If you distribute binaries made from GPL code, then you are obliged to provide the source for those binaries, publicly. This means that although you can charge a handling fee for providing the code, you can not discriminate against who can ask for it.
You are not obliged to ship a CD. As for diff files, that's a different question.. I'm not sure if source diffs technically qualify as 'source', though, the end result is still similar, you have kept the source you are using open, you have just made the process a bit convoluted.
Where does your advantage go? If your code all falls under GPL, that means the majority of it was already written for you... what advantage do you deserve? (your own original code, if not derived from GPL code, is not under GPL, and can certainly be proprietary)
You are not obliged to provide *anything* with the unit, you are only obliged to provide the source to whichver components you are distributing that fall under GPL, to those who ask for it.
GPL covers individual pieces of software. I don't believe the GPL would cover your entire installation just because you used some GPL code. If some of the applications and binaries are custom, and the copyrights to them belong to you, then you have no outside obligations to meet with respect to those applications.
Remember, the GPL is not about 'giving away' or something, and even though many people quote the line 'it's free, as in freedom, not as in free beer' I don't think they fully understand what that means. It's about keeping the source code free, so if you modify the source to your own needs (and distribute them in some form, of course) you have to share those modifications.
The GPL states that if you distribute binaries, you must provide source if asked to (more or less). It makes no claims about modifying running systems, providing binaries, what kind of support, etc. If your finished product uses GPL'd code to create it's binaries, then you must provide that GPL source to whoever asks. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for the last question, that is a good one. I trevolves around what the exact definition of 'distribution' is.
If the end product is owned by the vendor, then the vendor isn't distributing it to the end user.
The end user, of course, can still request source.
Why shouldn't they take money from the banks? If everyone did that, maybe everyone would REALIZE how screwed up the banking system really is!
Gee.. they don't have enough capital to cover deposits? Not even a small fraction of them? What the hell are they charging outrageous service fees for then? ALL your hard-earned deposited money is lent out at a much higher interest rate than you are getting.. and the bank would have you believe it is BAD for you to take that money out of the bank.
What attracted me to computer magazines when I was a kid? It was the one of the things that tied the hobbyist community together. Byte. Compute. Compute's Gazzette... they gave us a way to look at the larger picture. Now.. however, due to the nature of computers themselves... magazines can offer NOTHING that the online world can't do at a much cheaper cost. Most computer magazines today are crud. They scrape the 'Net for stuff, then put it together in a magazine... And conisder that, now, we read the literature/software/whatever about our machines USING our machines.. and it's realtime.... we aren't just reading online 'zines anymore, we are becoming the zines... it's a new paradigm.
What kind of magazine would be cool? magazines about culture. Not about industry, not about games, not about software, but about culture.
Mondo 2000 is/was cool (is it still out there? haven't seen it in ages) Wired *used* to be cool (issue #1 anyway), as it dealt with a segment of society that there was no magazine for.. nameley, the net...now wired is mostly flashy ads and hype.
I recall reading an mcse exam where the multiple choice question asked 'which of the following makes NT compatable with UNIX(tm)?' and the answer was POSIX. No WONDER so many NT heads think it's so great and slam unix.. they think it *IS* unix..
You know... courts have ruled, in the past, that 'tax avoidance' is not the same thing as 'tax evasion'.
Putting money offshore, and structuring things so that you can argue you don't owe tax on it, is not a crime in and of itself. If you hide things, and try to 'evade' paying taxes, that is a crime. If you simply work things so you are willing to say 'I don't HAVE to pay taxes, because of so-and-so', that is your duty and right.
Right. But the thing is, 'streaming' is just moving bits around. It's only the way you look at it that makes it streaming.
Put it another way, what's the better model. Stream it in, bit at a time, through a decoder, or stream it in as fast as possible into a cache and play from the cache? (wanna call it a buffer instead? Go for it)
I like to look at the whole 'mp3' controversy from a different point of view. Pretend, for a moment, that the recording industry as we know it does not exist. Pretend we have modern technology available to record and share audio data the way we know we can now, but with no negative stigma attached to it due to the recording industry.
How could the recording industry come to be in this world? Remember, the recording industry started as a way to sell music to the people, because science found a way to record sound and play it back later. Now we have much better methods, but the recording industry wants to control them.
As a society, we should never sacrifice our right to use technology to appease some small segment of our marketplace. It is the duty of the market to adapt to society, not the other way around.
