Yes, I read your post. The difference between what Perens is doing and what your friend did is publicity. Skylarov was arrested because the FBI was notified that a public violation was going to occur. Adobe made the notification, but it could have been anyone. Perens is creating the exact same circumstances, except he is serving notice that a public violation will occur.
Now, whether or not law enforcement chooses to enforce it under these conditions is yet to be seen. If they do, the case goes to a court of law. If they don't, it goes to the court of public opinion and provides for open discourse and debate as to why law enforcement did not enforce the law.
Your friend failed to get enough publicity to press the case in the public eye. Bruce may fail as well, but that's where/.'ers can actually make a difference by calling attention to what he's doing.
It's news because it's coming from the mouth of an appointed U.S. policymaker. It doesn't matter to me if some corporate or private nitwit wants to blather incoherently. It does matter to me when that blathering is put forth as official government policy.
Subtle difference, but no you are not. You are infringing on their copyright. The whole justification behind the constitutional protection of intellectual works is that the founding fathers could not reasonably ascribe to them the attributes necessary to be considered "property". Hence copyright law and property law are two distinctly different animals. "Theft" is a property law term and is not applicable when discussing copyrights.
What part of "exclusive right... don't you understand?
I don't think that's what the poster was challenging. I think they were arguing that a Britney Spears album does not qualify as a science or a useful art and therefor is unworthy of copyright protection. It's a good point, but do we want to turn judges into music critics (or, more frightening, vice versa)?
Its amazing the lengths that people will go to justify intellectual property theft
It's amazing that people don't understand that the term "intellectual property" is a phrase cooked up by interests vested with copyright to try to extend property protection to cover things that the consitution specifically forbids it to cover.
If they don't accept it back, demand a manager write "return refused" and sign and date your receipt. Explain to the them that according to the legal document included in the box/presented on the screen, he's a legal agent for the
software vendor and is contractually obligated to refund your money because you do not agree to the EULA. Show them that portion of the EULA. See if they sign or give you a refund. (This assumes the EULA has the standard "if you do not accept return to place of purchase for a full refund" clause.)
If this is truly a license, then the retailer is acting as an agent of the manufacturer, so they must also comply with the terms of the EULA. Failure of the agent to comply with the terms by accepting the return is breach of contract and nullifies the agreement making the transaction revert to a sale (which I believe it really is in the first place).
Now you can either pursue the breach of contract in small claims court to really get your money back or have actual evidence that you attempted to comply with the terms but the manufacturer's agent refused. At that point, you should be free to do whatever would be legal under standard copyright law. I can't imagine a court finding that you are still bound by the EULA under these conditions (of course, I hate to imagine them finding a mouse click a binding agreement as well).
Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. But if anyone tries it, I'd like to know how it goes. If enough people push this way, retail stores will be forced to either drop their "no return on open software policy" or become unwilling allies in the fight for reasonable EULAs.
Since the Berne Convention acknowledges copyright on any work produced, and since all web pages are "produced", and since virtually 100% of the people on the internet download web pages with executable content (e.g. JavaScript). then 100% are not paying for copyrighted content and "pirating" (assuming you use that word to mean "making a copy of copyrighted material") software. Personally, I'm extremely disappointed to discover that only 12% of the people surveyed were honest about the fact that they're thieves.
I think the BSA needs to "study" some more. They're really missing the boat if they can't fudge figures better than this.
If I rent a Ryder truck, they don't stop me from pulling into U-Haul to buy boxes or storage space or gas or whatever other services might make me better able to use the truck I rented.
The bottom line is different because now the product packaging will say Requires WinWhatever and Internet Explorer ver N or higher. Then I can say, I don't want that product, I'll find another that doesn't compromise my system's security. IOW, it means ALL products, not just Windows, will have to compete by fulfilling customer demand.
(It's what we used to call a competitive market. I realise a lot of/.'ers are too young to recall it)
I think it was HP that testified during the trial that after MS forced them to stop their modifications of the default install, their support desk took a massive hit on the number of customer calls. The OEM is the first line of support for customer problems. They have a vested interest in providing an interface that minimizes user problems. Microsoft doesn't. If anyone calls them for support, they direct them to the OEM or charge them for a support call.
