect to make enough sales of the uncensored one, and so the censored one is all that's created.
So while Wal-Mart doesn't have a group of censors changing the music, they do have a direct impact on the music that is released. That's the problem a lot of people have with Wal-Mart when it comes to music. No company should have that kind of market leverage and be able to impact culture in that way. It's downright irresponsible of Wal-Mart to use its market leverage in the way that they use it, really.
2 I am not talking about lag, my problem is different. When I touch Play/Pause button nothing happens, sometimes have to try more then 10 times. Touching Menu and then Play/Pause seems to help. If I have a bad unit, I would send it for repair, but if it is a common problem, I won't bother.
Doesn't sound normal to me. Mine always makes a clicky noise when I touch the pad. I'd see about replacing yours.
4 This problem isn't showstopper, with a help of "Tag and Rename" (great application!) I fixed up my files, but I thought that structuring music collection/artist/album/song.mp3 is the most logical.
I use tag and rename too, and I have my music organized similar to yours. I still think that having proper ID3 tags is a good thing, mainly because I can change file organization using those tags very easily. Side note: If you turn on iTunes organization features, it'll organize the files in the artist/album/tracknumsong.mp3 format as well.
6 What is so different about books from audible.com? I never used them- I mostly rip books on CD from a local library, or download.
Audible.com files use a special audiobook type of format (I'm not sure of the details here). I know it makes for smaller files, sort of thing (since large portions of audiobooks are silence). Anyway, this format is supported by the iPod and it has special features like position remembering and such. You can now buy audible.com books from the iTunes Music Store too.
And with all due respect, ripping CD's borrowed from libraries or downloading them is illegal. I admit that audible's prices suck sometimes, but at the same time I don't think Apple's going to be very responsive to adding features specifically to help out illegal copiers.
How do people prevent natural forest fires (i.e. lightning, etc)?
They put them out instead of letting them burn. Seems pretty obvious in retrospect, doesn't it?
We're "hard-up" about preventing human-caused forest fires, of course, but before there were people everywhere I don't think this was much of an influence.
Here's the deal... This is a *well* known fact of forest fires and human invervention. a) People move into an area and start taking care of their surroundings b) Part of that includes putting out fires in wooded areas, no matter what starts them c) The underbrush that would naturally be burned off by these fires (if people weren't around) builds up d) Eventually, you have a fire that burns really hot due to the extra fuel, and it kills every tree in the forest.
This is a well known consequence of over protection of natural environments. Without people, the fires would happen, but the underbrush wouldn't be as thick and the fire would not be as hot or as damaging. It scorches the trees, but doesn't kill them. After we start putting the fires out, the underbrush and fallings and such that would normally be burnt off builds up instead because we don't let it burn off. Thus when the fire does happen, it's a big one, and it kills the whole forest area.
This is so well known, in fact, that forest services regularly start controlled burns in problem areas specifically to burn off that underbrush so it can't build up, thus restoring the balance.
1 "Touchpad-like" controls- you touch it in a pocket, and it skips a song or does something else
There's a switch on top of the thing that turns off the touchpad buttons. Flip the switch before you slip it in your pocket, and flip it back when you slip it out to mess with it. Problem solved.
2 Sometimes those buttons don't respond- have to touch up to ten times (not sure if I got a bad unit, or this is typical)
If it makes a click noise, but doesn't do anything, then it's just lagging. I've noticed that in some situations, it has to load data from the drive and this takes a bit of time.
3 Can't "drug and drop" mp3 files on iPod- must use a software
Fair enough. iTunes is pretty good, but not great and still has issues, so you win on that one.
4 Doesn't understand file names or directories- identifies fiels only by ID3 tags
I'd consider this a plus. Filenames can be anything at all. ID3 tags are the way that you label data in files correctly.
5 Battery life- have to charge it as often as analog cell phone. Forget about overnight trips without a charger
I've gotten 8 hours out of mine. But yeah, that does kind of suck. No way I'd fly anywhere with it without the charger.
6 Forgets the last played track after being connected to a PC, sometimes does it for no reason at all. Very annoying to audiobook listeners.
Agreed. But it should remember your position in an audible audiobook no matter what you do. www.audible.com, my friend.
