Erm, why would I want to provide my own smart tag entries? If I wanted something linked, dont you think I would just hyperlink it instead of futzing with making a special tag for it that only IE will see?????
But the thing is, you'd be providing general SmartTags for use on a wide variety of sites (yours and others). For example, let's say you run a really great gaming site, GreatGameInfo.com. Now let's also say that you've got some dedicated readers -- the kind of people that, when they hear about a new game, the first thing that goes through their head is "What does GreatGameInfo.com have to say about this?" Now let's also say you're reading a web forum and someone posts, "Whoa! SUPERDUPERNEWFIRSTPERSONSHOOTER kicks ass." Did this person link to GreatGameInfo? No. Maybe this person doesn't even like GreatGameInfo. Maybe he thinks it's a stupid name for a gaming site, maybe he's too lazy to do a link, maybe the forum doesn't support links, or maybe he's never even heard of GreatGameInfo. So if you, as the GreatGameInfo site author provided your users with a completely optional SmartTag for them to install, then maybe our hypothetical web forum reader could go right to GreatGameInfo's SUPERDUPERNEWFIRSTPERSONSHOOTER game review, without having to go through the hassle of copying that name, going to the GGI bookmark, and pasting that name into the search box.
They are modifying MY content without MY permission!
I find this statement rather ironic, given that a number of us used Babelfish to view the article in question. Babelfish makes content more accessible in cases where the original author can't or won't translate the document into the viewer's native language. It does this by actually changing words. SmartTags make content more accessible in cases where the original author can't or won't provide every conceivable link (such as in this Slashdot post, where I don't bother linking Babelfish or SmartTags). If I had a quarter for every time I've come across an under-linked page, I'd be a rich man.
Or, to half jokingly rearrange my argument into standard Slashdot rhetoric: Content providers have no right to try and infringe on my fair use modification of local copies of their web pages.
There are two major differences... first, Everything2 is (more or less) community built.
Third-parties can provide their own SmartTags. In one of the previous SmartTag threads, someone posted an example that would goatse Microsoft.
The second and harder to understand thing for most people is that Mozilla can be changed - it isn't written for you. It's written for the person who wrote it. And you can change that by writing it yourself, taking any of the existing code out there.
Let's see on one hand, we've got: download the source to Mozilla, find the SmartTag-like functionality, comment out that code, verify that nothing else was changed, compile, go back and fix the syntax error that was accidentally introduced by the change, compile again, install a new copy of Mozilla.
On the other hand, we've got: open configuration dialog box (which may be buried a few layers deep) and uncheck the SmartTag box.
Given that people were complaining about the average user not being able to figure out how to disable SmartTags, I don't know what to make of your challenge of having them actually remove Mozilla's hypothetical SmartTag-like feature from the source.
(And yes, I know I'm being a little silly with the Mozilla case -- I can't imagine Mozilla not having a checkbox to disable such a feature, too. However, I'm just responding to the previous poster's source rationalization.)
The one saving grace of SmartTags (which I've repeated quite a bit myself) is that web sites can provide their own SmartTag entries. This would relegate Microsoft's influence with SmartTags to something similar to their influence with default bookmark entries.
However, if I'm reading the article correctly, Microsoft's problem is the difficulty in providing non-English content for SmartTags. Furthermore, they're completely removing the SmartTag capability (as I can puzzle out from the document) just because they can't come up with default SmartTags. Something seems fishy here -- why can't they leave it up to other people to provide proper SmartTags that the user can later install?
Which is why your best strategy would be to ask your contributors to assign their copyrights to you as they make changes. [...] You're complaining about an artifact of copyright law, not the GPL itself.
While I don't disagree that assigned copyrights will work around the problem, that does require both foresight and effort on the part of the project coordinator. Given that a lot of free software projects seem to be labors of love rather than commercial ventures, I'd be willing to wager that the hassle of copyright assignment is the exception, rather than the rule. This is especially unfortunate since I can think of a number of situations where being able to retroactively "put the genie back in the bottle" would benefit both free software and commercial software. (Commercial software could save in development costs by buying the existing code, while the free software project gets money that would've otherwise been used to duplicate their efforts. That money, in turn, can be used to produce more free software.)
While I suppose you could make the argument that it's a copyright law issue, I contend that it's one that theoretically could be worked around within the software license. The benefit of that is that it shifts the effort of working around the problem off of the shoulders of every single project maintainer. Instead, you've just got a one-time effort to invent a new license.
it looks like he's essentially saying that the gpl is making it illegal to steal someone elses work and make money off of it.
The GPL means he can't buy someone else's work and make money off of it, unless he can come up with a way to get in contact with (and negotiate a deal with) everyone who's worked on the project or every contributor to that project has signed over the copyright to a single entity (a la what the FSF requires from people working on their projects).
