Some people would say that a copy of
IP has very little worth.
They're only saying that to justify their criminal behaviour. The fact that those same people all want a copy of the IP in question disproves what they said.
As the old mantra goes: software worth using is software worth buying.
This idea that a citizen of one country, engaged in acts within that country which are legal in that
country, can be arrested in another country for those acts, is truely scary. Though it does seem to be
the latest trend.
This is perfectly normal. It is legal for me to have (consensual) sex with a 16 year old in most European countries. If I tried this in the US, I'd be arrested and sent to jail. When in a country, obey the laws of the country, even if they are different from the laws in your home country.
Don't forget that this is about more than just breaking the encryption. This person was giving a presentation on how to do so in the US, where giving such a presentation is (probably) illegal under the DMCA.
Doesn't making media uncopyable violate my right to make a backup incase my original media melts down?
No. While you may have a right to make backup copies, nowhere does it say that the manufacturer of the CD has to make it easy for you, or even make it possible. You can still *try* to make copies, and if you succeed, kudos to you, but you cannot expect the record company to help you with it.
This is not true. In fact, when I bought my first PC it came with OS/2 preinstalled, because the computer store I bought it from
had a dispute with Microsoft over license-prices at the time, and was unwilling to sell PCs with Windows preinstalled.
It's nice that it runs on MacOS and a variety of unices, but
where's the Windows version? The world does not revolve around
unix anymore, and if you expect this to make even a small dent
in.NET usage, then it HAS to run on Windows. If it doesn't
then you might as well quit now.
So Pine is not under GPL or some other approved open-source license. Well boo-hoo-hoo! Who cares if it is
not "pure"? As the article says: it's free enough.
Somehow this reminds of men willing to screw everything
with a hole, but only willing to marry a virgin: hypocricy at its worst. Your computer is not GPL, you
don't even have the blueprints for your videocard, in
fact nVidia won't even give you the sources for their
driver. Yet you still use it. Complaining about software being "not truly free" makes you a hypocrite. Be a realist instead and accept that something can be non-GPL but free enough.
sorry, some of us know how to read. tux does dynamic content now. as someone else stated, how else could it do the specweb
benchmarks?
Simple, you define your "target mix" (see here) for the test to include no dynamic content. Or you
choose "dumb" dynamic code that really isn't dynamic
(the benchmarker gets to pick his own dynamic code).
Also note that this article does not say that the specweb99 benchmark was used this time, it only says that eWEEK worked closely with Dell, who did some specweb99 benchmarks of Tux before.
So basically we have 1) no indication that the specweb99 benchmark was used this time, and 2) no requirement that dynamic content handling is needed to complete the
specweb99 benchmark.
And while it is entirely possible that Tux does indeed do dynamic content and is very fast at it, this article offers no proof of it. It would help a lot if they actually mentioned what benchmark they used, and gave some
more results than just the few numbers given. It would
be even better if benchmark results applied to real-life
situations as well.
I read the article. It doesn't specify what that mix
consisted of, in fact it tells you nothing about the
test itself besides the fact that the static content
was around 60 megabytes in size and could fit in RAM.
The whole article reeks of "yay linux, down with the
rest!", without any real information.
Now if they had run an actual website (slashdot, for
example, but any other large database-driven site will
do) on it, and found it to be substantially faster, I
might be impressed. As it is, the article is nothing
more than FUD.
Not to mention that any website large enough to
actually need such blazing performance would
consist mostly of dynamic content, which
Tux doesn't do. Not until someone puts a database
engine in the kernel anyway.
Yes, getting a patent lawyer is a good idea, however:
The mp3 patents are overly broad, anyone with half a brain can see that for themselves. This makes it very hard to not infringe on them when doing any kind of audio compression.
Thompson has a shitload of money, and could sue Ogg Vorbis into oblivion even if Ogg Vorbis did not infringe.
There is no doubt in my mind that as soon as Ogg Vorbis gains mainstream acceptance, Thompson will try everything in the book to subdue it. Whether or not they have a solid legal case for patent infringement (which I think they do, given the broadness of their patents) is hardly relevant.
They (the ogg vorbis guys) only *say* they're not infringing. That does not mean that they're not. In fact, given the broadness of the mp3 patents, they most like *are* infringing. And Thompson thinks so too, as you can read in this article. Quoting Thompson's vice president of new business: "We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property".
Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. As a true commie freeloader, he wants everything to be free, no matter how much money someone spent to create it.
That crap shouldn't be patentable in the first place
That "crap" should be patentable, especially when it
cost years and millions of dollars to develop. Without those
patents, we wouldn't have had mp3, and you wouldn't have been able to run all those stories on Napster versus the RIAA and
linux-based mp3 players.