Movie theaters and concerts. They don't have to sell videos, DVD's or CD's. They certainly don't have to sell them in digital format. If they want to be the ones who deliver what the consumers want, then they have to decide if the risk is worth the reward.
It's not a new question for them. They were convinced that the audio cassette would kill music and the VCR would kill the movie industry. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. They can and will adapt if congress does not provide them with a consumer^H CITIZEN screwing golden parachute. Pointing out their history of screaming the sky is falling at each new technology might help explain their mindset as well.
You will now no longer have a leg to stand on about the "I can do what I want" deal. (Of course, you couldn't before. You can't buy a book and copy it, change the authors name to yours and resell it. If you think you could, here's my name for you: Thief. Deal with it, you are.)
"Doing what I want" is not my point. Doing what I'm legally entitled to is. As long as software transactions take the
form of a sale, you have equivalent fair use rights as you do with any other copyright material you purchase. You can't sell it or make a derivative work, but you can make personal copies for time and space shifting and you can reverse engineer it regardless of any alleged "license agreement". Nor can any such agreement grant them the authority to hack your computer any more than it can grant them the authority to place additional charges on your credit card or come in your house and take your firstborn child.
In your vision of the future, then yes, a contract would be possible, but how many people will actually register their eyeballs, or whatever else might be necessary, in order to have the ability to sign their rights away to a software vendor? We need to press our consumer rights until it's clear to software vendors that they do not have some "special" rights beyond that of traditional copyrights.
Re:They need to standardize the EULA's
on
Spyware Fights Back
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· Score: 4, Informative
No, they don't.
They need to be formally, finally, and legally declared null and void. Like any other transaction, all terms and conditions need to be agreed to by both parties prior to the transfer of goods.
And No, I don't know how a website determines that the downloader is, or is not, a minor and or otherwise has the legal authority to agree to anything prior to download. I guess software companies that require any sort of legal commitment from their customers can't make it available for download. That's the suppliers problem, and if they can't figure it out then it doesn't bother me a bit.
If I buy retail software, I am NOT licensing that software. I'm buying it (just like a book, CD, or any other product that happens to be copyrighted).
I guess if a company cannot gaurantee that a downloader can legally agree to a license they either have to a) not make it available for download, or b) consider it a sale at $0, with no obligation on the receiver. Without a contract, it can be no other way.
You're forced to accept an EULA to use a piece of software
No, you don't. Someone may have to click "I agree", but it doesn't have to be you. It could be your minor child. Since minors have not authority to enter a contract, the EULA is void. If the vendor cannot prove that you clicked on it, you're not bound by it. Nor does it have to mean that you really agree.
Fight the meme! If you don't agree to something before you it's given to you, especially in over the counter software sales, it's not a contract,
it's a sale. (I'd make the same argument even if that sale is a "free" download. If you don't agree prior to the transaction, your agreement is not required as part of the transaction.)
IANAL, just pissed off that this crap keeps going on and we keep taking it
For problem #1, click on the pencil icon in the handwriting tray and increase the character timeout. That also increases the stroke shadow speed and makes it more responsive if you write quickly. Handwriting drove me nuts until I figured it out. Now I'm 50/50 keyboard/handwriting.
Most of what you describe, I simply haven't had problems with. You apparently have so I'll concede that they are problems, at least for you. Suffice it to say I could never get used to PocketPC despite being given a Jornada. It just didn't work the way I wanted to work. PDA functionality is personal like that.
Comments on some of your points:
* You have to basically reboot whenever you install a new program for it to show up on the desktop.
Uhm, no you don't. Maybe for something like openssh, so inetd will pick up the new conf, but you could kill -HUP it just as well. Other packages might install daemons I supposed, but even those don't need to reboot. What your talking about is a packaging issue with particular ipkgs, not a Zaurus issue. The worst case should be that Qtopia restarts (the big hour-glass icon). Is this
what what you mean by reboot? Package maturity and more developer experience with ipkg will fix this. (Or you could just use ipkg from a terminal and skip the "Add/Remove Programs" app entirely.)
