Yep. May have been an area which required an identical solution. So, the only argument SCO has left is infringing on the copyrights of their code-comment, if they can even prove it's their own comments.
Not to mention they already released everything under the GPL>
The quantity of infringing code does not matter for the actual judgement of whether or not it's infringing. It does, however, matter for the damages, as does the quality. Even if those 80 lines of code are very important, they're still insignificant. The community could easily code for and replace any code for any function. Alternatively, they could be generic lines of code that are almost the mandatory solution for the required problem, in which case damage is nill. (btw, do these "lines" include several lines of white-space, comments, and other non-code?) If all they've got is 80 lines of code, then there's no way they're going to be rewarded significant damages.
And of course, it's 99.99% probable that SCO in fact stole the code from the Linux community, not vica-versa. Not only that, but they released everything under the GPL by distributing a GNU/Linux distribution.
SCO has no leg to stand on here. Even if all of their absurd claims are true, no-one is liable beyond the point at which SCO could have provided them with information to correct the matter. Assuming SCO's right, they could tell IBM and the community exactly what lines of code are identical, and provide real evidence to prove that the code was copies from SCO => Linux. The offending code would then be immediately removed and replaced, ending further continuation of the problem. SCO has not done that, so they cannot collect on any damages past the point at which they could have done such.
They're not showing any evidence. There is no good rational, legal, reason for not showing the evidence. They lose nothing by showing the evidence. The only logical conclusion is that they are fabricating this as they go along, or are so incompetent that they don't realize that they in fact copied GPL'ed code. If there was any merit to their claim, they should have released the evidence for all to see. Obviously, there isn't.
Democracy says that file-sharing is good. More American's voted for it than voted for the President of the US. File sharing has more support from the American people than any politician or government program.
All major games should be represented, and results should be presented in weighted and unweighted fashion. You're talking about a sample-size of at least 100 here.
However, I'm talking about releasing something into the public domain that already has a proven record of selling, and giving a tax break on the estimated future value of that work by an approved independent government agency.
An $1000 dollar fee would be more like it. Also, maybe some large tax-deductions for placing works in the public-domain.
However, this small $1 fee does put many things in the public domain. In many cases, authors no-longer care, or remember, and may no longer be alive. Also, because the fee is low, the whining liars at the SIAA can't complain about it.
Anything that a particular user does not need to accomplish his or her tasks is bloat. Those window-minimization, maxmization animations -- bloat. Fancy aqua title bars -- bloat.
But it goes beyond just extra graphics. Every "feature" of a program that you don't need or use is bloat for you. A useless extra "feature" which gives you no benefit.
That's why it's a good thing that GNU/Linux has gradiated window-managers. Sawfish (which is used by GNOME and KDE) is heavily featured, and will suffice for the needs of any user (provided she's capable of running it); however, many users will find feature in it that are unnecessary to them: bloat. PWM, RatPoison, and EvilWM are much lighter on features, and hardly anyone will be able to say they have bloat (esp for RatPoison); however, some users may want functionality not offered by those WMs. WindowMaker is in between.
I personally use WindowMaker. There is nothing wrong with using a more full-featured WM like Sawfish, or a more lightweight WM like RatPoison. However, for my particular needs, WindowMaker is the perfect solution. For someone else' needs, Sawfish will be a better solution; for another person's needs, RatPoison will be the best solution.
Ultimately, the best program is that which allows the user to get his or her particular task done the fastest. That means that the "best program" will vary from user to user, situation to situation, depending on the user's needs and capabilities.
Now would be the perfect time, btw, to buy stocks from IBM, RedHat, and any other GNU/Linux company, who's stock's may have taken a price-dip. P/E is likely very low for these companies, and the stock is likely undervalued by irrational pessimism on Wall Street.
But, hey, don't trust me. Check out the stock prices on IBM and RedHat and other GNU/Linux companies, and read Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis.
