Also there is no clear analogy between physical goods and intellectual property.
I perhaps shouldn't have used the analogy of theft. I merely meant that it usually illegal to take things without permission and it is usually illegal to republish copyright material without permission.
I was trying to emphasise the fact that just as leaving my door unlocked does not grant you permission to take my stuff, responding to a web request does not grant permission to republish my data. (At least under most jurisdictions covered by copyright treaties)
There may be special exceptions where you can take my stuff without permission or republish my webpage without permission - but only if you fall into one of those special "exceptions".
Google gets permission, at least for the initial copy: when their Googlebot sends an HTTP GET request to the copyright holder's server, they either make a copy and send it to Google or they deny the request.
Getting a book from a library or buying it in a shop or indeed if Penguin Publishing gives you a copy of the book it does not grant you the right to republish the text. Responsding to an HTTP request for the data does not in any way mean you have been granted permission to republish the material or affect the copyright holders rights (regardless of who the copyright holder is).
I certainly do not understand under British law where exactly it says you can assume permission for copying non-public domain material. I would hazard a guess that what google does is illegal here. However as you say, copyright law is complex perhaps they fall under a *specific* exclusion for caching.
Under most jurisdictions the law does recognise copying non public-domain material without permission is illegal. Whether you think copying material without permission or stealing someone's stuff is "moral" or not, is obviously subjective.
I can "opt out" of having my stuff stolen by putting locks on my doors and windows. But I don't see why, if I forget to lock my door or choose not to bother, it should be legal for someone to take all my stuff.
Are you suggesting Scott McNealy should have let Microsoft fork java so that windows had a Windows only version? Because that's what Microsoft was doing in an attempt to kill cross-platform Java and lock people into windows. Sun said Microsoft *could* release new versions of Java if they obeyed the license terms and released compatible versions and Microsoft chose not to do that.
If you have any doubt what Microsoft was trying to do, let me quote the recently released Microsoft email on the subject:
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ product manager.
Small/medium players may pay up, big companies don't, and if they get sued they counter-claim.
US software patents are mainly useful for threatening small innovative startups that can't afford legal fees and don't have a massive portfolio of 'obvious' patents to counterclaim with.
One of the main points of the ICC was that it would be able to try people for war crimes in an independant international setting.
Of course this broke with international legal precedent. Prior to the ICC individual states could apply victor's justice and decide that it wasn't in their countries national interest to prosecute their own troops for rape or murder.
We (the UK) have signed up to the ICC. We have accepted that so called "serious flaw" that our troops could be tried by an independant 3rd party (the ICC) rather than a closed a military tribunal back in the UK and I am proud of that fact.
The US soldier should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Unfortunately Bush doesn't support the ICC (along with China, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Qatar and Israel).
Firefox updates are only pushed to active Firefox users. IE7 is pushed to most XP users (that is probably most computer users) regardless of whether they use or ever chose to install Internet Explorer originally.
So basically, they are *totally* different since windows update uses Microsofts monopoly position in the Operating System market to push new web browser products. If McAfee antivirus was deployed in a windows update then the number of McAfee antivirus installs would shoot up regardless of whether Symantec Antivirus has it's own auto-update system or not.
Companies pay to have their crap pre-installed and dell etc, use that money to make Windows look as cheap as Linux. So i wouldn't complain too much if I was Microsoft.
If you are correct and well paid criminal blackhats are finding vulnerabilities well before researchers then surely the main result of of full disclosure will be to increase the value of yet-to-be-disclosed vulnerability and to prevent disclosure of those vulnerabilities to a wider community such as script kiddies, for fear of it getting to a whitehat and being fully disclosed.
Basically the value of non-disclosed vulnerabilities will shoot through the roof compared to non-patched but fully-disclosed vulnerabilities.
We then have two types of vulnerabilities. 1) Yet to be patched *OR* disclosed vulnerabilities that are known only to well paid criminal gangs and are closely guarded secrets. 2) 0-day fully disclosed exploits that will be massively exploited by scriptkiddies before either the company can release an update or most admins can find a temporary workaround.
Not that I entirely disagree with you - just trying to point out that by fully disclosing known vulnerabilities it could actually increase the value of finding new vulnerabilities and keeping those vulnerabilities secret within the blackhat community.
The GPL has always had an agenda: "To guarantee the freedom to share and change free software". GPL3 has more restrictions than GPL2 but the agenda has not changed as far as I can tell.
I've looked at the GPL3 draft and every additional restriction does seem to better promote that agenda than GPLv2 (against real threats or current uses of the GPL not in line with the stated purpose). I suspect a lot of the people complaining about GPLv3 actually liked or even relied on some of the holes in GPLv2, that were working against it's stated purpose.
I'm interested to know if the GPLv3 would help stop this kind of deal.
My understanding is that under GPLv3 Novell would have their rights to redistribute samba terminated if they themselves tried to enforce a patent claim against Samba.
Under GPLv3 would Novell have their right to redistribute Samba terminated if they knowingly introduced code that was patented by Microsoft into Samba? Also how could it be proven?
