If enacted as written, state agencies would be able to buy
software only from companies that do not place restrictions on use or access to
source code."
Does the law actually say: "companies that do not place restrictions on use
or access to source code"? If so that would be unfair, and the law should be
changed. We should allow any company to participate. But if the law would say
"all software used by the government should meet these requirements...." that
would be fine.
The government has every right to specify software licenses. A software
license isn't some irrelevant piece of paper. It's integral to, and inseperable
from the software. Since many licenses restrict "use" of the software, they
presumably kick in as soon as the software is loaded. So, if the government is
allowed to specify the behavior of the software, they should also be able to
specify limitations on the license.
All of the problems that might crop up with using closed-source software can
quickly and predictably be solved by mandating that the source code be
publically available. (Vendor lock-in, unauditable software behavior, privacy,
security, etc). This doesn't mean "Linux" or "GPL" (though those already meet
the requirements). The government doesn't have specify a particular license,
just that the software has to be available in source code form and can be
freely copied and used by the public. Any company can submit, even Microsoft. They can charge whatever they think is a fair price for the software and for the support.
Another quote:
But what we're getting is attempts to *require* use of Open
Source software - effectively criminalizing an official' s decision to buy
commercial software to meet their needs.
Interesting way to put it.. it's also similarly "criminal" for an official to
buy Tetris as the department's accounting software. Or to hire a pastry chef to
do important accounting.
The government has one overreaching responsibility: to serve the public. If
a piece of software doesn't allow the public that paid for it to inspect it and
use it, it doesn't meet the government's needs. By focusing only on the
technical aspects of the software, and treating licenses as interchangeable
pieces of paper, you make a big mistake. Some licenses serve the public
interest better than others. That's why there's an Open Source movement to
begin with.
By asking for government mandates on software purchasing,
they're practically inviting the commercial software developers to lobby for
legislation forbidding Open Source, in response to 'our' efforts to require
it.
This statement doesn't make any sense. Companies lobby and fight for their
benefit all the time. And how about commercial open-source software developers,
won't they lobby on the other side?
Require officials to document their acquisition critieria,
require companies to publish their licensing policies, insist on use of open
file formats for publicly accessible documents.
Now now, you're being unfair to companies that have secretive license
policies and proprietary file formats! We should allow companies their choice of
secrets so we can "level the playing field". Use the best technology for the
job I say, don't worry about the strings attached.
If the government can mandate open file formats and open licensing, they can
do the same for source code, which will create the same kinds of benefits.
Does this make any sense? Wouldn't a legislative agenda of
increasing openness, rather than mandating choices, be more in keeping with the
philosophy and culture of Open Source?
Mandating open source software would be "a legislative agenda of increasing
openness". There would be less secrets in government computing procedures that
affect the public, and there would be less secrecy in licenses, and there'd be
less problems with interoperability and vendor lock-in. Sounds like a good
deal.
Now honestly, sitting here today, I'm not too worried about whether tax forms are prepared on a
Windows machine or a Linux machine inside the IRS and stuff like that. But computers are important
parts of our lives, and the power computers hold over us is growing every day.
If the government uses codes that affect aspects of our lives, and pays with our tax
dollars for those codes, we have the right to know how they work and no
single company should have the right to any part of it. There's
simply too much risk for abuse.
I find it unbelievable that so many here say it's "morally wrong" for the
government to specify licenses. Some licenses are more closely aligned with the
democratic process (just like some economic systems are more aligned with the
democratic process). The government should, whenever possible, choose those
licenses.
Easy to solve, just remove all alternatives except text/plain. Since they are supposed to be the same content, this won't affect normal legit messages.
That's what I do on my mail, if there are multiple alternatives, and one of them is text/plain, remove the others.
And I also defang img tags so I wouldn't see the image either. If I didn't use Mutt most of the time, anyway.
Written in Expect, just playing around, probably I got the idea from something else (or maybe something that came with Expect), so there must be other similar programs that were distributed to the public! In fact you could almost call Expect a "bot toolkit". The date on the file is Nov.1997. I don't know if it works since I don't have talkd installed.
It sets up a "humanized" typing pattern, tries to talk to someone, asks them if they've heard of a turing test (and makes/corrects some mistakes to look more human). Then it calls them a moron and quits.:-)
Sorry/. ate the non-breaking spaces I put in but you get the idea...
- - - - -
#!/usr/local/bin/expect -f
spawn talk user@localhost
set timeout 200
expect -re "nable |not logged|refusing" exit "established*"
send -h "Hey...\n"
send -h "I just wanted to knwo if\177\177\177\177\177ow if you had "
send -h "ever heard of a\n"
send -h "silly thing called the \"turing test\"??\n"
send -h "\nwell, ti \177\177\177it works like this:\n"
send -h "a human sits at a terminal, and talks to a computer or human and\n"
send -h "tries to decide which is which.\nnow type \"bye\" you moron..."
expect "*bye*"
set seen 0
set timeout 10
expect {
timeout {
if {$seen == 1} {send -h "\nI'm still waiting...\n"}
if {$seen == 0} {send -h "\nI'm waiting...\n"}
set seen 1
exp_continue
}
"bye"
}
This is inevitable. Anything with someone's "intellectual property" in it (i.e., pretty much everything you buy, in some cases a lot of the stuff you make yourself) is subject to this nonesense.
