Would you say anarchy promotes more freedom than any form of government?
Very interesting question. I'm definitely not an anarchist.;) But I'm only talking about copyright and the public domain/GPL debate, and it's really not analogous. Once a work is public domain, it stays in the public domain. I would imagine in a truly anarchic situation, somebody could commandeer the work and actually take it out of the public domain; there would be nothing and no one to prevent it. In our copyright system, no one could do that, which is my key point about being free. Anyone can do anything they want with the public domain work (i.e., anyone can use it or make copies or derivative works with it), but it must and will remain free for anyone TO do anything they want with the work.
BSD-style freedom resulted in a bunch of incompatible proprietary variants, and the winner was... nobody, they all went down together.
This is an interesting point. I admit I'm not a programmer by trade, and not all that familiar with the history of the BSD variants (although I once tried to install FreeBSD 2.0 on a spare computer years ago), so I'm not sure what the deal is with the BSDs. At any rate, I wonder: why would many incompatible versions of BSDs be less free than it could be? What is it about the license (or lack thereof) that changes the availability of compatible systems (i.e., promotes or discourages such availability)?
Yes, GPL software is freer than public domain, in the sense that the source code can never be taken proprietary (other than by the original author) and redistributed.
This is a very odd thing to assert, and I suspect that the same people who believe this believe that the GPL isn't a contract. No matter what, GPL'd software has restrictions -- the restrictions listed in the GPL. Public domain software has no restrictions whatsoever. Public domain software HAS to be more free.
You seem to think that because someone can take a copy of public domain software and make THE COPY restricted, the software is less free. But that applies only to the copy. For example, take the original work _The Wind in the Willows_, by Kenneth Grahame. The copyright on the original book has expired, and the book is now in the public domain. You decide to make the 95th Anniversary Special Edition of TWITW, based on the original work, and sell it. Because it's in the public domain, you may do this, and you may claim a copyright -- NOT on the Grahame's original TWITW, but on your particular derivative version of it. The original book -- and, more importantly, the text -- though, is and always will be public domain. Your buddy can sell "the Real 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book; your mother can sell "the Unauthorized Complete 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book; Darl McBride can sell "the Poorman's Library 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book -- and each can claim a copyright on each of their versions, but none, not even Darl, can claim a copyright on the original book, ever. How is this not as free as GPL, which forces you to do something in exchange for being able to redistribute the subject code?
Another way to look at it is this. When a copyright on a work expires, the work becomes more free, right? I don't think anyone would argue against that. So when the copyright expires on a GPL'd work, what happens to that work? Does it become less free? If I take, then, a copy of a public domain work, and redistribute it but with the GPL, is my redistributed copy more free than the public domain work I copied?
Yeah, IBM's seem more reasonably defensible. Then again, they're more "classic", whereas SCO's are more "creative" (read: desperate). But given my admittedly biased view (that is, I don't think SCO can win), I think that SCO really had to throw the kitchen sink in in order to have any chance.
Sure it's a contract. To be honest, I'm not sure why you think it's not. Every license is a contract. The GNU Public License is no exception. You're certainly right that it's a grant of rights, but that doesn't mean it's not a contract. In exchange for the grant of rights, you have to follow its rules. With mutual assent, that's called a contract. (Wherever you've got "consideration" (that exchange I was talking about) and offer and acceptance (i.e., mutual assent) you've got a contract.) Read section 5, which really drives the point home:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
It so happens that the GPL gives a lot more than other licenses; it lets you use the subject program, modify it, and distribute it. Yet each of the first 7 provisions of the GPL -- the major rights-granting ones -- either requires something from you or restricts you from doing something.
Now, they're really only supposed to list the real defenses and they could get into trouble for listing frivolous ones (I think their first affirmative defense is frivolous, for example). But, sanctions for this sort of thing don't happen as often as they probably should. They do run the risk of PO'ing the judge, though....
First of all, congrats on being in law school! It's definitely a fun ride. Anyway, to your point that the first affirmative defense is frivolous -- failure to state a claim is in practically *every* civil case answer, regardless of type of case (for federal cases, although it's not precisely a Rule 8 AD, many attorneys believe 12(b)(6) should be included in every answer). 12(b)(6) is really a bedrock kind of defense, one that you'll hear over and over and over again in opinions you'll read for many different classes. I don't think (or at least don't remember if) Rule 11 has ever been applied to the raising of that defense!