Now, now, don't try and make out that the law would somehow treat you "differently" to Sony.
All you would need to do is become part or a cartel that engages in international price fixing, rip off millions of music lovers and thousands of artists, hire hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists and you too will get a decent legal defence.
For that task a universal package format would be better than a universal package manager.
Unfortunately at the moment most packages don't just contain files and meta data they also have this hacky distro-specific bit that actually runs commands directly on the system. Which is really quite crap.
For example a sane package format might have something like this to install a font.
Let's say I burgle one house, sell the stuff and use the money to save 3 dieing african children. How many houses would i have to burgle to become a saint?
Back in the dark ages of software development programmers had to context switch and the switch costs businesses dearly in terms of wasted developer time. For example a small problem like an important client not being able to access a website could distract many developers for hours. It would start with a small networking issue before lunch then after lunch a client would phone up and tell you your website had given him a virus then another couple of problems happen and before you know it almost the entire team has wasted the entire week investigating internet routing problems, refilling printer toner, ordering new floppy disks and checking faulty DNS servers in client offices that were totally unrelated to the software they were suppose to be writing.
One day the software developers got togethor in a big room with the business people and said "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" there must be a better way. So they took all the jobs that the software developers didn't want to do (including supporting their own bugs) and wrote them in a big list and they tried to employ another developer to do JUST those jobs.
Only it didn't work, every programmer they interviewed said "hang on a minute this is like my current job only with the programming removed and all the shit bits left - NO WAY am i doing that".
So they took the job description and they changed the jobtitle from programmer and reduced the salary by 30% - and so the first sysadmin job was born.
Well if you look closely at the picture in the article you can see that Google is the only one to make it. MSN and Yahoo are just disposable booster rockets.
To be fair google and yahoo are the big search engine players, MSN search is under 15% of the market compared to say googles at around 45% and yahoo at around 30%.
Slashdot Mirror
Also there is no clear analogy between physical goods and intellectual property.
I perhaps shouldn't have used the analogy of theft.
I merely meant that it usually illegal to take things without permission and it is usually illegal to republish copyright material without permission.
I was trying to emphasise the fact that just as leaving my door unlocked does not grant you permission to take my stuff, responding to a web request does not grant permission to republish my data. (At least under most jurisdictions covered by copyright treaties)
There may be special exceptions where you can take my stuff without permission or republish my webpage without permission - but only if you fall into one of those special "exceptions".
Google gets permission, at least for the initial copy: when their Googlebot sends an HTTP GET request to the copyright holder's server, they either make a copy and send it to Google or they deny the request.
Getting a book from a library or buying it in a shop or indeed if Penguin Publishing gives you a copy of the book it does not grant you the right to republish the text. Responsding to an HTTP request for the data does not in any way mean you have been granted permission to republish the material or affect the copyright holders rights (regardless of who the copyright holder is).
I certainly do not understand under British law where exactly it says you can assume permission for copying non-public domain material. I would hazard a guess that what google does is illegal here. However as you say, copyright law is complex perhaps they fall under a *specific* exclusion for caching.
Under most jurisdictions the law does recognise copying non public-domain material without permission is illegal.
Whether you think copying material without permission or stealing someone's stuff is "moral" or not, is obviously subjective.
I can "opt out" of having my stuff stolen by putting locks on my doors and windows.
But I don't see why, if I forget to lock my door or choose not to bother, it should be legal for someone to take all my stuff.
Are you suggesting Scott McNealy should have let Microsoft fork java so that windows had a Windows only version? Because that's what Microsoft was doing in an attempt to kill cross-platform Java and lock people into windows. Sun said Microsoft *could* release new versions of Java if they obeyed the license terms and released compatible versions and Microsoft chose not to do that.
If you have any doubt what Microsoft was trying to do, let me quote the recently released Microsoft email on the subject:
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language."
- Visual J++ product manager.
How will Nvidia and ATI spending *more* time on making sure the windows driver are stable/compliant free up time to work on the linux drivers?
Microsoft can do this because there is no chance in hell the linux drivers will be released before the windows unless there monopoly is destroyed.
Small/medium players may pay up, big companies don't, and if they get sued they counter-claim.
US software patents are mainly useful for threatening small innovative startups that can't afford legal fees and don't have a massive portfolio of 'obvious' patents to counterclaim with.
Also the hertiage foundation is a neocon thinktank. A non-neocon view of the Clinton and Bush administration policies on the ICC is available here:= 345925
http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b
One of the main points of the ICC was that it would be able to try people for war crimes in an independant international setting.
Of course this broke with international legal precedent. Prior to the ICC individual states could apply victor's justice and decide that it wasn't in their countries national interest to prosecute their own troops for rape or murder.
We (the UK) have signed up to the ICC. We have accepted that so called "serious flaw" that our troops could be tried by an independant 3rd party (the ICC) rather than a closed a military tribunal back in the UK and I am proud of that fact.