Examples of shrink-licensable stuff:
Anything containing written words: books, magazines, computer code, etc.
Anything containing trademarked logos/sounds/etc or housed in distinctive trade dress: computers, cars, shoes, soft drink bottles, T-shirts with big corporate logos, etc.
Anything containing patented technology: ziploc bags, telephones, pens, pencils, lots of software, etc.
So pretty much everything. All they have to do is hinge it on the fact that they never explicitly authorized you to display that trademark in public, or allowed you to use the patented pen in your place of business. Ignoring the fact that they actually sold it to you.
The only recourse seems to be: don't buy it and hope that you can function in the world without it.
Well okay so maybe the tail is 100 times the size of the dog, but it's still bizarre to read things like this:
The Microsoft licensing terms...specify that PC makers must ship PCs with an operating system.
I think it's safe to say that the concept of a "software license" is completely out of hand when a software license can dictate another company's product line.
Another strangely funny quote:
Dell's approach has been to sell customers what they want.
What a crazy idea! Who are these "Dell" people? They should sell customers what DELL wants! And lobby for laws that disallow everything else! That's the New Capitalism! Get with the program!
Hmm then again I guess you could parse that sentence so that "they" could refer to Microsoft..
I've posted this before but I'll mention it again. Licenses are not all equivalent. The GPL and Open Source licenses are not "development models" as Microsoft calls them. They affect the end-use of the software, and they affect the end-users ability to inspect the software for defects, they affect the re-use of the software, they affect all aspects of the software's life. In all these respects, there is a clear advantage to GPL-type licensing to the public-at-large ("public domain" is in that set of licenses too).
Microsoft (and friends) would love for you to just "focus on the best technology" and not pay any attention to the license elephant in the room, but that's just so they can slip their arbitrary limitations into the license, and get the government on their treadmill. They want to perpetuate the idea that licenses can limit "use". They want to discredit the competition by calling them "anti-capitalistic". But don't just focus on the technology. The choice of license is an integral part of the software product.
It's completely appropriate for the government to specify licensing. When requesting bids, the government can specify what language a product is in (i.e., English), they can specify the behavior of the product, they can specify how many copies they need, they can specify what standards it uses. If the government passes a law saying that the licensing requirement is fixed and must always be a certain type of license, and in fact their requirement is beneficial to the public whose tax dollars funded the software, that's fine.
The government doesn't exist to fund software companies. It exists to serve the public. The government is in a unique position: it doesn't need copyright to enrich the public domain of knowledge, it can just use tax dollars to fund research (including software development) and immediately turn around and put that in the public domain.
As an aside, the ability to specify all these aspects of software is available to any entity buying software. But the government has a special role, it not only wants to minimize costs and maximize benefits, it also has to serve the public that funds it.
If public funds are used for software, then it should be available to the public for inspection and use. Think about it. Let's say the government needs some software to process taxes. YOUR taxes. Why shouldn't you be able to download a copy and inspect it?
And what if you need special software on your PC to interoperate with the government computers for some reason. Let me guess.. Windows/Mac only? No source code available? Can't put a copy on your web site? Government software should be no less a secret that government forms, documents, and standards.
I see nothing wrong with a law specifying the license terms of government-procured software. This has nothing to do with "free markets", folks. The government is a single software-buying entity in a vast market of buyers, who also happens to have a very special set of "shareholders": the citizens of the United States.
#0. Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope.
The act of
running the Program is not restricted...
#9.
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.
I would like to see the equivalent choice in the Microsoft license (which changes with every product anyway).
I feel a bit more coerced when I put money down for a Microsoft product and then I'm not allowed to use it at all unless I agree to the terms. That's not just coercive, it's bullshit.
the most important point of the article
on
Distributed Security
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Technological solutions for social problems (like legislative ones) are only as good as their worst failure mode.
I'm tempted to write more in this/. comment but I think that idea is pretty deep. The article (for those who didn't want to read it all, I don't blame you) describes how Schneier came to realize this.
I believe one of our ex-presidents (LBJ perhaps) has a quote where he expresses the same idea about laws.
Unfortunately, the most effective solutions aren't always the ones chosen. Our current government seems to have no concept of the idea that you don't just have to "do something", you have to do the right "something".
Since/. readers are such a cynical and paranoid bunch, we can come up with all sorts of failure modes for today's "security". Imagine the dumb blank look that would appear on Ashcroft's face if you asked him "what if someone gets a copy of the fingerprint used in those biometric systems? will the federal government be paying for finger transplants?". Then after a few seconds the blank look will disappear, and the lies and bullshit would stream out.
Just like the TV talk shows. One intelligent guest will make a simple point ("what if they sharpen the edge of a credit card? isn't that more dangerous than a nail clipper?"), which to me would be an instant show-stopper, forcing me to stop and re-think the whole system, but then the other guests will pile the bullshit so high the point is quickly forgotten.
It makes you wonder if the legislators actually consulted any security experts (that weren't trying to sell something). Probably not.