McBride said his company will open samples of its contested code to interested parties next week under nondisclosure agreements so SCO can prove its points. The open-source community, however, won't be be given an opportunity to remove any offending code and replace it with new material, he said. Instead, damages will continue to be sought.
So in other words, he's going to let people examine their "evidence", and allow them to come to their "own conclusions", but prevent them from disclosing any proof to the public of the validity of their conclusions. In other words, we're back at square one -- a whole lot of unsubstantiated allegations, no proof. Btw, even if there are "hundreds of lines" of shared code, that does not prove that they were copied into Linux from SCO. It's much more likely to be the other way around.
Btw, can't Linux just sign the NDA and then -- if he finds anything -- remove it from Linux?
It's sort of like somebody stealing your car, and you hunt them down and you find them, and they say you can have your car back, but there's no penalty for that
Except Linux (nor GNU/Linux) has stolen nothing, nor has IBM, from SCO. Even if that allegation were true, the fault would lie with IBM, not the FOSS community.
Giga Information Group Inc. analyst Stacey Quandt said she has discussed SCO's offer with her legal counsel, and if she signs an NDA, it may hinder her ability to write about it.
In other words, SCO has stacked the deck. People can review their code under these terms, but can't write in any convincing manner to the public about their findings.
[Giga Information's Stacey Quandt] has advised clients of Cambridge, Mass.-based Giga to continue with their Linux adoption.
In other words, SCO's absurd allegations aren't driving people away from GNU/Linux.
They don't want to tell; they want to sue. -- Linux
That just about sums it up. Except that IF their claims are valid, they gain nothing by with-holding the evidence. They cannot claim before a court of law that they should get continued damages when they could have allowed the FOSS community to remedy the situation.
[Stamford's George Weiss] said SCO is making its case based on "vague inferences" and is asking analysts to do the same
It appears the experts agree with me.
[Framingham's Dan Kusnetzky said, "I'm not sure that showing us the code would prove anything to me, because I don't know where it came from"
As I said before, it will be difficult if not impossible for SCO to prove where their code came from, the dates on it, etc; whereas proving those things will be easy for FOSS.
Even if there is similar code, that doesn't mean there is infringement, especially under copyright law "fair use" provisions, said Overly. "If I take a piece of code that someone has written, take it verbatim but expand on it and use it for a completely different work, that may or not be copyright infringement"
Another problem for SCO's absurd case.
a review of the code by anyone other than a judge "means absolutely, positively nothing" in determining the merit of SCO's claims.
A review by people other than lawyers will give you the real truth on the matter. Though a judge can give a legal ruling, it will invariably be false, as judges understand about as much about computer code as I understand hieroglyphics.
legal experts said Linux users have to pay attention to the fight. "The fact that you ignored it could potentially cause your damages to increase substantially"
Actually, GNU/Linux users can ignore this all-together. The user faces no liability what-so-ever. Nor, in fact, can anyone be said to be liable other than IBM, for they are the only ones who were in a position to know what was and was not proprietary SCO code. No-one else, not the FOSS community, not GNU/Linux users, nor GNU/Linux companies, were in any position to have any possibility of knowing that (because SCO's code is closed).
Thanks slashdot for all of the breast-comparison jokes. I almost fell off my seat in laughter while reading down the list.
Seriously, though, I doubt that this thing will take off. For something to replace the keyboard, it's going to have to be very natural, just like the mouse' successor would have to be.
The simple truth is, the keyboard is pretty much fixed. People have learned it and don't want to change.
And, guess what, there's already this great innovation here that allows people who have difficulty typing to avoid it: it's called voice recognition. There's also even something on the horizon to naturally and seamlessly replace the mouse -- bouncing a low-powered laser off of the eyeball, to determine where the eyes are looking, and move the mouse cursor to that location (the army's working on it).
The point is, you need to add something of significance for your derivative to be copyrighteable. A word-for-word translation doesn't count; nor does a translation designed to preserve the original meaning. Neither of those translations have done anything significant to alter the work.