Actually, in most of the civilized world, you would have difficulty enforcing the 'firstborn' clause of the license, as most courts would throw it out as unreasonable. Certain things can not be given out by contract. This is probably one of them.
They can easily do this, as *THEY* are the copyright holders. They can distribute this software under as many licenses as they want.
One license, the GPL, allows anyone to take it and modify it, do whatever, so long as they release source to their mods.
The PHP license, on the other hand, allows them to include PHP in a complete product wihtout necessarily providing source, or divulging what they do (I haven't read the entire thing yet).
You can't take a piece of code that is under GPL and 'modify' or 'tie' it to another license... but in this case, they are the copyright holders, and the original authors. They can do what they want.
No. The Rio lawsuit said no such thing, and it's doubtful ANYTHING will. Copy rights don't just dissapper.
What you are thinking of is the decision that the DHRA (Digital Home Recording Act) which specified a copy-protection mechanism (essentially, 2 bits, one for 'original', and one for 'copyright'. If both are set, a copy is allowed, but the copy must have 'original' turned off. You get the idea)
And the original DHRA specifically included computers and their peripherals. It *only* applied to home recording devices.
And since computers are the method by which the mp3 is created, then the RIO does not have to follow the DHRA, which was what the lawsuit was about in the first place.
Technologies like ICQ rely minimally on the server? WHAT??? ICQ relies HEAVILY on it's servers. Without them, the whole things doesn't work. Period. The sheer amount of clients these servers have to deal with is (guessing here) probably the main reason why we didn't make an ICQ-like client 7 or 8 years ago.... we had IRC, which was fairly distributed. I thought many times about making something like ICQ, but the idea of a single, central authority to tie everything together made it look like a bad idea. And that's eactly what Mirabilis has done.
They know about *every* Icq user.
Without looking at the protocol in action, I can't tell what napster is doing.. but would it be any different from doing a channel list in IRC?
Perhaps the reason it takes so long is because you are contacting all the clients individually for mp3 lists or something...
Yes. It is convenient. Just like ICQ is convenient. The idea is nothing new, it's just the same concepts behind IRC, just re-packaged into a client with a more specific purpose. (No, I don't mean it's actually IRC behind it all, just that it's the same idea)
And let's not forget... it's quite likely that the courts would still view 'sharing' your collection as copyright infringement (if they are copyrighted works)
Remember, although simply *having* and *listening* to mp3s is always legal, distributing them is not unless you have the rights.
But it brings up a question. I can let you listen to my CD at my place. I can lend it to you. (remember, copyright is about the work itself, in this case, the music. It's not specificaly about the data) So.. what if I want to say 'Hey dude, check out this song I just bought?' I'm allowed to let you hear it. I'm not allowed to 'give' you a copy though. The problem is.... with digital audio, what's the difference?
Well.. then it boils down to what tools do you want to use, how are you going to grow if it gets popular, how far do you want to go, etc...
I think it's safe to say that Unix is a good bet over trying to do it with Microsoft tools, but other than that.... Use PHP. Use Apache. Use Zope. Use Python. Use Perl. Use C. Use mysql. Use postgresql.
I'd say.. use Apache. Use Linux. Use a back-end database.
Other than that, it's up to you... as for backing up, just assess your risks. How important is a days data? a weeks? Content? Code? What would you do if suddenly, your computer vanished into the 8th dimension, and you forgot your dimensional passcode?
This doesn't look like an MP3 player, at all!
on
MP3/MD Combo Player
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· Score: 1
It's just a minidisc player + some windows software that will 'record' whatever you want onto the MD, possibly in a more automatic fashion. ie: it decompresses the mp3, and re-compresses it to MD.
That you need to be clearer about what it is you want to do. What services are you going to provide? What's the hook? How are you going to draw people in? What services/equipment you use completely depends on exactly what services you want to provide, how much you are charging for them, who your clients are, etc..
All they are saying is that *IF* computers are used to impersonate a video broadcast (or similar thing) to enemy troops/countrymen, during a time of war, in order to mislead them (ie: We have surrendered.), that this action could be considered a war crime. And, they mention that 'morphing' would be the likely way of doing this. Ie: Actor gives speech, computer morphs them intoa likeness of some other countries leader/that leaders voice. They aren't claiming that morphing software is illegal. They aren't claiming it's a weapon. They aren't really saying much of anything. They aren't even saying that this is US law.. they are only saying that under current international war-crime laws, that impersonating the enemy's leader *could* be considered a war crime, and they mention copmuters can do this these days.