Remember folks, the only reason we don't live in an Orwellian nightmare world is actually because it isn't technologically feasible.
As soon as it's possible and practical, in the next few years, it will happen on a wide and broad scale. If it's unpopular, they'll simply not publicize its use. If a few innocents are harrased by it (activists, anarchists, pagans, atheists, and other similar unAmericans), you won't hear a word. If by some sheer coincidence it actually assists in finding a terrorist pre-crime, they still won't say a word.
And I'm sure they'll find a few other uses for it. I mean if you're commiting a crime, it's a crime, no matter what, so what's the problem?
(Hmm, Citizen #95235345 just bought a DVD-R unit and downloaded a copy of DeCSS. Set his Awareness Level to 15%, and send a copy of his Dossier to Media Control for further study. Excellent, we might yet meet our Enforcement quota this week!)
But there is something that Microsoft says that always bothers me.
Many, including Microsoft, state that "choice" for the producers of software should include a choice between licenses like Free Software and "Microsoft EULA Software". But I find this hard to swallow especially in this context. Free Software and MS-type software are not equivalent choices the way a blue car and a red car are equivalent choices. The MS-type software can potentially give the copyright holder great powers over your computer, your software, your information, and you personally (I almost downloaded MoneyDance the other day, until I noticed the "Arbitrarion clause" where I'd theoretically waive my right to a jury trial. No thanks!). GPL-type software does no such things.
And of course corporate copyright holders will choose the most restrictive licenses, most beneficial to them. Normally this isn't a big problem, because you can avoid the software completely like I did with MoneyDance. For a government "of the people, for the people", however, the government should NOT support any software that limits user's rights beyond copyright law, and should definitely consider granting additional rights. The government should also not implicitly support the "unsigned contract" fallacy of licenses.
Going back to the MoneyDance/arbitration example, let's pretend that you have to buy MoneyDance in order to file your taxes with the government because they won the bid. Now we have the strange situation where the government is basically forcing people to waive some of their constitutionally-granted rights in order to fulfill a constitutionally-authorized responsibility. Not good!
A quote:
Public entities should procure the software that best meets their needs and should avoid any categorical preferences for open source software, commercial software, free software, or other software development models.
Microsoft is trying to force the idea that all licenses are equivalant. In fact they call Free Software a "development model". Something that's only important before the software is handed over to the user. But we know better. Licenses like Microsoft's that attempt to limit use of the software is definitely more than a development model. They affect you every time you start the software (if you assume the license is binding, which you pretty much have to do unless you have a lot of money and lawyers).
The government should choose a license category, just as they can specify any other aspects of the software. And Microsoft could deliver GPL software just as easily as they could deliver MS-EULA software.
Another quote:
Maintain a choice of strong intellectual property protections.
Since the copyright, etc., laws are the same for everybody, what Microsoft is saying by "choice of protections" is "choice of licenses".
Bruce didn't disagree with the principle, but I think we have to be careful. By definition, "intellectual property protection" (I assume they mean copyrights and patents specifically) takes away certain freedoms from society. If you want "strong" protection you are saying "give the copyright/patent holders more power to take away more freedom". That shouldn't be in a free society's interests.
In conclusion, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the government to mandate "limits on the limits" of licenses as part of the requirements. In fact it's necessary for them to fulfill their responsibilities to the public. Microsoft's rhetoric makes it seem as if all licenses are completely equivalent. But they're not of course, otherwise why would we be even having this discussion?
I actually thought about this, for a few minutes, while reading about quantum computation.
What if somebody discovers how to implement the Shor's quantum factoring algorithm, say, in their microwave oven, or with a cheap laser. Or not QC, just some teenager figures out how to factor numbers. Or there's a huge backdoor in Microsoft XYZ and 90% of the world's computers can be accessed at the push of a button (I'm talking even easier than you can hack windows now:-).
Well, as the poster says, maybe he'd just announce his discovery (maybe through a trusted Bruce Schneier type person in the case of crypto), and give everybody time to plan.
But would that be a good idea? Cracking crypto would be a pretty big deal. Like, foreign governments would assassinate you in two seconds to get that information. YOUR OWN government would probably not think twice about calling you a terrorist and shipping you to Cuba for "interrogation". And/or they'd discredit you and make you look like a fool to keep the information from coming out.
You'd probably be hunted for this information. It would be a huge discovery that would allow whoever had to gain quite a bit of power.
So my conclusion was, if you ever discover something like this, forget it. Destroy the machine, erase the notes. Let humanity find it on its own, go back to your day job.
Maybe you could come up with some way to prove you thought of it first, once someone else thinks of it, so you can take credit, but I sure wouldn't want to announce it up front.
In fact, it's possible something like this has already happened. Who knows?
in 1997: freedom of speech was understood by reading the following:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press;
in 2002: freedom of speech is understood by reading the following:
With the help of Boston College law professor Joe Liu, EFF worked with Huang, Abelson, and MIT administrators to analyze the legal issues and draft letters notifying Microsoft of Huang's research findings and intended publication...
Microsoft told Huang and Abelson that while it might prefer that the paper not be published, it would be inappropriate to ask MIT to withhold the paper.
