Hint: the phrase "of your peers" appears nowhere in the United States Constitution.
Hint: Most of the laws in the US aren't in the Constitution.
In this case, however, from the sixth amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..."
This is usually what is meant by a jury of your peers.
Amazon makes personalised suggestions to customers based on previous purchases by that customer...the company may vastly increase its predictive capability in the future.
Given Amazon's unerring ability to recommend only books that already own, I imagine this means that they will begin recommending the ones that I have just added to the cart.
Desktop Linux has, for the most part, stagnated because KDE and GNOME won't merge into one mega-standard.
Desktop Linux has stagnated because neither KDE or GNOME are good enough. They are incomplete. Merging the two together would just create a bigger incomplete, not good enough, system, and subsequently, other projects would be founded to make up for it's flaws.
If you're running GNOME, a KDE app, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice, you've got at least four major libraries now sitting in your memory.
But *why* are you running those in the first place? If you're running GNOME, why use Firefox over Epiphany, the offical GNOME browser? Why run OpenOffice over Gnome Office?? If you're running KDE, why not use Konqueror and KOffice? Why do you need to run KDE apps when you're using GNOME as your environment (and vice versa)?
The basic answer that people give for using a "non-standard" app (eg using GNOME apps in KDE) is that the "standard" solution either isn't good enough or doesn't exist. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
Merging the two would just be encircling them in a bigger fence. If wouldn't stop anyone else from doing something better on the other side.
Apple hasn't made any claims about this latest Tiger report, but that's the ostensible reason for the suit the company filed after Think Secret revealed information about the Mac mini two weeks before Apple's announcement.
This makes no sense.
Firstly, the suit you're referring to specifically refers to the "Asteroid", which is supposedly a FireWire audio interface that has still yet to be announced. It concerns the leak of product specifications, not of a release date. The Mac mini is not "Asteroid".
Your argument is basically that release dates can't be considered trade secrets. This is false, as a generalization, but it can be true depending on the situation. I doubt that Apple would bother trying to claim the date as a trade secret when they have already announced the product, and announced a release date in the first half ot 2005. At this point, "everyone knows" that it will be released in the next three months. There isn't much secrecy around that. A judge probably wouldn't agree with that kind of claim.
At this point, one could have a fair chance at guessing the Tiger release date, based on information Apple has made available to anyone.
Detailed specifications of unannounced products, however, most definitely can be considered trade secrets, and the judge has already ruled against the three sites in question in that case.
Safari is still treated as second tier, due to missing functionailty.
What functionality is that? I've never found anything that IE or Firefox can do (except maybe extentions, etc. that have little to do with web-browsing), that Safari can't. In fact, Safari does a few things that they don't with CSS.
Can you cite case law where this actually happened and was ruled illegal?
No, and I suspect it never has actually happened as such. The phrase itself comes from a Supreme Court ruling (Schenck v. US, 1919) concerning the publication of Socialist propaganda during World War I.
If I remember correctly, many parts of the ruling have been overturned or supersceded, but the particular principle, that free speech is not absolute, still stands.
In fact, I'd say that speech is more protected now than it was at that ruling, when sedition laws were in full effect. Printing anti-government propaganda is a national pasttime these days, but back then, it'd get you thrown in jail.
You have the right to speak your mind, your beliefs, your opinions, your lies, your truths, your propaganda, you even have the right to tell people to rape and kill and steal and overthrow the government. You do not have the right to willfully endanger the lives of others by causing false panic or inciting immediate criminal behavior.
But is someone telling you information illegial? I mean, breaking into a place, either physically or electronically to get info makes the info definately illegially obtained.
However, someone telling you something at a general e-mail address is entirely different.
Let's distinguish the two parties here -- the NDA-violator and the website operator.
The former breaches his contract to provide the information to the later, the later, knowing, or having reason to know of the breach of contract, reproduces the information on his website.
What might not be clear is that this breach of contract is effectively the same thing as theft under the UTSA. (This doesn't mean it is equal to theft, it just means that it applies equally when dealing with trade secrets, which are defined in part by a company's attempts at keeping it secret, including such contracts.)