I'd like to see people start backing up comments "I have the right" with the actual legal statute defining it.
(1) Such contracts are not being held up in court. Courts are refusing to uphold EULAs and other similar licenses, which would include any license on a DVD preventing you from watching it on the system of your choice with the software of your choice.
(2) The right to privacy. They can place as many assinite clauses in their contracts as they want, doesn't mean they're enforcible. This is because the right to privacy is constitutional, and takes precedence over any "license" you "agreed to" when buying a DVD. It would be unconstitutional to enforce any licensing term that could only be enforced by a violation of the right to privacy, which is what these terms would fall under.
(3) It is unreasonable to say you "agreed to" any license when buying a DVD, since you signed nothing, had no lawyers present, and certainly were not told of any license.
no Sir, you do not have the right to watch the DVD however fucking damn well you please.
By the two legal grounds, and the one practical ground, listed above, yes, Sir, I damn well do have the right to watch my DVD however the fuck I please.
Yea, sure. Just like the EULA's on software. Oh, wait, those are having trouble being upheld in court.
If the consumer perceives it as being a sale, and isn't told otherwise, then it's a sale. As in, they now own that DVD in the same sense that they own a book they buy.
Not only is their license invalid, and thus it's just an ordinary sale, like the sale of a book, but their license is also completely unenforcible, which means irrelevant. Encorfing their license would mean violating the privacy of millions of Americans and stepping into their homes, to prevent them from watching DVD's on GNU/Linux. No court is going to allow that. So, in other words, the MPAA's "license" is moot on two terms.
Fuck that bullshit. I have the right to watch any DVD I pay for anywhere on any system on of my choosing, using any DVD-viewing tools.
It's really simple. I buy a DVD. I own that DVD. I thus have the right to watch that DVD, however fucking damn well I please. Let's not let MPAA double-speak confuse the only relevant issue, which is my right to watch a DVD I've purchased on the platform of my choice, using the tools of my choice.
You're claiming that Linux has been polluted with Unix code that you own, but you have not produced any evidence of that. Will you? We will actually be providing some of the evidence next month to various industry analysts, respected press people and other industry leaders so that they don't have to take our word for it or wait until we show some of that evidence in court. We will actually be showing the code, and the basis for why we have made the allegations that we have. We are very confident about our case. Because we are dealing with confidential source code that we have never released without confidentiality agreements, we will have to put in place nondisclosures [agreements] simply to protect the source. But people will be able to give their opinion as to what they think.
It's obvious that this sack of shit is lying. If his claims were true, he'd have no reason not to point out the offending code, since it has already been released to the public for all to see. There is no longer anything that he can protect by keeping the "offending code" secret. This is just a smokescreen for the fact that there really is no evidence because the entire claim is completely fabricated. See the OSI's response to this non-sense.
Also, there are many mechanisms ensuring that FOSS software is properly distributed without violating IP. People are required to sign waivers indicating that the contributed code was not improperly obtained. In many cases, corporations are asked to sign waivers.
Furthermore, since the code is FOSS, any proprietary entities concerned can easily identify any issues and have them resolved. SCO could have done this a long time ago -- it's obvious this is bullshit.
As a general summary, there are more insurances that FOSS isn't misappropriated than there are for proprietary code (which is closed-source, so they can hide misappropriations of IP). Furthermore, it is much more likely that SCO violated that GPL than that any FOSS developers violated SCO's IP.
So, according to you, only people the top 10% of people in the nation who average a 3.7-4.0 should be able to enter politics, all the rest are banned?
Fucking moron. Some of our "smartest" Presidents were in fact our very worst Presidents. Go back to the 1920s, where there was a President who was also a phD.
Since singularities are clearly "point-like", the formula does apply. Your right about gravity being zero in the center of the earth, though -- my bad.
The gravitational attraction between two objects is dependant on mass linearly, but is also dependant on the distance between those two objects.