Let's say, for example, that I write 80% of the code, from scratch, for a nifty, complex image compression library. Now let's further say that I make (what potentially could be) the mistake of GPLing it. Other people contribute the remaining 20%, some bugfixes, some enhancements, and so forth. The project really picks up (success!), only now Microsoft wants to try and push this compression as a new defacto format for the web (theoretically a win for everyone). To do so, they would want to buy a non-exclusive license to use that code in their commercial webbrowser. Only, I can't necessarily do that. Some of those people who contributed the other 20% of the code may have disappeared. Legally, I can't even license the code to them and then donate the money to blatantly pro-OSS organizations (such as the FSF and SourceForge). Had I thought ahead and used the LGPL, MS could still use the code, but then I (and the other people) wouldn't get any compensation at all. Had I required copyright assignment on all code contributions, I'd probably be okay, but who plans ahead and is willing to go through that much extra paperwork? I'd argue that a better solution might be a license that already included provisions for relicensing the code for commercial use. Of course now I'm potentially no longer GPL-compatible, which opens up a whole new can of worms (not that I don't disagree with those issues, but they complicate things).
...all that bullshit to deal with when all I really wanted to do was code, without having to worry about painting myself into a legal corner.
So Acme wants to tell you how you can use their car. What's the problem with this? Now, the contract clearly states there is a $150 fee per speeding incursion. If you don't those terms, don't rent.
There's a number of problems:
(as explicitly enumerated in the article) inadequate disclosure
(as explicitly enumerated in the article) no appeals process
(as mentioned in other comments) problems with GPS "jumping" as you switch satelites
no notification before the money is withdrawn from your account
how much should be withdrawn is solely up to the judgement of the rental agency
Plus, there's the obvious issue that, in order to effectively vote with their money, consumers need to be informed. This story is helping to serve that purpose.
I do agree that it's Acme's car and they may stipulate how you use it. But that doesn't mean I'm particularly happy with the manner that they went about it. Furthermore, it's possible for them to be engaging in legal business practices that're still considered deceptive in nature.
It took me a few parses to figure out what they meant by "transparent CSS decryption". I kept wondering what the hell "transparent CSS" was and whether it was related to regular CSS.
After browsing through the pages, it seems that they mean that it's something to let you transparently decrypt CSS. The library lets you access a DVD as a block device, as if it didn't have any encryption at all. The page for the library itself is here.
At least the programmers are passionate about what they think is right, which means they are probably going to end up with a GREAT solution.
I suspect that you're overglorifying the flames. From reading Miguel's linked mailing list post, I got the impression that there's a number of flames coming from under-informed people who're less active with the project. If it's those people who wind up driving out some of the key contributors, it's more "bullshit" than "passion" that's causing the problem, IMO.
I see us reaching a very fine line between nefarious misuse of typo squatting and legitiment free speech. How are we going to end up deciding if a site's advertisments are secondary to it's content, or the otherway around.
Well, to a degree, I think this issue has already been played out in non-computer-related court cases. For example, with Luther Campbell's parody of Roy Orbison's classic "Pretty Woman", you had a court ruling that even though the parody was used commercially, that didn't automatically negate the parody/fair-use provisions of the appropriate copyright law [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994)]. Admittedly, that's relating to copyright instead of trademark (which is what typosquatting would most likely be).
However, in the parts of the anti-typosquatting statue mentioned in the judgement, they specificially refer to a "bad faith" intent to profit. Within the criteria for "bad faith", the include (as one of the 9 or so factors of consideration) "(IV) the person's bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible under the domain name".
What all this means, I have absolutely no clue. I think the best bet, if you were considering running a parody site, would be to ask a lawyer. But there's at least enough fuzziness there that I wouldn't lose sleep over the issue.
If CML2 is somehow earmarked as the successor to the current kernel config, then that would be a problem as Python would be required in order to compile a damn kernel.
Kernel configuration programs are non-exclusive. You can still do 'make config' (the classic yes/no prompting one that I know dates back to at leas the 1.2.x kernels), 'make menuconfig' (which requires ncurses, upping the dependency level but increasing convenience), and 'make xconfig' (which ups the dependency level quite a bit more but adds a graphical install). So the Python dependency, just for one configuration program, wouldn't be a problem.
Nah, it's the MPAA. Now they can argue that region encoding helps prevent people from importing fungally-infected DVDs.
(Seriously, I'm not sure if DVDs would be succeptible. A quick google search indicates that they do have an aluminum layer, but says that they're better sealed than laser discs. Whether that means that they're also better sealed than CDs is beyond the scope of a quick joke post.)
Where does the difference lie between a 'typo' and a fair use parody.
That's a distinction made by the courts. In this case, the "Joe Cartoon" typo sites consisted of a bunch of banner ads for various products. It was only a few hours after being served with a "cease-and-desist" that the owner of the typo sites changed them to a poorly written "political protest against Joe Cartoon". The judge saw through such a shallow ploy and issued some judicial smack-down against the defendant.
I really recommend reading the judgement (if you can get through the Slashdotting). It's a bit annoying in that they did a bad job converting it to ASCII (footnotes seem to be where each original page ended), but the language isn't particularly lawyerish and the judge clearly and concisely enumerates the legal standards that needed to be satisfied.