The other unclear part is that the website operator knows, or has reason to know, that the information was obtained through a breach of contract. In this case the burden of proof is pretty light, as the sites were openly soliciting insider information, and openly claiming that they had it. It's only reasonable for them to assume that they would get such information, and the sites themselves haven't claimed ignorance in defence, so it's a non-issue.
So, what I meant by "the printing of illegally obtained information" was that the sites were at fault for printing the information, not for illegally obtaining it. I recognize that it wasn't entirely clear.
For what it's worth, the sites *may have* obtained the information illegally, by inducement, or bribery. As far as I know they have not been accused of doing so, but it may be that evidence of such just hasn't been revealed yet, especially considering that the source of the leaks has yet to be identified.
That's just speculation though. I don't believe it's the case, but I think many people would feel differently about it if it were, all else being the same.
What property right justifies the application of restrictions imposed by an agreement on someone that never signed that agreement?
The right to possess trade secrets. The Uniform Trade Secets Act, which factors heavily into this case, is just an extention of the common law right to hold trade secrets.
Now, the definition of "trade secret" varies quite a bit, but I can't imagine any jurisdiction where secret internal information regarding unannounced products can not be considered a trade secret.
Do you understand that the person who signs a contract is the one who should be constrained by it, and punished should they break it, and a contract should not be binding upon anyone that hasn't actually agreed to it?
You're confusing contracts with the law. A contract is an agreement that goes above and beyond what the law specifies.
The source of the information violated his or her contract. These sites violated the law.
I never signed a contract saying I wouldn't kill people, but that doesn't make it legal for me to do so.
If so, then its a dumb law that could easily be used to suppress legitimate journalism (and has been in the past).
There are plenty of legal protections and exceptions for "whistleblowers" -- you may not agree that they go far enough, but this case is absolutely not one that applies. Exposing a company's internal product planning information is not the same as exposing fraudulent accounting practices, or the dumping of toxic waste, or any other illegal activity.
You might as well have said that anyone who doesn't agree with megacorporate "ethics" is thusly unethical.
I think what he was saying is basically that anyone that doesn't agree with the court in this case is likely to have problems with much larger things than what this case was actually about.
If you subscribe to certain notions about intellectual property[1], then, yes, you probably think the judge is an idiot. That doesn't mean his legal opinion is wrong.
[1] or trade secrets, or corporations, or blogging, etc, etc.
I think that there's been a tremendous amount of rhetoric surrounding this case that has nothing to do with the case itself.
This particular expression of speech... is protected according to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Libel is not protected. Slander is not protected. Incitement is not protected. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is not protected. Printing trade secrets is not protected. Free speech is not an absolute right.
A great many people find the prospect that they should be held liable for publishing information gotten legally (from their point of view that is) just because whoever they got it from brok a NDA ridicilous.
It wasn't aqcuired legally, and that's the whole point. These sites are basically begging for secret inside information. The only sources for such information are probably under NDA of some kind or another. Ergo, the only sources for the information would be people violating their NDA.
Signing away your own free speech is one thing, signing away others' is a whole different slew!
You can't sign away another persons right to secret information. They never had the right in the first place. You only had the right to be privy to it because you signed an agreement. They certainly didn't have the right to print it in their publication for a profit.
A potential breach of a NDA should be treated as a contract dispute, and this shouldn't have anything to do with special tradelaws, and shouldn't involve courts/police at all!
Contracts are legally binding agreements, they have everything to do with the law. They are backed by the power of the court. What you're suggesting is completely at odds with reality.
Look, the judge may have a point but celebrating the victory of a corporation over an individual just seems fucked up to me.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that an individual is incapable of breaking the law, or is at least "less able" to break the law than a corporation.
Also, Think Secret (I'm not sure about the others) is operated by The dePlume Organization, a limited-liabilty corporation.
The 'free speech' issue isn't' about wether or not you can go blabbing your companies trade secrets, it's about wether or not someone else, someone who has not signed an NDA or anything else should be able to re-spout them.
The law says that you cannot do this. The judge is doing his job by enforcing the law. Your gripe is with the law, not with the case.
These people, who are not under contract should be able (I think) to say whatever they want without repercussion even if someone would be harmed by the common knowledge.
