Your workplace might be liable; I know Workcover, in some Australian states at least (compulsory work insurance), covers car journeys to and from work.
I'd imagine that you could only be found liable if it were your bad driving that caused the accident, or other circumstances where you were directly to blame *and* the others had no way of knowing that they were being misled (e.g. you knew that the brakes sometimes locked up, etc.)
(If the car looked like a bomb, the tires were bald, etc. I imagine that your co-workers would have been expected to have exercised their responsibility for their own self-protection.)
Of course, as always, it comes down to the side with the best lawyers.:)
In the hypothetical case of legal liability for bad software, I imagine we'd end up splitting software into two classes; cheap (or free/Free), non-liable software, and expensive and liable software. Someone has to pay for all those code audits and company lawyers, after all, and I bet it would be the customer (it usually is:)
I mentioned the Go Corp/ Windows for Pen Computing FUD from the early '90s to the guys I was there with and was met with blank stares.
*Thank you!* Everyone I've mentioned this stuff to doesn't remember it -- but I thought that Microsoft's vapourware pre-announcements nipped an overhyped industry in the bud (at the time I thought it was years too early for the technology to work seamlessly...):)
Par for the course for Microsoft, of course -- take someone else's development (legally or illegally), change the names, then claim that you invented it. Just watch. Encarta 2020 will have glowing stories about Bill Gates inventing the Internet, and no-one will believe us crotchety old people when we say that it's not true.:/
Actually, all of these features work in my version of Mozilla 0.9.8 -- so if 0.9.9 builds aren't packaged yet for whatever system, you can still get this behaviour by retrieving the last milestone.
(I don't think those features were in 0.9.7 though:/)
After all, it's the unoffical Microsoft slogan -- "If it compiles, ship it!" What could be more appropriate for an implementation of a Microsoft-derived technology?:)
IBM has been changing to be more services-based over the years, although this has always been a part of their income.
As to monopolies, IBM was being sued under the anti-trust provisions before and during their initial dealings with MS... they ended up settling before the court reached a decision, I think, although I'm not sure if that was related to Reagan's newly business-friendly DoJ.
Well, to make up for that, whichever party is in government here in Australia would back any decision made by the US, no matter how stupid. Hey, we even let the Brits explode nukes here in the 50s, poisoning a good chunk of inland South Australia...
Re:Many Linux users won't see something unless for
on
Penguin2Apple
·
· Score: 2
I use Debian not because it allows me to do things that Red Hat doesn't, but because it *doesn't* try to do things that Red Hat does.
In my experience all of these 'easy-to-use' layers tend to have the effect of making it more difficult to see what is actually happening, as you're never sure what certain installation tasks or daemons are doing.
(Of course, Windows takes this attitude to the extreme -- if the box starts screwing up, are you going to look through the registry and see if you can fix it, or are you going to re-install?)
Re:No wonder he's using a Mac
on
Penguin2Apple
·
· Score: 2
Since when do Linux geeks go out on dates?
Linux geek? This guy couldn't even figure out how to uninstall RPMs.
Granting a dynasty to hollywood, sports players, or musicians... Not only is easily viewed as unfair, but detracts from the actual art they are to produce.
Oh, so they're producing art, are they? Only tangentially, if at all. Let me tell you a secret -- THEY'RE IN IT FOR THE MONEY!!!
If you don't like that, don't pay to consume what they produce. Convince others not to. But don't legislate for the fish-gutter's taxes to go to artists -- she'd resent that even more than the current state of affairs, where she can at least escape from her stinking every-day reality every now and then "at the movies". This is a commercial choice she makes, and the key word there is "choice".
Middle-class socialism == +3, Insightful? That $3 crack must be especially potent today, moderators... do your worst!:)
Re:Source code = preferred form for modification
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 2
Let's be clear here (just as we are when talking about the RIAA): violating the GPL is not illegal. What's illegal is copyright violation, which is what you're committing if you distribute someone's copyrighted work without a license. Since you have no license that allows you this sort of distribution, you are in violation of copyright law.
I have to admit I didn't bother expanding that out, but I thought it would have been obvious to the casual reader...
The only time the GPL imposes any obligations on you is when you distribute derivative works -- and it's because this act of distribution is governed by copyright law as well that the GPL gets its teeth.
(Much like any software license, if you use software licensed to you in manners not allowed by the license, that license is revoked and you are in contravention of copyright law if you continue to use it. The GPL grants you additional rights and additional responsibilities as well).
