With a relatively small variable cost, it's almost impossible for Microsoft to "dump" their prices in the traditional definition of the word, which is temporarily selling below your variable cost to eliminate competition.
Well also from me to all.
(illegal) Price dumping is when you lower your prices to drive out competition and raise them again when they are gone. That all it's about dumping does not depend on your fix, variable or common surcharge costs. It's only about the price politic.
Lowering prices even while beeing above _your_ variable costs, waiting for competition to fate away who have higher variable costs than you due to the scale factor for beeing smaller. And raising them thereafter is illegal.
Constantly selling products below your variable costs or even free of charge is legal (not dumping) and benefitical for all of us, as long as you _keep_ them low even when your competition took significant hits. (for example the linux kernel is free of charge, and not dumping)
Please for once try thinking of lindows not to be an evil linux distribution. Think about it as a windows competition that has nothing to do with linux on surface. Now a windows competitor is a fine thing or?
Today Windows and Linux Users are two completletly diffrent folks with different desires. You and me are a linux users with linuxish desires thats fine. Now for us lindows is something not attractive to use ourselfs okay. Now there are these windows users, they like maybe lindows which is windows like, they ignore the kernel. Say hurray to them in their fight to win some percentages on a monopoly market.
If Lindows gains a bigger part of the windows market this is also cool for us linux users, for example as our linux applications will run on the lindows machines also. Additionally it will be far easier to transmute from lindows to a "real" linux than from windows.
DO YOU GUYS GET THAT? Try not to make these knee-jerk reactions.
If airplanes are already sensitive to the not so dramatic electromagnetic impact of simple little mobil phones, what would that mean to somebody who in act of terrorism wants to make strong em. impact on purpose?
> In other news, I think a dishwasher is a good > idea, but won't be using one to wash my clothes > any time soon. > Tablet PCs are simply not designed for gaming, so > saying you would not use one for gaming is a bit > superfluous.
This answer is the classical technican vs. marketing sentence.
Technican says, usefull is what I define, marketing guy says usefull is what the costumer defines. The answer lies in both.
Well thats one thing to see it too, however as company you should orient yourself at what the costumer wants. If he does not buy your product because he also wants gaming abilities, adding them might be a good idea to boost sales or? Under the condition he is willing to pay the extra costs for the gaming stuff.
A primary goal of every company and every department of it should be to be usefull, or? So who defines whats usefull? The costumer, however in bounds, because often their wishes can be pretty inmature also:o) However gaming abilities for a PC?
"""""As far as the first kind goes, you can't magically make that radiated light have more energy by converting it up to a higher frequency.""""
Well such technology as far I understood, if you get a constant beam of heat radiation, you could create a pulse of in example blue light.
This would not violate the conservation of energy.
However it would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, but at the end, why is it not violatable? It is a soley experimental law, based on no other laws or conclusions, so if it get's one day violated due to an expriment in some special case, nothing else in the physical world would be touched.
Look at other "laws" that normally hold true, but in some special cases, do not. For example left/right symetry.
This bases on a funny Gedankenexpiriment by Richard Stallmann. Suppose through some Radio Station you are able to talk to an alien. Note that your worlds do not touch, so you can't refer him to the light of any star or such, but you managed to establish a communication with each other (through learning to know each other)
Now when it comes to the physical world, can you explain him things? Can you explain him how long is 1 meter? Yes for example you can, you can tell him it's for example xxxxx times the size of a helium atom, or for example the xxx times the wave length of some material having a resonant light emmiting state.
Length is not a symetric issue, however in our normal real world it often seems to be.
Now most interesting can you tell him whats left and whats right? Well normally you do not seem you can, so it seems to be symetric. This "law" seems to hold true. However threre are some quantum effects, where the particles prefer left and right, so you can instruct him to build a machine, and he will know what right is.
Can you tell him what matter and anti-matter is? Well today it seems to be no. Also if his world is made from anti-matter. He will have the wrong result for left/right.
