This is something that has been fixed in Leopard - it will warn you the first time you launch an app, not download it.
It already DOES that, for applications launched from URIs, and it shouldn't do either.
You see, shortly after they implemented this Microsoftian scheme for the first time, I installed a "GO" screen saver. Unbeknownst to me, one of the options in this screen saver was to allow you to bring up the GO board being displayed and play on it. Unfortunately, the first time I tried it I happened to hit the key that brought up the GO program.
What happened next was obvious in hindsight.
BEHIND the screen saver, invisible and untouchable, it brought up the LaunchServices dialog asing if I really wanted to launch GNU Go. The screensaver froze, waiting for GNU Go to launch, and GNU Go never launched, because GNU Go couldn't run until I approved the dialog, which I couldn't do because it was behind the screensaver.
The thing is, the GO screen saver was already running in native code. The URI was encoded in the screen saver. LaunchServices was protecting me from a program that was already running with full local user permissions. The solution is not to annoy (or completely block) users with dialogs, which only serves to train people to approve dialogs, but to create a distinction between local and remote resources and local and remote handlers for resources.
Apple's been bumbling around trying to make Microsoft's messed up design work for over 3 years now. Microsoft hasn't gotten it working in over 10 years. One definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions when they have proven not to work.
But if the buffer is in a different location every time, there is no way to know ahead of time what value to put into the return address.
Aha, so all the discussion about finding the location of printf() and how much code you could fit into a buffer overflow to locate it was someone trying to very subtly confuse the issue? Or someone even more confused than I, perhaps.
I respectfully disagree. There is nothing wrong in law with being successful enough to establish a monopoly in a formerly competitive market.
That's a straw man.
The issue isn't whether it's illegal to be a monopoly.
The issue is that once you are a monopoly then there are restrictions on your behavior. There are a number of activities that are legal in a competitive market but are illegal for a monopoly. You may argue whether leveraging a monopoly in one area into a monopoly in another SHOULD be illegal, or even whether the law SHOULD hold a monopoly to a higher standard at all, but you need to argue that with the courts and the legislature, not me.
Greenpeace is a not-for-profit. That's not my opinion, that's a legal fact.
Where did I say that Greenpeace was not a not-for-profit?
I said that Greenpeace was operating as a marketing machine, and that they were not acting impartially nor applying their resources effectively. None of these have anything to do with what their goals are, whether their goals are laudable, or how they are funded.
Apple is never a disinterested party: their goal and their legal obligation is to improve their bottom line, nothing else.
If two actions both serve those goals, and they advocate one of those over another, then there is no reason to presume bias in that advocacy. If an action does not have anything to do with those goals, then there is no reason to presume bias.
But in any case, even if you decide not to believe that these circumstances could exist, I didn't say they should be given a "pass" even in that situation. I'm actually granting Greenpeace MORE leeway.
My point is not that Apple is "better" or that Greenpeace is "worse", it is that when they are seen to be behaving in the same way, and Apple gets taken to task for it, why should Greenpeace be given a pass when they are not only seen to be acting inconsistently with their declared goals but have admitted to it?
Look, the original argument was that Apple wasn't being expected to hold to the same standard as Greenpeace. My point is... they are: Jobs does get hit with brickbats in the press on a regular basis, but this time it's Greenpeace that's claiming to be exposing bad practices while they're actually ignoring the real bad players (who continue to operate in the darkness) in favor of attacking a high profile target that's already been responsive to them.
They're crying wolf at Apple, ignoring the real wolves, and telling everyone that there's no point in actually responding to Greenpeace because Greenpeace doesn't care what you actually do... they only care how much PR they can get out of you.
Application signing, warning dialogs for downloaded files, and the like... these have been Microsoft's first line of defense against cross-zone exploits for a decade now and they have systematically failed. Now Microsoft is using Sandboxing, and that will also fail.
I wish that Apple would decide to photocopy good ideas from Microsoft rather than bad ones. The single set of application bindings for helper applications and URL handlers? That comes from Windows. The idea of giving users the opportunity to open potentially hostile files directly from mail and browser software? That comes from Windows. Open Safe Files? That comes from Windows. Popping up dialogs before automatically doing stupid things, instead of not automatically doing stupid things? That comes from Windows.
The last straw for me was when Safari on OSX warned me that I was downloading an EXE file because it's executable. Not that I was running it. Just that I was downloading it. Holy Mother of Turing!
*sigh*
At least they don't have anything like ActiveX yet.
What's to keep the virus from just using the underlying trap instruction for its system calls? This is a UNIX system, friends, you don't need to call printf(), you can call write().
I see a whole new class of innovation-crushing patents coming up.
I think it's past time that ATI or nVidia came up with a new name for their stream coprocessors than GPU, something that makes them sounds like the computation engines they are instead of some kind of jumped up blitter.
USB-PS/2 adapter and PS/2-AT adapter and I can still use my favorite AT keyboard on my Mac mini until it wears out.
The biggest problem with the Mac mini hardware-wise is the lack of a video card slot and the over-aggressive styling that required them to compromise on power for the sake of cooling.
For SCSI, there's things like this. Unfortunately you'd still need to boot to something other than OS X because Apple doesn't provide a UNIX tape device... there's no/dev/rmt0 or equivalent. Even on the server version.
So I stick with Mac on the desktop and FreeBSD in the server.
The original Mac mini was basically a repackaged iBook, and the current one is basically a Macbook.
The thing is, laptops have even more upgrade and repair compatibility problems than SFF PCs, and laptops (and the Mac mini) make a lot more compromises on power than a SFF PC really needs to.
"After they get exposure to the reactor and the facilities online at their own universities, many of them become excited"
What's the emission spectrum of an excited undergrad? Are they bosons or leptons? Can you maintain a population of excited candidates and trigger coherent emissions? My god, think of the possibilities. What should we call it? Grant Amplification by Stimulated Publication of... damn it, we need a catchy acronym...
They haven't been able to synchronize the phase harmonics of the polaron emitter with the subspace transients, because they mixed up a C++ template definition in the J++/Perl# interface to the holodeck safety protocols trying to document the current TSA handbook for compatibility with NAFTA copyright laws. If only they'd written it in Lisp!
Why should we let Apple get away with only creating positive images for marketing purposes?
When Apple claims to be a disinterested party they get hammered, even in supposedly pro-Apple forums as this, even on such occasions when they actually have a track record to support their claim. Because we know they're just another company (yes, really, they are).
So turn it around.
Why should we let Greenpeace get away with pretending to be unbiased? If they're going to act like just another marketing machine, then they shoud be treated like one.
Here you acknowledge that the consumer has paid only for the download, not for any additional copying.
No, I acknowledge no such thing.
The consumer has paid for the download AND for any copies that are required for them to listen to that download and othewise treat it like they treat the CD they bought, because these copies are required by the medium.
The contrary view would be that it is actually *illegal* to listen to iTunes music on your iPod. This is of course insane.
And so, the rights you are paying for when you buy music from the iTunes music store includes: playing the music on up to 5 devices at a time, burning an audio playlist up to 7 times, with no limit to the number o playlists any track may be in, and to make these copies solely for personal and non-commercial use. No, those are not copies licensed by the Canadian government, those are copies licensed by Apple acting as the legal agent of the copyright holder, with their approval.
Don't take my word for it. Read The License Agreement.
EVERY legal music service has similar terms. The license you agree to when you open an account or download that music EXPLICITLY grants the rights to make these copies in exchange for the money you pay... every single copy you make subject to these limits is paid for, in full, by that payment.
I'm not defending it, just explaining it.
And I'm attacking it. Your explanation may be their official position, but that doesn't mean it's not completely wrong.
Yes, I understand that the industry has completely lost touch wit the principles under which they operate. Canada is no exception. But they HAVE lost touch with those principles.
That's the *point* that I'm making here. There's nothing wrong with *my* logic.
Whatever the reason, they feel they are protecting their bread and butter, which is entirely within their right.
Indeed, they have a right to feel that way. They do not have unrestricted rights to follow through on those feelings, nor are those feelings accurate, but they are allowed to feel that way.
In a competitive market, where one company was not able to create barriers to entry for new products and companies by keeping the details of how their products communicate (remember, that's all we're talking about here) they would not be able to do that. But because they are a monopoly, there are restrictions on how much they are able to use their monopoly to create that kind of barrier to entry.
The reasons for these kinds of restrictions I am not going to debate. I am sure you can come up with all kinds of analogies that make it sound like they're being treated unfairly, but they are being treated the same way that other companies that have attempted to abuse a monopoly position, from US Steel onwards.
