I reached this conclusion many years ago when I wrote a paper about the damaging effects of a 2 party system. Having two parties is the worst possible number because it is so easy to polarize issues. There is no room for moderates when there are two parties and on every issue they frame it as right/wrong, left/right, black/white.
I hope the tea party does well, if for no other reason than we need another serious political party. I don't give two shits about what they stand for, I just want more than 2 parties.
Kinda sad that the only way out of a two party system is instant runoff voting, and congress will never ever enact voting reform that jeopardizes the two party system. We are beholden to our masters we vote for every 2 years, because Americans are a bunch of pansy asses who individually only vote for one party.
The first time my ISP tries to charge me for faster access to specific websites is the day I drop their service.
I already gave them a piece of my mind when they started returning bing.com searches for unknown domain name lookups.
The ISP's will always be looking for ways to increase revenue in ways consumers don't like because the market is already very saturated; there aren't many new customers looking for broadband. Competing on service alone is more expensive because it won't get you very many new customers. A lot of people I know only switch providers when they move, and that doesn't provide many new opportunities for revenue growth.
Even without Linux, it should be pretty trivial to whip up an app on Windows to track signal strength. I'd install the drivers and check if any new COM interfaces appear or.NET components for interacting with the software. If so, I bet finding out the current connection status would be pretty easy.
As far as actual throughput, there's a lot of software out there for that - even on Windows. You could also use native Windows logging facilities to track network packet rates, Mbps, whatever you want to.
My biggest problem is this: What other crimes can criminals commit deeming them too dangerous for society? What's the point of a fixed length sentence at all for individuals who are likely to be dangerous after release? What about murderers and/or serial rapists who show no remorse or signs of rehabilitation?
The biggest improvement of this device over traditional CVT's is that it has no hydraulic torque converter.
It's a shoe-in replacement for CVT's and automatic transmissions. If you look at demographics on manual transmissions over the last 5 years though, you'll see a big trend away from them in general and the average driver using a manual is an enthusiast.
My only concern is if the gears can be strong enough for the massive stresses that would be imposed on a scaled up version. Even more important is this: can it be scaled up to handle the power while being the same or smaller in size than existing CVT's and auto transmissions. It's ingenious, but not magical. To have the right pressure angles and pitch diameters, building this transmission to be compact enough for an auto may be impossible.
Best scenario that I can think of is make the USPTO website really a lot easier to use. I think they do a good job considering the volume of crap they have to deal with, but it could be easier.
Second, allow anyone to submit comments regarding any prior art relevant to the claims of any patent application. So if someone posts an application with claims X, Y and Z and it's a rehash of an old idea, someone can just post a comment "Yo examiner, this was done in FVWM in 1995. Reject this shit."
And voila, it is rejected. That would be a perfect world(excluding all other worlds that would be better but are political suicide).
The implied license doctrine would have been more applicable to SCO than to this scenario with the university. At least in SCO's case they could have lied through their teeth claiming they thought they were buying the copyrights too. Oh wait, they actually tried that and it didn't work.
I just don't see the implied license doctrine working out for the university. The discussions leading up to his hiring would have really defined what the universities intent was when they hired him. If there were discussions about the university not just modifying, but also distributing the derivative software, then an implied license may exist. It's pretty slim that a judge would find that his direct employment creates an implied license of distribution rights for software he created before his employment.
Good idea though. You're thinking creatively. Darl is that you?
It's not really a gray area. Under the Berne Convention(of which the US is a signatory), things are automatically copyrighted upon creation, published or not.
If the source code had copyright notices in them stating the GPL is the license under which the code may be copied, then that is the way it is.
Absense a copyright notice, the university is ipso facto violating the law by copying the source or creating derivatives at all. No copyright notice, under Berne Convention rules means "all rights reserved", meaning no copying or distribution at all.
It's how the GPL works. If you choose to not accept the terms of the GPL, you can still use the software but you can't redistribute it since you have no other rights by law.
I'm aware of university terms of employment and various state laws in many places will protect an employee from something like this. The employer typically does not get carte blanche rights to all copyrighted works created by someone simply for hiring them. There must be a arms length meeting of the minds for the employment contract to be valid.
