you stealing information from your company and giving it to the police does not constitute illegal search and seizure. (unless you are acting at the request of a government agent)
"Illegally obtained evidence" only pertains to searches and seizures by government agents. You are not constitutionally protected against a thief stealing your briefcase, finding it's full of kiddy porn, and in a fit of moral outrage turning it in to the police. You can get the thief incarcerated, but you're going with him!
an important thing to remember here ( and i know it doesnt pertain directly to your theoretical case). If you are a private citizen acting under the direction or request of a government agent, you are considered a government agent for searches and siezures.
I.E. a cop cannot ask you to steal him the evidence he needs and then introduce it in court as legally obtained evidence.
Yes, we agree on that. Also, the GPL is clearly advantageous for a company like MySQL where: 1) they wrote the code; 2) by submitting code to them you agree with the implicit caveat that you give up your copyright (or, this is done explicitely via paper trail, like in the case of OpenOffice or the FSF).
actually, in the case of MySQL, i dont think they accept external contributions (not sure on that). However, if they were to do so, they would have to have something explicitly assigning the contributor's copyright to them.
But let's suppose you fork a GPL project. Then, can a dual-license scheme be created? Is there a legal loophole? Most likely, it can't be forked and be dual-licensed again. So dual-licensing is only allowed for the original creator of the original code base. This scheme entails that everyone else will submit code for free that will be incorporated in the code base, to be re-released under a proprietary license.
You are correct that forking a GPL project does not allow you to dual license it, you still have no right to relicense the codebase. However, the concern you describe about the originating company being able to dual license is solved by simply not assigning them your copyright.
Then they have a choice. They can keep the whole thing GPL and not be able to dual license, or they can not use your contribution in their codebase. Given the option, I think most GPL using programmers would probably contribute to the forked project that allows them to retain their copyright rights than to contribute to the company that demands they give up their rights.
I say this is a trap, and it was unforseen by the FSF. If you're MySQL, for example, it's a great thing. If you're Joe Coder the community contributor, you're a fool, because someone's using your code to license a proprietary product while you the author can't.
This isnt a trap. This is just saying that the right to do what you want with your code ends when you give your ownership of the code to someone else. If you dont want the situation you describe to happen, you simply do not give the company your copyright and they cannot release your code under a proprietary license. They can only use your code under the terms of the GPL.
I understand where you are coming from but the following looks like a contradiction or misunderstanding relating to GPL projects.
"prevents" should have also been "makes it difficult". Another company can enter the market, but they will have a harder time finding the resources (open source developers) since they will more likely be reluctant to leave the first project. Another company can fork the source, just like BSD source, but the original has the advantage for being able to sell commercial access to the product along with support.
Those open source developers retain the copyright on their contributions to the codebase. As a result, the company who GPL'd the codebase cannot sell the modified codebase under a dual license since they have no legal right to those modifications. (unless they require contributors to assign those rights over to the company). The result is that this wouldnt be a great benefit for the company who owned the original code. If they tried to make contributors hand over the rights to their modifications, I think it would be easy for a second player in the market to attract most of the open source developers away from the first project, simply by not requiring that.
I company that wants to retain any type of proprietorship over the source would never release it under a BSD license. That is my point behind companies using the GPL. the retain proprietorship over the original code. they dont obtain it over the community enhancements.
Another thing to think about: if I was another company, why would I contribute to a GPL code base that was controlled by another company? I would only be able to help them make more commercial products. The originating company could only resell the GPLd codebase under the terms of the GPL; exactly the same way the second company could sell the same codebase. Neither could dual license without the other's permission since they both have ownership of parts of the codebase.
With BSD licenses, I believe they prevent companies from creating a field where only one can sell a closed-source version. without requiring the development community to assign copyright over to the company for their modifications, the GPL doesnt create a field where only one company can sell a closed-source version either.
With respect to your examples of MySQL and Trolltech (presumably Qt), the codebases for those projects are dual licensed but both projects were built entirely by the companies involved. To the best of my knowledge, neither company incorporates code or patches from the development community at large into their projects. They are the sole copyright holders and that is why they can dual license those projects.
