The lack of Hebrew support is a well-known "bug" in IE (and apparently most of Microsoft's Mac products). The Register has been following it for some time, I found a good article here.
I wonder if we will have an analogous situation to music piracy today, where everyone will write outlawed code because the big companies hold the patents on basic programming constructs and refuse to play ball
Now that's an interesting thought. I think (hope?) that it couldn't ever happen, for the following reasons:
Prior Art for basic programming constructs is well-known (I'm thinking constructs like for loops and pointers here).
Even if someone does manage to get a patent on a future basic concept, patents (in the US) expire after 20 years, and copyrights don't expire for 75+ years.
Patents tend to be country-specific, and need to be filed in every country that you want maximum protection in. Only the biggest companies can afford to file patents in all the relevant countries, and there are sure to be a few countries where that construct is not protected. Copyright, on the other hand, is recognized worldwide (or, at least, in all the countries that signed the Berne convention), without having to file in each country.
Now I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about here, but this discussion makes the patent system seem relatively benign, doesn't it? If someone wanted to really control a technology, they should try to find some back-door way to have it protected under copyright law, not patent law...
I'm not sure what's more embarassing: the fact that the Patent Office approved it in the first place, or the fact that it took them a whole year to re-examine it!
is that Terrorist groups will start recruiting people who are not on a watch list and who have not convicted of a felony. If airlines use it for easy check-in, then you may as well call it the Shoe Bomb permit.
All that the Apple DRM does is encrypt the actual AAC file, then stick the whole thing into a QuickTime wrapper. If people think that the iTunes files are muddy-sounding, it's AAC's fault, not the DRM's.
Why do people seem to tolerate DRM and crippled formats when Apple's peddling them?
It's the RIAA that's the problem: they likely would not consent to distribution on the wide scale that Apple is engaged in without some type of restrictions. I'd rather use Apple's DRM (which is much more consumer-friendly) than Microsoft's.
Regardless of agreement or disagreement with the RIAA in general or this particular lawsuit strategy, "suing your customers" is a silly way to put it. If I walked into Wal-Mart and stole a case of Coke, they would not worry about whether or not it was a good idea to "put one of our customers in jail".
You're missing the point. It would be more like WalMart getting the right to search your house for stolen cases of Coke (without obtaining a judge's approval first), and suing you if you can't prove that you didn't steal them. Hope you kept all your receipts! (We're just lucky that they haven't passed the Digital Millenium Cola Act yet...)
The RIAA may have a legal right to do what they are doing, but the article argues that their strategy is not the best one from a long-term business strategy perspective.
I seem to remember a paper written by one of the founders of TiVo. One of their original ideas was a video-on-demand service for cable where if someone put in a request for a movie, the system would query other cable boxes in the neighborhood to determine if any of them had a copy, and download it from there if someone local had it. The user still needed to buy a "license" to view the movie. As far as the user was concerned, his on-demand movie worked like it always did, but the system was much more efficient because not every request would involve a server. In fact, the more popular a movie is, the less server bandwidth it would consume!
Some content distribution will have to move to P2P, if for no other reason than to save on bandwith costs. The person who figures out how to do it (while keeping content providers happy) will make a lot of money.
I didn't think that there was any legal basis to the movie industry or video game industry's rating systems. The ratings are imposed by the industry itself, specifically to keep the Government from regulating it.
While certain localities may have given these ratings the force of law (I seem to remember something about Cincinatti and video games, too lazy to google the specifics), in most places you won't get arrested for buying a mature video game or going to an NC-17 movie if you are underage. However, most reputable establishments will follow the guidelines, and refuse to sell their product to underage people, which accomplishes the same purpose.
There certainly isn't anything illegal about possessing a Mature-rated game if you are underage, which is why video-game ratings are kind of useless, because the parents buy a lot of those games for their children without bothering to examine the content. And even if you, as a parent, care enough to not buy the game, I guarantee your child has a friend whose parents bought it for them, so there's no possible way to "shelter" them from these video games. At least theaters can see every patron who will ever use their product, and weed out the obviously underage people, but video game sellers have no clue who is going to actually use their product...
