Well, that's a very large assumption and a slap in the face.
I would call that more the limp-wristed air-swat of an anonymous coward. You should be flattered. He cares enough to remember your name, but is too afraid of you to use his own.
I have a blockbuster online memebership and I love it. My roomate has Netflix and he is always complaining. Just a single case but I wish Netflix luck, they are gonna need it.
Oh yeah? I have Netflix and it's totally awesome! My cousin had Blockbuster and it gave him cancer.
What part of "TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, FOR PERSONAL INJURY, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY, FOR FAILURE TO.... lameness filter doesn't like this.... AND EVEN IF MICROSOFT OR ANY SUPPLIER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES." don't you understand?
You could buy perfect software with a guarantee. It would take much longer to produce and cost a hell of a lot more, due largely to the liability risk. But the market says "worse is better", and who are you to tell the market that it's wrong?
And it's not an anti-GPL argument either. It's the very foundation on which Free Software manages to interoperate with the rest of the world. You're in danger of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Moi? I'm a component vendor, not an author of free software.
And to that I say, God bless DRM and God bless the DMCA.
Gah, you got me. Trade secret protection and provisions in the license against reverse engineering don't make any sense when the source is available to anyone.
But presuming the definition of derivative work can include additions to the software, and not simply textual changes to the source code, linking is derivation.
Otherwise, all GPL'ed software is reducible to an interface that can be called by non-free software. Glad I'm not one of those free software suckers!
(My colleague here actually suggested that you're a BSD fanatic, and that you're making ridiculous claims about the GPL far beyond what the FSF is claiming purely to discredit it. That would be pretty sad.:P)
The only thing I despise more than the absolutist free software hippies are the people who wish too exploit their goodwill and intellectual property rights under some pretense of being "more free than thou".
And if they wish to make a distinction between linking and a serial communication channel in their license, that is their perrogative, but they do not wish to make that distinction between static and dynamic linking, and given how trivially that transformation can be accomplished with the source code available, the difference is moot. (And expanding the claim does not invalidate my original argument. Static and dynamic linking are different in the context of distribution, but not in the context of the developer abiding by the license when making use of the software.)
The logical conclusion of all these anti-GPL arguments is that mere knowledge of an interface allows one to call that interface, regardless of the ownership of the code being called, the license it was sold/distributed under, or how knowledge of that interface was derived. This would require that every component vendor enforce a rule in their license that their development users enforce a rule in their license that end users may not use software that executes the third party libraries that haven't officially licensed the use of those libraries. Maybe some of them do, but it is a ridiculous burden and legalistic absurdity.
And of course I respond to your pedantic absurdity that by invoking dynamic linking, a copy is made by loading the software from disk.
But that is all beside the point. In the absence of some equivalent library with an alternate license, the infringing developer had to abide by the GPL in order to develop his software. The redistribution rights afforded to users do not apply to him and his derivative work.
Didn't you try to spread this nonsense previously?
There is no meaningful distinction between static and dynamic linking. They are both mechanical processes by which code from one author can execute the code from another author. It is the nature of software that "interfaces" exist at all levels and that the formats by which those "interfaces" are exposed can be transformed by a mechanical process.
And with source code available, it is trivially easy for anyone to turn what is not a dynamic library into a dynamic library.
The only relevence to this discussion is that a dynamic library might be construed to indicate the intentions of its author, but with a license that prohibits unauthorised linking, there is no ambiguity. Whatever loopholes you perceive in the GPL are artifacts of the GPL, and could be remedied by additional clauses.
And even presuming a use license that would allow it, as a developer, your interoperability defense is not a valid defense if you looked at that source code to compose the "interface" which you are calling. Given the extremes taken by companies to conduct lawful reverse engineering, I'd imagine you'd have a tough day in court trying to convince a judge that your work is not derivative.
No, I'm not. Look at point four. This is all about the intention of the author. And all of his points are recommendations for the author's license, and his personal opinions; he is not stating facts of the law.
Nearly every development tool vendor explicitly denies ownership rights to the works resulting in the use of their tool. Go ahead, read the licenses. And strangely, no one has addressed the absurdity of your position when placed in the context of commercial software. Whatever rights you assert with regard to ignoring the GPL are unproven. People in the commercial sector have been sued for less and lost.