Gravitational Force = GMm/r^2
Where G is the gravitational constant of this Universe, M is the mass of the larger object, m the mass of the smaller object, and r the is the separation between the center of the two objects. [an objects gravity is "centered" at it's center, thus the gravitational force at the center of the earth is infinite (r = 0)].
It is true that black holes do not create increased distortions of the gravitational field by altering size (initially). They do so by shrinking the radius of the object. If you double the mass of the sun, but keep its radius the same, the gravity you'd feel on the sun's surface would only be doubled. If, however, you half the sun's radius, but leave the mass the same, then the gravity you'd feel on the sun's surface would be quadrupled (because r is 1/2, the denominator in the formula is 1/4).
I believe what you were trying to say is that the effective field of gravitation for these black holes would be so small as to be insignificant, and you're right. Gravity decreases exponentially with an exponent of 2 as the distance between the two objects increases; thus, for black holes of the mass these guys are creating, the field in which they would warp the space-time continuum would probably be atomic -- e.g., after about the radius of an atom, their gravitational force becomes insignificant.
Of course, this is all a shotty analysis of it, as Newton's Laws of gravitation don't even hold true for describing planetary orbits, and even Einstein's Theory of Gravitation (the warping of space-time) breaks down at a singularity.
...is that, of course, they're not philanthropic. Corporations (in theory) operate under one principle -- to increase the value of the shareholder's stocks. In practice, for any sustained length of time, this means making a profit (e.g., the Fortune 500 Companies). In other words, the only reason MS donates anything is for perceived self-benefit in terms of profit.
So, why is MS' doing this?
Because these entities would not have bought MS software anyways, this costs them nothing; thus, they gain reputation in the community for free.
This allows them to start locking non-profit organizations into proprietary formats, like MS' document format.
Allows them to undercut their one serious competitive threat -- FOSS. By offering away software for free to these entities that wouldn't have paid them anyways, they eliminate one benefit of FOSS -- price. Though, in theory, FOSS can cost money, in practice it doesn't. Though informal support (e.g., helpfiles, FAQs, newsgroups, irc channels) is free, formal support costs money, but all formal support costs money. Now FOSS can only compete on two additional grounds: the actual quality of the software and end-user rights. In many cases, FOSS offers superior quality; however, there is still mass familiarity with Windows products. FOSS always offers the end-user more rights (as in, it places no restrictions on end-user activity) and allows for improvement, but these are concepts which the average user has difficulty grasping.
Allows them to really undercut any other competitors (proprietary competitors).
Allows them to possibly write these off as deductions. Again, it costs them nothing to do this. However, they can claim that they've donated billions to charity; thus, write off substantial amounts of tax.
Create dependency of the individuals within that organization upon MS. Thus, while the organization may not pay MS, individuals may end up doing so.
As they've locked non-profits into their proprietary formats, they are now in position to start charging non-profits at their will.
This is clearly anti-competitive behaviour for a monopoly. However, since the courts have not seriously done anything to stop MS' vast and braod anti-competitive behaviour, it is doubtful they will do anything about this.
So, the question becomes what can we do about this?
Emphasize the above points to anyone considering accepting these "donations".
Emphazie particularly that MS will not continue to offer their products away for free forever. They're much like the drug-dealer that gives you one shot of heroin for free (which is enough to addict anyone), then charges sufficient to make 10000% profit.
Create software that's better than MS counterparts.
At least for some non-obvious things, like keyboard combinations, be compliant with MS. The UI doesn't need to look like MS, because it should explain itself, but 90% of the desktop market is familiar with MS shortcut key combinations. Whenever possible (e.g., not vi or emacs) FOSS should use MS shortcuts. As a side-note, shortcut combos should be able to be globally defined on a system, so they're completely consistent accross apps.
Emphasize the practical benefits of the rights and freedoms that FOSS gives end-users and developers.
Help create an newbie-friendly community. People should not be RTFM'ed for newbie questions. Gentoo Forums are a good example of a newbie-friendly area. Every user can do this.
