My problem with this is that part of the AT&T breakup ruling was that AT&T could not require you to rent or purchase their equipment (anyone here old enough to remember the US pre AT&T breakup remembers that it was "illegal" to buy your own phone and hook it up...or "illegal" to hook up additional phones on your line).
The federal government stepped in and said that you can't be trapped into renting or buying equipment to use a communications service.
Now, that being said, why do I have to buy or rent equipment from a cable provider? I can provide my own cable modem. If I plug my computer directly into the wall for cable (in order to use a product like Showshifter, and I pay for premium service -- why can't I descramble it myself? It's decidely not stealing in any was (unless you count timeshifting as stealing, but this is a completely unrelated issue). That being said, why can't I have a descrambler box?
This is no different than Hughes witch-hunt where they went after anyone who bought a smart card reader...they just assumed that anyone who bought one was going to steal their service. Sure, they may catch a few theives, but at what expense?
I'm surprised that many of the same slashdot readers who were against the DMCA (and its use in enforcing copyrights) seem to support the use of the DMCA here. I can also draw some parallels to the DVD-CCA/DeCSS case with regards to the DMCA, but hopefully, those anti-DMCA readers will get the picture by now.
Blockbuster is big enough that back in the mid 90's studios would preview movies for Blockbuster before releasing them in theatres to ensure that Blockbuster would be willing to carry the movie when it went to video. I don't know if they still do that, but they did for several years.
Alot of this has to do with Blockbuster's "family" image. They will not rent out NC-17 movies (which is a real bummer, because there have been some excellent movies which happened to carry the NC-17 rating) or anything "too contraversial". Consequently, this is another reason why studios tend to fear NC-17 movies -- the home rental/sales market is lucrative enough for studios to bend to Blockbuster's will.
The monitor you have to watch out for is the GPS unit in the black box on ALMOST EVERY CAR with airbags
This is simply incorrect. First of all, black box recorders for cars are still experimental. They are not sold in any new cars today (unless you read something in the latest Autoweek, which has not made its way to my door yet).
The only vehicles that have a GPS which sends a signal when the airbad is deployed are cars equipped with OnStar (on GM cars, Mercedes Benz uses a different system run by a company in Texas whose name I cannot remember right now). This is an optional pay service -- you don't have it unless you pay for the service.
Every car sold today in the US it required to have airbags. They are not, however, required to have a GPS device or an onstar-type system. Car manufactureres are extremely cost-sensitive. They don't just drop $300 systems into cars without telling anyone about it (there are a few exceptions, but this is not one of them). I'm not sure where you're getting your information on this one, but it is simply untrue.
I left out not-hard-drugs. Cannabis should just plain be legal. I have still not found any convincing reason why it should be illegal other than the fact the the moralists feel that there's an issue on that side of things (which is mostly irrelevant in our diverse society). The gateway theory has been consistently disproven, and cannabis doesn't have to be smoked to produce the desired effect. Eating cannabis can provide an even more intenst effect than smoking. Unlike alcohol, drivers on cannabis are not reckless (the current propaganda regarding this issues in the US is completely baseless). In fact, a few years back, there was an Australian study that showed the drivers under the influence cannabis were actually more alert and took less chances than drivers who were sober.
* BTW, this is largely the reason we should legalize marijauna and legitamize heroin/coke via prescription. The price will plummet and make elicit distribution unprofitable. No profit, no trade.
I couldn't argue with you on that one -- but I think that there are additional reasons to legalize hard drugs. I also feel that people should take responsibility for their actions rather than be babyed by our government. It's my fucking body -- and I'm not asking the government for socialized healthcare. I just want to be able to do with it what I like. Similar to a hacker mentality with electronic equipment, they bought the gear, they should be able to take it apart (using whatever tools they want) and screw with it (or not, if they so choose). I should be able to use mind altering drugs to experiment with my head -- or if I choose not to, not to.
Actually, I would compare this to the US Policy of not giving ransom for hostages. The rationale is that it would encourage more hostage taking.
The problem with that is that this guy was not engaging in any criminal activity (as far as we know). These guys just don't want him there. Furthermore, he's not a tourist. He was flying his plane over the Arctic circle to (presumably) cut the distance over the ocean. I guess that it just doesn't make any sense. Maybe they're being pricks just to be pricks?
In all seriousness, I can so see both sides of this. I hope sense prevails.
