Actually, it CAN be a heavy burden. For a company that is starting to use GPL code, and DOES wish to comply with the GPL, but has not historically distributed source, to their clients, much less, anyone who asks, this can be a significant burden because it lacks the distribution channels to do this professionally.
I ran into this hurdle with a former employer. The problem was that to distribute source effectively would require distributing much of our build mechanism as well because of the dependency hell that would otherwise ensue for anyone actually trying to use it -- and this was (a) hardly polished for external consumption, and (b) there was some desire to keep the build and interdependency resolution system proprietary.
While I eventually sorted that out, and made it possible to deliver "nice and friendly" source distribution CDs, these were delayed by about a month after the product was ready to ship (an embedded system). Manufacturing was balking at including "unnecesasry" components in the parts breakdown, and IT was balking at having to support a web server to distribute source to ALL comers, or worse, have to go into the CD pressing business. Finally, we actually had some customers that WANTED binaries but EXPRESSLY did not want source. The written offer would have placated them (they could ignore it), but the fact that it would have to be transferrable worried us.
In our case, we leveraged GPL code in rack-based systems that performed remote internet protocol diagnostics (down to PPP negotiation debugging on T1/E1 digital channels fed from telco-side modems in ISP cages). We sold to few customers, but for millions of dollars. Some of the code we modified was arguably useful outside of that context to a wide audience. But, our whole distribution mechanism was not geared to accomodate a "wide audience".
So, we had (a) a delay in making a source distro, (b) packaging and IT that were "out of the loop", (c) customers who didn't WANT source distros, and (d) strong opposition to the alternate "offer" requirement to meet all comers.
In the end, I felt my job had been done in putting together a source distro, and my warnings about what GPL v2 required.
Our customers (telcos offering ADSL), understandably, having spent millions of dollars for what we provided (hw, software, and support), were not eager to share the bits they got, so the "wide-spread all comers" scenario never came to pass.
We had a further problem related to distributing source code to some of our subcontractors: RMS was of the opinion that if it runs on their machines and not ours, we have to provide them source. All well and good, but there was a delay in making that possible: our build mechanism was tied into our source control system (Clearcase) for resolving dependencies, and they were not to have unfettered access. We ended up having them work inhouse, on our hardware.
Oh, and the customer who ademently didn't want a source CD? They didn't get one. but the "parts breakdown" for the manual was interesting in that it included a CD sleave and CD.
The point is that the logistics of GPL v2 complience for a company not used to wide distribution or source distribution are sometimes non-trivial. Often it comes down to not minding sharing source with direct customers, but not wanting to start up a CD pressing plant.
She'd ask me to drive her somewhere I had been only once, a year prior, and refuse to give me any navigational information at all, complaining about why I was not going yet, and that she'd be late. She'd argue that my insisting on either relative navigational directions, or an absolute address was stubbornness on my part to force her to think, and not believe that I hadn't the foggiest memory of where she wanted to go (likely because I didn't like the experience of being there the first time).
Like I said, EX-wife.
Things like "house with the green door at the end of the street near the top of the hill" are fine, if one (a) knows the rough area, (b) has forgotten the exact address, (c) and this is crucial also remembers that the description is unique in the context of the rough area. But damn, it's also a very inefficient way of coding an address.
Oh, I think you can trademark a sound used previously for other purposes. "Ride The Ducks" uses the sound that riders make with these devices while going around town on refurbished WW II amphibious craft: "Ducks".
If someone used that sound as a duck call (and, it would be a poor one, IMHO), it would not be confusable with their business.
But, if someone is running similar tours in the same market, the risk of confusability exists.
Oh, and they sell those "quackers" to customers who want to have a bit of fun on the tour.
We were months late delivering a new product to market, revenues were down, and the company was cutting employees like crazy.
It was not the time to request new equipment.
I could have used a shared virtual machine, like other developers, but access to Linux machines from Windows laptops (my "email" and "sharepoint", and "bug tracking" machine) was inconvenient and not as productive as I'd like to be (with the layoffs, we all had to work harder.)
