I'm sure christians will realize how old the earth is soon enough, just like they were forced to realize earth wasn't flat.:-)
Slight problem with that. We can sail in a boat and find that the world really isn't flat. We can make a logical argument that sky charts just work better if we call the sun the center of the solar system. But we can't hop in our time machine and go back 10,000 years to see if the Earth is there or not.
After all, God could have just set it all up as a kind of history lesson, so we could figure out how creation was going to work from creation on.
First off, I'm just fine and dandy with there being intelligent life on other plannets. As to if they know about God or have been overrun by atheism, well, we'll figure that out when we get there, I guess.
As for J.C. diying for the sins of aliens--that's a real loaded question. On the one hand, if the Word of God dies on every world, we diminish the guy we all know and love. On the other, if he *doesn't* die on every world for every alien's sins, then we get really egocentric.
Then again, maybe aliens have evolved to the point where they can't sin... y'know, like giant beings of energy that can percieve God the way you or I would percieve a person right next to us.
As to something to say to those Christians... ask them to point you to the biblical passages that tell where angels came from (AFAIK, there aren't any cannonical ones), and ask them about the biblical lack of North America, South America, Antartica, and Austrailia.
Only mentioning three out of four continents is a pretty good indicator that lack of mention in the bible doesn't mean a thing doesn't exist.
it's like arguing the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin
Now, now--arguments like that depend wildly on the number of angels that actually show up and are inclined to dance on said pin.
I think I can skip the research this time and just state as fact that, in all of recorded history, never has there been "not enough room" for one more angel dancing on the head of a pin.
My point is that copyright infringment is a very different crime than physical theft
You're right. Copyright infringement is much more of a white-collar crime. Y'know, like stock manipulation, or fraud, or identify theft.
But it's still called *piracy*, mostly because of simple use of the word. I belive the origin arose back in the days of the early VCR, as a way to denote people who took "time shifting" way past "bootlegging" and into a real serious organized crime--hence, "piracy."
Uh, I haven't read the law, but... how can they make monopolies illegal?
The states (including their component munincipalities) can make anything not explicity ruled legal by the federal gov't illegal. The problem, of course, is that any law has to pass judicial review by the relevant court (probably the highest court in the state) or it'll get tossed.
New York, for example, could outlaw wearing white after labor day. But once they charge someone with the crime, they have to deal with the inevitable appeal to a higher court that will, almost certainly, toss out the conviction and the law.
(and let's not even get into the setup of executive pardons...)
There's a line in the consitution that requires states to give "due weight" to the legal actions of other states. Ergo, if I'm married/divorced/sued/imprisoned in one state, I can't escape that marriage/divorce/judgement/jail term simply by fleeing the state.
This little bit of the law is why there was all that fuss about Hawaii possibly allowing same-gender marriages a few years back. If they had did it then, then homosexuals could become married *all over the country* by having their marriage in the rather romantic state of Hawaii.
MS can appeal the Iowa decision through Iowa's courts, and then through the federal courts, and they might even file suit in Washington court to block it, but simply being in a different state isn't going to let them get out of whatever Iowa demands.
(And if MS doesn't do anything, they'd get smacked pretty hard. If I filed suit against MS, properly notified them, and they didn't respond, I'd get whatever I could convince the judge was fair for the wrong committed against me.)
I guess it doesn't really matter, AD&D has been screwed up since they started making all those stupid player supplements in the second edition. Game balance was thrown out the window and my games degenerated into arguments as to why particular spells and 'kits' could not be allowed.
Look at 3rd edition. Most of the fluff and bad choices from 2e are gone.
And you can even see the entire ruleset online, using a GPL-inspired copyleft license.
To anybody who insists that they should keep getting paid after they stop working, I say "Screw you. Get a real job."
While you're at it, let's get rid of stock and interest on capital. Make people *work* for their money, and eliminate unnatural constructs like corporations and bank accounts.
Artists aren't the only ones who get income from indirect and recurring means. If we're going to get rid of the ones that encourage people to create stuff that makes the world better for everyone, let's get rid of the ones that encourage people to be greedy SOBs.
Yes, it is. People seem to have problems grasping this, but if you copy something directly from one program to another, you have to respect the license. There's not an exception because your program does a lot of other stuff too.
The GPL doesn't even deal with that. It doesn't say "the entire program is derivitive even if you only used GPL code in one small & easily noticiable section." If it did, the GPL would be dealing with this issue, which it doesn't even bother to touch.
And I know you're going to whine, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who's trying to copy GPL code into some other program. Even if you find some legal grounds for that, it's obviously against the wishes of the programmer.