"I was afraid to submit my research for peer review until after the EFF's efforts to clear potential legal restraints."
Welcome to America kids! If you're lucky, you'll get permission to publish your paper too!
Perhaps if you wear a colorful, fanciful hat, decorated with bells and chimes, and prance about most amusingly, the King will pity you and grant your wish.
C# is basically Java without a lot of the annoyances. (Unless of course you consider Microsoft itself a major annoyance..) For instance boxing/unboxing primitive types, get/set blocks for attributes (the getXxx/setXxx convention in Java is a little klugdy, imo)...a foreach operator... enums... delgates (like "function pointers")...other stuff..
Basically Microsoft did the usual microsoftish thing, they looked at what's available, ripped it off, and changed the bits that they thought were annoying.
I must say after reading some C# books on O'Reilly Safari I like C# a lot more than Java and am looking forward to 1) a C#->native code compiler for linux and 2) a C#->Java bytecode compiler (it must be possible).
The author is right, in spirit (even though I don't agree with every detail). Java is starting to look a little crusty. I believe the reason Java took off so much in the beginning was because people were desparate for a "better C++". Now as time goes on we need a "better Java", as we search for that elusive "perfect language"..
"working relationship" could also mean that 1) HP has a contact person assigned to snosoft, who will actually read and respond to snosoft's emails, and 2) snosoft will promise keep exploits and advisories quiet until HP says they are ready.
of course, you'd think this is how it would work anyway, without any formal agreements..
Interesting.. as some posters have pointed out, Zimbabwe's government is a bunch of thugs. But in America, the corps are the thugs:
[Monsanto] has used private detectives to identify and prosecute U.S. and Canadian farmers it suspects of saving patented seeds...
The article then mentions how Monsanto says the "policy would be adapted to accommodate local traditions in other countries". I'm not a farmer, and I'm certainly not a modern farmer dealing with this patent nonsense, but it strikes me as pretty damn fucked up that saving food seed from year to year is now illegal and considered a quaint "local tradition" in a few backwards third-world countries.
Though I suppose they should be thankful that King Monsanto is merciful enough to "accommodate" this "local tradition" of growing plants from your own seed. As soon as Zimbabwe is finally paved over and the shopping malls put up, we can revert back to the usual policy.
When will the "intellectual property" madness stop?
...we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.
Well, perhaps you don't realize, this is actually a contract. You're ONLY allowed to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car, and on the jogging trail.
If you could "rip" your "CD-like disc" willy-nilly, there's a danger you'd enjoy it at a friend's house, on a boat, in an airplane, in a shopping mall, on a sidewalk, at a cafe, in your back yard, or any number of places, which would clearly be a violation of the contract. We can't have that, can we?
I learned to mentally tune out web ads a long time ago (then I learned to tune them out with software). Same with magazines, to a certain extent. Though usually in a magazine I read it several times and catch more of the ads as I re-read it, which is impossible with rotating web ads. If the ad doesn't look like the content I'm expecting (for instance plain black and white text), or if it changes everytime I go to the same page, I don't see it.
Plus, I'd be afraid to click on them for fear of being tracked, or fear of "losing my place" in the page I'm surfing. I think if I saw an ad for something I wanted on the internet, at best I'd write down the URL and visit the main site later.
And pop-up ads are easy to ignore.. as soon a new small window appears while surfing, I close it. Sometimes I close a window that has some important information in it (like when logging into E*TRADE and they have information about a promotion or my account), but that's a small price to pay.
The best ads are the ones that are basically part of the content. Google, in other words... with Google I'm looking for something, so finding an ad about it can be helpful. And since they are all in the same textual format, they are easy to visually scan.
If I was reading/. and a small, static, textual ad appeared related to the article, I'd probably click on it. Any other ad is a complete waste of my screen.
Perhaps..though if I were looking at a license in this hypothetical database and there was a single sentence in a bright red font, and the rest was some other color, I think I'd read that one first.. so it would highlight the important parts!
I've thought about this myself. What I wanted to do was "color code" each phrase/sentence in the EULA, and come up with some "EULA-description markup language" for it. There would be a different color for each of these categories:
Redundant text (pink or gray maybe) - anything that repeats copyright law, i.e., "you may not distribute copies"
Dubious text (red) - anything that attempts to limit your rights further than copyright law, i.e., "you may not use this product to disparage microsoft".. I call it dubious because this is the stuff that shouldn't be binding unless you've signed a contract.
Descriptive text (blue) - anything that describes the behavior of the product or the company, i.e., "if multiple versions of this product are detected, we will drop a bomb on your grandmother's house", or "this product will delete the competitor's product upon installation". This isn't really "license"-related, but describes the product.
Rights-granting text (green) - anything that says you have permission from the copyright holder to do things you're not otherwise allowed to do, i.e., "you may distribute copies verbatim if you include this copyright notice"
Filler text (light green) - this is junk that you should ignore completely, such as any "summaries" (if the license is binding, it's the LICENSE that's binding, not any summary they may have written for your benefit). This also includes the stuff in the GPL about "freedom", which is nice to know, but not necessary.