To do that would mean throwing out libel and slander laws, as well. Freedom of speech (or freedom of the press, which is more accurate in these cases) is not an absolute right.
But it seems to me that simply telling the truth ought to be protected under the constitution, if you don't sign an NDA.
I would not describe the printing of illegally obtained information for a profit to be "simply telling the truth".
Yet, here these people are being forced to A) name their source, or B) Go to jail (or something). They're being punished for telling the truth about something, despite the fact that they signed no NDA and were not under any contract.
Apple was not, and is not, seeking damages against these sites. They were seeking information, and now the court has ordered them to give up that information. If they do not, they can appeal, or be held in contempt of court. I sincerely doubt that they will choose not to appeal this, but I doubt even more that they will choose to ignore the court's order should it not be overturned.
You have a good point, but Apple didn't follow these three rules (or didn't for a long time). They have great people and it seems like they have done a decent job managing their money, but they traditionally have not made "something customers actually want". Their products have been excellent, but the market didn't want an excellent product, they wanted a cheap one.
As a startup, Apple sure as hell did do those 3 things. As for making something customers want, you might have heard of the enormously popular Apple II, or perhaps the original Macintosh?
Yes, there is this cloudy er...decade, between the late 80s and late 90s where one does not typically associate Apple with "desirable", but the company was built on exactly the principles that Graham suggests.
Microsoft figured out a long time ago how to give people what they want. Nobody wanted an old clunky DOS interface, so they gave everyone a cheap, standardized GUI interface. Everyone was tired of figuring out WordPerfect's syntax, so they gave everyone a WYSIWYG Word processor.
Seriously, have you not heard of the Macintosh? It's pretty famous. You might want to look it up.
Every game made today.. The first level is easy to accomplish. Second level is marginally harder.
This basic structure is the only way to make a fun game. It isn't the problem.
The insidious aspect of MMORPGs is that they make this explicit in the "stats" and "levels" that you have to keep track of and improve. The *actual* game of these games is just "make the number bigger", which is a very primitive goal (think Pac-Man). You're paying $10+ a month just to play Pac-Man.
Other games tend to have more complex goals, like "get to the next stage, see more of the world, advance the story". You can "beat" these games. You can't beat a MMORPG, except by ending it yourself.
Because if we can blame our bad habits on a disease, something out of our control, then we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it.
One of the first steps of overcomming any addiction is accepting responsibility for it -- accepting that you are addicted and you don't have a handle on it, and that you are the only one that can do anything about it. It is not about absolution of responsibility at all.
Face it, most of these purely psychological "addictions" that plague modern society can be corrected with a little behavior modification and a little willpower.
You're misunderstanding the "problem" part of addiction. You have to want to stop being addicted -- this takes more than "a little willpower" for someone that is truly addicted. Denial allows the addict to believe that they have everything under control when clearly, to anyone else, they do not.
Very specific techniques which is vital to the development of OSS in the print/media industry.
So, license the technology from Apple, like everybody else with a TrueType implementation. I imagine that Novell has a license, which is why the "right" way is turned on in their distribution.
An alternative would be to build a patent-free replacement for TrueType from scratch. But that would take a lot of work, wouldn't it? It's much easier to just indignantly expect handouts from those that did all the work already.
You're also ignoring the fact that TrueType exists in the first place, which is not a given. Someone had to invent TrueType, and it wasn't an open source project, it was Apple.
However, when Apple has got so much from the OSS community -- Safari, a hell of a lot of BSD stuff, Apache, Samba, postfix and a heck of other servers, is it so much to ask that Apple could offer some vital patents free, as long as it is a GPL (or other OS viral license)'ed project?
Yes, in fact, it is. Nowhere in the GNU GPL or LGPL, nor the BSD license, does it say "you can take the code but you have to give away your completely unrelated patents".
I'll emphasize the BSD license, because a lot of people make the same mistake you are. The BSD license says you can take the code, make a commercial product, and not release the changes. If you don't want a company doing this, then don't release your code under a BSD-style license.
Likewise, the LGPL says that you can take a library (in this case were talking about KHTML), and link to it from a non-free (including commercial) program. If you don't want a company doing this then don't release your code under a LGPL-license.
