The law really needs to be changed to NOT reward companies like NTP that do that.
The proceeds of any judgement or settlement of that nature ought to have to be held in escrow pending completion of a thorough review of the patent.
And the plaintiff who brought the patent suit should have to pay a fine, of some percentage (plus compensation to the other party), if their patent was egregiously invalid from the very beginning.
Well, I would say maybe they think they own UUCP, but they've declared SMTP is "just a copy" of their UUCP technology, since (somehow), it accomplishes the same result of transmitting e-mail.
Devices that expose block devices, to which multiple clients connect using Fiber Channel, iSCSI, AoE, FCoE, SAS, SCSI, SRP, iSER, etc.
Are called SANS not NAS.
A NAS is a potentially more complicated device that actually hides the block device from the clients accessing it, using a protocol such as NFS or CIFS.
As far as SANs go, some of them have an underlying filesystem, that the LUN is a file on, some of them do not, and provide other mechanisms of partitioning the storage.
In that case, the client connecting to a SAN still only needs to know 2 things about the storage unit (1) the protocol, and (2) how to use any block device (whether local or remote)
If it's a shared LUN, then it needs to know about the locking protocol.
Just in the same way as a client connecting to a NAS only needs to know (1) the protocol that provides access, (2) how to work with files on any file system (whether local or remote)
In addition, if multiple clients can connect to a NAS device, each client needs to be aware of the proper locking protocols to use (much in the way as multiple processes running at the same time on one computer need to be aware of locking protocols to write to shared files or databases).
While Linux is encumbered by the SCO mess, which is basically the same thing, except related to copyrights and ownership of codes, rather than ownership of the whole concept of copy on write.
It seems if you make an agreement, to perform services or provide material in exchange for the profit..
You and the production company expect there to be profits, and you expect those profits to be preserved so you can be paid, or you do not have a deal.
If you do not have a deal, then the distributor's actions are copyright infringement.
And maybe if they ignore their obligations implicit or otherwise, the contract could be thrown out by the court.
And the company you contracted with has a responsibility to take reasonable efforts to maximize the profits.
If you are a company taking reasonable efforts to make sure there is a profit, it is not reasonable for you to pay a large fee for a service,
without making sure the agreements and business relationships you conduct will likely allow you to have a profit buying that service.
It is also not reasonable to pay a distributor a large fee for a service, when there is a much lesser market rate for that service,
or that service is excessive and not likely to produce a profit.
--information that is crucial to avoid overcharging the batteries and to prevent your computer from suddenly shutting down without a low battery warning. I suppose someone could redesign that part to use flash instead of RAM, but doing so would greatly increase the complexity of the component
Um, RAM is too unstable for such things.
Bit errors in RAM are common due to solar events; we could not trust Li-ION cells too much if their safety relied on the robustness of a simple piece of RAM.
Instead, Li-IONs have safety circuit controllers that measure voltage during charging as well as pressure in the cell, and can perform a cut off in case of overcurrent or overheating..
A cell is charged, when the right voltage is read.
A cell is discharged also, when a certain voltage is read.
Even with such simple logic, the circuit is prone to failure if the user exposes it to static electricity
As for information used to monitor the discharge, and determine when you are about to need to poweroff due to lack of remaining capacity,
that can be stored on the laptop's hard drive, which is persistent storage..
That's right. Also, PC clocks tend to be not that great, in terms of reliability of the frequency, and error such as clock drift.
Hence the general recommendation to use NTP to keep your clock in synch with a good time source; a good time source, being something such as an atomic clock, or a radio-based receiver that provides time from a good source.
A PC clock can easily have errors of 100 PPM or higher. Or ~10 seconds of drift per day
Factors that seem small such as temperature can effect the frequency of the clock crystal also
Right... you mean Ford builds many of their engines.. there are exceptions
Would you expect Yamaha to be the company to issue the recall for Ford Taurus SHO V-8's, if a defect of some sort were ever found with the SHO V8 engine?
The Linux kernel developers don't make an operating system, they make a kernel.
Downstream vendors do (Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc), and the downstream vendors will keep track of changes to the upstream kernel, it is their responsibility to bring down security patches, build a fixed kernel, and deliver the fix to the end users.
If a design defect in a type of engine caused it to explode, wouldn't you expect the manufacturer of the cars to issue the recalls on products that use the effected type of engine?
