Trade dress is similar to a trade mark, protection for trade dress exists to stop the use of iconic images and branding that could create confusion in the market place.
In this case I would say apple may have a right to argue that aqua look alikes may confuse some consumers about the difference between Unix GUIs an OS X, but I would say that there real motive is to try to stop people imitating their style, and is really not about any real fear of market confusion.
I would also say that it is rather petty of them to go after small time themers, that pose no threat to their business.
That is complete nonesense, drug companies do not have to give up their ip rights to help people in need. They only have to help.
It is completely wrong to expect charitable people to line up and pay for all the drugs needed in the third world, and collect all the profit, while they themselves are in the best position to help.
Do charitable people have a resposibility to help, by donating money, suplies etc.? Of course they do! As do the companies who have the drugs in the first place. Someones right to make money is simply not more important then someone else's right to live. Plain and simple, if you can't understand that then I feel sorry for you.
I don't care how they try to justify the case for stoping others from having the medicine they to survive, there is simply no excuse for holding back medical aid to those in desperate need.
It seems to me that the drug companies that are not supplying medications to third world aids victims have forgotten why exactly our society has given them property rights over information: To further the sciences, for the benefit of humanity.
By that defenition nothing is secure. Ease of use and security ARE directly related.
The ability of the admistrator to check the state of his systems, the need for easy, reliable configuration, while balancing the needs of end users are all related to security. If systems are not easy enough to use, than the user is at greater risk due to the probability that he might create security holes by mistake.
There is no such thing as "secure", there is only ever "secure enough".
I sure milatary applications are different, but I doubt that most government agencies have any speacial relationship with MS, In my experience government departments buy and use compters in much the same way any business would.
The point is simple, if the code was lifted, than the code is out there, and the bad guys have it, and the good guys don't. That puts the government, and business that rely on MS code for security are at greater danger than would have been otherwise (not that relying on MS for secutiry was ever a good idea.)
As far as replacing your entire windows network with Linux, I would have to say that unless your workers are willing to learn how to use alot of new applications, I can't recommend it.
As for servers, you could save a pile of cash, and have a much more stable enviroment, by replacing your NT4 servers with Linux. Samba (windows compatible networking), internet connection sharing, Web (apache) and DB (mySQL, or Oracle) servers are all great pluses for Linux. The only sticking pointfor what you have described is reliance on exchange (but HP OpenMail is supposed to be a good drop in replacement for exchange).
If you want source, but also pkgs, use src.rpms
on
RPM Package Manager
·
· Score: 2
Why do so few people use src.rpm?
I love src.rpm packages for simple reasons, they make instalation and removal a cinch, but at the same time they have all the advantages of source.
I can recompile with opt flags, change install paths, apply custom patchs, and build myself a nice reusable rpm file for later use.
For all the people who complain about package systems "robbing me of control" try using src.rpm packages more often, there easy to use, flexable, and give you a nice clean souce tarballs that you can tweak to your hearts content.
MS documentation is almost always useless. One of the main reasons I recommend newbies shell out for a good commercial distribution is for the printed manuals. How is anyone going to read on screen documentation when they are stariing at the aforementioned "blank screen". Linux is a complex system, and to think you can use it without reading anything is stupid. Is this a bad thing? No, even on a Mac you need to get a good book if you want to learn how to use it to the fullest, with Linux you just need to spend some time reading manuals about what daemons are, what different utilities do etc.. earlier on. After that Linux becomes verry painless, and easy to use.
What's the point, Microsoft will just come out with a new version of office or "disservice pack" that would break any appempt at compatability. They've done it before, they'll do int again.
The main problem with emulating directX is that directX is a verry complex set of libraries that communicate directly with drivers and hardware, since linux and windows are verry different OS's you would halt create wrapper libraries for almost every function DirectX provides, that would also come at a major performance cost. Needless to say, getting directx emulation up to snuff is no small feat.
They do require that the application call the render extensions directly, but you can add support to many applications simply by recompling apps using libraries that have support(eg, qt-2.2.3 with patch applied). Anyway the XFree86 project are well on their way to giving us the windowing enviroment that we all want. And shutting up the nay sayers along the way.
Since when? Sure the English language is used for international business, but that's about it. I seriously doubt anyone in a none English country "chooses" English for anything other than dealing with American business people who are to stupid to lean anything else. The French may be deluded about being a superpower, but Americans are under the delusion that the rest of the world actually likes them.
It seems older distributions have trouble booting on the P4. I doubt win2k is really any better optimized for p4, but It seems you will likely have fewer headaches with win2k, than linux on a p4 (for at least a month or two anyway)
The problem is that you have to do all the work of suing and proving they stole your code. If you are up to the task of defending your copyright, than by all means do. But if you don't have the means to pursue a legal action, or you just don't want to do the dirty work, than its better to hand the copyright over to the FSF.
that fits in nicely with the dual-license scheme since you can state in your second license, that you would consider giving permission to any usefull project upon request.