Yes, some software patents are silly (I mean, XORing a cursor? Come on!), but some are genuine inventions, and should enjoy
protection similar to what a physical invention would enjoy. Perhaps not as long as physical devices though, since time seems to run much faster in the software industry.
such offers would be a godsend to a person wishing to devote their free time for OSS
With a comment like that you're practically admitting that there is no money to be made developing open source software. It's nice to see a bit of reality entering into the slashdot editors' world view.
Stick to your toys, children, and leave us to our work
Your work, of course, being to convince people that they
need "help" removing the alien spirits that inhabit their bodies. This "help", of course, comes at a price, which remarkably enough is directly proportional to the amount of money the person has. And sometimes, the price is death.
It never ceases to amaze me that the "church" of scientology is based on what was clearly a manuscript for L-Ron's newest sci-fi novel. Too bad he died before he could let anyone in on the joke...
Interesting (as the moderators so astutely determined;).
Does that apply to *any* employee of the company (i.e. would the guy at the assembly line or the lady in the cafeteria be considered an "agent" as much as a VP or CEO), or does the person have to carry some weight within the company?
Retail customers generally don't provide you with a list of requirements before you start programming. Customers that contract you for doing work for them usually do. That list, or absence thereof, determines what is a critical bug, and what you can and cannot ship with.
You (and most of the people I've seen describe the "standard" at their companies in the comments section) must be in the retail software business, otherwise you wouldn't be asking this question.
Most software companies are not in the retail software business (i.e. they do not sell boxed software to retail stores), but write software for specific (mostly corporate) customers. In that case, different rules apply. Your customer will have given you a list of requirements. If you do not meet the requirements, you have a bug. It might be something as simple as "I clicked the open button and it didn't open", but it would be still be a "critical" or "major" bug. Now, since you (should) have a good relationship with your customer, you can try and explain to the customer what would be involved in fixing the bug, and get them to agree to ship with this bug (they will probably ask you you to fix the bug in a later release).
Since you don't appear to have customers that tell you what is
acceptable and not: GET THEM! Pull some people in off the street and have them test your software. If they run into bugs all the time and it prevents them from using the software for its intented purpose, you CANNOT ship. Every bug they (as average first-time users) run into should be fixed before release.
Would the OS license still apply if I bought a Mac with MacOS preinstalled from someone? In that case, I never agreed to a license agreement, so I can't be bound by it, can I?
One effect of these laws is to
make it illegal to break encryption on copyright material.
This is not at all what it says. What it says is that in case the rightholder has implemented an anti-copying device, rightholder should also provide a means for copying under one of the exceptions (e.g. for illustration or teaching).
(but note though that while breaking copyright protection might not be illegal, subsequent copying of the material still is)
Slashdot Mirror
They're only saying that to justify their criminal behaviour. The fact that those same people all want a copy of the IP in question disproves what they said. As the old mantra goes: software worth using is software worth buying.
This is perfectly normal. It is legal for me to have (consensual) sex with a 16 year old in most European countries. If I tried this in the US, I'd be arrested and sent to jail. When in a country, obey the laws of the country, even if they are different from the laws in your home country.
Don't forget that this is about more than just breaking the encryption. This person was giving a presentation on how to do so in the US, where giving such a presentation is (probably) illegal under the DMCA.
No. While you may have a right to make backup copies, nowhere does it say that the manufacturer of the CD has to make it easy for you, or even make it possible. You can still *try* to make copies, and if you succeed, kudos to you, but you cannot expect the record company to help you with it.
The US are a republic, not a democracy. You only have to look at the latest presidential election to know the difference.
This is not true. In fact, when I bought my first PC it came with OS/2 preinstalled, because the computer store I bought it from had a dispute with Microsoft over license-prices at the time, and was unwilling to sell PCs with Windows preinstalled.
It's nice that it runs on MacOS and a variety of unices, but where's the Windows version? The world does not revolve around unix anymore, and if you expect this to make even a small dent in .NET usage, then it HAS to run on Windows. If it doesn't
then you might as well quit now.
So Pine is not under GPL or some other approved open-source license. Well boo-hoo-hoo! Who cares if it is not "pure"? As the article says: it's free enough. Somehow this reminds of men willing to screw everything with a hole, but only willing to marry a virgin: hypocricy at its worst. Your computer is not GPL, you don't even have the blueprints for your videocard, in fact nVidia won't even give you the sources for their driver. Yet you still use it. Complaining about software being "not truly free" makes you a hypocrite. Be a realist instead and accept that something can be non-GPL but free enough.
Simple, you define your "target mix" (see here) for the test to include no dynamic content. Or you choose "dumb" dynamic code that really isn't dynamic (the benchmarker gets to pick his own dynamic code).
Also note that this article does not say that the specweb99 benchmark was used this time, it only says that eWEEK worked closely with Dell, who did some specweb99 benchmarks of Tux before.