Well this would be a perpeto mobile of the second kind. To transform heat into energy, such machine would solve all energy problems of the whole future.
Well there is no real physical law speaking against, but the first law of thermodynamics, which in fact seems to be only a statistically law. However until now experience showed us, it is "normally" true.
Not that I would be a nay sayer, when it's possible it would be really revolutionary, however it sounds just to good to be true. So normally from experience about such "revolution" I would guess this is all likely to be bullshit. (but not sure of course)
Well I've done something similar if you are the sole author of a GPL code you do have of course the right to append any additions to the GPL license for your product, in example to weaken it.
I wrote a native java extention which was licensed under the GPL, however it used the SUN JVM. Which is corporate code. Impossible situation? No as the FSF has answered my request the solution is to put an extention to the GPL, like "As special exception the author BLALBA allows this software package to be linked against the sun java VM, without having to handover the code".
Or something similar like that, however note that you can only "modify" the gpl for your needs if your the sole author, or all others agree. And well you do not depend on other GPL code (libraries) from other authors.
Yes this would hold true if the GPL license itself would not forbid exactly that, it's constructed that way by the FSF it as you see it's good so.
Since the GPL license forbids to sell it under an additional restricive license agreements, the seller would not have the right on the code first place, since he violated the GPL rules.
HOWEVER since the did not have rights on the code, as receiver you also do not automatically receive any rights! Neither on the original GPL codes, nor on their extentions. However the copyright holder can sue them for violation of his copyright. (Also as receiver of the product you can't).
That are some simple legal principles at work one should learn when handling with these sort of things.
Nobody can give further more rights than he has. Itself very logic isn't it? But this also applies to the GPL. Only one can give it further on the licenses if he has the right on it itself. He also can't give you more rights than he has (removing the GPL restrictions and so on).
Secondly only the one who is damaged can make a private lawsuit, not somebody who feels something should be set right. For example as receiver of a product where you know the original author put it on the GPL license, and your seller denies to give you the code. You can do nothing, since the copyright holder is the one who is damaged.
Any *well* *written* C program will run at least as fast as a java application. (however stability and ease of development are the other arguments speaking for java)
This IS an urban legend. Show some proof, and a *fair* test. The persomance tests I've that were written *for* java always were very unfair. Writing a stupid C program, and a very clever java program "showing" the java one runs faster. That with a little more hand optimization on the C code it runs faster too is discreet.
Let's think about the concept of renting a movie at all.
We are usually so integrated in our daily world, we rarly have the time to step out once in a while and think over it a bit of the box. (reflect)
Why is the time limited you are allowed to use a movie? On a rental store this has a solution, since there is only one movie tape, you borrow, give it back, and the next once borrows, etc.
So whats the concept of renting? Do borrow a material a finite time, and return it so the next one can take use of it.
Now as usually our thinking is based on corporal things. However data is not, it can be copied at zero cost. So is the concept of 'renting' data not a bit out of place?` Why is it necessary to limit the time your allowed to have the data?
So the future might be, you will be paying differently in relation of the time you are allowed to keep the data.
In my personal valuation this is an oppression. --------------------
My humble opinion to this all. Our social system, sense of justice and from this derived also the legal system has evolved for thousend of years since the romans. And it works quite well for bodied things, things that are need at least work to be copied.
However today the general concept of "things" is expanded over data, not taking account of it's special traits. (Namely beeing able to be copied at zero cost).
I think it will take primary just time to have a good system to evolve to handle these things in the best interest of our social community.
However secondly more important it needs us all to be able to think out of the box. To question the rules we were raised up, if they truely apply well to this concept. Right now we've just different interests clashing on each other.
I personally think the law of property which is in it's way in place since the romans does not well handle the concept data, However the roman concept might be a value,( free translated from my german) "the same rule equally, the different rule unequally"
"My understanding of Trade Secret law, on the other hand, tells me that distributing under the GPL completely destroys any Trade Secret case they may have."