A lot of people are making the point about using network-based remote console utilities (vnc, Pc-anywhere, X).... and they are largely right. In many cases, people opt for a KVM switch because they don't know any better. But consider this, from a kind-of support point of view.
To the average user, it is more obvious what a KVM switch does. You don't have to troubleshoot the software, the OS, anything. You can't install a new OS to one of the machines using VNC and the like. What if they machines (unlikely as it sounds) aren't networked? Or aren't on the same network?
For administration, granted, remote tools are handy... but for a rack of gear, a KVM switch is a MUST. The exception, of course, would be unix variants, that can be managed very well through serial console.
The entire line of KVM switches from black box appears to work well. I have several different models at work. The smallest 4 port version (they have even smaller ones) has both a switch on the front, led indicators, and can be activated by ctrl-ctrl-(a|b|c|d) in sequence for the 4 screens. This key combination is a problem if you play games where ctrl is used to fire a weapon or something.. (nettrek), but otherwise, they work fantastically. They can also take their power from the keyboard, or, alternatively, if you don't want to use keyboard (or if you want to go longer distance, I think) you can throw on a power supply (forget the specification. Prolly 12Vdc)
We have some of their larget 25 port switches, and they also work fantastically.
In a private or company situation I can agree with this, but from an ISP perspective, I have to say this would be a TERRIBLE thing to do. Sure, there is one good reason.. to stop spam, but I bought an *internet* connection, not a 'web, email, and whatever else you want to let me use' connection... It is not for my ISP to filter what I do. Period. If I don't want to use their SMTP server, that's my business.
This is something that must be done at the remote mail servers. People should not allow their mail servers to relay. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
If you distribute binaries made from GPL code, then you are obliged to provide the source for those binaries, publicly. This means that although you can charge a handling fee for providing the code, you can not discriminate against who can ask for it.
You are not obliged to ship a CD.
As for diff files, that's a different question.. I'm not sure if source diffs technically qualify as 'source', though, the end result is still similar, you have kept the source you are using open, you have just made the process a bit convoluted.
Where does your advantage go? If your code all falls under GPL, that means the majority of it was already written for you... what advantage do you deserve? (your own original code, if not derived from GPL code, is not under GPL, and can certainly be proprietary)
You are not obliged to provide *anything* with the unit, you are only obliged to provide the source to whichver components you are distributing that fall under GPL, to those who ask for it.
GPL covers individual pieces of software. I don't believe the GPL would cover your entire installation just because you used some GPL code. If some of the applications and binaries are custom, and the copyrights to them belong to you, then you have no outside obligations to meet with respect to those applications.
Remember, the GPL is not about 'giving away' or something, and even though many people quote the line 'it's free, as in freedom, not as in free beer' I don't think they fully understand what that means.
It's about keeping the source code free, so if you modify the source to your own needs (and distribute them in some form, of course) you have to share those modifications.
The GPL states that if you distribute binaries, you must provide source if asked to (more or less).
It makes no claims about modifying running systems, providing binaries, what kind of support, etc.
If your finished product uses GPL'd code to create it's binaries, then you must provide that GPL source to whoever asks. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for the last question, that is a good one. I trevolves around what the exact definition of 'distribution' is.
If the end product is owned by the vendor, then the vendor isn't distributing it to the end user.
The end user, of course, can still request source.
Why shouldn't they take money from the banks? If everyone did that, maybe everyone would REALIZE how screwed up the banking system really is!
Gee.. they don't have enough capital to cover deposits? Not even a small fraction of them? What the hell are they charging outrageous service fees for then? ALL your hard-earned deposited money is lent out at a much higher interest rate than you are getting.. and the bank would have you believe it is BAD for you to take that money out of the bank.
What attracted me to computer magazines when I was a kid? It was the one of the things that tied the hobbyist community together.
Byte. Compute. Compute's Gazzette... they gave us a way to look at the larger picture.
Now.. however, due to the nature of computers themselves... magazines can offer NOTHING that the online world can't do at a much cheaper cost.
Most computer magazines today are crud. They scrape the 'Net for stuff, then put it together in a magazine...