Or if Red Hat users will now be forced to continue to use what has become obsolete software?
The existence of a new version of software does not (unless you're dealing with the ugly, ugly world of MS Office documents and their lack of backwards compatibility) automatically break older versions. You will not go bald, get cancer, or get attacked by a pack of rabid dogs just because you're using an older version of gcc. You will not see:
[erasmus@localhost ~]$ gcc -o test test.c -Wall gcc: Version 3.0 has been released. You must upgrade. Sorry.
Furthermore, from the Slashdot blurb (right at the top of the page -- you don't even have to click a link), we've got the following:
Plans for 2.95.4 (bugfix release), 3.0.1 (bugfix release), and 3.1 (more user-visible features) are all in progress.
In short, the 2.9x line (which Redhat admittedly bastardized a bit by grabbing a snapshot and calling it 2.96) will still be fixed for bugs.
Also, for a production system, new, untested code is considered unacceptable. There are bugs in the 3.0 version of gcc, period. Over time, they will get fixed. But just like running an experimental kernel (or even the very first new stable release of a previously experimental kernel) is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot, you don't want to jump to gcc 3.0 unless you've got a reason to use it. And people who have a reason will generally be able to locate and install a copy of gcc 3.0, anyway. Hell, give it a few weeks and they should be able to locate and install an RPMed copy of gcc 3.0. And I'm sure there are people out there who will need gcc 3.0 -- it just won't be the core Redhat demographic, yet.
In short, did the people at work bitch at me for running RedHat 6.2 on our production machines at work? No. Would they have bitched if I had upgraded to 7.0 when it came out, broken things in the process, and used the excuse that they just need to wait a year for RedHat 7.2? Hell, yes. Even Slashdot does something similar -- there's plenty of lag between the latest version of Slashcode and what's running on Slashdot.
The reporter sounds like he's well aware of the differences between the GPL and BSD licenses, even though he does not specifically mention the GPL.
If that's the case, I have to seriously question the ethics of the reporter. It should be pretty obvious that, in general, Microsoft's comments have primarily been directed at the GPL and Linux. Microsoft, like many others, has thrown around the term "open source" without really understanding all of the intricacies of the situation (they seem to suffer from the classic "open source = Linux = GPL" fallacy).
While I'm sure they probably don't like BSD from a competative standpoint, I don't think they're especially opposed to the license. For example, the following is a quote from the same interview answer where Ballmer calls Linux a cancer:
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody.
That, to me, certainly sounds like a request by Ballmer for more government software projects to be released under a BSD-like license instead of a GPL-like one.
Probably all we're like to see come out of this is another proprietary format that's designed to limit the consumer's rights and focus on making money for AOL/Time Warner.
Exactly! It seems to me that AOL/Time Warner isn't anti-monopoly -- it's just that they want to be the ones with the monopoly. People complain, left and right, about how Windows ships with and forces you to install IE. But I've yet to see anyone point out the fact that Netscape's custom install does not let you avoid installing AIM.
These scans-- until now-- were a major source of evidence for probable cause, since fans blowing out heat look like flame-throwers on infrared cameras.
In the cited case, they only referred to hot spots on the walls of the house. Furthermore, the quoted decision talked about using the thermal scan as a means of collecting data that was previously only accessible via physical intrusion. However, I wonder if that would apply to a house that was actively venting heat. It seems like it would be possible to feel the heat without using technology. Additionally, you'd be able to see some heat via thermal imaging even if the device wasn't pointed at the house itself. So it strikes me as less of a see-through-walls thing. Given how close this vote was, I could potentially see the fan scenario being on the other side of the invisible dividing line.
I already use manual smart tags when browsing the web. Using a combination of lynx, gpm, and Surfraw, I can highlight any word or phrase, switch to another virtual console, type in either "webster" (for a dictionary lookup) or "google" (for a google lookup), then paste in the term I'm interested in. I then hit return, and *BAM* I've got my results. I do this a lot. I would jump at the chance of having a one or two click process to do this for me. I might be willing to switch to IE as my Windows GUI browser for this functionality. I would be willing to start trying Mozilla if it added this feature. I would definitely be willing to install a proxy to filter out the META disabling tag, if it seems necessary. Any web authors out there who have pages that already provide Merriam-Webster and Google search links for all possible terms and phrases in the page can feel free to ignore me. The rest should get off this moral high horse of "I don't want them changing my web page."
The problem is that it alters a webpage from the way it's author intended it. I've written some nice HTML before, and I've been very proud of the way it looked.
If you're fixated on how it looked, you've already got the wrong idea. Looking pretty is all nice and good for the golly, gee marketing guys, but that completely fails to address such things as:
being able to get a dictionary lookup on an arbitrary word (good for non-English speakers)
being able to do a google search for background information on a given word or phrase
As the page author, you may not have considered the features, and implementing them server-side would probably result in excess linkage, but there are people who will want to be able to take advantage of them.