Imagine having each license color-coded like this, you could even view thumbnails of the licenses to see which one was best, showing the different blocks of color at a glance. For instance, the GPL would probably be all "Filler" and "Rights-granting" and you could visually see that it indeed is more "consumer-friendly" (lots of green) than the average microsoft license (lots of red).
Also note, any license that says "the terms of this license are subject to change" should be treated specially (for instance, all BRIGHT RED), since, for all intents and purposes, it may change *completely* at any time, and could conceivably be 100% Dubious and should be treated as such.
I'd love to see something like this combined with a database of licenses.
Slashdot Mirror
Quote from the article:
Does the law actually say: "companies that do not place restrictions on use or access to source code"? If so that would be unfair, and the law should be changed. We should allow any company to participate. But if the law would say "all software used by the government should meet these requirements...." that would be fine.
The government has every right to specify software licenses. A software license isn't some irrelevant piece of paper. It's integral to, and inseperable from the software. Since many licenses restrict "use" of the software, they presumably kick in as soon as the software is loaded. So, if the government is allowed to specify the behavior of the software, they should also be able to specify limitations on the license.
All of the problems that might crop up with using closed-source software can quickly and predictably be solved by mandating that the source code be publically available. (Vendor lock-in, unauditable software behavior, privacy, security, etc). This doesn't mean "Linux" or "GPL" (though those already meet the requirements). The government doesn't have specify a particular license, just that the software has to be available in source code form and can be freely copied and used by the public. Any company can submit, even Microsoft. They can charge whatever they think is a fair price for the software and for the support.
Another quote:
Interesting way to put it.. it's also similarly "criminal" for an official to buy Tetris as the department's accounting software. Or to hire a pastry chef to do important accounting.
The government has one overreaching responsibility: to serve the public. If a piece of software doesn't allow the public that paid for it to inspect it and use it, it doesn't meet the government's needs. By focusing only on the technical aspects of the software, and treating licenses as interchangeable pieces of paper, you make a big mistake. Some licenses serve the public interest better than others. That's why there's an Open Source movement to begin with.
This statement doesn't make any sense. Companies lobby and fight for their benefit all the time. And how about commercial open-source software developers, won't they lobby on the other side?
Now now, you're being unfair to companies that have secretive license policies and proprietary file formats! We should allow companies their choice of secrets so we can "level the playing field". Use the best technology for the job I say, don't worry about the strings attached.
If the government can mandate open file formats and open licensing, they can do the same for source code, which will create the same kinds of benefits.
Mandating open source software would be "a legislative agenda of increasing openness". There would be less secrets in government computing procedures that affect the public, and there would be less secrecy in licenses, and there'd be less problems with interoperability and vendor lock-in. Sounds like a good deal.
Now honestly, sitting here today, I'm not too worried about whether tax forms are prepared on a Windows machine or a Linux machine inside the IRS and stuff like that. But computers are important parts of our lives, and the power computers hold over us is growing every day. If the government uses codes that affect aspects of our lives, and pays with our tax dollars for those codes, we have the right to know how they work and no single company should have the right to any part of it. There's simply too much risk for abuse.
I find it unbelievable that so many here say it's "morally wrong" for the government to specify licenses. Some licenses are more closely aligned with the democratic process (just like some economic systems are more aligned with the democratic process). The government should, whenever possible, choose those licenses.
Easy to solve, just remove all alternatives except text/plain. Since they are supposed to be the same content, this won't affect normal legit messages.
That's what I do on my mail, if there are multiple alternatives, and one of them is text/plain, remove the others.
And I also defang img tags so I wouldn't see the image either. If I didn't use Mutt most of the time, anyway.
I think I just wet my pants...
Written in Expect, just playing around, probably I got the idea from something else (or maybe something that came with Expect), so there must be other similar programs that were distributed to the public! In fact you could almost call Expect a "bot toolkit". The date on the file is Nov.1997. I don't know if it works since I don't have talkd installed.
It sets up a "humanized" typing pattern, tries to talk to someone, asks them if they've heard of a turing test (and makes/corrects some mistakes to look more human). Then it calls them a moron and quits. :-)
Sorry /. ate the non-breaking spaces I put in but you get the idea...
- - - - -
#!/usr/local/bin/expect -fspawn talk user@localhost
set timeout 200
expect -re "nable |not logged|refusing" exit "established*"
set send_human {.15
#set send_human {.15
send -h "Hey...\n"
send -h "I just wanted to knwo if\177\177\177\177\177ow if you had "
send -h "ever heard of a\n"
send -h "silly thing called the \"turing test\"??\n"
set timeout 25
expect {
"yes" {exec sleep 1 ; send -h "Er, I'll tell you anyway...\n"}
"no" {exec sleep 1}
}
send -h "\nwell, ti \177\177\177it works like this:\n"
send -h "a human sits at a terminal, and talks to a computer or human and\n"
send -h "tries to decide which is which.\nnow type \"bye\" you moron..."
expect "*bye*"
set seen 0
set timeout 10
expect {
timeout {
if {$seen == 1} {send -h "\nI'm still waiting...\n"}
if {$seen == 0} {send -h "\nI'm waiting...\n"}
set seen 1
exp_continue
}
"bye"
}
exec sleep 1
send -h "\nOk, bye!\n"
exec sleep 1
Oh, so you're a food pirate! Stealing your recipes instead of supporting the chefs that give you those recipes, by eating at their restaurants.
