This is a question about the GPL, no flames, please. In the Connolly's response, he blathers:
-- Moglen's quote is misapplied. BOTTOM LINE: THERE IS NO DUTY TO REDISTRIBUTE MODIFIED GPL CODE. The code was redistributed improperly by the Mambo project as it was gotten without Furthermore's permission. This also makes derivative(s) an unlawful by-product. ------------------
IANAL, but Connolly raises an interesting question about the GPL and the ASP loophole. If someone writes derivative code based on a GPL'ed work and refuses to distribute it (in other words, they provide the code as a service without giving copies to anyone), who really owns that new code? Doesn't the GPL kick in when and only when someone distributes code?
This seems like a gray area to me. Potentially, someone could build a derivative work of a GPL'ed project and not have to release the changes under the GPL if they never release the changes at all. What does this mean about ownership of the new code?
I am concerned about the impact of this technology on people's ability to understand the word as it is said in a courtroom. IANAL, but something about this really bothers me.
As we all know with our email communications, the meaning of a joke is easily lost when we send it to someone without the benefit of context. I have been threatened with severe beatings from people who did not know I was kidding because they could not see my body gestures change and could not hear a difference in my inflection. There is a difference between saying something and writing it, and I worry judges and juries could give more importance to the words on the screen than the person on the stand.
While I never thought I would say what I am about to say, the great thing about court is someone has to be there saying what they believe. Sometimes the message is in the medium, and before now there was no medium in a courtroom. Judges and juries sat there and heard the evidence from people, this eCourtroom is putting a layer of transmission between court personnel and witnesses.
Just as lawyers play to the juries with courtroom theatrics so can they play to monitors and video screens, and it may be easier to mislead people without the benefit of direct interaction. I know this is considered an add-on to the witness stand, but think about it: if someone is listening to someone speak and there is a TV on, are most people's eyes really on the person speaking? It would be bad to be convicted of a crime just for not being able to play to the camera.
Since we are being technical about the answer, does this mean Microsoft or the software vendor qualifies as a terrorist organization?
Consider the fact that an entire airport was shut down, lives were disrupted, major economic harm was caused our airlines as a result of flights not getting out on time. LAX is a major hub that connects travelers throughout the country, it is conceivable traffic patterns throughout the U.S. were put out by this problem.
Think of it like a car bomb that went off without anyone dying, and you see my point.
I'm still not convinced a structured approach to solving security problems is the most effective way to go about things. Microsoft has a very structured approach to dealing with security flaws and issues, but it takes forever to get a patch and there are still so many issues they seem oblivious to. Apache, on the other hand, seems to have a 0-day patch policy and does not benefit from a huge budget for testing and patching.
What I would argue is project morale is the single most important factor in dealing with security issues. If people are willing to take ownership of problems as they occur, the time it takes for problem resolution decreases (obviously). Within the constraints of a structured environment, there is bureaucracy to deal with, turn around time for tests and resource allocation, etc.
As a seasoned project manager, I can say these constraints are often the problem more so than the particular bug to be patched.
That's a good point, understanding a system often comes from seeing the intended inputs and outputs then piecing together what it is supposed to do. I imagine some people read that way, skimming over what the author is saying, trying to get the jist of it then going back over the details.
When I took the LSATs, that is exactly what we were advised to do. Read the question, understand how we are supposed to answer a specific question, then tear into the argument presented looking for the correct answer.
I am a structured reader. I read the opinion section of several newspapers every day and always try to understand the structure of the argument in order to glean the meaning the author is trying to convey. In many cases, I am able to find holes in what someone is saying which helps me decide whether or not I agree with them. Occasionally I skim over an article, trying to find the relevant sections to decide whether or not it is worth my time.
But understanding what is on an author's mind is not really an easy thing to do, and often looking at the way an author presents ideas is key to finding out what he or she is trying to do.
What they needed to ask him about is the durability of the Sidekick 2. I have issues with how well it is constructed, and I am not the only person who feels this way.