I've gotta say that I agree with you on this one. Giving both parties involved the benefit of the doubt here (since details from the linked article are a little scant), it really does seem like these academics are being beaurocratic and thick-headed. The researchers never stated (in any article that I read) that they had a limited supply of fuel, or that selling him fuel was any kind hardship. It's been fairly consistently assumed in/. posts that this is the case, but again, I've seen no evidence of this. No, with their noses in the air, the researchers stated that they don't want to encourage tourism...like they own the place (even though this guy is not a tourist and had no intention of stopping there).
Sure, it's their right to do this, but it doesn't mean that they're not coming off sounding like a bunch of assholes.
Really, this reminds me of Bush's AIDS programs in African countries where he refuses to promote AIDS prevention through safe sex -- but he will only go over there to teach abstinence. Just like these researchers, he's sort of helping in one way -- but screwing people over in another. IMO, because he feels that he's intellectually (and morally) superior to those Africans...which is similar to this situation where the researchers feel that they're superior to this guy and are helping him, but are trying to teach him a lesson at the same time. I call bullshit. There's nothing criminal about this, but ethically, just like Bush, those researchers are full of shit. They deserve to get theirs someday when they come to depend on someone else after fucking up -- they definitely won't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
...a Tivo style device with a DVDR in it with the ability to move recording to DVD would be the best of both worlds.
Indeed, it would be the best of both worlds. MythTV and Freevo are both capable of this. Further, since TiVo's are hackable, it's possible to stick them on a network and rip the files onto your computer. After that, you can do whatever you need to -- burn a DVD, share it over a network, etc. I believe that the possibilities are greater (and more convinent) with a PVR than a VCR.
- Record two standard def stations, and a high def station at the same time while watching a fourth video of any type. (Obviously, this requires having two tuners and an HDTV tuner.)
Which HD tuner do you use? Would you recommend it? How is the image quality? How much did it cost?
That's why I linked to the article where Linus Torvalds sets the record straight on binary modules.
OK -- this has the potential to open up a can of worms...and I don't care enough to have it out iwth anyone on this, but I'll open my yapper anyway -- cause I'm that kind of asshole;)
I have a hard time believing that hardware drivers of any kind can be considered a derivative work. This is particularly if the hardware wasn't built for the express purpose of working with the Linux kernel (which I guess means that this point doesn't apply to TiVo). Alot of it goes back to Larry McVoy's point in this thread -- which I believe is correct (even if Linux disagrees).
My general feeling is that liberal consideration of applications (and modules) which interface with an OS as a derivative work is dangerous, particularly in the midst of the SCO v IBM lawsuit, where part of their claim is that Linux is a derivative work of SysV Unix. Furthermore, I'm especially surprised that Linus felt that way, since it causes some inflexibility in Linux's adoption into the marketplace. It seems more like something RMS would say to increase the spread of free software.
That being said, I'm not about to test any of it in court...I'm not (nor do I work for or represent) a major commercial hardware/software manufacturer. However, if a TiVo or nVidia wants to test it -- I'd bet that the law is on their side.
It seems pretty unbelievable that TiVo developed their "proprietary kernel modules" for whatever hardware they're using without any knowledge of the kernel internals or intention to link the resulting binary module to the kernel
IANAL, and I'm no kernel expert, but AFAIK -- kernel module sources do not have to be released (and if I'm wrong, IMO, they shouldn't have to be). It's not kernel modification pre se, but a module. If module source had to be released, nVidia would be required to release their Linux drivers...and I believe that nVidia would rather stop supporting Linux than release the source to their video drivers.
Why not just write a shell (or Perl) script to run a whois on each of your clients' domains, grep'ing for "xpires on:" (or whatever) and stripping out all non-date info.
Next, have it write out all domains with a month or less before expiration to a file. If the file is not empty, have it email the results to the appropriate people (I'd make it you -- and you can notify your clients if they maintain control over the domains).
Finally, run your script as a weekly cron job.
If you're extra-serious about this (and want to keep DNS records current with your last-known contact information), create a relational DB (I'd suggest something free, like Postgres or MySQL) with contact information for your clients. Depending on what information your registrar makes publicly available, you can use this weekly cron job to compare what you have on file with what the registrar has on file and alert you to any changes.
This way, your clients can keep control over their DNS records, and you can audit them to let yor clients know that there is a problem. Hell, you'd be a step ahead of Microsoft, who just lets their domains expire until some Good Samaritan bails them out.
Indeed, design is of critical importance. However, it is naive to believe that just because one has a well designed application, that it is bug free. Bug-free code does not exist in reality.