Help create better documentation. Almost all of us encounter things confusing with documentation we read; report that to the document maintainers.
The point is that the same logic can be used to justify other forms of printer-censorship. There could also be arguments made for preventing printers from printing out other recognizeable things.
The point is that, with some safeguards built in to protect the user from self-destruction, a computer and all of its corresponding hardware should do exactly what the user tells it/them to do, in-so-far as possible.
Yea, the prosecutors. Even worse. The guys who work hard to send innocent people to jail, and often don't even stop when they know the person is innocent.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. May have been an area which required an identical solution. So, the only argument SCO has left is infringing on the copyrights of their code-comment, if they can even prove it's their own comments.
Not to mention they already released everything under the GPL>
The quantity of infringing code does not matter for the actual judgement of whether or not it's infringing. It does, however, matter for the damages, as does the quality. Even if those 80 lines of code are very important, they're still insignificant. The community could easily code for and replace any code for any function. Alternatively, they could be generic lines of code that are almost the mandatory solution for the required problem, in which case damage is nill. (btw, do these "lines" include several lines of white-space, comments, and other non-code?) If all they've got is 80 lines of code, then there's no way they're going to be rewarded significant damages.
And of course, it's 99.99% probable that SCO in fact stole the code from the Linux community, not vica-versa. Not only that, but they released everything under the GPL by distributing a GNU/Linux distribution.
SCO has no leg to stand on here. Even if all of their absurd claims are true, no-one is liable beyond the point at which SCO could have provided them with information to correct the matter. Assuming SCO's right, they could tell IBM and the community exactly what lines of code are identical, and provide real evidence to prove that the code was copies from SCO => Linux. The offending code would then be immediately removed and replaced, ending further continuation of the problem. SCO has not done that, so they cannot collect on any damages past the point at which they could have done such.
They're not showing any evidence. There is no good rational, legal, reason for not showing the evidence. They lose nothing by showing the evidence. The only logical conclusion is that they are fabricating this as they go along, or are so incompetent that they don't realize that they in fact copied GPL'ed code. If there was any merit to their claim, they should have released the evidence for all to see. Obviously, there isn't.
Democracy says that file-sharing is good. More American's voted for it than voted for the President of the US. File sharing has more support from the American people than any politician or government program.
All major games should be represented, and results should be presented in weighted and unweighted fashion. You're talking about a sample-size of at least 100 here.
I'll admit that was rather funny.
However, I'm talking about releasing something into the public domain that already has a proven record of selling, and giving a tax break on the estimated future value of that work by an approved independent government agency.
An $1000 dollar fee would be more like it. Also, maybe some large tax-deductions for placing works in the public-domain.
However, this small $1 fee does put many things in the public domain. In many cases, authors no-longer care, or remember, and may no longer be alive. Also, because the fee is low, the whining liars at the SIAA can't complain about it.
That you'd have to pry maintainership of Linux from his cold dead hands ;-)
Anything that a particular user does not need to accomplish his or her tasks is bloat. Those window-minimization, maxmization animations -- bloat. Fancy aqua title bars -- bloat.
But it goes beyond just extra graphics. Every "feature" of a program that you don't need or use is bloat for you. A useless extra "feature" which gives you no benefit.
That's why it's a good thing that GNU/Linux has gradiated window-managers. Sawfish (which is used by GNOME and KDE) is heavily featured, and will suffice for the needs of any user (provided she's capable of running it); however, many users will find feature in it that are unnecessary to them: bloat. PWM, RatPoison, and EvilWM are much lighter on features, and hardly anyone will be able to say they have bloat (esp for RatPoison); however, some users may want functionality not offered by those WMs. WindowMaker is in between.
I personally use WindowMaker. There is nothing wrong with using a more full-featured WM like Sawfish, or a more lightweight WM like RatPoison. However, for my particular needs, WindowMaker is the perfect solution. For someone else' needs, Sawfish will be a better solution; for another person's needs, RatPoison will be the best solution.