Not really. Unless there is a transfer of copyrights in writing, the university has zero control over the copyrights of the original works.
They control the copyrights of the derivative works, which are the improvements made after he was hired. He can continue to release his original work under whatever license he wishes to, including licensing it to the university under BSD or closed source licensing, if he CHOOSES.
The school doesn't get his copyrights just for hiring him unless that was in writing.
Close. They're not obligated to give the source code to recipients until it's requested. Small difference, I know, but it's more accurate.
We have a similar system here in Minnesota called MNSCU. It's like 20 schools in a system. Here, I can say it would count as a conveyance. Each school is incorporated individually.
If California is like that, the if UC Berkley gives a GPL program to another UC member school, they owe them source code also upon request. This depends also on case law from the 9th district. I don't have time to look it up right now, but if you wanted some cases to look at, just let me know.
Propagation with subsidiaries varies by jurisdiction and case law. So this is a non-starter on slashdot.
As far as the original question goes, no it's not a GPL violation. Many companies use GPL software without making the source code available to every employee. In fact, the ones that I've seen don't do it because they would prefer security through obscurity. If you know how their software works, getting privileges or access you shouldn't have is usually a bit easier.
As far as company owned GPL software on the home computers of employees, that's a tricky one and there probably isn't one straight answer. Probably would vary by relevant case law.
I agree with #1, and sort of don't also. The university should have taken a look at the license on his software before committing time and resources to improving it. If it was GPL'd before employment(and had copyright notices intact), the Uni can't distribute derivatives without also licensing them under the GPL.
I don't think there is a judge alive who would honor any submarine copyright-transfer terms of an employment contract, so unless he transferred them to the University with an intent to do so, he still owns the original works up to that first day of employment. The university cannot simply usurp his copyrights on the original works by employing him.
Your rant is apt for a lot of cases, but this particular issue is something a lot of/.'ers really understand. Most lawyers, if you ask them about GPL and copyrights, their eyes will glaze over. This guy really needs to decide how important this is to his job.
If push comes to shove, his job will be over but he can prevent the school from distributing his derivative works under other-than-GPL terms.
There are several issues here. The most pressing of which needs expert lawyer advice. When the software was given to the university, was there a transfer of copyrights? If not, did it have GPL notices intact?
If the answers are "no" and "yes" respectively, the university may not be able to externally distribute their modifications without also licensing them under the GPL.
What is definitely clear is that the university holds copyrights on anything he developed while on university time. The uni can do whatever they want with that code so long as they don't distribute it with the original GPL'd code. There are a lot of ways this can vary though. If the Uni's modifications are really binary dynamically loaded plugins, it's not so clear cut. A court might find that the plugins aren't derivatives, but original creative works instead.
I don't see a moral issue with simply pirating movies until they get the hint. Certainly a legal problem, but not a moral problem.
I don't care what they put on the DVD, but forcing me to watch previews for movies is just wrong. The worst part about it is I only buy movies I intend to watch again at some point in the future, at which time the previews are completely irrelevant.
Congress could put a cap on BP's prices. That's the only way to hurt them. If BP raises prices, the other oil companies will do the same.
They may not collude directly by phone, but they're all the same when it comes to profiteering. If there's any reason at all they think consumers will accept a higher price at the pump, they'll all raise prices in sync.
I've heard Rush a few times in the truck when I go to lunch with my bud. He's a die hard Rush fan and an idiot.
I haven't had the heart to explain in depth all the reasons that Rush is a shit spewing douchebag to him. Rush drives me fucking nuts. If I ever met him, there's a strong possibility I'll just throw him off the nearest cliff.
Idiots don't generally bother me, but this one has fans and he is creating many more idiots.
I have a Wii and I like it. It has a few enjoyable family games.
I don't like the game selection though and the interface is not good for the games I want to play. I like shooters and the Wii has no selection for adult oriented games. It does what it was meant to do very well and people looking for family friendly entertainment really are the sales driver.