There are a few hole in the "viral GPL" argument. For one if it comes down to software that contains lines from a GPL'd work in software that is licensed differently there are two simple solotions.
1 - ask for an exemption
2 - replace the code
IMHO anyone using code when they don't know where it comes from is begging for trouble anyway (not just licensing, security, quality, and legality may all be affected)
The whole qpl/gpl fiasco was more of a small misunderstanding, and whole lot of grandstanding from where I sit.
In my estimation there are basically 4 license schemes that would fill just about every niche.
1. BSD - license of choice for authors who beleive that anyone should be able to do whatever they want with free software they create.
2. GPL - license for authors who wish to garantee that all dirivative works based on their code also be relesed under the same free software license.
3. LGPL - license for people who wish to allow diferently licensed software to be linked against their code, otherwise similar to GPL
4. GPL/dual-license (e.g. qt, new mozilla license) - software licensed under GPL, but with declared provision for use not normally allowed by the GPL. This scheme works well for authors who wish to support free software, but also want to add flexibitity in licensing, and even a possible profit stream.
I can't posibly think of reason anyone whould want to use a license such as the artistic license, or a custom license, other than to be perverse, and confusing.
If license for code that you wish to combine are not compatible, there is a simple solution. Go ask the authors for an exemption from the license, that's all you have to do. If they give you the exemption, than so much the merrier, if they don't than that's just tough luck. It's no different than doing a license deal in commercial software. I lots of people want everyone to use the same license for simplicity's sake, but you also have to respect the wishes of the author in how the software is used. This is where these moronic license squabels start to piss me off, alot of people seem to act as if a software license is somehow ingraved in stone, or that this is really about some techical legal issue, and not about authors with similar goals failling to cooperate.
So what your saying is that if a company can afford to spy on me wherever I go they should be alowed to? I don't think I'm being overly paranoid here, idustrial espionage, private investigation, and even stalking can be done with kind of equipment, and the government should have the right to at least keep some of it in check.
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Trade dress is similar to a trade mark, protection for trade dress exists to stop the use of iconic images and branding that could create confusion in the market place.
In this case I would say apple may have a right to argue that aqua look alikes may confuse some consumers about the difference between Unix GUIs an OS X, but I would say that there real motive is to try to stop people imitating their style, and is really not about any real fear of market confusion.
I would also say that it is rather petty of them to go after small time themers, that pose no threat to their business.
make sure you have your hostname in /etc/hosts file, without it, kde runs verry slowly (weird prob, but easily fixed)
That is complete nonesense, drug companies do not have to give up their ip rights to help people in need. They only have to help.
It is completely wrong to expect charitable people to line up and pay for all the drugs needed in the third world, and collect all the profit, while they themselves are in the best position to help.
Do charitable people have a resposibility to help, by donating money, suplies etc.? Of course they do! As do the companies who have the drugs in the first place. Someones right to make money is simply not more important then someone else's right to live. Plain and simple, if you can't understand that then I feel sorry for you.
I don't care how they try to justify the case for stoping others from having the medicine they to survive, there is simply no excuse for holding back medical aid to those in desperate need.
It seems to me that the drug companies that are not supplying medications to third world aids victims have forgotten why exactly our society has given them property rights over information: To further the sciences, for the benefit of humanity.
Yes, there is no reason why you can't simply compile it for a i386 on fast machine and install it on the slower one.
I think your missing the point. If there really is all these people waiting to buy some simple IA device, then where are they?
There not buying any of the devices that are already on the market, and I don't see how BeIA is going to change that.
It seems to me that people really want a computer, they just want it to be as easy as possible to use.
All you need is the latest binutils package, and to compile your kernel with backward compatible ipchains, other than that you should have no trouble.
By that defenition nothing is secure. Ease of use and security ARE directly related.
The ability of the admistrator to check the state of his systems, the need for easy, reliable configuration, while balancing the needs of end users are all related to security. If systems are not easy enough to use, than the user is at greater risk due to the probability that he might create security holes by mistake.
There is no such thing as "secure", there is only ever "secure enough".
I sure milatary applications are different, but I doubt that most government agencies have any speacial relationship with MS, In my experience government departments buy and use compters in much the same way any business would.
The point is simple, if the code was lifted, than the code is out there, and the bad guys have it, and the good guys don't. That puts the government, and business that rely on MS code for security are at greater danger than would have been otherwise (not that relying on MS for secutiry was ever a good idea.)
As far as replacing your entire windows network with Linux, I would have to say that unless your workers are willing to learn how to use alot of new applications, I can't recommend it.
As for servers, you could save a pile of cash, and have a much more stable enviroment, by replacing your NT4 servers with Linux. Samba (windows compatible networking), internet connection sharing, Web (apache) and DB (mySQL, or Oracle) servers are all great pluses for Linux. The only sticking pointfor what you have described is reliance on exchange (but HP OpenMail is supposed to be a good drop in replacement for exchange).