Spending some $400 of my own money for a better working environment seemed like a good idea, and offered some downsizing protection.
Frankly, though, I am very well paid, and like the job and employer enough that a few hundred dollars is not worth making a stink over.
Buy another laptop for company work. You already spent to money to replace your own. Use the repayment to buy one for their work.
I provide my own desktop for company work, and occasionally move it between home and office: I have a VPN connection at home.
First thing I did when I repurposed my own equipment was wipe the hard drive, reinstall the OS, and never let personal data go on it that I don't mind the company claiming as their own.
That way, there are no arguments or confusion.
If I leave, IT is free to wipe the drive on my work computer, or remove it and replace it with a similar one.
At home, my work VPN and personal LAN are kept separate as well: the only common connection is a KVM switch to the keyboard monitor and mouse between home and work workstations.
I don't know about these days, but my parents grew up in the Czech Republic, and, at that time there were no Black people there, well maybe two in the whole country. Television was a rare novelty and a portable radio weight around 200 lbs, so there certainly wasn't even news coverage that Black people even existed.
Racism?
Maybe, but perhaps it's just that, still, Blacks "just don't exist" as far as the average Pole knows, and to depict one, in an ad would cause cries of WTF?
Well, I used the wrong word. Perhaps I should have used "technical" instead of transformative, as that is what I meant.
For example, it would be abusrd to argue that I can buy a CD, make a cassette copy, and sell the cassettes under my copyright because it does not impinge the copyright holder from selling CDs. (It does, of course, affect their ability to exploit the nature of the work, the performance, in cassette format, and may detract from CD sales as well.)
In this case, providing the work for scanning should be done uner EULA by the owner of the work. Just because it is in the public domain, does not mean the public has a free right to it, merely that they are free to do with it what they will if they freely obtain it. And her, one could argue that, yes, the public has a right to the content, but not the packaging, in a reverse of digital music EULAs.
I know it's bad form to follow up one's own post, but I have additional thoughts.
The issue of copyright hinges on making an artistic contribution when involved in a transformative work -- the idea being that the effort deserves reward and protection in order to encourage that such efforts take place.
It can be argued that a simple scan (as I did above) is merely transformative, not artistic, and therefore not copyrightable.
But, having made the scan, and releasing copies of it, someone else might undertake to improve the quality of it. Had the original scan not been made, this could not happen, and therefore doing so added to publicly available knowledge. Perhaps it took great effort (and, maybe expense), to obtain the original work so that it might be scanned in the first place, or great care (and again, expense) to scan it non-destructively -- no one would dare just stick an original copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in a Xerox® machine now, would they?
The question then becomes, "Is that worthy of protection, and promotion, and if so, what kind?"
It boils down to "Hay! He (or she) could not have done that valuable thing, if I didn't do this difficult thing, so I should be compensated if he (or she) profits;" sort of a "contingent copyright" if you will.
I know GPL authors would take exception if their code was used, modified, in a commercial product, without the modifications made free. The GPL solution is that no one may profit (merely) from the code itself. That said, I'm sure some GPL authors have sour grapes if their code becomes an enabler for a widely popular piece of hardware, in which they do not share in the profits it produces. Hence, we see (often amateur) "non-commercial" licenses: you can use this, but only if not for profit. Otherwise, let's strike a deal.
I don't think, in this case, a new notion of a contingent copyright makes sense: it isn't necesasry. But I do thing a license on otherwise non-copywritable works does. EULAs, in principle, are not bad things, just because the historic pattern has been for them to be (a) draconian, and (b) shrinkwrapped (which, IMHO, makes them unenforceable, but IANAL).
They own the scan. They made it. But, I disagree that the scan is copywritable. It is not an original artistic work. It might be if it was a subsequently "cleaned up" version of the original, that was being re-released. Same, if it was OCR'd, but the issue would hinge on whether the OCRing was "merely transformative". Then, it would not be copyrightable.
Of course, if you got their "only" scan in an illegal manner, and made copies of that, you might have committed the crime of theft, regrdless of copyright infringement. You might not have violated copyright, but you would have violated a proprty right -- taking without permission.