Dude, it's in your own damn interests to view the ads (not look at them, simply let them load and ignore them). Why? Because that is what keeps the site "free" for you. When enough people who view a site have your attitude, the site becomes unable to support itself via ads, and has to find another way -- which means that you either end up paying cash directly (something that you don't seem likely to do, given your cheap-ass nature), or goes away entirely. Donations and merchandise are not always enough to support a site that can't charge for the primary content.
a) Loading and not viewing or displaying the ads is fine in the short term, but advertisers are not stupid. In the long term, pure ad based revenue is still a failing strategy. Quite a number of advertisers are more interested in "click-throughs" now. Although you're right in that some advertisers are more interested in reaching a specific audience via eyeball impressions (similar to television advertising) than they are in generating traffic and paying customers to another website.
b) If donations and merchandise aren't enough, then maybe, just maybe, you as a content provider have to make a choice. Either find another way to produce revenue, pay for it out of pocket, or remove the content entirely. Advertising won't work in the long run, specifically because of people like me who block ads on a regular basis.
c) I do donate to sites that I visit regularly, and I do buy merchandise from sites that have good merchandise that I want. You mean that you don't have a Penny Arcade t-shirt, or a Strongbad figurine?;)
Considering your "tough shit" attitude, I'd be willing to help write an Apache module that detects IPs who view my pages but not my ads, and block those IPs for an hour or so. Don't like it if I don't want you to view my content without viewing my ads? Tough shit. (Yeah, maybe you set up Proxomitron to render the ads but not actually *display* them... which is fine by providers, because the ad impression is still counted. Unfortunately, most ad blockers don't do this.)
Go right ahead. While I've not yet needed to adjust the client to load and not render items (although you're right, it would be easy to do), this begs another question. How dumb do you think advertisers are? I refer you to point a) above.
FYI, all those things can be blocked or worked around on the client side. Only a server side system is foolproof, and very few of those exist as yet. If and when they become more prevalent, then it's just a matter of modifying the client to continue to load these things but not actually display them.
What about sites that don't sell anything? How about sites that provide a service, or information sites?
If the information is useful, then donate it to some site willing to host it for you for free. Or pay for it out of pocket as a service to the community. Or take it down. Whatever you like.
If everyone does that, the owner has to either find alternative measures to fund the site or has to pay out of pocket for it.
Yes, they certainly do. That's the point. Either they are willing to pay to host it, or they're not. But I'm going to continue to block advertising of all forms, because I'm not interested in viewing it. If they want to setup a donation box and I think it's worth keeping around or find it useful, then I will donate. I'm not expecting a free lunch here. I'm perfectly willing to pay directly for content if I find it useful. But I'm not willing to do it via advertising agencies.
Say you did this with your tv. You effectively block all commercials and can still view all your favourite shows. Now say that the majority of the public followed your idea and began to do that. Eventually the networks will have to find an alternative source of income and you end up having to pay for all the shows you want. I think that's the long term reality of what your doing, especially if more and more people subscribe to your school of thought.
More and more people are. Seen Tivo lately? They recently broke 1 million subscribers.
Again, I'm perfectly willing to pay for content that I want to see. I pay for HBO because I like a couple of the series on there. It would suit me just fine if every television series was a pay per view, as long as the price was reasonable.
In the short term you'll browse around ad free, in the long term you'll find yourself complaining that you have to pay for everything on the net and your sick of it. That little banner ad isn't as big a nuisance when you think of it this way.
Not at all. I don't complain about having to pay for content now. If I did, then I'd be complaining about the $40 a month for cable internet access and the $50-60 a month for digital cable and HBO and such.
Just because you prefer advertising instead of paying directly doesn't mean others do. I'd much rather pay the creators of the content directly, if I could. Eliminate the middle men, I say.
You're an ungrateful sh*thead.. it isn't about making money, it's about trying to break even doing something you love. You've obviously never run a site that's gotten popular (and by popular I mean 20k+ uniques a day) and have been forced to shut it down as there was just no way to finance it.
No, I can't say that I have. I don't make much content myself.
But TANSTAAFL, bucko. If you can't break even by merchandising or donations, then either you love the content you produce enough to buck up for it, or you don't. It's that simple. YOU want to get your content out there, YOU pay for it. I'll happily buy shirts and other cool stuff from you if I like your content. If I like your content a lot, I'll donate to you from time to time.
And as it sits now, donations aren't nearly as commonplace as they should be. Go donate to your favorite site, and do it NOW!
