I think Steve is mostly right on this one, except as someone else just pointed out, this isn't the first time this has happened.
Indeed. I can come up with many more excamples. Cinema lost popularity when TV started to become popular (although regained market share when quality improved drastically). I'm not totally sure you can compare VHS with NTSC broadcast since this is complementary rather than a replacement, but VHS also gained from Betamax because of convenience (cheaper, longer tapes etc). In Europe, standard defintion digital TV replaced higher quality analogue because of the convenince of more channels. Mobile phones have replaced the higher audio quality
Probably because MS can claim (quite reasonably) that they're not responsible for the actions of a malicious third party, and that when the hole was discovered, they put considerably effort into fixing it. And also that they can turn any court case into a war of attrition and they have the resources to keep that going forever.
If they leave a hole open their EULA will not protect them.
Nothing. I never said there was. I'm just saying that in the common use (as defined by a dictionary), theft is a perfectly reasonable term to use in this situation.
So, if we use this specific definition of the word "theft" and this specific version of the word "take" then a dictionary (which is descriptive; not prescriptive) agrees with you. But it's misleading. It has negative connotations. It implies that copyright infringement is inherently wrong in the same way that theft is. Theft is wrong, not because someone gains, but because someone else loses. Copyright infringement is wrong - in general - because society has developed a mechanism to reward creators and the infringer is breaching that social contract.
Ask someone who's been the victim of copyright infringement what they think the difference is.
Yes. Ask a vested interest.
The law specifically mentions "entertainment". It says that accessing entertainment for which someone is entitled fair payment for is "theft of service". If you copy a CD that you don't own (from a friend, for instance), and then entertained yourself by listening to it, you have *exactly* done this.
Yes, but how is copying a CD a service? Cable TV is a service. The telephone is a service. iTunes is a service. A CD is not a service.
"I never would have bought it anyway." - proof that you don't need it. Why break the law for something you don't need?
No. Proof that the cost of it has greater value than the value of the data.
"By committing infringement I didn't deprive anyone else of the use of the work..." - well, it devalues the work as a whole. Just imagine a counterfeiter using this argument: "I didn't deprive anyone else of their money..."
Nobody lost money. The counterfeiters potentially caused an instability in the entire nations infrastructure.
I'll repeat it again: "theft" means an act fo stealing. "Steal" means to take *ANYTHING* without permission. That includes intangible things like original ideas. If a dictionary even mentions property, it is in parenthesis in order to prevent the confusion you obviously have.
Repetition does not make you right. A counter example: Taking photos is not theft. The parenthesis is to clarify. To prevent the confusion you have.
Larceny, on the other hand, is *specifically* the taking of property with the intent to deprive the owner of its use.
And dictionary.com lists "theft" as part of the definition.
Depends on what you consider "the" community.
This is just silly. I consider "The community" to be everyone who uses computer software. You have to share your changes with the recipient.
Ah, so now we look up "take": ah... "to assume for oneself" happens to be one of the senses that does not include removal of the original item.
Oneself. One person, that being the self.
What's wong with copyright infringement as a term!? "Theft" is a loaded term. It distracts from the real argument. It's misleading and suggests that copyright infringement should be considered the same as physical theft.
Also, in Oregon, copyright infringement on music could, in some circumstances, be considered thef t of services. See clause (2) where it says "entertainment". Under your definition, how does one commit theft of entertainment if it cannot be procured without depriving the entertainment from someone else?
What are you talking about? This does not imply copying of software. Potentially it may include sneaking into a cinema, and also getting free cable TV (although I feel the legislators are stretching the definition of the word "theft" here as well) but copying a piece of software is not considered a service.
Yes there is, if you distribute binaries that were created from that source code. See GPL v2 Terms and Conditions section 3.
Didn't see any mention of the word "community" there. You have to distribute to the recipient who may or may not be part of the community.
I don't know where you get your 80% but you should keep in mind that the software world is not made up of just internal projects and shrink-wrap products.
Totally unscientific. Open source conference. a show of hand showed that roughly this figure did not make any money out of shrink-wrap style distribution. What other software is there? We have the bespoke applications, and server applications but these don't make any money from a per copy fee.