The Xbox and PS3 are more geared towards older teens and adults. I guess my point is that although they have similar technical capabilities, the Wii is not in the same market as the PS3 and Xbox. There is some overlap so they do compete to some extent, but not nearly like the Xbox and PS3 compete with each other.
They shift their stance based on what they're asking for. Just 2 weeks ago, AT&T defended the FCC(in a case against Comcast) because it feared losing universal service fee money because of the "telecommunications carriers" classification. I don't pretend to be an expert...
but it seems fairly obvious that when there is tax dollars to be handed out to build infrastructure, the telecoms are all out there with their hands open ready and willing. But when it comes time for the FCC to enforce consumer fairness and openness on the internet(that we taxpayers paid AT&T and others to build a backbone for), they cry foul.
Politicians seem spineless when it comes time to intervene.
There are moral absolutes. One of them should be that each of us is free to choose our own destiny so long as our actions do not cause harm to those around us.
Gay people getting married doesn't harm you. You conservatives just don't like it. It doesn't fit into your view of how people should be. So don't come down here telling us the conservatives are here to protect "values" and "morals". They're pushing bibles, that's it. And even then, only when it's convenient.
You can't legislate goodness, let alone your own personal perception of goodness. If it doesn't harm you, you have no business telling others how they can live their life.
Kind of a technicality really. The existing laws granting FCC authority just don't spell it out. A forgiving interpretation of the intent of the law lends me to believe congress did intend for the FCC to regulate all activities of companies using government granted monopolies.
The free market is powerless in a pseudo-monopolistic environment. Companies(and I mean specifically Qwest, Comcast, AT&T Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and others) have shown and will continue showing that they are unable to provide a service consumers want without applying unscrupulous terms, practices, price gouging, or without violating privacy of their customers.
Congress needs to get this figured out. Consumers don't have many broadband choices and the companies in the market now are abusive bullies.
Slashdot Mirror
I reached this conclusion many years ago when I wrote a paper about the damaging effects of a 2 party system. Having two parties is the worst possible number because it is so easy to polarize issues. There is no room for moderates when there are two parties and on every issue they frame it as right/wrong, left/right, black/white.
I hope the tea party does well, if for no other reason than we need another serious political party. I don't give two shits about what they stand for, I just want more than 2 parties.
Kinda sad that the only way out of a two party system is instant runoff voting, and congress will never ever enact voting reform that jeopardizes the two party system. We are beholden to our masters we vote for every 2 years, because Americans are a bunch of pansy asses who individually only vote for one party.
The first time my ISP tries to charge me for faster access to specific websites is the day I drop their service.
I already gave them a piece of my mind when they started returning bing.com searches for unknown domain name lookups.
The ISP's will always be looking for ways to increase revenue in ways consumers don't like because the market is already very saturated; there aren't many new customers looking for broadband. Competing on service alone is more expensive because it won't get you very many new customers. A lot of people I know only switch providers when they move, and that doesn't provide many new opportunities for revenue growth.
Even without Linux, it should be pretty trivial to whip up an app on Windows to track signal strength. I'd install the drivers and check if any new COM interfaces appear or .NET components for interacting with the software. If so, I bet finding out the current connection status would be pretty easy.
As far as actual throughput, there's a lot of software out there for that - even on Windows. You could also use native Windows logging facilities to track network packet rates, Mbps, whatever you want to.
I like this idea.
You have my full support good sir.
No, that's from drug laws. Toss out all the drug convictions and our prisons would be less than half full.
My biggest problem is this: What other crimes can criminals commit deeming them too dangerous for society? What's the point of a fixed length sentence at all for individuals who are likely to be dangerous after release? What about murderers and/or serial rapists who show no remorse or signs of rehabilitation?
What about repeat domestic abusers?
Drunk drivers(have you seen recidivism rates?)?
What about repeat moving violators?
It's a slippery slope.
The biggest improvement of this device over traditional CVT's is that it has no hydraulic torque converter.
It's a shoe-in replacement for CVT's and automatic transmissions. If you look at demographics on manual transmissions over the last 5 years though, you'll see a big trend away from them in general and the average driver using a manual is an enthusiast.
