That clause covers copyright and patents. It comes nowhere close to trademarks.
Trademark law is based on the idea that other people shouldn't impersonate me.
If I've established a good reputation for myself other people have no right to pretend to be me, or pretend that their business is associated with mine by using a confusingly similar name or logo. Let them build their own reputation.
A stock ubuntu install will broadcast DHCP and listen for the reply, and it will send DNS requests and listen for the result.
There's a bit of a dispute at the moment about having mDNS open (aka zeroconf) because in theory it should be even safer than listening to DHCP. But the 'no open ports' people won't allow it. mDNS can't tell you who to trust as a gateway or DNS server, where DHCP will.
afaik just login attempts, looking for weak passwords.
Usually they have ten to a hundred attempts at the root password, and then go through a range of common account names using the same name and perhaps a few variations like backwards. Typically one scan a day from various IP ranges all over the place, they go for an hour or more and I've had three different IP's running a scan at the same time.
It's not really 'exploiting linux' as such but SSH is typically a linux/unix thing which clearly someone's having a go at, so it's not all windows exploits.
Oct 7 12:20:49 zcat sshd[21846]: Failed password for root from 222.39.47.92 port 34456 ssh2 Oct 7 23:30:24 zcat sshd[3027]: Failed password for root from 59.25.30.145 port 33523 ssh2 Oct 8 00:43:11 zcat sshd[9630]: Failed password for root from 146.145.231.236 port 33847 ssh2 Oct 9 20:11:01 zcat sshd[31977]: Failed password for root from 219.142.102.54 port 53635 ssh2
I know... Not quite every 15 minutes, and not really a flaw in Linux itself. But they are out there.
They should announce that for one month, publishers can choose to give google permission to index their books.
At the end of the month, every publisher that didn't gets dropepd from the index. If they want back in (because, for example, they discover their competition is getting hundreds of click-throughs with 40% or more sales) they have to pay Google either a BIG up-front payment or a percentage of all future sales.
It's funny, but most places make you pay heaps for advertising. Especially for well-targeted and effective advertising that leads to a high percentage of sales. I never understood why google feels they have to give it away free.
Copyright should be limited to 'copying for redistribution'. What people do with the stuff they've bought in the privacy of their own home, should be absoultely no business of the original author or publisher.
BTW; you do know that in the UK it's not legal to transfer ('copy') the CD's you've bought and paid for onto your computer, ipod, car MP3 player, etc...?
2) There will be a crack out soon. My guess perhaps a month. Six months tops. If it takes more than a year I will be very surprised, and exceptionally happy. Why happy? See point 1.
Traditionally, those who are defending the GPL are happy the moment infringement stops and usually happiest if infringment stops because source code is provided.
As a general rule, nobody defending the GPL ever seeks damages or worries about previous infringing copies. We're a very forgiving crowd!
Consider the typical Microsoft/BSA lawsuit where a company is found to be noncompliant. The company always has the option of buying the appropriate number of Windows licences and are allowed to continue operating with the exact same software that is already installed. The last thing Microsoft want is forcing someone to switch to Linux!!
How is this any different?
"Your honor, D-Link have agreed to comply and distribute under licence from now on. We're happy to overlook previous violations, and if we could be awarded our legal costs so far the remainder of this case can be dismissed."
Judges (afaik) usually prefer that the parties sort out their differences and come to an agreement themselves, without having to impose fines or injunctions.
From a legal perspective, that might be right (although I strongly doubt it!)
From the GPL perspective it's completely wrong. If DLink has agreed to distribute source, that would have immediately been the end of the matter and no further action would have been taken.
What's more likely is that DLink made changes to the free code, using libraries or specifications that they were not allowed to distribute. Example; the specifications of many wireless chipsets are available under an NDA which only allows you to write binary drivers. You're not allowed to pass this information on to anyone else, either as documentation or in the form of source code.
Assuming DLink had used such a chipset (which is entirely likely) they would be in a bind. The GPL requires them to distribute source with the binaries, the NDA prohibits it. The only legal option is to do neither and kill the product.
The GPL is NOT legally binding. It never has been, and it never claimed to be.