When you license your code like this, you are giving it to anyone that accepts the conditions in the license. If you want something in return, your chance to ask for it is in the license. If you want them to make their source code available, you'd better say so in the license. This is why the GPL exists (among many other reasons).
The authors of the software that you mentioned above presumably know the implications of their choice of license, and thus aren't expecting the kinds of patent giveaway that you are.
Your argument is a bit like saying "I support free speech, as long as I agree with it".
The amount of software that can be pre-instaled is unbelievably larger then on a Windows box and that for the same price.
Ah, but you're forgetting that one of the worst parts about buying a PC off-the-shelf is getting rid of all of that preinstalled crap that you'll never use.
More packages means more to update/patch, more to configure, more to take up space (both on disk and in menus), etc. Care must be taken to make sure that the preinstalled software is stuff that is actually useful, or at least, won't get in the way.
Sorry, but something really extraordinary is needed to even threaten Microsofts dominance, much less overtake it.
All that needs to happen is that Linux becomes useful as a desktop for more than a tiny number of people. And it's not "web browsing, email, word processor" stuff that's the problem -- it's the moment that a person steps out of that tiny little box that the developers have made for them that they tumble right off the edge.
Even then, I can't see Linux overtaking Windows -- but why is that even the goal? Why isn't the goal to make a useful thing for all kinds of people?
Linux can hope to become as popular as Macintosh, but even that is very hard. Apple stuff is easy, remember?
Yes, but this autohinting method simply isn't as good as the real method that the TrueType font contains.
I wasn't claiming that it was. In fact, I would be quite surprised if it was. You're basically saying that the patented technique is superior, which I imagine is why it's patented.
Your complaint seems to imply that Apple has actively interfered with the development of open source font rendering, which is untrue. I think it's misleading to say that Apple has "absolutely tarnished the chance of decent, out of the box, free font anti-aliasing", simply because they hold a patent on very specific techniques (that they invented) to implement a standard (that they invented).
You seem to be suggesting that they should either a) not hold this patent, or b) license it for free.
You went on to accuse Apple of 'plundering' OSS, which not only isn't a very defensible statement, but is also particularly silly when what you're asking for here is a handout.
Once the source has been determined, then Apple can drag that person into court. If you violate an NDA, you should be held accountable, not some third party.
Apple is suing to discover the identity of the person(s), they aren't seeking damages. As a third-party that printed what they believed to be secret information (and as it turns out, it was), they are liable (under the UTSPA), but Apple is only using this to get at the original source.
They are, in fact, doing what everyone keeps saying they should, by going after the source of the leak. How better to find that source than by going through the persons they leaked information to?
Publishing blueprints, schematics, etc. would be violating a trade secret, not publishing the general specs of a new product. If it were the former, Apple would be in the right.
That's how it is in the movies, but there is no difference under the law (in most places anyway). A trade secret does not have to have a big "SECRET" stamp in red ink on it.
If the company considers something a secret, treats it as one, (ie, they don't publish it, it isn't public knowledge), and it can be shown to give them an economic advantage, then it is a trade secret. Apple definitely believes that keeping it's product plans secret is important for business, and they definitely take steps to keep those plans secret.
The answer is no for any recent build of FreeType 2, since it comes with a "auto-hinting" module that was specifically designed to completely ignore the TrueType bytecodes. -- FreeType and Patents
Sadly, you will get Apple apolgists that think Apple is more than a company that 'plunders' OSS so they can shortcut some of their other commercial competitors.
TrueType is not the invention of some oppressed open source developers. It is not a "given" -- if you want a patent-free type system you're going to have to invent it yourself, the same way that Ogg Vorbis/Flac/Speex/Theora developers are building patent-free compression.
Slashdot Mirror
Hint: the phrase "of your peers" appears nowhere in the United States Constitution.
Hint: Most of the laws in the US aren't in the Constitution.
In this case, however, from the sixth amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..."
This is usually what is meant by a jury of your peers.
Amazon makes personalised suggestions to customers based on previous purchases by that customer...the company may vastly increase its predictive capability in the future.
Given Amazon's unerring ability to recommend only books that already own, I imagine this means that they will begin recommending the ones that I have just added to the cart.