However, it remains to be seen if that stands in court unless your project specifically demmanded that copyright rights are given up through a submission form. This means paper trail.
I'm not sure you followed my original statement accurately. It was intended to be more of a laymen's description of the how a 3rd party would use code that was dual licensed.
If I incorporate someone's GPL'd software into my internal project for my company (i.e. written as work for hire for the company by me) and the software resulting from my project is never used outside of my company, then the changes and additions i made never have to abide by the GPL. The GPL only applies to distribution of software. The company couldn't sell the software without abiding by the GPL, but for the example, it was intended to be internal software, not for sale. The "my project" in my statement referred to an individual project for the company and wouldnt have issues of needing copyright rights given up, since everyone working on it would be employees and their code would be owned by the company anyway.
Dual licensing schemes are perfectly valid conceptually. MySQL is a great example of one done well. They know the ownership of all the code because they wrote it. They have the right to dual license it because they, as a company, do own the whole thing.
You are right about something like the Linux kernel. As far as i know, the individual copyrights of contributors are retained by the contributors so, realistically, nobody will ever be able to dual license the linux kernel.
You have a piece of software. You dual license it. One license is commercial (i.e. a traditional license for software) the other is the GPL.
I acquire a copy of your GPL licensed software for use in my project. As long as my project is used internally in my company and not redistributed, i dont have to GPL my changes or additions. I only have to GPL my stuff if i distribute ouside my organisation the project i built off of your GPLd code.
Lets say I wanted to build my project and sell it as commercial, closed source software. Then I buy your commercial license to use your software instead of using the GPL version. Under the commercial license i can distribute my project without the requirements of the GPL making me GPL my project.
I consider the GPL the friend of monopolistic companies. They release software under the GPL to build it off the backs of us little people while charging others for it. They usually require people to assign copyright to the project/company before it will be accepted.
If they've released it to the public under the GPL, the only way they could be charging others for it is if it was dual licensed. If you dont assign your copyright tot hem, they cannot dual license your changes. If they wont accept changes to the product without you assigning your copyright to them, fork the project and create a new version of it that accepts patches while allowing people to keep their copyright. You will have the better software, since they are relying on the people who are now contributing to you, instead of to them, to improve their product.
The free availability of the code allows the company to dissuade others from entering the market. The GPL prevents other companies from having the same leverage as the first company.
how does it do this? Why can another company not enter the market with a better product and GPL it as well? Alternately, why can the other company not just take the GPLd code, fork the project, make their own additions (released under the GPL), and sell support for the system instead of selling the system itself?
The BSD license, on the other hand, does not allow any company to wield more power over the code or other companies (small or large). A small start-up of just a few developers could actually compete with a large corporation using the code.
Why would the monopolistic company you described for your GPL argument even consider releasing code under a BSD license? For that matter, if i was trying to sell the actual software product as a business, why would i release it under a BSD license and guarantee that anyone who wants it can have it for free, and if they have ways to improve it, they can take my source code, add their improvements, and close source the whole thing and sell it?
With both licenses, the developers are not paid, but in the BSD case, no unfair (unbalanced) power can be obtained. With the BSD license, I see balance over all involved. I dont. I see a guy releasing his application to the public under the BSD license giving all of his potential competitors a huge advantage in that they can examine his code base, use what they want of it to improve their products (or build new products off of his code base). The original producer of the code doesnt get anything in return for giving them the codebase they need to compete against him.
I'm not saying the BSD license is a bad thing. I'm just saying i dont see the argument for the GPL fostering monopolies and the BSD license creating a level playing field.
When Microsoft sold Zenix to SCO (back when they actually were in Santa Cruz), part of the deal was that Microsoft agreed to a non-compete clause that prohibited them from creating or marketing a unixlike operating system.
I am kinda curious who retains that contract. I imagine it follows the os portion of old-SCO and would now be in the care of McBride & Co.
I think an argument could be made for wedding photographs being a contribution to a collective work; especially if they video taped their wedding. Other forms of photography could certainly fall into other categories listed in that document.