If that's true, (and I'm not completely convinced it is), then that reduction in cost comes in the form of fewer programmer hours. Thus, if you are correct OSS is reducing the demand for developers.
strangely this doesn't seem to happen. Competition and price reduction always seems to increase demand rather than reduce profits. A historical example is the rapid increase in manufacturing labour after mass production was developed, even though this was highly automated.
If you have an XP machine, then prove me wrong instead of trying to sound high and mighty because you can't accept five simple words. Additionally, per your original reply, it's a free download, not $50. So go try it and prove me wrong, please, I don't have a machine to test it on but all indications (see above paragraph) indicate that it's is violating GPL. Also, please refrain from asking me loaded questions or comments in which I've already answered. I already told you I can't provide 100% proof that it violates the GPL because I don't have a test machine, but per my above comments, and TFA, it's fairly clear that there's a strong chance that it's not GPL compliant.
The article is highly speculative. It presents no evidence to support its claims. You haven't provided any evidence that this violates the GPL. All that is required is that the cource and a copy of the licence is available. If you have adequate evidence the the contrary, then fair enough. I would point out that if you don't have evidence, claiming that he violates the GPL is borderline libel.
If you have an XP machine, then prove me wrong instead of trying to sound high and mighty because you can't accept five simple words. Additionally, per your original reply, it's a free download, not $50. So go try it and prove me wrong, please, I don't have a machine to test it on but all indications (see above paragraph) indicate that it's is violating GPL.
I can't be bothered. It doesn't concern me. If the PearPC devloers care to prove that it is breaching the GPL, they have my full support.
You're completely anal about the use of words like "theft", "stolen" and "as far as I know" and can't accept anything but the dictionary terms,
I think accuracy is important. "Theft" isd a loaded term. "Stolen" is a loaded term. "Copyright infringement" is an accurate term. The point is to avoid fallacious arguments. I agree theft is wrong. If copyright infringement is theft, then copyright infringement is wrong. I don't neccesarily agree that copyright infringement is theft or that it is inherently wrong. Calling it theft detracts from this point. I think that the morality of copyright infringement in itself is the important factor, and not whether it is analagous to theft.
'Who cares because he didn't literally break into the PearPC developers computers and steal it, and I don't believe anything even when strong evidence is presented but I'll tell everyone else how wrong they are.'
There is strong evidence to suggest he is using the PearPC codebase. In fact I'm fairly certain of this. However, I accept as fact that it is explicitely permitted to make derivitive works from PearPC and distribute them as long as certain conditions are met. There is very little evidence that these conditions have not been met. There is some evidence that the source code is supplied.
Please. Are you suggesting that, this time, he actually did write a complete PowerPC emulator from scratch?
No. I'm suggesting that he may be complying with the terms of the GPL. Have you acquired a copy, and verified that the text of the GPL is not present and/or the source code is not available?
I think the figure is about 80% or so, but most software is not written for mass distribution. It's used only internally. Even Microsoft probably has a lot of software that isn't distributed and never will be.
This software can cost less to develop if open source, because the chances are someone has already written part of it.
Would they sell 20 times as many songs for 5 cents eachas they would for 99c each? Would they sell less than half as many for 10c each than at 10c each? Maybe you'll sell thousands of times more at 1c each maybe the same amount.
We don't know. Pearlman doesn't know, and Pfohl doesn't know. Perhaps they will. Perhaps not. It's too expensive to try by experimentation.
Let's see... He didn't do it the first time, and no where on his site does it have a GPL notice (not that it's required to). If the guy aggressively argued that he didn't use PearPC the first time until he was faced with undeniable proof (prev/. story), why would he suddenly change face and go legit?
Being faced with undeniable proof may well persuade him to go legit.
With the code now under public scrutiny, it appears that such allegations are true.
So it appears that the code is available. It may or may not be in a manner compliant with the GPL.
Your opinion may vary, but it's not the opinion of the article and the guy that wrote is has lost all credibility ever since October when "Ooops, turns out I totally ripped off PearPC... back to the lab to make sure I've obfuscated the code some more..."