I donate to my three favorite sites on a regular basis. I occassionally buy cool stuff from them too, when they come up with something new that I like.
let me guess: you've never "bought the mug, the t-shirt, or donated via paypal" either right? *Act* on your "principles" and do everyone a favor, DON'T VISIT BANNER SUPPORTED SITES AT ALL. In point of fact, I do buy the mug and t-shirt, and donate when the site is worth donating to. My post would have been a bit pointless if I didn't. If you can't sell merchandise or get enough donations to support the costs of your site, then tough luck.
Lookie here, you want to get your content out there. If you can't pay for it somehow, then guess what? You can't get your content out there. Ain't life a bitch?
Here's the deal: Ads are dead. I surf an ad-free internet, thanks to the Proxomitron and some nice custom filters, and I will continue to do so. I have no desire or inclination to see your ads. If this upsets you as a web provider, tough shit. You cannot control my side of the connection. It is not within your power, and frankly I don't give a damn about what you want.
If you want to make money from your website, then give me a reason to give you money. I'll gladly buy products from you, if they're good products and I like and want to own them. But don't stick ads on your page. I'll simply eliminate them on my end of the connection. And more and more people will do this as time goes on. Advertising as revenue is not a good means of income in the long run. If that's all you've got, then you will fail.
Fact: the internet was never "free". Someone always pays the bills. If you want to serve your content, then you're the one picking up the check. If you want me to offset that, then you'll have to find something other than ads, because I refuse to play that game. Take donations, sell coffee mugs, whatever you like. But don't expect me to view ads. I'm not going to do it and I don't give a damn about your business model depending on it.
I've been noticing these a bit more often and I've started making rules in the Proxomitron to skip them when I can figure them out. I consider it a hobby. I've defeated Salon's and Yahoo Groups pretty easily.
Although it's quite possible for them to make something I cannot defeat, they do so at the cost of losing their user base, really.
Except for that little concept "no taxation without representation"... For example, if I order something from a web site based (physically) in the state of California (and for the record I do not live in that state), then I would need to pay taxes to the state of California, but would not have the right to vote for things in the state of California (such as, oh, let's say, a governor's race)?
If you were to physically go to california and buy it over the counter, you'd pay the sales tax as well. Is that also "taxation without representation"?
But I fail to see why you think only three people would be able to look directly at one another? If you have a 120 degree angle view, say, then rear project it onto a circular screen, distortion caused by the wide angle will be eliminated by distortion from the shape of the screen itself.
In other words, anyone looking directly at the circle appears to be looking directly out of the circle on the other side, no matter what their position is in relation to the camera. There's no three person limit that I can see here. Yes, the view of the camera is distorted in relation to each person, but it's distorted back on the other side.
Anyway, if I were doing it, I'd use fisheye lenses to get a 180 degree view on each camera. That gives you 60 degrees of overlap, and the parts in the middle of two cameras where a person could stand will have two cameras looking at him from each side which could then be interpolated by the hardware to produce the correct perspective view on that section on the other side of the connection. So he'd appear to be looking directly out of the circle too.
I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?
Yep. It's built into (sorta) the airbag system. If the airbags ever pop, and you repair the car, the airbags and the airbag sensors have to be replaced. The module is part of the sensor system and is replaced along with everything else airbag related. It's really a safety thing, in that no part of the airbag system is considered "trustworthy" again after the airbags have fired. Also, if they don't replace the entire airbag system, then they become liable if you get into an accident and your airbags don't fire, sort of thing. So every repair shop replaces the whole nine yards when this sort of thing happens.
Dunno where you got the idea that you can't block these ports.. At your firewall or router, block 135, 137-139, and 445 TCP/UDP incoming. Voila, problem solved.
This will block people from seeing your shares outside the local network as well, but I consider that a bonus. I don't want windows filesharing to work over the internet. Local area network only for that sort of stuff is fine with me.
I LOVE this feature. If it always allows only one piece of artwork, how do you include the back cover and the liner notes, as well as the front cover? dangit
Fine. Then ask the user which piece of artwork it is. The ID3 spec allows for multiple pieces of art, but it has a labeling method too. When I use iTunes, it labels them all as "cover" no matter how many I drop in there. That's super annoying. If you want to support multiple pieces of art, then *support* multiple pieces of art. Right now it supports multiple COVER's only.
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In your case, it seems like you have a GPL driver (PWC) which has a binary plugin that you also create (PWCX) and which contains code that you are contractually bound not to release.
Okay, so the question is, is the code in PWCX derived from the code in PWC? Obviously the proprietary stuff isn't, as you got it from someone and had to sign an NDA to get it. There may be some minor "glue" code in PWCX needed to use the PWC plugin structures. So I'd say that it's not derivitive, simply because you took some [b]already existing closed code[/b] and modified it to make it work with some open code. The act of modifying closed code to make it interoperate with GPL code doesn't make the closed code GPL.