As a far as specifics go, I often research various mental illnesses on the web out of personal interest. While I understand that the web isn't exactly the safest place to get medical information, it's all just to satisy personal curiosity, so misinformation isn't going to hurt. While reading, it's not infrequently that I'll come across the mention of various neurotransmitters. Most of the time, it's either assumed that I already know what that neurotransmitter is (in the more sophisticated material) or the details of the neurotransmitter are glossed over. It's not that it isn't important -- it's that an author can only cover so much at a time. I fully appreciate and can understand that the author didn't want to bother with this. But to tell the end users that they can't add their own hyperlinks to fulfill personal needs is just selfish and egotistical. In my mind, it's on the par with those idiots who disable right clicking (which prevents me from doing my favorite "open in a new window"), in a lame attempt to prevent people from stealing the page source.
So, VoIP is a specific protocol, 'voice over IP' is a technology application with many potential specific solutions.
I'd debate this point. First, the article text specificially said "Voice over IP" (with voice being capitalized for no other reason). That, to me, implies a proper name rather than a general technology label, not unlike if someone where to say "File Transfer Protocol".
Second, the phrase "Voice over IP" is frequently used when referring to (what you call) "VoIP". For some reason, you seem to use "file transfer protocol" (FTP) versus "a file transfer protocol" (anything to move a file), but create an artificially more relaxed standard where the expansion of "VoIP" is the generic term. This simply isn't the case.
Also, while I hesitate to use pointing out popular usage as a means of winning this argument (and I'm sure it'll come back and bite me when the next cracker vs. hacker argument pops up), a quick google search on "voice over IP" appears to turn up links that're all about VoIP, rather than "use the Internet to talk to your friends". Again, while I'm loathe to normally invoke the popular definition, it's worth pointing out that it seems to coincide with the technical one, providing a much more compelling case.
Overall, I suspect your problem is that you've fixated on the fact that "voice over IP" is an overly broad term that, when analyzed, could apply to a broader set of items than what it's actually intended for. On the other hand, we've already got the afore-mentioned example of "file transfer protocol", we know that a "personal video recorder" is a TiVo-like device rather than just any video recorder owned by an individual, we know that a "television" (literally: far seeing) isn't just any device that lets you see far away -- telescopes and binoculars certainly aren't part of that group. When it comes down to it, a name is really just an arbitrary designator that just happens to usually have some relevance. If you want names that're complete descriptions, you might want to switch from English to German.
I believe that's merely a subquestion of the larger issue -- "What is the net environmental impact?"
For example, things to consider include the lifespan of paper vs. the lifespan of electronic paper, the environmental impacts of the ink used on both, the recyclability of both (including the inks), the fact that paper comes from a renewable resource (no clue on how renewable the electronic paper components are), and the environmental issues involved in the printing process itself (I believe normal printing involves harsh solvents, while electronic paper "printing" would just involve moving the little things inside the paper around). Overall, I doubt it's something Slashdot could do more than offer wild ass guesses on (although if anyone has any insight on some of the issues, the data's always welcome -- it's just that it'd never be enough to draw a final conclusion), but I think a formal investigation, with access to lots and lots of information covering both paper and electronic paper technologies, would probably be able to cook up some results.
Also relevant is the end-user application. Newspaper and books, I think, would be your big winners, best exploiting the reusability of the electronic paper. Also interesting would be using it, in conjunction with a digital camera, as a poor man's version of a digital picture frame. On the other hand, printing out webpages (which I do when I want to carry information with me to the store, which means the paper will get folded up) and class notes (and similar applications where you want to scribble in the margin) just ain't gonna cut it, short of a few more nifty advances (namely, the ability for the paper to be folded without being permanently affected and the ability for a pen-like device to non-permanently "write" on the paper, with the writing capable of being read back by the printing device, for storage with the original page).
As for the book issue, I can see having a single "book" as a major potential win. I generally only actively carry one book around with me to read, unless I'm near the end of the current book. However, with this technology, as I'm nearing the end of the current book, I could just reprint it as page 200+ of the current book and then as much of the next book as will fit. That way, if I finish the current book when there's no printer accessible, I can just keep going. On the plus side (tying back in to the environmental issues above), if we compare an electronic paper book to the current digital book machines (which have all kinds of nasty chemicals in the battery and such), I suspect it'd be a clear win.
However, I am worried on how well electronic book technologies will do. Unlike music and movies, books can much more easily protect themselves from Napster-esque piracy by simply refusing to embrace electronic distribution. It takes almost no effort to rip a CD. It takes only a little more work to DivX encode a movie. It's a major pain-in-the-ass to scan an entire book and then OCR it (although I suppose you could skip the OCR bit, especially since you'd be printing it back out in this case). That's not to say it isn't done, but if the results in the movie and music industry are any indication, I doubt electronic distribution would be in the best interest of book publishers.