1) You have to realize that this is SCO's *Answer* to IBM's counterclaims. This means that it has to (a) respond point by point to IBM's complaint/counterclaim, admitting, denying, or otherwise, well, answering each allegation, and (b) give a list of "affirmative defenses" to IBM's overall complaint. (a) is self-explanatory. (b) is a list of arguments and/or facts that mean that, if true, even if everything that IBM alleged in its complaint/counterclaim is true, SCO should still prevail.
Hopefully you can guess, then, that the defense attorneys will throw pretty much anything they can think of into the "affirmative defenses" list. In fact, a lot of them are practically boilerplate -- they're things that "everyone" puts in an Answer. For example, the 25th AD says "IBM lacks standing to assert that SCO infringed some or all of the patents at issue." Of course the defense is going to throw this in -- it's a basic constitutional issue. The point is that SCO has to (in general; there are a few defenses SCO can raise later) plead any and all affirmative defenses it can think of in its answer, lest it waive any (which, obviously, would be bad for SCO and practically malpractice for its attorneys). Just as IBM doesn't have to have complete proof of each and every allegation in its complaint/counterclaim, SCO doesn't need complete proof for each reply and each of its affirmative defenses in its answer.
The claim that the GPL is unenforceable is, frankly, an obvious affirmative defense that really needed to be made in the reply. I would think, though, that SCO would prefer not to have to prove that particular defense.
2) People seem to be caught up in the "selective enforcement" affirmative defense. They are right that enforcement is wholly up to the copyright-holder. However, wrt the GPL, we're talking about a contract. Waiver and estoppel are easy and obvious defenses to make in litigation over contracts; I can't really imagine a situation where you wouldn't throw them into your reply as a matter of course.
Are you sure about the conversion? This is MILES PER GALLON we're talking about. This article, admittedly from 2000, says that the average MILES PER GALLON fuel economy for cars in Europe is 25 mpg (28 in UK). I'm not from anywhere in Europe, so I'm not sure, but an average of 40-45 mpg sounds almost too good. Interestingly enough, 40 KM is ~25 MILES and 45 KM is ~28 MILES, so it really does sound like you're talking about kilometers per gallon. I don't know, though, why a metric system user would use gallons, so that's why I'm asking if you're sure about the conversion.
Re:Digital Rebel vs 10D for Astrophotography
on
Digital 35mm SLRs?
·
· Score: 1
There were several discussions about this on dpreview, and a very interesting example of the effects of mirror shake (sorry, no time to look for them right now). The short story is that the 10D can do mirror lockup and the 300D apparently can't.
That rule doesn't force Google to do an IPO; it forces it undertake reporting obligations that are tantamount to being public (without the benefit of going public). It forces an issuer to register the appropriate class of stock under the 1934 Act and thus be required to file 10-Ks, -Qs, etc. Sucks to be there, unless you've gotten the benefit from an IPO, because it's very expensive to comply with those regs -- the lawyers are expensive, the auditors are expensive, and the liability for screwing up is potentially very high.
It's not an interesting intellectual exercise. The employees have the same upside as the investors and founders -- they're waiting for the IPO (or merger), too.
You're right about everything but one point: John Doerr is one of the most respected VCs in the Valley BECAUSE of those public company hits. VCs cash out as soon as they can after the IPO (or other cash-out event), and Doerr made KPCB insane amounts of money on Homestore, etc. It may be depressing to own stock (or, frankly, be on the boards) of those companies now, but as far as the VC fund is concerned, they were out a long time ago and did very well. That's the whole point of venture capital, and that's the measure of VC success.
liquidation preference is huge, and they wouldn't "convert" and throw it away ASAP. they convert on the upside to collect profit. if the stock goes down, the liquidation preferred is worth more than the common and they'd hang on to it.
You're right that liquidation preference is huge, but it applies when the company liquidates, not just if the stock goes down. People who invest in PIPEs aren't the types to wait for the company to go to liquidation.
we don't know that there is a liquidation preference; "preferred" simply means it has different rights than common without being specific.