It's funny that perhaps the most elegant hack to ever come out of the FSF was a legal document....
It's one of those realms that requires true wizardry to hack successfully, given all the forces arrayed against the humble hacker.:)
Re:Source code = preferred form for modification
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 4, Funny
The GPL explicitly defines source code as the preferred form of a program for modifying it.
To find out whether the gobbletygook you distribute is source code or not is simple: if you normally add features to the program by editing the gobbletygook, it's source.
Maybe if that gobbledegook were legalese?
Herewith, the party of the first part, being the variable heretofore known as 'x', and the party of the second part, being the value henceforth known as '1', do legally contract a valid and binding agreement to...
Etc.
At least then it would be the preferred form for someone -- the lawyers:)
(NB: Zealots, I'm only kidding. I do think this is an ethically dubious act, and possibly an illegal one too. I guess it depends on whether this company thinks that their lawyer(s) are better than some of the ones that could get brought to bear against them...)
But what happens when the demonstrators are right?
I'm sorry, but by demonstrating they have already proven themselves unwilling to partake in the consensus reality designed for them by their corporate guardians. Appropriate measures will be taken.
This has been modded funny, but it's actually true; when the BeBox came out, quite a few of the good Amiga programmers at the time changed platforms (each at their own speed, but as the releases started slowing up on the old platform... you know the drill, if you've ever owned a niche-platform machine).
Did anyone else read the headline and think this might be about the Church of Scientology, Inc.?
Maybe after all the legal kerfuffle where Rob pulled that document they just don't want to offend them again, but I must say Scientology stories have been thin on the ground since then.
It's a shame -- I like a good conspiracy theory, I do, and when you're talking about the Scientologists, *nothing* that anyone says about them can be dismissed out of hand. Billion-year contracts? Aliens executed by leaving them on exploding volcanoes? Sure, whatever....
Besides, the more people who can be warned away from them, the better... it's worse than Amway, even!:)
For what it's worth, the only artists from the music industry that showed up to testify at the PMRC hearings were Frank Zappa and John Denver. Of course both of them are dead now.
Every one fucks up, some people manage to do it on an unlimted budget.
Yeah, at least the Russians have poverty as an excuse. Think I might move away from the coastline if this continues... what are the odds of a jet crashing into the mountainside If I move inland?:)
Hopefully the content of your site is engrossing enough that it fully engages the attention of your users. Any time they get diverted from that, because they have to puzzle out the site navigation or try and work out exactly what is being presented (but can't do that easily because it is too colourful, etc.), both you and they are losing out.
And after all, isn't it all about the content? Presentation should aid the delivery of the content, not hinder it.
(Wired Magazine was a good example of style over substance; early issues had some interesting articles, but chose to obscure them with design experiments:/)
and if he was talking about only web based development, then does that not include all of the web scripting languages, such as PHP, Python, Perl, etc, etc, etc.
And even if we limit that further still to web apps containing some client-side components, what about Flash, SVG or JavaScript & DOM?
At least plugin interfaces are properly sandboxed (like Java). I'm unsure whether this awareness of security has sunk in at MS yet (although they're reaching the end of the "month off to think about it", so everything should be *much* better now:).
Here's a novel idea - don't know if it's been tried before though. Nationalise the network and split the service delivery arm into a private company. Then, the network (which is the public good) can be run by the government, alongside all social contracts, and anyone can compete in offering telecom services at an equivalent base cost (eliminating the metro / regional cost differential, as the govt is paying for it). The key is recognising that the market (a large scale network) is a natural monopoly.
Some of the more sensible talking heads were advocating this when the government started to privatise Australia's national carrier, Telstra. (Australia is a country very suited to this approach -- a large amount of infrastructure is needed to service lower densities of people than in other areas of the world, and all this infrastructure was built with public money).
Unfortunately, it didn't happen, the company is now 49% stock market traded & 51% government owned (a state of affairs which pleases no-one) and they are still gouging people with their effective monopoly status.
If it had been made clear that the government wished to retain the network before the sale then no-one could have complained, as it wouldn't have been a nationalisation as such... oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
Your workplace might be liable; I know Workcover, in some Australian states at least (compulsory work insurance), covers car journeys to and from work.
:)
:)
I'd imagine that you could only be found liable if it were your bad driving that caused the accident, or other circumstances where you were directly to blame *and* the others had no way of knowing that they were being misled (e.g. you knew that the brakes sometimes locked up, etc.)