(Wow -- I think I managed to hit 3 different and only marginally related topics in this comment. I need to cut back on my coffee intake.)
On the other hand, once upon a time, it was also considered acceptable to knock at the door of a nearby house and ask to stay for the night. These days (at least in the US), we've got more efficient travel and hotels/motels everywhere. If I wandered up to a random suburban household and asked for shelter, they'd laugh, chase me off, or call the police.
And what about the suggestion that portscans should be used to verify the security claims of ISPs before subscribing.
Exactly! I wanted to make sure the bank I was thinking of using would keep my money safe, so I drove by at 3 am, and rattled the front door to make sure they remembered to lock it. The stupid security guard had the nerve to get all upset.
Also, I tried to make sure they didn't have any unsecured modems or social engineering weaknesses, so I called up each phone line owned by the bank. If it was a modem, I recorded the fact and moved on. If it was a person, I asked them if they'd be willing to give me money. Boy, did the bank get uptight over that one.
True, although I have to say that "national security" is the biggest lie that ever was told. It's been used repeatedly to engage in things so immoral that I just want to puke.
Amen! I hate it when the DoD uses the argument of national security to rationalize nothing less than the wholesale MURDER of thousands of innocent harddrives. The poor little devices served that country well, by storing classified data, and their loyal service was repaid with incineration.
Even the brave harddrives that assisted with unclassified work still had their brains wiped clean several times before being forced into the hellish public school system. It's barbaric.
Slashdot Mirror
But the thing is, you'd be providing general SmartTags for use on a wide variety of sites (yours and others). For example, let's say you run a really great gaming site, GreatGameInfo.com. Now let's also say that you've got some dedicated readers -- the kind of people that, when they hear about a new game, the first thing that goes through their head is "What does GreatGameInfo.com have to say about this?" Now let's also say you're reading a web forum and someone posts, "Whoa! SUPERDUPERNEWFIRSTPERSONSHOOTER kicks ass." Did this person link to GreatGameInfo? No. Maybe this person doesn't even like GreatGameInfo. Maybe he thinks it's a stupid name for a gaming site, maybe he's too lazy to do a link, maybe the forum doesn't support links, or maybe he's never even heard of GreatGameInfo. So if you, as the GreatGameInfo site author provided your users with a completely optional SmartTag for them to install, then maybe our hypothetical web forum reader could go right to GreatGameInfo's SUPERDUPERNEWFIRSTPERSONSHOOTER game review, without having to go through the hassle of copying that name, going to the GGI bookmark, and pasting that name into the search box.
I find this statement rather ironic, given that a number of us used Babelfish to view the article in question. Babelfish makes content more accessible in cases where the original author can't or won't translate the document into the viewer's native language. It does this by actually changing words. SmartTags make content more accessible in cases where the original author can't or won't provide every conceivable link (such as in this Slashdot post, where I don't bother linking Babelfish or SmartTags). If I had a quarter for every time I've come across an under-linked page, I'd be a rich man.
Or, to half jokingly rearrange my argument into standard Slashdot rhetoric: Content providers have no right to try and infringe on my fair use modification of local copies of their web pages.
Third-parties can provide their own SmartTags. In one of the previous SmartTag threads, someone posted an example that would goatse Microsoft.
The second and harder to understand thing for most people is that Mozilla can be changed - it isn't written for you. It's written for the person who wrote it. And you can change that by writing it yourself, taking any of the existing code out there.
Let's see on one hand, we've got: download the source to Mozilla, find the SmartTag-like functionality, comment out that code, verify that nothing else was changed, compile, go back and fix the syntax error that was accidentally introduced by the change, compile again, install a new copy of Mozilla.
On the other hand, we've got: open configuration dialog box (which may be buried a few layers deep) and uncheck the SmartTag box.
Given that people were complaining about the average user not being able to figure out how to disable SmartTags, I don't know what to make of your challenge of having them actually remove Mozilla's hypothetical SmartTag-like feature from the source.
(And yes, I know I'm being a little silly with the Mozilla case -- I can't imagine Mozilla not having a checkbox to disable such a feature, too. However, I'm just responding to the previous poster's source rationalization.)
However, if I'm reading the article correctly, Microsoft's problem is the difficulty in providing non-English content for SmartTags. Furthermore, they're completely removing the SmartTag capability (as I can puzzle out from the document) just because they can't come up with default SmartTags. Something seems fishy here -- why can't they leave it up to other people to provide proper SmartTags that the user can later install?
While I don't disagree that assigned copyrights will work around the problem, that does require both foresight and effort on the part of the project coordinator. Given that a lot of free software projects seem to be labors of love rather than commercial ventures, I'd be willing to wager that the hassle of copyright assignment is the exception, rather than the rule. This is especially unfortunate since I can think of a number of situations where being able to retroactively "put the genie back in the bottle" would benefit both free software and commercial software. (Commercial software could save in development costs by buying the existing code, while the free software project gets money that would've otherwise been used to duplicate their efforts. That money, in turn, can be used to produce more free software.)