The difference between linking, subclassing, textual recomposition of source code, etc. is meaningless. If you looked at the code, you must abide by the license. If you run the code, you must abide by the license. The user/developer crack in the GPL is easily remedied by additional clauses, if that is the author's wishes. The viral nature can also be explicitly denied, as Rosen is recommending. After all, that is what the LGPL is for.
Now, like the idiot below, are you going to tell me the mechanical process by which functions are called has some bearing on the ownership of the intellectual property implementing them? Are you willing to tell a judge that an export symbol implies a free license to be linked?
Oh, but the user does the linking! That changes everything!
Not. Unless you coded to a specification and nothing but the specification, or, used an alternative library that implements the specified functionality and that library was implemented using clean room black-box reverse engineering techniques, the existence of your work is dependent on the library. Your work is derivative.
I mean, really. I'd like to see you parasites try that mealy-mouthed semantic bullshit with a commercial product.
"But your honor! I didn't actually incorporate or distrubute Microsoft Word with my product, I merely relied on the fact that it's DLLs are on nearly every office PC in existence! It is the user invoking code they've already payed for!"
The marketing for this movie was in response to the internet buzz, which existed months before anyone else knew or cared that this movie existed. The failure to meet expectations is due entirely to the stupidity of promoters, who incorrectly assumed that the level of interest on the internet was a subset of wider interest in popular culture.
So, not only are you wrong, the wisdom you attribute to Hollywood is the very reason they failed.
It is a toy, that lets you write toys, that run on a toy sandbox, that requires you and anyone you want to share with to pay a yearly subscription for the privilege.
Could you imagine if Lego Mindstorms required this sort of nonsense?
Slashdot Mirror
I have a blockbuster online memebership and I love it. My roomate has Netflix and he is always complaining. Just a single case but I wish Netflix luck, they are gonna need it.
Oh yeah? I have Netflix and it's totally awesome! My cousin had Blockbuster and it gave him cancer.
What part of "TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, FOR PERSONAL INJURY, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY, FOR FAILURE TO .... lameness filter doesn't like this .... AND EVEN IF MICROSOFT OR ANY SUPPLIER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES." don't you understand?
You could buy perfect software with a guarantee. It would take much longer to produce and cost a hell of a lot more, due largely to the liability risk. But the market says "worse is better", and who are you to tell the market that it's wrong?
You will probably hear a knock at your door any minute now...
You sent him a pizza? I want one!
And it's not an anti-GPL argument either. It's the very foundation on which Free Software manages to interoperate with the rest of the world. You're in danger of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Moi? I'm a component vendor, not an author of free software.
And to that I say, God bless DRM and God bless the DMCA.
Gah, you got me. Trade secret protection and provisions in the license against reverse engineering don't make any sense when the source is available to anyone.
But presuming the definition of derivative work can include additions to the software, and not simply textual changes to the source code, linking is derivation.
Otherwise, all GPL'ed software is reducible to an interface that can be called by non-free software. Glad I'm not one of those free software suckers!
The only thing I despise more than the absolutist free software hippies are the people who wish too exploit their goodwill and intellectual property rights under some pretense of being "more free than thou".
And if they wish to make a distinction between linking and a serial communication channel in their license, that is their perrogative, but they do not wish to make that distinction between static and dynamic linking, and given how trivially that transformation can be accomplished with the source code available, the difference is moot. (And expanding the claim does not invalidate my original argument. Static and dynamic linking are different in the context of distribution, but not in the context of the developer abiding by the license when making use of the software.)
The logical conclusion of all these anti-GPL arguments is that mere knowledge of an interface allows one to call that interface, regardless of the ownership of the code being called, the license it was sold/distributed under, or how knowledge of that interface was derived. This would require that every component vendor enforce a rule in their license that their development users enforce a rule in their license that end users may not use software that executes the third party libraries that haven't officially licensed the use of those libraries. Maybe some of them do, but it is a ridiculous burden and legalistic absurdity.
And of course I respond to your pedantic absurdity that by invoking dynamic linking, a copy is made by loading the software from disk.