The problem is really that "derived work" is poorly defined. What makes a work derived?
- If I write a complete Linux kernel module from absolute scratch, then it's clearly derived. I wrote it from nothing and wrote it specifically for Linux. So the GPL applies.
- If I take existing code from, say, a Windows driver, port it to Linux, and make it work as a kernel module, then is it a derived work? What Linus is saying is that it doesn't have to be.
It's all about intent. In the second case, I clearly ported the code to make it work with Linux, but I didn't originally write it for Linux in the first place. It was a Windows driver. I began by porting it from Windows to Linux. It's clearly not a derived work at this stage.
Later, I might have even optimized and rewrote portions of the code to make it work better in Linux. Is it a derived work now? Eventually, through the process of optimization and rewriting, I may have completely seperated the codebase from the Windows and Linux drivers.. Now is it a derived work? This is the gray area, because there's no clearly defined point at which something becomes a derived work or not. If I were to dump the driver and write it from scratch for Linux, without referring to the Windows driver, then it is clearly a derived work now, because it was written for Linux from essentially nothing but knowledge of the hardware and knowledge of the Linux kernel. But porting it in is a fuzzier question.
Take nVidia's drivers. It's pretty obvious that they started out by porting the Windows driver codebase into a kernel module. A lot of changes were obviously needed to do this, but it makes the most sense to start with code you already have. In the process of optimizing for Linux and rewriting portions of the code, then they may have changed the code so considerably that you can no longer easily recognize its origins from the Windows driver codebase. But is it a derived work of the kernel? Probably not.
But simply "being a module" isn't what makes it not a derived work of the kernel, it's the origins of the code that determines that. A module may be derived or it may not be. But simply including code from the kernel headers in a project isn't enough to make it obviously derived. I could include that code because that code is necessary to port the driver over to the Linux kernel, but the driver itself clearly wasn't created to work in the kernel, I'm porting it from somewhere else, and likely I don't have to GPL it.
This whole mess [b]isn't about code[/b]. This is about legal definitions and intents and such. That's why there's all this confusion. The only thing any developer making closed source modules needs to worry about is their ability to show that the closed code is not a derived work, and the legal aspects of "derived work" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the code itself.
Darl believes his company owns the rights to Unix and to all derivative works. If true, then all the Linux kernel developers have been extending and improving a derivative of the original Unix (never mind that Linus started from scratch). Not only that, they've been doing it without permission of the copyright holder and it doesn't matter that these derivatives are GPL'd because they're illegal, unauthorized copies.
This is probably true, and what their line of thinking seems to be. But, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think there's anything in Linux that comes from the original Unix source? It uses a similar interface and such, but it's still a completely separate look alike, and always has been, right? I admit that I'm not up on my history, but I thought Linus developed the kernel from scratch, and all the GNU tools and such were ported in and are not part of the "Unix" base anyway. Anybody know better than me?
What I'm saying is that SCO may actually realize that the GPL IS valid, and that to save their asses in the coming copyright lawsuit they are getting on record saying that they understand the GPL to be in disagreement with copyright law and thus non-binding (note: even though they understand to the contrary). This way, when in court they have plausible deniability against WILLFUL infringement.
I see what you're saying, but that seems really thin. Because even if the GPL is non-binding, then they still don't have any rights to use said GPL'd code. The GPL is what gave them the right to use that code in the first place. Without the GPL, they have no rights at all. It simply wasn't their code to use. So if they used it, then their infringement was willful because they didn't own the copyright and wouldn't have any reason to think that they actually could use the code.
While I see your argument, I don't think even they'd be dumb enough to try something like that. They're dumb, but they have lawyers, and even a dumb lawyer should know better than that.
That's why the SCO intends to prove that GPL'd software is really Public Domain software.
Wow. That's a hard one to prove. For one thing, everything is copyrighted from the moment of its creation (since 1978), unless you specifically put it into the public domain. I don't think that releasing it with a licensing agreement (the GPL) could be successfully argued to be doing so. While they could conceivably succeed in getting the GPL nulled for them (being as it is a license, the best they really could hope for is to nullify their agreement to it, not rule it "unconstitutional" or any such thing), I see no way in which they could successfully put all GPL'd works into the public domain. It'd take something heavy and major to get a judge to agree that this huge body of copyrighted material is no longer copyrighted (which is the legal definition of "public domain": not copyrighted).