Not necessarilly. It's against the wishes of the FSF, and Stallman, but not necessarilly against the wishes of the upstream programmers. (And please note that in the scienrio [sp] I outlined, the GPL'd code and the obviously-derivitive-of-GPL'd-code code are both still GPL. But the rest of the program, which has abosolutely nothing to do with the GPL'd code aside from loading at the same time, isn't.)
The problem here is that the GPL is ambiguous--and since it's ambiguous, it should be interpreted agaist the author of the license, and that means that any part of the license that could be read more than one way will be read in whatever way the licensee wants it to be read.
AFAIK (IANAL, again) the only ways the FSF can get their interpretation to be held up by a court is to bully a bunch of others to come in and testify as to how it reads, or to introduce seperate testimony about what it means.
They'd save themselves, and the rest of the open source community, a whole lot of headache if they'd just *put it in the GPL.*
Consider; If a producer makes an original motion picture about a topic of his choice, but includes in the filming a scene which takes place with a particular sculpture in the background, can the artist who created the sculpture claim the whole motion picture is a derivative work?
But the ruling, if indeed against me, will be a renunciation of my permission to use that small movie clip--not a declaration that my entire work is "derivitive." (Unless the judge is being lazy.)
IIRC, the SC hasn't touched copyright law since before the advent of computer software and EULAs. Until they do, *every* court decision on what is and what is not "derivitive" is "too close to call."
Yup, noone in the US gives to shits about soccer. In fact, a lot of folks here, well, kind of consider soccer to be a homosexual sport. There's just something really gay about running around in short shorts.
I'm an American, but...
Look at our OTHER so-called sports. Golf? (dress up in funny cloths and hit a small ball.) Baseball? (Dress in PJs, whack a ball, and run around four bases). Football? (Dress in tights, slap the other player's ass, and get rough and dirty with lots of other guys.)
Ok, so I admit to not being a sports fan--but I really don't see how Soccor is any more "gay" than the rest of the national sports. (Bowling! Hockey! Track & Field! Frisbiee Golf!--er, scrap that last one.)
Exactly. And the rights the GPL gives you are a strict superset of your rights under normal copyright law.
I've never said the GPL doesn't give you rights. But it also takes away at least one right. The "permission to GPL'd stuff" and the "right to not use the GPL" are two different rights the GPL deals with.
If I signed a contract with a representative of the software publisher agreeing to their terms before money changed hands, I'd agree. But if I pay Micro Center for a software package, I've entered into no contract with the publisher, just as when I buy a book from a bookstore I have not entered into a contract with the author. Standard copyright law should apply in both cases.
Tell it to a court. EULAs have been ruled as binding in most US jurisdictions, mostly because they force an explicit action of agreement and offer a refund if you refuse the EULA. If you really, really want to look it over first, then the merchant can probably get you a copy. (If not, tell them you'll go next door.)
(I agree, though. In a perfect world, standard copyright law should cover software--or just design patents.)
Again, you haven't lost anything. Under normal copyright law, you have no right to redistribute derivative works at all; the GPL grants you that right provided you fulfill certain conditions (i.e. making your code that contains it GPLed).
Let me try this again.
The GPL wouldn't be a legal contract if all parties didn't get something for something. There is a definite "right" to not use the GPL when making a derivitive work--and that right is given up as the condition for using GPL'd software.
IANAL, but as I understand it, you can make a derivitive work of someone else's copyrighted work--but you can't *do* anything with it without permission, and neither can they. You have a right to your work, and the fact that you are unable to exercise this work without the aid of someone else doesn't eliminate that right.
Having said all this, my software is released under the BSD license, because I don't believe proprietary software is fundamentally immoral and I don't lie awake at night worrying that somebody might be using my code to make money. But complaining about GPL restrictions is like getting half a pie from someone for free, and then being upset that they didn't give you the whole thing.
I'm not complaining about GPL restrictions--they don't effect me.
I'm noting my views of the GPL in a friendly discussion, and obserbing a fault in the GPL. I'm also expressing a desire for the FSF's goals to actually come to frutition. I'd love to be able to use the Free Software versions of everything I need--but the FSW needs to be able to compete on every level (not just moral or standards-compliance) with propritary software, or we'll be stuck using MS forever.
The problem seems to be people who don't grasp what a 'derivitive work' is. If you use GPL code, it's a deriviate work.
Not necessarilly.
If I take your GPL'd dice roller and modify it, I've created a derivitive work. But if I take your die roller and add it to my "gaming suite" program, is the entire program derivitive?
The law doesn't cleary say "yes," but the GPL's advocates have the repuation (possibly justified--I don't know) of saying "YES" and threatening ("we'll sue you") people who disagree in action.
If you just link to GPL code, yes, that's a 'violation' of the GPL, but you don't have to agree to the GPL to use the library, and so your software doesn't have to be under the GPL,so you can distribute it.
You seem to be hinting at an untenable proposition.
The GPL is the enabling permission to make a copy ("distribute") any covered copyrighted work. If I create a program that requires a specific GPL'd library to be present, I'm faced with a choice:
1: Hope that the users can get it for themselves, or allready have it. (This may require selling to Linux users, who haven't shown the greatest support of for-profit software sales to date.)
2: Distribute the library along with the program, and hope that the FSF doesn't sue you for a GPL violation. (Simple media-sharing might not mean its the same program, but "distributed together and necessary to work together" very well might.)
I'm frankly rather baffled as to why that clause is the GPL anyway. It doesn't seem to have any legal force, all it really does it keep people from distributing GPL'd libraries with their application. (Because they're breaking the GPL on the libraries, they can't redistribute it.) But other people can, or they can write an installed that downloads or, many different things.
As near as I can tell, Stallman didn't consider the divisibilty of a program when he wrote the GPL. Nothing in it deals in any way with software programs that are part GPL'd code, and part. not.
AFAIK, the FSF seems to be of the belief that "It's either all GPL'd or not GPL at all." Not the most business friendly license at all, and not one that, I think, helps the long-term goals of Free Software adoption.
Except that redistribution is illegal under copyright law; you didn't have that right to begin with, so the GPL can't take it from you.
Yes, it does. You're barred from exercising it, but you have the right to control your own intellectual creaiton, even if it's derived from (and thus overlapping with) someone else's creation.
The GPL only grants you additional rights, it doesn't remove any.
Yes, it does. It might remove less than traditional EULAs, but it still removes them.
The "neutral state" isn't an EULA. It's normal copyright law, or--better yet--public domain software.
This is diametrically opposed to commercial EULAs which attempt to remove rights you do have under copyright law, giving you nothing in exchange.
Except, of course, for the right to use the software. It's part of the company agreeing to sell you a copy of their software--you agree to pay them X dollars, AND to abide by the EULA.
Contrast this with the GPL, where you trade your right to not use the GPL for any part of your program for the right to "use" any GPL'd lines of code at all in your program.
I'd love the GPL if it kept its hands off of non-derivitve parts of programs, rather than being asinine and claiming "all" parts of any work that contains derivitive content.
If the GPL allowed for divided content, we'd have a commercially viable license for selling it--and thus beating MS down at its own game. But it doesn't, and the FSF throws all its weight behind the GPL, so we're stuck losing to MS. (Imagine what the world would be like if Doom III were released, in the box, as GPL'd software, and only the actual "game" files were off limits.)
Re:what's it take to get a decent name?
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You don't like it, or it doesn't sound like music you like, so it isn't music or even art. How nice.
Remove "you like" and place in "to you", and you've got the only real judge of what constitutes art.
Art is, really, a creative activity that is belived to be art. What is art for me is probably not art for you, and vice versa. Such is life--and such is the abyssmal status of national funding for the arts.
We can't even agree on what "well regulated militia" means today, yet you think we can set a policy that will help us for another millennium?
'course we can. But some people wish that we decided that it meant something else, and so they expend time/money/energy trying to change the law. (Look at the implementation, and then the repeal of, prohibition for a great example.)
As to the 2nd amendment, we apparantly now understand it to mean "Private individuals can purchase guns and assemble in miltias, but are restricted to person vs. person weapons. Those wishing a more active role may join the standing army, either on a full-time or part-time basis. All persons posessing arms will be held to a standard of care with regards to their weapons."
Exactly how much the government can regulate a private citizen's small arms stockpile is in debate. Compared to "can we have a nuke?" or "no guns at all," it's actually a pretty small debate.
Yeah, go run a page through babelfish and then back through it again in the originating language. See what you come up with.
That's not a two-way translation. That's a simple recycling of output by an nonsentient device, which (at the least) doubles the error rate.
Two-way translation is, at its most simplest, two one-way translators that work side-by-side. They'll either work perfectly, or they'll suffice as a teaching tool for Special Forces to develop a workable pidgin with foreign-language allies when no translator is avaliable.
Well, the problem is, my definition of waste and hers in this situation. She sees it as her fun activity which makes her friends happy. A Good Thing(TM) according to Martha Stewart. The last thing I am going to do is start a fight with a women that is a cock rancher [henspa.com].
Budget it. If you don't go out and buy every new computer game (or whatever) that comes out, she should show some economic sense when it comes to creating cards for her friends.
And if you're going to marry her, trust me--you're going to fight. If you don't want to fight, don't marry her. (The alternative is you let her dominate your entire life--which doesn't happen.)
It was an article about women and ink jets. I was relaying my experience with my woman and ink jets. Guess you miss the point, women love these things because of all the colorful, creative things can do with them. Its the needlepoint of the new century.