While I suppose you could make the argument that it's a copyright law issue, I contend that it's one that theoretically could be worked around within the software license. The benefit of that is that it shifts the effort of working around the problem off of the shoulders of every single project maintainer. Instead, you've just got a one-time effort to invent a new license.
The GPL means he can't buy someone else's work and make money off of it, unless he can come up with a way to get in contact with (and negotiate a deal with) everyone who's worked on the project or every contributor to that project has signed over the copyright to a single entity (a la what the FSF requires from people working on their projects).
Let's say, for example, that I write 80% of the code, from scratch, for a nifty, complex image compression library. Now let's further say that I make (what potentially could be) the mistake of GPLing it. Other people contribute the remaining 20%, some bugfixes, some enhancements, and so forth. The project really picks up (success!), only now Microsoft wants to try and push this compression as a new defacto format for the web (theoretically a win for everyone). To do so, they would want to buy a non-exclusive license to use that code in their commercial webbrowser. Only, I can't necessarily do that. Some of those people who contributed the other 20% of the code may have disappeared. Legally, I can't even license the code to them and then donate the money to blatantly pro-OSS organizations (such as the FSF and SourceForge). Had I thought ahead and used the LGPL, MS could still use the code, but then I (and the other people) wouldn't get any compensation at all. Had I required copyright assignment on all code contributions, I'd probably be okay, but who plans ahead and is willing to go through that much extra paperwork? I'd argue that a better solution might be a license that already included provisions for relicensing the code for commercial use. Of course now I'm potentially no longer GPL-compatible, which opens up a whole new can of worms (not that I don't disagree with those issues, but they complicate things).
There's a number of problems:
Plus, there's the obvious issue that, in order to effectively vote with their money, consumers need to be informed. This story is helping to serve that purpose.
I do agree that it's Acme's car and they may stipulate how you use it. But that doesn't mean I'm particularly happy with the manner that they went about it. Furthermore, it's possible for them to be engaging in legal business practices that're still considered deceptive in nature.
After browsing through the pages, it seems that they mean that it's something to let you transparently decrypt CSS. The library lets you access a DVD as a block device, as if it didn't have any encryption at all. The page for the library itself is here.
I suspect that you're overglorifying the flames. From reading Miguel's linked mailing list post, I got the impression that there's a number of flames coming from under-informed people who're less active with the project. If it's those people who wind up driving out some of the key contributors, it's more "bullshit" than "passion" that's causing the problem, IMO.
Well, to a degree, I think this issue has already been played out in non-computer-related court cases. For example, with Luther Campbell's parody of Roy Orbison's classic "Pretty Woman", you had a court ruling that even though the parody was used commercially, that didn't automatically negate the parody/fair-use provisions of the appropriate copyright law [Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994)]. Admittedly, that's relating to copyright instead of trademark (which is what typosquatting would most likely be).
However, in the parts of the anti-typosquatting statue mentioned in the judgement, they specificially refer to a "bad faith" intent to profit. Within the criteria for "bad faith", the include (as one of the 9 or so factors of consideration) "(IV) the person's bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible under the domain name".
What all this means, I have absolutely no clue. I think the best bet, if you were considering running a parody site, would be to ask a lawyer. But there's at least enough fuzziness there that I wouldn't lose sleep over the issue.
Kernel configuration programs are non-exclusive. You can still do 'make config' (the classic yes/no prompting one that I know dates back to at leas the 1.2.x kernels), 'make menuconfig' (which requires ncurses, upping the dependency level but increasing convenience), and 'make xconfig' (which ups the dependency level quite a bit more but adds a graphical install). So the Python dependency, just for one configuration program, wouldn't be a problem.
Nah, it's the MPAA. Now they can argue that region encoding helps prevent people from importing fungally-infected DVDs.
(Seriously, I'm not sure if DVDs would be succeptible. A quick google search indicates that they do have an aluminum layer, but says that they're better sealed than laser discs. Whether that means that they're also better sealed than CDs is beyond the scope of a quick joke post.)
That's a distinction made by the courts. In this case, the "Joe Cartoon" typo sites consisted of a bunch of banner ads for various products. It was only a few hours after being served with a "cease-and-desist" that the owner of the typo sites changed them to a poorly written "political protest against Joe Cartoon". The judge saw through such a shallow ploy and issued some judicial smack-down against the defendant.
I really recommend reading the judgement (if you can get through the Slashdotting). It's a bit annoying in that they did a bad job converting it to ASCII (footnotes seem to be where each original page ended), but the language isn't particularly lawyerish and the judge clearly and concisely enumerates the legal standards that needed to be satisfied.
The existence of a new version of software does not (unless you're dealing with the ugly, ugly world of MS Office documents and their lack of backwards compatibility) automatically break older versions. You will not go bald, get cancer, or get attacked by a pack of rabid dogs just because you're using an older version of gcc. You will not see:
[erasmus@localhost ~]$ gcc -o test test.c -Wall
gcc: Version 3.0 has been released. You must upgrade. Sorry.
