That is the key phrase. If the user agrees to ALL of the terms of the GPL, they have the right to use the software. If they do not, then they do not have the right to use the software, and are then in the first place in violation themselves.
It may have to come down to the simple fact that there is no one to sue using GPL software. Fine. So what, if a company or anyone cannot accept that risk, they can buy an EULA from IBM or Oracle, and that will give them someone to sue.
We are not required to have someone to sue. There are risks in life, and some will never get over this one. They won't be using Free software.
And anyway, if a GPL copyright holder puts it in writing that they are responsible for any damages, then thats who you sue. The GPL copyright holder; which is almost an oxymoron in this sense, if you think about it.
Are you guys really concerned about this BudNet? Who cares if Budweiser is able to tell so much about their customer base.. they can't tell that you bought a beer at 10 PM on Tuesday or whatever. If they could, then yeah thats a problem, but just because they know that their consumers in Area Y are College Educated and like to buy warm beer on Tuesdays, who cares?
True enough about the utilities.. although, as an aside, phone service is a utility and we have choices (at least here in Denver) of who provides our home phone service..
Though I didn't state it, I didn't mean to infer that the Internet only would have come about had AT&T been broken up. I recognize that it was created outside of AT&T by DARPA, but my point is that the explosion of home connected users, DSL connections, ISPs providing services over the phone lines, etc. would not have come about had AT&T not been broken up, and in the aftermath of that breakup having the rules change in that now you can operate whatever you want to over the phone lines. As it was before, AT&T had control, and if they didn't approve of the machine accessing the phone line, then that access was illegal. If AT&T was still a monopoly and thus had that same level of control, would we be seeing VOIP now? I doubt it.
So the Internet may well have existed, but our access to it as a society would probably not be what it is today (or has been since 1994+).
Also monopolies exist to make sure that there never will be another monopoly in their field. I find it highly unlikely that AT&T would have allowed any one else to create another service (cellular in this case) that would supplant their own. Even if you say they had no control, I think that they would have. What good would a cell phone be if you couldn't call land based lines? AT&T had control, so its more likely they would have bought that competitor in their infancy or made their services non-interoperable.
But progress in anything does not happen when only one single-minded entity has control of something. Only when disruptive ideas are allowed to flourish is progress made.
One thing I am assuming is that you haven't read The Future Of Ideas. I'd be interested to know what you thought after you read it.
> In a free and open society, Monopolies are short lived, because people find OTHER WAYS of doing the same thing.
In a place called Euphoria, you may be right, but we do not live in a free and open society. At least not in the sense that our level of "free and open"-ness would prevent a monopoly from taking over a market permanently. As an example, look at what AT&T was to the USA before it was broken up.. the internet never would have flourished as it did if AT&T was still in control of all our phone lines.
And are you saying that the reason we don't have popular alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels is that there isn't just one company in charge of giving us that oil?
I think you place too much faith in the benevolence of corporations. A corporation only changes because it has to in response to market forces. If it controls the market, there is little incentive for change. Corporations do what makes them money, and are not fond of disruptions to whatever process that is. In fact, I would argue that the reason we do not have more popular alternatives to hyrdocarbon fuels is that there are not enough independant companies doing research and trying to find ways to profit from cleaner fuels, not because the few that are in control do not have enough market control to effect that change.
SoI don't agree with your characterization of monopoly forces in the market.
I do agree with your characterization of Open Source, in that it leads to a more efficient society. But that benefit is precisely because there is no monopoly in control. It is because everyone and anyone can have control that it becomes what is good for everyone and anyone. If an Open Source project couldn't be reshaped by someone else into what they deemed proper, we would be in the same position that we are now with [insert monopoly name here], in that we as a society have to take what they give us, and are not presented with alternatives.
I think that ignorance of the populace is definitely a problem.. but not our biggest one.. apathy of the populace, and a corruption of the system are two bigger problems. By "apathy of the populace" I mean that the populace doesn't care to know what is really wrong with society, or what could be done better. And if they do know, its not so bad to them (in comparison to other issues in their lives) that they feel they must do something about it. So they don't do anything about it and the wrong that they know about is not addressed, or at least not in a manner grand enough to cause it to be rectified. Everyone falls into this category. We all have our issues, we all have our causes that we think should be addressed to make the world a better place. And for the most part, we're right. But the corruption of the system, our biggest problem, is what really keeps things like this "Big Broadband" idea from happening. If the system wasn't corrupted and bought out by corporate interests bent on maintaining the status quo, we/.'ers wouldn't have a lot of things to complain about, and the world would no doubt be a better place.