Ultimately, the best program is that which allows the user to get his or her particular task done the fastest. That means that the "best program" will vary from user to user, situation to situation, depending on the user's needs and capabilities.
Now would be the perfect time, btw, to buy stocks from IBM, RedHat, and any other GNU/Linux company, who's stock's may have taken a price-dip. P/E is likely very low for these companies, and the stock is likely undervalued by irrational pessimism on Wall Street.
But, hey, don't trust me. Check out the stock prices on IBM and RedHat and other GNU/Linux companies, and read Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis.
McBride said his company will open samples of its contested code to interested parties next week under nondisclosure agreements so SCO can prove its points. The open-source community, however, won't be be given an opportunity to remove any offending code and replace it with new material, he said. Instead, damages will continue to be sought.
So in other words, he's going to let people examine their "evidence", and allow them to come to their "own conclusions", but prevent them from disclosing any proof to the public of the validity of their conclusions. In other words, we're back at square one -- a whole lot of unsubstantiated allegations, no proof. Btw, even if there are "hundreds of lines" of shared code, that does not prove that they were copied into Linux from SCO. It's much more likely to be the other way around.
Btw, can't Linux just sign the NDA and then -- if he finds anything -- remove it from Linux?
It's sort of like somebody stealing your car, and you hunt them down and you find them, and they say you can have your car back, but there's no penalty for that
Except Linux (nor GNU/Linux) has stolen nothing, nor has IBM, from SCO. Even if that allegation were true, the fault would lie with IBM, not the FOSS community.
Giga Information Group Inc. analyst Stacey Quandt said she has discussed SCO's offer with her legal counsel, and if she signs an NDA, it may hinder her ability to write about it.
In other words, SCO has stacked the deck. People can review their code under these terms, but can't write in any convincing manner to the public about their findings.
[Giga Information's Stacey Quandt] has advised clients of Cambridge, Mass.-based Giga to continue with their Linux adoption.
In other words, SCO's absurd allegations aren't driving people away from GNU/Linux.
They don't want to tell; they want to sue. -- Linux
That just about sums it up. Except that IF their claims are valid, they gain nothing by with-holding the evidence. They cannot claim before a court of law that they should get continued damages when they could have allowed the FOSS community to remedy the situation.
[Stamford's George Weiss] said SCO is making its case based on "vague inferences" and is asking analysts to do the same
It appears the experts agree with me.
[Framingham's Dan Kusnetzky said, "I'm not sure that showing us the code would prove anything to me, because I don't know where it came from"
As I said before, it will be difficult if not impossible for SCO to prove where their code came from, the dates on it, etc; whereas proving those things will be easy for FOSS.
Even if there is similar code, that doesn't mean there is infringement, especially under copyright law "fair use" provisions, said Overly. "If I take a piece of code that someone has written, take it verbatim but expand on it and use it for a completely different work, that may or not be copyright infringement"
Another problem for SCO's absurd case.
a review of the code by anyone other than a judge "means absolutely, positively nothing" in determining the merit of SCO's claims.
A review by people other than lawyers will give you the real truth on the matter. Though a judge can give a legal ruling, it will invariably be false, as judges understand about as much about computer code as I understand hieroglyphics.
legal experts said Linux users have to pay attention to the fight. "The fact that you ignored it could potentially cause your damages to increase substantially"
Actually, GNU/Linux users can ignore this all-together. The user faces no liability what-so-ever. Nor, in fact, can anyone be said to be liable other than IBM, for they are the only ones who were in a position to know what was and was not proprietary SCO code. No-one else, not the FOSS community, not GNU/Linux users, nor GNU/Linux companies, were in any position to have any possibility of knowing that (because SCO's code is closed).
Thanks slashdot for all of the breast-comparison jokes. I almost fell off my seat in laughter while reading down the list.