I bought a Sidekick back in April and have been vigilant about it's upkeep. Never dropped it, never sat anything down on it. One day, the action wheel just stops working - literally, I am sending an email and it just doesn't work anymore.
One of the things mentioned in this article is that the Sidekick crowd tends to be 30-ish, which means people are going to have active lifestyles where things can happen to a phone. What is the sense of investing in such a snazzy device if it is not going to keep up with you?
"They tend to think in terms of how something that is said contributes towards a goal rather than what it means or how it was stated." What I mean here is that there are nuances and subtleties to language that are meant to communicate more about the subject than a precise interpretation would reveal. Engineers tend to have problems with this, and even with the idea such subtleties exist.
I would actually disagree that literature is closely related to actionable statements, personally I believe great literature is an appeal intended to provoke an emotional response to the project's core themes. While there are plenty of examples of literature intended to instigate change, the majority of works I have read explain things nothing can be done about, i.e. the nature of man, love, etc.
Having a degree in English literature, it is always strange to see the odd relationship technology people have with the written word.
This essay reads like one of a hundred handouts I received in Intro to Lit classes. It makes the argument that you must make an argument, that there is structure to any argument, and that there is a historical tradition behind how an essay is constructed.
There is an analagous relationship between the art of writing an essay and the discipline of an engineering discipline (in my case, constructing software). In both cases, there is a desire for internal consistency, overall clarity and optimal design. Structure tends to consist of a series of discreet statements put together so that the order has an affect on the overall outcome of the project.
Many of the engineers and programmers I work with would be baffled to know this. For them, writing is a series of consise, actionable statements scribbled on sticky pads or in the margin of documents. They tend to think in terms of how something that is said contributes towards a goal rather than what it means or how it was stated. The idea that there is structure to how arguments are presented, that there are logical and rhetorical devices used in the same way as control structures in programming languages is lost on them. Which is a shame, because soem of the best engineers I know would be excellent essayists were they to write down their thoughts.
Just a thought, but could this mean there will be a movement towards natural event-based synchronization between graphics and audio events in games given a common processor? I realize this was never the case before, but with 40 gigaflops of audio processing capability this must become an attractive option.
See, when I hear about a site powered by ColdFusion, I want that to mean the server runs in a large building somewhere getting all it's energy from within a glass jar stored in the basement.
Moreover, when I hear about a site written in C#, I want that to mean a composer orchestrated the score for the site in a beautiful, somber key evocative of Brahms later symphonies.
Also, when I hear about a site written in java, I want that to bring to mind a picture of some nut on the floor of a coffee house writing hundreds of pages of a manifesto by hand using stale coffee beans before publishing his rants on the Web.
For that matter, when I hear there is a site powered by Perl, I want that to mean there is a site solely financed by the pearl trade.
And when I hear about a site powered by ASP, I want it to be an Egyptian site that changes ownership every few months due to the unexplained deaths of previous owners.
Further, where I hear about a site powered by PHP, I want to know that no user has a clue what scripting technology I am using.
The point to all this: I develop in all of the scripting languages listed above. Users don't care what language was used to write a site, they only care whether or not the site does what they need it to do.
1) Don't accept invitations to any parties by people named 'Bluto', 'Otter', 'Boon', 'D-Day' or any other aliases. Names like these are used to avoid the legal consequences of one's actions and often lead to problems that could get you kicked out of school.
2) Never let anyone borrow your brother's car. It will be damaged, and you will have to pay for it.
3) Make friends with the dean your first day, and try to join ROTC. The Corps is a fun and exciting place where you will develop character and self esteem, and also get to dress in military uniforms to impress the ladies.
4) Toga parties are for delinquents too childish to be responsible members of the college community. You are better off finding the real events to enjoy your time, like garden parties and pep rallies.
5) Food fights are bad. You will do much better helping out on parade floats.
I know nerds (I use the term with reverence) don't always think that much of art, but something to remember is that our original conception of 'art' was a purely useful thing.
There was a time Westerners saw art really as a Machia, something you made and / or engaged in. Science and art were really the same endeavor for people like the Greeks. No division in our mental lives.