There is a trade secred law????
As far I understood the trade secred protecty you in one way, for an undefined time. It's by keeping it a secred and how long you can keep it secret, thats all folks! (As far I have understood)
Isn't it interesting that in our society everything new is automatically emotioned to be good? Everything old is already emotioned not good?
If unix is old, does it make it bad? Would it be better if it was ivented only last year?
Okay now of topic, Bush also called us "old europe", so yes, we're are old, and proud over our thousend years old culture. Is beeing called old something bad?
I'm just learning about the GPL but I have the same question here. If SCO owned Unix, and then released a Linux distro under the GPL (they did) that means that all that code is out there, under all the rules of the GPL from that moment on. Plus, end users can't be held liable because the software was clearly obtained under GPL rules.
Definitly not, if they release a software under the GPL, this license only applies to this software. Even if there is an 100% identical software out there, the GPL does not apply automatically to it. Only if you got it directly or indirectly from them.
Of course in case of identical software packages, they will have a hard time proofing that your copy was not aquired from a path originating from them.
And yes I can then incooperate their GPL code in my software if I got a copy of their GPL'ed code. But releasing anything does not affect anything already out there. However as your are right there is a difference between legal theory and the matter of proof.
The first principle of laws of property is: Nobody can transfer more rights than he has himself!
All clear or? BTW: software copyright is a property also. So a thief cannot sell or give a theft away giving legal property with it.
So what happens if a partner of you has your a non exclusive license to use your software and releases it under the GPL? Nothing happens, since he does not have a copyright on the code, so he can't legally give it away under GPL. If somebody aquires it under the title and blieve he aquired the software with a GPL license it is not effective. It's the same if I bought a radio from a thief. If the original a legally owner sees me having it, I must have to give it back.
But who would think that this operation would take an hour to compute, calls function which are possible to interfere which each other etc?
Next a lot of people are overloading operators while destroying basic mathematical rules operators have! This has to forbidden, but the compiler can't control it.
a * (b + c) = a*b + a*c Should always be true, no matter how operators are overloaded. a + b + c = c + a + b Aha so look! Even the string concation also violates a basic mathematical rule '+' follows.
But equals and == is a mostly necessary distinction!
Do you want to compare if two objects (pointers) are the same or alike? Meaning both point to the same object, or both point to objects which are alike. Thats somethign cruitically different!
In Java this is solved brillantly exactly throught this way. The same is ==, and alike is equals().
Due to the operating overloading this in C++ a very common problem a lot of bugs result from, since it's chaotically used if you make just pointer comperasions, or in depth comparisions, and how many depth level your comparing. (Since the object itself contains again object which can be the same or alike, etc.)
I said this FAQ is an example, this has nothing to do with my favoring to visit a side or not.
Yet I also noted already several english speakers in our german forums, who demand from everybody to speak perfect english with them. It doesn't even get to their mind that it would be more suitable for them to speak german.
Well for me "seeing" you demanding, you're requesting me to follow you on all sites? Okay forget that, I just wanted to punch in on a rhetorical side:o)
But well I've seen enough movies myself where the US is propaganded as the worlds greatest country. Even bush said that! It's pure arrogance.
The US and the US citizens generally don't care too much about the rest of the world. After all they are the greatest country in the world, or at last they believe this by heart.
If it's true or not, at least it is the opinoun most of the europeans have formed the last years. And FAQ's like seem only to second that.
Slashdot Mirror
With a relatively small variable cost, it's almost impossible for Microsoft to "dump" their prices in the traditional definition of the word, which is temporarily selling below your variable cost to eliminate competition.
Well also from me to all.
(illegal) Price dumping is when you lower your prices to drive out competition and raise them again when they are gone. That all it's about dumping does not depend on your fix, variable or common surcharge costs. It's only about the price politic.