And conisder that, now, we read the literature/software/whatever about our machines USING our machines.. and it's realtime.... we aren't just reading online 'zines anymore, we are becoming the zines... it's a new paradigm.
What kind of magazine would be cool? magazines about culture. Not about industry, not about games, not about software, but about culture.
Mondo 2000 is/was cool (is it still out there? haven't seen it in ages)
Wired *used* to be cool (issue #1 anyway), as it dealt with a segment of society that there was no magazine for.. nameley, the net...now wired is mostly flashy ads and hype.
I recall reading an mcse exam where the multiple choice question asked 'which of the following makes NT compatable with UNIX(tm)?'
and the answer was POSIX.
No WONDER so many NT heads think it's so great and slam unix.. they think it *IS* unix..
NT is POSIX compliant, no?
What's your point? How does POSIX compliance really help us, if at all?
years? how many years? if years of linux experience are worth $$$, what are my 8 years worth?
The military uses First-person shooters to train their soldiers.. yes... to train them in TEAMWORK.
They don't use it to prepare them to kill, or to desensitize them.. they do it to train them how to work as a team.
You know... courts have ruled, in the past, that 'tax avoidance' is not the same thing as 'tax evasion'.
Putting money offshore, and structuring things so that you can argue you don't owe tax on it, is not a crime in and of itself.
If you hide things, and try to 'evade' paying taxes, that is a crime.
If you simply work things so you are willing to say 'I don't HAVE to pay taxes, because of so-and-so', that is your duty and right.
Right. But the thing is, 'streaming' is just moving bits around. It's only the way you look at it that makes it streaming.
Put it another way, what's the better model. Stream it in, bit at a time, through a decoder, or stream it in as fast as possible into a cache and play from the cache? (wanna call it a buffer instead? Go for it)
I like to look at the whole 'mp3' controversy from a different point of view.
Pretend, for a moment, that the recording industry as we know it does not exist.
Pretend we have modern technology available to record and share audio data the way we know we can now, but with no negative stigma attached to it due to the recording industry.
How could the recording industry come to be in this world? Remember, the recording industry started as a way to sell music to the people, because science found a way to record sound and play it back later. Now we have much better methods, but the recording industry wants to control them.
As a society, we should never sacrifice our right to use technology to appease some small segment of our marketplace. It is the duty of the market to adapt to society, not the other way around.
I use both on a daily basis. Both are excellent.
Pre Hypertext Processor
Actually, in most of the civilized world, you would have difficulty enforcing the 'firstborn' clause of the license, as most courts would throw it out as unreasonable.
Certain things can not be given out by contract. This is probably one of them.
They can easily do this, as *THEY* are the copyright holders. They can distribute this software under as many licenses as they want.
One license, the GPL, allows anyone to take it and modify it, do whatever, so long as they release source to their mods.
The PHP license, on the other hand, allows them to include PHP in a complete product wihtout necessarily providing source, or divulging what they do (I haven't read the entire thing yet).
You can't take a piece of code that is under GPL and 'modify' or 'tie' it to another license... but in this case, they are the copyright holders, and the original authors. They can do what they want.
And, of course, I meant to say that the DHRA specifically *excluded* computers and their peripherals.
No. The Rio lawsuit said no such thing, and it's doubtful ANYTHING will. Copy rights don't just dissapper.
What you are thinking of is the decision that the DHRA (Digital Home Recording Act) which specified a copy-protection mechanism (essentially, 2 bits, one for 'original', and one for 'copyright'. If both are set, a copy is allowed, but the copy must have 'original' turned off. You get the idea)
And the original DHRA specifically included computers and their peripherals. It *only* applied to home recording devices.
And since computers are the method by which the mp3 is created, then the RIO does not have to follow the DHRA, which was what the lawsuit was about in the first place.
Technologies like ICQ rely minimally on the server? WHAT???
ICQ relies HEAVILY on it's servers. Without them, the whole things doesn't work. Period.
The sheer amount of clients these servers have to deal with is (guessing here) probably the main reason why we didn't make an ICQ-like client 7 or 8 years ago.... we had IRC, which was fairly distributed.
I thought many times about making something like ICQ, but the idea of a single, central authority to tie everything together made it look like a bad idea. And that's eactly what Mirabilis has done.
They know about *every* Icq user.
Without looking at the protocol in action, I can't tell what napster is doing.. but would it be any different from doing a channel list in IRC?