Seems to be very dependent on having network/internet access to install software. (This is a BAD thing on a handheld)
As far as the Zaurus is concerned, if it's in the cradle the USB connection is a network connection. If the host PC can NAT, you've got a network connection right there. Even if it doesn't, installing from the host PC is still a network install. I LOVE the fact that everything, even if it's just between the host and the Z, is standard, out-of-the-box IP. Try connecting a PocketPC device to a Linux desktop, then a Zaurus to a Windows desktop and see which is easier. (Zaurus to Linux is simply great [and no, I don't use Qtopia Desktop. I "sync" with ssh.])
Updating the rom is time consuming and requires extra hardware to do.
So, iInstall vncserver, connect to the usb cradle and use your PC keyboard with vncviewer. I imagine there'll eventually be fold-able/portable keyboards for it as well, just like there are for IPAQ's, Jornada's, etc. Remember this is a new product. Accessories become available after there's a demand for them.
Note that no other handheld gives you any keyboard at all. If you don't like the Z's, and that's a big factor for you, then don't buy it. As a Zaurus user, however, my experience has been that the keyboard only sucks at first. Now, I've given up on the text editor application in favor of vi in a terminal window. I just takes some getting used to.
Installing software on the Z is done tappity-tappity (PDA equivelant of point and click). There are perl packages available, so if someone can install any package, they can install perl.
They'd most likely be on the geeky side to actually use it though...
It is hard to credit anyone behaving this way as being 'GPL friendly'.
Not anymore. That's his point.
Someone should pay for his source and then mirror it far and wide, and the development should be forked away from him.
First, they aren't charging for "the source", they're charging for the product. In accordance with the GPL, the source is also available to whoever acquires the binaries.
Second, forking is fine. The GPL allows for this, and theKompany knew that going in, yet they still chose the GPL. This was a fairly bold move for a company that's trying to make a buck on software. So go ahead and fork it, but don't expect them to continue to support your ideals with their code.
Your problem is that, despite the actual terms of the GPL, if someone doesn't play by your interpretation then they're wrong, even when RMS agrees that they are not.
You aren't going to get more companies to buy into the GPL by treating those that are trying as a free teat to suckle at. All you, and whiners like you, have managed to do is convince theKompany that the GPL is bad for them. The result is a company that was GPL friendly isn't any more. And the reason is not that the GPL is bad for them, it's that the GPL fanatics are too expensive and annoying to babysit.
The GPL has met it's enemy, and they are it's most vocal supporters. The sooner they get under control, the better off the GPL will be. If they don't get under control soon, the GPL will be dead for commercial products. I support the GPL. I want more GPL code. We're not going to get it by blasting contributors because they want to contribute code AND make money, too.
I hate to spoil a perfectly good rant, but he's not talking about taking someone else's GPL code and doing what he wants with it, he's talking about doing what he wants with his (or, theKompany's) own code that they happen to have released under the GPL.
This isn't even close to the "don't touch GPL code" philosophy of most proprietary vendors. I think the significant point he raises is that the zealotry of some GPL bigots has pushed theKompany to the point that, although they've used the GPL in the past, they're unlikely to do so again.
In a sense, the GPL bigots (a small and vocal subset of GPL supporters) have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They've subjected a GPL friendly vendor to enough abuse that they're turning their backs on the GPL.
Start
here (Is BO legal?) and review the definition of Reckless Tresspass. The problem is that it has to cost $1000 in damages before it's a criminal offense.
Just because it's not criminal, however, doesn't mean you can't pursue civil damages, and small claims court might just be the way to do it. Either that, or collect similar experiences to boost the loss to over $1000 and press criminal charges.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, whether or not law enforcement chooses to enforce it under these conditions is yet to be seen. If they do, the case goes to a court of law. If they don't, it goes to the court of public opinion and provides for open discourse and debate as to why law enforcement did not enforce the law.
Your friend failed to get enough publicity to press the case in the public eye. Bruce may fail as well, but that's where /.'ers can actually make a difference by calling attention to what he's doing.
The point is that it doesn't matter if the MPAA cares or not. The DMCA is The Law (TM) and law enforcement is required to enforce it.
Exactly.
It's news because it's coming from the mouth of an appointed U.S. policymaker. It doesn't matter to me if some corporate or private nitwit wants to blather incoherently. It does matter to me when that blathering is put forth as official government policy.