If the manufacturer of the Xyz1234 engine issued a recall for a certain version of the engine, half the car owners would have no clue that the car they bought happened to come with an effected engine (because the car manufacturer chose to use it).
These days you get a kernel from a Linux distributor, and they are generally highly customized, even with changes, drivers, and fixes backported from newer kernel versions.
So each one can have its own set of security bugs and mitigating factors too, separate from the upstream code.
Because the non-advertisement of security issues allows them to have a false sense of security.
If it were noted more prominently that a certain security bug were fixed in a certain version, those people who don't patch Linux boxes regularly would be more inclined to make an exception.
Security is important to these people, just like system integrity is.
It is irresponsible to not draw attention to bugs that allow easy intrusion, execution of arbitrary code, escalation of privilege, OR that put a system at significant risk for filesystem corruption.
Pesticide resistance is the perfect example.
I think if the plants are genetically manipulated to resist pesticides, then larger amounts of potentially more dangerous pesticides are being used with them.
Otherwise there would be no point in farmers paying the high price to grow each genetically manipulated plant.
The GM could be harmless and the pesticides not.
It also seems like we are playing with fire.
We assume a gene has a specific function and only a specific function, based on a few observations, and we start messing with the genetic code to plants that produce our food, which we've eaten for thousands of years.
How do we really know we don't effect the nutritional value or cause the plant to produce a chemical that may ultimately prove very harmful, or cause dangerous food allergies, as with the case of genetically manipulated soybeans ?
Oh right... we're supposed to ignore all evidence of GM foods being harmful, even when it actually starts to bear out.
There also exists a possibility, that if GM food triggers a food allergy, people who are effected might become allergic to the non-manipulated product as well.
Or.... as GM becomes so popular, they can no longer find the unmanipulated product, or grocers and makers of prepared food are so vague and imprecise with regards to the labelling, the consumer just can't eat anything anymore.
Thankfully, in the US our copyright has a constitutional basis, and is also restricted in scope by the constitution, and restricted in who rights can be secured for:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Since we only allow limited times, and only allow the rights to be exclusive to the authors and inventors themselves: exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries, nothing so foolish would ever be allowed to cut the mustard in the US, right?
RIGHT!
It's not the military's fault in deciding they needed a stockpile.
But the American taxpayer paid the cost they incurred to get that stockpile, however.
When deciding to open up and dispose of the stockpile, they should have developed a sales process that would price it only a modest amount below market value, rather than setting a fixed price.
That way the American taxpayer could recover as much as possible for the unused reserves that were being sold off.
They should also have limited the rate they were selling it at.
Flooding the market would of course reduce the price.
They should have calculated a maximum amount to sell every month based on the market demand, and set the maximum to sell the next month at 50% of the expected demand for Helium.
Yes... but I think it will only take one case of the right RP'er taking their beef into real life, for a lawsuit to wind up filed against blizzard for publishing their identity, and not allowing them to participate anonymously, despite the risks to them.
Surely blizzard has the ability to see the risk, a duty to their customers, to take reasonable measures to protect them from that risk, and a reasonable person can see that most internet forums allow for anonymity and that is a minimal expected protection.
Hm... lawsuit waiting to happen?
Or perhaps it's time to start writing up some complaints to the FTC about Blizzard's reprehensible privacy practices...
Demanding your customers make their personally identifiable information public to participate, geeze.
That said, I've given my screen name which I've used for the last decade as part of a background check for an interview, so I'm well aware of the issue.
Uh, isn't giving out a screen name if you think you've said stupid stuff, kind of uh, well, a bad thing to be doing?:)
In this case, they registered and hosted their domain outside the US, but the seizure took place at the
global internet registry.
In other words, the US government pushed the big red button they've always had.
However, pushing the big red button will have long term consequences.
It means that the internet community outside the US can no longer trust the US government to not attempt to impose US laws on citizens of other countries, and use US laws to take down foreign sites..
And thus that trust has been significantly misplaced.
Within a year or so, there will probably be some serious demands to remove the root zone and DNS infrastructure from the US, and place it in the hands of (God knows who).
No achievable amount of 'reduction' of standby power is satisfactory, it is still a significant waste, when you multiply by the number of laptops in operation or forgotten on the charger.