There is a liquidation preference. Read the transaction documents I linked to in the parent; it's in the certificate of designation (the document that defines the different rights of the preferred).
I don't think we know that yet. The S1 hasn't been filed yet.
Probably a resale S-3, since filing an S-1 would defeat most of the purposes of doing a PIPE. Anyway, the 8-K announcing the deal is out now, so you can go ahead and peruse the transaction documents, which are attached as exhibits. On a very quick look, it seems that it's definitely not a toxic PIPE, because the conversion price is fixed subject only to some anti-dilution adjustments that don't indicate "toxicity" (i.e., there's protection against normal company distributions like stock splits/stock dividends and, interestingly, company distributions to shareholders of convertible securities).
btw, I'm not sure why be2weenthelines calls these convertible preferreds "basically call options." They're not anything like call options: they're stock with liquidation preference, preferred dividend, and antidilution protection that's convertible into common stock. Their price is based on the fact that they are equity with those nice extra features tempered by their illiquidity (they're unregistered securities PLUS they're preferred stock, so if something goes horribly wrong and they're somehow stuck with the preferred, even when they can eventually sell it per rule 144, they wouldn't be able to) and risk.
Remember that illiquidity is such a big deal that the most important element of a PIPE is the registration for resale of the purchased securities; generally the purchaser will sell (in a common stock PIPE) or convert and sell as soon as the resale registration statement is effective. But while Baystar waits for the S-3 to be filed, it can't do anything with its convertible preferred. That is, I think, why Baystar got preferred stock instead of common; if SCO goes down the tubes while Baystar waits for registration, at least it gets its liquidation preference. I'm pretty sure, though, that it will convert as soon as the S-3 is effective.
I am using my Tandy 1000 RL (circa 1989?) as a monitor stand. Oh! Better yet, I'm using an Apple Power Macintosh 6100/66 as a monitor stand at work. It's from mid 1985.
A little off on the Mac date. The Power Mac 6100/66 was introduced in 1995, not 1985. In 1985, I was running my beloved, brand-new Apple//c, with 128kb of RAM and an internal 5.25" floppy drive, while my uncle (an engineer) was running a brand-new, super-expensive, super-powerful Macintosh -- no adjectives, since the Macintosh came out only the year before. How I wanted one of those!!
I still have my//c and some of the software for it, and it still works. The expensive RGB monitor that I got with it is still pretty nice, although tiny.
Of course there are juries in civil cases. What makes you think there aren't? It depends on the jurisdiction, but at least in the federal court system, in most civil cases you need only ask for a jury trial to get one, and only if both parties waive will you not get a jury (i.e., get a bench trial).
A few comments. First, a state doesn't designate a library a Federal Depository; the federal government does (specifically, in most cases, Congress).
Second, related to the first comment, many university libraries are federal depositories, but they certainly aren't all state university libraries. For example, Harvard is a federal depository (in fact, both the College library and the Law School library are federal depositories).
Third, the "troll" is right. Federal depositories contain copies of all federal documents, not the entire contents of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress keeps copies of all federal documents (for example, you can use the thomas service at loc.gov to look up congressional bills, among other things), but also keeps copies of a lot of non-government documents (for example, it has a full collection of the Harry Potter-related books). These non-governmental documents are not included in the federal depository program. If they were, well, your ASU library would have all of the LOC's Harry Potter books too.
Lawyers use all caps in certain parts of legal documents because they believe that caps emphasizes whatever they capitalize. However, it's not random -- 99.9% of the time, the text that's capitalized is required or strongly suggested to be included in such a document by law or caselaw. It has little to do with making the document "binding."
For those that argue that people just skip over the text because it's hard to read or it's like yelling, well, that's a silly argument, and no court would accept that as an excuse for avoiding the results of whatever the text said. The point is that the text is set off from the rest of the document -- if you skip it, you still noticed it, and it's your fault for skipping it.
Think about it this way: you wouldn't argue that a warning siren is useless because it sounds really harsh, and naturally you put your hands over your ears to avoid hearing it, and therefore the warning siren doesn't actually do what it's supposed to do.