Desktop Linux has, for the most part, stagnated because KDE and GNOME won't merge into one mega-standard.
Desktop Linux has stagnated because neither KDE or GNOME are good enough. They are incomplete. Merging the two together would just create a bigger incomplete, not good enough, system, and subsequently, other projects would be founded to make up for it's flaws.
If you're running GNOME, a KDE app, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice, you've got at least four major libraries now sitting in your memory.
But *why* are you running those in the first place? If you're running GNOME, why use Firefox over Epiphany, the offical GNOME browser? Why run OpenOffice over Gnome Office?? If you're running KDE, why not use Konqueror and KOffice? Why do you need to run KDE apps when you're using GNOME as your environment (and vice versa)?
The basic answer that people give for using a "non-standard" app (eg using GNOME apps in KDE) is that the "standard" solution either isn't good enough or doesn't exist. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
Merging the two would just be encircling them in a bigger fence. If wouldn't stop anyone else from doing something better on the other side.
It's such a useless thing
Welcome to the Internet.
Apple hasn't made any claims about this latest Tiger report, but that's the ostensible reason for the suit the company filed after Think Secret revealed information about the Mac mini two weeks before Apple's announcement.
This makes no sense.
Firstly, the suit you're referring to specifically refers to the "Asteroid", which is supposedly a FireWire audio interface that has still yet to be announced. It concerns the leak of product specifications, not of a release date. The Mac mini is not "Asteroid".
Your argument is basically that release dates can't be considered trade secrets. This is false, as a generalization, but it can be true depending on the situation. I doubt that Apple would bother trying to claim the date as a trade secret when they have already announced the product, and announced a release date in the first half ot 2005. At this point, "everyone knows" that it will be released in the next three months. There isn't much secrecy around that. A judge probably wouldn't agree with that kind of claim.
At this point, one could have a fair chance at guessing the Tiger release date, based on information Apple has made available to anyone.
Detailed specifications of unannounced products, however, most definitely can be considered trade secrets, and the judge has already ruled against the three sites in question in that case.
Safari is still treated as second tier, due to missing functionailty.
What functionality is that? I've never found anything that IE or Firefox can do (except maybe extentions, etc. that have little to do with web-browsing), that Safari can't. In fact, Safari does a few things that they don't with CSS.
Right, but the poster was asking me if I wanted to back off my position. Which I don't until Apple puts up or shuts up. :-)
Considering that they have yet to claim what you're saying they did, I think that counts as shutting up.
This is one of the most ridiculous threads I have ever seen.
Can you cite case law where this actually happened and was ruled illegal?
No, and I suspect it never has actually happened as such. The phrase itself comes from a Supreme Court ruling (Schenck v. US, 1919) concerning the publication of Socialist propaganda during World War I.
If I remember correctly, many parts of the ruling have been overturned or supersceded, but the particular principle, that free speech is not absolute, still stands.
In fact, I'd say that speech is more protected now than it was at that ruling, when sedition laws were in full effect. Printing anti-government propaganda is a national pasttime these days, but back then, it'd get you thrown in jail.
You have the right to speak your mind, your beliefs, your opinions, your lies, your truths, your propaganda, you even have the right to tell people to rape and kill and steal and overthrow the government. You do not have the right to willfully endanger the lives of others by causing false panic or inciting immediate criminal behavior.
I am not a lawyer, but I play one on Slashdot.
But is someone telling you information illegial? I mean, breaking into a place, either physically or electronically to get info makes the info definately illegially obtained.
However, someone telling you something at a general e-mail address is entirely different.
Let's distinguish the two parties here -- the NDA-violator and the website operator.
The former breaches his contract to provide the information to the later, the later, knowing, or having reason to know of the breach of contract, reproduces the information on his website.
What might not be clear is that this breach of contract is effectively the same thing as theft under the UTSA. (This doesn't mean it is equal to theft, it just means that it applies equally when dealing with trade secrets, which are defined in part by a company's attempts at keeping it secret, including such contracts.)
