Makes me wonder what the attitude to corruption was in ancient Greece. Did they just accept it as part of the process, along with the rest of the political machinations?
Some of what he says makes sense, but at one point he appears to be drawing a false conclusion.
He said: "The point was made by an exchange inside the Committee that shaped Europe's ill-starred Database Directive. It was observed that the US, with no significant property rights over unoriginal compilations of data, had a much larger database industry than Europe which already had significant "sweat of the brow" protection in some countries."
But there's more to it than copyright. It's very difficult to access a corporate database to copy it, so copy protection is quite strong with or without legal copyright protection. Something that is more likely to have hindered the European database industry is stricter data protection laws. When you have to register, and are not allowed to sell information to anyone and everyone without exlicit permission, the industry sector is going to be a lot slower. This is simply a tradeoff between econmic growth and consumer protection.
Apart from the areas where there is no competition, the quality of software is pretty good. Even Windows has become fairly stable since Linux showed up.
The reason Free software appeals to me is simply that I don't have to agree to hand over my first born son to use it. I'd like it if consumers would get a bit more assertive over the stringent and really quite unfair licencing terms. Then we can worry about quality.
The FSF tells us that "Free" in free software refers to freedom rather than price. You're not free to modify Opera or iTunes, or to sell modified versions.
So, while it's free, it isn't actually free. Isn't English fun.
But I don't think it should be up to me how parents bring up their kids. If they think technology should be used to protect their children then they have the right to use it.
If the store feels that I have shoplifted, they are perfectly free to either place my under citizen's arrest,
I don't know if they are... False arrest sounds like a fairly tricky business, but it seems that you have to be pretty certain that the guy is guilty to legally put someone under citizens arrest.
But speaking as someone who shamelessly illegally downloads stuff via bittorrent (I just find myself unable to feel guilty about it), I have no problem with them trying to do this sort of thing. If I try to get stuff by breaking the law, they're perfectly entitled to try to stop me. Poisoning files will certainly succeed in stopping me if they can actually do this.
And it's a lot better than suing people. The penalty is minor inconvenince for the guilty. Hardly disproportionate, especially when compared to a billion dollar lawsuit.
Doesn't the birthday paradox come into this? For bittorrent, store every single hash ever generated in an easily sortable pattern. If you get a collision, swap the two segments around.
Okay, you'll need a lot of segments in a lot of torrent files to poison any of them, but we're talking several orders of magnitude smaller. We might only need a few trillion universes to store the data.
But surely they just need to create a block or two with a bogus hash. The file hash may be wrong, but unless you know exactly which segment is wrong, you have no way of fixing it.
OSS is still just starting. Once one of these apps or games get notice other than in the community I firmly believe will catch like wildfire.
But there are a lot of talented people. And, while this is a stereotype, there are a lot of role players and board gamers involved. They know about game mechanics and balancing mechanisms. And there's nothing wrong with being inspired by existing games, but I find myself irritated by exact clones. I feel the same way about commercial games as well, but exact clones are a lot rarer there.
At this point OSS is not at the level it needs to, to come up with new genres and the such. They have gotten a game out though.
New genres are not needed. Just some innovation. Make 100 little changes, such as a totally new technology tree, improvements to the combat, coming up with new ideas about how cities work and how they produce resources, and you might be getting somewhere.
Wheres your code we would love to see it!
Could take a while. I only work on it at the weekends, and I seem to be busy 3 out of every 4 of them.
Because even though the game is a clone, it's an original clone which uses no copyrighted material from the original.
IANAL, but I know copyright is more complex than this, and as far as I can tell, there's very little case law for video games.
While this doesn't copy anything directly, it could be considered a derived work. For example, Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep. Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron alleging that Terminator copied ideas and concepts from various stories he wrote. Neither of these works used any substantial material from the source, but were still required to credit the original creators.
Had it occurred to you that a million original games have been passed over because this one is a clone of a popular game?
Actually no. Not until aendeuryu listed a few.
I've just noticed that there are quite a few games that are blatent clones. Not just similar - virtually identical to games such as Mariocart or Puzzle Bobble. The graphics may be slightly different, but that's about the only significant difference.
Yes. How close does a game have to be to breach copyright? I remember back in 8-bit days, there were several lawsuits due to remarkable similar games.
If it interests you, here's what I found on usenet
One problem is that there is somewhat of a split on the
edges here among the various Circuit Courts of Appeal.
But I think that a majority still utilize what is termed
Abstration/Filtration/Comparison analysis. Every program
has a number of levels of abstraction, ranging from the
raw source code up. What you do is find what you think
is infringing, and determine how high is that level of
abstraction. Thus, two karate games, with nothing more
in common, are probably not infringing. The filtration step
eliminates similarities that are uncopyrightable. For
example, if something is a standard way of doing something,
that is typically filtered. If your kicking and punching
is modeled on real karate, and so is theirs, then that is
probably filtered, etc. This is why it is necessary to consult
with an IP attorney well versed in this area who understands
how and when to apply this analysis.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point.
Makes me wonder what the attitude to corruption was in ancient Greece. Did they just accept it as part of the process, along with the rest of the political machinations?
Nope. British politicians invented sleaze and corruption.
Thankyou.
You see, that's all I wanted. A logical, rational reason for him to do this.
Some of what he says makes sense, but at one point he appears to be drawing a false conclusion.