Finally, in this case, I don't think it's the content that has value, but rather the manuscript, who's value is not diminished (and might, in fact be enhanced, if it's content proved popular). We can all get copies of Shakespeare's works, or a print of the Mona Lisa, and that does not diminish the value of an original manuscript, does it?
Except you aren't found guilty of contempt, you are ruled in contempt by a judge. That is a very important distinction, and one that should not exist. If you are to be put in jail for more than 30 days it should require a jury of your peers to find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Dunno about the distinction. In my case, we had to make a case for contempt. And, my ex was provided a public defender to counter the contempt charge. (What really pissed me off was that she, instead, argued the civil matter regarding recovery of legal expenses, when she was assigned in a criminal capacity.)
I think the issue here was that the respondent (as it was a divorce, and therefore civil case) chose to not appeal the contempt ruling on the basis of an inability to comply.
You'd think it would have been easier to get POA, or title with lien from the court (the latter would have worked out very well for my kids), but that would have meant arguing for that as a remedy, whereas failing to comply with a court order was clearly contempt on my ex's part and far easier to argue.
We (myself with council) did have to show that she could comply (i.e. sign the papers), but that would have been trivial as she did not claim an incompetence defense (she would have lost the kids in that case).
The problem we had was that she'd agree in open court, then fail to follow the order, we'd have to bring her back to court, she'd agree, fail to follow the order, etc. Eventually, she would have tried the judge's patience, and she'd be ruled in contempt, but we had a buyer waiting (very patiently, considering the circumstances).
My realtor worked wonders! The buyer was fully informed what he was getting into, the price reflected this (and the horrible condition my ex put the house in -- I think she was trying to render it unsalable), and finally agreed to give my ex 30 days to vacate. My ex wanted the first $5k of proceeds ahead of my liens (I had about $30k in liens against the property for the mortgage I'd been paying, getting it out of foreclosure, and legal expenses) as well. I agreed to these terms IF I got a POA. So, the POA came from a negotiated settlement, and not by order from the court.
My alternative was an evaporating buyer in a downward spiraling market, with an occupant destroying the house for which I was responsible for the mortgage. Yes, I had a "hold harmless" provision in the divorce decree, but other than rapidly diminsing equity in the house, my ex had no assets.
So, we agreed to drop the contempt charge IF she signed a POA, which we got four notarized copies of before she left the courthouse. Armed with that, I concluded the sale. What pissed me off was that we did not recover legal expenses to bring the contempt action on the grounds that because my ex granted a POA, there was no contempt ruling.
But, I expect if it went to trial, we would be required to demonstrate that my ex could have complied with the original order, but refused.
The reason one can be jailed indefinitely for contempt is that one "has the keys to one's own cell", and by complying with the judge's order, they will be immediately released.
When I divorced, my ex could not buy me out of the house, but we wanted the kids to continue to live there. So, she got title (which, surprisingly, she never registered, presumably to not be on the hook for property taxes while I remained on it), while I remained responsible to the lender for the mortgage. Now, the divorce decree required my ex to make the actual payments. My relief, if she did not, was to have a [b]power of sale[/b] over the property, once I demonstrated that I was making the lender whole (making the payments).
Well, she never made a single payment, I sued, got that power of sale, and hired a real estate agent to sell it.
We lost two buyers in a falling market because my ex [b]refused to sign[/b] the agreement of purchase and sale (see, I could offer it for sale, but I could not sell it). I went back to court, seeking, among other things, a finding of [b]contempt[/b] for her ignoring the judge's order to cooperate with the sale.
She would be jailed if found guilty, until she signed, which she could easily do. (It's not clear, in this case, if the respondent could comply.)
In the end, she could have dragged the contempt hearings out for two or three visits ("I haven't got a lawyer, yet."), costing me close to $1000 every time we returned to court, and losing yet another buyer as we got close to winter. I agreed to drop the contempt charge in exchange for an irrevocable [b]power of attorney[/b] to sign the purchase and sale agreement in place of her, and the only matter left for the court to rule upon was the matter of the reimbursement of my legal fees (of which I recovered only a small fraction).