(If the car looked like a bomb, the tires were bald, etc. I imagine that your co-workers would have been expected to have exercised their responsibility for their own self-protection.)
Of course, as always, it comes down to the side with the best lawyers.
In the hypothetical case of legal liability for bad software, I imagine we'd end up splitting software into two classes; cheap (or free/Free), non-liable software, and expensive and liable software. Someone has to pay for all those code audits and company lawyers, after all, and I bet it would be the customer (it usually is
Yeah, but those kids aren't legal adults responsible for their own decisions.
Bad analogy.
I mentioned the Go Corp/ Windows for Pen Computing FUD from the early '90s to the guys I was there with and was met with blank stares.
:)
:/
*Thank you!* Everyone I've mentioned this stuff to doesn't remember it -- but I thought that Microsoft's vapourware pre-announcements nipped an overhyped industry in the bud (at the time I thought it was years too early for the technology to work seamlessly...)
Par for the course for Microsoft, of course -- take someone else's development (legally or illegally), change the names, then claim that you invented it. Just watch. Encarta 2020 will have glowing stories about Bill Gates inventing the Internet, and no-one will believe us crotchety old people when we say that it's not true.
MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
(or, alternatively)
NO TV AND NO BEER MAKES HOMER GO CRAZY
:)
(Ok, more crap appended to get around the lameness filter; these CAPS are literary *references*! Sheesh!)
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Actually, all of these features work in my version of Mozilla 0.9.8 -- so if 0.9.9 builds aren't packaged yet for whatever system, you can still get this behaviour by retrieving the last milestone.
:/)
(I don't think those features were in 0.9.7 though
After all, it's the unoffical Microsoft slogan -- "If it compiles, ship it!" What could be more appropriate for an implementation of a Microsoft-derived technology? :)
IBM has been changing to be more services-based over the years, although this has always been a part of their income.
As to monopolies, IBM was being sued under the anti-trust provisions before and during their initial dealings with MS... they ended up settling before the court reached a decision, I think, although I'm not sure if that was related to Reagan's newly business-friendly DoJ.
Well, to make up for that, whichever party is in government here in Australia would back any decision made by the US, no matter how stupid. Hey, we even let the Brits explode nukes here in the 50s, poisoning a good chunk of inland South Australia...
I use Debian not because it allows me to do things that Red Hat doesn't, but because it *doesn't* try to do things that Red Hat does.
In my experience all of these 'easy-to-use' layers tend to have the effect of making it more difficult to see what is actually happening, as you're never sure what certain installation tasks or daemons are doing.
(Of course, Windows takes this attitude to the extreme -- if the box starts screwing up, are you going to look through the registry and see if you can fix it, or are you going to re-install?)
Since when do Linux geeks go out on dates?
Linux geek? This guy couldn't even figure out how to uninstall RPMs.
Granting a dynasty to hollywood, sports players, or musicians... Not only is easily viewed as unfair, but detracts from the actual art they are to produce.
:)
Oh, so they're producing art, are they? Only tangentially, if at all. Let me tell you a secret -- THEY'RE IN IT FOR THE MONEY!!!
If you don't like that, don't pay to consume what they produce. Convince others not to. But don't legislate for the fish-gutter's taxes to go to artists -- she'd resent that even more than the current state of affairs, where she can at least escape from her stinking every-day reality every now and then "at the movies". This is a commercial choice she makes, and the key word there is "choice".
Middle-class socialism == +3, Insightful? That $3 crack must be especially potent today, moderators... do your worst!
Let's be clear here (just as we are when talking about the RIAA): violating the GPL is not illegal. What's illegal is copyright violation, which is what you're committing if you distribute someone's copyrighted work without a license. Since you have no license that allows you this sort of distribution, you are in violation of copyright law.
:)
I have to admit I didn't bother expanding that out, but I thought it would have been obvious to the casual reader...
The only time the GPL imposes any obligations on you is when you distribute derivative works -- and it's because this act of distribution is governed by copyright law as well that the GPL gets its teeth.
(Much like any software license, if you use software licensed to you in manners not allowed by the license, that license is revoked and you are in contravention of copyright law if you continue to use it. The GPL grants you additional rights and additional responsibilities as well).
It's funny that perhaps the most elegant hack to ever come out of the FSF was a legal document....
It's one of those realms that requires true wizardry to hack successfully, given all the forces arrayed against the humble hacker.
To find out whether the gobbletygook you distribute is source code or not is simple: if you normally add features to the program by editing the gobbletygook, it's source.
Maybe if that gobbledegook were legalese?