It's not the same as Fair Use in the USA. Borrowing a friend's original copy of a CD (or borrowing an original copy from the library) and then making a copy of it seems to be legal in Canada, but not in the U.S.
Note that in order to be legal in Canada, you need to copy off of original media -- second-generation copies are probably not allowed. Hence, the P2P implications are murky (unless you have that particular CD in your CD drive, and that's what you're sharing P2P.)
And, the DMCA may not be what makes file sharing illegal, but it enabled the RIAA to subpoena the ISP's for people's personal information. Without the DMCA, the RIAA wouldn't know where to find all the file-sharing 12-year-olds.
Erm. The GPL and BSD licences are well thought out and rather clever. But if the "Open-Source Development model is the most thought-out development model" that you know of, you've obviously never seen any others.
OK, Cedric, let's look at what I actually wrote...
However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes.
OK, so that sentence doesn't parse very well, but this is/., you're lucky that I tried to be coherent. And, I admit that I'm a hardware engineer, and not a software engineer, but I've seen plenty of projects (both hardware and software) use code of questionable legality. And commercial development models almost encourage this, because if you are infringing on someone else's rights, it can be impossible for the other party to prove it.
Open Source development has to be on firmer legal ground to exist at all.
I was strictly talking about the legalities of the development model. Whether or not it is good or well thought-out w/r/t software development is something I don't have a clue about, although its sucess in certain areas indicates something....
Mr. McBride is a troll. don't feed.
Normally, if you ignore a troll, he goes away, and we're all happier. In this case, if you ignore this troll, we all get invoices for $699.
You guys have done a pretty good job at slashdotting the linked story... this is lifted from news.com. The passages in quotes are, I assume, from the letter:
"If the open-source community wants its products to be accepted by enterprise companies, the community itself must follow the rules and procedures that govern mainstream society," he said. "This is what global corporations will require. And it is these customers who will determine the ultimate fate of open source--not SCO, not IBM, and not open-source leaders."
Open-source advocates have disparaged SCO's evidence and cast the legal case as a Microsoft-backed ploy to discourage corporate adoption of Linux. McBride said such arguments ignore the real issues.
"Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, open-source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today," he said. "This is the primary path towards giving enterprise companies the assurance they need to accept open-source products at the core of their business infrastructure. Customers need to know that open source is legal and stable."
This is quite a well-crafted piece of FUD: it perpetuates the notion that Linux is being developed by a bunck of pimply-faced hackers in their parents' basements, and that the developers don't care about IP rights at all. In fact, he is making the hidden accusation that the current open source development model does not "respect the rules of law"
However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes. Let's face it: who actually reads and follows those shrink-wrapped software licenses? I'm willing to bet that the only people who take them seriously are the open-source developers and users, because the license is the only legal right they have to open-source code. (They're also possibly the only ones anal enough to read the entire click-through license on commercial software). I've always held that if more people actually read what was in those commercial software licenses, there would be a lot more people swearing off commercial software for good.
The GPL and BSD licenses are well-crafted legal documents, and the transparency of the development process should put to rest all patent and copyright infringement concerns: if something infringes, the proof is there for everyone to see, and the maintainers are responsible for removing it, because it never should have been there in the first place. When Microsoft or SCO violates a source-code patent, there's no way of knowing because you can't see the code!
Given many recent statements by people related to SCO (including the Perens quote that others here have said is taken out of context, and SCO's blanket assertion of rights over BSD code that looks to be included in the AT&T settlemnent) that have turned out to be, at best, exaggerations, and at worst, outright lies and mischaracterizations, one has to wonder which side has more respect for the rules of law.
If it's BSD, I wouldn't expect much sharing to happen. If it's the GPL, then they should [if they intend to redistribute modified products.]
Remember that the GPL is only as valid as the copyright laws it is based on. And copyright is, after all, an artificial right granted by the government. Who will sue the government of China if they violate the GPL?
Prohibition was a bit of a different issue. It's a case study on the pitfalls of legislating morality. It also was a relatively recent phenomenon when they overturned it, and there was not a long history of prohibition in the country to have to counter. It was, simply put, a social experiment gone wrong, and the people who started it were alive to fix it.