The US soldier should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Unfortunately Bush doesn't support the ICC (along with China, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Qatar and Israel).
Firefox updates are only pushed to active Firefox users.
IE7 is pushed to most XP users (that is probably most computer users) regardless of whether they use or ever chose to install Internet Explorer originally.
So basically, they are *totally* different since windows update uses Microsofts monopoly position in the Operating System market to push new web browser products.
If McAfee antivirus was deployed in a windows update then the number of McAfee antivirus installs would shoot up regardless of whether Symantec Antivirus has it's own auto-update system or not.
Matt.
Companies pay to have their crap pre-installed and dell etc, use that money to make Windows look as cheap as Linux.
So i wouldn't complain too much if I was Microsoft.
Matt.
If you are correct and well paid criminal blackhats are finding vulnerabilities well before researchers then surely the main result of of full disclosure will be to increase the value of yet-to-be-disclosed vulnerability and to prevent disclosure of those vulnerabilities to a wider community such as script kiddies, for fear of it getting to a whitehat and being fully disclosed.
Basically the value of non-disclosed vulnerabilities will shoot through the roof compared to non-patched but fully-disclosed vulnerabilities.
We then have two types of vulnerabilities.
1) Yet to be patched *OR* disclosed vulnerabilities that are known only to well paid criminal gangs and are closely guarded secrets.
2) 0-day fully disclosed exploits that will be massively exploited by scriptkiddies before either the company can release an update or most admins can find a temporary workaround.
Not that I entirely disagree with you - just trying to point out that by fully disclosing known vulnerabilities it could actually increase the value of finding new vulnerabilities and keeping those vulnerabilities secret within the blackhat community.
The GPL has always had an agenda: "To guarantee the freedom to share and change free software".
GPL3 has more restrictions than GPL2 but the agenda has not changed as far as I can tell.
I've looked at the GPL3 draft and every additional restriction does seem to better promote that agenda than GPLv2 (against real threats or current uses of the GPL not in line with the stated purpose). I suspect a lot of the people complaining about GPLv3 actually liked or even relied on some of the holes in GPLv2, that were working against it's stated purpose.
Novell have no rights to the patents. That is the issue.
Microsoft has indemnified them against prosecution, that is all.
So as a developer I have to indemnify everyone for all the bits of the software i didn't write?
I'm interested to know if the GPLv3 would help stop this kind of deal.
My understanding is that under GPLv3 Novell would have their rights to redistribute samba terminated if they themselves tried to enforce a patent claim against Samba.
Under GPLv3 would Novell have their right to redistribute Samba terminated if they knowingly introduced code that was patented by Microsoft into Samba? Also how could it be proven?
Now, now, don't try and make out that the law would somehow treat you "differently" to Sony.
All you would need to do is become part or a cartel that engages in international price fixing, rip off millions of music lovers and thousands of artists, hire hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists and you too will get a decent legal defence.
Unfortunately at the moment most packages don't just contain files and meta data they also have this hacky distro-specific bit that actually runs commands directly on the system. Which is really quite crap.
For example a sane package format might have something like this to install a font. This would allow any system that supports truetype fonts to install it how it wants.
But you are more likely to see something like this: Which is actually a set of commands to install the font on a system with a particular X based font system and directory layout.
For other brits out there, I've just googled "traffic circle" and I can confirm that the yanks haven't just made up another term for "roundabout".
No, in this case they've also entirely buggered up the fundamental design too!
http://www.alaskaroundabouts.com/mythfact1.html
When you change the logo too.
---
"Novell, Inc. delivering hidden patent lock-ins to the Enterprise(TM)"
Yes, I find the whole thing quite interesting.
Let's say I burgle one house, sell the stuff and use the money to save 3 dieing african children.
How many houses would i have to burgle to become a saint?
Back in the dark ages of software development programmers had to context switch and the switch costs businesses dearly in terms of wasted developer time. For example a small problem like an important client not being able to access a website could distract many developers for hours. It would start with a small networking issue before lunch then after lunch a client would phone up and tell you your website had given him a virus then another couple of problems happen and before you know it almost the entire team has wasted the entire week investigating internet routing problems, refilling printer toner, ordering new floppy disks and checking faulty DNS servers in client offices that were totally unrelated to the software they were suppose to be writing.
One day the software developers got togethor in a big room with the business people and said "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" there must be a better way. So they took all the jobs that the software developers didn't want to do (including supporting their own bugs) and wrote them in a big list and they tried to employ another developer to do JUST those jobs.
Only it didn't work, every programmer they interviewed said "hang on a minute this is like my current job only with the programming removed and all the shit bits left - NO WAY am i doing that".
So they took the job description and they changed the jobtitle from programmer and reduced the salary by 30% - and so the first sysadmin job was born.
Well if you look closely at the picture in the article you can see that Google is the only one to make it. MSN and Yahoo are just disposable booster rockets.
And yes, firefox market share is small.
To be fair google and yahoo are the big search engine players, MSN search is under 15% of the market compared to say googles at around 45% and yahoo at around 30%.
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Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2