The nine categories dont really describe the media used to create the content. It's more a description of the purpose or use of the content.
The most important element in that document, in my opinion, is that wedding photographers clearly are not employees under the definition provided by the general common law of agency. As a result, if there is no stipulation in the contract with the photographer stating that the work is a work for hire, then it isnt.
So unless it is contractually defined as a work for hire, the photographer should retain all authorship rights to the photographs.
blighted neighborhoods were not an issue in this case. the neighborhood they did this to was not a blighted neighborhood and they didnt declare it a blighted neighborhood before taking it.
There are multiple parts of a wedding - generally, the portraits before and after, the reception, and the ceremony itself. Would you/anyone consider the portraiture work-for-hire as well?
Generally, I would have to say that most portraiture work should probably be considered work-for-hire also. My reasoning is included further down the page.
While couples definately have a handle on the wedding itself, most couples don't have the images previsualized - that's the photographer's job. Couples generally select a style for their photographs, but it's up to the photographer and their artistic license to create the images. While part of the photographer's task is photojournalistic, my experience is that the wedding couple don't have a previsualized wedding concept detailed enough to include every image the photographer will make.
This is a fair point, but in my view that is why you hire experts; they have the expertise to take a vague idea and make it something. As a programmer, I've done contract work for people who had a general idea of what they wanted, but they never know the mechanics of implementing the idea (if they did, i guess they wouldnt need me). That was work for hire. This type of photography seems analogous to contract programming.
Ultimately, i guess my view on the difference is this: If you are being paid to create the work, especially if it's something you wouldnt create if you weren't hired to do so; it should probably be work for hire. (there are exceptions to this, like general patronage)
Regardless of the definition for what photography becomes work for hire and what isnt, it's really an issue that should be spelled out in the contract. An agreement between the two involved parties is certainly more important and applicable than what i think about their relationship.:)
while there's a lot of artistic photography that certainly falls into your description, i think it's a stretch, at best, to claim that a wedding photographer's photograph is capturing the photographer's previsualized concept on film.
In fact, i'd say it is the wedding photographer's job to capture the wedding couple's previsualized concept of their wedding on film as accurately as possible.
In the specific case of wedding photographers, I would consider them work for hire. In the case of someone like Ansel Adams, however, I would definitely consider it an artistic work that the photographer should hold a copyright on.
that isnt a very valid representation of the situation. Here's a better one:
You rent a storefront in a strip mall. The guy with the storefront 2 down from yours is selling drugs out of the back of his shop. The police raid him and shut down his store. Then they shut down all the other stores in the strip mall because the owner of the strip mall rented space to a drug dealer.
So, basically, she's saying a viable defense in court is to claim that while you were actually violating bob's copyright, you thought you were violating ted's copyright; so bob shouldnt be allowed to sue over it?
If that actually works in court, our judicial system is in worse shape than i thought.
With respect to the amount of the fine, though....for the fine to be a punishment, it needs to be an amount of significance to the company. When dealing with Microsoft, that is going to have to be a big number.
is there any basis for the fear that the EU is doing this as a self serving financial maneuvre?
I acknowledge your input and reiterate that Microsoft is clearly an enemy to the computing world. But how does requiring a "Reduced Media Edition" help with the above-stated problem? It just scales back what they offer with the OS, when as far as I can tell, most of the trust/monopoly complaints are about the operating system itself (integration of IE with the OS, breaking competitors software).
it prevents them from repeating that series of events with media players and codecs so that they can control the format and drm that is used for all video and audio media on your computer.
n order to level the playing field for software development, the Windows OS must be standardized somehow (that is, Microsoft cannot intentionally make changes for the purpose of squashing to competition). How does the action of the EU actually reduce Microsoft's monolithic stature?
that would mean breaking up the company. That was overturned by the appeals court in the US antitrust case.