Speaking of US Steel, I'd like to note that after the company was broken the individual companies very quickly became worth MUCH more than US Steel had before the breakup. This is almost always what results after a monopoly is broken up, because monopolies are inefficient and expensive to operate. Like, as you may have noticed, Microsoft is quickly becoming. So not only do they not have unrestricted rights to act on their beliefs, but their beliefs (that the details of how their products *communicate* are their bread and butter... this is akin to Sony being scared that someone will figure out how the signals from their VCRs to their TVs work) are not in fact even grounded in reality.
Nobody cares about their 7 herbs and spices. They are fighting for the right to sell their own fried chicken, hamburgers, and pizza in a world dominated by a fried chicken franchise that somehow has a monopoly in drive-up-window technology.
the principle is to compensate the industry for the legal right of users in Canada to copy material for their own use.
That compensation has already been made! When you paid for the legal download from the copyright owner or from an agent authorized by the copyright owner to distribute it, you compensated the copyright owner for the copies that you will make of that music as a necessary part of enjoying the music that yu purchased. They're inherent in the medium, they're not extra copies that the Canadian government grants you as a right in exchange for a medium fee.
It helps to remember that all regulatory decisions are based on an application of principle.
It helps to remember that just because two situations are superficially similar that doesn't mean the same principles apply to both.
How can we hold someone to what they printed when it can be instantly redacted, is there going to be a way we can tag/sign/verify a story so we know it's real and will stay around?
Yeh, make copies, document where they came from, keep them intact and give copies of the document and your version of the chain of evidence to people you trust.
Do this for EVERYTHING you find online that you believe is valuable, whether it's news or a piece of software or a video or a comment in a newsgroup or other forum. Because there's no other way to keep digital data alive other than having many redundant copies and copying them forward.
The court agrees that he was held in error, because a radio that he didn't own was allegedly found in his room (though there's now two separate stories about how it's connected to him), after the person who actually did own the radio asked for it back.
Whether the details of how he was coerced to confessing were included or not, the court and the FBI both agree that he was forced to confess under extreme duress. Where are you getting this "underlying story" stuff from?
If Moller can't do free flight tests of a device with 4 partially redundant engines in the US, and this guy can fly his single-engine car-engine-powered "helicopter" without a problem in Nigeria, it sounds like Moller's doing his development in the wrong country.
15' is enough to do useful things you couldn't do with a hovercraft.
If it's a ground effect vehicle, it's a hovercraft, whether it looks like one or not. Ground effect isn't restricted to craft that have a mechanical wall around their air cushion, and it operates to quite a high altitude... there's a good argument that the Wright Brothers' "flier" and a lot of the other early airplanes were actually operating on ground effect and not free-flight lift.
I'd like to know how he arrived at 15' as a service ceiling. How would the aircraft know the difference between 15' on one day and 30' on day with higher air pressure?
That's the most likely reason to treat it as a hovercraft, not a helicopter, and operating on ground effect. That is, the 15' service ceiling would be the limit to how high it actually can get above the ground.
So if the replies I'm getting are anything to go by, it sounds like a lot of work would be required for your average OSS project to comply with this ruling. If it's unfair to expect it of them, why is it fair to expect it of a business?
Any Open Systems project complies with it, whether they're open source or not. That's what Open Systems is all about.
As you say, many Open Source projects are not Open Systems projects... and I'm first in line to admonish an Open Source project when they use proprietary interfaces and extensions to hurt their competitors. GCC in the early '90s was horribly bad about this, and they did manage to effectively kill the other open source C compiler projects by encouraging people to use extensions to C. Microsoft has recently been pulling the same tricks by not accepting legal C header files on the grounds that they're shipping a C++ compiler, not a C compiler. In neither case is it acceptable.
But unless you're in a monopoly position within a field, like Microsoft or GCC, you can't get away with that. Even Open Source projects that use proprietary internal interfaces and protocols have to interoperate with other systems, and use the *same* protocols on the network and in exported files that these other systems do. When they don't, they DO need to be challenged and forced to cooperate. The process is generally not nearly as arduous as it is with Microsoft.
But you're right, everyone should be held accountable for their shortcomings when it comes to deviating from Open Systems standards, or using proprietary protocols instead of public ones.