Copyright law is legally binding. If you want to distribute copies of software (Be it Microsoft's or Richard's or Linus's) you need permission from the copyright holder. You're quite welcome to completely ignore the GPL, but in that case you have no permission to distribute copies of the software and doing so becomes copyright violation.
1. No fecking media support! Agreed. I really hate that Windows Media Player won't do Ogg audio or video, Flac, Xvid, aac, mov, real media, or even play DVD's without having to go download and install a codec pack.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why? When Windows tells you it's installing 'updates' or a 'service pack', do you really have ANY idea what's actually being changed? And why would it need a reboot afterwards, like it usually does, for anything less that a kernel upgrade? Linux never does.
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. Another thing I really hate about Windows updates. I never know what application is going to break, and if just downloading the latest version is going to fix it or I'll have to spend half an hour on Google finding some DLL that has to be upgraded. At least with any package-based Linux distro, everything gets upgraded at the same time so there's half a chance it will all still work.
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'. Another thing I hate about Windows. Ubuntu picks the best resolution and refresh rate my Monitor can handle, by default. And I can change it fairly easily if I need to. Windows gives me 800x600 at 60Hz. Duh! And 3d support? You wish! that's another download.
5. Lack of decent file-browser. Yeah, because MSIE with a tacked on 'file browser' UI makes a really decent file browser! ROFL! You can't be serious...
I never liked Fedora either. Try Ubuntu; "easyubuntu" will install all the nonfree stuff, nvidia drivers, codecs, flash and java. You'll probably want to change the wallpaper, and colour scheme, and make it login automatically too... but once you customise it a little it's a really nice distro!
One of the New Zealand banks (BankDirect) a while back had their SSL certificate expire. In the 12 hours before it was fixed, 300 people were presented with an invalid certificate warning dialog and 299 people logged in regardless.
Nope. My friend has learned not to trust Microsoft and in future he'll rip his music to mp3 using CDex. He's also seriously interested in switching to Ubuntu, I just have to find some free time to install it and set it up nicely for him.
I friend of mine dropped by yesterday with an interesting story. He had a pile of CD's which he wanted 'ripped' to try out on his recently purchased mp3/wma player. He doesn't have an internet connection at home, so to save himself the effort of typing in all the track listings by hand he took his CD's to another friend's place, ripped them in Windows Media Player, made sure they all played properly, and burned them to a CDR to take home.
Surprise, surprise, he can't play them at home. Not on his computer, and not on his new media player. Still at least it was only an afternoon wasted, he could have bought a few tracks online at his friend's house and ended up with 1-dollar-a-track unplayable music instead.
ubuntu packages can also behave this way; sun's java and Macrodobe Flash are handled this way because they don't allow redistribution, nVidia's drivers are completely repackaged for ubuntu, and I expect something similar will be done for Google Earth soon enough.
My problem is that the mere existence of binary installers for Linux encourages recent migrants from Windows to keep doing things in the Windows 'download random crap and run it' way. And then they turn up on IRC complaining and expecting us to fix things when all their dependencies are broken!
Until recently I think Linux has been crusing along to some extent on obscurity to some extent. A virus is only a program like any other, and trying to claim that Linux is magically able to discriminate between 'good' programs and 'bad' programs is completely silly.
The real strength is the 'package' model of modern distributions. When you want to install a program under Linux, the proper way is via synaptic or apt-get or whatever package tool your distribution uses.
Downloading a binary installer from some random website is NOT the way to install Linux software and I really wish companies like nVidia (for the nvidia drivers) and Google (Google earth for linux) would stop even packaging them!
On the other side, imagine if Google were to expand their 'google pack' installer to include the many thousands of OSS and freely redistributable programs available. It would become possible to use Windows like a package-based distribution, installing all new software only from signed and tested google packages. That would be very much like having apt-for-windows. I think this would help make Windows a lot more secure.
Slashdot Mirror
With a bit of luck, small dust-devils will clean off the panels and it will end up running years longer than it was designed for....
Ideas cannot be copyrighted. Well, mostly.
But somewhere in the darker recesses of Redmond a lawyer is drafting a patent application..
That clause covers copyright and patents. It comes nowhere close to trademarks.
Trademark law is based on the idea that other people shouldn't impersonate me.