Furthermore, from the Slashdot blurb (right at the top of the page -- you don't even have to click a link), we've got the following:
Plans for 2.95.4 (bugfix release), 3.0.1 (bugfix release), and 3.1 (more user-visible features) are all in progress.
In short, the 2.9x line (which Redhat admittedly bastardized a bit by grabbing a snapshot and calling it 2.96) will still be fixed for bugs.
Also, for a production system, new, untested code is considered unacceptable. There are bugs in the 3.0 version of gcc, period. Over time, they will get fixed. But just like running an experimental kernel (or even the very first new stable release of a previously experimental kernel) is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot, you don't want to jump to gcc 3.0 unless you've got a reason to use it. And people who have a reason will generally be able to locate and install a copy of gcc 3.0, anyway. Hell, give it a few weeks and they should be able to locate and install an RPMed copy of gcc 3.0. And I'm sure there are people out there who will need gcc 3.0 -- it just won't be the core Redhat demographic, yet.
In short, did the people at work bitch at me for running RedHat 6.2 on our production machines at work? No. Would they have bitched if I had upgraded to 7.0 when it came out, broken things in the process, and used the excuse that they just need to wait a year for RedHat 7.2? Hell, yes. Even Slashdot does something similar -- there's plenty of lag between the latest version of Slashcode and what's running on Slashdot.
If that's the case, I have to seriously question the ethics of the reporter. It should be pretty obvious that, in general, Microsoft's comments have primarily been directed at the GPL and Linux. Microsoft, like many others, has thrown around the term "open source" without really understanding all of the intricacies of the situation (they seem to suffer from the classic "open source = Linux = GPL" fallacy).
While I'm sure they probably don't like BSD from a competative standpoint, I don't think they're especially opposed to the license. For example, the following is a quote from the same interview answer where Ballmer calls Linux a cancer:
That, to me, certainly sounds like a request by Ballmer for more government software projects to be released under a BSD-like license instead of a GPL-like one.
Exactly! It seems to me that AOL/Time Warner isn't anti-monopoly -- it's just that they want to be the ones with the monopoly. People complain, left and right, about how Windows ships with and forces you to install IE. But I've yet to see anyone point out the fact that Netscape's custom install does not let you avoid installing AIM.
I will pay for a given piece of software with money. I will pay for a given piece of software with time and effort. Very rarely will I do both.
In the cited case, they only referred to hot spots on the walls of the house. Furthermore, the quoted decision talked about using the thermal scan as a means of collecting data that was previously only accessible via physical intrusion. However, I wonder if that would apply to a house that was actively venting heat. It seems like it would be possible to feel the heat without using technology. Additionally, you'd be able to see some heat via thermal imaging even if the device wasn't pointed at the house itself. So it strikes me as less of a see-through-walls thing. Given how close this vote was, I could potentially see the fan scenario being on the other side of the invisible dividing line.
I already use manual smart tags when browsing the web. Using a combination of lynx, gpm, and Surfraw, I can highlight any word or phrase, switch to another virtual console, type in either "webster" (for a dictionary lookup) or "google" (for a google lookup), then paste in the term I'm interested in. I then hit return, and *BAM* I've got my results. I do this a lot. I would jump at the chance of having a one or two click process to do this for me. I might be willing to switch to IE as my Windows GUI browser for this functionality. I would be willing to start trying Mozilla if it added this feature. I would definitely be willing to install a proxy to filter out the META disabling tag, if it seems necessary. Any web authors out there who have pages that already provide Merriam-Webster and Google search links for all possible terms and phrases in the page can feel free to ignore me. The rest should get off this moral high horse of "I don't want them changing my web page."
If you're fixated on how it looked, you've already got the wrong idea. Looking pretty is all nice and good for the golly, gee marketing guys, but that completely fails to address such things as:
As the page author, you may not have considered the features, and implementing them server-side would probably result in excess linkage, but there are people who will want to be able to take advantage of them.
As a far as specifics go, I often research various mental illnesses on the web out of personal interest. While I understand that the web isn't exactly the safest place to get medical information, it's all just to satisy personal curiosity, so misinformation isn't going to hurt. While reading, it's not infrequently that I'll come across the mention of various neurotransmitters. Most of the time, it's either assumed that I already know what that neurotransmitter is (in the more sophisticated material) or the details of the neurotransmitter are glossed over. It's not that it isn't important -- it's that an author can only cover so much at a time. I fully appreciate and can understand that the author didn't want to bother with this. But to tell the end users that they can't add their own hyperlinks to fulfill personal needs is just selfish and egotistical. In my mind, it's on the par with those idiots who disable right clicking (which prevents me from doing my favorite "open in a new window"), in a lame attempt to prevent people from stealing the page source.
I'd debate this point. First, the article text specificially said "Voice over IP" (with voice being capitalized for no other reason). That, to me, implies a proper name rather than a general technology label, not unlike if someone where to say "File Transfer Protocol".
