Well, TFA does mention SALT (South African Large Telescope):
It is interesting to note that the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, also in the United States--near Fort Davis, Texas in the southwestern part of the state--and the South African Large Telescope have larger mirrors but only a portion of each mirror is able to be used when making observations.
You might disagree with their interpretation, but they did take the other telescopes into account.
... not unless they want to carry projectors in front of themselves, and know that their enemies are going to be in one specific direction, and don't mind low quality images... (etc)
They just need to ask their enemies to hold the projector for them, and they will solve the first two problems at once.
I've been working in this project for one year, but I've been trying to convince them to release it as GPL for more than two years. Consistently and repeatedly, the answer has been that they wanted to do so, but "the GPL is incompatible with German law". The lawyer they consulted, some Professor at the Uni whose name I don't remember now, also wrote a lengthy analysis which I couldn't read since it was in German. But everyone here insists on that indeed the GPL is not valid in Germany.
Below I reproduce the content of the email I sent to activemath-dev on Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:49:41 +0200, with what I know about this issue:
>[copyleft doesn't agree with German law]
Do you have some exact quotation? Like an email or something?
Many GPL programs are produced in Germany.
Seems like the only clash is the "no warranty" clause (points
11 and 12), that would be illegal in Germany ("Gesetz zur Regelung des
Rechts der Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen").
(This doesn't mean that you become a criminal by releasing your software
with such a clause. It's only that said clause does not apply.)
This just means that we can't reject responsability, just like
any other software publisher in Germany.
AFAIK, the rest of the GPL is perfectly applicable in Germany:
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/ 2000-November/000043.html
However, it seems to be the case that, when distributing
something free of charge and with the source available for inspection,
that responsability is greatly reduced:
http://www.ifross.de/ifross_html/art3.html
More information can be found in the other pages at the
"Institut für Rechtsfragen der freien und open source Software":
http://www.ifross.de
To avoid the dangers of not having the "no warranty" clause,
some people use some "Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen" (AGB), which
put some mechanisms in place to shield the software publisher from
sueing. There is a peculiarity in German law that allows anyone to
ask for a fee to a publisher when warning them of some infraction,
such as trademark infringement. Thus one of the points of these
AGB is to allow downloading only to people that abide to them by
means of a password-protected download area, and then requiring for
access an agreement that the person obtaining the software renounces
to use the files to look inside for infringements.
However, this restrictions cause conflict with the GPL, as
they are certainly restrictions on the freedom of the users, and
can easily make the software non-free:
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/ 2001-May/0010
Spanish Language reference dictionary.
on
Isn't It Ironic?
·
· Score: 1
In Spain, there is a governmental organization which codifes the Castillian spanish, and thus its dictionary is the authority on Castillian spanish. Any word not present in it, isn't Castillian spanish. Period. Of course, South American spanish (not to mention Cuban spanish) has no such singular authority.
So there is a singular "authority" for the Spanish Language, although the
mission of the RAE is not to dictate what Spanish is, but to reflect its evolution while dampening the passing fads and trying to influence the word choices to keep them true to the language essence. It works more as a reference than as an authority, since a word not being in the dictionary doesn't mean that it's not Spanish, but that it hasn't proved to be stable yet. If the word sticks then it's added to the dictionary corpus, which includes the
American and Philippine contributions.
Finally, you mention Cuban Spanish as if it was particularly different from the norm (which is coordinated as said above), but in fact it's quite close. In my experience, the Argentinian variant, which is heavily influenced by Italian, differs more. Sure people use informal speaking every day, as in Spain, but we all share a common reference point on what our language is.
They created content (or signed acts that created content) that brings in millions of dollars a year. Why should they have to suddenly at some arbitrary date no longer be able to exploit their intellectual property? It's like building a house and after 95 years of owning your house it suddenly becomes a historical landmark and you're evicted by the county.
No, it's like getting the land for your house
for free from the government with the agreement that
X years after your death the whole thing will revert to the
public, and during that period you don't have to pay taxes on that
property. But then, a company buys the place from
you, and when the date is due for returning that
piece of land and its contents, they buy laws to
keep both land and house indefinitely.
Of course, Donald Knuth already knew that...
on
Bioinformatics
·
· Score: 1
Donald Knuth, wich has casually been mentioned in another post, knew of this at least in 1993.