So, given that it's "obvious" that a defendant or respondent can comply with a judge's order, jailing for contempt is not the "big stick" it is made out to be, to be used against those that can't comply, as a "fast track" to imprisonment. It's no different than being held without bail until a speedy trial. In this case, respondent could have offered the defense that he can't comply. But, I gather that he chose 14 year in jail instead of making the legal case.
I might be able to help... maybe... if no one else can.
I remember archiving a bunch of floppy images onto CDs when I got rid of the original floppies a while ago... including, IIRC DOS 3.3, and possibly GWBASIC.
What I likely don't have are drives to read them.
Also, finding those CDs might be a bit of a struggle, but I'd be willing to look.
I bet my dad went through the same thing with cars and TVs.
Heh.
My dad was born in 1921.
He was a hacker too, like I am. No surprise there.
He amazed the local townfolk when be brought a portable radio he built to the town square and demonstrated it. It was tube powered, the size of a suitcase, and ran on lead acid batteries. It was portable in the sense that a strong man could lift it.
One thing my generation (I was born in 1961) experienced was the decline of analog. See, we worried about the linearity of our amplifiers, the flatness of the response curves of equipment, etc. Audionuts^H^H^H^Hphiles still do, to some degree (e.g. the vinyl vs. CD wars), pointing out that for any digital system there's an analog equivalent with less distortion due to the absense of sampling error (though, it's getting harder and harder to build them, as resolution increases).
Us digital kids traded sampling error for the joy of reproducibility. Sure, early CDs sounded harsh, but they didn't get worse over time, didn't get scratched (in the vinyl sense), and OMG, tape hiss was gone forever (except for early transfers where the masters sucked because the final result sucked worse). One can argue that graceful degradation is better than sudden failure when the error correction can't cope any more, but the knowledge that "it plays, therefore it plays as well as it alwauys did", is admitedly intoxicating and addictive. TVs were still analog until very recently. I remember the pride I had when I owned a 32" Sony XBR TV. (Sony made great CRTs in the early 1990s.)
If my father were alive today (he died in 1999), I wonder what his reaction would be to the fact that (a) I don't have a home phone, (b) my cell phone has an internet browser and I can look stuff up on "Wikipedia" with it, (c) Kodak does not make Kodachrome any more since most cameras don't use film, (d) an old TV will pick up static and mine is 52" corner to corner and sits flat on the wall, (e) I get turn-by turn travel directions from my phone, and it can show me where I am on a map stiched together from satellite photos, (f) people socialize via "Facebook" and "Myspace", (g) copying something you buy can land you in trouble, (h) non-insignificant producers and consumers of "child porngraphy" are teenagers (i.e. sexting), (i) things can "break" when the company that makes them goes out of business, (j) wireles connections aren't just for "walkie talkies" anymore, but link such mundane things as keyboard, mice, "ear buds" to computers, and phones, (k) payphones are starting to disappear, (l) people pay their bills for it all without licking a stamp, and (m) if you want to go to the movies, you can probably pay for, and print, the tickets right at home.
All that in the ten years since his death.
If he miraculously came back to life, I don't think he could function in modern society, without first undergoing some serious technological and culture ("the President of the U.S. is black!? [yes] and no one thinks this is a big deal!? [well, other than thinking 'about time' for a day or two, no]. It didn't start a race war?! [er, no]) shock.
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Actually, it CAN be a heavy burden. For a company that is starting to use GPL code, and DOES wish to comply with the GPL, but has not historically distributed source, to their clients, much less, anyone who asks, this can be a significant burden because it lacks the distribution channels to do this professionally.
I ran into this hurdle with a former employer. The problem was that to distribute source effectively would require distributing much of our build mechanism as well because of the dependency hell that would otherwise ensue for anyone actually trying to use it -- and this was (a) hardly polished for external consumption, and (b) there was some desire to keep the build and interdependency resolution system proprietary.
