Well, the unauthorized user has to somehow acquire the information before they can use it in a way you don't like.
Let's assume that this information exists only in your friend's head, your head, and personal property of you and your friend. We'll further assume that you don't voluntarily offer this information to the unauthorized user.
There are only two ways the unauthorized user can acquire this information. One is by stealing the physical property which contains it. This is (obviously) prohibited by existing laws; it is not necessary to do the $1K deal with your friend to protect your property!
The second is if your friend voluntarily offers this information to the unauthorized user. Your plan doesn't prevent that at all, so you have no legal grounds for going after the unauthorized user.
What you could do to protect the information is to have everyone you give it to (your friend in this case) sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then you could sue your friend if he or she gives the information to an unauthorized user, but you'd still have nothing against the unauthorized users themselves.
In any case, the thousand-dollar trade doesn't gain you anything.
There are really two options, either RMS is right and there's nothing we can do about it, eventually copyrights will go away; or RMS is wrong and there's nothing we can do about it, copyrights are here to stay)
I can certainly agree with the observation that RMS is either right or wrong, but what makes you think that there is nothing we can do about it?
Linus, Alan Cox, and countless other developers are doing productive work to give us better software. Who's making the bigger contribution to Open Source/Free Software?
I hope you're not claiming that RMS hasn't produced useful software! I've found GNU tools (and especially Emacs) to be far more generally useful to me than Linux the kernel.
Just in case anyone is still reading this thread... (sorry, my home computer is broken)
Sort of. They could be said read streams of events, and they write drawing requests. But this level of interaction is basically useless for most scripting purposes (though there are a few where it's useful). Just to be clear, the events they read are like "this keycode was pressed; the mouse button was pushed down at coordinate x,y; the cursor entered your window". The drawing requests are like "draw a line from x1,y1 to x2,y2". Also, the event streams are targeted at windows, not programs (where windows include both top-level windows and inidividual widgets). Piping these together would be basically useless except for things like UI testing.
If you want to talk about high-level events, that's where CORBA comes in.
For one, the message you were responding to never said that emacs was good for everyone and everything. It just said that it wasn't bloated. Perhaps it's hard to use, and perhaps you don't like its extension language, but that doesn't have anything to do with it being bloated.
Two, not being a programmer, I'm not surprised that you don't like emacs. I am a professional programmer and it makes my life a hell of a lot easier. I won't get into the details, but it really saves a lot of effort. To be fair, a lot of programmers don't like it either, which is fine for them.
Three, I agree that having to know lisp to configure it is a pain, but this is no longer the case. There's now a pseudo-graphical configuration mode which requires little to no lisp. I still wouldn't consider it a walk in the park, but it is easier than it used to be.
Finally, have you ever used Gnus (the news reader)? It's far from bad. I wouldn't call VM bad either, but it's not outstanding.
That all said, I agree that emacs is a bit archaic. And it would be better if it were modularized somewhat. As much as I love Gnus, it could do to have a real GUI and some machine-native code to speed it up.
And I'm not sure that all US students do learn LISP. I did do work with AI (in college) so I did, but I can't speak for everyone else. Perhaps they should teach LISP or some kind of functional programming language to all students, though, just because it's good to be able to think in that paradigm.
Corba is not solution either becouse it lacks something as simple as shell concept "let other program read output of this program" Lets think about it and we surely find a solution.
Well, CORBA works on the level of objects and methods, not programs. It does have the concept of methods returning values.
But the point of the UNIX shell was that programs read and wrote streams of data, which isn't really the case in graphical applications. The closest analogue would be to have one program's window contained in another's, which X of course supports (usually called "swallowing" a window in another). CORBA can be used to negotiate this. This is how BABOON and OpenParts work, AFAIK.
They also used to carry David Bowie (who I believe is now on Virgin). And Richie Havens. I can be pretty sure that any CD with an emerald case is probably great!
Not a great example -- GUIs and CLUIs aren't equivalent except for aesthetics. They are really totally different forms of interaction, with different tradeoffs.