Where'd the women come from? (Oh, nevermind.)
You posted about a martial difficulty. I posted my experiences and advice. *sigh*
I assume you have never been married. Once they get the diamond on the finger, they own your bank account. So it doesn't matter if she buys it or I do, I still will pay for it in the end. Plus $100 is a cheaper than a marriage counselor.
Hi, I am married.
If your S.O. is wasting money, tell them. Put a price tag on each card, at various densiites of ink, and show some differnent ways to get the same effect. (Heck, get the price for custom-printed cards at Hallmark or Officemax.)
As with all things in marriage, it gets solved by talking about it, not ignoring it. So if it's an issue, tell her. If it's not--well, then don't post on/. about it.
First, as the author of two patents pending and two more in process, I can say that you really need to rethink your position, and look far more carefully at patents as they are written as a matter of practice today.
No, I don't. Copyright lasts forever--patents don't. If code had to be patented to be protected, we'd have every line of DOS, Wordstar, & Word 2.0 open and free for the taking.
You don't want software patents. A software patent is far worse than a copyright. With a copyright, no one can duplicate your code or a reasonable fascimile thereof. With patent, no one can render the described procedure into practice in any language or any form even accidentally without risking an infringement case to which you will have no real recourse without spending a good $10 million dollars if things heat up.
And this is different from copyright how?
With copyright, the term lasts and lasts and lasts--and there's no guarantee that the code will be useable when it's finally public domain. Everything from Linux to a "hello, world" program gets the same protection.
With patents (since i'm dreaming, I can assume that the patents office gets competent & very conservitive people handing out these new software patents), the term is set, the innovation is cataloged, and *only new innovations* are patented.
Let's step back and look at this from another POV. Who would suffer from software patents? Small companies trying to go toe-to-toe with big companies without enough resources to make their idea work? Big companies that sit on the laurels of decades-old work?
It certainly wouldn't hurt me. If the enabling law also required a uniform EULA setup with pior disclosure, I'd love it. RMS & Bill G. might flip that now their code's just code, but that's just a fringe benefit to me.
Huh? Are you sure you understand what a patent is and the broadness of its scope? You really don't want software to be governed by patents! This grants the author exclusive rights not only to the expression of their invention (i.e., "the code") but any other expression that follows the same process, in any language, form, or construct!
Yes, I'm sure. Patents *only* cover either exact design (which copyright is currently used for) or an honest-to-goodness new innovation. Working for a corporation, or being a small guy with the aid of the FSF, serves as a check on big companies getting spurious patents and killing people who can prove prior art, but can't afford the legal fees.
Patents are also filed, logged, on the public record, expire on a set time, and don't have Disney trying to continually extend them.
Do you understand what copyright grants? Any code writen, registered or not, is the exclusive property of the author--even if a big, soul-less corporation--for three human generations. Getting rid of "copyrihgted code" would mean abandonware's illegal status would be a thing of the past, that Windows 3.11 would be free (totally, public-domain free) for the taking in just a few short years, and that software companies would have an even shorter time to rest on the laurels of prior development.
So, yes, I *do* want software covered by patents and not copyright.
Didn't copyright start out as a tool for government censorship?
Not as far as I know. Going mostly on inference, it seems that the origin of Copyright came up sometime in Europe, and someone made an argument for it good enough that the authors of the US consitituion thought that it was necessarilly a power that the federal government should have.
It's hard to imagine how copyright could be used for government censorhip, too. The government can just outright censor someone--especially when the idea of copyright was being invented, they had no reason whatsoever to "censor" someone in the convoluted scheme that "copyright censorship" would require.
(heck, copyright, if anything, works against plagarism, rather than working for censorship.)
Is prohibiting study and reverse engineering of code really either pro-technology or pro-market?
Yes. Any security device is only good until it's bypassed. A blanket numbing effect on the development of new security workarounds helps lengthen the effectiveness of security.
It's not *pro-innovation* or *pro-startup*, but it is "pro-technology" and "pro-market.";) ________________
Personally, I think the whole sheebang would just go away if code was covered by patents rather than copyrights, and copyright protection was widespread, fair, and had no legitimate reason to bypass. (and, no, that wouldn't necessarilly mean having a way to give bypass to those with fair use... they could just re-type or handwrite their own input like they were doing for years.)
'course, doing such requires a time machine, or a massive government subsidy. The key word here is *cheap*. *sigh*
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I'm sure christians will realize how old the earth is soon enough, just like they were forced to realize earth wasn't flat. :-)
Slight problem with that. We can sail in a boat and find that the world really isn't flat. We can make a logical argument that sky charts just work better if we call the sun the center of the solar system. But we can't hop in our time machine and go back 10,000 years to see if the Earth is there or not.