If you neglect your laptop with a battery plugged into it unattended for a whole year (which is a bit dangerous), then you deserve whatever happens.
For the average user, once the unit charges up, small amounts of re-charging are just wasteful.
The LiON batteries used in laptops lose over 1/3rd of their capacity in a year's time under theoretically ideal conditions.
So for most users, 1 to 1.5 years is actually how long it will be before the battery needs replacement anyways.
I disagree with your suggestion that the computer unplug itself when fully charged and turned off. Between the self discharge rate, the standby power fed to the logic board used for soft power, and the power used by the battery's management board, the battery drains slowly over time even when the machine is off.
That's why there should be a mechanical disconnect for the battery as well, to mechanically switch off the battery and its onboard circuitry, so it stops leaking charge, and the user has to manually 'turn the battery back on'.
It "slowly drains" because the battery has onboard circuits which are being powered -- in other words, 'standby power' is what causes the drain.
Anyways, I am not suggesting it be required that computers unplug themselves but that it be required to be an option that the computer can unplug itself, for whatever reason: in other words, if the hardware requests it, based on the user's preferences.
Considering that's how much the average retailer charges for simple USB cables anyways, it seems like an improvement, $28.95 isn't a bad deal compared to what you pay nowadays for laptop power connectors (usually, it costs over $60 today to buy a power cord for your laptop).
Slashdot Mirror
We need a port of ELIZA to a robust voice-recognition platform with text-to-speech of the responses :)
The law really needs to be changed to NOT reward companies like NTP that do that.
The proceeds of any judgement or settlement of that nature ought to have to be held in escrow pending completion of a thorough review of the patent.
And the plaintiff who brought the patent suit should have to pay a fine, of some percentage (plus compensation to the other party), if their patent was egregiously invalid from the very beginning.
Being technically invalid is no reason you get to avoid paying the license fee, after all it's been approved by the patent office.
"If you fail to pay the license fees for our [invalid] patent, you'll be persecuted to the full extent of the law"
"Move along sir, move along, *NTP secur ity guard pulls out the pepper spray*"
Thousands of people make news websites.
Thousands of people run (forum) sites where people can post comments about news.
But it takes a genius to figure out that it would be cool to have a news website where people can post comments about articles.
Therefore, comments on /. = infringing?
Well, I would say maybe they think they own UUCP, but they've declared SMTP is "just a copy" of their UUCP technology, since (somehow), it accomplishes the same result of transmitting e-mail.
He is talking about NAS, so it's 100% true.
Devices that expose block devices, to which multiple clients connect using Fiber Channel, iSCSI, AoE, FCoE, SAS, SCSI, SRP, iSER, etc.
Are called SANS not NAS.
A NAS is a potentially more complicated device that actually hides the block device from the clients accessing it, using a protocol such as NFS or CIFS.
As far as SANs go, some of them have an underlying filesystem, that the LUN is a file on, some of them do not, and provide other mechanisms of partitioning the storage.
In that case, the client connecting to a SAN still only needs to know 2 things about the storage unit (1) the protocol, and (2) how to use any block device (whether local or remote)
If it's a shared LUN, then it needs to know about the locking protocol.
Just in the same way as a client connecting to a NAS only needs to know (1) the protocol that provides access, (2) how to work with files on any file system (whether local or remote)
In addition, if multiple clients can connect to a NAS device, each client needs to be aware of the proper locking protocols to use (much in the way as multiple processes running at the same time on one computer need to be aware of locking protocols to write to shared files or databases).
ZFS is not encumbered by asshattery any more than Linux is.
It's encumbered by a patent dispute
While Linux is encumbered by the SCO mess, which is basically the same thing, except related to copyrights and ownership of codes, rather than ownership of the whole concept of copy on write.
It seems if you make an agreement, to perform services or provide material in exchange for the profit.. You and the production company expect there to be profits, and you expect those profits to be preserved so you can be paid, or you do not have a deal.
If you do not have a deal, then the distributor's actions are copyright infringement. And maybe if they ignore their obligations implicit or otherwise, the contract could be thrown out by the court.
And the company you contracted with has a responsibility to take reasonable efforts to maximize the profits.
If you are a company taking reasonable efforts to make sure there is a profit, it is not reasonable for you to pay a large fee for a service, without making sure the agreements and business relationships you conduct will likely allow you to have a profit buying that service.