The following is an excerpt (it's approx. 60% down the page) from the interview he gave to Computer Literacy Review in December 7th 1993:
CLB: If you were a soon-to-graduate college senior or Ph.D. and you didn't have any "baggage", what kind of research would you want to
do? Or would you even choose research again?
Knuth: I think the most exciting computer research now is partly in robotics, and partly in applications to biochemistry. Robotics, for
example, that's terrific. Making devices that actually move around and communicate with each other. Stanford has a big robotics lab now,
and our plan is for a new building that will have a hundred robots walking the corridors, to stimulate the students. It'll be two or three years
until we move in to the building. Just seeing robots there, you'll think of neat projects. These projects also suggest a lot of good
mathematical and theoretical questions. And high level graphical tools, there's a tremendous amount of great stuff in that area too. Yeah, I'd
love to do that... only one life, you know, but...
CLB: Why do you mention biochemistry?
Knuth: There's millions and millions of unsolved problems. Biology is so digital, and incredibly complicated, but incredibly useful. The trouble
with biology is that, if you have to work as a biologist, it's boring. Your experiments take you three years and then, one night, the electricity
goes off and all the things die! You start over. In computers we can create our own worlds. Biologists deserve a lot of credit for being able
to slug it through.
It is hard for me to say confidently that, after fifty more years of explosive growth of computer science, there will still be a lot of fascinating
unsolved problems at peoples' fingertips, that it won't be pretty much working on refinements of well-explored things. Maybe all of the
simple stuff and the really great stuff has been discovered. It may not be true, but I can't predict an unending growth. I can't be as
confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on, it's at that level.
If you have any problems with the interview link, just use Google.
Slashdot Mirror
They just need to ask their enemies to hold the projector for them, and they will solve the first two problems at once.
The (perceived?) problem exists, and is preventing certain software from being released as GPL.
In particular, the ActiveMath system, developed in the University of Saarland and the DFKI.
I've been working in this project for one year, but I've been trying to convince them to release it as GPL for more than two years. Consistently and repeatedly, the answer has been that they wanted to do so, but "the GPL is incompatible with German law". The lawyer they consulted, some Professor at the Uni whose name I don't remember now, also wrote a lengthy analysis which I couldn't read since it was in German. But everyone here insists on that indeed the GPL is not valid in Germany.
I planned to raise this issue in the round table Suggestions for encouraging the creation of Free software for researchers at the end of the Libre software and research track in the Libre Software Meeting in Metz, so if other people want to discuss it there, I'd be very interested.
Below I reproduce the content of the email I sent to activemath-dev on Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:49:41 +0200, with what I know about this issue:
This institution, which is not governmental, is the Real Academia de la Lengua Española [Royal Academy of the Spanish Lenguage] (founded in 1713), and in fact it coordinates its activities (including the dictionary) with the other 21 Academies of the Spanish Language around the world, including the Academia Cubana de la Lengua [Cuban Academy of the Language], through the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española [Association of Academies of the Spanish Language], founded in 1951. (There's even a North-american one.)
So there is a singular "authority" for the Spanish Language, although the mission of the RAE is not to dictate what Spanish is, but to reflect its evolution while dampening the passing fads and trying to influence the word choices to keep them true to the language essence. It works more as a reference than as an authority, since a word not being in the dictionary doesn't mean that it's not Spanish, but that it hasn't proved to be stable yet. If the word sticks then it's added to the dictionary corpus, which includes the American and Philippine contributions.
Finally, you mention Cuban Spanish as if it was particularly different from the norm (which is coordinated as said above), but in fact it's quite close. In my experience, the Argentinian variant, which is heavily influenced by Italian, differs more.
Sure people use informal speaking every day, as in Spain, but we all share a common reference point on what our language is.
No, it's like getting the land for your house for free from the government with the agreement that X years after your death the whole thing will revert to the public, and during that period you don't have to pay taxes on that property. But then, a company buys the place from you, and when the date is due for returning that piece of land and its contents, they buy laws to keep both land and house indefinitely.
Donald Knuth, wich has casually been mentioned in another post, knew of this at least in 1993.
If you have any problems with the interview link, just use Google.The following is an excerpt (it's approx. 60% down the page) from the interview he gave to Computer Literacy Review in December 7th 1993: