You know so many people quote the 'Free as in Freedom, not free beer'... but I think some still don't get it.
The GPL is about the CODE being free, as in having freedom. Pretend it's a living thing.. it is FREE... it can go where it wants, but nobody can restrain it.It's about your freedom to do anything you want with it.
I would venture to say that the following series of events will take place at some point in the future. The first ones have happened before.
1) Company X will release some claim/license/software/something that appears to violate GPL. 2) The OSS community will go balistic and spam the shit out of them. (in other words, after this point, they can't claim they don't know about the issue) 3) Company X will state that the GPL is invalid or some such thing, or that it doesn't apply to them. 4) The original license holders will make a big damn fuss about it (or others will convince them to) and the whole OSS community will go into a flaming rage because it's challenging their license. 5) Class-action won't be necessary.... the authors will have all the backing they need to fight the case.
Note.. this is one reason why using a single license like GPL can be good... once we set court precedent.... it helps a lot.
The only thing wrong here was that Sun was a bit rude, by not mentioning the blackdown people. It was not a GPL issue, and not an OSS issue. The terms of their porting were clear from the beginning. And sun apologized.. so what's this 'fiasco' you are talking about?
Okay. Even telling them can be bad. Example. A friend of mine, he finds that some unix machines used to run some financial stuff for the local university/college (which he was currently attending) had a flaw in it.. he was pokin away at it from the lab one night. Now, he did NOTHING. He did NOT deface anything, or change anything. He did plant one file in a directory, simply to show that it could be done. The next morning (when people were at work again) he notified the computer services people about the security problem, and told them to look in such-and-such a directory and to look at the file permissions to demonstrate.
The end result was, people's egos were bruised the wrong way, and though they didn't kick him out, they 'mutually agreed' that he would drop out of school (comp. sci) and they wouldn't persue the matter any further.
I know you can get environmental enclosures. The only real reason for an Access Point is that it can handle multiple radio domains, so as to releive congestion if you have many remote stations in the same area. (if you simply use the pc cards to do it, it will work fine, but all share the same channel.)
Environmental enclosures for pole-mounted equipment are just fine and dandy. They are ribbed (fins on them) metal cases that are fully gasketed, 1/4 inch thick aluminum and/or steel, and after installation on a pole, would definately be grounded. Yes, you have a problem with the antenna.. but that's what lightning arrestors are for!
Yes. It's been done before, and there are several ways to do it. One is commercial blanks. Another is a signal used to cue commericlals. I believe the problem is the amount of friction the TV industry gives when someone announces a product like this! THEY THROW A FIT! They *HATE* the idea of people watching TV without commercials..... it's where their money comes from.
Now.. I gotta say, though.... Either 1) I pay for the TV I watch, therefore, I don't have to watch commercials, or 2) I don't pay anything for the TV I watch, and I have to put up with commercials because that's how you make your money.
There is a simple out for this though.. browsers like MS and NS simply have to recognize OTHER CA's as authoritative. This is the only thing giving them power.
(gee, is that somewhat similar to the current DNS structure that gave Verisign so much power? ie: it only works because our products all use it by default.)
Is... I understand PKI. I understand x.509 certificates.
What I don't understand is why, in the first place, X.509 certificates were required to use SSL. It should not be necessary. Why are modern browsers set up so that you cannot use SSL unless you have appropriate x.509 certificates? I mean, I have no problem with the browser telling me it's unsigned, or untrusted, but I should still be able to use session encryption. Feh.
You know, I felt good knowing there were 20 some other organization CAs preloaded in NS and IE.... but now that Verisign ownes all but 4 or 5 of them, I wonder... this is sleazy!
Really, though.. run your OWN ca, and direct people to a page that explains how the whole process works (more than Verisign does!) to the common man, and have them simply accept the key into their browser.
Not true, I believe, however, what you are thinking of is a rule that prevents companies from reverse-marketing things to you... ie: mailing them to you then making it your responsibility to return the item or pay for it. The law (ianal) says you are not obligated to do either, simply because they sent it to you.
Umm, sorry.. yes.. it *is* illegal for you to keep it. It's not rightfully yours just because it arrived in the mail in a package with your name on it. You may be confusing a closely related 'rule'... You are not obligated to send it back, or to track down the real owner, or to do anything, really. This does not mean, though, that you own it!