If I've established a good reputation for myself other people have no right to pretend to be me, or pretend that their business is associated with mine by using a confusingly similar name or logo. Let them build their own reputation.
lost somewhere in the badblocks, perhaps? They should check her journal...
It doesn't.
A stock ubuntu install will broadcast DHCP and listen for the reply, and it will send DNS requests and listen for the result.
There's a bit of a dispute at the moment about having mDNS open (aka zeroconf) because in theory it should be even safer than listening to DHCP. But the 'no open ports' people won't allow it. mDNS can't tell you who to trust as a gateway or DNS server, where DHCP will.
afaik just login attempts, looking for weak passwords.
Usually they have ten to a hundred attempts at the root password, and then go through a range of common account names using the same name and perhaps a few variations like backwards. Typically one scan a day from various IP ranges all over the place, they go for an hour or more and I've had three different IP's running a scan at the same time.
It's not really 'exploiting linux' as such but SSH is typically a linux/unix thing which clearly someone's having a go at, so it's not all windows exploits.
Oct 7 12:20:49 zcat sshd[21846]: Failed password for root from 222.39.47.92 port 34456 ssh2
Oct 7 23:30:24 zcat sshd[3027]: Failed password for root from 59.25.30.145 port 33523 ssh2
Oct 8 00:43:11 zcat sshd[9630]: Failed password for root from 146.145.231.236 port 33847 ssh2
Oct 9 20:11:01 zcat sshd[31977]: Failed password for root from 219.142.102.54 port 53635 ssh2
I know... Not quite every 15 minutes, and not really a flaw in Linux itself. But they are out there.
I just don't understand the mentality of the publishers. Free advertising. More sales. How is that bad?!!!
Just because you have the _right_ to shoot yourself in the foot doesn't make it a good idea.
They should announce that for one month, publishers can choose to give google permission to index their books.
At the end of the month, every publisher that didn't gets dropepd from the index. If they want back in (because, for example, they discover their competition is getting hundreds of click-throughs with 40% or more sales) they have to pay Google either a BIG up-front payment or a percentage of all future sales.
It's funny, but most places make you pay heaps for advertising. Especially for well-targeted and effective advertising that leads to a high percentage of sales. I never understood why google feels they have to give it away free.
.. and yet most people do.
Copyright should be limited to 'copying for redistribution'. What people do with the stuff they've bought in the privacy of their own home, should be absoultely no business of the original author or publisher.
BTW; you do know that in the UK it's not legal to transfer ('copy') the CD's you've bought and paid for onto your computer, ipod, car MP3 player, etc...?
1) This is the best thing ever for Linux.
2) There will be a crack out soon. My guess perhaps a month. Six months tops. If it takes more than a year I will be very surprised, and exceptionally happy. Why happy? See point 1.
Three words;
"Round Island One"
By strict interpertation of the law, perhaps.
Traditionally, those who are defending the GPL are happy the moment infringement stops and usually happiest if infringment stops because source code is provided.
As a general rule, nobody defending the GPL ever seeks damages or worries about previous infringing copies. We're a very forgiving crowd!
Consider the typical Microsoft/BSA lawsuit where a company is found to be noncompliant. The company always has the option of buying the appropriate number of Windows licences and are allowed to continue operating with the exact same software that is already installed. The last thing Microsoft want is forcing someone to switch to Linux!!
How is this any different?
"Your honor, D-Link have agreed to comply and distribute under licence from now on. We're happy to overlook previous violations, and if we could be awarded our legal costs so far the remainder of this case can be dismissed."
Judges (afaik) usually prefer that the parties sort out their differences and come to an agreement themselves, without having to impose fines or injunctions.
From a legal perspective, that might be right (although I strongly doubt it!)
From the GPL perspective it's completely wrong. If DLink has agreed to distribute source, that would have immediately been the end of the matter and no further action would have been taken.
What's more likely is that DLink made changes to the free code, using libraries or specifications that they were not allowed to distribute. Example; the specifications of many wireless chipsets are available under an NDA which only allows you to write binary drivers. You're not allowed to pass this information on to anyone else, either as documentation or in the form of source code.
Assuming DLink had used such a chipset (which is entirely likely) they would be in a bind. The GPL requires them to distribute source with the binaries, the NDA prohibits it. The only legal option is to do neither and kill the product.