Seriously, though, I doubt that this thing will take off. For something to replace the keyboard, it's going to have to be very natural, just like the mouse' successor would have to be.
The simple truth is, the keyboard is pretty much fixed. People have learned it and don't want to change.
And, guess what, there's already this great innovation here that allows people who have difficulty typing to avoid it: it's called voice recognition. There's also even something on the horizon to naturally and seamlessly replace the mouse -- bouncing a low-powered laser off of the eyeball, to determine where the eyes are looking, and move the mouse cursor to that location (the army's working on it).
The point is, you need to add something of significance for your derivative to be copyrighteable. A word-for-word translation doesn't count; nor does a translation designed to preserve the original meaning. Neither of those translations have done anything significant to alter the work.
I'd like to see people start backing up comments "I have the right" with the actual legal statute defining it.
(1) Such contracts are not being held up in court. Courts are refusing to uphold EULAs and other similar licenses, which would include any license on a DVD preventing you from watching it on the system of your choice with the software of your choice.
(2) The right to privacy. They can place as many assinite clauses in their contracts as they want, doesn't mean they're enforcible. This is because the right to privacy is constitutional, and takes precedence over any "license" you "agreed to" when buying a DVD. It would be unconstitutional to enforce any licensing term that could only be enforced by a violation of the right to privacy, which is what these terms would fall under.
(3) It is unreasonable to say you "agreed to" any license when buying a DVD, since you signed nothing, had no lawyers present, and certainly were not told of any license.
no Sir, you do not have the right to watch the DVD however fucking damn well you please.
By the two legal grounds, and the one practical ground, listed above, yes, Sir, I damn well do have the right to watch my DVD however the fuck I please.
Yea, sure. Just like the EULA's on software. Oh, wait, those are having trouble being upheld in court.
If the consumer perceives it as being a sale, and isn't told otherwise, then it's a sale. As in, they now own that DVD in the same sense that they own a book they buy.
Not only is their license invalid, and thus it's just an ordinary sale, like the sale of a book, but their license is also completely unenforcible, which means irrelevant. Encorfing their license would mean violating the privacy of millions of Americans and stepping into their homes, to prevent them from watching DVD's on GNU/Linux. No court is going to allow that. So, in other words, the MPAA's "license" is moot on two terms.
Fuck that bullshit. I have the right to watch any DVD I pay for anywhere on any system on of my choosing, using any DVD-viewing tools.
It's really simple. I buy a DVD. I own that DVD. I thus have the right to watch that DVD, however fucking damn well I please. Let's not let MPAA double-speak confuse the only relevant issue, which is my right to watch a DVD I've purchased on the platform of my choice, using the tools of my choice.
You're claiming that Linux has been polluted with Unix code that you own, but you have not produced any evidence of that. Will you? We will actually be providing some of the evidence next month to various industry analysts, respected press people and other industry leaders so that they don't have to take our word for it or wait until we show some of that evidence in court. We will actually be showing the code, and the basis for why we have made the allegations that we have. We are very confident about our case. Because we are dealing with confidential source code that we have never released without confidentiality agreements, we will have to put in place nondisclosures [agreements] simply to protect the source. But people will be able to give their opinion as to what they think.
It's obvious that this sack of shit is lying. If his claims were true, he'd have no reason not to point out the offending code, since it has already been released to the public for all to see. There is no longer anything that he can protect by keeping the "offending code" secret. This is just a smokescreen for the fact that there really is no evidence because the entire claim is completely fabricated. See the OSI's response to this non-sense.
Also, there are many mechanisms ensuring that FOSS software is properly distributed without violating IP. People are required to sign waivers indicating that the contributed code was not improperly obtained. In many cases, corporations are asked to sign waivers.
Furthermore, since the code is FOSS, any proprietary entities concerned can easily identify any issues and have them resolved. SCO could have done this a long time ago -- it's obvious this is bullshit.