Why do so few people use src.rpm?
I love src.rpm packages for simple reasons, they make instalation and removal a cinch, but at the same time they have all the advantages of source.
I can recompile with opt flags, change install paths, apply custom patchs, and build myself a nice reusable rpm file for later use.
For all the people who complain about package systems "robbing me of control" try using src.rpm packages more often, there easy to use, flexable, and give you a nice clean souce tarballs that you can tweak to your hearts content.
MS documentation is almost always useless. One of the main reasons I recommend newbies shell out for a good commercial distribution is for the printed manuals. How is anyone going to read on screen documentation when they are stariing at the aforementioned "blank screen". Linux is a complex system, and to think you can use it without reading anything is stupid. Is this a bad thing? No, even on a Mac you need to get a good book if you want to learn how to use it to the fullest, with Linux you just need to spend some time reading manuals about what daemons are, what different utilities do etc.. earlier on. After that Linux becomes verry painless, and easy to use.
What's the point, Microsoft will just come out with a new version of office or "disservice pack" that would break any appempt at compatability. They've done it before, they'll do int again.
The main problem with emulating directX is that directX is a verry complex set of libraries that communicate directly with drivers and hardware, since linux and windows are verry different OS's you would halt create wrapper libraries for almost every function DirectX provides, that would also come at a major performance cost. Needless to say, getting directx emulation up to snuff is no small feat.
They do require that the application call the render extensions directly, but you can add support to many applications simply by recompling apps using libraries that have support(eg, qt-2.2.3 with patch applied). Anyway the XFree86 project are well on their way to giving us the windowing enviroment that we all want. And shutting up the nay sayers along the way.
Since when? Sure the English language is used for international business, but that's about it. I seriously doubt anyone in a none English country "chooses" English for anything other than dealing with American business people who are to stupid to lean anything else. The French may be deluded about being a superpower, but Americans are under the delusion that the rest of the world actually likes them.
It seems older distributions have trouble booting on the P4. I doubt win2k is really any better optimized for p4, but It seems you will likely have fewer headaches with win2k, than linux on a p4 (for at least a month or two anyway)
That would make no sense to dual license GPL + BSD since the BSD license would defeat the restrictions of the GPL.
If you want a license that is usable by any free software outfit you had better stick with public domain.
I find it extremely unlikely that anyone would have a problem with that (but you never know since there are alot of morons out there)
The problem is that you have to do all the work of suing and proving they stole your code. If you are up to the task of defending your copyright, than by all means do. But if you don't have the means to pursue a legal action, or you just don't want to do the dirty work, than its better to hand the copyright over to the FSF.
that fits in nicely with the dual-license scheme since you can state in your second license, that you would consider giving permission to any usefull project upon request.
you mean these numbers ?2 /l inux_nvidia-05.html
http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/00q4/00100
granted there are few tests where linux fairs poorly compared to win2k, but nowhere near %30.
Also the problem is stated clearly that the biggest difference is page flipping verses block mode, and not a weakness with linux itself.
There are a few hole in the "viral GPL" argument. For one if it comes down to software that contains lines from a GPL'd work in software that is licensed differently there are two simple solotions.
1 - ask for an exemption
2 - replace the code
IMHO anyone using code when they don't know where it comes from is begging for trouble anyway (not just licensing, security, quality, and legality may all be affected)
The whole qpl/gpl fiasco was more of a small misunderstanding, and whole lot of grandstanding from where I sit.
In my estimation there are basically 4 license schemes that would fill just about every niche.
1. BSD - license of choice for authors who beleive that anyone should be able to do whatever they want with free software they create.
2. GPL - license for authors who wish to garantee that all dirivative works based on their code also be relesed under the same free software license.
3. LGPL - license for people who wish to allow diferently licensed software to be linked against their code, otherwise similar to GPL
4. GPL/dual-license (e.g. qt, new mozilla license) - software licensed under GPL, but with declared provision for use not normally allowed by the GPL. This scheme works well for authors who wish to support free software, but also want to add flexibitity in licensing, and even a possible profit stream.
I can't posibly think of reason anyone whould want to use a license such as the artistic license, or a custom license, other than to be perverse, and confusing.
If license for code that you wish to combine are not compatible, there is a simple solution. Go ask the authors for an exemption from the license, that's all you have to do. If they give you the exemption, than so much the merrier, if they don't than that's just tough luck. It's no different than doing a license deal in commercial software. I lots of people want everyone to use the same license for simplicity's sake, but you also have to respect the wishes of the author in how the software is used. This is where these moronic license squabels start to piss me off, alot of people seem to act as if a software license is somehow ingraved in stone, or that this is really about some techical legal issue, and not about authors with similar goals failling to cooperate.
So what your saying is that if a company can afford to spy on me wherever I go they should be alowed to? I don't think I'm being overly paranoid here, idustrial espionage, private investigation, and even stalking can be done with kind of equipment, and the government should have the right to at least keep some of it in check.