Why else would ANYBODY balk at the idea of a government buying voting machines that had any doubt of their accuracy?
Why else would ANYBODY even think of burdening an efficient and cheaper method of communication with taxes and regulation simply because it would be taking money away from the current system?
Why would ANYONE dismiss the idea of promoting cleaner burning fuels in our cars and homes, at the expense of maintaining the polluting fuels that we currently use?
Why else would ANYONE think that society is better off by extending the period that it cannot use a creative work by any amount of time?
For just those four examples, among a myriad more, the answer is money. In all of those cases, if they were to be followed to their complete and logical conclusion, the lives of members of our society would likely be improved, but somebody is going to lose their cash cow. So they use the proceeds of their cash cow to keep it going by buying our government, and suppressing the knowledge that could be given to our apathetic populace that there is a better way; the knowledge that will empower them to collectivize and effect change.
So to some extent it is propaganda and ignorance, but I think more so, it is the corruption of our process that keeps things that are so obviously beneficial from coming about sooner, and exposing their benefits to society.
>Open source - starts off with lots of exploits, remains with lots of exploits because more 'community' resourses are being spent on breaking it than fixing it. Over time, software becomes irrelevant.
Thats really not a very realistic possibility.. Say some software was released and full of exploits that could potentially bring down the human race as we know it. If such software was released, and it served a useful purpose for even a relatively small number of people (just to give it a number, say 1,000), and it was being actively maintained, its exploits would be fixed. Why would anybody taking the time to maintain a project do it to add exploits? And if anybody did just add exploits, why would anybody use the software? Also, if people were in desperate need of the software, but it was being corrupted, someone would fork the project and create a trustworthy distribution.
Open Source works because it does what people want it to do. If a project doesn't do what people want it to do, it is either abandoned (and good riddance, anyway), or someone will pick up the ball and make it do what they want it to do.
But you knew that.. You couldn't honestly believe the community would spend more time destroying the value of its software than adding to it, could you?
I would be glad to lose my job if it meant that the world was a better place. Being able to contact anyone in the world, for FREE, to me makes this world a better place. The world and the people who had jobs before a technology comes into play, will adjust. Those typewriter repair folks have found new jobs and ways to cope with the loss of their industry since word processing became "the way its done." For most of use, thats an example just from our generation. History is filled with examples of industries destroyed by new technology, but we're still here, and better off than we were before said technology came around.
With open source software, for me the greatest value that we get from it, and the jobs it destroys, is knowledge. Unfettered knowledge that leads to creativity and creativity that leads to making the world a better place. A place in which our lives are more enjoyable. Sure we have to have jobs to pay for our daily living, but the more in the world that can be done easier, more accessible, and with less cost, the better for the world.
We know that, but the average user still doesn't care.. its not worth the effort for them to download and install another browser.
I think until IT departments come around and start installing Mozilla on their desktops, for mail and web browsing, most people will not care/know about alternatives to IE. Regardless of how many viruses they get. Really, just think how long people have been getting viruses through Outlook/Outlook Express/IE. How many of those people have switched?
Instead of being an Anonymous Coward, you really should report those violations to the FSF. Part of the problem in people not respecting the community spirit of the GPL is that there's a perception that nothing is going to be done about it. We all as a community need to be the watchdogs for these violations. You might say that with enough eyes, all violations are shallow.
Why is it so hard for electronic voting to be done correctly?! This should be absolutely intolerable. Enough people already do not vote, and this does nothing to increase voter confidence. Whatever government agency that is most responsible for voting and making sure of its accuracy should start an open source and open hardware project. Call it USAVote or something. By the time the 2008 elections come around, and probably before that we could have a secure, relatively problem free solution to our current problem.
Why is it so hard for our government to see and act on this? I understand money is what makes the world go 'round, and whatever private companies that do voting have given a lot of money to make sure they keep doing voting, but this is ridiculous. What if all the losing candidates got together to call for this reform? I think that could help bring more attention to this dire need.
Is there anybody out there that does research for prior art to invalidate patents specifically related to software? There are a lot of obviously invalid patents because of prior art, and we all know the world would be a better place without them. I just got this idea from this story.. I think there is a great need to have a group like this, or at least a place where people can post info on any prior art they know of. Maybe just having a central place to post would be a springboard..
Can you post some links to give some context to the link you provided? I did a cursory look at the eff site and didn't see where that doc came from or what it related too..
or camels nose under the tent, whatever way you want to explain it, this is very cool. Something I just realized, if enough governments or corporate arenas move to open source software, inertia will help us bring down Microsoft because they will have to create there software to interoperate. If they don't, their current customers will not be able to communicate as effectively with our open source bretheren. The tables will have turned. The tables are turning. Thats very cool.
Thats assuming that a web designer would purposely implement something that 80-90% of web users wouldn't be able to use. Thats a big assumption. I think its more likely that companies will code to what IE can do, rather than what is technically possible.
I think thats a pretty far chance.. most Web browser users don't even know there is another better browser to use IE does what they need, and with little effort on their part. So there's no need for them to look for another solution, so unless it comes from a major marketing effort to get the word out, regular users (about 89 of IEs 90% share) won't leave IE.
Its basically a move.. If it was a fork, AOL would still be controlling the project. A new non-profit has been created which is taking control of the codebase.
For those who didn't know (like me) here is some info on RAII..
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?do ci d=8673&group_id=9028
Re:The displacement of responsibility
on
P2P Meets Push
·
· Score: 1
I think they are pretty safe, especially with the recent decision that Kazaa and Grokster are not responsible for the copyright infringement going on on their networks. Once a user contacts a Kast hostcatcher, they connect to the network outside of the Konspire folks. Even Kast can be run by anyone, so the only person left to sue is the individual user.
Re:It's just getting better...
on
P2P Meets Push
·
· Score: 1
Limewire searches on Gnutella are getting better with searching by Genre.. not 100% as I would expect, but still kinda useful. You might wanna give that a try..
But I think his question, which is a valid one, is what if it is a GPL DNS server? Is that still a combined program? I'd say no. If there was a line to be set, physical machine boundaries should be it, if not even closer.
Slashdot Mirror
> AGREED TO IN WRITING
That is the key phrase. If the user agrees to ALL of the terms of the GPL, they have the right to use the software. If they do not, then they do not have the right to use the software, and are then in the first place in violation themselves.
It may have to come down to the simple fact that there is no one to sue using GPL software. Fine. So what, if a company or anyone cannot accept that risk, they can buy an EULA from IBM or Oracle, and that will give them someone to sue.
We are not required to have someone to sue. There are risks in life, and some will never get over this one. They won't be using Free software.
And anyway, if a GPL copyright holder puts it in writing that they are responsible for any damages, then thats who you sue. The GPL copyright holder; which is almost an oxymoron in this sense, if you think about it.
Hax.
Are you guys really concerned about this BudNet? Who cares if Budweiser is able to tell so much about their customer base.. they can't tell that you bought a beer at 10 PM on Tuesday or whatever. If they could, then yeah thats a problem, but just because they know that their consumers in Area Y are College Educated and like to buy warm beer on Tuesdays, who cares?
why care? may be a better question..
Hax.
True enough about the utilities.. although, as an aside, phone service is a utility and we have choices (at least here in Denver) of who provides our home phone service..
Though I didn't state it, I didn't mean to infer that the Internet only would have come about had AT&T been broken up. I recognize that it was created outside of AT&T by DARPA, but my point is that the explosion of home connected users, DSL connections, ISPs providing services over the phone lines, etc. would not have come about had AT&T not been broken up, and in the aftermath of that breakup having the rules change in that now you can operate whatever you want to over the phone lines. As it was before, AT&T had control, and if they didn't approve of the machine accessing the phone line, then that access was illegal. If AT&T was still a monopoly and thus had that same level of control, would we be seeing VOIP now? I doubt it.
So the Internet may well have existed, but our access to it as a society would probably not be what it is today (or has been since 1994+).
Also monopolies exist to make sure that there never will be another monopoly in their field. I find it highly unlikely that AT&T would have allowed any one else to create another service (cellular in this case) that would supplant their own. Even if you say they had no control, I think that they would have. What good would a cell phone be if you couldn't call land based lines? AT&T had control, so its more likely they would have bought that competitor in their infancy or made their services non-interoperable.
But progress in anything does not happen when only one single-minded entity has control of something. Only when disruptive ideas are allowed to flourish is progress made.
One thing I am assuming is that you haven't read The Future Of Ideas. I'd be interested to know what you thought after you read it.