That's not to say that copyright law isn't based on morality (although few people object to Copyright on religious grounds) but it also has a basis in property law. IP is not exactly like real property, but the courts have treated them similarly in the past. Copyright is also a very old concept that has been around for hundreds of years, working quite nicely for most of that time -- it won't go away simply because some people want it to today.
Lately, it seems the balance of copyright law has tilted toward the distribution oligopolies. That can change without junking all of copyright. And the Free Software movement have used Copyright to further their goals of the widest possible distribution of software: making Piracy legal or legitimate would undermine this movement because it is based on copyright.
Slashdot Mirror
The lack of Hebrew support is a well-known "bug" in IE (and apparently most of Microsoft's Mac products). The Register has been following it for some time, I found a good article here.
I choose Apple, obviously.
Given a choice only between these two options, I'd rather try an build a computer with early 80's technology than late 20's technology!
Now that's an interesting thought. I think (hope?) that it couldn't ever happen, for the following reasons:
Prior Art for basic programming constructs is well-known (I'm thinking constructs like for loops and pointers here).
Even if someone does manage to get a patent on a future basic concept, patents (in the US) expire after 20 years, and copyrights don't expire for 75+ years.
Patents tend to be country-specific, and need to be filed in every country that you want maximum protection in. Only the biggest companies can afford to file patents in all the relevant countries, and there are sure to be a few countries where that construct is not protected. Copyright, on the other hand, is recognized worldwide (or, at least, in all the countries that signed the Berne convention), without having to file in each country.
Now I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about here, but this discussion makes the patent system seem relatively benign, doesn't it? If someone wanted to really control a technology, they should try to find some back-door way to have it protected under copyright law, not patent law...
I'm not sure what's more embarassing: the fact that the Patent Office approved it in the first place, or the fact that it took them a whole year to re-examine it!
is that Terrorist groups will start recruiting people who are not on a watch list and who have not convicted of a felony. If airlines use it for easy check-in, then you may as well call it the Shoe Bomb permit.
All that the Apple DRM does is encrypt the actual AAC file, then stick the whole thing into a QuickTime wrapper. If people think that the iTunes files are muddy-sounding, it's AAC's fault, not the DRM's.
It's the RIAA that's the problem: they likely would not consent to distribution on the wide scale that Apple is engaged in without some type of restrictions. I'd rather use Apple's DRM (which is much more consumer-friendly) than Microsoft's.
You're missing the point. It would be more like WalMart getting the right to search your house for stolen cases of Coke (without obtaining a judge's approval first), and suing you if you can't prove that you didn't steal them. Hope you kept all your receipts! (We're just lucky that they haven't passed the Digital Millenium Cola Act yet...)
The RIAA may have a legal right to do what they are doing, but the article argues that their strategy is not the best one from a long-term business strategy perspective.
I seem to remember a paper written by one of the founders of TiVo. One of their original ideas was a video-on-demand service for cable where if someone put in a request for a movie, the system would query other cable boxes in the neighborhood to determine if any of them had a copy, and download it from there if someone local had it. The user still needed to buy a "license" to view the movie. As far as the user was concerned, his on-demand movie worked like it always did, but the system was much more efficient because not every request would involve a server. In fact, the more popular a movie is, the less server bandwidth it would consume!
Some content distribution will have to move to P2P, if for no other reason than to save on bandwith costs. The person who figures out how to do it (while keeping content providers happy) will make a lot of money.
Sounds like it's going to be a cheezy article.
According to SCO's chart, Linux is SCO's bitch.
So, if Linux has an "SCO Pedigree", can we just agree that UnixWare is a dog and get this whole controversy over with?
It's September 19th! Somebody mod this scurvy lad up! Y'arr!
While certain localities may have given these ratings the force of law (I seem to remember something about Cincinatti and video games, too lazy to google the specifics), in most places you won't get arrested for buying a mature video game or going to an NC-17 movie if you are underage. However, most reputable establishments will follow the guidelines, and refuse to sell their product to underage people, which accomplishes the same purpose.