But the general point is basically true. There is evidence that people's perception of the usability of a computer system is biased by its aesthetic appeal (relative to their actual productivity).
Interestingly, I've always thought that the nicest looking cases are on the machines where form matters least and function most. The best cases are on high-end workstations and servers (SGI, Sun) because the case is such a small fraction of the cost. People won't want a $200 case on a $900 PC, but if you're already paying $10K plus...
I hate to say it, but this is not specific to Toshiba, Microsoft, or the computing industry. You don't usually buy everything in parts, and if you want to buy an preassembled product, you have to take everything that comes with it -- no refunds.
Can I buy a car without a radio? Maybe, but probably not easily. I sure as hell can't buy any car I want and tell them to refund me for the radio. Or buy a TV and return the remote control? Or buy a portable CD player and return the headphones?
To restate: if you're paying, why not pay open source developers instead of developers who only give you limited rights to use what you're paying for?
Quake-a-holics, please form a line to the left...
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The company I work at used to have an official quake server for employees. "Used to" being the key phrase. (Unfortunately this was before I got here.)
Now, there is a mistake!
It's coming out for BeOS...
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Hmmm. BeOS is really nothing like Linux/X (in terms of the API), so there's no particular technical reason why it would be natural to port it. But it's reassuring that they pay attention to alternate OSes, so perhaps they could be convinced.
In fact, they used to be very Mac-oriented, and for a long time their games would come out for the Mac first, with the DOS/Windows version following by a few months if it ever got ported at all.
There isn't really a standard 'source code' format for music, so it would be difficult to release music as open source.
At the risk of nitpicking, there really are ways to release music essentially as open source. You're right about no standard format, but there are many useful formats to release music in for editing purposes. For example: sheet music, unmixed audio tracks, MIDI files, unfiltered samples, synthesizer sound patches, etc. I imagine "open source" music being this sort of raw, uncomposed data which is much more remix-friendly (remixing being the only analogue to source patching that I can imagine).
For that matter, there's no "standard format" for computer source, either. I have source code in C, C++, perl, Python, Java, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
How will this be more successful than Monolith, in terms of being able to support the services financially?
I'm not trying to criticize -- this is a serious question.
Well, the unauthorized user has to somehow acquire the information before they can use it in a way you don't like.
Let's assume that this information exists only in your friend's head, your head, and personal property of you and your friend. We'll further assume that you don't voluntarily offer this information to the unauthorized user.
There are only two ways the unauthorized user can acquire this information. One is by stealing the physical property which contains it. This is (obviously) prohibited by existing laws; it is not necessary to do the $1K deal with your friend to protect your property!
The second is if your friend voluntarily offers this information to the unauthorized user. Your plan doesn't prevent that at all, so you have no legal grounds for going after the unauthorized user.
What you could do to protect the information is to have everyone you give it to (your friend in this case) sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then you could sue your friend if he or she gives the information to an unauthorized user, but you'd still have nothing against the unauthorized users themselves.
In any case, the thousand-dollar trade doesn't gain you anything.
Only if the information provider specifically prohibits this sort of thing in their terms of use.
I can certainly agree with the observation that RMS is either right or wrong, but what makes you think that there is nothing we can do about it?
I hope you're not claiming that RMS hasn't produced useful software! I've found GNU tools (and especially Emacs) to be far more generally useful to me than Linux the kernel.
Just in case anyone is still reading this thread... (sorry, my home computer is broken)
Sort of. They could be said read streams of events, and they write drawing requests. But this level of interaction is basically useless for most scripting purposes (though there are a few where it's useful). Just to be clear, the events they read are like "this keycode was pressed; the mouse button was pushed down at coordinate x,y; the cursor entered your window". The drawing requests are like "draw a line from x1,y1 to x2,y2". Also, the event streams are targeted at windows, not programs (where windows include both top-level windows and inidividual widgets). Piping these together would be basically useless except for things like UI testing.
If you want to talk about high-level events, that's where CORBA comes in.