Hax.
> In a free and open society, Monopolies are short lived, because people find OTHER WAYS of doing the same thing.
In a place called Euphoria, you may be right, but we do not live in a free and open society. At least not in the sense that our level of "free and open"-ness would prevent a monopoly from taking over a market permanently. As an example, look at what AT&T was to the USA before it was broken up.. the internet never would have flourished as it did if AT&T was still in control of all our phone lines.
And are you saying that the reason we don't have popular alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels is that there isn't just one company in charge of giving us that oil?
I think you place too much faith in the benevolence of corporations. A corporation only changes because it has to in response to market forces. If it controls the market, there is little incentive for change. Corporations do what makes them money, and are not fond of disruptions to whatever process that is. In fact, I would argue that the reason we do not have more popular alternatives to hyrdocarbon fuels is that there are not enough independant companies doing research and trying to find ways to profit from cleaner fuels, not because the few that are in control do not have enough market control to effect that change.
SoI don't agree with your characterization of monopoly forces in the market.
I do agree with your characterization of Open Source, in that it leads to a more efficient society. But that benefit is precisely because there is no monopoly in control. It is because everyone and anyone can have control that it becomes what is good for everyone and anyone. If an Open Source project couldn't be reshaped by someone else into what they deemed proper, we would be in the same position that we are now with [insert monopoly name here], in that we as a society have to take what they give us, and are not presented with alternatives.
Hax.
I think that ignorance of the populace is definitely a problem.. but not our biggest one.. apathy of the populace, and a corruption of the system are two bigger problems. By "apathy of the populace" I mean that the populace doesn't care to know what is really wrong with society, or what could be done better. And if they do know, its not so bad to them (in comparison to other issues in their lives) that they feel they must do something about it. So they don't do anything about it and the wrong that they know about is not addressed, or at least not in a manner grand enough to cause it to be rectified. Everyone falls into this category. We all have our issues, we all have our causes that we think should be addressed to make the world a better place. And for the most part, we're right. But the corruption of the system, our biggest problem, is what really keeps things like this "Big Broadband" idea from happening. If the system wasn't corrupted and bought out by corporate interests bent on maintaining the status quo, we /.'ers wouldn't have a lot of things to complain about, and the world would no doubt be a better place.
Why else would ANYBODY balk at the idea of a government buying voting machines that had any doubt of their accuracy?
Why else would ANYBODY even think of burdening an efficient and cheaper method of communication with taxes and regulation simply because it would be taking money away from the current system?
Why would ANYONE dismiss the idea of promoting cleaner burning fuels in our cars and homes, at the expense of maintaining the polluting fuels that we currently use?
Why else would ANYONE think that society is better off by extending the period that it cannot use a creative work by any amount of time?
For just those four examples, among a myriad more, the answer is money. In all of those cases, if they were to be followed to their complete and logical conclusion, the lives of members of our society would likely be improved, but somebody is going to lose their cash cow. So they use the proceeds of their cash cow to keep it going by buying our government, and suppressing the knowledge that could be given to our apathetic populace that there is a better way; the knowledge that will empower them to collectivize and effect change.
So to some extent it is propaganda and ignorance, but I think more so, it is the corruption of our process that keeps things that are so obviously beneficial from coming about sooner, and exposing their benefits to society.
Hax.
>I submit another very realistic possibility:
>Open source - starts off with lots of exploits, remains with lots of exploits because more 'community' resourses are being spent on breaking it than fixing it. Over time, software becomes irrelevant.
Thats really not a very realistic possibility.. Say some software was released and full of exploits that could potentially bring down the human race as we know it. If such software was released, and it served a useful purpose for even a relatively small number of people (just to give it a number, say 1,000), and it was being actively maintained, its exploits would be fixed. Why would anybody taking the time to maintain a project do it to add exploits? And if anybody did just add exploits, why would anybody use the software? Also, if people were in desperate need of the software, but it was being corrupted, someone would fork the project and create a trustworthy distribution.
Open Source works because it does what people want it to do. If a project doesn't do what people want it to do, it is either abandoned (and good riddance, anyway), or someone will pick up the ball and make it do what they want it to do.
But you knew that.. You couldn't honestly believe the community would spend more time destroying the value of its software than adding to it, could you?
Hax.