So, basically, Darl of SCO is saying that he realizes that SCO has distributed Linux under GPL after he knew about what he claims as his infringement of SCO IP. And because that distribution would negate all his claims of infringed IP, he has no other choice but to dispute the legality of the GPL. Well, maybe he doesn't realize that, but at least his lawyers did.
That's a very interesting point you have there, one I had not considered. Of course, I believe he fails to see the flaw in his argument. That flaw is obvious, really...
SCO's distribution of Linux under GPL wasn't wholly their IP. They didn't create it from nothing here. Perhaps some of it was, certainly, but there's certainly a lot of it that was part of the Linux kernel, or a contribution by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of open source developers. They own the copyright on all that code, and they released it under the GPL. The GPL is essentially their license to let SCO used their copyrighted code. If SCO rejects the GPL or is successful in having it overturned, they don't magically get all that copyrighted code. Instead they get a big class action suit smacking them square in the face for copyright infringement, because now they've used other people's copyrighted material, without permission, for profit, etc, etc...
I just don't think SCO realizes the depth and power of the GPL. It's based upon copyright law itself. If you overturn it, then you fall back to the normal copyright law, which states that you can't use copyrighted code, period. It doesn't matter that the developer has shown it to the world, it's still that developer's property, and it is not SCO's to use. Fighting the GPL is not smart, because even if you win, you lose.
>By McBride's reckoning, the GPL deprives creators of their right to profit from their creations if they incorporate GPL'd code into their creation.
I think McBride is failing to see that nobody has to incorporate GPL'd code into their creation. If you don't want to use the GPL on your code, then don't use code covered by the GPL already. It makes perfect sense to the rest of us, but he seems to have some kind of ego thing going on where he thinks that SCO should be free to rip off everybody else without giving anything in return. That seems to be his entire argument, albeit in more verbose language.
It's very rare for public key encryption to be used for a streaming method of sending data. For one thing, it's too slow. Encrypting and decrypting to a public key method is just CPU intensive. Not as intensive as generating the keypair itself, but still nontrivial. Generally you use public key encryption to exchange a private key for some other symmetric encryption. The private key is random and only good for that one session.
So first, the phones would exchange public keys.
Next, each phone would choose a random session key for some symmetric encryption method like Blowfish or AES or something.
Then, each phone would send its random session key to the other phone, using the other phone's public key. They'd decrypt these using their private keys and thus obtain the key to decrypt the rest of the traffic from the other phone from then on. For added security, they could shift keys every so often by the same method.. Choose a new key and send it to the other phone using his public key.
It'd be a little bit more complex than that, but that's the essentials. It's highly unlikely that it's using the public key for all of the encryption.
Well, that page is talking about TotalRecorder. It's available here: http://www.highcriteria.com/
It's only $12, so it's not like he's charging a lot for it. It does have some nifty features. First, yeah, it sticks a driver in so that it can capture sound data directly. But it's got some other coolness to it, actually.
-The 30 second auto-buffer lets you hit record after the song has started and still get the song.
-Choose your own format, of course. But it can send the data to an encoder too (Ogg, LAME, whatever) before saving it off to disc.
-Detection of the beginning and ends of sound being played so as to trim the silences and save into separate files automagically if you so choose (works surprisingly well).
-Suppress system beeps and such while it's recording, so you don't get those in the resulting file.
-Timer based recording so that you can have it record a daily radio show or something similar.
And some other nifty stuff. It's rather well thought out, actually. It's worth the $12 if you want to convert virtually any DRMed format to something a little less protected. But it's worth the $12 not because it simply saves the stuff to disc like some free drivers might be capable of doing, but because it's a good program overall with some good effort put into it.
Oh, it works with iTunes too. Just change QuickTime's playback settings to "Playback through TotalRecorder" and it works just fine.
Oh yes. And Wal-Mart does this too, and does it incredibly well. Wal-Mart more or less *creates* the prices in this country, on all kinds of items. They have no scruples about using exactly the kind of leverage you talk about either. They've done it before.
One more reason not to shop there.
They don't censor stuff, they just refuse to carry it.
While you're technically correct in that Wal-Mart itself does not rework albums to add bleeps and adjust album art and such, the refusal to carry such albums combined with Wal-Mart's market leverage has the same impact as if they did.
Like someone said above, Wal-Mart does 14% of the music sales across the country. That's a hell of a lot of selling power. The upshot of this is that the labels created censored versions of the works specifically so Wal-Mart will carry them.