While I eventually sorted that out, and made it possible to deliver "nice and friendly" source distribution CDs, these were delayed by about a month after the product was ready to ship (an embedded system). Manufacturing was balking at including "unnecesasry" components in the parts breakdown, and IT was balking at having to support a web server to distribute source to ALL comers, or worse, have to go into the CD pressing business. Finally, we actually had some customers that WANTED binaries but EXPRESSLY did not want source. The written offer would have placated them (they could ignore it), but the fact that it would have to be transferrable worried us.
In our case, we leveraged GPL code in rack-based systems that performed remote internet protocol diagnostics (down to PPP negotiation debugging on T1/E1 digital channels fed from telco-side modems in ISP cages). We sold to few customers, but for millions of dollars. Some of the code we modified was arguably useful outside of that context to a wide audience. But, our whole distribution mechanism was not geared to accomodate a "wide audience".
So, we had (a) a delay in making a source distro, (b) packaging and IT that were "out of the loop", (c) customers who didn't WANT source distros, and (d) strong opposition to the alternate "offer" requirement to meet all comers.
In the end, I felt my job had been done in putting together a source distro, and my warnings about what GPL v2 required.
Our customers (telcos offering ADSL), understandably, having spent millions of dollars for what we provided (hw, software, and support), were not eager to share the bits they got, so the "wide-spread all comers" scenario never came to pass.
We had a further problem related to distributing source code to some of our subcontractors: RMS was of the opinion that if it runs on their machines and not ours, we have to provide them source. All well and good, but there was a delay in making that possible: our build mechanism was tied into our source control system (Clearcase) for resolving dependencies, and they were not to have unfettered access. We ended up having them work inhouse, on our hardware.
Oh, and the customer who ademently didn't want a source CD? They didn't get one. but the "parts breakdown" for the manual was interesting in that it included a CD sleave and CD.
The point is that the logistics of GPL v2 complience for a company not used to wide distribution or source distribution are sometimes non-trivial. Often it comes down to not minding sharing source with direct customers, but not wanting to start up a CD pressing plant.
My EX-wife was worse.
She'd ask me to drive her somewhere I had been only once, a year prior, and refuse to give me any navigational information at all, complaining about why I was not going yet, and that she'd be late. She'd argue that my insisting on either relative navigational directions, or an absolute address was stubbornness on my part to force her to think, and not believe that I hadn't the foggiest memory of where she wanted to go (likely because I didn't like the experience of being there the first time).
Like I said, EX-wife.
Things like "house with the green door at the end of the street near the top of the hill" are fine, if one (a) knows the rough area, (b) has forgotten the exact address, (c) and this is crucial also remembers that the description is unique in the context of the rough area. But damn, it's also a very inefficient way of coding an address.
Look here.
I've described exactly the same thing at length before.
Oh, I think you can trademark a sound used previously for other purposes. "Ride The Ducks" uses the sound that riders make with these devices while going around town on refurbished WW II amphibious craft: "Ducks".
If someone used that sound as a duck call (and, it would be a poor one, IMHO), it would not be confusable with their business.
But, if someone is running similar tours in the same market, the risk of confusability exists.
Oh, and they sell those "quackers" to customers who want to have a bit of fun on the tour.
I'd likely get fired.
We were months late delivering a new product to market, revenues were down, and the company was cutting employees like crazy.
It was not the time to request new equipment.
I could have used a shared virtual machine, like other developers, but access to Linux machines from Windows laptops (my "email" and "sharepoint", and "bug tracking" machine) was inconvenient and not as productive as I'd like to be (with the layoffs, we all had to work harder.)
Spending some $400 of my own money for a better working environment seemed like a good idea, and offered some downsizing protection.
Frankly, though, I am very well paid, and like the job and employer enough that a few hundred dollars is not worth making a stink over.
Buy another laptop for company work. You already spent to money to replace your own. Use the repayment to buy one for their work.
I provide my own desktop for company work, and occasionally move it between home and office: I have a VPN connection at home.
First thing I did when I repurposed my own equipment was wipe the hard drive, reinstall the OS, and never let personal data go on it that I don't mind the company claiming as their own.
That way, there are no arguments or confusion.
If I leave, IT is free to wipe the drive on my work computer, or remove it and replace it with a similar one.
