They can also offer to provide a copy of the source on (machine readable) punched tape, or 80 column punched cards. Or on 6250bpi 9 track tape (with an allowable media charge for the reel(s) of tape, of course)
No, they can't. The GPL says "on a medium customarily used for software interchange" [emphasis added}, not "on a medium historically used for software interchange".
I haven't seen paper tape used in over 25 years, nor punch cards in nearly as long. The last 9-track tape reel I saw being used (not counting ones lying around my office being used as paperweights) was about 15 years ago, although I'll allow as how some data centers might have a few still lying around. But they aren't any more being customarily used for software interchange, that's nearly always on CD or DVD these days (I haven't seen anything else used - even for mainframe software - in years).
Plaintiff's counsel (ie, the lawyers) notified Monsoon on September 11, and you can bet it wasn't by posting on their web site. Monsoon has so far ignored them. Having legal papers served (eg notice of a lawsuit) will be more effective at getting their attention.
This has been pointed out over there, too.
It's also been pointed out that Monsoon has been informally advised (ie, not by the copyright holder per se) of their GPL violations for months.
I sincerely doubt it will come to this. Once Monsoon's lawyers read over the complaint and the GPL, they'll advise Monsoon to settle. The SFLC will advise Anderson on what's reasonable to settle for.
The lawsuit is just away of getting Monsoon's attention, since they seemed inclined to try to blow the whole thing off. Some people/companies are like that.
Monsoon built a box, and put the BusyBox software on it, and uses the BusyBox software as a "black box" utility package.
Yes, and for every instance of that box that Monsoon sells (or gives away), they are distribiting a copy of that BusyBox software.
The GPL doesn't offer the option of distributers in Monsoon's situation just saying "oh, you can get the source from BusyBox's web site". Monsoon has to provide or make available the source themselves. This is especially true if Monsoon has modified BusyBox (or any other included GPL'd software) it distributes.
As far as the copyright owners are concerned, Monsoon is distributing unauthorized copies of BusyBox; they just happen to be distributing it on unusual media (the box).
As for your "hello world" example, you only have to distribute the "hello world" source (assuming you're also distributing Linux) if it forms an integral part (not necessarily linked in, but necessary to get everything working) of the Linux you're distributing. If it's just another program on the same disk ("mere aggregation"), then no.
The Copyright Code explicitly allows for the necessary copying of programs into RAM in order to be run.
There is in fact a fair body of case law covering software copyrights, including the abstraction-filtration-comparison test from the Second and Tenth Circuits that look at filtering out the things necessary to make the software work in its given environment (eg externally defined constants, protocols, etc) as not proof of infringement.
The GPL is constructed in such a way that downloading the software is acceptance to be bound by its terms.
Bullshit. It is no such thing.
Read Section 0, second paragraph, and Section 5 (referring to GPL 2, which is the one in question here).
Offering the software for download indicates acceptance of the terms by the offeror of the download (who may be several steps downstream from the copyright holder). The downloader is free to do with it as he or she wishes, totally ignoring the GPL unless he or she wishes to further redistribute the code (modified or unmodified). The license, should they choose to accept it, is granted by the upstream copyright holder, not the offeror of the download.
The GPL is a conditional license. It is not a contract. It is not a EULA.
It only demands agreement if you are planning on doing something that would otherwise violate copyright law. You can do whatever the hell you want with GPL'd code -- except copy and distribute it -- without accepting it.
If you want to copy (including making derived works) and distribute those, the GPL grants permission conditional upon accepting the terms. Failing to accept the terms (or reneging on an earlier commitment to honor them) is prima facie evidence that you have rejected the license and thus no longer have any permission to copy.
Courts where the GPL has been tested (e.g. in Germany) have upheld this.
There ARE precedents that say that once permission is given, the only further recourse is as a contract violation, not as copyright infringement. And sadly, some judges think that is binding.
Cites, please. Especially any that refer to open-source type licensing rather than distribution contracts, which are entirely different things.