Or perhaps "Back to the lab to make sure I follow the letter of the GPL". He wants to sell it. He might decide to rely on people not being aware of their rights.
Regardless, if English is your first language you should know that the qualifier "As far as I know" (which you quoted and used), means exactly what I ment it to say: "As far as I know." It means I'm not 100% sure.
It's a fallcy. You don't know whether you're right or not. You can't go from a lack of proof of the opposite to a reasonable belief that something is the case. I don't like to make allegations about people without proof. Provide proof that it violates the GPL.
Something that, as far as I know, CherryOS isn't doing.
And as far as you know, they might be doing this.
IF this guy wanted to create a closed-source PearPC installer, in which he acknowledged that the PearPC software is free and GPL, and that the close source software is just an easy to use installer for PearPC. But he isn't, so he's violating GPL.
Have you bought a copy? How do you know he isn;lt doing this?
Many people believe that Goooogle is an honest and righteous company. I was researching the company as part of my employer's ethical business policy, and I was surprised about what I found.
At first I was impressed by Google's "Do No Evil" policy. This was until I doscovered that it wasn't a policy. It was a reminder. The board of directors are inherently evil and need to repeat the mantra to stop them from committing great sins.
First of all, Google trawls thorough the internet, copying everything it takes into its local cache. This is potentially copyright infringement, and theft of bandwidth. This is opt-out. Not opt-in.
They also have no policy regarding long term storage of user's data.
But these are just surface problems. I did some further digging and was frightened by what I found. Google gained its success amde froma pact with the devil in 1999. Since it is a satanic product, mere use of google puts your soul in jeapordy. A google search for ""Satan" will give "The church of satan" and not one of the much more popular sites warning againt evil
The CEO of Google eats children. Once a week, he orders that a child is taken from his dungeon, and slaughtered, then roast for 3 hours. After this, it is served to the CEO and guests. Those who do not join him are executed. Those who do are damned.
So I warn you. Stop using google. If not for your own soul, for the children.
Its specifically designed to keep people from taking 4 millions hours of your work, tinkering with it a bit, closing the source, and selling it off as your own.
Nobody's taken anything. The authors still have their 4 million hours of work.
It really is all about protecting our ability to keep software evolving... not about ego boosts.
You still have this ability. You still have the source. PearPC is avaialbable on sourceforge.
Theft implies the original owner is deprived of the property (As does the word "Take").
Theft also has a specific legal meaning which does not cover IP infringement.
The point of the GPL, in case you missed it, is that modifications to the source cannot be kept from the community if the modifier wants to distribute their work
Yes they can. There's no clause in the GPL requiring changes are returned to the community.
Which is somethign they have. PearPC is released under the GPL. This does permit redistribution. It's the main point.
Unless they're breaching the terms of the GPL without permission from the original authors of the software, this is legal. They may be breaching these terms, but that's still to be proven.
Most games update the world at regular intervals (between 15 and 60 times a second). A bullet travelling at twice the speed of sound can travel a reasonable distance in that time. I suppose you could just calculate the trajectory in 10 metre segments, but would you really notice?
It's not a problem with processing power. It's just that the developer's time is better spent on things other than a realistic physics model, when you have a perfectly adequate convincing physics model.
but if using Direct3D was really all that horrible, would it still have as widespread support from developers?
The plus side is that MS did actually listen to developers. DX5 and above are actually quite good. Non 3DFX 3D cards were quite rare before that, so back then most developers used Glide.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Steve is mostly right on this one, except as someone else just pointed out, this isn't the first time this has happened.
Indeed. I can come up with many more excamples. Cinema lost popularity when TV started to become popular (although regained market share when quality improved drastically). I'm not totally sure you can compare VHS with NTSC broadcast since this is complementary rather than a replacement, but VHS also gained from Betamax because of convenience (cheaper, longer tapes etc). In Europe, standard defintion digital TV replaced higher quality analogue because of the convenince of more channels. Mobile phones have replaced the higher audio quality
Probably because MS can claim (quite reasonably) that they're not responsible for the actions of a malicious third party, and that when the hole was discovered, they put considerably effort into fixing it. And also that they can turn any court case into a war of attrition and they have the resources to keep that going forever.