The other unclear part is that the website operator knows, or has reason to know, that the information was obtained through a breach of contract. In this case the burden of proof is pretty light, as the sites were openly soliciting insider information, and openly claiming that they had it. It's only reasonable for them to assume that they would get such information, and the sites themselves haven't claimed ignorance in defence, so it's a non-issue.
So, what I meant by "the printing of illegally obtained information" was that the sites were at fault for printing the information, not for illegally obtaining it. I recognize that it wasn't entirely clear.
For what it's worth, the sites *may have* obtained the information illegally, by inducement, or bribery. As far as I know they have not been accused of doing so, but it may be that evidence of such just hasn't been revealed yet, especially considering that the source of the leaks has yet to be identified.
That's just speculation though. I don't believe it's the case, but I think many people would feel differently about it if it were, all else being the same.
What property right justifies the application of restrictions imposed by an agreement on someone that never signed that agreement?
The right to possess trade secrets. The Uniform Trade Secets Act, which factors heavily into this case, is just an extention of the common law right to hold trade secrets.
Now, the definition of "trade secret" varies quite a bit, but I can't imagine any jurisdiction where secret internal information regarding unannounced products can not be considered a trade secret.
Do you understand that the person who signs a contract is the one who should be constrained by it, and punished should they break it, and a contract should not be binding upon anyone that hasn't actually agreed to it?
You're confusing contracts with the law. A contract is an agreement that goes above and beyond what the law specifies.
The source of the information violated his or her contract. These sites violated the law.
I never signed a contract saying I wouldn't kill people, but that doesn't make it legal for me to do so.
If so, then its a dumb law that could easily be used to suppress legitimate journalism (and has been in the past).
There are plenty of legal protections and exceptions for "whistleblowers" -- you may not agree that they go far enough, but this case is absolutely not one that applies. Exposing a company's internal product planning information is not the same as exposing fraudulent accounting practices, or the dumping of toxic waste, or any other illegal activity.
You might as well have said that anyone who doesn't agree with megacorporate "ethics" is thusly unethical.
... is protected according to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
I think what he was saying is basically that anyone that doesn't agree with the court in this case is likely to have problems with much larger things than what this case was actually about.
If you subscribe to certain notions about intellectual property[1], then, yes, you probably think the judge is an idiot. That doesn't mean his legal opinion is wrong.
[1] or trade secrets, or corporations, or blogging, etc, etc.
I think that there's been a tremendous amount of rhetoric surrounding this case that has nothing to do with the case itself.
This particular expression of speech
Libel is not protected. Slander is not protected. Incitement is not protected. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is not protected. Printing trade secrets is not protected. Free speech is not an absolute right.
A great many people find the prospect that they should be held liable for publishing information gotten legally (from their point of view that is) just because whoever they got it from brok a NDA ridicilous.
It wasn't aqcuired legally, and that's the whole point. These sites are basically begging for secret inside information. The only sources for such information are probably under NDA of some kind or another. Ergo, the only sources for the information would be people violating their NDA.
Signing away your own free speech is one thing, signing away others' is a whole different slew!
You can't sign away another persons right to secret information. They never had the right in the first place. You only had the right to be privy to it because you signed an agreement. They certainly didn't have the right to print it in their publication for a profit.
A potential breach of a NDA should be treated as a contract dispute, and this shouldn't have anything to do with special tradelaws, and shouldn't involve courts/police at all!
Contracts are legally binding agreements, they have everything to do with the law. They are backed by the power of the court. What you're suggesting is completely at odds with reality.
Look, the judge may have a point but celebrating the victory of a corporation over an individual just seems fucked up to me.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that an individual is incapable of breaking the law, or is at least "less able" to break the law than a corporation.
Also, Think Secret (I'm not sure about the others) is operated by The dePlume Organization, a limited-liabilty corporation.
The 'free speech' issue isn't' about wether or not you can go blabbing your companies trade secrets, it's about wether or not someone else, someone who has not signed an NDA or anything else should be able to re-spout them.
The law says that you cannot do this. The judge is doing his job by enforcing the law. Your gripe is with the law, not with the case.
These people, who are not under contract should be able (I think) to say whatever they want without repercussion even if someone would be harmed by the common knowledge.