So basically we have 1) no indication that the specweb99 benchmark was used this time, and 2) no requirement that dynamic content handling is needed to complete the specweb99 benchmark.
And while it is entirely possible that Tux does indeed do dynamic content and is very fast at it, this article offers no proof of it. It would help a lot if they actually mentioned what benchmark they used, and gave some more results than just the few numbers given. It would be even better if benchmark results applied to real-life situations as well.
I read the article. It doesn't specify what that mix consisted of, in fact it tells you nothing about the test itself besides the fact that the static content was around 60 megabytes in size and could fit in RAM. The whole article reeks of "yay linux, down with the rest!", without any real information. Now if they had run an actual website (slashdot, for example, but any other large database-driven site will do) on it, and found it to be substantially faster, I might be impressed. As it is, the article is nothing more than FUD.
Not to mention that any website large enough to actually need such blazing performance would consist mostly of dynamic content, which Tux doesn't do. Not until someone puts a database engine in the kernel anyway.
- The mp3 patents are overly broad, anyone with half a brain can see that for themselves. This makes it very hard to not infringe on them when doing any kind of audio compression.
- Thompson has a shitload of money, and could sue Ogg Vorbis into oblivion even if Ogg Vorbis did not infringe.
There is no doubt in my mind that as soon as Ogg Vorbis gains mainstream acceptance, Thompson will try everything in the book to subdue it. Whether or not they have a solid legal case for patent infringement (which I think they do, given the broadness of their patents) is hardly relevant.They (the ogg vorbis guys) only *say* they're not infringing. That does not mean that they're not. In fact, given the broadness of the mp3 patents, they most like *are* infringing. And Thompson thinks so too, as you can read in this article. Quoting Thompson's vice president of new business: "We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property".
Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. As a true commie freeloader, he wants everything to be free, no matter how much money someone spent to create it.
That "crap" should be patentable, especially when it cost years and millions of dollars to develop. Without those patents, we wouldn't have had mp3, and you wouldn't have been able to run all those stories on Napster versus the RIAA and linux-based mp3 players.
Yes, some software patents are silly (I mean, XORing a cursor? Come on!), but some are genuine inventions, and should enjoy protection similar to what a physical invention would enjoy. Perhaps not as long as physical devices though, since time seems to run much faster in the software industry.
With a comment like that you're practically admitting that there is no money to be made developing open source software. It's nice to see a bit of reality entering into the slashdot editors' world view.
Your work, of course, being to convince people that they need "help" removing the alien spirits that inhabit their bodies. This "help", of course, comes at a price, which remarkably enough is directly proportional to the amount of money the person has. And sometimes, the price is death.
It never ceases to amaze me that the "church" of scientology is based on what was clearly a manuscript for L-Ron's newest sci-fi novel. Too bad he died before he could let anyone in on the joke...
Interesting (as the moderators so astutely determined ;).
Does that apply to *any* employee of the company (i.e. would the guy at the assembly line or the lady in the cafeteria be considered an "agent" as much as a VP or CEO), or does the person have to carry some weight within the company?
This particular Sony employee was some nobody that the guy met on a plane. He doesn't speak for the company.
You are confusing fileformat with codecs. Quicktime is not proprietary. The Sorenson codec is (and licensed exclusively to Apple at that).
Retail customers generally don't provide you with a list of requirements before you start programming. Customers that contract you for doing work for them usually do. That list, or absence thereof, determines what is a critical bug, and what you can and cannot ship with.
Most software companies are not in the retail software business (i.e. they do not sell boxed software to retail stores), but write software for specific (mostly corporate) customers. In that case, different rules apply. Your customer will have given you a list of requirements. If you do not meet the requirements, you have a bug. It might be something as simple as "I clicked the open button and it didn't open", but it would be still be a "critical" or "major" bug. Now, since you (should) have a good relationship with your customer, you can try and explain to the customer what would be involved in fixing the bug, and get them to agree to ship with this bug (they will probably ask you you to fix the bug in a later release).
Since you don't appear to have customers that tell you what is acceptable and not: GET THEM! Pull some people in off the street and have them test your software. If they run into bugs all the time and it prevents them from using the software for its intented purpose, you CANNOT ship. Every bug they (as average first-time users) run into should be fixed before release.
Yes it is. If a user-level application can bring down the operating system, then that is a bug in the operating system.
Would the OS license still apply if I bought a Mac with MacOS preinstalled from someone? In that case, I never agreed to a license agreement, so I can't be bound by it, can I?
Eh, solar sails?
This is not at all what it says. What it says is that in case the rightholder has implemented an anti-copying device, rightholder should also provide a means for copying under one of the exceptions (e.g. for illustration or teaching).
(but note though that while breaking copyright protection might not be illegal, subsequent copying of the material still is)