It is also not reasonable to pay a distributor a large fee for a service, when there is a much lesser market rate for that service, or that service is excessive and not likely to produce a profit.
That's why piracy has GOT to be stopped immediately. It foils the movie makers' tax dodge (and revenue sharing dodge)
Let's see them bring THAT justification to congress, on why it is imperative for the economy to make tougher anti-pirate laws
--information that is crucial to avoid overcharging the batteries and to prevent your computer from suddenly shutting down without a low battery warning. I suppose someone could redesign that part to use flash instead of RAM, but doing so would greatly increase the complexity of the component
Um, RAM is too unstable for such things. Bit errors in RAM are common due to solar events; we could not trust Li-ION cells too much if their safety relied on the robustness of a simple piece of RAM.
Instead, Li-IONs have safety circuit controllers that measure voltage during charging as well as pressure in the cell, and can perform a cut off in case of overcurrent or overheating..
A cell is charged, when the right voltage is read. A cell is discharged also, when a certain voltage is read.
Even with such simple logic, the circuit is prone to failure if the user exposes it to static electricity
As for information used to monitor the discharge, and determine when you are about to need to poweroff due to lack of remaining capacity, that can be stored on the laptop's hard drive, which is persistent storage..
That's right. Also, PC clocks tend to be not that great, in terms of reliability of the frequency, and error such as clock drift.
Hence the general recommendation to use NTP to keep your clock in synch with a good time source; a good time source, being something such as an atomic clock, or a radio-based receiver that provides time from a good source.
A PC clock can easily have errors of 100 PPM or higher. Or ~10 seconds of drift per day
Factors that seem small such as temperature can effect the frequency of the clock crystal also
Right... you mean Ford builds many of their engines.. there are exceptions
Would you expect Yamaha to be the company to issue the recall for Ford Taurus SHO V-8's, if a defect of some sort were ever found with the SHO V8 engine?
The Linux kernel developers don't make an operating system, they make a kernel. Downstream vendors do (Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc), and the downstream vendors will keep track of changes to the upstream kernel, it is their responsibility to bring down security patches, build a fixed kernel, and deliver the fix to the end users.
If a design defect in a type of engine caused it to explode, wouldn't you expect the manufacturer of the cars to issue the recalls on products that use the effected type of engine?
If the manufacturer of the Xyz1234 engine issued a recall for a certain version of the engine, half the car owners would have no clue that the car they bought happened to come with an effected engine (because the car manufacturer chose to use it).
These days you get a kernel from a Linux distributor, and they are generally highly customized, even with changes, drivers, and fixes backported from newer kernel versions.
So each one can have its own set of security bugs and mitigating factors too, separate from the upstream code.
Some shops don't patch Linux boxes regularly.
Because the non-advertisement of security issues allows them to have a false sense of security. If it were noted more prominently that a certain security bug were fixed in a certain version, those people who don't patch Linux boxes regularly would be more inclined to make an exception.
Security is important to these people, just like system integrity is.
It is irresponsible to not draw attention to bugs that allow easy intrusion, execution of arbitrary code, escalation of privilege, OR that put a system at significant risk for filesystem corruption.
According to the slashdot article:
it remains undisclosed if the new versions contain changes which fix security vulnerabilities,
That would mean they are not published in the publicly viewable changelogs, as publishing in the changelog would be disclosure.
Pesticide resistance is the perfect example. I think if the plants are genetically manipulated to resist pesticides, then larger amounts of potentially more dangerous pesticides are being used with them.
Otherwise there would be no point in farmers paying the high price to grow each genetically manipulated plant.
The GM could be harmless and the pesticides not.
It also seems like we are playing with fire. We assume a gene has a specific function and only a specific function, based on a few observations, and we start messing with the genetic code to plants that produce our food, which we've eaten for thousands of years.
How do we really know we don't effect the nutritional value or cause the plant to produce a chemical that may ultimately prove very harmful, or cause dangerous food allergies, as with the case of genetically manipulated soybeans ?
Oh right... we're supposed to ignore all evidence of GM foods being harmful, even when it actually starts to bear out.
There also exists a possibility, that if GM food triggers a food allergy, people who are effected might become allergic to the non-manipulated product as well.