Furthermore, is such a steep monetary fine justified for the damage that Microsoft actually causes to its competitors? Notice that many of the apps which challenge MS products (Mozilla, Opera, Winamp, VLC) are available free of charge. Furthermore, the implicit goal of many of these (especially the Open Source projects - think Firefox) is to destroy Microsoft's market share in each respective category. So Microsoft's damage to the computing community cannot be measured so easily in pounds and pence. So why is the EU charging them so much money? Use your imagination.
The reason the majority of the apps challenging MS are open source or available free is because it is too easy to crush a traditional business when you are a predatory monopoly. Look at any of the companies whom they have crushed. The damage cannot be measured in just the competition and economy advantages competition brings. It also needs to be measure in the innovative ideas that were destroyed or twisted into something truly horrendous because microsoft doesnt have to compete on quality.
Yes, Microsoft is involved in "unfair" business practices. But nailing them for IE and Windows Media Player is sort of like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion.
Well, Capone was guilty of tax evasion. Nailing him for tax evasion did destroy his criminal empire. Sure, he was never convicted of all the murders and other evil things he did, but I'd rather him go away for tax evasion than let it be business as usual until someone managed to get a murder to stick.
They committed a crime. It's insane to me that you are suggesting that they shouldnt be held accountable for this crime because it's small scale compared to most of the other crimes they commited.
actually, yoda is not a whill. That was speculation that the community created due to the fact that the text scroll had a byline saying it was from the journal of the whills in some of the original scripts. (i think it says that in the original novel too).
Rick McCallum answered that at a convention once and said yoda's race has never been identified, nor had his homeworld; but he was definitely not a whill.
(the whills were an idea that lucas abandoned before releasing the original star wars film, which is why the scrolling text on the film doesnt include the by line)
Slashdot Mirror
Vivaldi ruined blizzard. No question about it.
You would have preferred Bach? or perhaps Stravinsky?
I called the Dolby Labs licensing department and asked them if they had any records of Anonymous Coward working for them.
They said no.
you stealing information from your company and giving it to the police does not constitute illegal search and seizure. (unless you are acting at the request of a government agent)
"Illegally obtained evidence" only pertains to searches and seizures by government agents. You are not constitutionally protected against a thief stealing your briefcase, finding it's full of kiddy porn, and in a fit of moral outrage turning it in to the police. You can get the thief incarcerated, but you're going with him!
an important thing to remember here ( and i know it doesnt pertain directly to your theoretical case). If you are a private citizen acting under the direction or request of a government agent, you are considered a government agent for searches and siezures.
I.E. a cop cannot ask you to steal him the evidence he needs and then introduce it in court as legally obtained evidence.
Yes, we agree on that. Also, the GPL is clearly advantageous for a company like MySQL where: 1) they wrote the code; 2) by submitting code to them you agree with the implicit caveat that you give up your copyright (or, this is done explicitely via paper trail, like in the case of OpenOffice or the FSF).
actually, in the case of MySQL, i dont think they accept external contributions (not sure on that). However, if they were to do so, they would have to have something explicitly assigning the contributor's copyright to them.
But let's suppose you fork a GPL project. Then, can a dual-license scheme be created? Is there a legal loophole? Most likely, it can't be forked and be dual-licensed again. So dual-licensing is only allowed for the original creator of the original code base. This scheme entails that everyone else will submit code for free that will be incorporated in the code base, to be re-released under a proprietary license.
You are correct that forking a GPL project does not allow you to dual license it, you still have no right to relicense the codebase. However, the concern you describe about the originating company being able to dual license is solved by simply not assigning them your copyright.
Then they have a choice. They can keep the whole thing GPL and not be able to dual license, or they can not use your contribution in their codebase. Given the option, I think most GPL using programmers would probably contribute to the forked project that allows them to retain their copyright rights than to contribute to the company that demands they give up their rights.
I say this is a trap, and it was unforseen by the FSF. If you're MySQL, for example, it's a great thing. If you're Joe Coder the community contributor, you're a fool, because someone's using your code to license a proprietary product while you the author can't.
This isnt a trap. This is just saying that the right to do what you want with your code ends when you give your ownership of the code to someone else. If you dont want the situation you describe to happen, you simply do not give the company your copyright and they cannot release your code under a proprietary license. They can only use your code under the terms of the GPL.