At Target? Ooh, how much? The 12C is THE classic accounting/finance calculator, and is usually pretty expensive -- lists for $95 (although Office Depot has it for $70). If you're an i-banker (or do something in finance) and want some cred, though, it's a must-have.
I love both my 48GX and my 12C -- I use the 12C at work and the 48GX at home. They're the greatest!!
So I'm guessing hes given around 0.1% of his wealth away.
Try about 60%. There was a Businessweek article in December 2002 that ranked the biggest philanthropists in the world (not sure if non-subscribers can read this article from the archives) -- he's ranked #1 in terms of amounts given. My eyeball estimate is that he's #6 in terms of percentage of wealth given (which is somewhat misleading, since Gordon Moore and James Stowers apparently committed more money than they were worth, and so would be ranked #1 and #2 in terms of percentage).
I'd be impressed if the man gave away a few billion dollars at a time and not in stupid ways. When he spends money on schools I'm impressed when he actually builds a school, but usually he does not build a school, usually he just donates Microsoft products (big deal) to schools.
Gates's main focus is eradicating diseases in developing countries. Yeah, that's really stupid. He has also given the largest single private grant in history -- for a global vaccine program. Again, very stupid. Whatever.
BTW, Larry Ellison (Oracle) is ranked #1 for biggest cheapskate -- he has given away 0.4% of his worth. Steve Ballmer is the 5th biggest cheapskate. And, to me, worst of all, given who he is and what he stands for for so many people, Warren Buffett is the 6th biggest cheapskate -- he's given away only $230 million of his $36 billion.
It might be that there's no current ruling as to whether two differently written pieces of software which act the same are copies or not.
I haven't had time to read the article, but I point out the poster's very first statement -- "In a re-run of the Lotus v Borland case that went to the US Supreme Court . .." In that case, Lotus sued Borland for copying the way certain menus worked in Borland's Quattro Pro, which mimiced the way certain menus worked in Lotus's 1-2-3. Borland won -- Lotus couldn't claim copyright rights over the way 1-2-3's menus worked -- menus are too functional to deserve copyright protection, and didn't show that the underlying code was copied.
You don't quite have it right about Lexis/Nexis. Lexis is a mind-bogglingly huge research database of many things -- mostly articles from thousands of periodicals of every kind and case opinions from practically every federal and state court that writes opinions -- that's used primarily by scholars, journalists and lawyers for research.
Its people finder function is useful and somewhat scary in its comprehensiveness, but that's certainly not where Lexis derives most of its value, and I'm positive it's not anywhere near the function that's most often used. Lexis' value is in the depth and breadth of the size of its database and its rich search capability. For example, the number of documents (NOT the number of pages!) it has certainly exceeds the number of pages Google indexes -- Lexis has 4.1 billion DOCUMENTS in its database, whereas Google indexes over 3 billion PAGES. And Lexis's searches are robust and very fast.
Lexis is extremely expensive, though. A $300,000 charge isn't that surprising to me, if Lamo used it fairly often and not just to search his name. Repeated searches across the entire news database, I'm sure, is ridiculously expensive, if you don't have a negotiated rate.
How does one willingly pay $25,250,000, without trial, and not admit to wrong doing? An admittance of guilt is suggested under such circumstances.
You misunderstand the meaning of a settlement. Remember that BOTH parties must agree to the terms of their settlement. Parties will generally settle only if it's worth it to them -- that is, the plaintiff will settle at X dollars if it's comfortable that X dollars compensates them for whatever they're suing for, after weighing the probability that they (the plaintiff) will win. A defendant will settle at X dollars if it's comfortable that X dollars is less than what the plaintiff is suing for, after weighing the probability that they (the defendant) will lose.
If you still think that one may infer "guilt" from the fact of settlement, think about it this way: in a sense, you could say that a settlement is an admission by the plaintiff that it is probably wrong -- that's why it settled for less than it was suing for.
What ever happened to the $9.99 sale price for new CD releases? I remember back in 1994 I could walk into a Circuit City (on a Friday in Tallahassee, FL) and get a new release for only $9.99 on sale.
Well, for one, there's this thing called inflation. Inflation-adjusted, according to this website (which uses CPI), $9.99 in 1994 is $12.38 in 2003.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you say anarchy promotes more freedom than any form of government?