The thing is, if they are a monopoly, and able to use their proprietary exceptions to create a barrier to entry for competitors (as well as groups who aren't in any sense competing with you) then they get held to a higher standard. You're correct to point that out. But where you're mistaken is your apparent belief that this is a problem. It's not. It's the whole point of antitrust law in the first place. For smaller players the main effect of using proprietary interfaces is to reduce their own competitiveness. It's only when they ARE a monopoly that the lock-in becomes more valuable than the lock-out.
He's not saying that "Microsoft should open the code".
He's saying that "Microsoft should document the interface, since open source provides the code".
He's not saying "Microsoft should go the whole mile".
He's saying "FOSS goes a mile, so Microsoft should at least have to go a yard".
So when you write "You can't use a requirement that a monopoly allow interoperability as an excuse to get access to all their source code and trade secrets." you're completely misinterpreting the message you're replying to.
First, open source software developers will be able to access and use the interoperability information. Microsoft will not assert patents against non-commercial open source software development projects.
The opposite of "open source" is not "non-commercial". There are commercial open-source prjects, and non-commercial closed-source projects. It is absolutely vital that these interfaces be as unencumbered as genuinely open-systems protocols are.
Second, the royalties payable for this information will be reduced to a nominal one-off payment of 10,000 euros.
US$14,000 is not "nominal".
Third, the royalties for a worldwide license including patents will be reduced from 5.95 percent to 0.4 percent, far less than the 7 percent originally demanded by Microsoft.
Getting a European court to acknowledge the validity of their software patents at all is a major win for Microsoft.
And the way they did this means that there's not a hope of an avenue to try and appeal this appalling result. Microsoft has completely won this round in their ongoing battle against open systems and open source.
If this is Microsoft "bowing", they're facing away from the bench when they do it, and mooning the EU.
Slashdot Mirror
This is something that has been fixed in Leopard - it will warn you the first time you launch an app, not download it.
It already DOES that, for applications launched from URIs, and it shouldn't do either.
You see, shortly after they implemented this Microsoftian scheme for the first time, I installed a "GO" screen saver. Unbeknownst to me, one of the options in this screen saver was to allow you to bring up the GO board being displayed and play on it. Unfortunately, the first time I tried it I happened to hit the key that brought up the GO program.
What happened next was obvious in hindsight.
BEHIND the screen saver, invisible and untouchable, it brought up the LaunchServices dialog asing if I really wanted to launch GNU Go. The screensaver froze, waiting for GNU Go to launch, and GNU Go never launched, because GNU Go couldn't run until I approved the dialog, which I couldn't do because it was behind the screensaver.
The thing is, the GO screen saver was already running in native code. The URI was encoded in the screen saver. LaunchServices was protecting me from a program that was already running with full local user permissions. The solution is not to annoy (or completely block) users with dialogs, which only serves to train people to approve dialogs, but to create a distinction between local and remote resources and local and remote handlers for resources.
http://www.scarydevil.com/~peter/io/osx-security.html and following pages go into more detail.
Apple's been bumbling around trying to make Microsoft's messed up design work for over 3 years now. Microsoft hasn't gotten it working in over 10 years. One definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions when they have proven not to work.
But if the buffer is in a different location every time, there is no way to know ahead of time what value to put into the return address.
Aha, so all the discussion about finding the location of printf() and how much code you could fit into a buffer overflow to locate it was someone trying to very subtly confuse the issue? Or someone even more confused than I, perhaps.
I respectfully disagree. There is nothing wrong in law with being successful enough to establish a monopoly in a formerly competitive market.
That's a straw man.
The issue isn't whether it's illegal to be a monopoly.
The issue is that once you are a monopoly then there are restrictions on your behavior. There are a number of activities that are legal in a competitive market but are illegal for a monopoly. You may argue whether leveraging a monopoly in one area into a monopoly in another SHOULD be illegal, or even whether the law SHOULD hold a monopoly to a higher standard at all, but you need to argue that with the courts and the legislature, not me.
Greenpeace is a not-for-profit. That's not my opinion, that's a legal fact.
Where did I say that Greenpeace was not a not-for-profit?
I said that Greenpeace was operating as a marketing machine, and that they were not acting impartially nor applying their resources effectively. None of these have anything to do with what their goals are, whether their goals are laudable, or how they are funded.