For some reason, just the description of this project makes me happy.
Nepotism aside, the problem with what this person is doing comes down to the responsibility of governments. The idea that what is otherwise considered an illegal nuisance is allowed under law for government figures is incredible.
Participating in one's government in a free society should be a choice - but here people are having the system forced on them through automated means.
There is no compelling state interest to allow this sort of behavior, so why are political mailings legal where commercial mailings are not? What's next, concentration camps with mandantory viewing of political TV ads?
Er... oops, thinking I should have kept that last thought to myself...
I got the game to boot using a kernel debugger and a little trial and error. SoftICE revealed the installer makes a call to something in _vis.dll, which in turn checks to see if hl2_acf.nfo exists within the steam install directory.
Decompiled _vis.dll with DisC, replaced the function call to a new function that always returns true. Recompiled _vis with Visual C++, nogo, then tried with Borland and the game booted.
Posting a crack tonight.
M
--- Always read sigs for important words like syyyyke.
Maybe my problem was with the tone I took in my previous posting. Here's something translated just for you:
By the authority vested in me by his Majesty Commander Taco of the Realm of Slashdot, so that slobbering knuckledraggers like yourself may be prevented from interfering with the pursuit of wisdom and knoweldge and goode intelligent discussion may continue unimpeded, I hereby request thou removest thine Ring of Duhhhh +15 prior to rendering thine thoughts on yonder message board.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a question about the GPL, no flames, please. In the Connolly's response, he blathers:
-- Moglen's quote is misapplied. BOTTOM LINE: THERE IS NO DUTY TO REDISTRIBUTE MODIFIED GPL CODE. The code was redistributed improperly by the Mambo project as it was gotten without Furthermore's permission. This also makes derivative(s) an unlawful by-product.
------------------
IANAL, but Connolly raises an interesting question about the GPL and the ASP loophole. If someone writes derivative code based on a GPL'ed work and refuses to distribute it (in other words, they provide the code as a service without giving copies to anyone), who really owns that new code? Doesn't the GPL kick in when and only when someone distributes code?
This seems like a gray area to me. Potentially, someone could build a derivative work of a GPL'ed project and not have to release the changes under the GPL if they never release the changes at all. What does this mean about ownership of the new code?
M
Down, simba.
1 00 30099
Your baseless comments aside, it is this kind of stuff that I am talking about.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118741&cid=
M
I am concerned about the impact of this technology on people's ability to understand the word as it is said in a courtroom. IANAL, but something about this really bothers me.
As we all know with our email communications, the meaning of a joke is easily lost when we send it to someone without the benefit of context. I have been threatened with severe beatings from people who did not know I was kidding because they could not see my body gestures change and could not hear a difference in my inflection. There is a difference between saying something and writing it, and I worry judges and juries could give more importance to the words on the screen than the person on the stand.
While I never thought I would say what I am about to say, the great thing about court is someone has to be there saying what they believe. Sometimes the message is in the medium, and before now there was no medium in a courtroom. Judges and juries sat there and heard the evidence from people, this eCourtroom is putting a layer of transmission between court personnel and witnesses.
Just as lawyers play to the juries with courtroom theatrics so can they play to monitors and video screens, and it may be easier to mislead people without the benefit of direct interaction. I know this is considered an add-on to the witness stand, but think about it: if someone is listening to someone speak and there is a TV on, are most people's eyes really on the person speaking? It would be bad to be convicted of a crime just for not being able to play to the camera.
M
Since we are being technical about the answer, does this mean Microsoft or the software vendor qualifies as a terrorist organization?
Consider the fact that an entire airport was shut down, lives were disrupted, major economic harm was caused our airlines as a result of flights not getting out on time. LAX is a major hub that connects travelers throughout the country, it is conceivable traffic patterns throughout the U.S. were put out by this problem.
Think of it like a car bomb that went off without anyone dying, and you see my point.
M
I'm still not convinced a structured approach to solving security problems is the most effective way to go about things. Microsoft has a very structured approach to dealing with security flaws and issues, but it takes forever to get a patch and there are still so many issues they seem oblivious to. Apache, on the other hand, seems to have a 0-day patch policy and does not benefit from a huge budget for testing and patching.