Nope, it's not a contract. It's a conditional license, the granting and continuation of which is conditional upon complying with its terms. As soon as you break the terms you have revoked the license yourself, and may no longer distribute under it.
This is why Slashdot is a poor source for legal information, because people like you post ridiculous theories on it.
Assuming you're serious, Volume 2 (Xlib Reference Manual) probably isn't very much out of date; Xlib hasn't changed very much. I have the 3rd edition (1992) with minor corrections (1993) that covers X11 R4/R5. We were on R6 for the longest time, R7 is less than two years old
Most people use a toolkit (GTK, Qt, Motif, etc) on top of Xlib these days anyway.
Seriously, (looking more closely at shelf) the Volume 3 X Windows System User's Guide OSF/Motif 1.2 Edition is more of a dark reddish brown. But (digs around a bit) yeah, you're right, the straight Vol 3 is indeed (mostly) red.
Funny, I always though of the Red Book as the PostScript prgramming guide (er, Language Reference). Either that or the standard for audio CDs (CDDA).
Then there's the old O'Reilly "Rainbow Books", the eight or nine volumes on X Windows specs and programming -- but glancing over at my bookshelf, none of them are red, exactly.
The radioisotope thermal generators that NASA uses are indeed built to withstand considerable violence without damage. There was an instance quite a few years back now where the launch vehicle carrying a spacecraft containing such an RTG blew up and scattered debris all over the ocean. The RTG was recovered intact from the ocean floor, cleaned up, and flown in the backup spacecraft.
On the other hand, some stuff is not ever intended to reenter. The USSR's Cosmos 954 reconnaisance satellite was powered by a (small) nuclear reactor (not merely an RTG) which because of spacecraft malfunctions (it was supposed to boost into a high "disposal orbit" but didn't) reentered, spewing radioactive debris over a fair swath of northwestern Canada.
Doesn't surprise me. Most people who go into the "fuzzy" vs the "hard" sciences do so because they're not good at or don't like math. (Yeah, I know, broad generalization.)
And as math goes, statistics can be pretty darn counterintuitive.
(I speak from experience - I worked for a few years in a university computer center's "academic support group", where among other things I help faculty and grad students with running statistical analysis packages. Some of the experimental designs were pretty bad, too.)
It's stupid because the kernel config system already allows for thousands of different "forks" of the kernel. (Whatever the total number of legitimate combinations of config options is -- has to be at least thousands).
Distro makers do exactly that -- plus merging in other code that may not have been accepted into mainline.
In other words, it's not really a stupid idea -- just a stupid suggestion because it is already being done.
You can find both forms out there. Normally I would go for the shorter and likely more correct, but in this case decided that the longer had more humor value.
I had also been considering superciliousness, but that apparently is a trait shared by some geeks.
Just so long as you don't accurately need to work with dates prior to March 1, 1900. Excel thinks that was Feb 29, the rest of the (Gregorian) world thinks that was Feb 28. Earlier dates are screwed up (by Excel) accordingly.
However, most people use spreadsheets as a quick'n'dirty database anyway. I bet in any given survey of.xls (or.ooc) files only a minority of them would actually contain any calculations.
The ISO decision to not fast-track this won't be made until the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) in February, where they look at the comments, decide which can be resolved, and re-vote. If it passes that vote (and you can be sure MSFT is working on that), the fast-track succeeds. The ISO press release that TFA links to explains this. (I guess someone at Google has reading comprehension issues.)
Slashdot Mirror
They can also offer to provide a copy of the source on (machine readable) punched tape, or 80 column punched cards. Or on 6250bpi 9 track tape (with an allowable media charge for the reel(s) of tape, of course)
No, they can't. The GPL says "on a medium customarily used for software interchange" [emphasis added}, not "on a medium historically used for software interchange".