To expand on your example, I use qmail in a number of installations. I still read bugtraq (among others) and look for new patches. It's part of my responsibility as an admin, and I'd be remiss in my duties if I depended on the reputation of my software instead of actually watching for new vulnerabilities (and [local] vulnerabilities have been found in qmail). The point is that it's still the end user's responsibility to ensure that their software is properly patched -- not MS', not Red Hat, not even DJB. Sure -- secure, bug-free code is nice, but in the real world, I know that this is not a reality and try to weigh out the risks, while constantly trying to keep informed of new risks.
What's alarming for me is not that there was a vulnerability in the ATM machines -- this does not come as a shock. But in this case, there was a longstanding published vulnerability with exploits in the wild, as well as a highly available patch. Nothing was done, and the ATM machine was exploited. Maybe the vendor needed to contact the owner of the machine...maybe they had a service contract -- I don't know the details beyond what's in the article. However, I'm not sure that it's fair to blame Diebold for anything more than their use of an MS OS...and although I'm a *nix professional, I'm still willing to admit that depending on what needs to be accomplished, there can be some very compelling reasons to use MS software.
Not to defend Diebold, but they wouldn't even be allowed to patch the systems.
I'm with you on this one...which is not to say that I agree with Diebold's business practices. However, it's not Microsoft's fault if some butthead forgot to patch their system -- the same way it's not RedHat's fault if some butthead forgot to patch their system and got owned. How can Diebold be blamed here? It's the eu's responsibility to maintain their system.
Now I don't know anything about ATM machines and associated contracts...but I assume that responsibility of maintenance either falls into the hands of the owner of the machine, or the bank issuing the cash -- not the manufacturer.
Those rabbits might include vote-fixing with rigged voting machines and another convenient "terrorist event" that he will use to increase his popularity just like he did after 9-11
Where are you pulling vote-fixing out of? Is this the Diebold security issues or the 2000 election? Neither of these count as vote-fixing because one is only a security flaw/cover up, and the other wasn't vote fixing -- it was Gore's shitty legal team, and a country that largely wanted to move on. And Sept/2001 was convinent? You think Bush is going to create a terrorist attack to improve his ratings? I don't think so...and I have to say, I find your accusation a little distasteful.
Look, I'm no fan of GW Bush, but I think you're either dreaming or smoking crack. One way or the other, there has never been a shred of evidence to make me believe that the guy is as insidious as you suggest. What you're speculating is so far outside of everything we've ever seen the man do, that I'm convinced that you're either dreaming, smoking crack, or know something about this that I don't.
Who would have thought Bush could ever get an approval rating of 70% when less than 15% of the country actually voted for him?
When people just whine and don't vote, this is what happens. It will continue to happen until people get involved. This is why politicians listen to elderly people -- they're the largest group of voters.
20-1 says Bush gets re-elected. I don't think anyone can outspend him and this administration's fuck-ups over the Iraq war have been totally glossed over and buried. I won't vote for him but I still think we're going to be stuck with Junior for 4 more years.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on that. Americans are pissed and I think they'll stay pissed. They still feel particularly misled about going to Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from selling WMD to terrorists. No WMD have turned up, and the evidence linking Iraq to US-terrorism are weak at best (however, if I recall correctly, Hussein was offering a $60,000 stipend to families of Palestinian suicide bombers hitting Isreali targets). Furthermore, Americans are pissed that Bush went into Iraq, guns ablazin', with no exit strategy other than to ask Congress for more money -- this is still leaving a horrible taste in the mouths of voters (it will continue to unless he fixes it). There is also the matter of Cheeny hiring his former firm to take a large chunk of rebuilding Iraq with no RFP issued. Americans are sick of his rhetoric -- every time this guy is asked the tough questions about Iraq, he spews out the same "I don't know anyone in their right mind who thinks the world would be better off with this guy in power". His response doesn't answer the question, and all that it does is makes it clear to me that in Bush's mind, the ends certainly justify the means.
In order to get re-elected, Bush will have to pull some serious rabbits out of his hat. Specifically, he'll have to show some pretty convincing evidence of WMD in Iraq and get Iraq settled with the majority of our troops out of Iraq with an Iraqi government in power.
Unless he fixes these issues, there's no amount of campaign spending that will erase the memory of Bush's fuckups in foreign policy. He's got all the rope he needs -- I'm certain that he'll finish the job of hanging himself. After a presidency like this one (the next year notwithstanding), you must think that all of your fellow countrymen are a bunch of assholes if you think that they'll vote for this guy again. Living in America my whole life (and being an American), I've met a fair number of other Americans in a fair number of regions. Most of the ones I met seem like pretty nice, intelligent people. I sure as hell hope for my sake that they can put 2 and 2 together on this one. I think that they will.
PS -- FWIW, I don't think that we'll do much better with Democrats in the White House.
The network survives without any single point of origin. That's why Kazaa wasn't vulnerable to the same kind of lawsuit that destroyed Napster.
I don't know the specifics of how Kazaa works either, but I'm not sure that I agree with you.
First of all, Sharman Networks do not reside in the US. This helps to indemnify them from the US' grasp. Secondly, Kazaa is also different from Napster (in the eyes of the law) because it doesn't exclusively facilitate music downloads. Kazaa is a file sharing service -- which includes music, but is not limited to it. Finally, I do use Kazaa, and in order for Kazaa to work there needs to be a metaserver for you to query at startup (which will point you to the other nodes/supernodes). Sharman needs to host this metaserver...otherwise, nodes will not communicate. This is why you need to get as torrent tracker file for Bittorrent to work -- there aren't any centralized servers (or metaservers) to search with.
IANAL, but AFAIK you cannot trademark common English words.
IANAL either -- but if you can trademark Red Hat, Yahoo!, Fox, etc -- or the name of any company/product that's an English word or phrase, how does Fedora not apply?
What the law (AFAIK) comes down to is really to protect your name, which differtiates your product or company from competitors. I can't go start another TV Network called Fox. Similarly, I can't open a courier services and offer "UPS Brown" service. These are protected names...trademarks. In this case, trademark law comes into place big-time. Especially if there's a documented prior art bearing the same name. RH will have a hard time trademarking a software package named Fedora.
...This puts Kazaa at a greater risk of law enforcement action.
Yeah -- a wholeheartedly agree with you on that one. There's a single point of origin on the Kazaa network -- the service itself. That's the weakness.
BT has even less accountability than you suggest, with "rogue" sites like suprnova and the associated mirrors -- and many of these sites also provide links or redirects to.torrent files. It makes me wonder about how a system like freenet would work along these lines of legal accountability. Freenet works sort of like BT, except file chunks are distributed around the network in a pseudo-random fashion, so a user doesn't know what content they're hosting on their computer. I guess in that case, the "linker" is held responsible. This brings up free speech issues, since information (and speech) need to be protected. It's not illegal for me to tell you where the guy selling pirate DVD's is -- why would it then be illegal for me to give you a location of a seed?
Technically, I'd contend that it's perfectly legal to provide such information. What it really comes down to is that IP owners (or anyone else, really) can sue for whatever they want to. Most folks don't have the resources necessary to fight a suit against one of the "big boys" -- therefore, all file sharers are going to have to either bow to their whim, or fly under their radar (like using Kazaa to swap torrent tracker files).
You're probably right in that putting restrictions on P2P will be a difficult task, but I don't think it will be impossible. What I expect is some kind of government legislation that any person or company making software used to transmit data in a peer to peer manner must have some kind of logging system which enables someone (preferrably in law enforcement, not Hollywood) to see what files were transmitted, from whom, to whom, with the ability to positively identify both parties. I'm sure that such a law will be introduced as "required to go after pedophiles and terrorists", but it will be more designed to curtail the use of P2P for pirating copyrighted works
I see where you're coming from here. Yeah - it's not impossible to create such a law. However, without a totaliarian effort (which will never be accepted in this country) these laws will be extremely difficult to enforce. Further, with encryption technology, it will be easy to create loopholes in any law created.
I'm satisfied with any margin being used for legal purposes...and I'll give you an example. RedHat is legitimately distributed via BitTorrent. Frankly, I don't believe in group punshment -- if a small group of people have a legitimate use for something, there's no reason to tear it down.
It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content. I don't know the percentages, and with regards to the discussion of legality, I don't care. With regard to arguing over percentages, it's pretty easy to draw parallels to the DeCSS lawsuits (where the legitimate users of this software were Linux users -- but because they were a minarity, they were ignored). This was a bullshit case with an outcome that I still view as completely unjust.
The fact is, P2P is a tool. It can be both used and misused. Further, the implications for the common person to be able to publish any type of document and distribute it on a massive scale with a cost approaching nil are great. I view this alone to be a greater threat to mass media than piracy. It's their content. If they want to distribute it with loads of DRM -- fine. I jsut won't buy it. If they can't innovate fast enough -- fuck 'em.