;) But I'm only talking about copyright and the public domain/GPL debate, and it's really not analogous. Once a work is public domain, it stays in the public domain. I would imagine in a truly anarchic situation, somebody could commandeer the work and actually take it out of the public domain; there would be nothing and no one to prevent it. In our copyright system, no one could do that, which is my key point about being free. Anyone can do anything they want with the public domain work (i.e., anyone can use it or make copies or derivative works with it), but it must and will remain free for anyone TO do anything they want with the work.
Very interesting question. I'm definitely not an anarchist.
BSD-style freedom resulted in a bunch of incompatible proprietary variants, and the winner was... nobody, they all went down together.
This is an interesting point. I admit I'm not a programmer by trade, and not all that familiar with the history of the BSD variants (although I once tried to install FreeBSD 2.0 on a spare computer years ago), so I'm not sure what the deal is with the BSDs. At any rate, I wonder: why would many incompatible versions of BSDs be less free than it could be? What is it about the license (or lack thereof) that changes the availability of compatible systems (i.e., promotes or discourages such availability)?
Yes, GPL software is freer than public domain, in the sense that the source code can never be taken proprietary (other than by the original author) and redistributed.
This is a very odd thing to assert, and I suspect that the same people who believe this believe that the GPL isn't a contract. No matter what, GPL'd software has restrictions -- the restrictions listed in the GPL. Public domain software has no restrictions whatsoever. Public domain software HAS to be more free.
You seem to think that because someone can take a copy of public domain software and make THE COPY restricted, the software is less free. But that applies only to the copy. For example, take the original work _The Wind in the Willows_, by Kenneth Grahame. The copyright on the original book has expired, and the book is now in the public domain. You decide to make the 95th Anniversary Special Edition of TWITW, based on the original work, and sell it. Because it's in the public domain, you may do this, and you may claim a copyright -- NOT on the Grahame's original TWITW, but on your particular derivative version of it. The original book -- and, more importantly, the text -- though, is and always will be public domain. Your buddy can sell "the Real 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book; your mother can sell "the Unauthorized Complete 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book; Darl McBride can sell "the Poorman's Library 95th Anniversary Edition" using the original book -- and each can claim a copyright on each of their versions, but none, not even Darl, can claim a copyright on the original book, ever. How is this not as free as GPL, which forces you to do something in exchange for being able to redistribute the subject code?
Another way to look at it is this. When a copyright on a work expires, the work becomes more free, right? I don't think anyone would argue against that. So when the copyright expires on a GPL'd work, what happens to that work? Does it become less free? If I take, then, a copy of a public domain work, and redistribute it but with the GPL, is my redistributed copy more free than the public domain work I copied?
Yeah, IBM's seem more reasonably defensible. Then again, they're more "classic", whereas SCO's are more "creative" (read: desperate). But given my admittedly biased view (that is, I don't think SCO can win), I think that SCO really had to throw the kitchen sink in in order to have any chance.
It so happens that the GPL gives a lot more than other licenses; it lets you use the subject program, modify it, and distribute it. Yet each of the first 7 provisions of the GPL -- the major rights-granting ones -- either requires something from you or restricts you from doing something.
Yeah, I did think that was weird. But I suspect it's because the FSF wants contributors to FSF-copyrighted programs to assign their copyrights to the FSF. I'll guess that at least to the extent SCO copied and distributed IBM-created programs, if IBM had to assign its rights to the FSF, it is, then, the FSF that would enforce the GPL.
Now, they're really only supposed to list the real defenses and they could get into trouble for listing frivolous ones (I think their first affirmative defense is frivolous, for example). But, sanctions for this sort of thing don't happen as often as they probably should. They do run the risk of PO'ing the judge, though....
First of all, congrats on being in law school! It's definitely a fun ride. Anyway, to your point that the first affirmative defense is frivolous -- failure to state a claim is in practically *every* civil case answer, regardless of type of case (for federal cases, although it's not precisely a Rule 8 AD, many attorneys believe 12(b)(6) should be included in every answer). 12(b)(6) is really a bedrock kind of defense, one that you'll hear over and over and over again in opinions you'll read for many different classes. I don't think (or at least don't remember if) Rule 11 has ever been applied to the raising of that defense!