Apple is never a disinterested party: their goal and their legal obligation is to improve their bottom line, nothing else.
If two actions both serve those goals, and they advocate one of those over another, then there is no reason to presume bias in that advocacy. If an action does not have anything to do with those goals, then there is no reason to presume bias.
But in any case, even if you decide not to believe that these circumstances could exist, I didn't say they should be given a "pass" even in that situation. I'm actually granting Greenpeace MORE leeway.
My point is not that Apple is "better" or that Greenpeace is "worse", it is that when they are seen to be behaving in the same way, and Apple gets taken to task for it, why should Greenpeace be given a pass when they are not only seen to be acting inconsistently with their declared goals but have admitted to it?
Look, the original argument was that Apple wasn't being expected to hold to the same standard as Greenpeace. My point is... they are: Jobs does get hit with brickbats in the press on a regular basis, but this time it's Greenpeace that's claiming to be exposing bad practices while they're actually ignoring the real bad players (who continue to operate in the darkness) in favor of attacking a high profile target that's already been responsive to them.
They're crying wolf at Apple, ignoring the real wolves, and telling everyone that there's no point in actually responding to Greenpeace because Greenpeace doesn't care what you actually do... they only care how much PR they can get out of you.
Application signing, warning dialogs for downloaded files, and the like... these have been Microsoft's first line of defense against cross-zone exploits for a decade now and they have systematically failed. Now Microsoft is using Sandboxing, and that will also fail.
I wish that Apple would decide to photocopy good ideas from Microsoft rather than bad ones. The single set of application bindings for helper applications and URL handlers? That comes from Windows. The idea of giving users the opportunity to open potentially hostile files directly from mail and browser software? That comes from Windows. Open Safe Files? That comes from Windows. Popping up dialogs before automatically doing stupid things, instead of not automatically doing stupid things? That comes from Windows.
The last straw for me was when Safari on OSX warned me that I was downloading an EXE file because it's executable. Not that I was running it. Just that I was downloading it. Holy Mother of Turing!
*sigh*
At least they don't have anything like ActiveX yet.
What's to keep the virus from just using the underlying trap instruction for its system calls? This is a UNIX system, friends, you don't need to call printf(), you can call write().
Oh Christ.
I see a whole new class of innovation-crushing patents coming up.
I think it's past time that ATI or nVidia came up with a new name for their stream coprocessors than GPU, something that makes them sounds like the computation engines they are instead of some kind of jumped up blitter.
USB-PS/2 adapter and PS/2-AT adapter and I can still use my favorite AT keyboard on my Mac mini until it wears out.
/dev/rmt0 or equivalent. Even on the server version.
The biggest problem with the Mac mini hardware-wise is the lack of a video card slot and the over-aggressive styling that required them to compromise on power for the sake of cooling.
For SCSI, there's things like this. Unfortunately you'd still need to boot to something other than OS X because Apple doesn't provide a UNIX tape device... there's no
So I stick with Mac on the desktop and FreeBSD in the server.
The original Mac mini was basically a repackaged iBook, and the current one is basically a Macbook.
The thing is, laptops have even more upgrade and repair compatibility problems than SFF PCs, and laptops (and the Mac mini) make a lot more compromises on power than a SFF PC really needs to.
They're more than 100,000 times as "ultra" as "ultra-violet".
FPA "ultra-violent".
"There was me, Hawari, and my droogs, and we sat in the SLAC lunchroom trying to make up our razudoks about what to do about the evening..."
"After they get exposure to the reactor and the facilities online at their own universities, many of them become excited"
... damn it, we need a catchy acronym...
What's the emission spectrum of an excited undergrad? Are they bosons or leptons? Can you maintain a population of excited candidates and trigger coherent emissions? My god, think of the possibilities. What should we call it? Grant Amplification by Stimulated Publication of
They haven't been able to synchronize the phase harmonics of the polaron emitter with the subspace transients, because they mixed up a C++ template definition in the J++/Perl# interface to the holodeck safety protocols trying to document the current TSA handbook for compatibility with NAFTA copyright laws. If only they'd written it in Lisp!
What happens if you make a CRT that uses positrons instead of electrons.
It'll be REALLY bright. Just not for very long.