Think about what you just said. What if the person says 'Sorry, I don't believe you are from Microsft, and I think you are pulling some kind of scam, now please get off my doorstep.' The MS employee has no legal ground to stand on. They have to leave, and the person would then be knowingly holding a million dollar prototype.
Also, as someone pointed out, you don't KNOW that the person wasn't involved in the mishap. Some scams *are* that elaborate. The simple answer: send the boys in blue to ask nicely.
People, if *YOU* lost a million dollar box of diamonds because the armored car fucked up, *YOU* would be able to easily get the police to help you ask for them back, and nobody would say it's your fault...
As for the 'tactic' being wrong, what is wrong? The man wasn't assaulted, handcuffed, or hurt. His door wasn't kicked down, and nobody pointed a gun at him. They simply had cops there, and explained the situation. This is *NOT* a violation of anyone's rights. Nobody forced him to do anything!
Okay. First, this is not necessarily true. There are laws stating that if companies send you stuff you didn't ask for, and expect you to pay for it, you are under no obligation to either return it or pay for it. You do not get to keep everything you receive in the mail.
Now, what nobody mentions was *how* the police dealt with it. Did they kick in his door and take him downtown for hours of questioning? Or did they knock, nicely explain what happened, and take the merchandies back to Microsoft in a safe manner? You know.. the police *CAN* be 'hired' (so to speak) to do things for you so long as it's within the scope of the law, which this certainly is. Hey.. what would happen if the guy said 'No, I won't give it back? '... then MS would have to go call the police and get it done that way. Would you hand over your new web-tv if some guy showed up at the door saying 'Hi, I'm from microsoft, and we accidentally shipped you a million dollar prototype'. Feh.
It's not the fact that they patented it, it's the fact that they are enforcing it. Many companies patent solely to protect themselves, even if they think it's not something that deserves patenting. Usually, it may not hold up in court if they try to sue, but it will prevent anyone else from doing the same to them.
I think it's rediculous that amazon should say they spent 'thousands of hours' building their "one-click". It's not unique in any way.
No, you are not required to enforce your patent. You are thinking of Trademark, where you must enforce it or lose it. The only thing that can happen (of course, IANAL), is that by knowing about infringement and not enforcing it, if you come around later to enforce it, the damages you can claim would be severely limited. ie: you still have the patent, you could make them stop using it, or possibly pay licensing fees, but if you watched them grow for 20 years in the first place, you couldn't claim 20 years of damages...
I'd have to say that in Either case, this is wrong. Let's look at both cases. 1) Zip codes & associated cities/neighborhoods ARE public information. - This information should be freely available to the public, not sold at high price to others to sell commercially. Citizens should demand this. 2) They are *NOT* public information, but internal to the post office. - Well, it could be argued that the ZIP code is only the post office's way of internally routing packages, so it's really up to them what they do with it. If this is the case, they are free to sell it as they wish. - If you view the USPS as part of a 'public trust', and that this information is private and for internal use only, it should not be sold OR given out.
Actually, if you have a good look at how modern financial transactions & economics works.... You would find that the money does *not* exist and is mostly fictitious.
One problem with the stock market, see.... let me throw an example.
1) Union workers have an investment plan through their union. (i'm being very generic here, not picking on any group in particular). 2) Big union investor types go out and find things to invest in 3) Big union types invest in other big companies with union workers. 4) Workers demand that their stocks get a good ROI. 5) Big investor types working for union put the pressure on other big copmany to make it's stock go up. 6) other company, of course, has union members in the same boat. 7) Company starts to 'downsize' and 'lay off' worker to 'increase' efficientcy.. in order to drive the stock price and profits UP.
So.. in the end, peoples greed for a 'better' return on investment caused them to get laid off in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true, I read it on their web site!
Their 'Lite' version runs under windows!
Argh.
Feh.
Boo.
*BOOM*
I'm sorry, but this doesn't hold up.
This is the modern world.
There are TONS of dialup ISP's you could have called to send email out.
Dude, hydrogen has 1 electron, not two.
Deuterium (sp?) Has an added neutron, and
Tritium has 2 added neutrons (man those tritium gas lights are wild!)
You know so many people quote the 'Free as in Freedom, not free beer'... but I think some still don't get it.
The GPL is about the CODE being free, as in having freedom. Pretend it's a living thing.. it is FREE... it can go where it wants, but nobody can restrain it.It's about your freedom to do anything you want with it.