To do that would mean throwing out libel and slander laws, as well. Freedom of speech (or freedom of the press, which is more accurate in these cases) is not an absolute right.
But it seems to me that simply telling the truth ought to be protected under the constitution, if you don't sign an NDA.
I would not describe the printing of illegally obtained information for a profit to be "simply telling the truth".
Yet, here these people are being forced to A) name their source, or B) Go to jail (or something). They're being punished for telling the truth about something, despite the fact that they signed no NDA and were not under any contract.
Apple was not, and is not, seeking damages against these sites. They were seeking information, and now the court has ordered them to give up that information. If they do not, they can appeal, or be held in contempt of court. I sincerely doubt that they will choose not to appeal this, but I doubt even more that they will choose to ignore the court's order should it not be overturned.
Our hash functions may end up looking more like Panama than like MD4.
But Panama already has a big hole that goes right through it!
You have a good point, but Apple didn't follow these three rules (or didn't for a long time). They have great people and it seems like they have done a decent job managing their money, but they traditionally have not made "something customers actually want". Their products have been excellent, but the market didn't want an excellent product, they wanted a cheap one.
As a startup, Apple sure as hell did do those 3 things. As for making something customers want, you might have heard of the enormously popular Apple II, or perhaps the original Macintosh?
Yes, there is this cloudy er...decade, between the late 80s and late 90s where one does not typically associate Apple with "desirable", but the company was built on exactly the principles that Graham suggests.
Microsoft figured out a long time ago how to give people what they want. Nobody wanted an old clunky DOS interface, so they gave everyone a cheap, standardized GUI interface. Everyone was tired of figuring out WordPerfect's syntax, so they gave everyone a WYSIWYG Word processor.
Seriously, have you not heard of the Macintosh? It's pretty famous. You might want to look it up.
Every game made today..
The first level is easy to accomplish.
Second level is marginally harder.
This basic structure is the only way to make a fun game. It isn't the problem.
The insidious aspect of MMORPGs is that they make this explicit in the "stats" and "levels" that you have to keep track of and improve. The *actual* game of these games is just "make the number bigger", which is a very primitive goal (think Pac-Man). You're paying $10+ a month just to play Pac-Man.
Other games tend to have more complex goals, like "get to the next stage, see more of the world, advance the story". You can "beat" these games. You can't beat a MMORPG, except by ending it yourself.
Because if we can blame our bad habits on a disease, something out of our control, then we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it.
One of the first steps of overcomming any addiction is accepting responsibility for it -- accepting that you are addicted and you don't have a handle on it, and that you are the only one that can do anything about it. It is not about absolution of responsibility at all.
Face it, most of these purely psychological "addictions" that plague modern society can be corrected with a little behavior modification and a little willpower.
You're misunderstanding the "problem" part of addiction. You have to want to stop being addicted -- this takes more than "a little willpower" for someone that is truly addicted. Denial allows the addict to believe that they have everything under control when clearly, to anyone else, they do not.
Very specific techniques which is vital to the development of OSS in the print/media industry.
So, license the technology from Apple, like everybody else with a TrueType implementation. I imagine that Novell has a license, which is why the "right" way is turned on in their distribution.
An alternative would be to build a patent-free replacement for TrueType from scratch. But that would take a lot of work, wouldn't it? It's much easier to just indignantly expect handouts from those that did all the work already.
You're also ignoring the fact that TrueType exists in the first place, which is not a given. Someone had to invent TrueType, and it wasn't an open source project, it was Apple.
However, when Apple has got so much from the OSS community -- Safari, a hell of a lot of BSD stuff, Apache, Samba, postfix and a heck of other servers, is it so much to ask that Apple could offer some vital patents free, as long as it is a GPL (or other OS viral license)'ed project?
Yes, in fact, it is. Nowhere in the GNU GPL or LGPL, nor the BSD license, does it say "you can take the code but you have to give away your completely unrelated patents".
I'll emphasize the BSD license, because a lot of people make the same mistake you are. The BSD license says you can take the code, make a commercial product, and not release the changes. If you don't want a company doing this, then don't release your code under a BSD-style license.
Likewise, the LGPL says that you can take a library (in this case were talking about KHTML), and link to it from a non-free (including commercial) program. If you don't want a company doing this then don't release your code under a LGPL-license.