At home, my work VPN and personal LAN are kept separate as well: the only common connection is a KVM switch to the keyboard monitor and mouse between home and work workstations.
That was my first though, actually.
I don't know about these days, but my parents grew up in the Czech Republic, and, at that time there were no Black people there, well maybe two in the whole country. Television was a rare novelty and a portable radio weight around 200 lbs, so there certainly wasn't even news coverage that Black people even existed.
Racism?
Maybe, but perhaps it's just that, still, Blacks "just don't exist" as far as the average Pole knows, and to depict one, in an ad would cause cries of WTF?
Much! :-)
Crap. You should have dissed me for a spelling error.
In any case, the intent should have been clear, given the contest.
Should have been "copyrightable" instead of "copywritable".
Copywritable, adj: able to be protected under copywrite.
Something you can copy would be copyable.
Similarly, something you can copywrite would be copywritable.
Make sense now?
Well, I used the wrong word. Perhaps I should have used "technical" instead of transformative, as that is what I meant.
For example, it would be abusrd to argue that I can buy a CD, make a cassette copy, and sell the cassettes under my copyright because it does not impinge the copyright holder from selling CDs. (It does, of course, affect their ability to exploit the nature of the work, the performance, in cassette format, and may detract from CD sales as well.)
In this case, providing the work for scanning should be done uner EULA by the owner of the work. Just because it is in the public domain, does not mean the public has a free right to it, merely that they are free to do with it what they will if they freely obtain it. And her, one could argue that, yes, the public has a right to the content, but not the packaging, in a reverse of digital music EULAs.
I know it's bad form to follow up one's own post, but I have additional thoughts.
The issue of copyright hinges on making an artistic contribution when involved in a transformative work -- the idea being that the effort deserves reward and protection in order to encourage that such efforts take place.
It can be argued that a simple scan (as I did above) is merely transformative, not artistic, and therefore not copyrightable.
But, having made the scan, and releasing copies of it, someone else might undertake to improve the quality of it. Had the original scan not been made, this could not happen, and therefore doing so added to publicly available knowledge. Perhaps it took great effort (and, maybe expense), to obtain the original work so that it might be scanned in the first place, or great care (and again, expense) to scan it non-destructively -- no one would dare just stick an original copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in a Xerox® machine now, would they?
The question then becomes, "Is that worthy of protection, and promotion, and if so, what kind?"
It boils down to "Hay! He (or she) could not have done that valuable thing, if I didn't do this difficult thing, so I should be compensated if he (or she) profits;" sort of a "contingent copyright" if you will.
I know GPL authors would take exception if their code was used, modified, in a commercial product, without the modifications made free. The GPL solution is that no one may profit (merely) from the code itself. That said, I'm sure some GPL authors have sour grapes if their code becomes an enabler for a widely popular piece of hardware, in which they do not share in the profits it produces. Hence, we see (often amateur) "non-commercial" licenses: you can use this, but only if not for profit. Otherwise, let's strike a deal.
I don't think, in this case, a new notion of a contingent copyright makes sense: it isn't necesasry. But I do thing a license on otherwise non-copywritable works does. EULAs, in principle, are not bad things, just because the historic pattern has been for them to be (a) draconian, and (b) shrinkwrapped (which, IMHO, makes them unenforceable, but IANAL).
Oh, I disagree!
They own the scan. They made it. But, I disagree that the scan is copywritable. It is not an original artistic work. It might be if it was a subsequently "cleaned up" version of the original, that was being re-released. Same, if it was OCR'd, but the issue would hinge on whether the OCRing was "merely transformative". Then, it would not be copyrightable.
Of course, if you got their "only" scan in an illegal manner, and made copies of that, you might have committed the crime of theft, regrdless of copyright infringement. You might not have violated copyright, but you would have violated a proprty right -- taking without permission.
Finally, in this case, I don't think it's the content that has value, but rather the manuscript, who's value is not diminished (and might, in fact be enhanced, if it's content proved popular). We can all get copies of Shakespeare's works, or a print of the Mona Lisa, and that does not diminish the value of an original manuscript, does it?