After all, God could have just set it all up as a kind of history lesson, so we could figure out how creation was going to work from creation on.
First off, I'm just fine and dandy with there being intelligent life on other plannets. As to if they know about God or have been overrun by atheism, well, we'll figure that out when we get there, I guess.
As for J.C. diying for the sins of aliens--that's a real loaded question. On the one hand, if the Word of God dies on every world, we diminish the guy we all know and love. On the other, if he *doesn't* die on every world for every alien's sins, then we get really egocentric.
Then again, maybe aliens have evolved to the point where they can't sin... y'know, like giant beings of energy that can percieve God the way you or I would percieve a person right next to us.
As to something to say to those Christians... ask them to point you to the biblical passages that tell where angels came from (AFAIK, there aren't any cannonical ones), and ask them about the biblical lack of North America, South America, Antartica, and Austrailia.
Only mentioning three out of four continents is a pretty good indicator that lack of mention in the bible doesn't mean a thing doesn't exist.
it's like arguing the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin
Now, now--arguments like that depend wildly on the number of angels that actually show up and are inclined to dance on said pin.
I think I can skip the research this time and just state as fact that, in all of recorded history, never has there been "not enough room" for one more angel dancing on the head of a pin.
My point is that copyright infringment is a very different crime than physical theft
You're right. Copyright infringement is much more of a white-collar crime. Y'know, like stock manipulation, or fraud, or identify theft.
But it's still called *piracy*, mostly because of simple use of the word. I belive the origin arose back in the days of the early VCR, as a way to denote people who took "time shifting" way past "bootlegging" and into a real serious organized crime--hence, "piracy."
Uh, I haven't read the law, but... how can they make monopolies illegal?
The states (including their component munincipalities) can make anything not explicity ruled legal by the federal gov't illegal. The problem, of course, is that any law has to pass judicial review by the relevant court (probably the highest court in the state) or it'll get tossed.
New York, for example, could outlaw wearing white after labor day. But once they charge someone with the crime, they have to deal with the inevitable appeal to a higher court that will, almost certainly, toss out the conviction and the law.
(and let's not even get into the setup of executive pardons...)
There's a line in the consitution that requires states to give "due weight" to the legal actions of other states. Ergo, if I'm married/divorced/sued/imprisoned in one state, I can't escape that marriage/divorce/judgement/jail term simply by fleeing the state.
This little bit of the law is why there was all that fuss about Hawaii possibly allowing same-gender marriages a few years back. If they had did it then, then homosexuals could become married *all over the country* by having their marriage in the rather romantic state of Hawaii.
MS can appeal the Iowa decision through Iowa's courts, and then through the federal courts, and they might even file suit in Washington court to block it, but simply being in a different state isn't going to let them get out of whatever Iowa demands.
(And if MS doesn't do anything, they'd get smacked pretty hard. If I filed suit against MS, properly notified them, and they didn't respond, I'd get whatever I could convince the judge was fair for the wrong committed against me.)
I guess it doesn't really matter, AD&D has been screwed up since they started making all those stupid player supplements in the second edition. Game balance was thrown out the window and my games degenerated into arguments as to why particular spells and 'kits' could not be allowed.
Look at 3rd edition. Most of the fluff and bad choices from 2e are gone.
And you can even see the entire ruleset online, using a GPL-inspired copyleft license.
www.wizards.com/d20
Human language was designed to be ambiguous. Legal language is designed to be even more so ambiguous.
Your profesor was wrong. Human language is by nature ambiguous, because it isn't spoken with supreme knowledge of everything.
Legal language is an attempt to *limit* the ambiguousness--that's why it's so complex.
Remmeber, that new thing MUST be able to explain everything currently explained by the 'old theory they are reluctant to give up'
No, the new *thing* only has to be, and be unexplainable by current theory.
The new *theory*, however, has to account for all the collected facts.
WotC only owns what they pay for--the three 100 page writeups & the final game awarded from that.
Everything else--well, if your 1-page or 10-page writeup is rejected, why not do it yourself?
www.freegamingassociation.org
To anybody who insists that they should keep getting paid after they stop working, I say "Screw you. Get a real job."
While you're at it, let's get rid of stock and interest on capital. Make people *work* for their money, and eliminate unnatural constructs like corporations and bank accounts.
Artists aren't the only ones who get income from indirect and recurring means. If we're going to get rid of the ones that encourage people to create stuff that makes the world better for everyone, let's get rid of the ones that encourage people to be greedy SOBs.
Yes, it is. People seem to have problems grasping this, but if you copy something directly from one program to another, you have to respect the license. There's not an exception because your program does a lot of other stuff too.
The GPL doesn't even deal with that. It doesn't say "the entire program is derivitive even if you only used GPL code in one small & easily noticiable section." If it did, the GPL would be dealing with this issue, which it doesn't even bother to touch.