What I would argue is project morale is the single most important factor in dealing with security issues. If people are willing to take ownership of problems as they occur, the time it takes for problem resolution decreases (obviously). Within the constraints of a structured environment, there is bureaucracy to deal with, turn around time for tests and resource allocation, etc.
As a seasoned project manager, I can say these constraints are often the problem more so than the particular bug to be patched.
M
I'm thinking this means there will henceforth be a lucrative niche market in providing redundant mail servers to spam marketers.
M
Yeah, but this is Slashdot. I don't need to spell check anything.
= UTF-8&oi=defmore&q=define:discreet
Besides, discreet is a word too: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie
M
Um... huh?
M
That's a good point, understanding a system often comes from seeing the intended inputs and outputs then piecing together what it is supposed to do. I imagine some people read that way, skimming over what the author is saying, trying to get the jist of it then going back over the details.
When I took the LSATs, that is exactly what we were advised to do. Read the question, understand how we are supposed to answer a specific question, then tear into the argument presented looking for the correct answer.
I am a structured reader. I read the opinion section of several newspapers every day and always try to understand the structure of the argument in order to glean the meaning the author is trying to convey. In many cases, I am able to find holes in what someone is saying which helps me decide whether or not I agree with them. Occasionally I skim over an article, trying to find the relevant sections to decide whether or not it is worth my time.
But understanding what is on an author's mind is not really an easy thing to do, and often looking at the way an author presents ideas is key to finding out what he or she is trying to do.
M
This ain't an essay, and I ain't wearing my proofin' pants.
M
What they needed to ask him about is the durability of the Sidekick 2. I have issues with how well it is constructed, and I am not the only person who feels this way.
I bought a Sidekick back in April and have been vigilant about it's upkeep. Never dropped it, never sat anything down on it. One day, the action wheel just stops working - literally, I am sending an email and it just doesn't work anymore.
One of the things mentioned in this article is that the Sidekick crowd tends to be 30-ish, which means people are going to have active lifestyles where things can happen to a phone. What is the sense of investing in such a snazzy device if it is not going to keep up with you?
M
"They tend to think in terms of how something that is said contributes towards a goal rather than what it means or how it was stated." What I mean here is that there are nuances and subtleties to language that are meant to communicate more about the subject than a precise interpretation would reveal. Engineers tend to have problems with this, and even with the idea such subtleties exist.
I would actually disagree that literature is closely related to actionable statements, personally I believe great literature is an appeal intended to provoke an emotional response to the project's core themes. While there are plenty of examples of literature intended to instigate change, the majority of works I have read explain things nothing can be done about, i.e. the nature of man, love, etc.
M
Having a degree in English literature, it is always strange to see the odd relationship technology people have with the written word.
This essay reads like one of a hundred handouts I received in Intro to Lit classes. It makes the argument that you must make an argument, that there is structure to any argument, and that there is a historical tradition behind how an essay is constructed.
There is an analagous relationship between the art of writing an essay and the discipline of an engineering discipline (in my case, constructing software). In both cases, there is a desire for internal consistency, overall clarity and optimal design. Structure tends to consist of a series of discreet statements put together so that the order has an affect on the overall outcome of the project.
Many of the engineers and programmers I work with would be baffled to know this. For them, writing is a series of consise, actionable statements scribbled on sticky pads or in the margin of documents. They tend to think in terms of how something that is said contributes towards a goal rather than what it means or how it was stated. The idea that there is structure to how arguments are presented, that there are logical and rhetorical devices used in the same way as control structures in programming languages is lost on them. Which is a shame, because soem of the best engineers I know would be excellent essayists were they to write down their thoughts.
M
When I hear about a site powered by Python, I expect there to be ample amounts of Spam, Vikings, Spanish Inquisitions, Black Vicars, etc.
Happy?