I understand where you are coming from but the following looks like a contradiction or misunderstanding relating to GPL projects.
"prevents" should have also been "makes it difficult". Another company can enter the market, but they will have a harder time finding the resources (open source developers) since they will more likely be reluctant to leave the first project. Another company can fork the source, just like BSD source, but the original has the advantage for being able to sell commercial access to the product along with support.
Those open source developers retain the copyright on their contributions to the codebase. As a result, the company who GPL'd the codebase cannot sell the modified codebase under a dual license since they have no legal right to those modifications. (unless they require contributors to assign those rights over to the company).
The result is that this wouldnt be a great benefit for the company who owned the original code. If they tried to make contributors hand over the rights to their modifications, I think it would be easy for a second player in the market to attract most of the open source developers away from the first project, simply by not requiring that.
I company that wants to retain any type of proprietorship over the source would never release it under a BSD license. That is my point behind companies using the GPL.
the retain proprietorship over the original code. they dont obtain it over the community enhancements.
Another thing to think about: if I was another company, why would I contribute to a GPL code base that was controlled by another company? I would only be able to help them make more commercial products.
The originating company could only resell the GPLd codebase under the terms of the GPL; exactly the same way the second company could sell the same codebase. Neither could dual license without the other's permission since they both have ownership of parts of the codebase.
With BSD licenses, I believe they prevent companies from creating a field where only one can sell a closed-source version.
without requiring the development community to assign copyright over to the company for their modifications, the GPL doesnt create a field where only one company can sell a closed-source version either.
With respect to your examples of MySQL and Trolltech (presumably Qt), the codebases for those projects are dual licensed but both projects were built entirely by the companies involved. To the best of my knowledge, neither company incorporates code or patches from the development community at large into their projects. They are the sole copyright holders and that is why they can dual license those projects.
However, it remains to be seen if that stands in court unless your project specifically demmanded that copyright rights are given up through a submission form. This means paper trail.
I'm not sure you followed my original statement accurately.
It was intended to be more of a laymen's description of the how a 3rd party would use code that was dual licensed.
If I incorporate someone's GPL'd software into my internal project for my company (i.e. written as work for hire for the company by me) and the software resulting from my project is never used outside of my company, then the changes and additions i made never have to abide by the GPL. The GPL only applies to distribution of software.
The company couldn't sell the software without abiding by the GPL, but for the example, it was intended to be internal software, not for sale.
The "my project" in my statement referred to an individual project for the company and wouldnt have issues of needing copyright rights given up, since everyone working on it would be employees and their code would be owned by the company anyway.
Dual licensing schemes are perfectly valid conceptually. MySQL is a great example of one done well. They know the ownership of all the code because they wrote it. They have the right to dual license it because they, as a company, do own the whole thing.
You are right about something like the Linux kernel. As far as i know, the individual copyrights of contributors are retained by the contributors so, realistically, nobody will ever be able to dual license the linux kernel.
ah. i misread the original post.
The screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic was written by Gibson.
You have a piece of software. You dual license it. One license is commercial (i.e. a traditional license for software) the other is the GPL.
I acquire a copy of your GPL licensed software for use in my project. As long as my project is used internally in my company and not redistributed, i dont have to GPL my changes or additions. I only have to GPL my stuff if i distribute ouside my organisation the project i built off of your GPLd code.
Lets say I wanted to build my project and sell it as commercial, closed source software. Then I buy your commercial license to use your software instead of using the GPL version. Under the commercial license i can distribute my project without the requirements of the GPL making me GPL my project.
I consider the GPL the friend of monopolistic companies. They release software under the GPL to build it off the backs of us little people while charging others for it. They usually require people to assign copyright to the project/company before it will be accepted.
If they've released it to the public under the GPL, the only way they could be charging others for it is if it was dual licensed. If you dont assign your copyright tot hem, they cannot dual license your changes.