Lowering prices even while beeing above _your_ variable costs, waiting for competition to fate away who have higher variable costs than you due to the scale factor for beeing smaller. And raising them thereafter is illegal.
Constantly selling products below your variable costs or even free of charge is legal (not dumping) and benefitical for all of us, as long as you _keep_ them low even when your competition took significant hits. (for example the linux kernel is free of charge, and not dumping)
Yes "the human body can not take speeds more than 20 miles per hour". Remember that? (~1900)
Better safe than sorry!!!
Please for once try thinking of lindows not to be an evil linux distribution. Think about it as a windows competition that has nothing to do with linux on surface. Now a windows competitor is a fine thing or?
Today Windows and Linux Users are two completletly diffrent folks with different desires. You and me are a linux users with linuxish desires thats fine. Now for us lindows is something not attractive to use ourselfs okay. Now there are these windows users, they like maybe lindows which is windows like, they ignore the kernel. Say hurray to them in their fight to win some percentages on a monopoly market.
If Lindows gains a bigger part of the windows market this is also cool for us linux users, for example as our linux applications will run on the lindows machines also. Additionally it will be far easier to transmute from lindows to a "real" linux than from windows.
DO YOU GUYS GET THAT? Try not to make these knee-jerk reactions.
If airplanes are already sensitive to the not so dramatic electromagnetic impact of simple little mobil phones, what would that mean to somebody who in act of terrorism wants to make strong em. impact on purpose?
> In other news, I think a dishwasher is a good
:o) However gaming abilities for a PC?
> idea, but won't be using one to wash my clothes
> any time soon.
> Tablet PCs are simply not designed for gaming, so
> saying you would not use one for gaming is a bit
> superfluous.
This answer is the classical technican vs. marketing sentence.
Technican says, usefull is what I define, marketing guy says usefull is what the costumer defines. The answer lies in both.
Well thats one thing to see it too, however as company you should orient yourself at what the costumer wants. If he does not buy your product because he also wants gaming abilities, adding them might be a good idea to boost sales or? Under the condition he is willing to pay the extra costs for the gaming stuff.
A primary goal of every company and every department of it should be to be usefull, or? So who defines whats usefull? The costumer, however in bounds, because often their wishes can be pretty inmature also
The opposite holds true also!
Aso whats A then?
Note C history is BCTL -> B -> C !
"""""As far as the first kind goes, you can't magically make that radiated light have more energy by converting it up to a higher frequency.""""
Well such technology as far I understood, if you get a constant beam of heat radiation, you could create a pulse of in example blue light.
This would not violate the conservation of energy.
However it would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, but at the end, why is it not violatable? It is a soley experimental law, based on no other laws or conclusions, so if it get's one day violated due to an expriment in some special case, nothing else in the physical world would be touched.
Look at other "laws" that normally hold true, but in some special cases, do not. For example left/right symetry.
This bases on a funny Gedankenexpiriment by Richard Stallmann. Suppose through some Radio Station you are able to talk to an alien. Note that your worlds do not touch, so you can't refer him to the light of any star or such, but you managed to establish a communication with each other (through learning to know each other)
Now when it comes to the physical world, can you explain him things? Can you explain him how long is 1 meter? Yes for example you can, you can tell him it's for example xxxxx times the size of a helium atom, or for example the xxx times the wave length of some material having a resonant light emmiting state.
Length is not a symetric issue, however in our normal real world it often seems to be.
Now most interesting can you tell him whats left and whats right? Well normally you do not seem you can, so it seems to be symetric. This "law" seems to hold true. However threre are some quantum effects, where the particles prefer left and right, so you can instruct him to build a machine, and he will know what right is.
Can you tell him what matter and anti-matter is? Well today it seems to be no. Also if his world is made from anti-matter. He will have the wrong result for left/right.
Well this would be a perpeto mobile of the second kind. To transform heat into energy, such machine would solve all energy problems of the whole future.