There certainly isn't anything illegal about possessing a Mature-rated game if you are underage, which is why video-game ratings are kind of useless, because the parents buy a lot of those games for their children without bothering to examine the content. And even if you, as a parent, care enough to not buy the game, I guarantee your child has a friend whose parents bought it for them, so there's no possible way to "shelter" them from these video games. At least theaters can see every patron who will ever use their product, and weed out the obviously underage people, but video game sellers have no clue who is going to actually use their product...
Perhaps Scott is smoking some of the same crack that Darl is smoking...
Note that in order to be legal in Canada, you need to copy off of original media -- second-generation copies are probably not allowed. Hence, the P2P implications are murky (unless you have that particular CD in your CD drive, and that's what you're sharing P2P.)
And, the DMCA may not be what makes file sharing illegal, but it enabled the RIAA to subpoena the ISP's for people's personal information. Without the DMCA, the RIAA wouldn't know where to find all the file-sharing 12-year-olds.
How do you have time to make so many posts here (and on K5)?
OK, Cedric, let's look at what I actually wrote...
However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes.
OK, so that sentence doesn't parse very well, but this is /., you're lucky that I tried to be coherent. And, I admit that I'm a hardware engineer, and not a software engineer, but I've seen plenty of projects (both hardware and software) use code of questionable legality. And commercial development models almost encourage this, because if you are infringing on someone else's rights, it can be impossible for the other party to prove it.
Open Source development has to be on firmer legal ground to exist at all.
I was strictly talking about the legalities of the development model. Whether or not it is good or well thought-out w/r/t software development is something I don't have a clue about, although its sucess in certain areas indicates something....
Mr. McBride is a troll. don't feed. Normally, if you ignore a troll, he goes away, and we're all happier. In this case, if you ignore this troll, we all get invoices for $699.
This is quite a well-crafted piece of FUD: it perpetuates the notion that Linux is being developed by a bunck of pimply-faced hackers in their parents' basements, and that the developers don't care about IP rights at all. In fact, he is making the hidden accusation that the current open source development model does not "respect the rules of law"
However, the Open-Source Development Model is the most thought-out software development model that I know of, as far as a legal sense goes. Let's face it: who actually reads and follows those shrink-wrapped software licenses? I'm willing to bet that the only people who take them seriously are the open-source developers and users, because the license is the only legal right they have to open-source code. (They're also possibly the only ones anal enough to read the entire click-through license on commercial software). I've always held that if more people actually read what was in those commercial software licenses, there would be a lot more people swearing off commercial software for good.
The GPL and BSD licenses are well-crafted legal documents, and the transparency of the development process should put to rest all patent and copyright infringement concerns: if something infringes, the proof is there for everyone to see, and the maintainers are responsible for removing it, because it never should have been there in the first place. When Microsoft or SCO violates a source-code patent, there's no way of knowing because you can't see the code!
Given many recent statements by people related to SCO (including the Perens quote that others here have said is taken out of context, and SCO's blanket assertion of rights over BSD code that looks to be included in the AT&T settlemnent) that have turned out to be, at best, exaggerations, and at worst, outright lies and mischaracterizations, one has to wonder which side has more respect for the rules of law.
Remember that the GPL is only as valid as the copyright laws it is based on. And copyright is, after all, an artificial right granted by the government. Who will sue the government of China if they violate the GPL?
Taiwan should ditch their Windows boxes for something more secure. Like, say, Red Flag Linux?
Never click on a link with the word "goat" in it.
Prohibition was a bit of a different issue. It's a case study on the pitfalls of legislating morality. It also was a relatively recent phenomenon when they overturned it, and there was not a long history of prohibition in the country to have to counter. It was, simply put, a social experiment gone wrong, and the people who started it were alive to fix it.
That's not to say that copyright law isn't based on morality (although few people object to Copyright on religious grounds) but it also has a basis in property law. IP is not exactly like real property, but the courts have treated them similarly in the past. Copyright is also a very old concept that has been around for hundreds of years, working quite nicely for most of that time -- it won't go away simply because some people want it to today.
Lately, it seems the balance of copyright law has tilted toward the distribution oligopolies. That can change without junking all of copyright. And the Free Software movement have used Copyright to further their goals of the widest possible distribution of software: making Piracy legal or legitimate would undermine this movement because it is based on copyright.