If they wont accept changes to the product without you assigning your copyright to them, fork the project and create a new version of it that accepts patches while allowing people to keep their copyright. You will have the better software, since they are relying on the people who are now contributing to you, instead of to them, to improve their product.
The free availability of the code allows the company to dissuade others from entering the market. The GPL prevents other companies from having the same leverage as the first company.
how does it do this? Why can another company not enter the market with a better product and GPL it as well? Alternately, why can the other company not just take the GPLd code, fork the project, make their own additions (released under the GPL), and sell support for the system instead of selling the system itself?
The BSD license, on the other hand, does not allow any company to wield more power over the code or other companies (small or large). A small start-up of just a few developers could actually compete with a large corporation using the code.
Why would the monopolistic company you described for your GPL argument even consider releasing code under a BSD license?
For that matter, if i was trying to sell the actual software product as a business, why would i release it under a BSD license and guarantee that anyone who wants it can have it for free, and if they have ways to improve it, they can take my source code, add their improvements, and close source the whole thing and sell it?
With both licenses, the developers are not paid, but in the BSD case, no unfair (unbalanced) power can be obtained. With the BSD license, I see balance over all involved.
I dont. I see a guy releasing his application to the public under the BSD license giving all of his potential competitors a huge advantage in that they can examine his code base, use what they want of it to improve their products (or build new products off of his code base). The original producer of the code doesnt get anything in return for giving them the codebase they need to compete against him.
I'm not saying the BSD license is a bad thing. I'm just saying i dont see the argument for the GPL fostering monopolies and the BSD license creating a level playing field.
When Microsoft sold Zenix to SCO (back when they actually were in Santa Cruz), part of the deal was that Microsoft agreed to a non-compete clause that prohibited them from creating or marketing a unixlike operating system.
I am kinda curious who retains that contract. I imagine it follows the os portion of old-SCO and would now be in the care of McBride & Co.
I think an argument could be made for wedding photographs being a contribution to a collective work; especially if they video taped their wedding. Other forms of photography could certainly fall into other categories listed in that document.
The nine categories dont really describe the media used to create the content. It's more a description of the purpose or use of the content.
The most important element in that document, in my opinion, is that wedding photographers clearly are not employees under the definition provided by the general common law of agency. As a result, if there is no stipulation in the contract with the photographer stating that the work is a work for hire, then it isnt.
So unless it is contractually defined as a work for hire, the photographer should retain all authorship rights to the photographs.
blighted neighborhoods were not an issue in this case. the neighborhood they did this to was not a blighted neighborhood and they didnt declare it a blighted neighborhood before taking it.
Darth, thanks for your comments.
You are welcome.
There are multiple parts of a wedding - generally, the portraits before and after, the reception, and the ceremony itself. Would you/anyone consider the portraiture work-for-hire as well?
Generally, I would have to say that most portraiture work should probably be considered work-for-hire also. My reasoning is included further down the page.
While couples definately have a handle on the wedding itself, most couples don't have the images previsualized - that's the photographer's job. Couples generally select a style for their photographs, but it's up to the photographer and their artistic license to create the images. While part of the photographer's task is photojournalistic, my experience is that the wedding couple don't have a previsualized wedding concept detailed enough to include every image the photographer will make.
This is a fair point, but in my view that is why you hire experts; they have the expertise to take a vague idea and make it something. As a programmer, I've done contract work for people who had a general idea of what they wanted, but they never know the mechanics of implementing the idea (if they did, i guess they wouldnt need me). That was work for hire. This type of photography seems analogous to contract programming.
Ultimately, i guess my view on the difference is this:
If you are being paid to create the work, especially if it's something you wouldnt create if you weren't hired to do so; it should probably be work for hire.
(there are exceptions to this, like general patronage)
Regardless of the definition for what photography becomes work for hire and what isnt, it's really an issue that should be spelled out in the contract. An agreement between the two involved parties is certainly more important and applicable than what i think about their relationship.
while there's a lot of artistic photography that certainly falls into your description, i think it's a stretch, at best, to claim that a wedding photographer's photograph is capturing the photographer's previsualized concept on film.