I haven't seen paper tape used in over 25 years, nor punch cards in nearly as long. The last 9-track tape reel I saw being used (not counting ones lying around my office being used as paperweights) was about 15 years ago, although I'll allow as how some data centers might have a few still lying around. But they aren't any more being customarily used for software interchange, that's nearly always on CD or DVD these days (I haven't seen anything else used - even for mainframe software - in years).
DaveJakeman over on Groklaw is a twit.
Plaintiff's counsel (ie, the lawyers) notified Monsoon on September 11, and you can bet it wasn't by posting on their web site. Monsoon has so far ignored them. Having legal papers served (eg notice of a lawsuit) will be more effective at getting their attention.
This has been pointed out over there, too.
It's also been pointed out that Monsoon has been informally advised (ie, not by the copyright holder per se) of their GPL violations for months.
The years long court battle to emerge from it,
I sincerely doubt it will come to this. Once Monsoon's lawyers read over the complaint and the GPL, they'll advise Monsoon to settle. The SFLC will advise Anderson on what's reasonable to settle for.
The lawsuit is just away of getting Monsoon's attention, since they seemed inclined to try to blow the whole thing off. Some people/companies are like that.
Monsoon built a box, and put the BusyBox software on it, and uses the BusyBox software as a "black box" utility package.
Yes, and for every instance of that box that Monsoon sells (or gives away), they are distribiting a copy of that BusyBox software.
The GPL doesn't offer the option of distributers in Monsoon's situation just saying "oh, you can get the source from BusyBox's web site". Monsoon has to provide or make available the source themselves. This is especially true if Monsoon has modified BusyBox (or any other included GPL'd software) it distributes.
As far as the copyright owners are concerned, Monsoon is distributing unauthorized copies of BusyBox; they just happen to be distributing it on unusual media (the box).
As for your "hello world" example, you only have to distribute the "hello world" source (assuming you're also distributing Linux) if it forms an integral part (not necessarily linked in, but necessary to get everything working) of the Linux you're distributing. If it's just another program on the same disk ("mere aggregation"), then no.
The Copyright Code explicitly allows for the necessary copying of programs into RAM in order to be run.
There is in fact a fair body of case law covering software copyrights, including the abstraction-filtration-comparison test from the Second and Tenth Circuits that look at filtering out the things necessary to make the software work in its given environment (eg externally defined constants, protocols, etc) as not proof of infringement.
The GPL is constructed in such a way that downloading the software is acceptance to be bound by its terms.
Bullshit. It is no such thing.
Read Section 0, second paragraph, and Section 5 (referring to GPL 2, which is the one in question here).
Offering the software for download indicates acceptance of the terms by the offeror of the download (who may be several steps downstream from the copyright holder). The downloader is free to do with it as he or she wishes, totally ignoring the GPL unless he or she wishes to further redistribute the code (modified or unmodified). The license, should they choose to accept it, is granted by the upstream copyright holder, not the offeror of the download.
The GPL is a conditional license. It is not a contract. It is not a EULA.
It only demands agreement if you are planning on doing something that would otherwise violate copyright law. You can do whatever the hell you want with GPL'd code -- except copy and distribute it -- without accepting it.
If you want to copy (including making derived works) and distribute those, the GPL grants permission conditional upon accepting the terms. Failing to accept the terms (or reneging on an earlier commitment to honor them) is prima facie evidence that you have rejected the license and thus no longer have any permission to copy.
Courts where the GPL has been tested (e.g. in Germany) have upheld this.
There ARE precedents that say that once permission is given, the only further recourse is as a contract violation, not as copyright infringement. And sadly, some judges think that is binding.
Cites, please. Especially any that refer to open-source type licensing rather than distribution contracts, which are entirely different things.
Nope, it's not a contract. It's a conditional license, the granting and continuation of which is conditional upon complying with its terms. As soon as you break the terms you have revoked the license yourself, and may no longer distribute under it.
This is why Slashdot is a poor source for legal information, because people like you post ridiculous theories on it.
Some [misguided] courts have held
Oh? Which ones? Any of those in the US?