Currently, the community is too fragmented to offer such a truce
Sure -- because I don't trust the IP owners with my stuff. If I buy a car from you, I will neither give you a spare key nor access to my garage. If I buy a book from you, I will never allow you to insist that I only read it under the light that you specify. So why should I allow other IP owners to watch me to make sure I don't run away with this IP? I'm a private person and will never agree to that kind of treatment.
and the likely outcome is that P2P will become regulated
I kind of doubt that P2P (in general) will ever be regulated more than it already is (normal copyright law). P2P, as a whole, has far too many legitimate uses to be regulated. Especially with a decentralized system (like BitTorrent). These systems allow for any schmuck with a computer and Internet connection to distribute massive amounts of data without the associated costs...a "power to the people" kind of thing.
Essentially, I agree that something's gotta give -- but I don't think that P2P (as a whole) will ever be regulated. Even if the major commercial networks are regulated, there will always be decentralized networks -- even anonymous ones (like Freenet), and if those are ever regulated (which I doubt they ever will be), new ones will be created in their place.
Now, the topic was Apple, hence the expectation.
I do not exactly stand as a fan boy, Or maybe am I emphatical about most thing I will editorialize...:)
I hear what you're saying...but when there's an MS, or maybe more pertinently, a SCO story -- you surely can't expect it to be all cheers for SCO, no?
Not exactly : if the main topic of this story had been YRO, I'd have avoided it as I do not care about issues which mostly happen over the Atlantic Ocean.
What are you saying? That things happen on the eastern side of the Atlantic?;)
Slashdot Mirror
My problem with this is that part of the AT&T breakup ruling was that AT&T could not require you to rent or purchase their equipment (anyone here old enough to remember the US pre AT&T breakup remembers that it was "illegal" to buy your own phone and hook it up...or "illegal" to hook up additional phones on your line).
The federal government stepped in and said that you can't be trapped into renting or buying equipment to use a communications service.
Now, that being said, why do I have to buy or rent equipment from a cable provider? I can provide my own cable modem. If I plug my computer directly into the wall for cable (in order to use a product like Showshifter, and I pay for premium service -- why can't I descramble it myself? It's decidely not stealing in any was (unless you count timeshifting as stealing, but this is a completely unrelated issue). That being said, why can't I have a descrambler box?
This is no different than Hughes witch-hunt where they went after anyone who bought a smart card reader...they just assumed that anyone who bought one was going to steal their service. Sure, they may catch a few theives, but at what expense?
I'm surprised that many of the same slashdot readers who were against the DMCA (and its use in enforcing copyrights) seem to support the use of the DMCA here. I can also draw some parallels to the DVD-CCA/DeCSS case with regards to the DMCA, but hopefully, those anti-DMCA readers will get the picture by now.
Alot of this has to do with Blockbuster's "family" image. They will not rent out NC-17 movies (which is a real bummer, because there have been some excellent movies which happened to carry the NC-17 rating) or anything "too contraversial". Consequently, this is another reason why studios tend to fear NC-17 movies -- the home rental/sales market is lucrative enough for studios to bend to Blockbuster's will.
Thanks though!
This is simply incorrect. First of all, black box recorders for cars are still experimental. They are not sold in any new cars today (unless you read something in the latest Autoweek, which has not made its way to my door yet).
The only vehicles that have a GPS which sends a signal when the airbad is deployed are cars equipped with OnStar (on GM cars, Mercedes Benz uses a different system run by a company in Texas whose name I cannot remember right now). This is an optional pay service -- you don't have it unless you pay for the service.
Every car sold today in the US it required to have airbags. They are not, however, required to have a GPS device or an onstar-type system. Car manufactureres are extremely cost-sensitive. They don't just drop $300 systems into cars without telling anyone about it (there are a few exceptions, but this is not one of them). I'm not sure where you're getting your information on this one, but it is simply untrue.
I left out not-hard-drugs. Cannabis should just plain be legal. I have still not found any convincing reason why it should be illegal other than the fact the the moralists feel that there's an issue on that side of things (which is mostly irrelevant in our diverse society). The gateway theory has been consistently disproven, and cannabis doesn't have to be smoked to produce the desired effect. Eating cannabis can provide an even more intenst effect than smoking. Unlike alcohol, drivers on cannabis are not reckless (the current propaganda regarding this issues in the US is completely baseless). In fact, a few years back, there was an Australian study that showed the drivers under the influence cannabis were actually more alert and took less chances than drivers who were sober.
OK, I'll shut up now.
I couldn't argue with you on that one -- but I think that there are additional reasons to legalize hard drugs. I also feel that people should take responsibility for their actions rather than be babyed by our government. It's my fucking body -- and I'm not asking the government for socialized healthcare. I just want to be able to do with it what I like. Similar to a hacker mentality with electronic equipment, they bought the gear, they should be able to take it apart (using whatever tools they want) and screw with it (or not, if they so choose). I should be able to use mind altering drugs to experiment with my head -- or if I choose not to, not to.