I bet you even have a "burner" in your kitchen, you THIEF!
signed,
President, Chefs Association of America
Here's one I use all the time.. just follow these easy steps:
Now, watch your Google ranking rise to the top! IT'S THAT EASY! And you'll laugh all the way to the bank!
This is inevitable. Anything with someone's "intellectual property" in it (i.e., pretty much everything you buy, in some cases a lot of the stuff you make yourself) is subject to this nonesense.
Examples of shrink-licensable stuff:
So pretty much everything. All they have to do is hinge it on the fact that they never explicitly authorized you to display that trademark in public, or allowed you to use the patented pen in your place of business. Ignoring the fact that they actually sold it to you.
The only recourse seems to be: don't buy it and hope that you can function in the world without it.
Well okay so maybe the tail is 100 times the size of the dog, but it's still bizarre to read things like this:
I think it's safe to say that the concept of a "software license" is completely out of hand when a software license can dictate another company's product line.
Another strangely funny quote:
What a crazy idea! Who are these "Dell" people? They should sell customers what DELL wants! And lobby for laws that disallow everything else! That's the New Capitalism! Get with the program!
Hmm then again I guess you could parse that sentence so that "they" could refer to Microsoft..
I've posted this before but I'll mention it again. Licenses are not all equivalent. The GPL and Open Source licenses are not "development models" as Microsoft calls them. They affect the end-use of the software, and they affect the end-users ability to inspect the software for defects, they affect the re-use of the software, they affect all aspects of the software's life. In all these respects, there is a clear advantage to GPL-type licensing to the public-at-large ("public domain" is in that set of licenses too).
Microsoft (and friends) would love for you to just "focus on the best technology" and not pay any attention to the license elephant in the room, but that's just so they can slip their arbitrary limitations into the license, and get the government on their treadmill. They want to perpetuate the idea that licenses can limit "use". They want to discredit the competition by calling them "anti-capitalistic". But don't just focus on the technology. The choice of license is an integral part of the software product.
It's completely appropriate for the government to specify licensing. When requesting bids, the government can specify what language a product is in (i.e., English), they can specify the behavior of the product, they can specify how many copies they need, they can specify what standards it uses. If the government passes a law saying that the licensing requirement is fixed and must always be a certain type of license, and in fact their requirement is beneficial to the public whose tax dollars funded the software, that's fine.
The government doesn't exist to fund software companies. It exists to serve the public. The government is in a unique position: it doesn't need copyright to enrich the public domain of knowledge, it can just use tax dollars to fund research (including software development) and immediately turn around and put that in the public domain.
As an aside, the ability to specify all these aspects of software is available to any entity buying software. But the government has a special role, it not only wants to minimize costs and maximize benefits, it also has to serve the public that funds it.
If public funds are used for software, then it should be available to the public for inspection and use. Think about it. Let's say the government needs some software to process taxes. YOUR taxes. Why shouldn't you be able to download a copy and inspect it?
And what if you need special software on your PC to interoperate with the government computers for some reason. Let me guess.. Windows/Mac only? No source code available? Can't put a copy on your web site? Government software should be no less a secret that government forms, documents, and standards.
I see nothing wrong with a law specifying the license terms of government-procured software. This has nothing to do with "free markets", folks. The government is a single software-buying entity in a vast market of buyers, who also happens to have a very special set of "shareholders": the citizens of the United States.
Items #0 and #9 from the GPL state:
I would like to see the equivalent choice in the Microsoft license (which changes with every product anyway).
I feel a bit more coerced when I put money down for a Microsoft product and then I'm not allowed to use it at all unless I agree to the terms. That's not just coercive, it's bullshit.
Technological solutions for social problems (like legislative ones) are only as good as their worst failure mode.
I'm tempted to write more in this /. comment but I think that idea is pretty deep. The article (for those who didn't want to read it all, I don't blame you) describes how Schneier came to realize this.
I believe one of our ex-presidents (LBJ perhaps) has a quote where he expresses the same idea about laws.
Unfortunately, the most effective solutions aren't always the ones chosen. Our current government seems to have no concept of the idea that you don't just have to "do something", you have to do the right "something".
Since /. readers are such a cynical and paranoid bunch, we can come up with all sorts of failure modes for today's "security". Imagine the dumb blank look that would appear on Ashcroft's face if you asked him "what if someone gets a copy of the fingerprint used in those biometric systems? will the federal government be paying for finger transplants?". Then after a few seconds the blank look will disappear, and the lies and bullshit would stream out.
Just like the TV talk shows. One intelligent guest will make a simple point ("what if they sharpen the edge of a credit card? isn't that more dangerous than a nail clipper?"), which to me would be an instant show-stopper, forcing me to stop and re-think the whole system, but then the other guests will pile the bullshit so high the point is quickly forgotten.
It makes you wonder if the legislators actually consulted any security experts (that weren't trying to sell something). Probably not.
Isn't that a type of seasoning?