Shareholders: "How about you go someplace else"
Subtle difference, but no you are not. You are infringing on their copyright. The whole justification behind the constitutional protection of intellectual works is that the founding fathers could not reasonably ascribe to them the attributes necessary to be considered "property". Hence copyright law and property law are two distinctly different animals. "Theft" is a property law term and is not applicable when discussing copyrights.
What part of "exclusive right... don't you understand?
I don't think that's what the poster was challenging. I think they were arguing that a Britney Spears album does not qualify as a science or a useful art and therefor is unworthy of copyright protection. It's a good point, but do we want to turn judges into music critics (or, more frightening, vice versa)?
Its amazing the lengths that people will go to justify intellectual property theft
It's amazing that people don't understand that the term "intellectual property" is a phrase cooked up by interests vested with copyright to try to extend property protection to cover things that the consitution specifically forbids it to cover.
If this is truly a license, then the retailer is acting as an agent of the manufacturer, so they must also comply with the terms of the EULA. Failure of the agent to comply with the terms by accepting the return is breach of contract and nullifies the agreement making the transaction revert to a sale (which I believe it really is in the first place).
Now you can either pursue the breach of contract in small claims court to really get your money back or have actual evidence that you attempted to comply with the terms but the manufacturer's agent refused. At that point, you should be free to do whatever would be legal under standard copyright law. I can't imagine a court finding that you are still bound by the EULA under these conditions (of course, I hate to imagine them finding a mouse click a binding agreement as well).
Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. But if anyone tries it, I'd like to know how it goes. If enough people push this way, retail stores will be forced to either drop their "no return on open software policy" or become unwilling allies in the fight for reasonable EULAs.
I think the BSA needs to "study" some more. They're really missing the boat if they can't fudge figures better than this.
If I rent a Ryder truck, they don't stop me from pulling into U-Haul to buy boxes or storage space or gas or whatever other services might make me better able to use the truck I rented.
Technically I rent that wiring. Shouldn't I have a choice has to who provides my service at the other end?
Or post a Harlan Ellison book.
(It's what we used to call a competitive market. I realise a lot of /.'ers are too young to recall it)
I think it was HP that testified during the trial that after MS forced them to stop their modifications of the default install, their support desk took a massive hit on the number of customer calls. The OEM is the first line of support for customer problems. They have a vested interest in providing an interface that minimizes user problems. Microsoft doesn't. If anyone calls them for support, they direct them to the OEM or charge them for a support call.
It's not a new question for them. They were convinced that the audio cassette would kill music and the VCR would kill the movie industry. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. They can and will adapt if congress does not provide them with a consumer^H CITIZEN screwing golden parachute. Pointing out their history of screaming the sky is falling at each new technology might help explain their mindset as well.
"Doing what I want" is not my point. Doing what I'm legally entitled to is. As long as software transactions take the form of a sale, you have equivalent fair use rights as you do with any other copyright material you purchase. You can't sell it or make a derivative work, but you can make personal copies for time and space shifting and you can reverse engineer it regardless of any alleged "license agreement". Nor can any such agreement grant them the authority to hack your computer any more than it can grant them the authority to place additional charges on your credit card or come in your house and take your firstborn child.
In your vision of the future, then yes, a contract would be possible, but how many people will actually register their eyeballs, or whatever else might be necessary, in order to have the ability to sign their rights away to a software vendor? We need to press our consumer rights until it's clear to software vendors that they do not have some "special" rights beyond that of traditional copyrights.
They need to be formally, finally, and legally declared null and void. Like any other transaction, all terms and conditions need to be agreed to by both parties prior to the transfer of goods.
And No, I don't know how a website determines that the downloader is, or is not, a minor and or otherwise has the legal authority to agree to anything prior to download. I guess software companies that require any sort of legal commitment from their customers can't make it available for download. That's the suppliers problem, and if they can't figure it out then it doesn't bother me a bit.
If I buy retail software, I am NOT licensing that software. I'm buying it (just like a book, CD, or any other product that happens to be copyrighted). I guess if a company cannot gaurantee that a downloader can legally agree to a license they either have to a) not make it available for download, or b) consider it a sale at $0, with no obligation on the receiver. Without a contract, it can be no other way.