The problem with that is that this guy was not engaging in any criminal activity (as far as we know). These guys just don't want him there. Furthermore, he's not a tourist. He was flying his plane over the Arctic circle to (presumably) cut the distance over the ocean. I guess that it just doesn't make any sense. Maybe they're being pricks just to be pricks?
I've gotta say that I agree with you on this one. Giving both parties involved the benefit of the doubt here (since details from the linked article are a little scant), it really does seem like these academics are being beaurocratic and thick-headed. The researchers never stated (in any article that I read) that they had a limited supply of fuel, or that selling him fuel was any kind hardship. It's been fairly consistently assumed in /. posts that this is the case, but again, I've seen no evidence of this. No, with their noses in the air, the researchers stated that they don't want to encourage tourism...like they own the place (even though this guy is not a tourist and had no intention of stopping there).
Sure, it's their right to do this, but it doesn't mean that they're not coming off sounding like a bunch of assholes.
Really, this reminds me of Bush's AIDS programs in African countries where he refuses to promote AIDS prevention through safe sex -- but he will only go over there to teach abstinence. Just like these researchers, he's sort of helping in one way -- but screwing people over in another. IMO, because he feels that he's intellectually (and morally) superior to those Africans...which is similar to this situation where the researchers feel that they're superior to this guy and are helping him, but are trying to teach him a lesson at the same time. I call bullshit. There's nothing criminal about this, but ethically, just like Bush, those researchers are full of shit. They deserve to get theirs someday when they come to depend on someone else after fucking up -- they definitely won't deserve the benefit of the doubt.Indeed, it would be the best of both worlds. MythTV and Freevo are both capable of this. Further, since TiVo's are hackable, it's possible to stick them on a network and rip the files onto your computer. After that, you can do whatever you need to -- burn a DVD, share it over a network, etc. I believe that the possibilities are greater (and more convinent) with a PVR than a VCR.
A VCR is not nonlinear, and it's not hackable like a TiVo is.
Which HD tuner do you use? Would you recommend it? How is the image quality? How much did it cost?
Thanks,OK -- this has the potential to open up a can of worms...and I don't care enough to have it out iwth anyone on this, but I'll open my yapper anyway -- cause I'm that kind of asshole ;)
I have a hard time believing that hardware drivers of any kind can be considered a derivative work. This is particularly if the hardware wasn't built for the express purpose of working with the Linux kernel (which I guess means that this point doesn't apply to TiVo). Alot of it goes back to Larry McVoy's point in this thread -- which I believe is correct (even if Linux disagrees).
My general feeling is that liberal consideration of applications (and modules) which interface with an OS as a derivative work is dangerous, particularly in the midst of the SCO v IBM lawsuit, where part of their claim is that Linux is a derivative work of SysV Unix. Furthermore, I'm especially surprised that Linus felt that way, since it causes some inflexibility in Linux's adoption into the marketplace. It seems more like something RMS would say to increase the spread of free software.
That being said, I'm not about to test any of it in court...I'm not (nor do I work for or represent) a major commercial hardware/software manufacturer. However, if a TiVo or nVidia wants to test it -- I'd bet that the law is on their side.
IANAL, and I'm no kernel expert, but AFAIK -- kernel module sources do not have to be released (and if I'm wrong, IMO, they shouldn't have to be). It's not kernel modification pre se, but a module. If module source had to be released, nVidia would be required to release their Linux drivers...and I believe that nVidia would rather stop supporting Linux than release the source to their video drivers.
Just my 2 cents
Why not just write a shell (or Perl) script to run a whois on each of your clients' domains, grep'ing for "xpires on:" (or whatever) and stripping out all non-date info.
Next, have it write out all domains with a month or less before expiration to a file. If the file is not empty, have it email the results to the appropriate people (I'd make it you -- and you can notify your clients if they maintain control over the domains).
Finally, run your script as a weekly cron job.
If you're extra-serious about this (and want to keep DNS records current with your last-known contact information), create a relational DB (I'd suggest something free, like Postgres or MySQL) with contact information for your clients. Depending on what information your registrar makes publicly available, you can use this weekly cron job to compare what you have on file with what the registrar has on file and alert you to any changes.
This way, your clients can keep control over their DNS records, and you can audit them to let yor clients know that there is a problem. Hell, you'd be a step ahead of Microsoft, who just lets their domains expire until some Good Samaritan bails them out.
Good luck!Indeed, design is of critical importance. However, it is naive to believe that just because one has a well designed application, that it is bug free. Bug-free code does not exist in reality.
To expand on your example, I use qmail in a number of installations. I still read bugtraq (among others) and look for new patches. It's part of my responsibility as an admin, and I'd be remiss in my duties if I depended on the reputation of my software instead of actually watching for new vulnerabilities (and [local] vulnerabilities have been found in qmail). The point is that it's still the end user's responsibility to ensure that their software is properly patched -- not MS', not Red Hat, not even DJB. Sure -- secure, bug-free code is nice, but in the real world, I know that this is not a reality and try to weigh out the risks, while constantly trying to keep informed of new risks.
What's alarming for me is not that there was a vulnerability in the ATM machines -- this does not come as a shock. But in this case, there was a longstanding published vulnerability with exploits in the wild, as well as a highly available patch. Nothing was done, and the ATM machine was exploited. Maybe the vendor needed to contact the owner of the machine...maybe they had a service contract -- I don't know the details beyond what's in the article. However, I'm not sure that it's fair to blame Diebold for anything more than their use of an MS OS...and although I'm a *nix professional, I'm still willing to admit that depending on what needs to be accomplished, there can be some very compelling reasons to use MS software.
I'm with you on this one...which is not to say that I agree with Diebold's business practices. However, it's not Microsoft's fault if some butthead forgot to patch their system -- the same way it's not RedHat's fault if some butthead forgot to patch their system and got owned. How can Diebold be blamed here? It's the eu's responsibility to maintain their system.
Now I don't know anything about ATM machines and associated contracts...but I assume that responsibility of maintenance either falls into the hands of the owner of the machine, or the bank issuing the cash -- not the manufacturer.
Where are you pulling vote-fixing out of? Is this the Diebold security issues or the 2000 election? Neither of these count as vote-fixing because one is only a security flaw/cover up, and the other wasn't vote fixing -- it was Gore's shitty legal team, and a country that largely wanted to move on. And Sept/2001 was convinent? You think Bush is going to create a terrorist attack to improve his ratings? I don't think so...and I have to say, I find your accusation a little distasteful.
Look, I'm no fan of GW Bush, but I think you're either dreaming or smoking crack. One way or the other, there has never been a shred of evidence to make me believe that the guy is as insidious as you suggest. What you're speculating is so far outside of everything we've ever seen the man do, that I'm convinced that you're either dreaming, smoking crack, or know something about this that I don't.
When people just whine and don't vote, this is what happens. It will continue to happen until people get involved. This is why politicians listen to elderly people -- they're the largest group of voters.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on that. Americans are pissed and I think they'll stay pissed. They still feel particularly misled about going to Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from selling WMD to terrorists. No WMD have turned up, and the evidence linking Iraq to US-terrorism are weak at best (however, if I recall correctly, Hussein was offering a $60,000 stipend to families of Palestinian suicide bombers hitting Isreali targets). Furthermore, Americans are pissed that Bush went into Iraq, guns ablazin', with no exit strategy other than to ask Congress for more money -- this is still leaving a horrible taste in the mouths of voters (it will continue to unless he fixes it). There is also the matter of Cheeny hiring his former firm to take a large chunk of rebuilding Iraq with no RFP issued. Americans are sick of his rhetoric -- every time this guy is asked the tough questions about Iraq, he spews out the same "I don't know anyone in their right mind who thinks the world would be better off with this guy in power". His response doesn't answer the question, and all that it does is makes it clear to me that in Bush's mind, the ends certainly justify the means.
In order to get re-elected, Bush will have to pull some serious rabbits out of his hat. Specifically, he'll have to show some pretty convincing evidence of WMD in Iraq and get Iraq settled with the majority of our troops out of Iraq with an Iraqi government in power.
Unless he fixes these issues, there's no amount of campaign spending that will erase the memory of Bush's fuckups in foreign policy. He's got all the rope he needs -- I'm certain that he'll finish the job of hanging himself. After a presidency like this one (the next year notwithstanding), you must think that all of your fellow countrymen are a bunch of assholes if you think that they'll vote for this guy again. Living in America my whole life (and being an American), I've met a fair number of other Americans in a fair number of regions. Most of the ones I met seem like pretty nice, intelligent people. I sure as hell hope for my sake that they can put 2 and 2 together on this one. I think that they will.
PS -- FWIW, I don't think that we'll do much better with Democrats in the White House.
I don't know the specifics of how Kazaa works either, but I'm not sure that I agree with you.