Two points:
1) You have to realize that this is SCO's *Answer* to IBM's counterclaims. This means that it has to (a) respond point by point to IBM's complaint/counterclaim, admitting, denying, or otherwise, well, answering each allegation, and (b) give a list of "affirmative defenses" to IBM's overall complaint. (a) is self-explanatory. (b) is a list of arguments and/or facts that mean that, if true, even if everything that IBM alleged in its complaint/counterclaim is true, SCO should still prevail.
Hopefully you can guess, then, that the defense attorneys will throw pretty much anything they can think of into the "affirmative defenses" list. In fact, a lot of them are practically boilerplate -- they're things that "everyone" puts in an Answer. For example, the 25th AD says "IBM lacks standing to assert that SCO infringed some or all of the patents at issue." Of course the defense is going to throw this in -- it's a basic constitutional issue. The point is that SCO has to (in general; there are a few defenses SCO can raise later) plead any and all affirmative defenses it can think of in its answer, lest it waive any (which, obviously, would be bad for SCO and practically malpractice for its attorneys). Just as IBM doesn't have to have complete proof of each and every allegation in its complaint/counterclaim, SCO doesn't need complete proof for each reply and each of its affirmative defenses in its answer.
The claim that the GPL is unenforceable is, frankly, an obvious affirmative defense that really needed to be made in the reply. I would think, though, that SCO would prefer not to have to prove that particular defense.
2) People seem to be caught up in the "selective enforcement" affirmative defense. They are right that enforcement is wholly up to the copyright-holder. However, wrt the GPL, we're talking about a contract. Waiver and estoppel are easy and obvious defenses to make in litigation over contracts; I can't really imagine a situation where you wouldn't throw them into your reply as a matter of course.
Are you sure about the conversion? This is MILES PER GALLON we're talking about. This article, admittedly from 2000, says that the average MILES PER GALLON fuel economy for cars in Europe is 25 mpg (28 in UK). I'm not from anywhere in Europe, so I'm not sure, but an average of 40-45 mpg sounds almost too good. Interestingly enough, 40 KM is ~25 MILES and 45 KM is ~28 MILES, so it really does sound like you're talking about kilometers per gallon. I don't know, though, why a metric system user would use gallons, so that's why I'm asking if you're sure about the conversion.
There were several discussions about this on dpreview, and a very interesting example of the effects of mirror shake (sorry, no time to look for them right now). The short story is that the 10D can do mirror lockup and the 300D apparently can't.
That rule doesn't force Google to do an IPO; it forces it undertake reporting obligations that are tantamount to being public (without the benefit of going public). It forces an issuer to register the appropriate class of stock under the 1934 Act and thus be required to file 10-Ks, -Qs, etc. Sucks to be there, unless you've gotten the benefit from an IPO, because it's very expensive to comply with those regs -- the lawyers are expensive, the auditors are expensive, and the liability for screwing up is potentially very high.
It's not an interesting intellectual exercise. The employees have the same upside as the investors and founders -- they're waiting for the IPO (or merger), too.
You're right about everything but one point: John Doerr is one of the most respected VCs in the Valley BECAUSE of those public company hits. VCs cash out as soon as they can after the IPO (or other cash-out event), and Doerr made KPCB insane amounts of money on Homestore, etc. It may be depressing to own stock (or, frankly, be on the boards) of those companies now, but as far as the VC fund is concerned, they were out a long time ago and did very well. That's the whole point of venture capital, and that's the measure of VC success.
liquidation preference is huge, and they wouldn't "convert" and throw it away ASAP. they convert on the upside to collect profit. if the stock goes down, the liquidation preferred is worth more than the common and they'd hang on to it.
You're right that liquidation preference is huge, but it applies when the company liquidates, not just if the stock goes down. People who invest in PIPEs aren't the types to wait for the company to go to liquidation.
we don't know that there is a liquidation preference; "preferred" simply means it has different rights than common without being specific.
There is a liquidation preference. Read the transaction documents I linked to in the parent; it's in the certificate of designation (the document that defines the different rights of the preferred).