Remember folks, the only reason we don't live in an Orwellian nightmare world is actually because it isn't technologically feasible.
As soon as it's possible and practical, in the next few years, it will happen on a wide and broad scale. If it's unpopular, they'll simply not publicize its use. If a few innocents are harrased by it (activists, anarchists, pagans, atheists, and other similar unAmericans), you won't hear a word. If by some sheer coincidence it actually assists in finding a terrorist pre-crime, they still won't say a word.
And I'm sure they'll find a few other uses for it. I mean if you're commiting a crime, it's a crime, no matter what, so what's the problem?
(Hmm, Citizen #95235345 just bought a DVD-R unit and downloaded a copy of DeCSS. Set his Awareness Level to 15%, and send a copy of his Dossier to Media Control for further study. Excellent, we might yet meet our Enforcement quota this week!)
But there is something that Microsoft says that always bothers me.
Many, including Microsoft, state that "choice" for the producers of software should include a choice between licenses like Free Software and "Microsoft EULA Software". But I find this hard to swallow especially in this context. Free Software and MS-type software are not equivalent choices the way a blue car and a red car are equivalent choices. The MS-type software can potentially give the copyright holder great powers over your computer, your software, your information, and you personally (I almost downloaded MoneyDance the other day, until I noticed the "Arbitrarion clause" where I'd theoretically waive my right to a jury trial. No thanks!). GPL-type software does no such things.
And of course corporate copyright holders will choose the most restrictive licenses, most beneficial to them. Normally this isn't a big problem, because you can avoid the software completely like I did with MoneyDance. For a government "of the people, for the people", however, the government should NOT support any software that limits user's rights beyond copyright law, and should definitely consider granting additional rights. The government should also not implicitly support the "unsigned contract" fallacy of licenses.
Going back to the MoneyDance/arbitration example, let's pretend that you have to buy MoneyDance in order to file your taxes with the government because they won the bid. Now we have the strange situation where the government is basically forcing people to waive some of their constitutionally-granted rights in order to fulfill a constitutionally-authorized responsibility. Not good!
A quote:
Microsoft is trying to force the idea that all licenses are equivalant. In fact they call Free Software a "development model". Something that's only important before the software is handed over to the user. But we know better. Licenses like Microsoft's that attempt to limit use of the software is definitely more than a development model. They affect you every time you start the software (if you assume the license is binding, which you pretty much have to do unless you have a lot of money and lawyers).
The government should choose a license category, just as they can specify any other aspects of the software. And Microsoft could deliver GPL software just as easily as they could deliver MS-EULA software.
Another quote:
Since the copyright, etc., laws are the same for everybody, what Microsoft is saying by "choice of protections" is "choice of licenses".
Bruce didn't disagree with the principle, but I think we have to be careful. By definition, "intellectual property protection" (I assume they mean copyrights and patents specifically) takes away certain freedoms from society. If you want "strong" protection you are saying "give the copyright/patent holders more power to take away more freedom". That shouldn't be in a free society's interests.
In conclusion, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the government to mandate "limits on the limits" of licenses as part of the requirements. In fact it's necessary for them to fulfill their responsibilities to the public. Microsoft's rhetoric makes it seem as if all licenses are completely equivalent. But they're not of course, otherwise why would we be even having this discussion?
I actually thought about this, for a few minutes, while reading about quantum computation.
What if somebody discovers how to implement the Shor's quantum factoring algorithm, say, in their microwave oven, or with a cheap laser. Or not QC, just some teenager figures out how to factor numbers. Or there's a huge backdoor in Microsoft XYZ and 90% of the world's computers can be accessed at the push of a button (I'm talking even easier than you can hack windows now :-).
Well, as the poster says, maybe he'd just announce his discovery (maybe through a trusted Bruce Schneier type person in the case of crypto), and give everybody time to plan.
But would that be a good idea? Cracking crypto would be a pretty big deal. Like, foreign governments would assassinate you in two seconds to get that information. YOUR OWN government would probably not think twice about calling you a terrorist and shipping you to Cuba for "interrogation". And/or they'd discredit you and make you look like a fool to keep the information from coming out.
You'd probably be hunted for this information. It would be a huge discovery that would allow whoever had to gain quite a bit of power.
So my conclusion was, if you ever discover something like this, forget it. Destroy the machine, erase the notes. Let humanity find it on its own, go back to your day job.
Maybe you could come up with some way to prove you thought of it first, once someone else thinks of it, so you can take credit, but I sure wouldn't want to announce it up front.
In fact, it's possible something like this has already happened. Who knows?
in 1997: freedom of speech was understood by reading the following:
in 2002: freedom of speech is understood by reading the following:
Welcome to America kids! If you're lucky, you'll get permission to publish your paper too!
Perhaps if you wear a colorful, fanciful hat, decorated with bells and chimes, and prance about most amusingly, the King will pity you and grant your wish.
Hey, shouldn't that be: .. a bold and italic statement .. ?
yuk yuk yuk
C# is basically Java without a lot of the annoyances. (Unless of course you consider Microsoft itself a major annoyance..) For instance boxing/unboxing primitive types, get/set blocks for attributes (the getXxx/setXxx convention in Java is a little klugdy, imo)...a foreach operator ... enums ... delgates (like "function pointers")...other stuff..