For some smaller bands, this equates to there only being a censored version of the work available. It's not worth the extra expense for the label to create two versions if they don't expect to make enough sales of the uncensored one, and so the censored one is all that's created.
So while Wal-Mart doesn't have a group of censors changing the music, they do have a direct impact on the music that is released. That's the problem a lot of people have with Wal-Mart when it comes to music. No company should have that kind of market leverage and be able to impact culture in that way. It's downright irresponsible of Wal-Mart to use its market leverage in the way that they use it, really.
2 I am not talking about lag, my problem is different. When I touch Play/Pause button nothing happens, sometimes have to try more then 10 times. Touching Menu and then Play/Pause seems to help. If I have a bad unit, I would send it for repair, but if it is a common problem, I won't bother.
/artist/album/song.mp3 is the most logical.
Doesn't sound normal to me. Mine always makes a clicky noise when I touch the pad. I'd see about replacing yours.
4 This problem isn't showstopper, with a help of "Tag and Rename" (great application!) I fixed up my files, but I thought that structuring music collection
I use tag and rename too, and I have my music organized similar to yours. I still think that having proper ID3 tags is a good thing, mainly because I can change file organization using those tags very easily. Side note: If you turn on iTunes organization features, it'll organize the files in the artist/album/tracknumsong.mp3 format as well.
6 What is so different about books from audible.com? I never used them- I mostly rip books on CD from a local library, or download.
Audible.com files use a special audiobook type of format (I'm not sure of the details here). I know it makes for smaller files, sort of thing (since large portions of audiobooks are silence). Anyway, this format is supported by the iPod and it has special features like position remembering and such. You can now buy audible.com books from the iTunes Music Store too.
And with all due respect, ripping CD's borrowed from libraries or downloading them is illegal. I admit that audible's prices suck sometimes, but at the same time I don't think Apple's going to be very responsive to adding features specifically to help out illegal copiers.
How do people prevent natural forest fires (i.e. lightning, etc)?
They put them out instead of letting them burn. Seems pretty obvious in retrospect, doesn't it?
We're "hard-up" about preventing human-caused forest fires, of course, but before there were people everywhere I don't think this was much of an influence.
Here's the deal... This is a *well* known fact of forest fires and human invervention.
a) People move into an area and start taking care of their surroundings
b) Part of that includes putting out fires in wooded areas, no matter what starts them
c) The underbrush that would naturally be burned off by these fires (if people weren't around) builds up
d) Eventually, you have a fire that burns really hot due to the extra fuel, and it kills every tree in the forest.
This is a well known consequence of over protection of natural environments. Without people, the fires would happen, but the underbrush wouldn't be as thick and the fire would not be as hot or as damaging. It scorches the trees, but doesn't kill them. After we start putting the fires out, the underbrush and fallings and such that would normally be burnt off builds up instead because we don't let it burn off. Thus when the fire does happen, it's a big one, and it kills the whole forest area.
This is so well known, in fact, that forest services regularly start controlled burns in problem areas specifically to burn off that underbrush so it can't build up, thus restoring the balance.
1 "Touchpad-like" controls- you touch it in a pocket, and it skips a song or does something else
There's a switch on top of the thing that turns off the touchpad buttons. Flip the switch before you slip it in your pocket, and flip it back when you slip it out to mess with it. Problem solved.
2 Sometimes those buttons don't respond- have to touch up to ten times (not sure if I got a bad unit, or this is typical)
If it makes a click noise, but doesn't do anything, then it's just lagging. I've noticed that in some situations, it has to load data from the drive and this takes a bit of time.
3 Can't "drug and drop" mp3 files on iPod- must use a software
Fair enough. iTunes is pretty good, but not great and still has issues, so you win on that one.
4 Doesn't understand file names or directories- identifies fiels only by ID3 tags
I'd consider this a plus. Filenames can be anything at all. ID3 tags are the way that you label data in files correctly.
5 Battery life- have to charge it as often as analog cell phone. Forget about overnight trips without a charger
I've gotten 8 hours out of mine. But yeah, that does kind of suck. No way I'd fly anywhere with it without the charger.
6 Forgets the last played track after being connected to a PC, sometimes does it for no reason at all. Very annoying to audiobook listeners.
Agreed. But it should remember your position in an audible audiobook no matter what you do. www.audible.com, my friend.