My only concern is if the gears can be strong enough for the massive stresses that would be imposed on a scaled up version. Even more important is this: can it be scaled up to handle the power while being the same or smaller in size than existing CVT's and auto transmissions. It's ingenious, but not magical. To have the right pressure angles and pitch diameters, building this transmission to be compact enough for an auto may be impossible.
Best scenario that I can think of is make the USPTO website really a lot easier to use. I think they do a good job considering the volume of crap they have to deal with, but it could be easier.
Second, allow anyone to submit comments regarding any prior art relevant to the claims of any patent application. So if someone posts an application with claims X, Y and Z and it's a rehash of an old idea, someone can just post a comment "Yo examiner, this was done in FVWM in 1995. Reject this shit."
And voila, it is rejected. That would be a perfect world(excluding all other worlds that would be better but are political suicide).
The implied license doctrine would have been more applicable to SCO than to this scenario with the university. At least in SCO's case they could have lied through their teeth claiming they thought they were buying the copyrights too. Oh wait, they actually tried that and it didn't work.
I just don't see the implied license doctrine working out for the university. The discussions leading up to his hiring would have really defined what the universities intent was when they hired him. If there were discussions about the university not just modifying, but also distributing the derivative software, then an implied license may exist. It's pretty slim that a judge would find that his direct employment creates an implied license of distribution rights for software he created before his employment.
Good idea though. You're thinking creatively. Darl is that you?
It's not really a gray area. Under the Berne Convention(of which the US is a signatory), things are automatically copyrighted upon creation, published or not.
If the source code had copyright notices in them stating the GPL is the license under which the code may be copied, then that is the way it is.
Absense a copyright notice, the university is ipso facto violating the law by copying the source or creating derivatives at all. No copyright notice, under Berne Convention rules means "all rights reserved", meaning no copying or distribution at all.
It's how the GPL works. If you choose to not accept the terms of the GPL, you can still use the software but you can't redistribute it since you have no other rights by law.
I'm aware of university terms of employment and various state laws in many places will protect an employee from something like this. The employer typically does not get carte blanche rights to all copyrighted works created by someone simply for hiring them. There must be a arms length meeting of the minds for the employment contract to be valid.
Not really. Unless there is a transfer of copyrights in writing, the university has zero control over the copyrights of the original works.
They control the copyrights of the derivative works, which are the improvements made after he was hired. He can continue to release his original work under whatever license he wishes to, including licensing it to the university under BSD or closed source licensing, if he CHOOSES.
The school doesn't get his copyrights just for hiring him unless that was in writing.
Close. They're not obligated to give the source code to recipients until it's requested. Small difference, I know, but it's more accurate.
We have a similar system here in Minnesota called MNSCU. It's like 20 schools in a system. Here, I can say it would count as a conveyance. Each school is incorporated individually.
If California is like that, the if UC Berkley gives a GPL program to another UC member school, they owe them source code also upon request. This depends also on case law from the 9th district. I don't have time to look it up right now, but if you wanted some cases to look at, just let me know.
Propagation with subsidiaries varies by jurisdiction and case law. So this is a non-starter on slashdot.
As far as the original question goes, no it's not a GPL violation. Many companies use GPL software without making the source code available to every employee. In fact, the ones that I've seen don't do it because they would prefer security through obscurity. If you know how their software works, getting privileges or access you shouldn't have is usually a bit easier.
As far as company owned GPL software on the home computers of employees, that's a tricky one and there probably isn't one straight answer. Probably would vary by relevant case law.
I agree with #1, and sort of don't also. The university should have taken a look at the license on his software before committing time and resources to improving it. If it was GPL'd before employment(and had copyright notices intact), the Uni can't distribute derivatives without also licensing them under the GPL.
I don't think there is a judge alive who would honor any submarine copyright-transfer terms of an employment contract, so unless he transferred them to the University with an intent to do so, he still owns the original works up to that first day of employment. The university cannot simply usurp his copyrights on the original works by employing him.
Your rant is apt for a lot of cases, but this particular issue is something a lot of /.'ers really understand. Most lawyers, if you ask them about GPL and copyrights, their eyes will glaze over. This guy really needs to decide how important this is to his job.