Basically Microsoft did the usual microsoftish thing, they looked at what's available, ripped it off, and changed the bits that they thought were annoying.
I must say after reading some C# books on O'Reilly Safari I like C# a lot more than Java and am looking forward to 1) a C#->native code compiler for linux and 2) a C#->Java bytecode compiler (it must be possible).
The author is right, in spirit (even though I don't agree with every detail). Java is starting to look a little crusty. I believe the reason Java took off so much in the beginning was because people were desparate for a "better C++". Now as time goes on we need a "better Java", as we search for that elusive "perfect language"..
"working relationship" could also mean that 1) HP has a contact person assigned to snosoft, who will actually read and respond to snosoft's emails, and 2) snosoft will promise keep exploits and advisories quiet until HP says they are ready.
of course, you'd think this is how it would work anyway, without any formal agreements..
Interesting.. as some posters have pointed out, Zimbabwe's government is a bunch of thugs. But in America, the corps are the thugs:
The article then mentions how Monsanto says the "policy would be adapted to accommodate local traditions in other countries". I'm not a farmer, and I'm certainly not a modern farmer dealing with this patent nonsense, but it strikes me as pretty damn fucked up that saving food seed from year to year is now illegal and considered a quaint "local tradition" in a few backwards third-world countries.
Though I suppose they should be thankful that King Monsanto is merciful enough to "accommodate" this "local tradition" of growing plants from your own seed. As soon as Zimbabwe is finally paved over and the shopping malls put up, we can revert back to the usual policy.
When will the "intellectual property" madness stop?
Well, perhaps you don't realize, this is actually a contract. You're ONLY allowed to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car, and on the jogging trail.
If you could "rip" your "CD-like disc" willy-nilly, there's a danger you'd enjoy it at a friend's house, on a boat, in an airplane, in a shopping mall, on a sidewalk, at a cafe, in your back yard, or any number of places, which would clearly be a violation of the contract. We can't have that, can we?
I learned to mentally tune out web ads a long time ago (then I learned to tune them out with software). Same with magazines, to a certain extent. Though usually in a magazine I read it several times and catch more of the ads as I re-read it, which is impossible with rotating web ads. If the ad doesn't look like the content I'm expecting (for instance plain black and white text), or if it changes everytime I go to the same page, I don't see it.
Plus, I'd be afraid to click on them for fear of being tracked, or fear of "losing my place" in the page I'm surfing. I think if I saw an ad for something I wanted on the internet, at best I'd write down the URL and visit the main site later.
And pop-up ads are easy to ignore.. as soon a new small window appears while surfing, I close it. Sometimes I close a window that has some important information in it (like when logging into E*TRADE and they have information about a promotion or my account), but that's a small price to pay.
The best ads are the ones that are basically part of the content. Google, in other words... with Google I'm looking for something, so finding an ad about it can be helpful. And since they are all in the same textual format, they are easy to visually scan.
If I was reading /. and a small, static, textual ad appeared related to the article, I'd probably click on it. Any other ad is a complete waste of my screen.
Perhaps..though if I were looking at a license in this hypothetical database and there was a single sentence in a bright red font, and the rest was some other color, I think I'd read that one first.. so it would highlight the important parts!
I've thought about this myself. What I wanted to do was "color code" each phrase/sentence in the EULA, and come up with some "EULA-description markup language" for it. There would be a different color for each of these categories:
Redundant text (pink or gray maybe) - anything that repeats copyright law, i.e., "you may not distribute copies"
Dubious text (red) - anything that attempts to limit your rights further than copyright law, i.e., "you may not use this product to disparage microsoft" .. I call it dubious because this is the stuff that shouldn't be binding unless you've signed a contract.
Descriptive text (blue) - anything that describes the behavior of the product or the company, i.e., "if multiple versions of this product are detected, we will drop a bomb on your grandmother's house", or "this product will delete the competitor's product upon installation". This isn't really "license"-related, but describes the product.
Rights-granting text (green) - anything that says you have permission from the copyright holder to do things you're not otherwise allowed to do, i.e., "you may distribute copies verbatim if you include this copyright notice"
Filler text (light green) - this is junk that you should ignore completely, such as any "summaries" (if the license is binding, it's the LICENSE that's binding, not any summary they may have written for your benefit). This also includes the stuff in the GPL about "freedom", which is nice to know, but not necessary.
Imagine having each license color-coded like this, you could even view thumbnails of the licenses to see which one was best, showing the different blocks of color at a glance. For instance, the GPL would probably be all "Filler" and "Rights-granting" and you could visually see that it indeed is more "consumer-friendly" (lots of green) than the average microsoft license (lots of red).
Also note, any license that says "the terms of this license are subject to change" should be treated specially (for instance, all BRIGHT RED), since, for all intents and purposes, it may change *completely* at any time, and could conceivably be 100% Dubious and should be treated as such.
I'd love to see something like this combined with a database of licenses.
The T-shirt lobbies for tougher legislation,
Ha, of course I mean the T-shirt LOBBY lobbies for tougher legislation.