Because I fscked up. I've spent to much time recently in another forum that dislikes HTML.
Contempt of court essentially allows people to be imprisoned without the consent of a jury - that is just wrong.
Well, the police can imprison you without consent of a jury.
But, you are entitled to due process.
I think, in this case, the respondent chose to not appeal the contempt ruling, because he did not want it demonstrated that he could, in fact, comply.
She would be jailed if found guilty
Except you aren't found guilty of contempt, you are ruled in contempt by a judge. That is a very important distinction, and one that should not exist. If you are to be put in jail for more than 30 days it should require a jury of your peers to find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Dunno about the distinction. In my case, we had to make a case for contempt. And, my ex was provided a public defender to counter the contempt charge. (What really pissed me off was that she, instead, argued the civil matter regarding recovery of legal expenses, when she was assigned in a criminal capacity.)
I think the issue here was that the respondent (as it was a divorce, and therefore civil case) chose to not appeal the contempt ruling on the basis of an inability to comply.
You'd think it would have been easier to get POA, or title with lien from the court (the latter would have worked out very well for my kids), but that would have meant arguing for that as a remedy, whereas failing to comply with a court order was clearly contempt on my ex's part and far easier to argue.
We (myself with council) did have to show that she could comply (i.e. sign the papers), but that would have been trivial as she did not claim an incompetence defense (she would have lost the kids in that case).
The problem we had was that she'd agree in open court, then fail to follow the order, we'd have to bring her back to court, she'd agree, fail to follow the order, etc. Eventually, she would have tried the judge's patience, and she'd be ruled in contempt, but we had a buyer waiting (very patiently, considering the circumstances).
My realtor worked wonders! The buyer was fully informed what he was getting into, the price reflected this (and the horrible condition my ex put the house in -- I think she was trying to render it unsalable), and finally agreed to give my ex 30 days to vacate. My ex wanted the first $5k of proceeds ahead of my liens (I had about $30k in liens against the property for the mortgage I'd been paying, getting it out of foreclosure, and legal expenses) as well. I agreed to these terms IF I got a POA. So, the POA came from a negotiated settlement, and not by order from the court.
My alternative was an evaporating buyer in a downward spiraling market, with an occupant destroying the house for which I was responsible for the mortgage. Yes, I had a "hold harmless" provision in the divorce decree, but other than rapidly diminsing equity in the house, my ex had no assets.
So, we agreed to drop the contempt charge IF she signed a POA, which we got four notarized copies of before she left the courthouse. Armed with that, I concluded the sale. What pissed me off was that we did not recover legal expenses to bring the contempt action on the grounds that because my ex granted a POA, there was no contempt ruling.
But, I expect if it went to trial, we would be required to demonstrate that my ex could have complied with the original order, but refused.
The reason one can be jailed indefinitely for contempt is that one "has the keys to one's own cell", and by complying with the judge's order, they will be immediately released.
When I divorced, my ex could not buy me out of the house, but we wanted the kids to continue to live there. So, she got title (which, surprisingly, she never registered, presumably to not be on the hook for property taxes while I remained on it), while I remained responsible to the lender for the mortgage. Now, the divorce decree required my ex to make the actual payments. My relief, if she did not, was to have a [b]power of sale[/b] over the property, once I demonstrated that I was making the lender whole (making the payments).
Well, she never made a single payment, I sued, got that power of sale, and hired a real estate agent to sell it.
We lost two buyers in a falling market because my ex [b]refused to sign[/b] the agreement of purchase and sale (see, I could offer it for sale, but I could not sell it). I went back to court, seeking, among other things, a finding of [b]contempt[/b] for her ignoring the judge's order to cooperate with the sale.
She would be jailed if found guilty, until she signed, which she could easily do. (It's not clear, in this case, if the respondent could comply.)
In the end, she could have dragged the contempt hearings out for two or three visits ("I haven't got a lawyer, yet."), costing me close to $1000 every time we returned to court, and losing yet another buyer as we got close to winter. I agreed to drop the contempt charge in exchange for an irrevocable [b]power of attorney[/b] to sign the purchase and sale agreement in place of her, and the only matter left for the court to rule upon was the matter of the reimbursement of my legal fees (of which I recovered only a small fraction).