Well there is no real physical law speaking against, but the first law of thermodynamics, which in fact seems to be only a statistically law. However until now experience showed us, it is "normally" true.
Not that I would be a nay sayer, when it's possible it would be really revolutionary, however it sounds just to good to be true. So normally from experience about such "revolution" I would guess this is all likely to be bullshit. (but not sure of course)
"""Should we choose our tools based on how free they are, or on how useful they are to us"""
Well in the case is the freedom not just a special kind of usefullness? Especially if usefullness is weighted in a longer term
Oh man charma envy, your the worst!
Who set this rule after all? Oh it must have benn you who is lawgiver and executioner in once.
Well I've done something similar if you are the sole author of a GPL code you do have of course the right to append any additions to the GPL license for your product, in example to weaken it.
I wrote a native java extention which was licensed under the GPL, however it used the SUN JVM. Which is corporate code. Impossible situation? No as the FSF has answered my request the solution is to put an extention to the GPL, like "As special exception the author BLALBA allows this software package to be linked against the sun java VM, without having to handover the code".
Or something similar like that, however note that you can only "modify" the gpl for your needs if your the sole author, or all others agree. And well you do not depend on other GPL code (libraries) from other authors.
Yes this would hold true if the GPL license itself would not forbid exactly that, it's constructed that way by the FSF it as you see it's good so.
Since the GPL license forbids to sell it under an additional restricive license agreements, the seller would not have the right on the code first place, since he violated the GPL rules.
HOWEVER since the did not have rights on the code, as receiver you also do not automatically receive any rights! Neither on the original GPL codes, nor on their extentions. However the copyright holder can sue them for violation of his copyright. (Also as receiver of the product you can't).
That are some simple legal principles at work one should learn when handling with these sort of things.
Nobody can give further more rights than he has. Itself very logic isn't it?
But this also applies to the GPL. Only one can give it further on the licenses if he has the right on it itself. He also can't give you more rights than he has (removing the GPL restrictions and so on).
Secondly only the one who is damaged can make a private lawsuit, not somebody who feels something should be set right. For example as receiver of a product where you know the original author put it on the GPL license, and your seller denies to give you the code. You can do nothing, since the copyright holder is the one who is damaged.
A *well* *written* C application could even imitate this behaviour.
I have never seen it's easy, but it can!
Any *well* *written* C program will run at least as fast as a java application.
(however stability and ease of development are the other arguments speaking for java)
This IS an urban legend. Show some proof, and a *fair* test. The persomance tests I've that were written *for* java always were very unfair. Writing a stupid C program, and a very clever java program "showing" the java one runs faster. That with a little more hand optimization on the C code it runs faster too is discreet.
Let's think about the concept of renting a movie at all.
We are usually so integrated in our daily world, we rarly have the time to step out once in a while and think over it a bit of the box. (reflect)
Why is the time limited you are allowed to use a movie? On a rental store this has a solution, since there is only one movie tape, you borrow, give it back, and the next once borrows, etc.
So whats the concept of renting? Do borrow a material a finite time, and return it so the next one can take use of it.
Now as usually our thinking is based on corporal things. However data is not, it can be copied at zero cost. So is the concept of 'renting' data not a bit out of place?` Why is it necessary to limit the time your allowed to have the data?
So the future might be, you will be paying differently in relation of the time you are allowed to keep the data.
In my personal valuation this is an oppression.
--------------------
My humble opinion to this all. Our social system, sense of justice and from this derived also the legal system has evolved for thousend of years since the romans. And it works quite well for bodied things, things that are need at least work to be copied.
However today the general concept of "things" is expanded over data, not taking account of it's special traits. (Namely beeing able to be copied at zero cost).
I think it will take primary just time to have a good system to evolve to handle these things in the best interest of our social community.
However secondly more important it needs us all to be able to think out of the box. To question the rules we were raised up, if they truely apply well to this concept. Right now we've just different interests clashing on each other.