I would venture to say that the following series of events will take place at some point in the future. The first ones have happened before.
1) Company X will release some claim/license/software/something that appears to violate GPL.
2) The OSS community will go balistic and spam the shit out of them. (in other words, after this point, they can't claim they don't know about the issue)
3) Company X will state that the GPL is invalid or some such thing, or that it doesn't apply to them.
4) The original license holders will make a big damn fuss about it (or others will convince them to) and the whole OSS community will go into a flaming rage because it's challenging their license.
5) Class-action won't be necessary.... the authors will have all the backing they need to fight the case.
Note.. this is one reason why using a single license like GPL can be good... once we set court precedent.... it helps a lot.
The only thing wrong here was that Sun was a bit rude, by not mentioning the blackdown people.
It was not a GPL issue, and not an OSS issue. The terms of their porting were clear from the beginning.
And sun apologized..
so what's this 'fiasco' you are talking about?
Okay. Even telling them can be bad. Example.
A friend of mine, he finds that some unix machines used to run some financial stuff for the local university/college (which he was currently attending) had a flaw in it.. he was pokin away at it from the lab one night. Now, he did NOTHING. He did NOT deface anything, or change anything.
He did plant one file in a directory, simply to show that it could be done.
The next morning (when people were at work again) he notified the computer services people about the security problem, and told them to look in such-and-such a directory and to look at the file permissions to demonstrate.
The end result was, people's egos were bruised the wrong way, and though they didn't kick him out, they 'mutually agreed' that he would drop out of school (comp. sci) and they wouldn't persue the matter any further.
I know you can get environmental enclosures.
The only real reason for an Access Point is that it can handle multiple radio domains, so as to releive congestion if you have many remote stations in the same area. (if you simply use the pc cards to do it, it will work fine, but all share the same channel.)
Environmental enclosures for pole-mounted equipment are just fine and dandy. They are ribbed (fins on them) metal cases that are fully gasketed, 1/4 inch thick aluminum and/or steel, and after installation on a pole, would definately be grounded.
Yes, you have a problem with the antenna.. but that's what lightning arrestors are for!
Simple. You yank the drive and mount it on a different box so you can see how things are set up, and then change them to your own designs.
Yes. It's been done before, and there are several ways to do it.
One is commercial blanks. Another is a signal used to cue commericlals.
I believe the problem is the amount of friction the TV industry gives when someone announces a product like this! THEY THROW A FIT! They *HATE* the idea of people watching TV without commercials..... it's where their money comes from.
Now.. I gotta say, though....
Either 1) I pay for the TV I watch, therefore, I don't have to watch commercials, or
2) I don't pay anything for the TV I watch, and I have to put up with commercials because that's how you make your money.
As it stands now, they get you in both ends.
There is a simple out for this though.. browsers like MS and NS simply have to recognize OTHER CA's as authoritative. This is the only thing giving them power.
(gee, is that somewhat similar to the current DNS structure that gave Verisign so much power? ie: it only works because our products all use it by default.)
Is...
I understand PKI. I understand x.509 certificates.
What I don't understand is why, in the first place, X.509 certificates were required to use SSL. It should not be necessary. Why are modern browsers set up so that you cannot use SSL unless you have appropriate x.509 certificates? I mean, I have no problem with the browser telling me it's unsigned, or untrusted, but I should still be able to use session encryption.
Feh.
You know, I felt good knowing there were 20 some other organization CAs preloaded in NS and IE....
but now that Verisign ownes all but 4 or 5 of them, I wonder... this is sleazy!
Really, though.. run your OWN ca, and direct people to a page that explains how the whole process works (more than Verisign does!) to the common man, and have them simply accept the key into their browser.
Better yet, offer them client keys as well!
They are the only two who happen to be handing them out; many other CA's are preloaded in NS and IE.. they just aren't in the business.
Why is this a problem? *ANYONE* can run a CA, it's a matter of how you get your CA recognized by current browser that I wonder about.
Not true, I believe, however, what you are thinking of is a rule that prevents companies from reverse-marketing things to you... ie: mailing them to you then making it your responsibility to return the item or pay for it. The law (ianal) says you are not obligated to do either, simply because they sent it to you.
This does not cover things sent by accident.