I don't think we know that yet. The S1 hasn't been filed yet.
Probably a resale S-3, since filing an S-1 would defeat most of the purposes of doing a PIPE. Anyway, the 8-K announcing the deal is out now, so you can go ahead and peruse the transaction documents, which are attached as exhibits. On a very quick look, it seems that it's definitely not a toxic PIPE, because the conversion price is fixed subject only to some anti-dilution adjustments that don't indicate "toxicity" (i.e., there's protection against normal company distributions like stock splits/stock dividends and, interestingly, company distributions to shareholders of convertible securities).
btw, I'm not sure why be2weenthelines calls these convertible preferreds "basically call options." They're not anything like call options: they're stock with liquidation preference, preferred dividend, and antidilution protection that's convertible into common stock. Their price is based on the fact that they are equity with those nice extra features tempered by their illiquidity (they're unregistered securities PLUS they're preferred stock, so if something goes horribly wrong and they're somehow stuck with the preferred, even when they can eventually sell it per rule 144, they wouldn't be able to) and risk.
Remember that illiquidity is such a big deal that the most important element of a PIPE is the registration for resale of the purchased securities; generally the purchaser will sell (in a common stock PIPE) or convert and sell as soon as the resale registration statement is effective. But while Baystar waits for the S-3 to be filed, it can't do anything with its convertible preferred. That is, I think, why Baystar got preferred stock instead of common; if SCO goes down the tubes while Baystar waits for registration, at least it gets its liquidation preference. I'm pretty sure, though, that it will convert as soon as the S-3 is effective.
Where does it say he has $30 million?
I am using my Tandy 1000 RL (circa 1989?) as a monitor stand. Oh! Better yet, I'm using an Apple Power Macintosh 6100/66 as a monitor stand at work. It's from mid 1985.
//c, with 128kb of RAM and an internal 5.25" floppy drive, while my uncle (an engineer) was running a brand-new, super-expensive, super-powerful Macintosh -- no adjectives, since the Macintosh came out only the year before. How I wanted one of those!!
//c and some of the software for it, and it still works. The expensive RGB monitor that I got with it is still pretty nice, although tiny.
A little off on the Mac date. The Power Mac 6100/66 was introduced in 1995, not 1985. In 1985, I was running my beloved, brand-new Apple
I still have my
BTW, you're right, the Tandy 1000RL was in the late 80s/early 90s.
THESE ARE NOT CRIMINAL CASES. There is NO JURY.
Of course there are juries in civil cases. What makes you think there aren't? It depends on the jurisdiction, but at least in the federal court system, in most civil cases you need only ask for a jury trial to get one, and only if both parties waive will you not get a jury (i.e., get a bench trial).
A few comments. First, a state doesn't designate a library a Federal Depository; the federal government does (specifically, in most cases, Congress).
Second, related to the first comment, many university libraries are federal depositories, but they certainly aren't all state university libraries. For example, Harvard is a federal depository (in fact, both the College library and the Law School library are federal depositories).
Third, the "troll" is right. Federal depositories contain copies of all federal documents, not the entire contents of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress keeps copies of all federal documents (for example, you can use the thomas service at loc.gov to look up congressional bills, among other things), but also keeps copies of a lot of non-government documents (for example, it has a full collection of the Harry Potter-related books). These non-governmental documents are not included in the federal depository program. If they were, well, your ASU library would have all of the LOC's Harry Potter books too.
Lawyers use all caps in certain parts of legal documents because they believe that caps emphasizes whatever they capitalize. However, it's not random -- 99.9% of the time, the text that's capitalized is required or strongly suggested to be included in such a document by law or caselaw. It has little to do with making the document "binding."
For those that argue that people just skip over the text because it's hard to read or it's like yelling, well, that's a silly argument, and no court would accept that as an excuse for avoiding the results of whatever the text said. The point is that the text is set off from the rest of the document -- if you skip it, you still noticed it, and it's your fault for skipping it.
Think about it this way: you wouldn't argue that a warning siren is useless because it sounds really harsh, and naturally you put your hands over your ears to avoid hearing it, and therefore the warning siren doesn't actually do what it's supposed to do.