If push comes to shove, his job will be over but he can prevent the school from distributing his derivative works under other-than-GPL terms.
There are several issues here. The most pressing of which needs expert lawyer advice. When the software was given to the university, was there a transfer of copyrights? If not, did it have GPL notices intact?
If the answers are "no" and "yes" respectively, the university may not be able to externally distribute their modifications without also licensing them under the GPL.
What is definitely clear is that the university holds copyrights on anything he developed while on university time. The uni can do whatever they want with that code so long as they don't distribute it with the original GPL'd code. There are a lot of ways this can vary though. If the Uni's modifications are really binary dynamically loaded plugins, it's not so clear cut. A court might find that the plugins aren't derivatives, but original creative works instead.
I don't see a moral issue with simply pirating movies until they get the hint. Certainly a legal problem, but not a moral problem.
I don't care what they put on the DVD, but forcing me to watch previews for movies is just wrong. The worst part about it is I only buy movies I intend to watch again at some point in the future, at which time the previews are completely irrelevant.
The only public businesses that don't play shitty pop music are record stores, and even then it's usually shitty pop music.
Congress could put a cap on BP's prices. That's the only way to hurt them. If BP raises prices, the other oil companies will do the same.
They may not collude directly by phone, but they're all the same when it comes to profiteering. If there's any reason at all they think consumers will accept a higher price at the pump, they'll all raise prices in sync.
BP is in no danger of going broke any time soon. None whatsoever.
They could throw $20 billion at this cleanup and probably have a profitable year anyway.
I've heard Rush a few times in the truck when I go to lunch with my bud. He's a die hard Rush fan and an idiot.
I haven't had the heart to explain in depth all the reasons that Rush is a shit spewing douchebag to him. Rush drives me fucking nuts. If I ever met him, there's a strong possibility I'll just throw him off the nearest cliff.
Idiots don't generally bother me, but this one has fans and he is creating many more idiots.
I have a Wii and I like it. It has a few enjoyable family games.
I don't like the game selection though and the interface is not good for the games I want to play. I like shooters and the Wii has no selection for adult oriented games. It does what it was meant to do very well and people looking for family friendly entertainment really are the sales driver.
The Xbox and PS3 are more geared towards older teens and adults. I guess my point is that although they have similar technical capabilities, the Wii is not in the same market as the PS3 and Xbox. There is some overlap so they do compete to some extent, but not nearly like the Xbox and PS3 compete with each other.
You're largely correct.
They shift their stance based on what they're asking for. Just 2 weeks ago, AT&T defended the FCC(in a case against Comcast) because it feared losing universal service fee money because of the "telecommunications carriers" classification. I don't pretend to be an expert...
but it seems fairly obvious that when there is tax dollars to be handed out to build infrastructure, the telecoms are all out there with their hands open ready and willing. But when it comes time for the FCC to enforce consumer fairness and openness on the internet(that we taxpayers paid AT&T and others to build a backbone for), they cry foul.
Politicians seem spineless when it comes time to intervene.
Indeed a misclick. I thought I was replying to the post above.
There are moral absolutes. One of them should be that each of us is free to choose our own destiny so long as our actions do not cause harm to those around us.
Gay people getting married doesn't harm you. You conservatives just don't like it. It doesn't fit into your view of how people should be. So don't come down here telling us the conservatives are here to protect "values" and "morals". They're pushing bibles, that's it. And even then, only when it's convenient.
You can't legislate goodness, let alone your own personal perception of goodness. If it doesn't harm you, you have no business telling others how they can live their life.
Kind of a technicality really. The existing laws granting FCC authority just don't spell it out. A forgiving interpretation of the intent of the law lends me to believe congress did intend for the FCC to regulate all activities of companies using government granted monopolies.
The free market is powerless in a pseudo-monopolistic environment. Companies(and I mean specifically Qwest, Comcast, AT&T Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and others) have shown and will continue showing that they are unable to provide a service consumers want without applying unscrupulous terms, practices, price gouging, or without violating privacy of their customers.
Congress needs to get this figured out. Consumers don't have many broadband choices and the companies in the market now are abusive bullies.