For one, the message you were responding to never said that emacs was good for everyone and everything. It just said that it wasn't bloated. Perhaps it's hard to use, and perhaps you don't like its extension language, but that doesn't have anything to do with it being bloated.
Two, not being a programmer, I'm not surprised that you don't like emacs. I am a professional programmer and it makes my life a hell of a lot easier. I won't get into the details, but it really saves a lot of effort. To be fair, a lot of programmers don't like it either, which is fine for them.
Three, I agree that having to know lisp to configure it is a pain, but this is no longer the case. There's now a pseudo-graphical configuration mode which requires little to no lisp. I still wouldn't consider it a walk in the park, but it is easier than it used to be.
Finally, have you ever used Gnus (the news reader)? It's far from bad. I wouldn't call VM bad either, but it's not outstanding.
That all said, I agree that emacs is a bit archaic. And it would be better if it were modularized somewhat. As much as I love Gnus, it could do to have a real GUI and some machine-native code to speed it up.
And I'm not sure that all US students do learn LISP. I did do work with AI (in college) so I did, but I can't speak for everyone else. Perhaps they should teach LISP or some kind of functional programming language to all students, though, just because it's good to be able to think in that paradigm.
Well, CORBA works on the level of objects and methods, not programs. It does have the concept of methods returning values.
But the point of the UNIX shell was that programs read and wrote streams of data, which isn't really the case in graphical applications. The closest analogue would be to have one program's window contained in another's, which X of course supports (usually called "swallowing" a window in another). CORBA can be used to negotiate this. This is how BABOON and OpenParts work, AFAIK.
They also used to carry David Bowie (who I believe is now on Virgin). And Richie Havens. I can be pretty sure that any CD with an emerald case is probably great!
Not a great example -- GUIs and CLUIs aren't equivalent except for aesthetics. They are really totally different forms of interaction, with different tradeoffs.
But the general point is basically true. There is evidence that people's perception of the usability of a computer system is biased by its aesthetic appeal (relative to their actual productivity).
Interestingly, I've always thought that the nicest looking cases are on the machines where form matters least and function most. The best cases are on high-end workstations and servers (SGI, Sun) because the case is such a small fraction of the cost. People won't want a $200 case on a $900 PC, but if you're already paying $10K plus...
I hate to say it, but this is not specific to Toshiba, Microsoft, or the computing industry. You don't usually buy everything in parts, and if you want to buy an preassembled product, you have to take everything that comes with it -- no refunds.
Can I buy a car without a radio? Maybe, but probably not easily. I sure as hell can't buy any car I want and tell them to refund me for the radio. Or buy a TV and return the remote control? Or buy a portable CD player and return the headphones?
But you didn't answer my question.
To restate: if you're paying, why not pay open source developers instead of developers who only give you limited rights to use what you're paying for?
The company I work at used to have an official quake server for employees. "Used to" being the key phrase. (Unfortunately this was before I got here.)
Now, there is a mistake!
Hmmm. BeOS is really nothing like Linux/X (in terms of the API), so there's no particular technical reason why it would be natural to port it. But it's reassuring that they pay attention to alternate OSes, so perhaps they could be convinced.
In fact, they used to be very Mac-oriented, and for a long time their games would come out for the Mac first, with the DOS/Windows version following by a few months if it ever got ported at all.
Look at Geek Gadgets. These people have already ported most of GNU, much of X11, and a bunch of other assorted free software to BeOS (and AmigaOS).
But then you have to wonder what the point is. None of these programs use Be-specific features, so you may as well be using Unix!
At the risk of nitpicking, there really are ways to release music essentially as open source. You're right about no standard format, but there are many useful formats to release music in for editing purposes. For example: sheet music, unmixed audio tracks, MIDI files, unfiltered samples, synthesizer sound patches, etc. I imagine "open source" music being this sort of raw, uncomposed data which is much more remix-friendly (remixing being the only analogue to source patching that I can imagine).
For that matter, there's no "standard format" for computer source, either. I have source code in C, C++, perl, Python, Java, etc.