If they leave a hole open their EULA will not protect them.
Nothing. I never said there was. I'm just saying that in the common use (as defined by a dictionary), theft is a perfectly reasonable term to use in this situation.
So, if we use this specific definition of the word "theft" and this specific version of the word "take" then a dictionary (which is descriptive; not prescriptive) agrees with you. But it's misleading. It has negative connotations. It implies that copyright infringement is inherently wrong in the same way that theft is. Theft is wrong, not because someone gains, but because someone else loses. Copyright infringement is wrong - in general - because society has developed a mechanism to reward creators and the infringer is breaching that social contract.
Ask someone who's been the victim of copyright infringement what they think the difference is.
Yes. Ask a vested interest.
The law specifically mentions "entertainment". It says that accessing entertainment for which someone is entitled fair payment for is "theft of service". If you copy a CD that you don't own (from a friend, for instance), and then entertained yourself by listening to it, you have *exactly* done this.
Yes, but how is copying a CD a service? Cable TV is a service. The telephone is a service. iTunes is a service. A CD is not a service.
"I never would have bought it anyway." - proof that you don't need it. Why break the law for something you don't need?
No. Proof that the cost of it has greater value than the value of the data.
"By committing infringement I didn't deprive anyone else of the use of the work..." - well, it devalues the work as a whole. Just imagine a counterfeiter using this argument: "I didn't deprive anyone else of their money..."
Nobody lost money. The counterfeiters potentially caused an instability in the entire nations infrastructure.
I'll repeat it again: "theft" means an act fo stealing. "Steal" means to take *ANYTHING* without permission. That includes intangible things like original ideas. If a dictionary even mentions property, it is in parenthesis in order to prevent the confusion you obviously have.
Repetition does not make you right. A counter example: Taking photos is not theft. The parenthesis is to clarify. To prevent the confusion you have.
Larceny, on the other hand, is *specifically* the taking of property with the intent to deprive the owner of its use.
And dictionary.com lists "theft" as part of the definition.
Depends on what you consider "the" community.
This is just silly. I consider "The community" to be everyone who uses computer software. You have to share your changes with the recipient.
Ah, so now we look up "take": ah... "to assume for oneself" happens to be one of the senses that does not include removal of the original item.
Oneself. One person, that being the self.
What's wong with copyright infringement as a term!? "Theft" is a loaded term. It distracts from the real argument. It's misleading and suggests that copyright infringement should be considered the same as physical theft.
Also, in Oregon, copyright infringement on music could, in some circumstances, be considered thef t of services. See clause (2) where it says "entertainment". Under your definition, how does one commit theft of entertainment if it cannot be procured without depriving the entertainment from someone else?
What are you talking about? This does not imply copying of software. Potentially it may include sneaking into a cinema, and also getting free cable TV (although I feel the legislators are stretching the definition of the word "theft" here as well) but copying a piece of software is not considered a service.
Yes there is, if you distribute binaries that were created from that source code. See GPL v2 Terms and Conditions section 3.
Didn't see any mention of the word "community" there. You have to distribute to the recipient who may or may not be part of the community.
I don't know where you get your 80% but you should keep in mind that the software world is not made up of just internal projects and shrink-wrap products.
Totally unscientific. Open source conference. a show of hand showed that roughly this figure did not make any money out of shrink-wrap style distribution. What other software is there? We have the bespoke applications, and server applications but these don't make any money from a per copy fee.
If that's true, (and I'm not completely convinced it is), then that reduction in cost comes in the form of fewer programmer hours. Thus, if you are correct OSS is reducing the demand for developers.
strangely this doesn't seem to happen. Competition and price reduction always seems to increase demand rather than reduce profits. A historical example is the rapid increase in manufacturing labour after mass production was developed, even though this was highly automated.