Dude, it's in your own damn interests to view the ads (not look at them, simply let them load and ignore them). Why? Because that is what keeps the site "free" for you. When enough people who view a site have your attitude, the site becomes unable to support itself via ads, and has to find another way -- which means that you either end up paying cash directly (something that you don't seem likely to do, given your cheap-ass nature), or goes away entirely. Donations and merchandise are not always enough to support a site that can't charge for the primary content.
;)
a) Loading and not viewing or displaying the ads is fine in the short term, but advertisers are not stupid. In the long term, pure ad based revenue is still a failing strategy. Quite a number of advertisers are more interested in "click-throughs" now. Although you're right in that some advertisers are more interested in reaching a specific audience via eyeball impressions (similar to television advertising) than they are in generating traffic and paying customers to another website.
b) If donations and merchandise aren't enough, then maybe, just maybe, you as a content provider have to make a choice. Either find another way to produce revenue, pay for it out of pocket, or remove the content entirely. Advertising won't work in the long run, specifically because of people like me who block ads on a regular basis.
c) I do donate to sites that I visit regularly, and I do buy merchandise from sites that have good merchandise that I want. You mean that you don't have a Penny Arcade t-shirt, or a Strongbad figurine?
Considering your "tough shit" attitude, I'd be willing to help write an Apache module that detects IPs who view my pages but not my ads, and block those IPs for an hour or so. Don't like it if I don't want you to view my content without viewing my ads? Tough shit. (Yeah, maybe you set up Proxomitron to render the ads but not actually *display* them... which is fine by providers, because the ad impression is still counted. Unfortunately, most ad blockers don't do this.)
Go right ahead. While I've not yet needed to adjust the client to load and not render items (although you're right, it would be easy to do), this begs another question. How dumb do you think advertisers are? I refer you to point a) above.
FYI, all those things can be blocked or worked around on the client side. Only a server side system is foolproof, and very few of those exist as yet. If and when they become more prevalent, then it's just a matter of modifying the client to continue to load these things but not actually display them.
What about sites that don't sell anything? How about sites that provide a service, or information sites?
If the information is useful, then donate it to some site willing to host it for you for free. Or pay for it out of pocket as a service to the community. Or take it down. Whatever you like.
If everyone does that, the owner has to either find alternative measures to fund the site or has to pay out of pocket for it.
Yes, they certainly do. That's the point. Either they are willing to pay to host it, or they're not. But I'm going to continue to block advertising of all forms, because I'm not interested in viewing it. If they want to setup a donation box and I think it's worth keeping around or find it useful, then I will donate. I'm not expecting a free lunch here. I'm perfectly willing to pay directly for content if I find it useful. But I'm not willing to do it via advertising agencies.
Say you did this with your tv. You effectively block all commercials and can still view all your favourite shows. Now say that the majority of the public followed your idea and began to do that. Eventually the networks will have to find an alternative source of income and you end up having to pay for all the shows you want. I think that's the long term reality of what your doing, especially if more and more people subscribe to your school of thought.
More and more people are. Seen Tivo lately? They recently broke 1 million subscribers.
Again, I'm perfectly willing to pay for content that I want to see. I pay for HBO because I like a couple of the series on there. It would suit me just fine if every television series was a pay per view, as long as the price was reasonable.
In the short term you'll browse around ad free, in the long term you'll find yourself complaining that you have to pay for everything on the net and your sick of it. That little banner ad isn't as big a nuisance when you think of it this way.
Not at all. I don't complain about having to pay for content now. If I did, then I'd be complaining about the $40 a month for cable internet access and the $50-60 a month for digital cable and HBO and such.
Just because you prefer advertising instead of paying directly doesn't mean others do. I'd much rather pay the creators of the content directly, if I could. Eliminate the middle men, I say.
You're an ungrateful sh*thead.. it isn't about making money, it's about trying to break even doing something you love. You've obviously never run a site that's gotten popular (and by popular I mean 20k+ uniques a day) and have been forced to shut it down as there was just no way to finance it.
No, I can't say that I have. I don't make much content myself.
But TANSTAAFL, bucko. If you can't break even by merchandising or donations, then either you love the content you produce enough to buck up for it, or you don't. It's that simple. YOU want to get your content out there, YOU pay for it. I'll happily buy shirts and other cool stuff from you if I like your content. If I like your content a lot, I'll donate to you from time to time.
And as it sits now, donations aren't nearly as commonplace as they should be. Go donate to your favorite site, and do it NOW!