I've heard a few non-lawyers handwaving that sort of speculation, nothing anywhere remotely authoritative.
Should call it the Obi Wan effect "If you strike me down, Darth Vader, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine".
That's the Little Red Book. I've got one of those around somewhere, too (from my high school days).
Assuming you're serious, Volume 2 (Xlib Reference Manual) probably isn't very much out of date; Xlib hasn't changed very much. I have the 3rd edition (1992) with minor corrections (1993) that covers X11 R4/R5. We were on R6 for the longest time, R7 is less than two years old
Most people use a toolkit (GTK, Qt, Motif, etc) on top of Xlib these days anyway.
it had 10 settings 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest.
We've got one that goes to 11.
(Sorry, had to be said.)
Corner cube reflectors.
Big ones.
(Okay, five words).
Aarrgh, somebody's swiped me volume 3 then!
Seriously, (looking more closely at shelf) the Volume 3 X Windows System User's Guide OSF/Motif 1.2 Edition is more of a dark reddish brown. But (digs around a bit) yeah, you're right, the straight Vol 3 is indeed (mostly) red.
Sorry about that.
Funny, I always though of the Red Book as the PostScript prgramming guide (er, Language Reference). Either that or the standard for audio CDs (CDDA).
Then there's the old O'Reilly "Rainbow Books", the eight or nine volumes on X Windows specs and programming -- but glancing over at my bookshelf, none of them are red, exactly.
There must be some creative accounting going on here.
They're including sales of Windows Vista. If releasing that thing to the market isn't a crime, I don't know what is.
(Ba dump bump.)
The radioisotope thermal generators that NASA uses are indeed built to withstand considerable violence without damage. There was an instance quite a few years back now where the launch vehicle carrying a spacecraft containing such an RTG blew up and scattered debris all over the ocean. The RTG was recovered intact from the ocean floor, cleaned up, and flown in the backup spacecraft.
On the other hand, some stuff is not ever intended to reenter. The USSR's Cosmos 954 reconnaisance satellite was powered by a (small) nuclear reactor (not merely an RTG) which because of spacecraft malfunctions (it was supposed to boost into a high "disposal orbit" but didn't) reentered, spewing radioactive debris over a fair swath of northwestern Canada.
Doesn't surprise me. Most people who go into the "fuzzy" vs the "hard" sciences do so because they're not good at or don't like math. (Yeah, I know, broad generalization.)
And as math goes, statistics can be pretty darn counterintuitive.
(I speak from experience - I worked for a few years in a university computer center's "academic support group", where among other things I help faculty and grad students with running statistical analysis packages. Some of the experimental designs were pretty bad, too.)
It's stupid because the kernel config system already allows for thousands of different "forks" of the kernel. (Whatever the total number of legitimate combinations of config options is -- has to be at least thousands).
Distro makers do exactly that -- plus merging in other code that may not have been accepted into mainline.
In other words, it's not really a stupid idea -- just a stupid suggestion because it is already being done.
You can find both forms out there. Normally I would go for the shorter and likely more correct, but in this case decided that the longer had more humor value.
I had also been considering superciliousness, but that apparently is a trait shared by some geeks.
Argh.
s/.ooc/.ods/ above. Must be past my bedtime.
Just so long as you don't accurately need to work with dates prior to March 1, 1900. Excel thinks that was Feb 29, the rest of the (Gregorian) world thinks that was Feb 28. Earlier dates are screwed up (by Excel) accordingly.
.xls (or .ooc) files only a minority of them would actually contain any calculations.
However, most people use spreadsheets as a quick'n'dirty database anyway. I bet in any given survey of
The ISO decision to not fast-track this won't be made until the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) in February, where they look at the comments, decide which can be resolved, and re-vote. If it passes that vote (and you can be sure MSFT is working on that), the fast-track succeeds. The ISO press release that TFA links to explains this. (I guess someone at Google has reading comprehension issues.)
It ain't over yet.