If you have an XP machine, then prove me wrong instead of trying to sound high and mighty because you can't accept five simple words. Additionally, per your original reply, it's a free download, not $50. So go try it and prove me wrong, please, I don't have a machine to test it on but all indications (see above paragraph) indicate that it's is violating GPL. Also, please refrain from asking me loaded questions or comments in which I've already answered. I already told you I can't provide 100% proof that it violates the GPL because I don't have a test machine, but per my above comments, and TFA, it's fairly clear that there's a strong chance that it's not GPL compliant.
The article is highly speculative. It presents no evidence to support its claims. You haven't provided any evidence that this violates the GPL. All that is required is that the cource and a copy of the licence is available. If you have adequate evidence the the contrary, then fair enough. I would point out that if you don't have evidence, claiming that he violates the GPL is borderline libel.
If you have an XP machine, then prove me wrong instead of trying to sound high and mighty because you can't accept five simple words. Additionally, per your original reply, it's a free download, not $50. So go try it and prove me wrong, please, I don't have a machine to test it on but all indications (see above paragraph) indicate that it's is violating GPL.
I can't be bothered. It doesn't concern me. If the PearPC devloers care to prove that it is breaching the GPL, they have my full support.
You're completely anal about the use of words like "theft", "stolen" and "as far as I know" and can't accept anything but the dictionary terms,
I think accuracy is important. "Theft" isd a loaded term. "Stolen" is a loaded term. "Copyright infringement" is an accurate term. The point is to avoid fallacious arguments. I agree theft is wrong. If copyright infringement is theft, then copyright infringement is wrong. I don't neccesarily agree that copyright infringement is theft or that it is inherently wrong. Calling it theft detracts from this point. I think that the morality of copyright infringement in itself is the important factor, and not whether it is analagous to theft.
'Who cares because he didn't literally break into the PearPC developers computers and steal it, and I don't believe anything even when strong evidence is presented but I'll tell everyone else how wrong they are.'
There is strong evidence to suggest he is using the PearPC codebase. In fact I'm fairly certain of this. However, I accept as fact that it is explicitely permitted to make derivitive works from PearPC and distribute them as long as certain conditions are met. There is very little evidence that these conditions have not been met. There is some evidence that the source code is supplied.
Please. Are you suggesting that, this time, he actually did write a complete PowerPC emulator from scratch?
No. I'm suggesting that he may be complying with the terms of the GPL. Have you acquired a copy, and verified that the text of the GPL is not present and/or the source code is not available?
There is no substantial evidence of guilt in the article. It's all speculation.
It's all about presumptiuon of innocence even if he has acted like a scumbag in the past.
I think the figure is about 80% or so, but most software is not written for mass distribution. It's used only internally. Even Microsoft probably has a lot of software that isn't distributed and never will be.
This software can cost less to develop if open source, because the chances are someone has already written part of it.
It might work.
Would they sell 20 times as many songs for 5 cents eachas they would for 99c each? Would they sell less than half as many for 10c each than at 10c each? Maybe you'll sell thousands of times more at 1c each maybe the same amount.
We don't know. Pearlman doesn't know, and Pfohl doesn't know. Perhaps they will. Perhaps not. It's too expensive to try by experimentation.
Let's see... He didn't do it the first time, and no where on his site does it have a GPL notice (not that it's required to). If the guy aggressively argued that he didn't use PearPC the first time until he was faced with undeniable proof (prev /. story), why would he suddenly change face and go legit?
Being faced with undeniable proof may well persuade him to go legit.
With the code now under public scrutiny, it appears that such allegations are true.
So it appears that the code is available. It may or may not be in a manner compliant with the GPL.
Your opinion may vary, but it's not the opinion of the article and the guy that wrote is has lost all credibility ever since October when "Ooops, turns out I totally ripped off PearPC... back to the lab to make sure I've obfuscated the code some more..."
Or perhaps "Back to the lab to make sure I follow the letter of the GPL". He wants to sell it. He might decide to rely on people not being aware of their rights.
Regardless, if English is your first language you should know that the qualifier "As far as I know" (which you quoted and used), means exactly what I ment it to say: "As far as I know." It means I'm not 100% sure.