Why should we let Apple get away with only creating positive images for marketing purposes?
When Apple claims to be a disinterested party they get hammered, even in supposedly pro-Apple forums as this, even on such occasions when they actually have a track record to support their claim. Because we know they're just another company (yes, really, they are).
So turn it around.
Why should we let Greenpeace get away with pretending to be unbiased? If they're going to act like just another marketing machine, then they shoud be treated like one.
Here you acknowledge that the consumer has paid only for the download, not for any additional copying.
No, I acknowledge no such thing.
The consumer has paid for the download AND for any copies that are required for them to listen to that download and othewise treat it like they treat the CD they bought, because these copies are required by the medium.
The contrary view would be that it is actually *illegal* to listen to iTunes music on your iPod. This is of course insane.
And so, the rights you are paying for when you buy music from the iTunes music store includes: playing the music on up to 5 devices at a time, burning an audio playlist up to 7 times, with no limit to the number o playlists any track may be in, and to make these copies solely for personal and non-commercial use. No, those are not copies licensed by the Canadian government, those are copies licensed by Apple acting as the legal agent of the copyright holder, with their approval.
Don't take my word for it. Read The License Agreement.
EVERY legal music service has similar terms. The license you agree to when you open an account or download that music EXPLICITLY grants the rights to make these copies in exchange for the money you pay... every single copy you make subject to these limits is paid for, in full, by that payment.
I'm not defending it, just explaining it.
And I'm attacking it. Your explanation may be their official position, but that doesn't mean it's not completely wrong.
Yes, I understand that the industry has completely lost touch wit the principles under which they operate. Canada is no exception. But they HAVE lost touch with those principles.
That's the *point* that I'm making here. There's nothing wrong with *my* logic.
Whatever the reason, they feel they are protecting their bread and butter, which is entirely within their right.
Indeed, they have a right to feel that way. They do not have unrestricted rights to follow through on those feelings, nor are those feelings accurate, but they are allowed to feel that way.
In a competitive market, where one company was not able to create barriers to entry for new products and companies by keeping the details of how their products communicate (remember, that's all we're talking about here) they would not be able to do that. But because they are a monopoly, there are restrictions on how much they are able to use their monopoly to create that kind of barrier to entry.
The reasons for these kinds of restrictions I am not going to debate. I am sure you can come up with all kinds of analogies that make it sound like they're being treated unfairly, but they are being treated the same way that other companies that have attempted to abuse a monopoly position, from US Steel onwards.
Speaking of US Steel, I'd like to note that after the company was broken the individual companies very quickly became worth MUCH more than US Steel had before the breakup. This is almost always what results after a monopoly is broken up, because monopolies are inefficient and expensive to operate. Like, as you may have noticed, Microsoft is quickly becoming. So not only do they not have unrestricted rights to act on their beliefs, but their beliefs (that the details of how their products *communicate* are their bread and butter... this is akin to Sony being scared that someone will figure out how the signals from their VCRs to their TVs work) are not in fact even grounded in reality.
Nobody cares about their 7 herbs and spices. They are fighting for the right to sell their own fried chicken, hamburgers, and pizza in a world dominated by a fried chicken franchise that somehow has a monopoly in drive-up-window technology.
the principle is to compensate the industry for the legal right of users in Canada to copy material for their own use.
That compensation has already been made! When you paid for the legal download from the copyright owner or from an agent authorized by the copyright owner to distribute it, you compensated the copyright owner for the copies that you will make of that music as a necessary part of enjoying the music that yu purchased. They're inherent in the medium, they're not extra copies that the Canadian government grants you as a right in exchange for a medium fee.
It helps to remember that all regulatory decisions are based on an application of principle.
It helps to remember that just because two situations are superficially similar that doesn't mean the same principles apply to both.
How can we hold someone to what they printed when it can be instantly redacted, is there going to be a way we can tag/sign/verify a story so we know it's real and will stay around?
Yeh, make copies, document where they came from, keep them intact and give copies of the document and your version of the chain of evidence to people you trust.
Do this for EVERYTHING you find online that you believe is valuable, whether it's news or a piece of software or a video or a comment in a newsgroup or other forum. Because there's no other way to keep digital data alive other than having many redundant copies and copying them forward.
What the hell are you talking about?
What "20 people he tried to kill"?