Umm, sorry.. yes.. it *is* illegal for you to keep it. It's not rightfully yours just because it arrived in the mail in a package with your name on it.
You may be confusing a closely related 'rule'...
You are not obligated to send it back, or to track down the real owner, or to do anything, really.
This does not mean, though, that you own it!
Think about what you just said.
What if the person says 'Sorry, I don't believe you are from Microsft, and I think you are pulling some kind of scam, now please get off my doorstep.'
The MS employee has no legal ground to stand on. They have to leave, and the person would then be knowingly holding a million dollar prototype.
Also, as someone pointed out, you don't KNOW that the person wasn't involved in the mishap. Some scams *are* that elaborate. The simple answer: send the boys in blue to ask nicely.
People, if *YOU* lost a million dollar box of diamonds because the armored car fucked up, *YOU* would be able to easily get the police to help you ask for them back, and nobody would say it's your fault...
As for the 'tactic' being wrong, what is wrong?
The man wasn't assaulted, handcuffed, or hurt. His door wasn't kicked down, and nobody pointed a gun at him. They simply had cops there, and explained the situation. This is *NOT* a violation of anyone's rights. Nobody forced him to do anything!
Okay. First, this is not necessarily true.
There are laws stating that if companies send you stuff you didn't ask for, and expect you to pay for it, you are under no obligation to either return it or pay for it. You do not get to keep everything you receive in the mail.
Now, what nobody mentions was *how* the police dealt with it.
Did they kick in his door and take him downtown for hours of questioning? Or did they knock, nicely explain what happened, and take the merchandies back to Microsoft in a safe manner?
You know.. the police *CAN* be 'hired' (so to speak) to do things for you so long as it's within the scope of the law, which this certainly is.
Hey.. what would happen if the guy said 'No, I won't give it back? '... then MS would have to go call the police and get it done that way. Would you hand over your new web-tv if some guy showed up at the door saying 'Hi, I'm from microsoft, and we accidentally shipped you a million dollar prototype'.
Feh.
It's not the fact that they patented it, it's the fact that they are enforcing it.
Many companies patent solely to protect themselves, even if they think it's not something that deserves patenting. Usually, it may not hold up in court if they try to sue, but it will prevent anyone else from doing the same to them.
I think it's rediculous that amazon should say they spent 'thousands of hours' building their "one-click".
It's not unique in any way.
No, you are not required to enforce your patent. You are thinking of Trademark, where you must enforce it or lose it.
The only thing that can happen (of course, IANAL), is that by knowing about infringement and not enforcing it, if you come around later to enforce it, the damages you can claim would be severely limited.
ie: you still have the patent, you could make them stop using it, or possibly pay licensing fees, but if you watched them grow for 20 years in the first place, you couldn't claim 20 years of damages...
I'd have to say that in Either case, this is wrong.
Let's look at both cases.
1) Zip codes & associated cities/neighborhoods ARE public information.
- This information should be freely available to the public, not sold at high price to others to sell commercially. Citizens should demand this.
2) They are *NOT* public information, but internal to the post office.
- Well, it could be argued that the ZIP code is only the post office's way of internally routing packages, so it's really up to them what they do with it. If this is the case, they are free to sell it as they wish.
- If you view the USPS as part of a 'public trust', and that this information is private and for internal use only, it should not be sold OR given out.
Actually, if you have a good look at how modern financial transactions & economics works.... You would find that the money does *not* exist and is mostly fictitious.
One problem with the stock market, see.... let me throw an example.
1) Union workers have an investment plan through their union. (i'm being very generic here, not picking on any group in particular).
2) Big union investor types go out and find things to invest in
3) Big union types invest in other big companies with union workers.
4) Workers demand that their stocks get a good ROI.
5) Big investor types working for union put the pressure on other big copmany to make it's stock go up.
6) other company, of course, has union members in the same boat.
7) Company starts to 'downsize' and 'lay off' worker to 'increase' efficientcy.. in order to drive the stock price and profits UP.
So.. in the end, peoples greed for a 'better' return on investment caused them to get laid off in the first place.
Umm... they aren't being 'sold to the public' for hundreds of millions, they are being sold *by the public* *to the public* for millions of dollars.
ie: The VA IPO was at $30 or so. That was the money VA made. All the rest, trading at $250 and such, was *NOT* seen by VA, and they had no part in it.