When you license your code like this, you are giving it to anyone that accepts the conditions in the license. If you want something in return, your chance to ask for it is in the license. If you want them to make their source code available, you'd better say so in the license. This is why the GPL exists (among many other reasons).
The authors of the software that you mentioned above presumably know the implications of their choice of license, and thus aren't expecting the kinds of patent giveaway that you are.
Your argument is a bit like saying "I support free speech, as long as I agree with it".
The amount of software that can be pre-instaled is unbelievably larger then on a Windows box and that for the same price.
Ah, but you're forgetting that one of the worst parts about buying a PC off-the-shelf is getting rid of all of that preinstalled crap that you'll never use.
More packages means more to update/patch, more to configure, more to take up space (both on disk and in menus), etc. Care must be taken to make sure that the preinstalled software is stuff that is actually useful, or at least, won't get in the way.
Sorry, but something really extraordinary is needed to even threaten Microsofts dominance, much less overtake it.
All that needs to happen is that Linux becomes useful as a desktop for more than a tiny number of people. And it's not "web browsing, email, word processor" stuff that's the problem -- it's the moment that a person steps out of that tiny little box that the developers have made for them that they tumble right off the edge.
Even then, I can't see Linux overtaking Windows -- but why is that even the goal? Why isn't the goal to make a useful thing for all kinds of people?
Linux can hope to become as popular as Macintosh, but even that is very hard. Apple stuff is easy, remember?
What do you mean by that?
Yes, but this autohinting method simply isn't as good as the real method that the TrueType font contains.
I wasn't claiming that it was. In fact, I would be quite surprised if it was. You're basically saying that the patented technique is superior, which I imagine is why it's patented.
Your complaint seems to imply that Apple has actively interfered with the development of open source font rendering, which is untrue. I think it's misleading to say that Apple has "absolutely tarnished the chance of decent, out of the box, free font anti-aliasing", simply because they hold a patent on very specific techniques (that they invented) to implement a standard (that they invented).
You seem to be suggesting that they should either a) not hold this patent, or b) license it for free.
You went on to accuse Apple of 'plundering' OSS, which not only isn't a very defensible statement, but is also particularly silly when what you're asking for here is a handout.
Once the source has been determined, then Apple can drag that person into court. If you violate an NDA, you should be held accountable, not some third party.
Apple is suing to discover the identity of the person(s), they aren't seeking damages. As a third-party that printed what they believed to be secret information (and as it turns out, it was), they are liable (under the UTSPA), but Apple is only using this to get at the original source.
They are, in fact, doing what everyone keeps saying they should, by going after the source of the leak. How better to find that source than by going through the persons they leaked information to?
Publishing blueprints, schematics, etc. would be violating a trade secret, not publishing the general specs of a new product. If it were the former, Apple would be in the right.
That's how it is in the movies, but there is no difference under the law (in most places anyway). A trade secret does not have to have a big "SECRET" stamp in red ink on it.
If the company considers something a secret, treats it as one, (ie, they don't publish it, it isn't public knowledge), and it can be shown to give them an economic advantage, then it is a trade secret. Apple definitely believes that keeping it's product plans secret is important for business, and they definitely take steps to keep those plans secret.
From the page you linked:
Is FreeType 2 affected by the patents ?
The answer is no for any recent build of FreeType 2, since it comes with a "auto-hinting" module that was specifically designed to completely ignore the TrueType bytecodes. -- FreeType and Patents
Not to mention that Apple has absolutely tarnished the chance of decent, out of the box, _free_ font anti-aliasing on Linux/any alternative OS.
Bullshit.
They hold the patent for TrueType font hinting, which is absolutely needed for good looking fonts.
Well, gee, I don't think that's such a wrong thing, given that they invented TrueType.
Sadly, you will get Apple apolgists that think Apple is more than a company that 'plunders' OSS so they can shortcut some of their other commercial competitors.
TrueType is not the invention of some oppressed open source developers. It is not a "given" -- if you want a patent-free type system you're going to have to invent it yourself, the same way that Ogg Vorbis/Flac/Speex/Theora developers are building patent-free compression.