And I know you're going to whine, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who's trying to copy GPL code into some other program. Even if you find some legal grounds for that, it's obviously against the wishes of the programmer.
Not necessarilly. It's against the wishes of the FSF, and Stallman, but not necessarilly against the wishes of the upstream programmers. (And please note that in the scienrio [sp] I outlined, the GPL'd code and the obviously-derivitive-of-GPL'd-code code are both still GPL. But the rest of the program, which has abosolutely nothing to do with the GPL'd code aside from loading at the same time, isn't.)
The problem here is that the GPL is ambiguous--and since it's ambiguous, it should be interpreted agaist the author of the license, and that means that any part of the license that could be read more than one way will be read in whatever way the licensee wants it to be read.
AFAIK (IANAL, again) the only ways the FSF can get their interpretation to be held up by a court is to bully a bunch of others to come in and testify as to how it reads, or to introduce seperate testimony about what it means.
They'd save themselves, and the rest of the open source community, a whole lot of headache if they'd just *put it in the GPL.*
Consider; If a producer makes an original motion picture about a topic of his choice, but includes in the filming a scene which takes place with a particular sculpture in the background, can the artist who created the sculpture claim the whole motion picture is a derivative work?
But the ruling, if indeed against me, will be a renunciation of my permission to use that small movie clip--not a declaration that my entire work is "derivitive." (Unless the judge is being lazy.)
IIRC, the SC hasn't touched copyright law since before the advent of computer software and EULAs. Until they do, *every* court decision on what is and what is not "derivitive" is "too close to call."
Yup, noone in the US gives to shits about soccer. In fact, a lot of folks here, well, kind of consider soccer to be a homosexual sport. There's just something really gay about running around in short shorts.
I'm an American, but...
Look at our OTHER so-called sports. Golf? (dress up in funny cloths and hit a small ball.) Baseball? (Dress in PJs, whack a ball, and run around four bases). Football? (Dress in tights, slap the other player's ass, and get rough and dirty with lots of other guys.)
Ok, so I admit to not being a sports fan--but I really don't see how Soccor is any more "gay" than the rest of the national sports. (Bowling! Hockey! Track & Field! Frisbiee Golf!--er, scrap that last one.)
Exactly. And the rights the GPL gives you are a strict superset of your rights under normal copyright law.
I've never said the GPL doesn't give you rights. But it also takes away at least one right. The "permission to GPL'd stuff" and the "right to not use the GPL" are two different rights the GPL deals with.
If I signed a contract with a representative of the software publisher agreeing to their terms before money changed hands, I'd agree. But if I pay Micro Center for a software package, I've entered into no contract with the publisher, just as when I buy a book from a bookstore I have not entered into a contract with the author. Standard copyright law should apply in both cases.
Tell it to a court. EULAs have been ruled as binding in most US jurisdictions, mostly because they force an explicit action of agreement and offer a refund if you refuse the EULA. If you really, really want to look it over first, then the merchant can probably get you a copy. (If not, tell them you'll go next door.)
(I agree, though. In a perfect world, standard copyright law should cover software--or just design patents.)
Again, you haven't lost anything. Under normal copyright law, you have no right to redistribute derivative works at all; the GPL grants you that right provided you fulfill certain conditions (i.e. making your code that contains it GPLed).
Let me try this again.
The GPL wouldn't be a legal contract if all parties didn't get something for something. There is a definite "right" to not use the GPL when making a derivitive work--and that right is given up as the condition for using GPL'd software.
IANAL, but as I understand it, you can make a derivitive work of someone else's copyrighted work--but you can't *do* anything with it without permission, and neither can they. You have a right to your work, and the fact that you are unable to exercise this work without the aid of someone else doesn't eliminate that right.
Having said all this, my software is released under the BSD license, because I don't believe proprietary software is fundamentally immoral and I don't lie awake at night worrying that somebody might be using my code to make money. But complaining about GPL restrictions is like getting half a pie from someone for free, and then being upset that they didn't give you the whole thing.
I'm not complaining about GPL restrictions--they don't effect me.
I'm noting my views of the GPL in a friendly discussion, and obserbing a fault in the GPL. I'm also expressing a desire for the FSF's goals to actually come to frutition. I'd love to be able to use the Free Software versions of everything I need--but the FSW needs to be able to compete on every level (not just moral or standards-compliance) with propritary software, or we'll be stuck using MS forever.
The problem seems to be people who don't grasp what a 'derivitive work' is. If you use GPL code, it's a deriviate work.
Not necessarilly.
If I take your GPL'd dice roller and modify it, I've created a derivitive work. But if I take your die roller and add it to my "gaming suite" program, is the entire program derivitive?
The law doesn't cleary say "yes," but the GPL's advocates have the repuation (possibly justified--I don't know) of saying "YES" and threatening ("we'll sue you") people who disagree in action.
If you just link to GPL code, yes, that's a 'violation' of the GPL, but you don't have to agree to the GPL to use the library, and so your software doesn't have to be under the GPL,so you can distribute it.
You seem to be hinting at an untenable proposition.
The GPL is the enabling permission to make a copy ("distribute") any covered copyrighted work. If I create a program that requires a specific GPL'd library to be present, I'm faced with a choice:
1: Hope that the users can get it for themselves, or allready have it. (This may require selling to Linux users, who haven't shown the greatest support of for-profit software sales to date.)
2: Distribute the library along with the program, and hope that the FSF doesn't sue you for a GPL violation. (Simple media-sharing might not mean its the same program, but "distributed together and necessary to work together" very well might.)
I'm frankly rather baffled as to why that clause is the GPL anyway. It doesn't seem to have any legal force, all it really does it keep people from distributing GPL'd libraries with their application. (Because they're breaking the GPL on the libraries, they can't redistribute it.) But other people can, or they can write an installed that downloads or, many different things.
As near as I can tell, Stallman didn't consider the divisibilty of a program when he wrote the GPL. Nothing in it deals in any way with software programs that are part GPL'd code, and part. not.
AFAIK, the FSF seems to be of the belief that "It's either all GPL'd or not GPL at all." Not the most business friendly license at all, and not one that, I think, helps the long-term goals of Free Software adoption.
Except that redistribution is illegal under copyright law; you didn't have that right to begin with, so the GPL can't take it from you.
Yes, it does. You're barred from exercising it, but you have the right to control your own intellectual creaiton, even if it's derived from (and thus overlapping with) someone else's creation.
The GPL only grants you additional rights, it doesn't remove any.
Yes, it does. It might remove less than traditional EULAs, but it still removes them.
The "neutral state" isn't an EULA. It's normal copyright law, or--better yet--public domain software.
This is diametrically opposed to commercial EULAs which attempt to remove rights you do have under copyright law, giving you nothing in exchange.
Except, of course, for the right to use the software. It's part of the company agreeing to sell you a copy of their software--you agree to pay them X dollars, AND to abide by the EULA.
Contrast this with the GPL, where you trade your right to not use the GPL for any part of your program for the right to "use" any GPL'd lines of code at all in your program.
I'd love the GPL if it kept its hands off of non-derivitve parts of programs, rather than being asinine and claiming "all" parts of any work that contains derivitive content.
If the GPL allowed for divided content, we'd have a commercially viable license for selling it--and thus beating MS down at its own game. But it doesn't, and the FSF throws all its weight behind the GPL, so we're stuck losing to MS. (Imagine what the world would be like if Doom III were released, in the box, as GPL'd software, and only the actual "game" files were off limits.)
You don't like it, or it doesn't sound like music you like, so it isn't music or even art. How nice.
Remove "you like" and place in "to you", and you've got the only real judge of what constitutes art.
Art is, really, a creative activity that is belived to be art. What is art for me is probably not art for you, and vice versa. Such is life--and such is the abyssmal status of national funding for the arts.
We can't even agree on what "well regulated militia" means today, yet you think we can set a policy that will help us for another millennium?
'course we can. But some people wish that we decided that it meant something else, and so they expend time/money/energy trying to change the law. (Look at the implementation, and then the repeal of, prohibition for a great example.)
As to the 2nd amendment, we apparantly now understand it to mean "Private individuals can purchase guns and assemble in miltias, but are restricted to person vs. person weapons. Those wishing a more active role may join the standing army, either on a full-time or part-time basis. All persons posessing arms will be held to a standard of care with regards to their weapons."
Exactly how much the government can regulate a private citizen's small arms stockpile is in debate. Compared to "can we have a nuke?" or "no guns at all," it's actually a pretty small debate.
Yeah, go run a page through babelfish and then back through it again in the originating language. See what you come up with.
That's not a two-way translation. That's a simple recycling of output by an nonsentient device, which (at the least) doubles the error rate.
Two-way translation is, at its most simplest, two one-way translators that work side-by-side. They'll either work perfectly, or they'll suffice as a teaching tool for Special Forces to develop a workable pidgin with foreign-language allies when no translator is avaliable.
Well, the problem is, my definition of waste and hers in this situation. She sees it as her fun activity which makes her friends happy. A Good Thing(TM) according to Martha Stewart. The last thing I am going to do is start a fight with a women that is a cock rancher [henspa.com].
Budget it. If you don't go out and buy every new computer game (or whatever) that comes out, she should show some economic sense when it comes to creating cards for her friends.
And if you're going to marry her, trust me--you're going to fight. If you don't want to fight, don't marry her. (The alternative is you let her dominate your entire life--which doesn't happen.)
It was an article about women and ink jets. I was relaying my experience with my woman and ink jets. Guess you miss the point, women love these things because of all the colorful, creative things can do with them. Its the needlepoint of the new century.
Where'd the women come from? (Oh, nevermind.)
You posted about a martial difficulty. I posted my experiences and advice. *sigh*
I assume you have never been married. Once they get the diamond on the finger, they own your bank account. So it doesn't matter if she buys it or I do, I still will pay for it in the end. Plus $100 is a cheaper than a marriage counselor.
/. about it.
;) )
Hi, I am married.
If your S.O. is wasting money, tell them. Put a price tag on each card, at various densiites of ink, and show some differnent ways to get the same effect. (Heck, get the price for custom-printed cards at Hallmark or Officemax.)
As with all things in marriage, it gets solved by talking about it, not ignoring it. So if it's an issue, tell her. If it's not--well, then don't post on
(Oh, and buy a Canon.
First, as the author of two patents pending and two more in process, I can say that you really need to rethink your position, and look far more carefully at patents as they are written as a matter of practice today.
No, I don't. Copyright lasts forever--patents don't. If code had to be patented to be protected, we'd have every line of DOS, Wordstar, & Word 2.0 open and free for the taking.
You don't want software patents. A software patent is far worse than a copyright. With a copyright, no one can duplicate your code or a reasonable fascimile thereof. With patent, no one can render the described procedure into practice in any language or any form even accidentally without risking an infringement case to which you will have no real recourse without spending a good $10 million dollars if things heat up.
And this is different from copyright how?
With copyright, the term lasts and lasts and lasts--and there's no guarantee that the code will be useable when it's finally public domain. Everything from Linux to a "hello, world" program gets the same protection.
With patents (since i'm dreaming, I can assume that the patents office gets competent & very conservitive people handing out these new software patents), the term is set, the innovation is cataloged, and *only new innovations* are patented.
Let's step back and look at this from another POV. Who would suffer from software patents? Small companies trying to go toe-to-toe with big companies without enough resources to make their idea work? Big companies that sit on the laurels of decades-old work?
It certainly wouldn't hurt me. If the enabling law also required a uniform EULA setup with pior disclosure, I'd love it. RMS & Bill G. might flip that now their code's just code, but that's just a fringe benefit to me.
Huh? Are you sure you understand what a patent is and the broadness of its scope? You really don't want software to be governed by patents! This grants the author exclusive rights not only to the expression of their invention (i.e., "the code") but any other expression that follows the same process, in any language, form, or construct!
Yes, I'm sure. Patents *only* cover either exact design (which copyright is currently used for) or an honest-to-goodness new innovation. Working for a corporation, or being a small guy with the aid of the FSF, serves as a check on big companies getting spurious patents and killing people who can prove prior art, but can't afford the legal fees.
Patents are also filed, logged, on the public record, expire on a set time, and don't have Disney trying to continually extend them.
Do you understand what copyright grants? Any code writen, registered or not, is the exclusive property of the author--even if a big, soul-less corporation--for three human generations. Getting rid of "copyrihgted code" would mean abandonware's illegal status would be a thing of the past, that Windows 3.11 would be free (totally, public-domain free) for the taking in just a few short years, and that software companies would have an even shorter time to rest on the laurels of prior development.
So, yes, I *do* want software covered by patents and not copyright.
Didn't copyright start out as a tool for government censorship?
;)
Not as far as I know. Going mostly on inference, it seems that the origin of Copyright came up sometime in Europe, and someone made an argument for it good enough that the authors of the US consitituion thought that it was necessarilly a power that the federal government should have.
It's hard to imagine how copyright could be used for government censorhip, too. The government can just outright censor someone--especially when the idea of copyright was being invented, they had no reason whatsoever to "censor" someone in the convoluted scheme that "copyright censorship" would require.
(heck, copyright, if anything, works against plagarism, rather than working for censorship.)
Is prohibiting study and reverse engineering of code really either pro-technology or pro-market?
Yes. Any security device is only good until it's bypassed. A blanket numbing effect on the development of new security workarounds helps lengthen the effectiveness of security.
It's not *pro-innovation* or *pro-startup*, but it is "pro-technology" and "pro-market."
________________
Personally, I think the whole sheebang would just go away if code was covered by patents rather than copyrights, and copyright protection was widespread, fair, and had no legitimate reason to bypass. (and, no, that wouldn't necessarilly mean having a way to give bypass to those with fair use... they could just re-type or handwrite their own input like they were doing for years.)
'course, doing such requires a time machine, or a massive government subsidy. The key word here is *cheap*. *sigh*