The court agrees that he was held in error, because a radio that he didn't own was allegedly found in his room (though there's now two separate stories about how it's connected to him), after the person who actually did own the radio asked for it back.
Whether the details of how he was coerced to confessing were included or not, the court and the FBI both agree that he was forced to confess under extreme duress. Where are you getting this "underlying story" stuff from?
If Moller can't do free flight tests of a device with 4 partially redundant engines in the US, and this guy can fly his single-engine car-engine-powered "helicopter" without a problem in Nigeria, it sounds like Moller's doing his development in the wrong country.
15' is enough to do useful things you couldn't do with a hovercraft.
If it's a ground effect vehicle, it's a hovercraft, whether it looks like one or not. Ground effect isn't restricted to craft that have a mechanical wall around their air cushion, and it operates to quite a high altitude... there's a good argument that the Wright Brothers' "flier" and a lot of the other early airplanes were actually operating on ground effect and not free-flight lift.
I'd like to know how he arrived at 15' as a service ceiling. How would the aircraft know the difference between 15' on one day and 30' on day with higher air pressure?
That's the most likely reason to treat it as a hovercraft, not a helicopter, and operating on ground effect. That is, the 15' service ceiling would be the limit to how high it actually can get above the ground.
So if the replies I'm getting are anything to go by, it sounds like a lot of work would be required for your average OSS project to comply with this ruling. If it's unfair to expect it of them, why is it fair to expect it of a business?
Any Open Systems project complies with it, whether they're open source or not. That's what Open Systems is all about.
As you say, many Open Source projects are not Open Systems projects... and I'm first in line to admonish an Open Source project when they use proprietary interfaces and extensions to hurt their competitors. GCC in the early '90s was horribly bad about this, and they did manage to effectively kill the other open source C compiler projects by encouraging people to use extensions to C. Microsoft has recently been pulling the same tricks by not accepting legal C header files on the grounds that they're shipping a C++ compiler, not a C compiler. In neither case is it acceptable.
But unless you're in a monopoly position within a field, like Microsoft or GCC, you can't get away with that. Even Open Source projects that use proprietary internal interfaces and protocols have to interoperate with other systems, and use the *same* protocols on the network and in exported files that these other systems do. When they don't, they DO need to be challenged and forced to cooperate. The process is generally not nearly as arduous as it is with Microsoft.
But you're right, everyone should be held accountable for their shortcomings when it comes to deviating from Open Systems standards, or using proprietary protocols instead of public ones.
The thing is, if they are a monopoly, and able to use their proprietary exceptions to create a barrier to entry for competitors (as well as groups who aren't in any sense competing with you) then they get held to a higher standard. You're correct to point that out. But where you're mistaken is your apparent belief that this is a problem. It's not. It's the whole point of antitrust law in the first place. For smaller players the main effect of using proprietary interfaces is to reduce their own competitiveness. It's only when they ARE a monopoly that the lock-in becomes more valuable than the lock-out.
He's not saying that "Microsoft should open the code".
He's saying that "Microsoft should document the interface, since open source provides the code".
He's not saying "Microsoft should go the whole mile".
He's saying "FOSS goes a mile, so Microsoft should at least have to go a yard".
So when you write "You can't use a requirement that a monopoly allow interoperability as an excuse to get access to all their source code and trade secrets." you're completely misinterpreting the message you're replying to.
This agreement, if accurately reported, is a total win for Microsoft.
First, open source software developers will be able to access and use the interoperability information. Microsoft will not assert patents against non-commercial open source software development projects.
The opposite of "open source" is not "non-commercial". There are commercial open-source prjects, and non-commercial closed-source projects. It is absolutely vital that these interfaces be as unencumbered as genuinely open-systems protocols are.
Second, the royalties payable for this information will be reduced to a nominal one-off payment of 10,000 euros.
US$14,000 is not "nominal".
Third, the royalties for a worldwide license including patents will be reduced from 5.95 percent to 0.4 percent, far less than the 7 percent originally demanded by Microsoft.
Getting a European court to acknowledge the validity of their software patents at all is a major win for Microsoft.
And the way they did this means that there's not a hope of an avenue to try and appeal this appalling result. Microsoft has completely won this round in their ongoing battle against open systems and open source.
If this is Microsoft "bowing", they're facing away from the bench when they do it, and mooning the EU.