But that is all beside the point. In the absence of some equivalent library with an alternate license, the infringing developer had to abide by the GPL in order to develop his software. The redistribution rights afforded to users do not apply to him and his derivative work.
Didn't you try to spread this nonsense previously?
There is no meaningful distinction between static and dynamic linking. They are both mechanical processes by which code from one author can execute the code from another author. It is the nature of software that "interfaces" exist at all levels and that the formats by which those "interfaces" are exposed can be transformed by a mechanical process.
And with source code available, it is trivially easy for anyone to turn what is not a dynamic library into a dynamic library.
The only relevence to this discussion is that a dynamic library might be construed to indicate the intentions of its author, but with a license that prohibits unauthorised linking, there is no ambiguity. Whatever loopholes you perceive in the GPL are artifacts of the GPL, and could be remedied by additional clauses.
And even presuming a use license that would allow it, as a developer, your interoperability defense is not a valid defense if you looked at that source code to compose the "interface" which you are calling. Given the extremes taken by companies to conduct lawful reverse engineering, I'd imagine you'd have a tough day in court trying to convince a judge that your work is not derivative.
No, I'm not. Look at point four. This is all about the intention of the author. And all of his points are recommendations for the author's license, and his personal opinions; he is not stating facts of the law.
Nearly every development tool vendor explicitly denies ownership rights to the works resulting in the use of their tool. Go ahead, read the licenses. And strangely, no one has addressed the absurdity of your position when placed in the context of commercial software. Whatever rights you assert with regard to ignoring the GPL are unproven. People in the commercial sector have been sued for less and lost.
The difference between linking, subclassing, textual recomposition of source code, etc. is meaningless. If you looked at the code, you must abide by the license. If you run the code, you must abide by the license. The user/developer crack in the GPL is easily remedied by additional clauses, if that is the author's wishes. The viral nature can also be explicitly denied, as Rosen is recommending. After all, that is what the LGPL is for.
Linking is derivation, fool.
Now, like the idiot below, are you going to tell me the mechanical process by which functions are called has some bearing on the ownership of the intellectual property implementing them? Are you willing to tell a judge that an export symbol implies a free license to be linked?
Oh, but the user does the linking! That changes everything!
Not. Unless you coded to a specification and nothing but the specification, or, used an alternative library that implements the specified functionality and that library was implemented using clean room black-box reverse engineering techniques, the existence of your work is dependent on the library. Your work is derivative.
I mean, really. I'd like to see you parasites try that mealy-mouthed semantic bullshit with a commercial product.
"But your honor! I didn't actually incorporate or distrubute Microsoft Word with my product, I merely relied on the fact that it's DLLs are on nearly every office PC in existence! It is the user invoking code they've already payed for!"
This book might clear up some of your misconceptions.
The smug sense of superiority it affords us over people who play Everquest, Guild Wars, and EVE.
Give me your lunch money.
ESR is telling the Linux community what it should do to stay relevant.
The marketing for this movie was in response to the internet buzz, which existed months before anyone else knew or cared that this movie existed. The failure to meet expectations is due entirely to the stupidity of promoters, who incorrectly assumed that the level of interest on the internet was a subset of wider interest in popular culture.
So, not only are you wrong, the wisdom you attribute to Hollywood is the very reason they failed.
So, what you're saying is, you're a crazed jihadist on the next wave of domestic terrorism? Yeehaw!
Now how exactly is C an academic language?
Excuse me.
Pissing off obsolete curmudgeons?
My biggest complaint about C++ is the lack of standardization for name-mangling and and v-table construction. The rest I can choose to ignore.
but if anyone comes up with an example of what C++ is best at...
Pissing off academic language purists?
How can many people accept that their life is a fitness test for the sadistic whims of an omnipotent tyrant?
And contempt of religion does not equate to the suppression of religious freedom, no matter how much your cult of victimhood would like it to be so.
It is a toy, that lets you write toys, that run on a toy sandbox, that requires you and anyone you want to share with to pay a yearly subscription for the privilege.
Could you imagine if Lego Mindstorms required this sort of nonsense?
You lack an appropriate level of cynicism. Do you believe Ricks is making up what "military analysts" have told him?
Yes! Help! I'm suffocating!
No no no. Bubble 2.0 BETA
What does Halo 2 have to do with this?