So, given that it's "obvious" that a defendant or respondent can comply with a judge's order, jailing for contempt is not the "big stick" it is made out to be, to be used against those that can't comply, as a "fast track" to imprisonment. It's no different than being held without bail until a speedy trial. In this case, respondent could have offered the defense that he can't comply. But, I gather that he chose 14 year in jail instead of making the legal case.
If it was me, and they didn't have a warrant, I've asked them politely to leave and shot them dead if they displayed armed force and refused.
And this would be a bad thing?
I was very much disappointed that Colin Powel did not run, actually.
I might be able to help... maybe... if no one else can.
I remember archiving a bunch of floppy images onto CDs when I got rid of the original floppies a while ago... including, IIRC DOS 3.3, and possibly GWBASIC.
What I likely don't have are drives to read them.
Also, finding those CDs might be a bit of a struggle, but I'd be willing to look.
I bet my dad went through the same thing with cars and TVs.
Heh.
My dad was born in 1921.
He was a hacker too, like I am. No surprise there.
He amazed the local townfolk when be brought a portable radio he built to the town square and demonstrated it. It was tube powered, the size of a suitcase, and ran on lead acid batteries. It was portable in the sense that a strong man could lift it.
One thing my generation (I was born in 1961) experienced was the decline of analog. See, we worried about the linearity of our amplifiers, the flatness of the response curves of equipment, etc. Audionuts^H^H^H^Hphiles still do, to some degree (e.g. the vinyl vs. CD wars), pointing out that for any digital system there's an analog equivalent with less distortion due to the absense of sampling error (though, it's getting harder and harder to build them, as resolution increases).
Us digital kids traded sampling error for the joy of reproducibility. Sure, early CDs sounded harsh, but they didn't get worse over time, didn't get scratched (in the vinyl sense), and OMG, tape hiss was gone forever (except for early transfers where the masters sucked because the final result sucked worse). One can argue that graceful degradation is better than sudden failure when the error correction can't cope any more, but the knowledge that "it plays, therefore it plays as well as it alwauys did", is admitedly intoxicating and addictive. TVs were still analog until very recently. I remember the pride I had when I owned a 32" Sony XBR TV. (Sony made great CRTs in the early 1990s.)
If my father were alive today (he died in 1999), I wonder what his reaction would be to the fact that (a) I don't have a home phone, (b) my cell phone has an internet browser and I can look stuff up on "Wikipedia" with it, (c) Kodak does not make Kodachrome any more since most cameras don't use film, (d) an old TV will pick up static and mine is 52" corner to corner and sits flat on the wall, (e) I get turn-by turn travel directions from my phone, and it can show me where I am on a map stiched together from satellite photos, (f) people socialize via "Facebook" and "Myspace", (g) copying something you buy can land you in trouble, (h) non-insignificant producers and consumers of "child porngraphy" are teenagers (i.e. sexting), (i) things can "break" when the company that makes them goes out of business, (j) wireles connections aren't just for "walkie talkies" anymore, but link such mundane things as keyboard, mice, "ear buds" to computers, and phones, (k) payphones are starting to disappear, (l) people pay their bills for it all without licking a stamp, and (m) if you want to go to the movies, you can probably pay for, and print, the tickets right at home.
All that in the ten years since his death.
If he miraculously came back to life, I don't think he could function in modern society, without first undergoing some serious technological and culture ("the President of the U.S. is black!? [yes] and no one thinks this is a big deal!? [well, other than thinking 'about time' for a day or two, no]. It didn't start a race war?! [er, no]) shock.
After a lousy ten years.
Can't wait for the next ten!
I think a public performance of "Happy Birthday" on the 4th of July would have been fitting.
I had to work today to find and fix a bug related to a particular external site... sure enough, our internet access was down.
Pfft! I had a copy of Barry on a linux box, tethered my BlackBerry, a bit of iptables magic, and I'm back online to test.