M
Well, with some of the NVIDIA PCI cards, you can sequence them for greater performance. Again, what I am talking about is the potential, so...
what about another AGP slot dedicated to a sound / graphics effect processor? I mean, the benefits would be huge.
M
Just a thought, but could this mean there will be a movement towards natural event-based synchronization between graphics and audio events in games given a common processor? I realize this was never the case before, but with 40 gigaflops of audio processing capability this must become an attractive option.
M
See, when I hear about a site powered by ColdFusion , I want that to mean the server runs in a large building somewhere getting all it's energy from within a glass jar stored in the basement.
Moreover, when I hear about a site written in C# , I want that to mean a composer orchestrated the score for the site in a beautiful, somber key evocative of Brahms later symphonies.
Also, when I hear about a site written in java , I want that to bring to mind a picture of some nut on the floor of a coffee house writing hundreds of pages of a manifesto by hand using stale coffee beans before publishing his rants on the Web.
For that matter, when I hear there is a site powered by Perl , I want that to mean there is a site solely financed by the pearl trade.
And when I hear about a site powered by ASP , I want it to be an Egyptian site that changes ownership every few months due to the unexplained deaths of previous owners.
Further, where I hear about a site powered by PHP , I want to know that no user has a clue what scripting technology I am using.
The point to all this: I develop in all of the scripting languages listed above. Users don't care what language was used to write a site, they only care whether or not the site does what they need it to do.
M
1) Don't accept invitations to any parties by people named 'Bluto', 'Otter', 'Boon', 'D-Day' or any other aliases. Names like these are used to avoid the legal consequences of one's actions and often lead to problems that could get you kicked out of school.
2) Never let anyone borrow your brother's car. It will be damaged, and you will have to pay for it.
3) Make friends with the dean your first day, and try to join ROTC. The Corps is a fun and exciting place where you will develop character and self esteem, and also get to dress in military uniforms to impress the ladies.
4) Toga parties are for delinquents too childish to be responsible members of the college community. You are better off finding the real events to enjoy your time, like garden parties and pep rallies.
5) Food fights are bad. You will do much better helping out on parade floats.
Remain Calm, All is Well,
M
Well, we can forget about those types and just focus on the Heidegger crowd. Philosophy majors will dig it.
M
So is a colonoscopy. That doesn't mean I want to work in a colonoscopy economy.
M
I know nerds (I use the term with reverence) don't always think that much of art, but something to remember is that our original conception of 'art' was a purely useful thing.
There was a time Westerners saw art really as a Machia, something you made and / or engaged in. Science and art were really the same endeavor for people like the Greeks. No division in our mental lives.
For some reason, just the description of this project makes me happy.
M
Nepotism aside, the problem with what this person is doing comes down to the responsibility of governments. The idea that what is otherwise considered an illegal nuisance is allowed under law for government figures is incredible.
Participating in one's government in a free society should be a choice - but here people are having the system forced on them through automated means.
There is no compelling state interest to allow this sort of behavior, so why are political mailings legal where commercial mailings are not? What's next, concentration camps with mandantory viewing of political TV ads?
Er... oops, thinking I should have kept that last thought to myself...
M
Word up, G.
Already on it.
I got the game to boot using a kernel debugger and a little trial and error. SoftICE revealed the installer makes a call to something in _vis.dll, which in turn checks to see if hl2_acf.nfo exists within the steam install directory.
Decompiled _vis.dll with DisC, replaced the function call to a new function that always returns true. Recompiled _vis with Visual C++, nogo, then tried with Borland and the game booted.
Posting a crack tonight.
M
---
Always read sigs for important words like syyyyke.
Dear Anonymous Genius -
Maybe my problem was with the tone I took in my previous posting. Here's something translated just for you:
By the authority vested in me by his Majesty Commander Taco of the Realm of Slashdot, so that slobbering knuckledraggers like yourself may be prevented from interfering with the pursuit of wisdom and knoweldge and goode intelligent discussion may continue unimpeded, I hereby request thou removest thine Ring of Duhhhh +15 prior to rendering thine thoughts on yonder message board.
M
USCF 2364 Rated