First of all, Sharman Networks do not reside in the US. This helps to indemnify them from the US' grasp. Secondly, Kazaa is also different from Napster (in the eyes of the law) because it doesn't exclusively facilitate music downloads. Kazaa is a file sharing service -- which includes music, but is not limited to it. Finally, I do use Kazaa, and in order for Kazaa to work there needs to be a metaserver for you to query at startup (which will point you to the other nodes/supernodes). Sharman needs to host this metaserver...otherwise, nodes will not communicate. This is why you need to get as torrent tracker file for Bittorrent to work -- there aren't any centralized servers (or metaservers) to search with.
IANAL either -- but if you can trademark Red Hat, Yahoo!, Fox, etc -- or the name of any company/product that's an English word or phrase, how does Fedora not apply?
What the law (AFAIK) comes down to is really to protect your name, which differtiates your product or company from competitors. I can't go start another TV Network called Fox. Similarly, I can't open a courier services and offer "UPS Brown" service. These are protected names...trademarks. In this case, trademark law comes into place big-time. Especially if there's a documented prior art bearing the same name. RH will have a hard time trademarking a software package named Fedora.
Yeah -- a wholeheartedly agree with you on that one. There's a single point of origin on the Kazaa network -- the service itself. That's the weakness.
BT has even less accountability than you suggest, with "rogue" sites like suprnova and the associated mirrors -- and many of these sites also provide links or redirects to .torrent files. It makes me wonder about how a system like freenet would work along these lines of legal accountability. Freenet works sort of like BT, except file chunks are distributed around the network in a pseudo-random fashion, so a user doesn't know what content they're hosting on their computer. I guess in that case, the "linker" is held responsible. This brings up free speech issues, since information (and speech) need to be protected. It's not illegal for me to tell you where the guy selling pirate DVD's is -- why would it then be illegal for me to give you a location of a seed?
Technically, I'd contend that it's perfectly legal to provide such information. What it really comes down to is that IP owners (or anyone else, really) can sue for whatever they want to. Most folks don't have the resources necessary to fight a suit against one of the "big boys" -- therefore, all file sharers are going to have to either bow to their whim, or fly under their radar (like using Kazaa to swap torrent tracker files).
I see where you're coming from here. Yeah - it's not impossible to create such a law. However, without a totaliarian effort (which will never be accepted in this country) these laws will be extremely difficult to enforce. Further, with encryption technology, it will be easy to create loopholes in any law created.
BTW -- I like your name :)
Beowulf cluster ;)
I'm satisfied with any margin being used for legal purposes...and I'll give you an example. RedHat is legitimately distributed via BitTorrent. Frankly, I don't believe in group punshment -- if a small group of people have a legitimate use for something, there's no reason to tear it down.
It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content. I don't know the percentages, and with regards to the discussion of legality, I don't care. With regard to arguing over percentages, it's pretty easy to draw parallels to the DeCSS lawsuits (where the legitimate users of this software were Linux users -- but because they were a minarity, they were ignored). This was a bullshit case with an outcome that I still view as completely unjust.
The fact is, P2P is a tool. It can be both used and misused. Further, the implications for the common person to be able to publish any type of document and distribute it on a massive scale with a cost approaching nil are great. I view this alone to be a greater threat to mass media than piracy. It's their content. If they want to distribute it with loads of DRM -- fine. I jsut won't buy it. If they can't innovate fast enough -- fuck 'em.
Sure -- because I don't trust the IP owners with my stuff. If I buy a car from you, I will neither give you a spare key nor access to my garage. If I buy a book from you, I will never allow you to insist that I only read it under the light that you specify. So why should I allow other IP owners to watch me to make sure I don't run away with this IP? I'm a private person and will never agree to that kind of treatment.
I kind of doubt that P2P (in general) will ever be regulated more than it already is (normal copyright law). P2P, as a whole, has far too many legitimate uses to be regulated. Especially with a decentralized system (like BitTorrent). These systems allow for any schmuck with a computer and Internet connection to distribute massive amounts of data without the associated costs...a "power to the people" kind of thing.
Essentially, I agree that something's gotta give -- but I don't think that P2P (as a whole) will ever be regulated. Even if the major commercial networks are regulated, there will always be decentralized networks -- even anonymous ones (like Freenet), and if those are ever regulated (which I doubt they ever will be), new ones will be created in their place.
I hear what you're saying...but when there's an MS, or maybe more pertinently, a SCO story -- you surely can't expect it to be all cheers for SCO, no?
What are you saying? That things happen on the eastern side of the Atlantic? ;)