It's a fallcy. You don't know whether you're right or not. You can't go from a lack of proof of the opposite to a reasonable belief that something is the case. I don't like to make allegations about people without proof. Provide proof that it violates the GPL.
Something that, as far as I know, CherryOS isn't doing.
And as far as you know, they might be doing this.
IF this guy wanted to create a closed-source PearPC installer, in which he acknowledged that the PearPC software is free and GPL, and that the close source software is just an easy to use installer for PearPC. But he isn't, so he's violating GPL.
Have you bought a copy? How do you know he isn;lt doing this?
I'm sick of /.'ers on their endless rampage against Satan, like they don't all run windows like everyone else.
Interestingly, the Church of Satan website was produced on a mac. Shoudl I throw Apple into the axis of evil with Google?
Many people believe that Goooogle is an honest and righteous company. I was researching the company as part of my employer's ethical business policy, and I was surprised about what I found.
At first I was impressed by Google's "Do No Evil" policy. This was until I doscovered that it wasn't a policy. It was a reminder. The board of directors are inherently evil and need to repeat the mantra to stop them from committing great sins.
First of all, Google trawls thorough the internet, copying everything it takes into its local cache. This is potentially copyright infringement, and theft of bandwidth. This is opt-out. Not opt-in. They also have no policy regarding long term storage of user's data.
But these are just surface problems. I did some further digging and was frightened by what I found. Google gained its success amde froma pact with the devil in 1999. Since it is a satanic product, mere use of google puts your soul in jeapordy. A google search for ""Satan" will give "The church of satan" and not one of the much more popular sites warning againt evil The CEO of Google eats children. Once a week, he orders that a child is taken from his dungeon, and slaughtered, then roast for 3 hours. After this, it is served to the CEO and guests. Those who do not join him are executed. Those who do are damned.
So I warn you. Stop using google. If not for your own soul, for the children.
I'm not convinced they're violating the GPL. They may have source. They may have an offer to provide source and a copy of the licence.
It is illegal. Just not stolen.
As to whether CherryOS is illegal or not - Well, the only way to determine this is to acquire a copy and check for violations of the GPL.
Its specifically designed to keep people from taking 4 millions hours of your work, tinkering with it a bit, closing the source, and selling it off as your own.
Nobody's taken anything. The authors still have their 4 million hours of work.
It really is all about protecting our ability to keep software evolving... not about ego boosts.
You still have this ability. You still have the source. PearPC is avaialbable on sourceforge.
Theft implies the original owner is deprived of the property (As does the word "Take").
Theft also has a specific legal meaning which does not cover IP infringement.
The point of the GPL, in case you missed it, is that modifications to the source cannot be kept from the community if the modifier wants to distribute their work
Yes they can. There's no clause in the GPL requiring changes are returned to the community.
Do you have a copy of CherryOS? If so, please could you post a list of files?
So? If people want to pay for a product they can get for free, then let them.
Are they doing this? Have you acquired a copy and checked for the LICENCE.txt document?
If it's not there then you're right. If it is there then you're still right, but your point is moot.
The open source community still has it. No loss of property, therefore no theft.
For people who believe in sharing, GPL zealots are incredibly possesive about intellectual property.
Which is somethign they have. PearPC is released under the GPL. This does permit redistribution. It's the main point.
Unless they're breaching the terms of the GPL without permission from the original authors of the software, this is legal. They may be breaching these terms, but that's still to be proven.
Most games update the world at regular intervals (between 15 and 60 times a second). A bullet travelling at twice the speed of sound can travel a reasonable distance in that time. I suppose you could just calculate the trajectory in 10 metre segments, but would you really notice?
It's not a problem with processing power. It's just that the developer's time is better spent on things other than a realistic physics model, when you have a perfectly adequate convincing physics model.
but if using Direct3D was really all that horrible, would it still have as widespread support from developers?
The plus side is that MS did actually listen to developers. DX5 and above are actually quite good. Non 3DFX 3D cards were quite rare before that, so back then most developers used Glide.