Etc.
At least then it would be the preferred form for someone -- the lawyers
(NB: Zealots, I'm only kidding. I do think this is an ethically dubious act, and possibly an illegal one too. I guess it depends on whether this company thinks that their lawyer(s) are better than some of the ones that could get brought to bear against them...)
I never really decided... probably the first one :)
.com" advertising slogan. Maybe I can draft someone else in as 'Second 4' :)
This was a response to Sun's "We're the dot in
But what happens when the demonstrators are right?
I'm sorry, but by demonstrating they have already proven themselves unwilling to partake in the consensus reality designed for them by their corporate guardians. Appropriate measures will be taken.
Move along, citizen... nothing to see here.
This has been modded funny, but it's actually true; when the BeBox came out, quite a few of the good Amiga programmers at the time changed platforms (each at their own speed, but as the releases started slowing up on the old platform... you know the drill, if you've ever owned a niche-platform machine).
Did anyone else read the headline and think this might be about the Church of Scientology, Inc.?
:)
Maybe after all the legal kerfuffle where Rob pulled that document they just don't want to offend them again, but I must say Scientology stories have been thin on the ground since then.
It's a shame -- I like a good conspiracy theory, I do, and when you're talking about the Scientologists, *nothing* that anyone says about them can be dismissed out of hand. Billion-year contracts? Aliens executed by leaving them on exploding volcanoes? Sure, whatever....
Besides, the more people who can be warned away from them, the better... it's worse than Amway, even!
/me puts on his etymologist hat...
Insanely great? Goddamn. They're all Stevebots.
This is the first use of that word that I've seen in the wild -- I'd just like to expand on that a little...
Microsoft fans == Billbots
(although I think 'astroturf' == 'fake grassroots campaign' was probably my favourite new word from their actions)
Free software fanatics == Gnubots
Sun fans, Java pushers, etc. == Scottbots
Is this, perhaps, based on the perjorative use of 'Slashbots' that has been known to be used here previously?
For what it's worth, the only artists from the music industry that showed up to testify at the PMRC hearings were Frank Zappa and John Denver. Of course both of them are dead now.
Coincedence? I think not!
Every one fucks up, some people manage to do it on an unlimted budget.
:)
Yeah, at least the Russians have poverty as an excuse. Think I might move away from the coastline if this continues... what are the odds of a jet crashing into the mountainside If I move inland?
Don't make the user think.
:/)
That's fairly depressing.
Hopefully the content of your site is engrossing enough that it fully engages the attention of your users. Any time they get diverted from that, because they have to puzzle out the site navigation or try and work out exactly what is being presented (but can't do that easily because it is too colourful, etc.), both you and they are losing out.
And after all, isn't it all about the content? Presentation should aid the delivery of the content, not hinder it.
(Wired Magazine was a good example of style over substance; early issues had some interesting articles, but chose to obscure them with design experiments
I never knew Microsoft was in the sex trade.
:)
When you deal with Microsoft, you just know that you're going to get screwed.
and if he was talking about only web based development, then does that not include all of the web scripting languages, such as PHP, Python, Perl, etc, etc, etc.
:).
And even if we limit that further still to web apps containing some client-side components, what about Flash, SVG or JavaScript & DOM?
At least plugin interfaces are properly sandboxed (like Java). I'm unsure whether this awareness of security has sunk in at MS yet (although they're reaching the end of the "month off to think about it", so everything should be *much* better now
Err this moron does know that Russia has lots of Waterfront properties
:)
Russia's nuclear submarines 'could sink'
Feel like catching any three-eyed fish today?
Here's a novel idea - don't know if it's been tried before though. Nationalise the network and split the service delivery arm into a private company. Then, the network (which is the public good) can be run by the government, alongside all social contracts, and anyone can compete in offering telecom services at an equivalent base cost (eliminating the metro / regional cost differential, as the govt is paying for it). The key is recognising that the market (a large scale network) is a natural monopoly.
Some of the more sensible talking heads were advocating this when the government started to privatise Australia's national carrier, Telstra. (Australia is a country very suited to this approach -- a large amount of infrastructure is needed to service lower densities of people than in other areas of the world, and all this infrastructure was built with public money).
Unfortunately, it didn't happen, the company is now 49% stock market traded & 51% government owned (a state of affairs which pleases no-one) and they are still gouging people with their effective monopoly status.
If it had been made clear that the government wished to retain the network before the sale then no-one could have complained, as it wouldn't have been a nationalisation as such... oh well.