Perhaps the reason it takes so long is because you are contacting all the clients individually for mp3 lists or something...
Yes. It is convenient. Just like ICQ is convenient. The idea is nothing new, it's just the same concepts behind IRC, just re-packaged into a client with a more specific purpose.
(No, I don't mean it's actually IRC behind it all, just that it's the same idea)
And let's not forget... it's quite likely that the courts would still view 'sharing' your collection as copyright infringement (if they are copyrighted works)
Remember, although simply *having* and *listening* to mp3s is always legal, distributing them is not unless you have the rights.
But it brings up a question.
I can let you listen to my CD at my place. I can lend it to you. (remember, copyright is about the work itself, in this case, the music. It's not specificaly about the data)
So.. what if I want to say 'Hey dude, check out this song I just bought?'
I'm allowed to let you hear it. I'm not allowed to 'give' you a copy though. The problem is.... with digital audio, what's the difference?
Well.. then it boils down to what tools do you want to use, how are you going to grow if it gets popular, how far do you want to go, etc...
I think it's safe to say that Unix is a good bet over trying to do it with Microsoft tools, but other than that....
Use PHP. Use Apache. Use Zope. Use Python. Use Perl. Use C. Use mysql. Use postgresql.
I'd say..
use Apache.
Use Linux.
Use a back-end database.
Other than that, it's up to you...
as for backing up, just assess your risks.
How important is a days data? a weeks? Content? Code?
What would you do if suddenly, your computer vanished into the 8th dimension, and you forgot your dimensional passcode?
It's just a minidisc player + some windows software that will 'record' whatever you want onto the MD, possibly in a more automatic fashion.
ie: it decompresses the mp3, and re-compresses it to MD.
No big deal. Boring. Ho-hum.
That you need to be clearer about what it is you want to do. What services are you going to provide? What's the hook? How are you going to draw people in? What services/equipment you use completely depends on exactly what services you want to provide, how much you are charging for them, who your clients are, etc..
All they are saying is that *IF* computers are used to impersonate a video broadcast (or similar thing) to enemy troops/countrymen, during a time of war, in order to mislead them (ie: We have surrendered.), that this action could be considered a war crime.
And, they mention that 'morphing' would be the likely way of doing this. Ie:
Actor gives speech, computer morphs them intoa likeness of some other countries leader/that leaders voice.
They aren't claiming that morphing software is illegal. They aren't claiming it's a weapon. They aren't really saying much of anything. They aren't even saying that this is US law.. they are only saying that under current international war-crime laws, that impersonating the enemy's leader *could* be considered a war crime, and they mention copmuters can do this these days.
Wow. That's amazing news. Really profound.
A lot of people are making the point about using network-based remote console utilities
(vnc, Pc-anywhere, X).... and they are largely right. In many cases, people opt for a KVM switch because they don't know any better.
But consider this, from a kind-of support point of view.
To the average user, it is more obvious what a KVM switch does. You don't have to troubleshoot the software, the OS, anything. You can't install a new OS to one of the machines using VNC and the like. What if they machines (unlikely as it sounds) aren't networked? Or aren't on the same network?
For administration, granted, remote tools are handy... but for a rack of gear, a KVM switch is a MUST.
The exception, of course, would be unix variants, that can be managed very well through serial console.
The entire line of KVM switches from black box appears to work well. I have several different models at work.
The smallest 4 port version (they have even smaller ones) has both a switch on the front, led indicators, and can be activated by ctrl-ctrl-(a|b|c|d) in sequence for the 4 screens. This key combination is a problem if you play games where ctrl is used to fire a weapon or something.. (nettrek), but otherwise, they work fantastically.
They can also take their power from the keyboard, or, alternatively, if you don't want to use keyboard (or if you want to go longer distance, I think) you can throw on a power supply (forget the specification. Prolly 12Vdc)
We have some of their larget 25 port switches, and they also work fantastically.
In a private or company situation I can agree with this, but from an ISP perspective, I have to say this would be a TERRIBLE thing to do.
Sure, there is one good reason.. to stop spam, but I bought an *internet* connection, not a 'web, email, and whatever else you want to let me use' connection...
It is not for my ISP to filter what I do. Period.
If I don't want to use their SMTP server, that's my business.
This is something that must be done at the remote mail servers. People should not allow their mail servers to relay. Period.