I would be glad to lose my job if it meant that the world was a better place. Being able to contact anyone in the world, for FREE, to me makes this world a better place. The world and the people who had jobs before a technology comes into play, will adjust. Those typewriter repair folks have found new jobs and ways to cope with the loss of their industry since word processing became "the way its done." For most of use, thats an example just from our generation. History is filled with examples of industries destroyed by new technology, but we're still here, and better off than we were before said technology came around.
With open source software, for me the greatest value that we get from it, and the jobs it destroys, is knowledge. Unfettered knowledge that leads to creativity and creativity that leads to making the world a better place. A place in which our lives are more enjoyable. Sure we have to have jobs to pay for our daily living, but the more in the world that can be done easier, more accessible, and with less cost, the better for the world.
Hax.
We know that, but the average user still doesn't care.. its not worth the effort for them to download and install another browser.
I think until IT departments come around and start installing Mozilla on their desktops, for mail and web browsing, most people will not care/know about alternatives to IE. Regardless of how many viruses they get. Really, just think how long people have been getting viruses through Outlook/Outlook Express/IE. How many of those people have switched?
Instead of being an Anonymous Coward, you really should report those violations to the FSF. Part of the problem in people not respecting the community spirit of the GPL is that there's a perception that nothing is going to be done about it. We all as a community need to be the watchdogs for these violations. You might say that with enough eyes, all violations are shallow.
Hax.
> PS - what's with this 3rd person shit?
Haxwell is glad somebody else noticed that, too.
Why is it so hard for electronic voting to be done correctly?! This should be absolutely intolerable. Enough people already do not vote, and this does nothing to increase voter confidence. Whatever government agency that is most responsible for voting and making sure of its accuracy should start an open source and open hardware project. Call it USAVote or something. By the time the 2008 elections come around, and probably before that we could have a secure, relatively problem free solution to our current problem.
Why is it so hard for our government to see and act on this? I understand money is what makes the world go 'round, and whatever private companies that do voting have given a lot of money to make sure they keep doing voting, but this is ridiculous. What if all the losing candidates got together to call for this reform? I think that could help bring more attention to this dire need.
Hax.
Is there anybody out there that does research for prior art to invalidate patents specifically related to software? There are a lot of obviously invalid patents because of prior art, and we all know the world would be a better place without them. I just got this idea from this story.. I think there is a great need to have a group like this, or at least a place where people can post info on any prior art they know of. Maybe just having a central place to post would be a springboard..
Anyone?
Hax.
Can you post some links to give some context to the link you provided? I did a cursory look at the eff site and didn't see where that doc came from or what it related too..
Thanks..
Hax.
A search of Linux on Slashdot returns only one entry..
Hax.
or camels nose under the tent, whatever way you want to explain it, this is very cool. Something I just realized, if enough governments or corporate arenas move to open source software, inertia will help us bring down Microsoft because they will have to create there software to interoperate. If they don't, their current customers will not be able to communicate as effectively with our open source bretheren. The tables will have turned. The tables are turning. Thats very cool.
Remember, too, your never ending access to w33d :)
I think you missed somethin.. Look up.. there's a joke over your head..
Thats assuming that a web designer would purposely implement something that 80-90% of web users wouldn't be able to use. Thats a big assumption. I think its more likely that companies will code to what IE can do, rather than what is technically possible.
I think thats a pretty far chance.. most Web browser users don't even know there is another better browser to use IE does what they need, and with little effort on their part. So there's no need for them to look for another solution, so unless it comes from a major marketing effort to get the word out, regular users (about 89 of IEs 90% share) won't leave IE.
Its basically a move.. If it was a fork, AOL would still be controlling the project. A new non-profit has been created which is taking control of the codebase.
For those who didn't know (like me) here is some info on RAII..
o ci d=8673&group_id=9028
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?d
I think they are pretty safe, especially with the recent decision that Kazaa and Grokster are not responsible for the copyright infringement going on on their networks. Once a user contacts a Kast hostcatcher, they connect to the network outside of the Konspire folks. Even Kast can be run by anyone, so the only person left to sue is the individual user.
Limewire searches on Gnutella are getting better with searching by Genre.. not 100% as I would expect, but still kinda useful. You might wanna give that a try..
The exception in this case being that you would have to explicitly subscribe to the spammer.. and then I guess he isn't really a spammer.
But I think his question, which is a valid one, is what if it is a GPL DNS server? Is that still a combined program? I'd say no. If there was a line to be set, physical machine boundaries should be it, if not even closer.