Second, the phrase "Voice over IP" is frequently used when referring to (what you call) "VoIP". For some reason, you seem to use "file transfer protocol" (FTP) versus "a file transfer protocol" (anything to move a file), but create an artificially more relaxed standard where the expansion of "VoIP" is the generic term. This simply isn't the case.
Also, while I hesitate to use pointing out popular usage as a means of winning this argument (and I'm sure it'll come back and bite me when the next cracker vs. hacker argument pops up), a quick google search on "voice over IP" appears to turn up links that're all about VoIP, rather than "use the Internet to talk to your friends". Again, while I'm loathe to normally invoke the popular definition, it's worth pointing out that it seems to coincide with the technical one, providing a much more compelling case.
Overall, I suspect your problem is that you've fixated on the fact that "voice over IP" is an overly broad term that, when analyzed, could apply to a broader set of items than what it's actually intended for. On the other hand, we've already got the afore-mentioned example of "file transfer protocol", we know that a "personal video recorder" is a TiVo-like device rather than just any video recorder owned by an individual, we know that a "television" (literally: far seeing) isn't just any device that lets you see far away -- telescopes and binoculars certainly aren't part of that group. When it comes down to it, a name is really just an arbitrary designator that just happens to usually have some relevance. If you want names that're complete descriptions, you might want to switch from English to German.
I believe that's merely a subquestion of the larger issue -- "What is the net environmental impact?"
For example, things to consider include the lifespan of paper vs. the lifespan of electronic paper, the environmental impacts of the ink used on both, the recyclability of both (including the inks), the fact that paper comes from a renewable resource (no clue on how renewable the electronic paper components are), and the environmental issues involved in the printing process itself (I believe normal printing involves harsh solvents, while electronic paper "printing" would just involve moving the little things inside the paper around). Overall, I doubt it's something Slashdot could do more than offer wild ass guesses on (although if anyone has any insight on some of the issues, the data's always welcome -- it's just that it'd never be enough to draw a final conclusion), but I think a formal investigation, with access to lots and lots of information covering both paper and electronic paper technologies, would probably be able to cook up some results.
Also relevant is the end-user application. Newspaper and books, I think, would be your big winners, best exploiting the reusability of the electronic paper. Also interesting would be using it, in conjunction with a digital camera, as a poor man's version of a digital picture frame. On the other hand, printing out webpages (which I do when I want to carry information with me to the store, which means the paper will get folded up) and class notes (and similar applications where you want to scribble in the margin) just ain't gonna cut it, short of a few more nifty advances (namely, the ability for the paper to be folded without being permanently affected and the ability for a pen-like device to non-permanently "write" on the paper, with the writing capable of being read back by the printing device, for storage with the original page).
As for the book issue, I can see having a single "book" as a major potential win. I generally only actively carry one book around with me to read, unless I'm near the end of the current book. However, with this technology, as I'm nearing the end of the current book, I could just reprint it as page 200+ of the current book and then as much of the next book as will fit. That way, if I finish the current book when there's no printer accessible, I can just keep going. On the plus side (tying back in to the environmental issues above), if we compare an electronic paper book to the current digital book machines (which have all kinds of nasty chemicals in the battery and such), I suspect it'd be a clear win.
However, I am worried on how well electronic book technologies will do. Unlike music and movies, books can much more easily protect themselves from Napster-esque piracy by simply refusing to embrace electronic distribution. It takes almost no effort to rip a CD. It takes only a little more work to DivX encode a movie. It's a major pain-in-the-ass to scan an entire book and then OCR it (although I suppose you could skip the OCR bit, especially since you'd be printing it back out in this case). That's not to say it isn't done, but if the results in the movie and music industry are any indication, I doubt electronic distribution would be in the best interest of book publishers.
(Wow -- I think I managed to hit 3 different and only marginally related topics in this comment. I need to cut back on my coffee intake.)
On the other hand, once upon a time, it was also considered acceptable to knock at the door of a nearby house and ask to stay for the night. These days (at least in the US), we've got more efficient travel and hotels/motels everywhere. If I wandered up to a random suburban household and asked for shelter, they'd laugh, chase me off, or call the police.
Exactly! I wanted to make sure the bank I was thinking of using would keep my money safe, so I drove by at 3 am, and rattled the front door to make sure they remembered to lock it. The stupid security guard had the nerve to get all upset.
Also, I tried to make sure they didn't have any unsecured modems or social engineering weaknesses, so I called up each phone line owned by the bank. If it was a modem, I recorded the fact and moved on. If it was a person, I asked them if they'd be willing to give me money. Boy, did the bank get uptight over that one.
Amen! I hate it when the DoD uses the argument of national security to rationalize nothing less than the wholesale MURDER of thousands of innocent harddrives. The poor little devices served that country well, by storing classified data, and their loyal service was repaid with incineration.
Even the brave harddrives that assisted with unclassified work still had their brains wiped clean several times before being forced into the hellish public school system. It's barbaric.