I personally think the law of property which is in it's way in place since the romans does not well handle the concept data, However the roman concept might be a value,( free translated from my german) "the same rule equally, the different rule unequally"
"My understanding of Trade Secret law, on the other hand, tells me that distributing under the GPL completely destroys any Trade Secret case they may have."
There is a trade secred law????
As far I understood the trade secred protecty you in one way, for an undefined time. It's by keeping it a secred and how long you can keep it secret, thats all folks! (As far I have understood)
Isn't it interesting that in our society
everything new is automatically emotioned to be good?
Everything old is already emotioned not good?
If unix is old, does it make it bad? Would it be better if it was ivented only last year?
Okay now of topic, Bush also called us "old europe", so yes, we're are old, and proud over our thousend years old culture. Is beeing called old something bad?
I'm just learning about the GPL but I have the same question here. If SCO owned Unix, and then released a Linux distro under the GPL (they did) that means that all that code is out there, under all the rules of the GPL from that moment on. Plus, end users can't be held liable because the software was clearly obtained under GPL rules. Definitly not, if they release a software under the GPL, this license only applies to this software. Even if there is an 100% identical software out there, the GPL does not apply automatically to it. Only if you got it directly or indirectly from them. Of course in case of identical software packages, they will have a hard time proofing that your copy was not aquired from a path originating from them. And yes I can then incooperate their GPL code in my software if I got a copy of their GPL'ed code. But releasing anything does not affect anything already out there. However as your are right there is a difference between legal theory and the matter of proof.
Ah not this is stupid.
Learn at least some justice!
The first principle of laws of property is:
Nobody can transfer more rights than he has himself!
All clear or? BTW: software copyright is a property also. So a thief cannot sell or give a theft away giving legal property with it.
So what happens if a partner of you has your a non exclusive license to use your software and releases it under the GPL? Nothing happens, since he does not have a copyright on the code, so he can't legally give it away under GPL. If somebody aquires it under the title and blieve he aquired the software with a GPL license it is not effective. It's the same if I bought a radio from a thief. If the original a legally owner sees me having it, I must have to give it back.
determinant = b*b - 4*a*c;
But who would think that this operation would take an hour to compute, calls function which are possible to interfere which each other etc?
Next a lot of people are overloading operators while destroying basic mathematical rules operators have! This has to forbidden, but the compiler can't control it.
a * (b + c) = a*b + a*c
Should always be true, no matter how operators are overloaded.
a + b + c = c + a + b
Aha so look! Even the string concation also violates a basic mathematical rule '+' follows.
But equals and == is a mostly necessary distinction!
Do you want to compare if two objects (pointers) are the same or alike? Meaning both point to the same object, or both point to objects which are alike. Thats somethign cruitically different!
In Java this is solved brillantly exactly throught this way. The same is ==, and alike is equals().
Due to the operating overloading this in C++ a very common problem a lot of bugs result from, since it's chaotically used if you make just pointer comperasions, or in depth comparisions, and how many depth level your comparing. (Since the object itself contains again object which can be the same or alike, etc.)
I said this FAQ is an example, this has nothing to do with my favoring to visit a side or not.
:o)
Yet I also noted already several english speakers in our german forums, who demand from everybody to speak perfect english with them. It doesn't even get to their mind that it would be more suitable for them to speak german.
Well for me "seeing" you demanding, you're requesting me to follow you on all sites?
Okay forget that, I just wanted to punch in on a rhetorical side
But well I've seen enough movies myself where the US is propaganded as the worlds greatest country. Even bush said that! It's pure arrogance.
Mod me as flamebait if you want.
The US and the US citizens generally don't care too much about the rest of the world. After all they are the greatest country in the world, or at last they believe this by heart.
If it's true or not, at least it is the opinoun most of the europeans have formed the last years. And FAQ's like seem only to second that.