At Target? Ooh, how much? The 12C is THE classic accounting/finance calculator, and is usually pretty expensive -- lists for $95 (although Office Depot has it for $70). If you're an i-banker (or do something in finance) and want some cred, though, it's a must-have.
I love both my 48GX and my 12C -- I use the 12C at work and the 48GX at home. They're the greatest!!
So I'm guessing hes given around 0.1% of his wealth away.
Try about 60%. There was a Businessweek article in December 2002 that ranked the biggest philanthropists in the world (not sure if non-subscribers can read this article from the archives) -- he's ranked #1 in terms of amounts given. My eyeball estimate is that he's #6 in terms of percentage of wealth given (which is somewhat misleading, since Gordon Moore and James Stowers apparently committed more money than they were worth, and so would be ranked #1 and #2 in terms of percentage).
I'd be impressed if the man gave away a few billion dollars at a time and not in stupid ways. When he spends money on schools I'm impressed when he actually builds a school, but usually he does not build a school, usually he just donates Microsoft products (big deal) to schools.
Gates's main focus is eradicating diseases in developing countries. Yeah, that's really stupid. He has also given the largest single private grant in history -- for a global vaccine program. Again, very stupid. Whatever.
BTW, Larry Ellison (Oracle) is ranked #1 for biggest cheapskate -- he has given away 0.4% of his worth. Steve Ballmer is the 5th biggest cheapskate. And, to me, worst of all, given who he is and what he stands for for so many people, Warren Buffett is the 6th biggest cheapskate -- he's given away only $230 million of his $36 billion.
It might be that there's no current ruling as to whether two differently written pieces of software which act the same are copies or not.
." In that case, Lotus sued Borland for copying the way certain menus worked in Borland's Quattro Pro, which mimiced the way certain menus worked in Lotus's 1-2-3. Borland won -- Lotus couldn't claim copyright rights over the way 1-2-3's menus worked -- menus are too functional to deserve copyright protection, and didn't show that the underlying code was copied.
I haven't had time to read the article, but I point out the poster's very first statement -- "In a re-run of the Lotus v Borland case that went to the US Supreme Court . .
You don't quite have it right about Lexis/Nexis. Lexis is a mind-bogglingly huge research database of many things -- mostly articles from thousands of periodicals of every kind and case opinions from practically every federal and state court that writes opinions -- that's used primarily by scholars, journalists and lawyers for research.
Its people finder function is useful and somewhat scary in its comprehensiveness, but that's certainly not where Lexis derives most of its value, and I'm positive it's not anywhere near the function that's most often used. Lexis' value is in the depth and breadth of the size of its database and its rich search capability. For example, the number of documents (NOT the number of pages!) it has certainly exceeds the number of pages Google indexes -- Lexis has 4.1 billion DOCUMENTS in its database, whereas Google indexes over 3 billion PAGES. And Lexis's searches are robust and very fast.
Lexis is extremely expensive, though. A $300,000 charge isn't that surprising to me, if Lamo used it fairly often and not just to search his name. Repeated searches across the entire news database, I'm sure, is ridiculously expensive, if you don't have a negotiated rate.
How does one willingly pay $25,250,000, without trial, and not admit to wrong doing? An admittance of guilt is suggested under such circumstances.
You misunderstand the meaning of a settlement. Remember that BOTH parties must agree to the terms of their settlement. Parties will generally settle only if it's worth it to them -- that is, the plaintiff will settle at X dollars if it's comfortable that X dollars compensates them for whatever they're suing for, after weighing the probability that they (the plaintiff) will win. A defendant will settle at X dollars if it's comfortable that X dollars is less than what the plaintiff is suing for, after weighing the probability that they (the defendant) will lose.
If you still think that one may infer "guilt" from the fact of settlement, think about it this way: in a sense, you could say that a settlement is an admission by the plaintiff that it is probably wrong -- that's why it settled for less than it was suing for.
What ever happened to the $9.99 sale price for new CD releases? I remember back in 1994 I could walk into a Circuit City (on a Friday in Tallahassee, FL) and get a new release for only $9.99 on sale.
Well, for one, there's this thing called inflation. Inflation-adjusted, according to this website (which uses CPI), $9.99 in 1994 is $12.38 in 2003.