In fact, i'd say it is the wedding photographer's job to capture the wedding couple's previsualized concept of their wedding on film as accurately as possible.
In the specific case of wedding photographers, I would consider them work for hire. In the case of someone like Ansel Adams, however, I would definitely consider it an artistic work that the photographer should hold a copyright on.
that isnt a very valid representation of the situation. Here's a better one:
You rent a storefront in a strip mall. The guy with the storefront 2 down from yours is selling drugs out of the back of his shop. The police raid him and shut down his store. Then they shut down all the other stores in the strip mall because the owner of the strip mall rented space to a drug dealer.
does that sound reasonable?
>
I bet they'd be eager to know how to run a company and pay employees using freedom.
I didnt realise those chinese dollars were the only thing propping microsoft up.
So, basically, she's saying a viable defense in court is to claim that while you were actually violating bob's copyright, you thought you were violating ted's copyright; so bob shouldnt be allowed to sue over it?
If that actually works in court, our judicial system is in worse shape than i thought.
I cannot speak to how the money will be used.
With respect to the amount of the fine, though....for the fine to be a punishment, it needs to be an amount of significance to the company. When dealing with Microsoft, that is going to have to be a big number.
is there any basis for the fear that the EU is doing this as a self serving financial maneuvre?
I acknowledge your input and reiterate that Microsoft is clearly an enemy to the computing world. But how does requiring a "Reduced Media Edition" help with the above-stated problem? It just scales back what they offer with the OS, when as far as I can tell, most of the trust/monopoly complaints are about the operating system itself (integration of IE with the OS, breaking competitors software).
it prevents them from repeating that series of events with media players and codecs so that they can control the format and drm that is used for all video and audio media on your computer.
n order to level the playing field for software development, the Windows OS must be standardized somehow (that is, Microsoft cannot intentionally make changes for the purpose of squashing to competition). How does the action of the EU actually reduce Microsoft's monolithic stature?
that would mean breaking up the company. That was overturned by the appeals court in the US antitrust case.
Furthermore, is such a steep monetary fine justified for the damage that Microsoft actually causes to its competitors? Notice that many of the apps which challenge MS products (Mozilla, Opera, Winamp, VLC) are available free of charge. Furthermore, the implicit goal of many of these (especially the Open Source projects - think Firefox) is to destroy Microsoft's market share in each respective category. So Microsoft's damage to the computing community cannot be measured so easily in pounds and pence. So why is the EU charging them so much money? Use your imagination.
The reason the majority of the apps challenging MS are open source or available free is because it is too easy to crush a traditional business when you are a predatory monopoly. Look at any of the companies whom they have crushed. The damage cannot be measured in just the competition and economy advantages competition brings. It also needs to be measure in the innovative ideas that were destroyed or twisted into something truly horrendous because microsoft doesnt have to compete on quality.
Yes, Microsoft is involved in "unfair" business practices. But nailing them for IE and Windows Media Player is sort of like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion.
Well, Capone was guilty of tax evasion. Nailing him for tax evasion did destroy his criminal empire. Sure, he was never convicted of all the murders and other evil things he did, but I'd rather him go away for tax evasion than let it be business as usual until someone managed to get a murder to stick.
They committed a crime. It's insane to me that you are suggesting that they shouldnt be held accountable for this crime because it's small scale compared to most of the other crimes they commited.
any source for that assertion?
not saying it didnt happen, just saying i'd like to read the original statement.
actually, yoda is not a whill. That was speculation that the community created due to the fact that the text scroll had a byline saying it was from the journal of the whills in some of the original scripts. (i think it says that in the original novel too).
Rick McCallum answered that at a convention once and said yoda's race has never been identified, nor had his homeworld; but he was definitely not a whill.
(the whills were an idea that lucas abandoned before releasing the original star wars film, which is why the scrolling text on the film doesnt include the by line)
Or... did you mean *duct* tape?
there is actually a Duck Tape brand duct tape.
Actually, that was Grand Moff Tarkin's call. Vader didn't order the destruction of Alderaan.