Or.... as GM becomes so popular, they can no longer find the unmanipulated product, or grocers and makers of prepared food are so vague and imprecise with regards to the labelling, the consumer just can't eat anything anymore.
This is an Australian copyright law issue.
Thankfully, in the US our copyright has a constitutional basis, and is also restricted in scope by the constitution, and restricted in who rights can be secured for:
Since we only allow limited times, and only allow the rights to be exclusive to the authors and inventors themselves: exclusive Right to their respective writings and discoveries, nothing so foolish would ever be allowed to cut the mustard in the US, right? RIGHT!
It's not the military's fault in deciding they needed a stockpile. But the American taxpayer paid the cost they incurred to get that stockpile, however.
When deciding to open up and dispose of the stockpile, they should have developed a sales process that would price it only a modest amount below market value, rather than setting a fixed price.
That way the American taxpayer could recover as much as possible for the unused reserves that were being sold off.
They should also have limited the rate they were selling it at. Flooding the market would of course reduce the price.
They should have calculated a maximum amount to sell every month based on the market demand, and set the maximum to sell the next month at 50% of the expected demand for Helium.
I'm sure they'll come up with a brilliant solution. People under the age of 13 aren't allowed to use the forums.
People 13-18 must provide proof of parents' consent, standard disclaimer EULA, describing the risks, etc...
Remember, Blizzard's one of the companies who has actually had their EULA found enforceable in court based on a click through
I am sure (big company-favoring) binding corporation will be in there somewhere.
Yes... but I think it will only take one case of the right RP'er taking their beef into real life, for a lawsuit to wind up filed against blizzard for publishing their identity, and not allowing them to participate anonymously, despite the risks to them.
Surely blizzard has the ability to see the risk, a duty to their customers, to take reasonable measures to protect them from that risk, and a reasonable person can see that most internet forums allow for anonymity and that is a minimal expected protection.
Hm... lawsuit waiting to happen? Or perhaps it's time to start writing up some complaints to the FTC about Blizzard's reprehensible privacy practices...
Demanding your customers make their personally identifiable information public to participate, geeze.
That said, I've given my screen name which I've used for the last decade as part of a background check for an interview, so I'm well aware of the issue.
Uh, isn't giving out a screen name if you think you've said stupid stuff, kind of uh, well, a bad thing to be doing? :)
In this case, they registered and hosted their domain outside the US, but the seizure took place at the global internet registry.
In other words, the US government pushed the big red button they've always had.
However, pushing the big red button will have long term consequences. It means that the internet community outside the US can no longer trust the US government to not attempt to impose US laws on citizens of other countries, and use US laws to take down foreign sites..
And thus that trust has been significantly misplaced.
Within a year or so, there will probably be some serious demands to remove the root zone and DNS infrastructure from the US, and place it in the hands of (God knows who).
No achievable amount of 'reduction' of standby power is satisfactory, it is still a significant waste, when you multiply by the number of laptops in operation or forgotten on the charger.
If you neglect your laptop with a battery plugged into it unattended for a whole year (which is a bit dangerous), then you deserve whatever happens. For the average user, once the unit charges up, small amounts of re-charging are just wasteful.
The LiON batteries used in laptops lose over 1/3rd of their capacity in a year's time under theoretically ideal conditions. So for most users, 1 to 1.5 years is actually how long it will be before the battery needs replacement anyways.
I disagree with your suggestion that the computer unplug itself when fully charged and turned off. Between the self discharge rate, the standby power fed to the logic board used for soft power, and the power used by the battery's management board, the battery drains slowly over time even when the machine is off.
That's why there should be a mechanical disconnect for the battery as well, to mechanically switch off the battery and its onboard circuitry, so it stops leaking charge, and the user has to manually 'turn the battery back on'.
It "slowly drains" because the battery has onboard circuits which are being powered -- in other words, 'standby power' is what causes the drain.
Anyways, I am not suggesting it be required that computers unplug themselves but that it be required to be an option that the computer can unplug itself, for whatever reason: in other words, if the hardware requests it, based on the user's preferences.
Considering that's how much the average retailer charges for simple USB cables anyways, it seems like an improvement, $28.95 isn't a bad deal compared to what you pay nowadays for laptop power connectors (usually, it costs over $60 today to buy a power cord for your laptop).