No, you don't. Someone may have to click "I agree", but it doesn't have to be you. It could be your minor child. Since minors have not authority to enter a contract, the EULA is void. If the vendor cannot prove that you clicked on it, you're not bound by it. Nor does it have to mean that you really agree.
Fight the meme! If you don't agree to something before you it's given to you, especially in over the counter software sales, it's not a contract, it's a sale. (I'd make the same argument even if that sale is a "free" download. If you don't agree prior to the transaction, your agreement is not required as part of the transaction.)
IANAL, just pissed off that this crap keeps going on and we keep taking it
For problem #1, click on the pencil icon in the handwriting tray and increase the character timeout. That also increases the stroke shadow speed and makes it more responsive if you write quickly. Handwriting drove me nuts until I figured it out. Now I'm 50/50 keyboard/handwriting.
Comments on some of your points:
* You have to basically reboot whenever you install a new program for it to show up on the desktop.
Uhm, no you don't. Maybe for something like openssh, so inetd will pick up the new conf, but you could kill -HUP it just as well. Other packages might install daemons I supposed, but even those don't need to reboot. What your talking about is a packaging issue with particular ipkgs, not a Zaurus issue. The worst case should be that Qtopia restarts (the big hour-glass icon). Is this what what you mean by reboot? Package maturity and more developer experience with ipkg will fix this. (Or you could just use ipkg from a terminal and skip the "Add/Remove Programs" app entirely.)
Seems to be very dependent on having network/internet access to install software. (This is a BAD thing on a handheld)
As far as the Zaurus is concerned, if it's in the cradle the USB connection is a network connection. If the host PC can NAT, you've got a network connection right there. Even if it doesn't, installing from the host PC is still a network install. I LOVE the fact that everything, even if it's just between the host and the Z, is standard, out-of-the-box IP. Try connecting a PocketPC device to a Linux desktop, then a Zaurus to a Windows desktop and see which is easier. (Zaurus to Linux is simply great [and no, I don't use Qtopia Desktop. I "sync" with ssh.])
Updating the rom is time consuming and requires extra hardware to do.
This is something "general users" care about?
Note that no other handheld gives you any keyboard at all. If you don't like the Z's, and that's a big factor for you, then don't buy it. As a Zaurus user, however, my experience has been that the keyboard only sucks at first. Now, I've given up on the text editor application in favor of vi in a terminal window. I just takes some getting used to.
They'd most likely be on the geeky side to actually use it though...
Not anymore. That's his point.
Someone should pay for his source and then mirror it far and wide, and the development should be forked away from him.
First, they aren't charging for "the source", they're charging for the product. In accordance with the GPL, the source is also available to whoever acquires the binaries.
Second, forking is fine. The GPL allows for this, and theKompany knew that going in, yet they still chose the GPL. This was a fairly bold move for a company that's trying to make a buck on software. So go ahead and fork it, but don't expect them to continue to support your ideals with their code.
Your problem is that, despite the actual terms of the GPL, if someone doesn't play by your interpretation then they're wrong, even when RMS agrees that they are not. You aren't going to get more companies to buy into the GPL by treating those that are trying as a free teat to suckle at. All you, and whiners like you, have managed to do is convince theKompany that the GPL is bad for them. The result is a company that was GPL friendly isn't any more. And the reason is not that the GPL is bad for them, it's that the GPL fanatics are too expensive and annoying to babysit.
The GPL has met it's enemy, and they are it's most vocal supporters. The sooner they get under control, the better off the GPL will be. If they don't get under control soon, the GPL will be dead for commercial products. I support the GPL. I want more GPL code. We're not going to get it by blasting contributors because they want to contribute code AND make money, too.
Is ICANN still "governmental" enough that it falls under the Freedom of Information act?
This isn't even close to the "don't touch GPL code" philosophy of most proprietary vendors. I think the significant point he raises is that the zealotry of some GPL bigots has pushed theKompany to the point that, although they've used the GPL in the past, they're unlikely to do so again.
In a sense, the GPL bigots (a small and vocal subset of GPL supporters) have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They've subjected a GPL friendly vendor to enough abuse that they're turning their backs on the GPL.
Just because it's not criminal, however, doesn't mean you can't pursue civil damages, and small claims court might just be the way to do it. Either that, or collect similar experiences to boost the loss to over $1000 and press criminal charges.