As a general summary, there are more insurances that FOSS isn't misappropriated than there are for proprietary code (which is closed-source, so they can hide misappropriations of IP). Furthermore, it is much more likely that SCO violated that GPL than that any FOSS developers violated SCO's IP.
So, according to you, only people the top 10% of people in the nation who average a 3.7-4.0 should be able to enter politics, all the rest are banned?
Fucking moron. Some of our "smartest" Presidents were in fact our very worst Presidents. Go back to the 1920s, where there was a President who was also a phD.
makes for an entertaining read. Try his most recent one, "Prey". "Timeline" is also good.
Since singularities are clearly "point-like", the formula does apply. Your right about gravity being zero in the center of the earth, though -- my bad.
The gravitational attraction between two objects is dependant on mass linearly, but is also dependant on the distance between those two objects.
Gravitational Force = GMm/r^2
Where G is the gravitational constant of this Universe, M is the mass of the larger object, m the mass of the smaller object, and r the is the separation between the center of the two objects. [an objects gravity is "centered" at it's center, thus the gravitational force at the center of the earth is infinite (r = 0)].
It is true that black holes do not create increased distortions of the gravitational field by altering size (initially). They do so by shrinking the radius of the object. If you double the mass of the sun, but keep its radius the same, the gravity you'd feel on the sun's surface would only be doubled. If, however, you half the sun's radius, but leave the mass the same, then the gravity you'd feel on the sun's surface would be quadrupled (because r is 1/2, the denominator in the formula is 1/4).
I believe what you were trying to say is that the effective field of gravitation for these black holes would be so small as to be insignificant, and you're right. Gravity decreases exponentially with an exponent of 2 as the distance between the two objects increases; thus, for black holes of the mass these guys are creating, the field in which they would warp the space-time continuum would probably be atomic -- e.g., after about the radius of an atom, their gravitational force becomes insignificant.
Of course, this is all a shotty analysis of it, as Newton's Laws of gravitation don't even hold true for describing planetary orbits, and even Einstein's Theory of Gravitation (the warping of space-time) breaks down at a singularity.
So, why is MS' doing this?
- Because these entities would not have bought MS software anyways, this costs them nothing; thus, they gain reputation in the community for free.
- This allows them to start locking non-profit organizations into proprietary formats, like MS' document format.
- Allows them to undercut their one serious competitive threat -- FOSS. By offering away software for free to these entities that wouldn't have paid them anyways, they eliminate one benefit of FOSS -- price. Though, in theory, FOSS can cost money, in practice it doesn't. Though informal support (e.g., helpfiles, FAQs, newsgroups, irc channels) is free, formal support costs money, but all formal support costs money. Now FOSS can only compete on two additional grounds: the actual quality of the software and end-user rights. In many cases, FOSS offers superior quality; however, there is still mass familiarity with Windows products. FOSS always offers the end-user more rights (as in, it places no restrictions on end-user activity) and allows for improvement, but these are concepts which the average user has difficulty grasping.
- Allows them to really undercut any other competitors (proprietary competitors).
- Allows them to possibly write these off as deductions. Again, it costs them nothing to do this. However, they can claim that they've donated billions to charity; thus, write off substantial amounts of tax.
- Create dependency of the individuals within that organization upon MS. Thus, while the organization may not pay MS, individuals may end up doing so.
- As they've locked non-profits into their proprietary formats, they are now in position to start charging non-profits at their will.
This is clearly anti-competitive behaviour for a monopoly. However, since the courts have not seriously done anything to stop MS' vast and braod anti-competitive behaviour, it is doubtful they will do anything about this.So, the question becomes what can we do about this?
The point is that the same logic can be used to justify other forms of printer-censorship. There could also be arguments made for preventing printers from printing out other recognizeable things.
The point is that, with some safeguards built in to protect the user from self-destruction, a computer and all of its corresponding hardware should do exactly what the user tells it/them to do, in-so-far as possible.
Yea, the prosecutors. Even worse. The guys who work hard to send innocent people to jail, and often don't even stop when they know the person is innocent.