I donate to my three favorite sites on a regular basis. I occassionally buy cool stuff from them too, when they come up with something new that I like.
let me guess: you've never "bought the mug, the t-shirt, or donated via paypal" either right? *Act* on your "principles" and do everyone a favor, DON'T VISIT BANNER SUPPORTED SITES AT ALL.
In point of fact, I do buy the mug and t-shirt, and donate when the site is worth donating to. My post would have been a bit pointless if I didn't. If you can't sell merchandise or get enough donations to support the costs of your site, then tough luck.
Lookie here, you want to get your content out there. If you can't pay for it somehow, then guess what? You can't get your content out there. Ain't life a bitch?
Here's the deal: Ads are dead. I surf an ad-free internet, thanks to the Proxomitron and some nice custom filters, and I will continue to do so. I have no desire or inclination to see your ads. If this upsets you as a web provider, tough shit. You cannot control my side of the connection. It is not within your power, and frankly I don't give a damn about what you want.
If you want to make money from your website, then give me a reason to give you money. I'll gladly buy products from you, if they're good products and I like and want to own them. But don't stick ads on your page. I'll simply eliminate them on my end of the connection. And more and more people will do this as time goes on. Advertising as revenue is not a good means of income in the long run. If that's all you've got, then you will fail.
Fact: the internet was never "free". Someone always pays the bills. If you want to serve your content, then you're the one picking up the check. If you want me to offset that, then you'll have to find something other than ads, because I refuse to play that game. Take donations, sell coffee mugs, whatever you like. But don't expect me to view ads. I'm not going to do it and I don't give a damn about your business model depending on it.
If you don't like it, well, that's your problem.
I've been noticing these a bit more often and I've started making rules in the Proxomitron to skip them when I can figure them out. I consider it a hobby. I've defeated Salon's and Yahoo Groups pretty easily.
Although it's quite possible for them to make something I cannot defeat, they do so at the cost of losing their user base, really.
Except for that little concept "no taxation without representation"...
For example, if I order something from a web site based (physically) in the state of California (and for the record I do not live in that state), then I would need to pay taxes to the state of California, but would not have the right to vote for things in the state of California (such as, oh, let's say, a governor's race)?
If you were to physically go to california and buy it over the counter, you'd pay the sales tax as well. Is that also "taxation without representation"?
First off, I think the idea is freakin' genius.
But I fail to see why you think only three people would be able to look directly at one another? If you have a 120 degree angle view, say, then rear project it onto a circular screen, distortion caused by the wide angle will be eliminated by distortion from the shape of the screen itself.
In other words, anyone looking directly at the circle appears to be looking directly out of the circle on the other side, no matter what their position is in relation to the camera. There's no three person limit that I can see here. Yes, the view of the camera is distorted in relation to each person, but it's distorted back on the other side.
Anyway, if I were doing it, I'd use fisheye lenses to get a 180 degree view on each camera. That gives you 60 degrees of overlap, and the parts in the middle of two cameras where a person could stand will have two cameras looking at him from each side which could then be interpolated by the hardware to produce the correct perspective view on that section on the other side of the connection. So he'd appear to be looking directly out of the circle too.
I wonder what happens though if I have an accident once with my car, and then have it repaired. Is the box reset by the car repairman?
Yep. It's built into (sorta) the airbag system. If the airbags ever pop, and you repair the car, the airbags and the airbag sensors have to be replaced. The module is part of the sensor system and is replaced along with everything else airbag related. It's really a safety thing, in that no part of the airbag system is considered "trustworthy" again after the airbags have fired. Also, if they don't replace the entire airbag system, then they become liable if you get into an accident and your airbags don't fire, sort of thing. So every repair shop replaces the whole nine yards when this sort of thing happens.
Dunno where you got the idea that you can't block these ports.. At your firewall or router, block 135, 137-139, and 445 TCP/UDP incoming. Voila, problem solved.
This will block people from seeing your shares outside the local network as well, but I consider that a bonus. I don't want windows filesharing to work over the internet. Local area network only for that sort of stuff is fine with me.
I LOVE this feature. If it always allows only one piece of artwork, how do you include the back cover and the liner notes, as well as the front cover? dangit
Fine. Then ask the user which piece of artwork it is. The ID3 spec allows for multiple pieces of art, but it has a labeling method too. When I use iTunes, it labels them all as "cover" no matter how many I drop in there. That's super annoying. If you want to support multiple pieces of art, then *support* multiple pieces of art. Right now it supports multiple COVER's only.