He said: "The point was made by an exchange inside the Committee that shaped Europe's ill-starred Database Directive. It was observed that the US, with no significant property rights over unoriginal compilations of data, had a much larger database industry than Europe which already had significant "sweat of the brow" protection in some countries."
But there's more to it than copyright. It's very difficult to access a corporate database to copy it, so copy protection is quite strong with or without legal copyright protection. Something that is more likely to have hindered the European database industry is stricter data protection laws. When you have to register, and are not allowed to sell information to anyone and everyone without exlicit permission, the industry sector is going to be a lot slower. This is simply a tradeoff between econmic growth and consumer protection.
Websters lists both meanings. The FSF likes to clarify to point out they mean "at Liberty" rather than "at no cost".
Seems easier to live. Thanks all the same.
Apart from the areas where there is no competition, the quality of software is pretty good. Even Windows has become fairly stable since Linux showed up.
The reason Free software appeals to me is simply that I don't have to agree to hand over my first born son to use it. I'd like it if consumers would get a bit more assertive over the stringent and really quite unfair licencing terms. Then we can worry about quality.
But that just offers an analagous situation. You do not provide any justification for his actions or for my existence.
Does this mean you agree with me?
The FSF tells us that "Free" in free software refers to freedom rather than price. You're not free to modify Opera or iTunes, or to sell modified versions.
So, while it's free, it isn't actually free. Isn't English fun.
Will it improve the user experience somehow?
Will it distrupt Microsoft's monopoly on the browser market?
Will it create world peace?
No it will not. Since it achieve none of these things, I proclaim the whole excercise pointless and should not be attempted.
Which reminds me... I really must return that magazine I borrowed. It's 40 years overdue.
I agree.
But I don't think it should be up to me how parents bring up their kids. If they think technology should be used to protect their children then they have the right to use it.
What they were doing was possibly infringing on copyright. Unlikely, but it would have been expensive for Clearplay to defend.
This law explicitely permits this.
They give awards sort of like the Oscar, only without quite as poor a sense of judgement.
I'm not so sure. Nothing will convince me that Four Weddings was a better film than Pulp Fiction. Even Richard Curtis didn't seem to think so.
If the store feels that I have shoplifted, they are perfectly free to either place my under citizen's arrest,
I don't know if they are... False arrest sounds like a fairly tricky business, but it seems that you have to be pretty certain that the guy is guilty to legally put someone under citizens arrest.
I believe the key here is it was a transplant from a living donor.
Not quite sure why this was so hard before. I think I'll need to look into this.
I don't understand how you get from "Linux", an Operating System, to "Word", an Application, and compare the two as if they are equivalent.
I don't understand it either. Nevertheless, I have had a conversation along the lines of, "What Word processor do you use?" "Windows 95".
And any time the word processor screws up, my dad blames it on Windows. Most people don't grasp the difference between an OS and an application
:)
But speaking as someone who shamelessly illegally downloads stuff via bittorrent (I just find myself unable to feel guilty about it), I have no problem with them trying to do this sort of thing. If I try to get stuff by breaking the law, they're perfectly entitled to try to stop me. Poisoning files will certainly succeed in stopping me if they can actually do this.
And it's a lot better than suing people. The penalty is minor inconvenince for the guilty. Hardly disproportionate, especially when compared to a billion dollar lawsuit.
Doesn't the birthday paradox come into this? For bittorrent, store every single hash ever generated in an easily sortable pattern. If you get a collision, swap the two segments around.
Okay, you'll need a lot of segments in a lot of torrent files to poison any of them, but we're talking several orders of magnitude smaller. We might only need a few trillion universes to store the data.
But surely they just need to create a block or two with a bogus hash. The file hash may be wrong, but unless you know exactly which segment is wrong, you have no way of fixing it.
Or have I totally missed your point?
OSS is still just starting. Once one of these apps or games get notice other than in the community I firmly believe will catch like wildfire.
But there are a lot of talented people. And, while this is a stereotype, there are a lot of role players and board gamers involved. They know about game mechanics and balancing mechanisms. And there's nothing wrong with being inspired by existing games, but I find myself irritated by exact clones. I feel the same way about commercial games as well, but exact clones are a lot rarer there.
At this point OSS is not at the level it needs to, to come up with new genres and the such. They have gotten a game out though.
New genres are not needed. Just some innovation. Make 100 little changes, such as a totally new technology tree, improvements to the combat, coming up with new ideas about how cities work and how they produce resources, and you might be getting somewhere.
Wheres your code we would love to see it!
Could take a while. I only work on it at the weekends, and I seem to be busy 3 out of every 4 of them.
Because even though the game is a clone, it's an original clone which uses no copyrighted material from the original.
IANAL, but I know copyright is more complex than this, and as far as I can tell, there's very little case law for video games.
While this doesn't copy anything directly, it could be considered a derived work. For example, Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep. Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron alleging that Terminator copied ideas and concepts from various stories he wrote. Neither of these works used any substantial material from the source, but were still required to credit the original creators.
Had it occurred to you that a million original games have been passed over because this one is a clone of a popular game?
Actually no. Not until aendeuryu listed a few.
I've just noticed that there are quite a few games that are blatent clones. Not just similar - virtually identical to games such as Mariocart or Puzzle Bobble. The graphics may be slightly different, but that's about the only significant difference.
If it interests you, here's what I found on usenet