The GPL is NOT legally binding. It never has been, and it never claimed to be.
Copyright law is legally binding. If you want to distribute copies of software (Be it Microsoft's or Richard's or Linus's) you need permission from the copyright holder. You're quite welcome to completely ignore the GPL, but in that case you have no permission to distribute copies of the software and doing so becomes copyright violation.
It's really simple.
1. No fecking media support!
Agreed. I really hate that Windows Media Player won't do Ogg audio or video, Flac, Xvid, aac, mov, real media, or even play DVD's without having to go download and install a codec pack.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why?
When Windows tells you it's installing 'updates' or a 'service pack', do you really have ANY idea what's actually being changed? And why would it need a reboot afterwards, like it usually does, for anything less that a kernel upgrade? Linux never does.
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'.
Another thing I really hate about Windows updates. I never know what application is going to break, and if just downloading the latest version is going to fix it or I'll have to spend half an hour on Google finding some DLL that has to be upgraded. At least with any package-based Linux distro, everything gets upgraded at the same time so there's half a chance it will all still work.
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'.
Another thing I hate about Windows. Ubuntu picks the best resolution and refresh rate my Monitor can handle, by default. And I can change it fairly easily if I need to. Windows gives me 800x600 at 60Hz. Duh! And 3d support? You wish! that's another download.
5. Lack of decent file-browser.
Yeah, because MSIE with a tacked on 'file browser' UI makes a really decent file browser! ROFL! You can't be serious...
I never liked Fedora either. Try Ubuntu; "easyubuntu" will install all the nonfree stuff, nvidia drivers, codecs, flash and java. You'll probably want to change the wallpaper, and colour scheme, and make it login automatically too... but once you customise it a little it's a really nice distro!
That depends.
For online Chess it'd be just fine!!
No, they flush it with nitrogen. So sayeth Uncle Arthur who spent many years working on gaslines.
One of the New Zealand banks (BankDirect) a while back had their SSL certificate expire. In the 12 hours before it was fixed, 300 people were presented with an invalid certificate warning dialog and 299 people logged in regardless.
Actual numbers. Google it for yourself.
Nope. My friend has learned not to trust Microsoft and in future he'll rip his music to mp3 using CDex. He's also seriously interested in switching to Ubuntu, I just have to find some free time to install it and set it up nicely for him.
I friend of mine dropped by yesterday with an interesting story. He had a pile of CD's which he wanted 'ripped' to try out on his recently purchased mp3/wma player. He doesn't have an internet connection at home, so to save himself the effort of typing in all the track listings by hand he took his CD's to another friend's place, ripped them in Windows Media Player, made sure they all played properly, and burned them to a CDR to take home.
Surprise, surprise, he can't play them at home. Not on his computer, and not on his new media player. Still at least it was only an afternoon wasted, he could have bought a few tracks online at his friend's house and ended up with 1-dollar-a-track unplayable music instead.
Different universes entirely.
One is from a fictional universe created by George Lucas
The other is from a fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry
ubuntu packages can also behave this way; sun's java and Macrodobe Flash are handled this way because they don't allow redistribution, nVidia's drivers are completely repackaged for ubuntu, and I expect something similar will be done for Google Earth soon enough.
My problem is that the mere existence of binary installers for Linux encourages recent migrants from Windows to keep doing things in the Windows 'download random crap and run it' way. And then they turn up on IRC complaining and expecting us to fix things when all their dependencies are broken!
Until recently I think Linux has been crusing along to some extent on obscurity to some extent. A virus is only a program like any other, and trying to claim that Linux is magically able to discriminate between 'good' programs and 'bad' programs is completely silly.
The real strength is the 'package' model of modern distributions. When you want to install a program under Linux, the proper way is via synaptic or apt-get or whatever package tool your distribution uses.
Downloading a binary installer from some random website is NOT the way to install Linux software and I really wish companies like nVidia (for the nvidia drivers) and Google (Google earth for linux) would stop even packaging them!
On the other side, imagine if Google were to expand their 'google pack' installer to include the many thousands of OSS and freely redistributable programs available. It would become possible to use Windows like a package-based distribution, installing all new software only from signed and tested google packages. That would be very much like having apt-for-windows. I think this would help make Windows a lot more secure.